#thank you so much for this wonderful fic!!!!

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Doing Time 3

No tag lists. Do not send asks or DMs about updates. Review my pinned post for guidelines, masterlist, etc.

Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as noncon/dubcon, threats, age gap, and possible untagged elements. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.

This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: you try to keep your brother safe in jail but put yourself in danger along the way.

Characters: con/ex-con!Steve Rogers

Note: I need the weekend to come so I can cum

As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me.

Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!) Please do not just put ‘more’. I will block you.

I love you all immensely. Take care. 💖

"Things aren't too bad. Not since I got my ass kicked," Vaughn chortles. "Mighta knocked some sense into this thick skull at last."

"Hopefully," you agree. "Mom said--"

"I tried calling. She didn't pick up."

"Oh..."

"Why-- Why should I even bother?" His humour fades to hostility, "and why are you acting like you're my mother? When she does answer, she just calls me a fuck up. Like I don't fucking know."

"Vaughn," you hum, "please, I'm not trying to piss you off."

"But you are," he snarls. "Always gotta ruin a good time, don't ya?"

You frown. This is the Vaughn you don't know. The one with the anger like a grenade pin. One tug and it's over. You sit back and wait. Arguing only fuels the flames.

"You're the one person who's s'posed to believe in me and you're nagging me about mom," he snarls.

You look away guiltily. You wonder how he'd react if you told him about Steve. If you mentioned that the reason things 'aren't too bad' is because you did something just as stupid as him. Somehow, you don't think that him knowing you do dumb stuff too will help.

He tugs at his cuffs. The guards come forward. You say his name again.

"Vaughn, please--"

"Piss off! Yeah, you meat head, get me outta here," he turns his wrath on the guard. "Waste of my time."

"Please, I didn't-- I just--"

"I told you not to talk about it no more," he barks. He did. You didn't listen.

Your eyes well. You don't know what happened to him. Where did all this anger come from? As you watch the guards unhook him and he stomps away, you can only think you may have made a good decision talking to Steve. At least there's someone in there who can help. Or try to.

You wiggle your nose and dab your eyes with your knuckle. That was embarrassing as much as it was scary. The guard on the other side returns.

"We'll bring the next early, miss."

"Thanks," you nod. You recognise him. You realise most of the guards must know your face too. It's so strange to think this is a normal part of your life now. That this has become your social life as late.

It isn't long before Steve appears. He sits calmly lets himself be leashed. He leans forward and takes the receiver. You still have yours in hand but it's against the table. You lift it.

"Couldn't wait to see me, huh?" He purrs.

Your cheeks draw tight, "how are you?"

"Mm," he narrows his eyes as he looks you over. "What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing, Steve," you swallow the dregs of your tears. "Really. It was an early morning."

He stares a little longer, the lines deepening in his forehead. His eyes meet yours. His aquamarine irises are speckled with gold and silver. He takes a breath and tuts.

"You were crying."

"No, Steve, it's nothing."

"That brat brother of yours," he nods as his expression turns dangerous.

"Please, Steve, not you too. Okay? It's... a sibling spat. That's all," you assure him. You wish you were as transparent as the window between you.

"I don't like that. I had family coming to see me, I'd be nice," he snarls.

"It's not your problem."

"That's where you're wrong, sweetheart. You made it my problem when you started coming around." He insists.

You chew your lip, "I know..."

"I'm not complaining, so you know," he leans back. "Kinda used to ya now."

"Thanks," you utter grimly and stare at the desk.

"Hey," he says and your eyes flick back up. "I didn't drag myself out here to see you mope."

You swallow and push away the rest of your chagrin, "sorry, I... better?"

"How can that face get any better?" He winks. You squirm.

He's been more forward lately. You assure yourself that it's just him playing with you. He's bored and you're the only person he talks to that isn't a guard or an inmate.

"That's... Right. Um, I guess it was dumb to ask how it's going," you scoff at yourself.

"It's going good, now I'm here," he runs his hand over his mouth, feeling his cheeks, "fresh shave this morning. Looking good, huh?"

You let your eyes focus. You can tell. His chiseled jaw is bare, not one speck of stubble. And his blond hair is parted and combed back. It's getting a bit long.

"You look refreshed."

"Well, I got something coming up later today."

"Another visitor?" You wonder.

"Lawyer," he shrugs. "No big thing. I got business on the outside still. Power of attorney or whatever."

"Mm," you hum.

"Boring stuff. What about you? Besides that idiot you call a brother, how's life?"

"It's life," you say. "Go to work, come home, sleep, it's all the same."

"Huh, sounds like being in here," he snorts. "Lonely?"

You don't realise at first, he's asking.

"I guess. Thought about getting a cat."

"Ah, you're young. Probably wait a few years before that," he chirps.

You tilt your head wryly, "no harm starting early."

"You're funny, sweetheart."

"Am I?" You wonder dryly.

"Well, the things they think are funny in here..." he makes a face. "You know, I wouldn't tell a lady all that, but it's low brow."

"Right."

"I'm still trying to figure you out, you know? Your brother, well, not to pile on top but he's not exactly a model citizen, but you, you're practical, considerate, you make stuffed chicken and pesto. I can't help but wonder how you're not adopted," he snickers.

"Life is strange."

"Isn't it? Never saw some girl knocking on my cell door but here we are," he drawls.

"Here we are," you agree. He smiles and bites his thumb. You shift as his eyes sparkle.

"I might never get outta of this place, but at least I can see a pretty face now and again," he growls.

Yep, at least he'll never get out. You just need to hope Vaughn doesn't get any time added and it will all be over soon. 

⛓️‍💥

It's the first night Steve doesn't call. You're a bit disturbed by how it seems to throw the whole evening off. It's not like you're friends. He's an obligation. You should be happy to have one less thing on your plate.

You take a long bath, your phone on the back of the toilet, the ringer set to chirp. But it doesn't. The soak isn't enough to ease your nerves.

If something happened to him, what about Vaughn? It's a selfish worry but you can't help it. How could that even happen? Steve has this invincibility about him. You just can't believe it.

You get out and dry yourself off slowly. You're achy from sitting on your ass all day. Admin work isn't very thrilling. You stretch and rub the cushion of your bottom, the muscles easing beneath the layer of padding. You've always had a bit extra. It never bothered you as much as it bothers men. Your brother used to beat up any guy he heard hurling insults at you.

It's not your biggest care in the world. You tend to eat those away. Your sweet tooth hardly helps.

You put on a night shirt and lay awake for a while. Even when you do sleep, it's not peaceful. You dream of iron bars and blood on the floor. You wake with a thumping in your temples.

You dress for work. Your stretch-waist grey pants and the silk blouse with roses on the collar. You pack your lunch and brew your coffee, honey and a dash of almond milk splashed in. You leave with your bag and thermos.

The traffic around the clinic is always clogged. You get in with two minutes to spare. You sit behind the window and the phone rings as soon as opening hour strikes. You're swept up in the demands of patients and doctors alike. One thing you can't complain for how quickly the days fly.

You eat your lunch in your car. You cherish the moments you're not surrounded by sniffling, coughing, and complaining. You head back in and finish the last half, yawning at the monitor.

It's even busier when you pull out into the street. You let the music flow into your ears and distract you. You tap the pedal as you slog along. Finally, you get to a side street and cut a zig zag across town. You pull up to your building and linger in your car.

You have this eerie feeling. You glance over at the unfamiliar car parked facing the brick. The sleek white muscle car is vintage and polished to a shine. Someone loves that thing.

You get out of your dusty Honda and snatch your bag from the passenger's seat. You tap your fob and enter through the side. You stop before the elevator and turn back. You should at least try to get a few steps in. You take the stairs.

You stare at your pointed flats as you drag your soles over the carpet. You smother a yawn behind your hand. A throat clears. You move over, thinking someone's coming your way. You stir in your bag for your keys. Your name brings your chin up.

You gasp and drop your keys. You teeter as you nearly spin and sprint away. Your bag slips and you barely catch the strap. You gape at Steve as he stands beside your door.

Silence wafts around you with the smell of cooking and laundry. He holds a bouquet of classic red roses. He sports a tailored suit in black that puts his prison uniform to shame. The collar is crisp and the tie perfectly knotted. His jawline is shaved and his hair is styled down to the strand.

"Hey, sweetheart," he greets with a smirk.

You wordlessly bend to pick up your keys then stand and fix your bag on your shoulder. Your eyes glaze in disbelief and horror. A million questions flurry to a storm of terror.

"How..."

"Appeal went through. They turned over my conviction," he struts away from the wall. "These are for you, sweetheart."

You look at the petals then at him as he comes close. Your shoulders sag as you shrink down at the breadth of his shadow. He's even bigger like that. You shudder, the lack of barrier unsettling.

"I got you speechless," he intones and grabs the strap of your bag. "Look like you had a long day, let me take a load off."

He takes your bag then guides your hand to the bouquet. You close your mouth and gulp. He sweeps away your keys and hooks his arm through yours. You let him lead you to the door of your apartment. He swings it open and you flinch.

"Wait, Steve, how did you-- how do you know where I live?" You quaver.

"Told you, I got friends on the outside. You don't think I'd leave you unprotected--"

"Wait, wait," you plead as you face him, untangling your arm from his. "How is this real? How are you here? How- Why-- You don't think--"

"I think I spent months talking to you and you spent the same time coming to me. It's not what I think, it's what I know," he insists. You choke.

If his conviction was flipped, maybe that means he isn't so bad. No, no, you heard of what he did in there. He's dangerous. Whether he did what the court said he didn't or not.

He waves you in, "come on, we can take it slow. We'll talk, like old times."

You shake your head but enter. You see no other choice. You're too stunned to think of any.

He follows and pulls the key free of the door before shutting it. He hangs them on the little hook beside the frame. He faces you as you focus on slipping off your flats. He puts your bag on the top of the small shelf where you store your mitts and whatnot.

He whistles, "you look... good. I mean, I never got the full angle." He steps back and you feel him raking you with his eyes. "Got a nice shape..."

"Steve," you snap and face him. "I... I never..." you pace yourself and take a breath. "The flowers are lovely, thank you. And I appreciate you coming by but I think there's a bit of a miscommunication." You turn and slowly inch away. You spin around as he watches you, his expression betraying nothing. "I only talked to you to keep Vaughn safe."

He sighs and his eyes narrow. His brows tilt slightly and his jaw squares. He nods and smooths the front of his jacket.

"Well, sweetheart, I went and got a new suit for you."

"I'm sorry--"

"No, get this," he strides forward and stops before you. "Whether it was for me, for you, or for that scum you call a brother, it happened and it's not over. You got me? I might be out but I got men inside. Men who are willing to do a lot worse than me," he snarls.

You shudder and he grabs your chin. You whimper. "I wanna be nice to you, sweetheart. That's all I've been dreaming of. I went out, got all dressed up, got you flowers, now you do me a favour, go put a dress on so I can take you out for dinner." He sniffs and squeezes just until your jaw throbs, "see, I'm still doing stuff for you. I'm not asking much except you to come out and look pretty."

He lets go and you stagger back. You sniffle and quickly hide your face. Your voice comes out hoarse, "I'll put these in water first."

Your heart races and you go into the kitchen. You find a vase and focus on filling it. You put the flowers in and toss the paper cone. He looms in the doorway.

"I'll find something to put on, okay?" Your voice cracks.

You cross the kitchen and he stays firmly in your path. He brings his knuckle up under your chin and forces your face up.

"Smile, sweetheart," he growls. "We're together. At last."

[oreo-creampies]

𝐟𝐚𝐧𝐟𝐢𝐜 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐭 𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐬 𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬

Satoru finds out that you like reading gangbang fanfiction. Naturally, he has to do something with this newfound information. With the help of Toji and Suguru.

𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞! 21 minutes/6.1k

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠���: gangbang, double penetration (anal and cunt along with two dicks in one cunt right after), oral, anal with prep, light pain kink, biting, bondage, bdsm, collar and leash. usage of daddy/mama once, heavy praise/light degradation, mindbreak, thumb in ass, some satosugu, light painal for Satoru since suguru sticks a thin vibrating dildo up his ass, suguru edges satoru, teasing, friends w benfits/some type of sugarbaby set up, choking, knife play/no blood, pussy slapping, manhandling, squirting, overstimulation, satoru and toji put their balls on your face, ball sucking, face fucking, hair pulling, manhandling, light size kink, licking suguru's cock with satoru, making out with satoru, biting, bullet vibrator, strap on that gives toji a second cock, plugging cum in your ass, they are all sweet mean, satoru spits cum into your mouth

𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐭𝐡: 6.1k

oreo: i hope the wait was worth it, thank you for all the love and patience ya'll have given me

Satoru leans next to you, reading off your computer. “Gangbang, knife play, bondage, double penetration ya like it kinky.” You’re too late to close your computer. “He looks like me.”

Your body is burning, jumping out of your chair and whirling around to face Satoru. “Ok and? So what? You already know you’re attractive!” Crossing your arms, glaring into pretty blue eyes. “Is it dumb I would find someone who looks like you hot?!” Satoru’s playful grin spreads into an infuriating cocky smirk.

He slides his fingers through his hair, his black sleeve straining with his bicup’s flex. Long snow white locks fall into his intense, beautiful blue eyes. The silence thickening the air.

Tilting his head to the side, his jawline, thick adam’s apple, his pale neck would be perfect to kiss. “So defensive.” Smirking, “I like the way you’re looking at me.” Stepping forward, closing the small gap forcing you to look up.

Your cunt is getting wet from the height difference. “I’m not looking at you any type of way.” Jabbing his chest with your finger. His pec is hard, “Fuck me!” He leans in, pressing your palm flat on his chest.

Your voice softens, “You barged into my room n’ spied on my computer!” Squeezing his hard pec, swiping your thumb over his nipple. “You’ve gotten so much bigger.” Sliding your hand down feeling his sculpted abs through his shirt.

“You’ve been working out with Toji and Suguru too much.” You turn around facing your desk, flipping him off. “Unless you plan to be anything other than a menace I wanna cum whilst reading my fic. Help me cum or leave!” You softly gasp in surprise when Satoru presses you against your desk with his hard, large body.

He a fistful of your hair yanking it back, spitting on your face. Smearing it with his large hand, crooning, “But I thought you liked your men big n’ able to throw you around like a doll. Isn’t that what you said.” Smearing his spit with his hand, stuffing two fingers in your mouth.

Satoru smacks your ass squeezing a handful of your stinging cheek. He croons “I could help you cum.” Sticking his fingers, his cock lightly twitching when you gag. “Want me to read your fanfiction out loud for you?” Dragging his fingers out of your mouth.

He lifts your laptop lid up, not caring he is smearing spit on the screen, reading out loud. “He drags the knife along her inner thigh. She squirms the closer he gets to her soaking.” Sliding your shorts down, roughly smacking your ass

You loudly cry, then wonder, “What if they hear us?” Satoru pushes your underwear aside, gliding a thick finger between your soft lips. Getting his thick finger wet before nudging it in. His long thick finger filling up your cunt shouldn't feel this good.

Satoru outs them, “Tojj and Suguru would jerk off off to the sounds of me clapping your cheeks. I could cuck them both.” Your cunt squeezes Satoru’s thick finger. “Or you can moan their names, they could join us. You can be the slut who lets us run a train on her, or fuck you all at once.”

Satoru slips his finger out slapping your cunt roughly. Cutting through the sweet stinging pain with two fingers. Slowly fucking his thick fingers into you at a steady pace. “You can write about it after, call it one girl, three cocks n’ three holes. Come on say their names, i wanna see you struggle to take Suguru’s fat cock.”

You whine, “Toooojiii, Suug!!!! Satoru is being mean to meeeee! Cooommmee helpppp!”

Suguru calls from the hallway, “Aw Toru why bother her, she said she wanted to read.” Coming into your bedroom, taking notice of your shorts in the ground. His eyes flicking from those to your sweet soft ass and cunt stuffed with Satoru’s soft fingers.

Satoru’s large body hiding your’s. Till he steps aside letting Suguru watch how your soft wet cunt takes Satoru’s thick fingers. “What’s so mean about this?” Suguru glides his finger in with Satoru’s. “Your cunt is drooling n getting so tight sweetheart.” They pump their fingers in sync.

Suguru squeezes a handful of your ass, his hand larger than Satoru’s. “Fuuuck that feels so good! I love having my cunt played with. Don’t stop please.” You bend over holding onto your desk, cupping Satoru’s hard cock through his sweats.

You stroke Satoru through his sweats moaning, “Satoru you’re big, wanna you to fuck me hard, make me squirt with your long hard cock.” You clench Satoru and Suguru’s thick fingers with your sloppy wet cunt. Whining when Suguru roughly smacks your ass.

Satoru sneers, “Not even able to pay attention long enough to answer.” He pulls out of your grasp, keeping his thick fingers in your soft wet cunt.

Satoru pushing his sweats down his cock pops out. “What’s wrong with how mean I’m being? Answer me n’ you can touch my cock.” He spits in his hand, smearing it over his cock hand. Groaning as he strokes himself.

You glance over your shoulder admiring the beautiful sight of Satoru’s arm flexing as his large hand strokes his long cock. Thick white pre cum dripping from his pale pink head.

Suguru pushes his gym shorts down, kicking them aside. Grabbing your wrist when you try to touch him. You whine, “Nnnnothing’s wrong!” Their fingers graze your sweet spot and the pleasure triples.

Your thighs are trembling, toes curling into the carpet, slick dripping down your thigh. You confess, “I want you to y'all to help Satoru bully my cunt, make me the house whore, I wanna be the one y'all stuff your cocks in when it gets hard. Please lemme be your pretty cumdump.”

Toji barges into your bedroom demanding, “I heard moaning!” He slips his large headphones off his head, setting them on your dresser.

Satoru fills him in, “We’re being mean.”

Toji groans, “Princess,” his scarred smirk looks predatory, “I can show you mean, they are spoiling your sweet little cunt right now. I’d fuck ya like I hate ya, make sure you can’t walk n make you need us to look after you.” Toji wastes no time ripping your underwear off to get a better view of your stuffed cunt. Slowly stuffing two fingers in.

Your jaw drops with a loud moan. You’re naked with your three incredibly hot roommates fucking their thick fingers into you. Getting off on the situation and their thick fingers.

Satoru strops stroking himself, standing next to your face. Letting out a softly sigh in relief when wrap your lips around him. Groaning dropping his head forward, watching his cock vanish with your mouth.

Suguru tells Toji, “Satoru found out our sweetheart is a smutty fanfic reading pervert, gangbang. N’ now she wants to be the house whore, sounds kind of hot, like out of a porno. I’m down.” He moves next to your head, slowly m

Suguru glides his fingers out smearing your slick on his cock. Grabbing your laptop, sliding it over for him to scroll to the warnings reading. “Bondage, squirting, anal, double penetration-one hole/triple penetration, With some face fucking, face slapping, and light knife play? I’ll be right back.” He rushes out of the room.

Satoru glides his fingers out, sticking both in his mouth to lick clean. Grabbing your hair roughly fucking your soft wet mouth. His balls slapping your chin.

Toji pumps his fingers faster, quickly finding that sweet spot that made your soft cunt quiver. "Can I fuck your ass?" Satoru slips his cock out with a soft pop letting you breathe.

Pleading "Fuck whichever hole you want." Toji spits on your asshole and stuffs it in with his thumb. Slowly pumping his thumb letting your soft hole adjust. "Nn it feels weird but good!”

Toji spit on your asshole again, pushing it in with a quicker pump of his thick thumb. "Have you had your ass fucked before?"

You cup and massage Satoru's balls, kissing and licking his warm cockhead. His cock standing up eager for attention making it easy to suck and kiss without using your hands.

You look up into his beautiful ocean blue eyes and plea, “Even if I’m asleep I want you to spread my legs and do what you want to my cunt. I’ll be a good slut.” Taking his long, pretty cock in your mouth bobbing your head slowly working towards deep throating.

Satoru groans, his cheeks flushing a dark pink, “Fuuuuuccck!” He grabs your head holding you still. “You’re a dirty pervert who wants to wake up to Suguru eating you out as Toji and I jerk off onto your face.” He tightens his grip on your hair, slowly fucking your face, testing and getting off on your gag reflex. His balls are lightly hitting your chin.

Satoru groans, “We could cover you in cum, make your sloppy wet cunt sore, make sure you soak this bed. So you’ll have to pick one of our’s after we clean you up to recover in.” Fucking your mouth faster, some spit drips down your chin.

Toji squeezes your cheek, tugging on your asshole with his thumb stretching you out. He steadily strokes your sweet spot getting you so close to cumming. Your cunt is clenching and squelching.

Your thighs tremble, toes curling into the carpet, and thick slick drips down your thighs. "She's getting so wet n' tight." Fingering your tight, sloppy wet cunt faster. Refusing to let up on your sensitive sweet spot. "Are you really cumming for us that quickly?" His thumb glides in your asshole easier.

Satoru glides his cock out of your mouth. "Whatcha thinkin' sweetheart?" Toji's thick fingers in your cunt, and thumb in your ass make it difficult to think. "She's already getting dumber, can't even answer a simple question." Satoru's softly slaps your cheeks with his hard cock. Stuffing your face into his balls.

Without another thought you open your mouth to softly suck Satoru's balls. Suguru comes back in, dumping a bag full of toys onto your bed. "Here are some butt-plugs, dildos. cock rings, ropes, o ring, and for you Toji," He grabs a strap with a thick dildo dangling from it. "You can fuck both holes; the dildo will need to be above your cock."

Toji glides his fingers out of your ass. Suguru pulls the toy out of his grasp. "Actually, here is disinfectant. We don't want to get our cock sleeve sick and be out of commission." Toji grabs the packet with his cleaner hand. Forcing the lid open and tugging out a wipe.

Suguru drops the strap on. onto the bed leaving Toji to help himself to it when ready. He grabs the knife off the bed, flicks out the blade, and returns to your computer.

Satoru pulls his balls out of your face, tugging you up by your hair. Suguru's words settle in, you retort, "Commission implies I'm paid and if that's the case I'mma need more than just dick for payment. I'm too broke to be sucking dick for free if I don't gotta." Suguru turns around, his smile soft despite the knife he presses to your throat.

Suguru insists,"If you wanna be our sugar baby just say so, in fact, get on your knees and beg for it." Satoru let go of your hair. stepping aside to give you room to kneel.

You don't have the chance to speak before Satoru is rambling, "If you beg well enough, I could cover your half of the rent." He grabs the collar and leash off the bed, crouching next to you. "I already get your broke-ass food. N’ you can't complain about feeling bad when I give you a gift."" Carefully wrapping the collar around your neck, fastening the clasp, then tugging on the leash.

Toji decides, "Satoru is rich enough to be your sugar daddy, my cock and cuddles will be payment enough." He grabs a bottle of lube and a small buttplug off the bed.

Suguru slips the knife under your chin tilting your head up. "Bullshit you'll get her lingerie for her to wear." He glances at Toji, "What about that maid outfit she suggested after bitching about cleaning up after Satoru and You?" He looks down at you, dark thick hair framing his handsome face.

You decide, "They've been cleaner, so I could wear it as a reward. Clean your balls of every last drop of cum. Of course, you get my undivided attention first for always helping keep this place clean." Suguru is so beautiful with his broad shoulders, thick pecs, and sculpted abs. With a black happy trail leading to short well-trimmed hair and his thick hanging cock.

Suguru glides the sharp knife's tip up your chin to your bottom lip. "I want to see you in that see-through underwear with the maid outfit." Gliding the knife along your lip, and up your cheek. "I want to be able to see your pretty cunt through the lace while I have my fun."

Satoru stands up too fast, eyes wide he demands, "How do you know she has something like that?"

You take Suguru's cock in your mouth, swirling your tongue around his head. His warm pre-cum sweet and thick coating your tongue. There is so much pre-cum you can't help but suck harder, licking his small dripping slit.

Suguru groans, "I wash everyone's clothes that means her's too." Gliding the knife to the side of your head. You are slowly gliding Suguru deeper into your mouth with a loud moan.

Toji states, "We should also do a color system to check-in. Green for keep going, yellow for slow down, red for a break, pineapple as the safe word n' we'll start aftercare." He lubes up the toy. "I know she's gonna beg at some point but right now I wanna stuff this up her ass."

Suguru sets the knife on the desk behind him. Grabbing your hair holding your head still stuffing his cock deep into your throat, holding you there. "Lift her ass up and stick it in her then." Satoru hands Toji the leash, watching Toji wrap his arm around your waist helping you partly stand up into a bent-over position.

Satoru suggests, "Why not go ahead n' tie our pretty slut up in a mating press. She can beg like that, and we can tug her around on the bed by the leash." He stands next to you spreading your cheeks apart for Toji.

Toji tugs on the leash and Suguru's firm grasp keeps you from budging. "We could do that." The thick leather collar presses into your cock stuffed throat. Suguru groans, shallowly pumping his hips fucking your mouth slowly.

Toji lines the tip of the plug up with your asshole gliding it in. He swirls and pumps half of the toy-smearing lube. Your cunt clenches around nothing from getting your ass spread open by something thicker than Toji's thumb.

Suguru bottoms out giving you seconds to breathe before stuffing his cock back in, quickly fucking your throat. He grabs the knife off the desk lightly dragging it across your back. You can't help but squirm, the air in your lungs escaping in a cry Suguru muffles with his cock.

Toji pushes the plug in the rest of the way, pushing on the jewel with his thumb. "Let's tie our new slut up." Satoru lets go of your cheeks and Toji moves to the other side of your bed, tugging on the leash and pulling you onto the bed roughly. Some toys pressing into your back.

You can't gasp as you fall onto your back, the collar choking you. Suguru turns towards your laptop picking it up, setting the knife down. He scrolls through the fic skimming it.

Toji straddles your head his balls resting on your forehead and eyes. His thick cock nudging your lips smearing bitter pre-cum. You open your mouth groaning when he rocks his hips forwards.

He brings the laptop over, sitting on the bed next to you. "Do you want Satoru and I to act out the making out part while we are inside you?" He glances from the laptop down at you. Where Satoru is binding your legs together with the dark red rope.

Satoru croons, "You don't have to use the fanfic as a reason to kiss me again." Making kissy faces at Suguru who rolls his eyes and grabs his friend by the neck pulling him closer.

Suguru nudges Satoru's mouth open with his thumb and spits. Satoru swallows, grabbing Suguru's cock and swirling his fist as he strokes him. Suguru groans, "I know." He leans in biting down on Satoru's bottom lip. The needy cry makes your cunt clench.

Suguru pulls away, "Finish tying her up and let Toji have fun with her mouth." He stuffs his thumb into Satoru's mouth for him to suck on. "Then I want you to shove your pretty face into her beautiful cunt so you can put that annoying ass mouth to good use." He lets Satoru go.

He glides his thumb over Suguru's fat cockhead, smearing pre-cum. He sticks his thumb in his mouth groaning from tasting Suguru's pre- cum.

Suguru sets the laptop down on top of a pillow, scrolling through the fic. "Cum spitting? Satoru when we cum in her you can eat it out and share it with her."

Satoru is quick tying at you in a mating press. "I love pie so why not." He slaps your cunt four times, pinching your clit. Your trembling, eyes stinging, your cunt pleasurably sore.

Satoru grabs a vibrator turns it on and holds it to your clit. Slowly swirling it, stoking your soft sensitive nub. He stuffs his face into your cunt Suguru orders him "Keep your ass in the air."

He shifts keeping his face in your sloppy wet cunt putting his ass in the air. Satoru is giving Suguru a perfect view of his cock and balls. Suguru grabs a thin dildo and lube, pouring it onto the tip before setting the lube aside.

Suguru lines the thin dildo up with Satoru's ass. Smacking his cheek. your sloppy wet cunt muffling Satoru's whine. Suguru nudges the head in, spitting in his hand and grabbing Satoru's cock.

Satoru lifts his head, "You arennnnnnn!" He moans when Suguru stuffs the thin dildo deep into Satoru's ass. Turning it on, leaving it on the highest setting, keeping it still, it's head pulsing against Satoru's g spot. "Fuck!" Suguru stuffs Satoru's head into your cunt.

Toji glides his cock out before he cums in your mouth. Pinching your nipple to hear your breathy whines get louder. He tugs on the leash, moving his hand to let you get a view of Satoru being a moaning mess between your legs with Suguru stuffing his ass.

Suguru looks at you and smirks, "He's been a pain in the ass lately. Why not show him what it's like living with him?" Satoru bites your thigh in between the rope. He stops when you cry, licking the bite mark. Then stuffing his face into your soft, soaking wet cunt.

Satoru glides his tongue through your lips. Stroking your clit with the toy faster. Your cunt clenching his tongue. He groans and tugs on the plug, slowly gliding half of it out and then stuffing it back in.

Toji wraps the leash around his hand and plants it down on the bed. Yanking your head back onto the bed, keeping you still for him to put his balls in your mouth. You groan and softly suck, swirling your tongue occasionally.

Satoru pumps his tongue faster, keeping the toy's pace steady. You grab a handful of Satoru's hair and wrap your fingers around Toji's thick cock. Jerking Toji off, sucking on his balls, tugging Satoru's soft hair grinding your cunt on Satoru's face, unable to keep still the rope keeping you from closing your legs.

Toji lifts his balls off your face, slapping his cock down on your open mouth and stuck-out soft tongue. Stuffing his thick fat into your mouth with a groan. Your eyes sting with tears as you choke on him.

He pinches, twists, and tugs on your soft nipple. "Fuck her soft wet mouth feels so good on my cock." You tug Satoru's hair, struggling to reflexively arch your back, feebly twisting your hips away from Satoru. Who rubs your clit faster with the toy, sending you over the edge.

Your sensitive cunt gushes into Satoru's mouth, your body trembles, toes curl. Toji's thick fuck pumping into your mouth muffling your moans. Toji groans, "Look at that our slut can squirt." Satoru sets the toy aside, it's still vibrating.

Suguru grabs Satoru's hair making you let go. He lifts Satoru up out of your cunt by his hair, pumping the dildo faster into Satoru's ass. Suguru lets his hair go spitting into his palm and grabbing Satoru's cock swirling his fist.

Suguru croons, "Are you getting close? You wanna cum on her pretty cunt then stuff it in with your sensitive cock?" Satoru whines unable to answer until Suguru is pulling the toy out of him.

Satoru cries, "Why did you stop?" His cock throbbing from the lack of stimulation. Missing the feeling of being full of getting his g-spot fucked.

Suguru quickly retorts, "Why won't you stop waking me up when you crawl into my bed?"

You grab Toji's thick muscular thigh digging your nails in. He glides his cock out of your mouth, slipping off the bed. He yanks you upright by the leash, causing the leather collar to dig into your sore throat.

You grab the leather prying it away from your throat. Toji leans down, "What's your color beautiful?" Twisting you around and laying you on your back with your butt dangling off the edge of the bed.

You plea, "Green please I wanna cock in my cunt or ass!" Toji cups your cheek hanging off the edge of the bed. Softly messaging your cheek then roughly slapping your ass. The force of the thrust makes you lightly bounce.

He unwinds the leash, asking you, "What about both?" He hands the leash to Suguru who shoves a pout Satoru aside. He dramatically face plants into the pillow that Toji rips out from underneath him.

He sits up and points at both Suguru and Toji, "Yall are both assholes, why she wants your dick in her is beyond me. Fucking hell, not letting me cum, shoving me to the side, and stealing a pillow out from under me."

You chime in with, "Don't cry on my other pillows either." His eyes widen, his fingers lower and his bottom lip trembles.

Satoru's voice cracks "Et tu?"

"Call me brutus."

Toji grumbles, "Suguru stuff her mouth these two are killing it mentioning some random ass dude's name and speaking gibberish." Suguru tugs you closer to the middle of the bed. Toji grabs your ass and lifts you up stuffing the pillow underneath you.

Satoru crawls over and lays down next to you. You grab his cock, still wet with Suguru's spit. He softly kisses your cheek ignoring Suguru's cock dangling close by. He grabs your chin turns your head and steals a kiss. You can taste yourself on his tongue.

"Annoying ass thief I'm glad I didn't let you cum yet." You swirl your hand on Satoru's cock. His moans are beautiful, breathy, and needy. You're getting wetter hearing him, thick slick dripping down to your plugged-up asshole and seeping into your pillow.

Toji dips his head into your cunt licking up the sweet mess with loud groans. His nose occasionally nudges your soft, sensitive clit. He grabs the plug and tugs it out, setting it on your bed without giving a fuck. Softly biting your cunt's lips when you start to complain.

You break the kiss leaving Satoru's mouth at Suguru's mercy. Lifting your head looking down at Toji asking, "Did you bite me?" He slaps your cunt as Suguru slaps Satoru's lips with his cock.

You look to see Suguru grabbing Satoru's neck, the chain leash digging in. His thick cock glides past Satoru's glossy lips, his balls hitting the top of Satoru's head.

You Satoru's cock faster, swiping your thumb over his head. He’s so beautiful getting face fucked.

Toji grabs the male strap-on, steps into it, and sets the dildo above his own cock. He tightens the straps making sure it's comfortable and secure. He climbs onto the bed, holding both and lining himself up.

He nudges your ass with his warm, thick cock head. Swiping the cool dildo between your cunt's soft wet lips. Smearing your slick down it and gliding his cock head in. You reach down flattening your hand on Toji's hard abs.

There is a sweet pleasurable pain from Toji splitting your ass open. "Nnfuck your cock is going in! Put the other one! Please! Please! Pleeease!" Your jaw drops when he slips the toy in. Keeping his thrusts shallow, giving you just the tip. You can feel both cock heads rubbing together, the thin strip of skin between going taut.

Suguru slips his cock out of Satoru's mouth. Satoru grabs your chin and roughly kisses you. And all you can taste is Suguru when Satoru's tongue rubs your's. You moan into his mouth when Toji's hips hit yours, roughly and quickly filling you up with both cocks.

He strokes your clit with his thumb, slowly rocking his hips, keeping a slow steady pace. He groans, "Fuck I don't think I can last long the dildo in her pretty cunt is pushing against my cock. Her ass is so soft n' tight, she's gonna make me bust too quickly."

Suguru grabs the bottle of lube off your side table handing it to Toji. He pops the lid off and bottoms out till the tips of the dildo and his cock are tugging both sloppy wet holes. He carefully pours a line of lube on his cock, then gives the bottle back.

Toji grabs a part of the rope binging your thigh by your side. "Stupid little slut keeping my cock hard walking around the house looking so damn fuckable." He uses that to pull you towards him as he slams into you. The dildo brushing your sweet spot with the perfect pressure to have you losing your mind and his cock reaching deep.

Suguru sets the bottle aside, spitting in his hand and stroking his cock. Admiring Satoru and You making on the bed, your soft hand stroking Satoru's pretty cock. Smearing his thick white pre-cum down his cock with swipes of your thumb.

Your soft moans sound so beautiful alongside Satoru's needy whines. Suguru groans "I can't wait to feel the both of you."

Toji roughly fucks both cocks into you without mercy. Stroking your soft clit with his rough thumb, the bed rocking, your body would be harshly bouncing away if not for his grasp on the rope. The course rope rubs and presses more into your thigh.

Toji decides, "This house slut thing is definitely gonna work out. Whenever my cock gets hard I'll come to you." Fucking you harder, adding more pressure to your sensitive clit. Each quick stroke of your sweet spot has your mind going blank.

You can't focus enough to stroke Satoru's cock. He grabs your hand and sloppily fucks your hips. Suguru sticks his cock in between Satoru and You. You lick and kiss one side with Satoru sucking and licking the other. Your tongue brushing Satoru's.

You clench Toji with your ass and his massive beautiful muscular body trembles. He hunches over biting your chest, flicking your nipple with his tongue. His pace becoming sloppy. He lets you go and grunts, "Nn fuuuuck I don't wanna cum in ya yet mama wanna keep feeling you."

"Please cum, wanna feel your thick warm cum in my ass." Toji picks his pace keep, franticly fucking his cock into your soft warm ass. The sound of skin smacking skin joins the grunts, groans, and creaking of your bed. "Please daddy!" Toji busts instantly his thick warm cum shooting in your ass with a force you can feel.

Suguru pulls away and Satoru lets your hand go. He gets on his knees and grabs Suguru's hand pulling him in for a rough kiss. Leaving you all to Toji. He leans over, keeping enough space between to play with your soft sensitive clit.

His thick hard pecs into your face. You wrap your arms around him clawing his backside up with one hand. Burying your face into his chest, tugging on his hair. You can't help but bite down hard. The way Toji whines is getting you off.

He stops with his cock and dildo deep in you, keeping his cum from spilling out. "I couldn't stop cumming." He sits up out of your grasp, looking for another buttplug. "There's so much that I fucked deep into your ass." Snagging the biggest one, its thickest point is still thinner than Toji's cock.

Slowly pulling his cock and dildo out, slipping the plug in. He croons, "Can't let it drip out while Satoru and Suguru are fucking both their cocks into your messy slutty cunt." He kisses your forehead. "Ya did good for me, took my cock so well. How does your ass feel?"

You smile up at him, "Sore but good." He softly kisses you, keeping it short and quick. Pulling away, stepping out of the strap-on.

"I'll leave you at these two's mercy n' I'll be back for aftercare." He smirks, "Good luck you already look like a mindless, tired whore." He slaps your cunt then leaves you at Satoru and Suguru's mercy.

You look to see Suguru and Satoru sloppy kissing each other. Suguru has his large hand around both cocks, holding them together. Satoru slowly grinds his hips, rubbing their cocks together.

You suggest, "Why not rub your dicks together in me?"

Suguru breaks away from Satoru and drops the leash. "And here Toji was wishing her luck." He grabs his knife off the desk. "After all that she is already ready for more the second someone isn't touching her." Suguru lifts you up by your throat. His fingers are beneath the leather collar.

You feel so perfectly helpless and vulnerable tied up, held in the air by your throat. With two big guys about to sandwich in between their hard chest. You're about to feel their cocks rubbing together inside you after watching them make out.

Suguru and Satoru line their cocks up. Suguru lightly nudges past your lips. Satoru is rubbing down your slit, groaning when he feels Suguru's cock head brush his. Then gliding his wet head to your clit, stroking you.

You can't shift your hips to sink yourself down on Suguru's cock. Satoru remembers, "Weren't you about to show us how a whore begs to be a sugar baby?" You're clenching nothing, aching to feel them both.

Suguru grabs your hip with Satoru holding the other one. He presses the knife to your neck and suggests, "How about we make it easier on you?" He glides his head in, then pulls out, swirling his cockhead in small circles. "Before we double stuff your mess little cunt tell us what you are?" Satoru is steadily playing with your clit. Loving the sight of your soft pretty nub touching his pale pink cock head.

You confess, "I'm a needy cock loving pervert who spends too much time reading smut and playing with her cunt. Please fuck me into a mindless mess then pamper me afterwards." Satoru lines himself up, with their strength they can stuff their cocks in together.

You cry loudly, the sweet pain is overwhelming. Fondling Satoru's hard pec, dig your nails in and reach behind you. Grabbing a handful of Suguru's hair. You are desperate to ground yourself, but they don't give you a chance.

Their pace is uneven causing their cocks to stroke each other's. Satoru grabs your hair. "Pretty little slut you gonna eat the creampie Suguru and I make if I spit it into your mouth?" You can't think of a response.

It's impossible to think with their cocks stirring your guts up and the cool metal of the knife against your neck.

Suguru croons, "We just stuck our cocks in, are you really this easy to break?" His pace is harder but slower than Satoru's. His cockhead reaches just beneath Suguru's but he's thicker pressing Satoru against your g-spot with intense pressure.

Satoru points out with a cocky smirk, "Our slut only had enough energy to beg for more cock. We don't even have to train this one, she is meant to be our pretty little whore." He slips his finger underneath the collar tugging on it. "We should get her one just for her. What do you want your collar to say? Should it say brat, houseslut, cocksleeve?" You're so full, their cocks reaching so deep.

Suguru looks down into your eyes and groans, "She's such a pretty whore taking both our cocks in her soft wet cunt." Satoru's pace falters, his cock lightly twitching, veins pulsing. "You close already? With her tight cunt pressing our cocks together I feel the pulsing of your cock."

Satoru whines "Can't help it I was so close earlier n' I really wanna cum." He leans down softly kissing you, cupping your cheek. Gently cradling your face like he isn't bullying your sore, sensitive soaking-wet cunt with his cock.

Suguru slips his hand in between Satoru and You, flicking your nipple with the knife. There is an exciting fear that he could cut you at any moment. Part of you hope he does when he glides the knife lightly across your thigh in between the ropes.

Satoru whines, his pace falters, slowly down and getting harder. Satoru moans as thick warm cum trickles from his cock in short quick bursts. He grabs your bound thigh and digs his nails into your skin between the tight rope.

Suguru groans picking his pace up chasing his high. Fucking Satoru's thick cum deeper into you getting you off. Satoru breaks the sloppy, rough kiss and whines, "Fuck her soft cunt, your soft yet hard cock both is too much. I wanna do this again later, please I wanna cock warm with both of our cocks in her."

Your soft cunt squeezing their cocks is becoming too much for Satoru. He pulls out, getting on his elbow and licking where Suguru and You connect. Your trembling, eyes rolling back, tears trickling down your face.

"Look me in the eyes and lemme see you crying." Suguru wraps his large hand around your neck tilting your head up. He stares into your eyes, fighting to keep his pace steady. Satoru groans, "Cum in her, lemme taste you both." Suguru falters, stopping with his cock balls deep in your sloppy cunt.

His thick warm cum steadily pours into you from his fat head. "You're both beautiful filthy cum loving perverts." Satoru gets on his knees grabbing you by the rope. He bounces you on Suguru's thick cock making him tremble.

Slowly Satoru lifts you off Suguru's cock. Softly laying out down, slowly pulling out the buttplug, and carefully undoing the rope, checking over for any burns.

Suguru accuses, "That was a bitch move." Carefully unfastening your collar and lightly massaging your sore neck. Their actions are a wonderful gentle contrast to how they were manhandled and fucked you a moment prior.

Satoru retorts, "So was edging me." He flips Suguru off who rolls his eyes.

Satoru softly peppers kisses along the sore indention of the rope's pattern in your thighs. "There is no rope burn, but I don't want you to try and walk anywhere. Get one of us to carry you if need be." He dips his tongue into your sloppy cunt getting a thick mix of cum in his mouth.

Kissing you softly spitting the cum into your mouth. Then pulling away, softly encouraging you, "Swallow, good, that's it. Such a good slut."

Toji comes back into the room, "I got a bubble bath going in Suguru's bathroom along with some candles. I'm not getting in but one of you can." He checks his phone. "In an hour the food I put on Satoru's card will be here."

Satoru stretches your legs out, softly massaging your thighs. "I feel too good right now to care how you got that information." He slips off the bed, leans over to pick you up, cradling you to his chest. "I'll take a bath while Suguru can do the laundry he prides himself on doing."

Suguru suggests, "We should flip a coin to see who gets to take a bath with her and who washes the bedding."

[hotchnersangel]

Hi Hi! So i saw few of your Aaron fics were based off of songs and Ive wanted an I can see you by taylor swift fic for him for so long.

Specifically the, “I can see you in your suit and your necktie, pass me a note, saying meet me tonight.”

ITS JUST SO HOTCH CODEDD

okayyy thanks queen😋

I CAN SEE YOU

Aaron Hotchner

A/n: omg this is my first request so im screaming and kicking my feet right now, i hope i do you justice my love!!!!!!!!! ps, I LOVE TAYLOR AND THIS WAS MY SURPRISE SONG!

cw: implications of sex, dadbod!hotch, pining, kinda objectifying hotch but goddamn hes so hot, bau!reader probably some more but i cant think xxx

Finding your person was never as easy as it came across, in fact, you had a chronic fear that maybe that day would never come. The overriding question of if someone would ever be able to see you so deeply, so intimately and trace your being so intricately with nothing but the kiss of their heart. That was until Aaron Hotchner stood under a strobe light and shon a lifeline when you were in complete darkness, consumed by the ache of your despair.

The relationship between the two of you was… well, flummox. Especially recently; Aaron had become more comfortable around you and it was visible to a watchful eye if you studied every intricacy and atom of his being, which you did. Though, he never let his poker face fall in-front of the rest of the BAU. He was incredibly skilled at the art of deception, which made his yearning of desire towards you that much easier to conceal.

The feeling of his shoulder brushing past yours in the hallway sends one thousand hot electric bolts through your body causing a full body reaction to his touch. Your cheeks mirror a gentle shade of rose as you duck your head down, suddenly finding appeal in the stone flooring. Despite what feel’s like your obvious flirting, Aaron isn’t sure if his feelings were reciprocated. There was certainly a tension between the two of you, but of what nature led you to disclose such information. Was it simply lust, was it… friendship? Was it loneliness? Or simply, was it love?

The feeling that you get when he is near you sends goosebumps down your spine. The way your smile brightens just wide enough for it to not hurt when you smile when he is near, or when he cracks a joke which was awfully rare nowadays, though when it happens you feel a warm and fuzzy sensation inside your belly. He makes you feel a sort of creeping sensation… like something is crawling across your chest, maybe a feeling of a fly or nat, but no- realisation kicks in and you are simply faced with the love-bug.

He similarly feels an alike reception of feelings towards you, though verbally he fears he cannot communicate them with you in fear of getting a reply. He tried for so long to deny his feelings, deny deny deny that you even existed in a romantic sense- but everything he ever did led back to you. No matter how many times he ‘picked up’ a girl in a bar, how many times he was goggled by women around him, no matter how many times he found different ways to infiltrate you out of his mind, it would always run back to you.

You are currently sat at your desk, gazing at Aaron Hotchner as he is sat on his desk, filling out paperwork. The way his eyes skim the page so tentatively makes you wonder what they would feel like when they landed on you for a long duration of time… maybe in a scenario where you were alone in the tension between you- with nothing left to yearn upon apart from the worshipping of one anothers bodies. What would he do, if you went to touch him now? God, it’s all you could think about. The feeling of running your hands across his broad chest and big big arms. Those huge, delicious arms.

You can imagine the way his hands could hold you trapped to the wall while his body boxes you in until you have no option but to submit to him. Your eyes catch his as his gaze wanders away from his case files and back onto you. The feeling of drunken giddy fills both of your stomachs as you narrow your eyes daringly at him, a small smirk lifting the left side of his face. His eyebrow perches upwards as he inspects you, like he was reading every invasive thought going through your head and in return… he retaliates with similar thoughts. The way he could caress your body and how the small gesture could make him want you even more, which he never deemed as possible.

He wished you knew how you made him feel, how your cheeks may flush a little more deeper at the confession that he could see you. Everything about you. The way you laugh, the way you smile, what each micro-expression of your face meant, what your movements implied about your mood, what you need in each and every moment. He saw everything. He saw you.

You see him walk out of his office, his very large and veiny hand holding a stack of files that would take you two to carry. He walks down each step like he was entitled to the world, like the sight of him in his suit and his necktie wasn’t driving you insane.

You couldn’t help but goggle at the sight of him. He always looked… beautiful but today, well today he looked scrumptious. Like he was sculpted by the greek gods and dressed in robes fit for roman emperors- with a little more coverage, unfortunately. The way his black suit hugged his bulky arms and larger waist made your mouth water. The quick glance over his neck tie was enough to send your mind spiralling into where else that could be used. Tying your hands together maybe? Please.

He walks up to your desk, stopping besides you, arguably closer than he should have. His knee was brushed against yours as you looked up at him through your lashes, your innocent eyes hiding the most hideously devilish thoughts of what you want to do to the man in-front of you.

“Your caseload.” He puts simply, placing the folder down in-front of you. Can he hear the way your heart is racing in your chest? Because you start to contemplate if you’re going through a severe heart condition like AF with this irregular pattern.

“Thanks.” You smile up at him, which he catches and nods in return.

“Oh,” he pauses as he turns to walk away, looking back in your direction and moving his hand on top of yours, the touch unraveling a relentless fire spreading wildly through your body- guiding your hand towards the file.

“Have a thorough read on page 3, there is some serious information.” He singles into you eyes, making the world around you spin. You nod, losing your words as you watch his lean figure clamber up the steps and return to his office.

You open the file, starting on page three- your eyes greeted by a small note written in his cursive hatching. ‘Meet me tonight.’

You stomach flips and suddenly, the rest of the day seems to fall into an extremely long and painful blur, over and over, constant reminders that you had to wait, had to restrain yourself to not climb onto hid body like a child in a wild play. Instead, you stayed composed for the rest of the day until the inevitable time occured and suddenly you wished it was a few hours ago, again.

You swallowed your nerves and followed him subtly out of the building, until he opened his car door allowing you to take a seat before heading to the drivers side. When he does, he looks over to you intently and smirks.

“You can follow my orders?” He speaks with a decided tone of smugness.

“When you have orders I agree with, yeah.” You shoot back, looking at him through your naturally glassy eyes. Your lips softly plumped with the lipstick combination defining them. Which, drove Aaron crazy. The urge to smother his body with your lipstick felt overwhelming but he simply just sat and stared.

“Fuck, I can’t do this any longer.” He sighs and looks at you intensely, his eyes singling onto you with intent.

“Do me instead.” You shrug casually and he lets out a strong sigh, moving forwards until his forehead rests against yours. A deep, breathy sigh escaping from his lips as his hand moves to cup your cheeks.

“Say the word and I will step back and let you out of the car.”

“You clearly aren’t very good at your job if you think that I don’t want this, Mr Unit Chief.” You tease him with a playful grin.

He tilts his head at you, hitting an angle that excites you deeply. The sight before you simply knocking you off your feet. Taking your breath away. All the clichè’s.

“I know you want this,” he repeats and finally attaches his lips to yours. Your body moving into a panicked state, flushed with excitement, nervousness, anticipation and lust. A soft shudder attacking your nervous system sending your body into overdrive, making you wonder if this is a dream or not. But, as you feel Aaron pull away, your lip between his teeth.

He looks at you and says, “I can see you, baby.”

And suddenly, the world around you stopped and the silence carried the passion between you and Aaron Hotchner.

[peachglazewrites]

i so so loved your “safe in your arms” fic with abby, it was so well written that i had to get off tumblr and scroll another app cause i didn’t want it to end, i read your bio abt how you are trying to write for other fandoms like arcane and i was wondering if you can do a similar version of “safe in your arms “ but with vi pls ???🙏🏻

𝚜𝚊𝚏𝚎 𝚒𝚗 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚊𝚛𝚖𝚜 ₊⊹ 𝚟𝚒

𝚙𝚊𝚒𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐: vi/f!reader 𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜: smut (18+ mdni), use of words like cunt/pussy/tits, mild use of force, use of safeword, panic attacks 𝚝𝚊𝚐𝚜: established relationship, angst, fluff, use of petnames (sweet thing, sweet girl, pretty girl, babe/baby), boob stuff (vi!receiving), fingering (r!receiving) 𝚊𝚍𝚍𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚕 𝚒𝚗𝚏𝚘: no use of y/n, in canon world 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚍 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝: 7072k

𝚜𝚞𝚖𝚖𝚊𝚛𝚢: Waking up in your girlfriend's arms, cooking breakfast, a little bit of kissing in the kitchen-- it's the perfect morning, until it's not.

a/n: thank you so much for your kind words and request!! I'm so excited to write for something outside of tlou, and hope I did Vi justice (though this is the first time I'm writing for her so please be kind orz)

I kept the timeline for this SUPER vague, but it is in the canon world of arcane! I also want to stress that even though a safeword is used, Vi was in no way being abusive or hurting reader! sometimes things just feel icky and people slip up.

I hope you enjoy ♡︎

̗̀➛ master list ̗̀➛ request your own here

Something being knocked over in the alley under your window, the window that never fully shuts no matter how much force you put behind it, startles you awake. The following sounds of children cackling and yelling at each other as they run away from the scene soothes your racing mind, your pounding heart.

The curtains pulled across the window sway slightly, fluttering in the lightest breeze that somehow makes it all the way down to your level of the Undercity. You follow the ripples in the fabric, blinking your bleary eyes that are still heavy from sleep.

Despite the open window, you can’t help but feel exceptionally warm under the covers. The air is always dense down here, humid and clinging, but the furnace that is your blankets is something else entirely.

You shift, kicking a foot out to catch the blanket to drag it off your body, but the arms slung around your middle tighten, pulling you back further into the heat.

Ah.

A small smile spreads across your lips as you begin to slowly turn around in the arms, strong hands now splayed across the line of your back. The face that was buried in your shoulder blades now moves to nuzzle between your breasts, warmth blooming through your shirt and onto your skin from her deep breaths. Past a shock of pink hair, side shaved down to a fuzzy dark magenta that sticks out at all angles are broad, naked shoulders—intricate tattoos, a network of gears, pistons and rolling steam working down her back. They shift and move as she pulls you closer, scrunching the material of your sleep shirt in her fists.

Soft snores vibrate against your sternum, and you do your best to stifle your giggle at the way it tickles your skin.

Vi. She must have snuck in late last night, off lending Caitlyn a hand or getting into trouble— or both at the same time. The dismantlement of Shimmer has been a lengthy and tense process, one that requires just as much physical intimidation as reams of paperwork and Council meetings. And despite the many protests-- mostly from her own mother-- the Kiramman heir has taken it upon herself to be just as involved in both ends of the process, dragging along the Zaunite she broke out of Stillwater with paperwork that she’d rather not discuss the legitimacy of.

That same Zaunite who runs ridiculously hot despite being nearly naked, and is snoring away in the softness of your chest.

Over Vi’s head you catch sight of her chest and hand wraps, haphazardly balled up on the bedside table, a trail of her other clothes leading from the slightly ajar doorway to the bed-- her striped pants, stolen jacket, her top.

You hum softly, brushing a hand through her hair to try and tame it. Vi sighs softly, sound muffled against your chest as she melts into your arms, arms relaxing slightly around your middle. It takes a little bit more coaxing, some more petting and a few kisses to the crown of her head before she settles back down, loosening her grip on your enough for you to begin the Sisyphean task that is unravelling yourself from her arms.

You take it slow, soothing her displeased grunts with more trailing kisses as you slip from her, replacing your body with your pillow. She latches onto it, burying her face into the material and relaxing at your familiar scent, throwing a leg across your side of the bed as she sighs into the mattress.

You crawl off the end of the bed, padding your way out of the room and slipping through the ajar door, having successfully completed the morning gauntlet.

In the hallway you yawn, rubbing at your crusted eyes on your way to the bathroom; a brief pitstop to freshen up, to wash your face and wake up a bit more before making your way out to the living room. You find yourself standing in the middle of the room, blinking as you look around, brain still catching up as you try and figure out what you’re going to do with your morning.

Your stomach decides for you, rumbling softly.

Breakfast. You’re going to make breakfast.

You pad into the kitchen, humming softly as you crouch down by the fridge, the cold rush of air chilling your bare legs. There’s not a whole lot inside, reaching the dwindling end of what you managed to buy with your pay. Running through what’s left, you figure you can make some kind of omelette, still having eggs, a couple of peppers, some cheese, and a parcel of meat that you hadn’t used just yet from the butchers. It wouldn’t be the fanciest meal in the world, but it’d be better than nothing.

You grab the hem of your shirt and hold it out, using it as a makeshift basket to collect all of your ingredients to transport them over to the counter. You have to rummage around a bit to find the pan you want to use, Vi having stored it away in a different spot when she did the dishes last, but you grab it and a couple of chopping boards and get right into cooking.

You listen to the noises of the city outside as you work, chopping up your ingredients, grating the cheese, mixing up the eggs. Omelettes are quick and easy, and you have the egg mixture bubbling in the pan in a matter of minutes.

Arms sliding around your waist from behind make you jump, the spatula in your hand nearly fumbling in your grip as you gasp. A warm chuckle is muffled against your shoulder, Vi pressing herself along your back.

“What’s cookin’, good lookin’?”

You roll your eyes, hiding your smile as you lean back against her, into her arms. “You’re so annoying.”

“And you love it. I don’t see what the issue is,” she says, kissing along the exposed skin of your shoulder, the collar of your sleep shirt stretched out enough to slip down your arm, hanging loosely.

“Uh huh,” you drawl, tilting your head back to nose along her cheek. “Good morning.” You kiss just to the left of her lips, skin still warm from sleep.

Vi smiles, the scar on her top lip pinching the skin slightly, exposing a hint of teeth. She leans in, capturing your lips in a lingering kiss. “Morning, sweet thing.”

The pet-name sends a tingle down the back of your neck, a soft flush rising to your cheeks. It’s your favourite one out of the arsenal that she keeps for you, though you’d never tell her that. You’re pretty sure she knows, anyhow.

“What time did you get in last night?”

Vi shrugs, resting her cheek against your back. You bring a hand up, scratching lightly at the back of her head as she gently sways the two of you from side to side. “More like morning. I didn’t even check the time, but the sun was starting to rise when I crossed the bridge. Just wanted to get home to you and sleep.” She yawns, muffling it against your shoulder. “Your thing’s gonna burn.”

You jolt forwards, slipping out of Vi’s arms as she snickers, watching you take the lid off the pan to sprinkle the fillings into the omelette, using the spatula to carefully fold the egg over itself.

You give the cheese some time to melt, the peppers a moment to cook just a bit before shuffling the spatula under the omelette, plating it up. You place a tab of butter in the pan to oil it before turning to Vi.

Your girlfriend is leaning up against the counter, arms crossed over her chest as she looks at you. Her eyes are lowered, locked onto the flesh of your bare legs, though they flick up guiltily when you turn around.

Not that you’re much better, Vi having forgone a shirt like she usually does in the mornings; chest bare and unwrapped, modest but shiny piercings sitting pretty through each nipple. You swear she got them just to distract you, unable to help the way your eyes draw to them whenever they glint in the corner of your vision.

“Eyes are up here, babe.” She’s grinning, her embarrassed flush at getting caught ogling you still colouring her cheeks.

“You know, I think not wearing a shirt in the kitchen is a safety hazard,” you say, holding out the plate for her to take as you avert your gaze.

“Oh yeah?” She takes the plate, leaning in to press a quick kiss to your cheek in thanks. “For you or for me?”

“For all parties,” you huff, amused.

Vi barks a laugh, pressing a hand to the counter behind her before hopping up, sitting herself along the edge. She places her warm plate next to her, gently back on the counter next to her thigh.

“Not gonna eat?” You ask as you turn around, the butter sizzling away in the pan. You pour the remaining egg mixture into the pan, placing the lid back on to let It cook.

“Wanna eat with you.” She kicks her legs, heels of her bare feet thumping softly against the drawers under her. “I feel like it’s been ages since we’ve had breakfast together.”

Warmth blooms in your chest, gooey and sweet as your heart squeezes. You can’t help but turn back to look at her, finding her already looking. Her smile widens when you make eye contact, sending you a cheeky little wink that has you giggling, shyly looking back down to the pan.

Vi has always had this kind of effect on you, able to make you melt and feel like a lovesick teenager again over a single look or a couple of sweet words. It comes almost effortlessly to her, like she doesn’t even have to think about it. It catches you off guard every time, and leaves you flustered and stuttering, unable to think of how to respond and get her back.

Not that you’re unable to. You’ve had your own fair share of moments where you’ve flustered the woman, though they’re usually because of actions rather than words. The first time you bought her flowers she had accepted them and then promptly left, saying she needed a minute. You were convinced she hated them, that you overstepped, but it turned out she’d never received flowers before and had left to hide how weepy it made her.

It makes you a little bit sad sometimes, when you think too hard about how these acts of kindness and romanticism that you don’t even think twice about catch her by surprise. Like she never would have expected you to buy her new wraps when her old ones were hanging on for dear life, or make the trek over the bridge to Piltover to drop her lunch that she forgot off to her in Caitlyn’s office— as if she’d never been treated in such a way before.

You turn and lean against the counter next to the stove, the warmth of the flame heating your side. “You’re cute.”

You catch her with that, pink springing up on the highs of her cheeks. She plays it off though-- plays it off well-- grinning over at you. “Says you.”

Another roll of your eyes, playful. “Just take the compliment, babe.”

“Or what?” A scarred eyebrow raises, challenging, body leaning back to balance on her arms that are propped behind her, strong hands splayed across the counter.

Shit, she looks good. Too good. And she knows it.

You fall right into her little trap, placing the spatula down next to the stove to walk over, slipping between her legs that she opens slightly wider to fit you. Her sweatpants (or were they yours?) are slung low over her hips, a trail of deep magenta hair disappearing past the waistband. You place your hands on her clothed knees, sliding them slowly up her thighs as you look at her.

The muscles jump under your touch, and she brings one of her arms to sling over your shoulder, hand cupping the back of your neck. “So now that you’re here, what’s your plan?”

You shrug, letting her pull you closer. “Didn’t think that far.”

Vi hums, her thumb brushing up and down the sensitive skin on the side of your neck. She zeroes in on the wave of goosebumps that roll over your skin at the touch, smirk widening.

“Are you open for suggestions?”

“Just kiss me already,” you murmur, pushing yourself up to press your lips to hers.

You can feel the shit-eating grin she has as she kisses you back, using the slight height advantage she has on you to take control, thumb still rubbing almost possessively along the side of your neck.

It’s lazy, slow, perfect for a morning like this.

You slide a hand up her hip, settling on the bare skin of her waist to feel the hard muscle underneath, the pocked skin from where people have fought dirtier than her; bringing knives to fights she flies into with her fists. She never complains, though, coming out winning nearly every time.

She feels so nice under your hands, familiar and warm, the smell of your shampoo that she never admits to stealing tickling your nose as you thread a hand into her hair, something crispy and burning—

You pull away, gasping, “The omelette--!”

Vi laughs as you rush back to the pan, fumbling with the lid as you grab the spatula, using it to peek under the egg. It’s a lot darker than you wanted it be, but not totally inedible. You dump the rest of the fillings into the overcooked egg and fold it over, not letting it cook for as long as the first, but just enough to warm up the inside before removing it from the pan.

Placing your plated up omelette next to Vi’s, you can see just how much more burned it is in comparison. The edges are crispy and the egg is a dark brown, rather than the nice golden colour that spreads evenly across your first attempt. With a sigh, you pick the plate up off the counter, only to have it taken out of your hands.

“What— Vi!” You watch as she balances the plate in one hand, shuffling her legs to grab two forks from the drawer underneath her. She holds one out to you, and you take it without thinking.

“Thanks, babe. Smells so good,” she groans, digging in before you can protest.

You huff, taking the plate closest to her and holding it up to your chest, stabbing at it with the fork.

“You didn’t have to take the burnt one,” you murmur around your food, holding a polite hand up to hide your mouth.

Vi shrugs, grinning over at you in response, chewed up egg peeking through her teeth. You groan in disgust, swallowing your own mouthful with a shudder.

“You’re so gross.”

“I love you?” Vi says, wiping across her mouth with the back of her hand.

“I love you too, I guess,” you sigh, unable to hide your fond smile. “You want any sauce?”

She nods, despite her omelette already being half gone. “Yes, please.”

You manage to find some sauce all the way in the back of the fridge, something yellow and spicy that Vi had tried to make herself after eating at Jericho’s one night. She’d taken over the whole kitchen trying to perfect it, sitting you down at the table to try each batch and get feedback.

She eventually gave up and just went to Jericho himself and bought a bottle.

You stand next to Vi as you eat, the two of you basking in the ambient sounds of the morning; forks scraping against plates, the hustle and bustle of the streets below. It’s nice, domestic.

Vi stacks your plates once you’re done, placing both of the forks on the top plate and sliding them off to the side, near the sink. She gently grabs one of your arms, pulling you back between her legs, throwing her arms over your shoulders.

“Thank you for breakfast.” She sighs, content and full. You place your hands back on her thighs, rubbing soothing circles into the muscles. “I need to wife you up already.”

You laugh, squeezing her thighs. “Yeah?”

“Mmhm.” She nods, tilting her head slightly to the side, enough for her hair to fall across her face, a teasing smirk playing at her lips. “You don’t think so?”

“My Violet, I love you dearly, but I am not being proposed to in our kitchen with sauce all over your tits.”

“Sauce on my—” She looks down, bringing a hand to her bare chest to wipe it clean.

There’s nothing there though, tits sauce-free, and you can’t help the snort that leaves you when she looks back up— her brows furrowed, lips pulled into an adorable frown.

“Got ya.”

Her frown morphs into a confused blink of her wide eyes, the cogs turning in her mind before her eyes narrow, lips shifting back into her signature smirk.

“You little shit.”

She pulls you in, squishing your cheeks together as she attacks you with a flurry of kisses all over your face and shoulders, every inch of skin she can get her lips on. You squirm in her grip, the both of you laughing as she locks her legs around your hips, keeping you in place.

Her kisses begin to concentrate more on the soft line of your neck, under your jaw and over your pulse-- your laughter dying down into breathless giggles, then a sharp gasp as she latches on, playfully nipping and sucking at the skin.

“Vi,” you sigh, your hands inching up her thighs as you melt into her grip, letting yourself be pulled closer.

“Hm?” she hums, smiling against your neck as she sooths the sharp sting of a bite with her hot tongue, a shudder running through your spine.

Her hands drift down your body, thumbing the hem of your sleep shirt before inching them up underneath the fabric, smoothing across your bare back. You can feel every scar and callous on her fingers— a fighter’s hands. You can’t get enough of them.

Vi kisses back up your jaw and steals your lips, a sigh tumbling from your mouth as she kisses you deeply.

Your hands slide higher up her thighs, gripping her hips to pull her close towards you, balancing her on the edge of the counter. She presses her chest flush against your own, and the feeling of the jewellery poking through your shirt, brushing along your tits makes you gasp into the kiss.

You can’t keep your hands still, running them up and over her defined torso, tracing the lines of her abdomen and relishing in the way they shift under your touch. Vi huffs as her tongue slides across yours, wet and warm, hand clasping around the back of your neck to tilt your head exactly how she wants it. And you let her.

Your hands inch up, fingers itching the higher they get until finally, you’re brushing your thumbs over her nipples, tugging and teasing on the jewellery.

She grunts and pulls back, bumping her forehead against your own. “Fuck, babe,” she breathes, eyes fluttering closed as you press just a bit harder, palms coming up to squeeze and grope at the soft flesh.

You press a soft kiss to the corner of her lips as you drag your palms down, beginning to roll and pinch at the hardening buds between forefinger and thumb. She hisses, the sound seeping from between her teeth as you kiss her chin, then just under her jaw, until you’re pressing kisses all the way down to her chest. Blunt fingernails dig into the fat of your hip the lower you go, stopping when you’re level with her chest.

Her body tenses under you, waiting expectantly, goosebumps raising along her skin at the feeling of your breath puffing over one of her tits. A soft sound, almost a whine leaves her, and you decide to be kind and finally take pity on her, replacing your rolling fingers with the hot flat of your tongue.

Vi groans, her head falling back to stare at the ceiling as you work her over, switching between slow drags of your tongue and teasing flicks. Her arms slip from your hips, one of them helping to keep her propped up, the other holding the back of your head to keep you against her chest.

“S’good,” she sighs, back arching to press her tits up into your mouth, and you bite gently around her areola, titanium clicking against your teeth.

Wrapping your lips around the swollen bud, you suck it into your mouth, running your tongue over it as your hand keeps working on her other breast. Vi’s hips shift underneath you, twitching up along your clothed stomach. You grin, soft flesh pressed against your lips, eyes flicking up to her face.

Her head drops back down, lips parted as heavier breaths leave her, chest heaving under the attention. She blinks her eyes open, that powder blue slowly being swallowed by the black of her pupil, the ones that widen even more as she catches you watching.

“Don’t f-fucking look at me like that,” she moans, hips thrusting a bit harder now. Her foot digs into the small of her back, pulling you close to give her something more solid to grind against. “Why are you so hot?”

You chuckle, the vibrations making her bite her lip and groan. You pull off with a lewd smack, smiling up at her with faux innocence. “Says you.”

Vi huffs, amused but also slightly frustrated that you stopped. “You stealing my lines, now? Thought—fuck—thought they were annoying.” Her hips are working at a steady, low roll now, and you can feel the heat of her through her sweats, rubbing against your stomach.

You shrug, flicking gently at the bar through her skin. “You’re just too fun to tease,” you say, pinching her to prove your point. “Easy to, I’d argue.”

Her reaction is immediate, her hips pausing, back straightening. “I am not easy,” she says, looking down at you with a hint of something in her blown out eyes-- disbelief, challenge.

You laugh, kissing the underside of her jaw. “Yeah?”

“Uh, yeah—” the words die off into a groan, another pinch to her tits. “That’s not fucking fair,” she sighs, bordering on a whine, tilting her head back to give you more room to kiss at her neck.

“All’s fair in love and war, or however that goes,” you murmur, nosing along where her pulse thumps under her skin before biting down—not enough to hurt or leave a mark, but enough for her to feel. You lave over the skin afterwards, tongue hot and heavy and wet along her skin.

A groan rumbles under your lips, and you’re too distracted by the feeling to notice the hand slipping down your body, the fingers that brush over your underwear until they’re cupping your cunt through the fabric. Your body tenses, and you can’t help the way you gasp against her skin as she presses two fingers up against your clit.

“Sorry,” she says, a teasing lilt to her voice. Her fingers start swirling in light, loose circles, the friction of your underwear sending shocks right through your cunt. “You were saying?”

Your legs tremble slightly, a hand coming to grip her hip tightly as a means to steady yourself. “Now that’s unfair,” you gasp, hips rolling against her hand.

“’All’s fair in love and war’, I thought” she quips back, the circles tightening.

“Shut up—” A moan bubbles from the back of your throat, your forehead falling onto her chest. “Vi, fuck--”

“Scooch,” she murmurs, not quite commanding, chuckling as she unhooks her legs from your back.

You hesitate, not wanting to move too far from her hand, from the delicious grind she has going on your clit, but she starts to slide off the counter, so you take a step back, giving her room. Her hand continues to rub along your cunt, the other coming up to cup your jaw and you bring up into a kiss. She licks into your mouth, and you let her, hands falling to cling onto her biceps as you lean into her.

“It’s cute when you try and act all tough,” she sighs against your swollen lips, loving the way you feel as you melt against her.

Al you can do is whine, and though it’s embarrassing, and you know you’re just making yourself look more pathetic, you can’t seem to find it within you to care when she’s touching you like this. “Vi—”

She gives an amused chuckle, hand slipping away from your soaked underwear to grasp at the fat of your hip. She shushes your protests, pressing lingering kisses to your lips and cheeks as she slips behind you, using her grip on your hips to walk your forward. One of her hands slides up, across the small of your back and to the space between your shoulder blades, gently pushing you down against the counter.

“There you go,” she murmurs, rubbing your hip as your chest presses against the cold tiles, hand running up and down your spine soothingly.

You groan, melting against the counter under Vi’s strong hands, eyes fluttering closed at the feeling. She shuffles up behind you, thigh nudging your own apart, giving her room to press right up against you.

“So fucking pretty.”

Her hand massages along your hip, shifting lower and lower until it’s sliding along your front, slipping back over the fabric of your underwear to rub at your clit again. Her pace is faster, focused, hand on your back pressing you tighter against the tile as your legs tremble slightly beneath you.

She pushes a moan from your lungs, loud as it reverberates around the kitchen, hips thrusting and pushing your ass back against her. Vi grunts at the pressure, at the way the roll of your hips against her fingers starts a grind against her cunt, still pulsing from when she was rubbing herself all over your stomach.

“Want this so bad, huh?” Her fingers slip away from your clit, puffy and so sensitive, trailing up to the hem of your underwear, teasingly dipping in. “You want it, sweet thing?”

You nod against the counter, lips slightly parted, cheeks sticking to the tile. “Baby, please,” you moan, pressing your hips back insistently against hers.

Vi groans, giving in and slipping her hand past the hem. Two fingers slide themselves over either side of your swollen clit, dragging down to where you’re clenching around nothing. She gathers up the arousal there, teasingly pressing against your sopping hole for just a second, then drags it back up to your throbbing clit, playing with it teasingly before picking up her pace again.

You buck against her, a strangled gasp piercing the air, the sound mingling with the slick sounds of your pussy and she swipes over your clit. Your hands come out to grip the edge of the counter, hips grinding down against her hand. “Fuck, Vi—Need you so f-fucking bad—” you moan, growing impatient, body burning with need.

“Need what, baby?” she asks, a little breathless. Her pace doesn’t let up, but she doesn’t give you more, either.

“For fucks—” you groan, hips snapping. “Vi, baby, please… need your fingers in me—” you gasp, cheeks burning hot as you beg her—bent over the kitchen counter and desperate for her to fuck you right here, right now.

She groans, relishing in the way that you buck against her, the way that you move as she grinds her cunt up against the soft flesh of your ass. She kisses across your back, over the cloth of your shirt.

“’Course, pretty girl.”

She reluctantly peels herself off of you, removing her hand from your underwear. You whine at the loss, pushing yourself back to feel her weight back against you, but you’re just met with a breathless chuckle and a pair of hands on your hips.

Her fingers hook into the elastic of your underwear, dragging them down the thick of your thighs, pulling them away from your weeping cunt. They fall by themselves after reaching your knees, slipping to the floor to tangle around your ankles, binding them together.

Vi presses back against you immediately, calloused hands dragging up the back of your spread thighs. “Look at you,” she sighs, a moan slipping past your lips as she ghosts over your cunt, dragging a single digit through your folds. “Fuck, you’re wet.”

“Vi…” Your legs tremble as you press back for more, trying to get a better angle. “Come on, don’t tease…”

You don’t need to see her to know she’s grinning, her finger lightly dragging over you again. She presses lightly against on your clit but doesn’t move, making you jolt at the shock it sends zipping through your veins.

“Violet,” you warn, voice clipped despite the need thrumming through you, your pussy twitching under her hand. You turn back to look at her, glowering over your shoulder.

Vi shifts against you, breath hitching at the use of her full name like that, the way you glare. “Just playing, baby,” she mumbles, and instead of doing something to alleviate the ache, to put you out of your misery, she just taps her finger against your clit, like some kind of fucked up morse code.

You squirm, legs shaking as a moan is ripped from you, the hot sparks that flash through you after each touch causing something to snap, your already thin patience crumbling away.

One of your hands leave the counter, slipping between your legs to grab Vi’s wrist, dragging her hand down to where you need her. You rut against her palm, a long, gasping whine echoing in the kitchen as you thump your head back against the counter.

“Oh fuck,” Vi moans, brain short circuiting as she watches you. “Holy shit.”

“Vi, please fuck me,” you beg, holding her hand tight against you.

She blinks, eyes unfocused and hazy as the scene unfolds in front of her. She takes a shuddering breath, coming back to herself as she finally moves. She grabs your arm-- and your other one to be sure—gripping your wrists in one hand and crossing them behind your back, pressing them down against your skin to lock them in place, effectively pinning you to the counter.

“So impatient,” Vi chuckles.

The two of you have played around like this before, her using her strength to pin you down as she fucks you. You love it, bucking and squirming under her, knowing that she’s got you exactly how she wants, and all you can do is lay there and take it.

But this is… wrong. This isn’t the grip you’re used to—the slightly loose hold around your forearms, wrists free to move and grab at her for stability, or to tap her to let you go if your mouth is full. This is rougher, pinning your wrists with a bit more weight behind it, your hands unable to do anything but clench into fists.

It’s almost too strong. You can’t move.

You would never ever think that Vi would want to hurt you, that she would ever touch you in a way that wasn’t filled with adoration and love—but this feels too much like the hold she uses on people that aren’t you. When she’s pinning them down after a fight, when she’s dealing with awful people who have done awful things.

Suddenly you feel too exposed, like you’ve been caught.

The counter digs harshly into the softness of your hips, cunt on full display to the air, wrists locked behind your back, and you feel like you can’t breathe.

“V-Vi—” you stutter, breathless, so soft. Too soft. “Vi I—”

“I know, baby,” she coos—but she doesn’t. In this very rare moment, she doesn’t know.

You swallow, squirming, but she doesn’t think anything of it.

You begin to panic, breaths leaving you fast and shallow, feeling like your lungs are pressed flat and deflated against the counter, like you can’t get any air into them.

“Violet—” you say louder, more desperate, a tinge of fear in your voice. “Vi—Red—Please, red--!”

She’s off you in an instant, hands up in the air by her face, a slight tremble to them as she stumbles away. What little air you could pull into your lungs leaves in one big rush, your arms dropping away from your back to your sides. Your legs tremble beneath you, the counter the only thing keeping you up as you slump against it, still unable to catch your breath.

Things are somewhat fuzzy around the edges, slow, the darkness behind your eyelids as you blink feeling like it lasts longer and longer each time.

You vaguely hear your name muffled from behind you, hesitant and laced with fear, concern. A head of pink hair rounds to the side of the counter, where you’re facing, Vi squatting down to be in your line of vision.

“Baby? You need to breathe in real deep for me, okay?” Her eyes are wide, roaming your face, hands twitching at her sides like she wants to reach out but is thinking better of it.

It takes you a moment to register what she’s saying, to decipher it in your mind clouded with panic-- and then a few more moments to try. You take as deep of a breath as you can, sealing your lips to hold it.

“Good. You’re doing so good. Now breathe it out real slow, okay? Like this—” She lets out all of the breath in her lungs, out through slightly pursed lips as if she were blowing out a candle. She keeps those piercing eyes on your own, making sure you’re present and listening.

You nod, cheek still squished against the counter, pursing your lips and blowing out. It’s shaky, and you breathe out a bit faster than you should, but Vi just smiles, as reassuring as she can despite the clench of her heart, the fear thrumming through her veins.

“You’re perfect. Just keep going, alright?” She looks over your body, eyes flicking from point to point—the way your bare legs tremble, the underwear that pools at your feet, the clench of your hands against the counter by your side.

She cringes, gut twisting at the vulnerable position you’re in.

“Can I touch you? I just wanna get you dressed.” She watches you carefully, the way you pull in another breath, briefly nodding as you hold it.

She nods back, smile dropping the second she stands up again, slowly moving behind you. “Gonna touch your hip, okay?”

“Okay,” you manage to get out, the burning in your lungs easing just a bit.

Vi gently places a hand on your hip, stabilising you as she leans down, picking up your underwear from the floor and sliding it back up your legs. Your muscles tense the higher she gets up your thighs, and she can do nothing but mutter a series of ‘sorry, I know, I’m so sorry,’ as she settles them back on your hips. She pulls the hem of your shirt down to cover you, though it still doesn’t feel like enough.

Vi’s stepping out of her sweats before she knows it, leaving her in just her boxers. “Gonna put these on you, okay?” She crouches, scrunching up the pant leg and placing it near your foot. “Can you lift your foot for me?”

She helps you step into the sweats, hands brushing ever to lightly over your calves and hips as she pulls them up over you, covering your naked, trembling legs from the air.

“There you go. Did so well for me, baby,” she praises, rubbing soothing circles over your hip, over the fabric of the pants that she can’t even tell who they belong to.

“Vi…” you mumble, voice low, sounding so tired.

“I’ve got you,” she says, voice quiet. “Let’s get you off this counter, yeah? Can you stand?”

You shake your head, clenching and unclenching your hands around the edge of the counter. Your legs feel like jelly, like they’ll buckle underneath you if you try to rely on them to stand.

“That’s okay,” she reassures. “Can I pick you up, then?”

“Yes, please.”

Vi slowly peels you from the counter, gathering you in her arms as she lowers the two of you to the floor. She nestles you across her lap, tucking you up against her bare chest, letting you shift and press against her shoulder to bury yourself into her neck. Your breathing is steadier now, more stable, and the feeling of her bare skin against your frigid cheek helps to ground you further.

Vi’s head tilts down, lips pressing a lingering kiss to your temple. She just keeps you bundled there; strong arms wrapped around your aching limbs.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers into your skin, kissing it again. “Are you okay?”

You nod, picking up your arms to wrap around her neck, holding yourself impossibly closer. “Yeah.”

She lets out a breath, pulling away just enough to look down at you, eyes searching what she can see of your face. “What happened, sweet girl?”

You swallow, throat thick with lingering fear and a flurry of other emotions, mind still clouded with them. It takes you a moment to find your words. “I don’t know… You grabbed my wrists and I just—It was too—I don’t know.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Vi whispers, kissing you again. “Was I too rough?”

You can only shrug. “Kind of? Not in a way that hurt, but it was just… different. Not like how you normally hold me, but like— like I was bad. Like I did something wrong, and you caught me? I can’t explain it.”

Vi stills underneath you, muscles tensing as you speak. You peel your face away from her neck, from where you can hear the breath hitch in her throat. She’s already looking at you, blue eyes wide. She looks devastated.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t— Janna, you know I didn’t mean it, right?” She runs a hand through her hair, head thunking back against the cabinet behind her. “I’m not—I still did it. I can’t excuse that, but I would never do it on purpose. I—”

“Vi,” you murmur, one of your hands sliding from her neck to her jaw. “It’s okay.”

She swallows, the movement shifting under the skin of her neck. You try and guide her to look at you, but she resists.

“Violet.”

She stiffens, finally letting you move her head down to look at you, letting you see the way her lips are downturned, how her scarred brows are drawn tight, her nose crinkled as she holds back her emotions.

“You’re okay,” you reassure.

“I just—the idea of hurting you—”

“You didn’t hurt me,” you interrupt, shaking your head. “I promise. I just got scared.”

Her frown deepens, and you slide your other hand to cup the other side of her jaw, cradling her entire face. She relaxes down into it, letting her eyes flutter closed, the remnants of yesterday’s makeup smudging over her eyelids. You shift in her lap, bumping your forehead against her own.

You both sit there, breathing each other in, letting yourselves take a moment to calm down.

“I’m so sorry. Are you really okay?” Her voice is soft, hesitant in a way that tugs on your heart.

“I’m sure. Just wanna sit here with you. I can’t—I don’t want to move just yet.”

“Of course.”

Her eyes open, and up this close you can see everything swirling behind them, everything she’s keeping locked away-- the things she’ll think about when she can’t go to sleep tonight, mind combing through every second of the morning to find all the ways she failed you. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

She leans in to kiss your cheek, then the other, then your forehead before letting you sink back against her.

You curl yourself up into her arms, drawing your legs up a bit higher against your chest. She slides a hand down to place it on your calf, rubbing soft circles into the muscle as she holds you there. Not having to keep your legs up, you allow yourself to relax, resting your head against her chest, over her heart that you can hear still hammering away in her chest.

“Can you sing for me?”

“Sing?” She asks, blinking down at you.

“The one you hum all the time,” you supply, thinking of how it starts. “Dear friend across the river…”

Vi pauses before nodding, hesitating out of nothing but pure shyness. She never sings openly-- not purposefully, anyways. You mostly catch her humming when she’s busy, concentrating too hard to realise she’s doing it. Sometimes you’ll hear her singing when she’s trying to sleep, like she’s trying to soothe herself.

She shifts in place underneath you, clearing her throat before softly starting to sing the words, voice quiet and warm. She doesn’t look it, but she has a beautiful voice, and you’d give anything to hear it more.

You let your eyes flutter closed, allowing the words and soft vibrations in her chest to soothe you—calming as her heart rate slows to a normal pace, the song working on her as it always does.

Dear friend across the river

My hands are cold and bare

Dear friend across the river

I'll take what you can spare

I ask of you a penny

My fortune, it will be

I ask you without envy

We raise no mighty towers

Our homes are built of stone

So come across the river

And find the world below

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁ request your own here! . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁

[theconstantsidekick]

Sad and Funny

Pairings: Bucky Barnes x Stark!Reader (future), Steve Rogers x Stark!Reader (past), Tony Stark x Stark!Reader (siblings)

Genre: Angst? I think?

Summary: Bucky gets an unexpected call on a random Tuesday night, asking him to come to a bar and be the designated driver for Y/n Stark... the woman whose family he murdered? Yeah, that one. But she used to be his best pal's best girl, so he can't not show up, right?

(This takes place before the events of  Falcon, The Winter Soldier and Static. However, it can be read as a stand-alone piece. But it’s fun. I promise.)

Warnings: Swearing, Mentions of Near Alcoholism, Mentions of Past Traumas, Grief, Self Deprecation, Self Hate, just an overall sad time tbh.

a/n: I read some destiel fic about dude a crying about dude be to dude c and this idea just sprung up.

Bucky Barnes, The Boyfriend (other one-shots) | The Falcon, The Winter Soldier and Static | Static: Get, Set, Glitch | Static Verse Masterlist

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“I’m—I’m looking for—a girl? She’s apparently really drunk, looks like an Avenger?”

“Sergeant Barnes,” a voice calls out to him from the end of the bar. “This way!”

With a hushed thanks to the bartender he’d been talking to, he makes his way through the bar.

“Thanks for coming, Sergeant Barnes,” the guy puts out his hand for him to shake.

Bucky takes it. “Murdock, right?” He searches his brain for the full name. “Matt Murdock? The lawyer?”

The guy—Murdock, smiles. “Yes. I wish we were meeting under better circumstances considering the last time, but this is as good as it gets for a guy in my line of work.” He seems very sincere, like he actually is very happy to meet Bucky at a shady little bar in Hell’s Kitchen. And what does Bucky know? Maybe he is. 

“Yeah,” Bucky replies in a non-reply. But Murdock doesn’t seem to mind, and well, no one really should. Bucky’s mind is elsewhere. “I—I’m sorry, but I don’t understand what I’m doing here.”

Murdock fidgets, fixing his red glasses while his smile falters, only a little. “She’s—uh—” his lips curve up again”—pretty out of it,” he points behind himself, at the table. “I didn’t think I’d be very capable at handling that situation given… my predicament.” Murdock nods at the walking-stick in his hand. And, well, yeah. Fair enough. “So, she asked me to call you.”

“Why?”

Murdock stills for a second, gripping the handle of his walking stick with both hands. “Don’t you think that’s a question better posed to her?” 

Well, yeah. 

He can’t fucking ask her, though. Can he?

But Murdock doesn’t give him the chance to counter. “So, can I count on you?”

“What?” Bucky’s so fucking lost right now.

“Can I count on you?” He repeats. “To get her home safe?”

Oh, shit! Yeah. “Yes… Yes, of course.”

Murdock hands him a napkin, “Great! That’s her address and her keys are in her pocket.” Bucky nods, still very lost. But Murdock smiles at him again, “Thank you so much for doing this. I have an arraignment early in the morning, so I gotta be on my way. I’m really sorry for dumping her on you like this.”

“It’s—it’s no problem.”

He nods then, smile still intact. “Thanks again, Sergeant.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, not completely registering what’s going on. Murdock takes the opportunity to walk past him, and make his way towards the door.

Bucky’s intently staring down at the napkin he’s just been handed and he can’t help from wondering… did Murdock write it down? He couldn’t have, obviously. So, does that mean some random person in this bar just knows her address now? Should Bucky be worried about that? But then again, he’s gotten his ass handed to him on a platter enough times to know, it would be frankly, silly to take her on. However, the world has gone to shit lately, so maybe—

“For what it’s worth,” Murdock calls out, halfway to the door, “she seemed quite—content when you agreed to come.”

Bucky’s left speechless.

“Take care, Sergeant Barnes.”

“Yeah. See you around, Murdock.” Oh fuck.

The moment the words are out of his lips, he knows he’s fucked up. He’s fumbled—hard. He winces and his hand slowly comes up to clasp his mouth in pure embarrassment. 

Mudrock pauses at the door, head falling. 

Bucky’s thanking all the Gods above for his super hearing right about now, cause he can hear Murdock chuckling at Bucky’s horrifying fumble. 

Before he can apologise, Murdock’s already out the door.

He sends out a silent prayer cum apology to the universe, and adds this to his never ending fuck ups.

Trying to shake off the embarrassment, with measured, slow movements, he takes a seat on the table, opposite the woman who’d apparently asked him here.

“Y/n?” 

She’s sitting—if he can call it that—with her head on the cold, hard table. There’s a slice of lemon in her mouth that’s sticking out and her hand is gripping onto her liquor filled glass like someone might steal it. 

She looks like she just conked out mid sentence, and fell face first onto the table. 

He tries again, “Hey, Y/n?” No response. 

He doesn't want to jerk her awake, but it doesn’t seem like he has a choice anymore. 

“Y/n?” He gently touches her elbow. And motherfucker! She’s up in an instant.

The first thing she does the moment she’s up is spit out the slice of lime from her mouth and down her entire drink in one go. 

Once she’s done, she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, slamming the glass on the table. “Tess!”

Who the fuck is—

“What do you want?” The bartender from before shouts back.

“Another drink—for me and tall, dark and brooding over here,” Y/n replies, pointing at Bucky. 

“I already told you, you’re cut off!” Tess, the bartender, throws back from behind the bar, as she continues to work.

“You can’t cut me off, Tess! I’m an Avenger! I saved the world! You can’t cut me off! Them’s the rules!” Y/n argues. Bucky can clearly smell the liquor on her, he thinks he could probably do that even without his enhanced sense of smell. But her competence doesn’t seem all that hindered because all of that made very clear sense. And sounded borderline logical too. You save the world, you get to drink however much you want? Seems like a fair bargain to Bucky. 

“Not in this bar!” Clearly it doesn’t seem fair to Tess.

Y/n huffs, deflates. “Fine,” she gives in. “I’ll take a look at the refrigerator in the back, tomorrow—when I’m sober, if you give me and my roguishly handsome comrade here another round. How about that?” Bucky’s entire body stops functioning. But Y/n either doesn’t notice, or doesn’t care. “What say, Tess?”

“There’s something wrong with the lights in the office too—”

“I’ll look over the entire bar’s electrical grid.”

“... One last round and then you’re done.”

Y/n rejoices like she’s won a war. Clapping her hands, she shouts in excitement. “You’ve got yourself a deal, sweets.” And then she turns to him, “What will you have?”

Bucky’s been rebooting so far, so instead of saying anything competent he just makes a noise that sounds something like, ‘What?’

“The drink? What’s your poison?”

“Uh, no. I—I’m good.”

She rolls her eyes, annoyed. “Come on, man! Just have a drink.”

“I’m supposed to be your designated driver, wouldn’t it be pretty irresponsible to drink?” Bucky shifts nervously and shoves his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. 

But she doesn’t think his excuse is anywhere near valid. “You’re a super soldier, dude. One drink won’t even touch you. Just—gimme some company, alright?” She huffs, “Please?”

He swallows thickly. “Whiskey,” he tells Tess. “On the rocks.”

The bartender nods, “Two whiskeys on the rocks, coming up.”

The bar is fairly free of commotion, if you discount Y/n Stark’s antics. It’s a cosy little joint. Bucky must have walked past it a million times without paying any attention to it before. But now that he’s here, he can see why someone like her might enjoy it. It’s dimly lit, there’s a jukebox in  the other corner, playing songs that Bucky knows for once in his life and all the patrons are on the older side, and completely unbothered by the presence of two Avengers amongst them. 

Maybe he’ll come back here some other time. Neat place, nice bartender and no-one ogling him, the place meets all his criterias.

“Oh!” Y/n exclaims suddenly. “Where are my manners?” She sits up straighter. “Sergeant Barnes, thank you for coming. I won’t pretend that I’m not surprised to see you, but thankful regardless.”

“Yeah,” he says, slowly, brows knitting together. “Don’t—don’t mention it.” He can’t help it, he has to ask, “Sorry but, are you drunk? I really can’t tell.”

“Oh, I’m plastered,” she answers casually, grabbing another slice of lemon from a shot glass full of them. She begins nibbling at it.

“How’d you manage that? Isn’t your metabolism like mine? It would’ve taken you at least a couple bottle to even—”

She looks at him dead straight, “I own half of Stark Enterprises, and I’ve been drinking like a tankard since I first tasted freedom—back in ‘53.”

Fair enough, he thinks to himself. “So, you’re saying you’ve got practice.”

“And then some.”

Tess brings their drinks just then, and places a glass each in front of them.

Both of them quickly express thanks.

She raises her glass, he follows too, because what the hell else is he supposed to do?

“To Steve Rogers, the lying piece of shit.”

Oh.

She clicks her glass with his and takes a sip.

Bucky just cocks his head in mild disagreement and sets his drink back down on the table. “That’s what we’re drinking to?”

Eyeing him suspiciously, “Why? You got a problem?”

He sighs, “I understand why you’re upset with him, but he’s still my best friend.”

“Why?”

He bites his lip, trying to control whatever emotions are stirring inside him.

But Y/n Stark isn’t one to back down. “He left you,” she says. “Just like he left me—except yours is worse.” She smiles, and it’s the most cutting and painful thing Bucky’s seen in a while. “End of the line, he’d said.” Snorting, she adds, “Guess his line ended a lot sooner than yours, huh?” Bucky’s jaw clenches. And she must notice the shift in his demeanor instantly—which he has to admit is a feat considering her claims of being plastered. Her hand comes up to lips, covering them, like a child caught saying a cuss word. “That was—that was mean. I’m sorry—I wasn’t… It wasn’t a jab at you—really. It was,” she stumbles over her words, finally seeming drunk. “It was—it was meant for him. Not you.” She shakes her head, sadness clear in her motions. “Not you.” She raises her glass again then, “To life,” she begins, “that’s mostly sad, but sometimes—like in this moment—funny.”

Bucky’s not sure what to do next, so he decides to do the obvious thing. He raises his glass, clicks it with her and takes a drink. “Funny?” He asks, “How?”

“It’s tuesday night, and I’m so fucking hammered that I had to call up the one guy who hates me more than I hate myself to come drive me home.” She takes a sip of her drink. “Don’t know about you, but that’s pretty fucking funny in my book.”

He’s more lost now than when he walked into this joint. “Hate—I don’t hate you? Why would I—Why would I hate you?”

“Why wouldn’t you?” She asks him like it’s the most obvious thing. But it’s not. And she must see that to him it is not obvious at all, because then she explains, “I am the reason why he left, pal.” She points to herself so hard, Bucky wants to pull her hand away,  “I am the reason why he left you. Why don’t you hate me?”

His heart breaks. 

“He—he didn’t leave because of you, Y/n. You—you have to know that!”

“Didn’t he?” She challenges with her head cocked. “If I could make him love me enough, then he never would’ve left—he never would’ve felt out of place in this world, in this time. If—” She lets out a hollow, broken laugh. “If I could make him love me enough, he would’ve stayed.” She closes her eyes briefly, before opening them to face him again. “I’m your culprit, Sergeant. If I had been… enough then you wouldn’t have had to navigate this shitty new world all by your lonesome.”

Fucking hell, Steve.

“That—that’s not true! He loved you.” She begins to protest, but Bucky cuts her off. “I knew that guy since before he could stand up long enough to pick a fight, and I am telling you—he loved you.” He really did. Steve really did love her, completely and utterly. “He just needed—” he sits back. “He needed to go live the life he lost. It—it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t because you weren’t enough… He loved you, more than you know.”

“Well, he had a funny way of showing it,” she remarks, feigning ease. Taking another swig from her glass, she says, “But that’s just life, isn’t it? Sad and funny—sad that he left, funny that he maybe loved me even as he did it.” Bucky has to look away. “Still, at least he gave me this.” When he looks up she’s pointing at him. “Another curiously morose, and remarkably hilarious moment.”

“I want to ask, but I’m afraid to,” Bucky admits to her, with a curious look over his glass.

She holds up her finger, “Think about it, Sergeant Barnes—ex-Hydra assassin,” she points to him, “ex-Hydra assassin,” she points to herself. And then slowly she spreads her arms, motioning to the entire place, “United States of America, baby!”

Bucky can’t help it. He shakes his head with a hint of a smile.

“Can you imagine? If Armin Zola saw this?” She asks, clearly finding this all very, very funny. “Do you think, when he was creating us—the Winter Soldier and Static—that he could’ve even imagined a scenario where I would call you up on a random Tuesday night to be my designated driver?” She begins laughing. “Can you—can you imagine if someone were to tell him that this would happen? Do you—” she’s having a hard time getting her words out, with all the giggling, “Do you think he still would have created us? Hydra’s two most lethal weapons, sharing a drink in Hell’s Kitchen?” She cannot physically control herself, cannot stop the laugh that bursts out of her.

And Bucky’s gotta admit, that is pretty damn funny.

Sad and funny.

“Come on, you think it’s funny too,” she accuses. “I can see in your eyes, Barnes.”

“Fine,” he says, his smile blooming as he takes a sip. “It is kinda funny.”

“I remember,” she begins in between her laughs, “Peggy used to tell me Red Skull said that he could see the future, in the Tesseract, and man! That’s a load of shit, cause if he actually could, and he knew this would be the outcome, I don’t think the man would have experimented on himself and turned, you know?”

“Red?” Bucky supplies, smiling wide now.

“Red!” She shakes her head, still chuckling. “He was so fucking stupid. I mean—all of Hydra’s fucking stupid.”

“That’s one way to put it,” Bucky counters, adjusting in his seat.

“No, seriously, consider this for a second!” All of a sudden, she’s all excited and pumped. She takes another sip of her drink before she starts, “They were fucking useless, man. I mean, name one great plan of world domination that worked out for them?” 

Bucky—he stops. “What—that’s—What?”

She puts her hand up and begins counting, “Started a war, lost the war because of a kid from Brooklyn who juiced himself up with a serum they could never really recreate.” Well, okay. Bucky can concede to that. “Infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D., schemed for decades, only to be found out, by the same fucking guy.” Alright, that’s fair, too, he supposes. “Created Babayaga, a fucking ghost story,” she motions to him, “but then lost him too, cause they were dumb enough to send him on a mission to encounter his best bud—who, again, same fucking guy.” In retrospect, that does seem very stupid on their part. “Decided to commit mass genocide again, tried to kill 7 milliion people but got taken down by a guy in an eye-patch, a dude with wings, an ex-Widow, a fucking ex-Hydra employee,” meaning her, “and the same fucking guy!” 

Put it like that?

Bucky’s not sure what to say.

“You have to be a special kind of incompetent to screw up that bad, and be defeated by the same fucking guy that many times,” she surmises. “I mean, did they ever even actually accomplish anything?”

“I think you’re forgetting the countless assassinations they orchestrated,” he counters, leaving the ‘and we pulled off’ part silent.

She meets him eye to eye then, “Sure, we killed a bunch of people for them but—I’m gonna talk about the one thing we don’t talk about, now. I’m sorry, but it’s important to the point I’m making here—take Howard and Maria, for instance. The Winter Soldier killed them and stole the last of the serum, sure. And then what? They made more Winter Soldiers that were killed in their sleep by Helmut fucking Zemo?”

Bucky’s having a hard time breathing with the crushing weight of his guilt burning a hole through chest, but Y/n seems distinctly unaffected by it.

“None of the shit they did, or made us do, ever really panned out,” she summarizes, easily. Like she isn’t technically stating that her family died for nothing, that he killed them for nothing.

“Just because we can’t see it, doesn’t mean there wasn’t any damage done, Y/n. That’s not how it works,” he argues, with a curt tone.

She must notice it too, “I understand you must think I’m inferring that your… misery was all for naught. Which, I suppose I am, but I hope you can also see that if I make that statement with respect to you, it also reflects upon me.”

“Let me get this straight, what you’re saying is—we both got the shit end of the stick, years of torture and guilt, for absolutely nothing?” He leans forward, elbows on the table.

“Yes,” she answers simply.

“And that—that’s fine with you?”

She shrugs. “Isn’t all misery meaningless?” She throws back, not impolitely. “Furthermore, if there were a meaning behind our misery, would it be any less miserable?”

Well, fuck.

Bucky’s at a loss for words.

Because while it pisses him off to no end, she isn’t wrong. If there had been a reason behind Hydra’s years long torture of him, would that have made any of it better? Would it really have mattered to him? Would it have changed anything other than the fact that he’d feel far more guilty about it? And if there really isn’t any meaning to it, does it make it hurt any less?

While she’s clearly sympathetic to Bucky’s spiralling inner monologue, she doesn’t seem all that affected by it as she looks over at Tess and wordlessly asks for the bill. “Look, pain is pain is pain. Meaningful or not makes no difference. My comment wasn’t on either of ours, though. I just meant—if one has the kind of power and resources Hydra did, I’d like to think they’d do something a little more significant with it.”

It takes a second for Bucky to readjust to her casual tone and even more casual words. And that’s not even taking his spiral into account. So, his answer comes out after a short pause, “I thought you already did.” She cocks his brow at him in question. “You founded S.H.I.E.L.D.”

She tilts her head, impressed. “Most people don’t know that.”

He shrugs, “I’m not exactly most people.”

She smiles, giving in. 

Tess comes to them with a check, and Y/n pays it leaving a hefty tip.

“I may have been a founding member of S.H.I.E.L.D.” she says, once Tess has left, “but you forget that I also worked for them as an agent.” Both of them begin getting up from their seats. “I went on just as many missions for them, as I did for Hydra, if not more… But knowing what we know now, I couldn’t tell you where the orders really came from.” With that she puts on her jacket in one clean motion and walks past Bucky towards the exit.

When he catches up to her, she’s outside, staring at his bike.

“That yours?” She asks.

He pulls the keys out of his pocket. “Yeah…” His eyes fall to the ground as he adds, “Steve gave it to me.”

“Figures,” she says with a hint of annoyance. “It’s a Harley-Davidson Sportster, right?” Her eyes are set on the bike in front of her, but Bucky nods anyway. And though she can’t see him, she continues, “He gave me the same one in red.”

“You—you’ve got a bike?”

She turns to him then, “I’ve got several.”

Color him surprised. “Huh,” is all he can say. And to make up for the lack of words he begins walking over to the bike. “You coming?”

“Coming where?” She asks, blocking his way with her body.

He nods to the bike, he sidesteps her to finish his initial task of getting onto it. “I thought the whole point of calling me here was to drive you home.”

“On that?” She questions like she doesn’t already know the answer. “I’m shit faced dude, and you’re a fucking furnace. I’ll fall asleep on your shoulder in 10 seconds flat and fall off the damn thing.” The image does something to Bucky that he doesn’t want to look too closely at—not the falling off part, the other part.

“You said the word ‘furthermore’ in there like it was something people say in casual conversation. The longer I stick around, the more I wonder if you’re actually even drunk,” he argues. 

She rolls her eyes and stomps her feet. “Yes, because being babysat by you was on top of my Make A Wish list.” She puts her hands in her jacket pockets. “My place isn’t that far from here. I’ll just walk home. Don’t worry about it.”

“Y/n—”

“Thanks for showing up, especially because you didn’t have to,” she smiles at him. “You’re a good man, Sergeant Barnes.” With that she begins walking away.

And fuck him. 

Fuck this all to hell.

He gets off his bike and catches up to her in a few steps.

At first, she doesn’t acknowledge him. But then she says, almost to the world, instead of Bucky, “My place is actually really far from here.”

“I know,” he replies.

“You could’ve just put me in a cab,” she offers.

“You want me to hail one for us?” He asks.

“No,” she confesses, like it’s a secret but not one she wants to hide from him. “I want to walk.”

“It’ll take an hour on foot,” he reminds her.

“For most people, yes. But we’re not most people.”

He sighs, “So, we’re walking?”

“I know I’m walking—to my place. You can still run back to your bike and just ride off into the sunset… or moonlight, whatever.”

Yeah, right. 

Like Bucky’s gonna do that. 

So they walk.

It’s not all that late, the streets are still buzzing with pedestrians, none of whom neither care nor notice the two Avengers walking around.

Bucky’s gotta admit—it is peaceful.

“You like bagels?”

He’s caught completely off-guard by the question. “What?”

“Bagels, Sarge. I know they had them in the ‘30s. And I’m certain they are a thing in Wakanda, so you can’t—”

“Yes, I like bagels.”

She smiles. “Great! Come on!” She takes a right on the street and Bucky, as is the theme of the night, lost and confused, follows her.

The bagels are pretty fucking great. 

Bucky had skipped dinner to rush over, so he really needed to put something in his stomach so you won’t really hear him complain. He’s not all that picky about what he eats, never had a chance to be. But these—they are really good.

Well, except for—

“Why is mine rainbow colored?” He asks, but eats it anyway, it’s his last bite.

“To make up for the lack of it in your life.”

That makes him snort. 

“Can I ask you something?” She says then, looking deceptively small.

“Will it stop you if I said ‘no’?”

She makes a face that says, ‘you’ve got me there, Sarge.’ “Why’d you come?”

He almost chokes. 

Clearing his throat, he composes himself a little before he answers, “Your friend, Murdock sounded… worried on the phone.”

“He is not my friend,” she tells him laughing, as if it isn’t a sad thing to say. “We’re just… acquaintances. Even that might be a stretch. He hates me, actually. Well, maybe not hate. Let’s just say he doesn’t like me an awful lot.”

“You make it a habit of drinking with people who don’t like you very much?” He doesn’t really mean anything by that. He’s just making small talk.

But then she looks at him sideways, with a smirk. “It would seem so, yes.”

He gets up from where he’s sitting on the bench. “I don’t what gave you the impression that I don’t like you but it’s wrong.”

“Is it?”

Bucky’s not sure why he’s getting so worked up over this. All he knows is that he doesn’t want her to think that he holds any ill will against her. “I have no reason not to like you—none whatsoever. You, on the other hand, have plenty not like me!” She laughs at him. And that works him up some more. “So, tell me, Y/n, what the hell am I doing here? Why the fuck did you call me?”

It might have been all the blood rushing to his head courtesy of getting worked up, or maybe it’s just plain old carelessness. Because Bucky knows, as soon as the words are out, that he’s fucked up. 

And the atmosphere immediately shifts. 

He was supposed to emphasis on ‘me’ and not ‘fuck’. 

“Y/n—” he tries to walk his words back but it’s already too late.

“What, you had something better to do?” She asks, cutting and unkind towards him for the first time in the entire night. Bucky looks away. “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” she says, triumphantly. “Did it cross your mind that maybe I called you cause you’re the only person on my contact list who I knew wouldn’t have any big plans tonight? Seeing as the only friend you ever had left you hanging like a ditchable prom date.” She looks at him, accusing, “And yet, you still won’t kick him off that damn pedestal.” She laughs, pacing now. “You’re fucking pathetic, Barnes.” Oh. So that’s what this is. “You’re stuck here, still holding on to him, looking up to him like a beacon of hope, defending him—for what?” He really should have known that this is what this was. “I don’t know whether to pity you or laugh at you.”

He can’t help it. 

He laughs.

“Something funny?” She bites back, still raging.

He relaxes. “Yeah,” he agrees. “Sad and funny, like life.”

“You wanna share it with the rest of the class, Sarge? Tell us what’s got you giggling like a teenager?”

He looks at her then, with all the patience in the world. “You called me to pick a fight.” Her face loses all color, it goes slack. “You’re drunk and you’re sad, and you wanted to fight… And who better to pick it with than me?” Her jaw clenches. “Look, I know you’re hurt. You’re mad at him for leaving and it hurt—I get that, I do, better than anyone else—”

She cuts him off. “No. No! You don’t get shit. Don’t do that—don’t act like you and I are the same. We are not!” Her hands are flying everywhere. Her anger is very animated. “When he left me he was being an asshole, but when he left you he was being a fucking traitor.” And just like that, Bucky’s left dumbstruck as all the anger leaves her body. “We—we weren’t together, not really. I mean, we weren’t even a thing anymore, not since Siberia. He didn’t owe me shit anymore. But you? He owed you the fucking world and he left you anyway. So, we are not the same! Because I have absolutely no right to be mad at him!” She turns away from him. “You’re not the ditchable prom date, Sergeant Barnes—I am.”

It feels like a gut punch hearing her say that.

“Hey, look at me.” She doesn’t. She’s stubborn. But he can be stubborn too. “Look at me, come on.” She relents. “You’re a ditchable anything, alright? Now, he may be my friend, and I can understand that he had to go live out the life that was stolen from him, but that doesn't mean I didn’t tell him he was a jerk for leaving you behind.”

“You did that?” Her brows furrow.

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because it was a jerk-y thing to do?”

And then, and only then—when she’s laughing does Bucky feel like he can breathe again. 

“I didn’t call you to pick a fight, James—can I call you James? I’m gonna call you James. Sergeant Barnes is really hard to say when I’m this drunk—but yeah. I didn’t call you to pick a fight with you. I called you, because you’re the only person I could.”

Bucky’s lost all over again. “What are you talking about? You could’ve called Rhodey? Or Pepper? Or Banner, or that guy with the bow and arrow, whose name I can never remember—”

“Clint Barton.”

“—Barton,” he corrects and continues, “Hell! You could’ve called Sam and he’d come running. You’ve got people, Y/n. People who care about you, a lot.”

Sighing, she slowly walks over to the bench and takes a seat. Shoving her hands in her pocket, she begins, “Rhodey’s got a hot date tonight. And Pepper’s probably reading some stupid book, after having tucked Morgan into bed. Banner is deep underground, somewhere on an Island, which you never heard from me. Batron’s youngest got this cold that won’t quit. And Sam is on a mission.” She looks up at him from where she sits, “But even if every single one of them weren’t busy, I still would’ve called you.”

Bucky’s gonna happily ignore how the sentiment warms his heart. “Why?”

She takes a second. She pauses to find her words.

Once she has them, she begins, “Apart from Sam, they’ve all done the picking me up from a bar when I’m shit-faced routine at least ten times over, each of them.” Ouch. “The last time it happened, Rhodey read me the riot act and yelled some sense into me,” she confesses. “He—he said, ‘I get that you’re grieving, Y/n. But if you don’t pull yourself together sooner rather than later, you won’t have anyone left to come pick you up from your bender.’ And yeah. He was right, but that’s not why I didn’t call him.” She clenches her jaw. “I didn’t call him, or Pep or Banner, or Barton or Sam, cause they’ll always presume that I’m grieving—and don’t get me wrong, I am. But—” her voice breaks. “I’m also trying to get over the world’s most extraordinary break up.” She sniffles and Bucky’s legs almost give out at the sound of it. “They—they think this is about Tony, and fuck. It should be about Tony! It is about Tony! But—but it’s about Steve, too! I mean, fuck. Yeah. I lost my brother, but—but I lost the only man I’ve ever loved too, goddamn it!” She’s crying now and before Bucky can think better of it, he walks over and kneels in front of her. “And—and I can’t tell them that. I can’t tell them, that I’m out here drinking myself into oblivion because of a fucking boy! Because, how fucking stupid is that?”

“It’s not stupid at all.”

“Of course it is! My brother died, James. He fucking died! He sacrificed his life to save the whole world! And I’m sitting here crying cause I got dumped!” Bucky wishes he was back in the ‘40s when he always had a handkerchief in his pocket for a dame to wipe her tears, because she’s crying in earnest now. “You know what’s the worst part?”

“What’s the worst part?”

“The one person—the one fucking person I want to call to pick me—fuck that. The one person I want to drink my sorrows with, the one person I want to go on a bender and paint the town red with is fucking dead!” Well, fuck. “Not that it stops me—you know? When I’m drunk, and I mean three sheets to the wind, kinda drunk, I completely forget that he’s—that he’s not gonna answer the fucking phone anymore.” Sniffling, she tries composing herself. “That’s probably why I drink, I think. Cause for those 30 minutes, when I’m plastered, I forget that my best friend, my brother, my Tony is dead.” And she laughs, surprising him and herself both. “I mean, that and the fact that America’s Golden Boy fucking dumped me for the most amazing woman there has ever existed in all of existence.” He can’t help me, he laughs a little at that too. 

She wipes away her tears and composes herself fully. “I called you, because you’re the only person who probably won’t think I’m an asshole for sometimes being just as heartbroken about losing Steve as I am about losing Tony.” She looks at him with her wide eyes, vulnerable and open for the first time since he met her all those years ago in whichever Hydra base they were trapped in. “I called you because, you, Sergeant Barnes, are the only person who I wouldn’t guilty with, for setting my all-consuming grief aside once in a while to let myself drown in my heartbreak.” 

Bucky Barnes doesn’t know this yet, but in a few years, he’ll become her permanent designated driver, for all time, always. He’ll become her emergency contact. He’ll become her ride to every single event. He’ll become her safe place.

In a couple of years, Bucky Barnes will become the man she loves more than she’s ever loved anyone ever before, and he’ll love her back with everything he is and everything he has—steadfast, unwavering, without hesitation.

And while Y/n Stark will give up drinking in the memory of her relationship with Steve Rogers, she’ll never fully outrun the grief of losing her brother. It will come in waves, fierce and unrelenting. And on the nights when it feels too heavy, she won’t reach for a glass of whiskey. She’ll reach for him. She’ll find him, just like tonight. But instead of throwing verbal punches, she’ll ask him to hold her. And he will—like he’s holding the world, because he will be, indeed and in fact, holding his entire world. 

He’ll even ask her about this night. Only to find out that she has no memory beyond the point of falling face first into the bar table. He’ll laugh, shake his head, and tell her the whole story. She’ll groan in embarrassment, apologize too many times, and he’ll just smile, admitting that this was the night he first knew—if he spent too much time with her, he’d fall for her completely.

She’ll tease him for being a sap.

But that comes later.

Tonight, here, he doesn’t know any of that. 

So tonight he’ll say, “Come on, let me take you home. I think we’ve had our fill of sad and funny things happening for one night.”

Find other one-shots here. Find other Static Verse works here.

[bcksbarnes]

time's never been on our side - chapter one

pairing: bucky barnes x fem!reader

summary: you and bucky happen to meet by chance one night, and it feels like there is a spark between the two of you - but he has to leave. was this destiny? or cruel fate?

word count: 3K

a/n: ahhhh first chapter of my new fic! i can't wait to write more and explore this plot. thank you all who voted in my poll! this was the fic i was leaning towards so i hope you all enjoy reading as much as i did writing :)

there’s nothing that bucky enjoyed more after months undercover than a dive bar in the greatest city in the world – the city he was lucky to call home. new york had been there to wish him farewell when he left for the war and had welcomed him back with open arms after his deprogramming over seven decades later. 

that’s why he loved the city; it changed rapidly but it never felt different. 

he had a list of bars he’d like to frequent, most of them small and quiet, the sound of some 90s rock band coming from the speaker and the smell of smoke lingering in the air. he liked places that didn’t ask questions. places that felt like he could blend in seamlessly.  

his life as the winter soldier was so far removed now, a life where he had been both infamous and a ghost. they never saw the winter soldier, but they knew of his stories. 

now, he was just happy to be bucky. though, and he’d never admit it to steve, he was tired. tired of fighting. tired of missions. there was always something new, though there was hope in the back of his mind that one day he could quit, settle down, start a new life. but that’s all it was, wasn’t it? hope, not something he was capable of actually doing. 

bucky felty an immense amount of guilt about his time as the winter soldier, but he felt even worse when he thought about steve. the man had done so much for him, he believed in him, he found him, he fought for him – when he called for another mission how was bucky supposed to say no? 

his thoughts are interrupted when he hears the door of the bar open, his ears perking up and his attention brought back to reality. that was how he was conditioned. there was always a threat, he always needed to be on guard.

he hadn’t been there long when you walked in, the ice in his whiskey had barely begun to sweat. his head turns to look at the front door, eyes watching as you sit down next to him at the barstool, not even sparing him a passing glance. 

bucky turns his head back to his drink, his brain working in overdrive to drown out the memories of his last mission. his therapist – ugh, he hated that – had suggested that continuing to fight might not be great for his stress but he couldn’t slow down. that’s when he felt like he would let steve down and, honestly, that’s when the thoughts were worse. 

“what’s good here?” your voice hits him before he has a chance to realize you’re talking to him, his grasp on his glass clenches for a moment before he slowly turns his head, your gazes catching. it feels like ice is pumping through his veins as you two look at each other, a shiver running down his spine that he does his best to ignore. 

your eyes watch him carefully, this stranger is looking at you like you had just asked the most ridiculous question he had ever heard. 

“nothing.” his voice is gruff and unwavering, a hint of humor in it if you were to listen close enough. 

you smirk a bit at his response, unphased by his disgruntled attitude towards you. 

“good to know.” you hum to yourself a bit, squinting your eyes as you look at the alcohol selection behind the bar, eventually just settling on a beer that seems safe as the bartender serves you. 

you have buckly’s attention now, he watches as you bring the bottle to your lips, your brows furrowed together as you wonder how a bar can get away with selling such stale beer. 

“not up to your tastes?” he asks, seeing the face you make after you sip. 

“try about five years past its expiration.” you say, head turning to look at the man next to you. 

he’s watching you intently and you would normally feel exposed under such a gaze, as if he’s trying to read your every thought with just a look. but, there’s something warm and inviting underneath the cold stare, something that makes you relax a bit.

“i’ll give you some advice – when in doubt, always go with whiskey.” his metal hand picks up his glass, tipping it towards you before bringing it up to his lips. 

you chuckle a bit as you hang your head, shaking it. what an asshole.

“you couldn’t have told me that like two minutes ago when i asked?” 

he smirks for a quick moment; it fades as soon as it appears. 

“you asked what was good. i said nothing. i didn’t lie.” he quips back. “i just didn’t think it was necessary to go into all the details.” 

you rake your eyes over this stranger as he speaks. despite being seated you can tell he’s tall, well built – no doubt. he looks like he hasn’t seen sleep in a few days, and the dark hair on his face is between scruff and a beard. and despite it all, handsome. 

“thanks.” you mumble sarcastically before tipping the bottle of beer again, taking another sip. 

“you don’t seem like someone who frequents these places.” bucky’s not entirely sure why he continues to engage with you. he visits these bars to get away from people, to not be disturbed, not to talk to some random woman who had just sat down. though it’s very out of character for him, he continues nonetheless. 

“that’s a bit presumptuous.” though he’s not wrong, you make no effort to correct him. “and what do you mean by these places?” 

“you know ...” he shrugs a bit, searching around the room.

you know exactly what he means. the bar is small, cramped actually, you two are one of five people in the place including the bartender. the walls were dark and uninviting, behind the smell of cigarettes was a deep rooted hint of musk. beer signs hung on the wall, all which were slightly off centered, and the tv that hung, which was in fact muted, had been flickering for quite some time. it wasn’t a place that you would come to, but you had stormed out of another bar and this was the first place you landed on, and you needed a drink badly.

“places where you don’t have to ask what to get.” he’s teasing, there’s a soft sparkle in his eye for a moment as he takes in your features. you roll your eyes at him, feeling your hand grip the bottle of your beer tighter.

“i was looking for a change of scenery.” you say. “and my ex is at the bar i usually hang out at.”

you had been broken up for months, actually, he had moved on at this point. new girlfriend, new apartment, and there was no malice there, or jealousy. sometimes it felt like you were stuck. like you couldn’t move forward or find someone new. you stayed at your old job, in your old apartment, single. it wasn’t that you wanted him, it’s that it was too difficult to feel happy for someone when you weren’t happy in your own life.

“ah, classic.” bucky says, nodding empathetically.

“yeah,” you shrug as you take another sip of your beer, it’s starting to go down a lot smoother now. “i didn’t get your name.”

you can see the hesitation in his eyes, like he doesn’t want to tell you, but it’s quickly replaced with something more meaningful, something you can’t really read.

“bucky.” 

“bucky.” it rolls off your tongue easily as you repeat it, and it also fits him perfectly. he looked like a ‘bucky’. you say your name back and you can see he makes a mental note of it. “it’s nice to meet you.” 

he grunts a bit in response as he takes another sip of his drink, the liquor burning but he shows no change in his facial features.  

“are you someone who frequents these places?” you ask. 

“you could say that.” he responds, his glass now resting on the wood bar, though he makes no attempts to clarify. “are you from around here?”

“yes and no.” you say with a shrug. “grew up across the river, moved into the city once i was able to get a full time job. now i live around the corner in the east village in my shitty one bedroom that costs way too much.” he laughs at that. “what about you?”

“i was born and raised in brooklyn.” bucky explains, looking down at his drink. “joined the army, did some things here and there, and now i’m what most would consider a nomad.”

“yeah? why’s that?”

“haven’t settled down … my work requires me to travel a lot for extended periods of time. if i find myself with downtime in a city i just usually book a hotel for a few days until i need to leave.”

bucky cannot, for the life of him, figure out why he is telling you all this information. it’s like his brain is in some sort of fog and he can’t stop himself from speaking. he was leaving tomorrow for another mission, he didn’t need you, a random stranger, knowing all this about him. bucky didn’t like to get attached, or feeling like he left any loose ends. 

when he had finished his mission upstate earlier that day he was excited about some time off, being in new york was few and far between now for him so he wanted to make the most of his time. but, when steve had called and said that he needed help on a month-long mission - how could bucky refuse?

“what do you do for work?”

you can tell the question makes him shift a little in his seat, uncomfortable by whatever he does and the need to always be moving.

“i’m a soldier, of sorts.” he says, though he doesn’t elaborate. “actually, i’m only in town for the night. i have a flight out in the morning.”

“where to?” 

“that’s classified.”

the response makes you chuckle a bit, feeling your cheeks heat up slightly. of course it was. you were just enthralled by this enigma of a man that you couldn’t help but ask, it was worth a shot.

you and bucky spend a few more drinks together, the night passing by quickly as the two of you talk. you pick up that he eyes his watch a few times, knowing that the hours are ticking by and it’s getting later, he had an early flight in the morning but he makes no attempts to stop your conversation, as if he’s just making a mental note of when he needs to leave.

it’s a little after midnight now, about two hours had passed since you had made your way into the bar. somehow you two were huddled a little closer than what would normally be considered friendly, your elbows touching as you both lean on the bar. it feels like the universe is pulling you together, like magnets slowly inching their way towards one another.

bucky’s in the middle of telling you a story about a friend of his, he makes no mention that it’s steve rogers, and the both of you are laughing at the absurdity of it. 

“and then he says to me,” bucky clears his throat before lowering his voice an octave to do an impression. “now, buck, if i could have a word with you. have you ever thought of … smiling a bit more?”

“he said that?!” you ask, your eyes a bit hazy from the alcohol. you had made the switch over to whiskey per bucky’s earlier recommendation. “in front of everyone?”

“in front of everyone!” he says, his eyes wide slightly. he’s glad you found the story just as absurd as he did. “not that i care, but also why right at that moment?”

“your friend sounds like something else.”

“you can definitely say that about …” he trails off, remembering that he didn’t want to mention steve’s name. “... him. we’ve been buddies for a long time, i know he means well, but sometimes i wish he would just shut his mouth.”

the two of you laugh again, filling the otherwise silent bar with some much needed warmth.

“hey,” you say after the laughter dies down and there’s a moment of silence between the two of you. “i’m sure you probably have to get out of here soon, but do you wanna stop and get a slice of pizza together?”

drunk food sounded like heaven to both of you. bucky hadn’t realized he was starving until you mentioned it, he actually wasn’t even sure he had eaten that day. the hours post missions tended to blend together most of the time until he was able to either sleep, or find some alcohol to down. and you didn’t realize how badly you were craving anything that wasn’t whiskey, you weren’t sure how this man drank this at all. you felt like your whole body was on a fire - though the more you thought about it, it could also be the scent of bucky’s cologne that’s making you feel that way - but, the whiskey was definitely hard to stomach.

he nods his head over to the door, the two of you standing up from the barstools. both of your tabs are paid by the time you make it out to the street, the cool air hitting you like a slap in the face. bucky is behind you, shrugging on his leather jacket as you both begin to walk in the direction of the pizzeria.

“i’m surprised you’re not in brooklyn.” you say to him, your head turning in his direction, watching as he puts his hands inside his jacket pockets. “you only have one night in the city and you decided to stay in manhattan.”

“yeah.” he shrugs a bit, not meeting your gaze. what he doesn’t tell you is how hard it is to go back to brooklyn, to walk the streets he grew up on and know that everyone he’s ever loved had passed on, how all the memories he had were all just distant, haunting reminders of the life he wasn’t able to have. “thought i’d change it up a bit.” he lies easily, wishing to drop the conversation.

a few minutes pass, and two slices are secured, both of you standing on the sidewalk outside the pizzeria trying to down them as you talk about everything and nothing. now, in the streets of the city, the two of you are just one of hundreds of people enjoying their night, unlike the private, secluded nature of the bar. although he doesn’t show it, bucky is on alert, watching every person who passes by and treating them as a threat, all while maintaining a light conversation with you … and eating his pizza. he was a good multi-tasker.

it’s when the two of you are finished and were walking back in the direction towards bucky’s hotel that the weight of realization hits both of you. this was the first and last time either of you would see each other. a one night only, ships passing in the night, hello and goodbye. 

“i had fun.” you whisper softly, the quiet around the both of you suddenly feeling suffocating. bucky doesn’t respond back, his eyes on the ground ahead of him, his thoughts of not wanting this to end weighing heavily on his mind. “when’s the next time you’re going to be in new york?”

“i’m not … i’m not sure.”

your shoulder accidentally brushes against his as you walk and you’re sure that your whole body is on fire now. how unfair was this? meeting someone new and exciting for the first time in months, someone who made you forget about the empty, lonely feeling bubbling deep in your gut? it was all a cruel joke set up by the universe. of course he would be off tomorrow and you would most likely never see him again.

“this is me.” he says, as the two of you stand outside of his hotel.

neither of you want to meet the other's eyes, neither want to make the first move to say goodbye. you barely knew him, yet something inside of you felt like you did, or at least wanted to find out in the future.

“you could text me some time?” you ask.

you watch his face and how he hesitates to say anything. his metal hand grips and releases into fists at his side. he’s thinking of all the ways he wants to tell you no. that he can’t let a loose end exist in his world.

“sure.” his voice betrays his mind, he digs into his coat to grab his phone handing it over to you. you quickly type in your number and send yourself a text.

bucky’s number.

he reads the text you sent when you hand him his phone back and he smirks to himself.

“how original.”

 “it seemed like something you’d say.”

the both of you stand there for a moment, searching each other's faces, before bucky takes a step back, the sound of his leather boot hitting the concrete snapping you back into reality.

“it was nice meeting you.” he whispers.

“you too, bucky.”

he gives you one last glance over before he turns on his heel, briskly walking into the hotel and leaving you to the dark streets of the city. a gust of wind hits you and you pull your jacket closer to yourself as you head off in the direction of your apartment. had it always been this cold? or did the distraction of bucky have you so far removed from reality you hadn’t realized?

it’s me :)

you text back as you stand in the elevator to your apartment. three dots appear on your screen and quickly fade. it’s late. he had an early flight. surely you’d hear from him soon enough. you hoped.

[starmapz]

i wish all of tumblr had your version of sukuna roaming around. he’s so special. you’re so special.

trish you deadass have unlocked/mastered something so beautiful. your fic is amazing and while i wait for updates i scroll thru tumblr hoping i find something similar but i don’t. esp with sukuna. modern sukuna done by you, with this storyline is just UGH incredible thank you for blessing us.

i shall keep scrolling

love u and ur writing. i hope you are having a wonderful week and taking care of yourself <3

whaaa that's too sweet thank you sm 😭🫶

this made me smile sm, that's such a huge compliment 🥹 there aren't enough words to truly give my thanks but know that i appreciate it SO much <33 i've been having such a great time with the fic and i'm always so excited to share more of the story 🙂‍↕️

i definitely highly recommend checking out @yenayaps, sienna's sukuna is so delicious (i salivate at the thought of sorcerer!kuna daily), @kashverse's kunafamily constantly has me smiling they're too cute, @cinnamorollcrybaby's best friends to lovers smau series has me so down bad for kuna, and @retiredteabag's stardew valley au is such a sweet setting and i adore adventurer kuna. i'm 10000% missing a ton of other amazing work, but these all came to mind as some faves <33 please make sure you check out their rules and give them all some love, they're all phenomenal authors!! 🫶

thank you so much for the sweet words and for reading my lil story <33 i hope you have a wonderful week as well!!

[https-kittyx3]

pls pls pls could you write a poly!odypen x reader? I really loved your Telemachus story!!! :D

we will fall in love with you again

TEEHEE thank you very much, i wasnt so proud of that so i'm glad you loved it!!

also poly odypen request???!?!? YES. UESUESUEUSEUSYESUEYS i really really want more Epic requests aaahh i am obsessed with writing stuff about it. i have multiple hermes fics i started and never finished lmao

btw i swear i've seen you in the tags before, you should totally write epic the musical fics!! i'm curious about the one you said you have based on your self insert >:3

also this is kinda angsty i think? but it leads up to fluff!! i promise i won't break your heart <3

not proofread at all, excuse is in the tags lolol

lowercase intended || art cred

all throughout your life, you would have never expected what kind of relationship you'd have in your adulthood. younger you would imagine settling down with someone you fell in love with, living in a house together and spending the last of your days side by side.

the idea of having two lovers was the last thing you'd think about. it wasn't even something you knew you were capable of — loving two people at the same time? wouldn't it be unfair if you ended up loving one more than the other?

as much as that worry was understandable, it'd never end up becoming a problem; odysseus and penelope both earned your affections equally. they've both been your friends since what felt like the beginning of time - you never kept anything from each other, always made time for one another, and never had trouble speaking your minds... until things became complicated.

you tried so desperately to ignore it—the growing feelings you felt towards both of your best friends. it was anxiety inducing, especially since it was overly clear that the two were interested in each other. no matter the way it went, someone was going to be heartbroken. someone was going to be sad and the three of you could never be the same. it was agonizing to think about, to imagine the outcomes - you adore them both, to lose what you have would be your biggest regret.

ignoring your feelings seemed like the best bet for the longest time, but there was always that pang in your chest every time they'd talk about each other to you that reminded you of your own heart.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

"it's endearing how awkward he gets," penelope airily chuckles as she folds strands of her hair over and over in a pattern to create a braid, "sometimes, it's like he can barely form words around me... i wonder if that means he feels the same."

you feel yourself biting the inside of your cheek, carefully braiding the other side of penelope's hair for her. it was a mindless action the two of you fell into as you chatted together. all you manage to give her is a hum, your heart growing a tad heavy once again. penelope shifts, almost as if she senses your hesitation.

"is something the matter?" she questions with concern, tying the ends of her hair together to keep the braid from coming undone. penelope's always been the one who can read your emotions — it's one of the many things that made you fall for her. she's gentle, earnest... there isn't a chance in the underworld that she'd ignore your sadness. as your friend, she's here for you. she always has been.

you gaze at her slowly, almost afraid to look her in the eye - you could break at any moment, admit everything you're feeling, and ruin all you're familiar with. you don't want that, even if it leads to an eternity of heartache.

"of course! i apologize, i'm just distracted..." you sheepishly admit, finishing the other part of her braid. you let your hands fall away and sit in the grass below, a few strands nestling between your fingers. you grip onto them, pulling blades from their roots.

penelope sighs, having heard this time and time again over the course of your friendship. it wasn't uncommon for you to dismiss her concern, just to pop up later needing to vent - she understands it, even. so, she picks at the grass with you, but instead grabbing a flower that grows in the grass beneath you both.

she leans over you, gently placing the flower's stem behind your ear with ease. penelope then places her palm against your cheek, directing your gaze towards her with a soft touch. you feel yourself flush under her eyes and touch, your cheeks warming against her palm — part of you wonders if she notices the way you react to these small touches, and if she knows how you feel underneath your veil.

"you know you can talk to me about anything," penelope whispers with softened eyes. behind that kindness lingers her own conflict, confusion, and fear - but it wasn't known to you in this moment. in hindsight, perhaps it would've been more obvious if you looked deeper. if only you had talked to her then and there, taking up that sincere offer, things would've been more simple.

instead, your lovesick-ridden mind came up with the silliest thing you could have said;

"penelope, you're so sweet i could kiss you." you speak before you're able to think about how that sounds. you mean it as a joke... mostly, but in the moment it was meant as a way to accentuate how kind she is. instead, and with the amount of passion you spoke those words, it came off as a genuine confession.

and it's clear that penelope took it that way, with how quickly her cheeks darken in red. you pull back immediately, throwing in an awkward laugh as you gently push her hand down.

"i'm kidding! you're just... so kind. i don't know what i'd do without you."

inwardly, you sigh in relief as you watch her relax. crisis averted, you think. penelope responds with a laugh — a genuine giggle, a jingle of joy — it warms your heart faster than your face.

"likewise." she speaks with a gorgeous smile.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

"i just... i don't know what to say to her!" odysseus rambles on and on about penelope, occasionally asking for your thoughts on what he should do or say, all while swinging a stick at a tree as if he were fighting a massive creature. at the same time, he paces back and forth while looking up at you from where you sit on that same tree. your legs dangle from the lowest branch, hands gripping it tightly so you don't fall. it's a rather sturdy tree - an olive tree, specifically. the one where the three of you tend to spend your spare time together, though these days it's more often just two. becoming too busy is inevitable, after all.

this day was not one of those, however. penelope is to meet the two of you any minute now, though it's becoming apparent that she's been swept away by something or other - leaving you, odysseus, and the complicated feelings within.

even though you have feelings for both of them, having only one or the other around stresses you out. you're so unstable with your feelings and thoughts that you barely trusted yourself to stay quiet about them.

"what would you do?" odysseus tosses the stick to the side, plopping down against the trunk right under the branch you sit on.

"what would i do about what?" you question, not realizing that odysseus had been talking on and on as you zoned out from above. at this point in time, you were being no better than a certain goddess who was hopeless when it came to love advice. odysseus raises a brow up at you, "about... confessing your feelings?"

"oh!" you sit up straight, a panicked look on your face that is almost comical, "what feelings? i don't have any feelings for anyone!"

odysseus snorts, resting his head against the trunk, "i was talking about confessing my feelings for penelope, but... now it sounds like you might fancy someone." odysseus teases you, but it's not so clear in the moment — you feel caught, like all your thoughts had been read and exposed. your heart picks up in pace as you shift awkwardly, trying to think up any excuse to get out of this topic, before you realize that you're leaning on nothing but air.

you fail to catch yourself before you're falling backwards towards the ground, letting out a scream as you brace for impact. you're lucky you're only so far from the ground, because any further would've been death for you.

odysseus catches you swiftly, feeling lucky that he was right below you. he didn't even have to get up to snatch you from the air — all he had to do was lean forwards and pull you against his chest to cushion your fall.

and cushion, it did. your head falls against his collarbone, and your back lands right against his torso. his arms are wrapped securely around your chest, holding you up as you lean your head back to take a look at his face.

"looks like i fell for you, heheh..." what an awful joke for an awkward situation. odysseus does the same as penelope had done — he takes your joke as a poorly veiled confession, and as much as it may be, it's not something you want to admit right after he finished talking about his feelings for someone else. that 'someone else' being your mutual companion, your third member. your best friend.

ugh. what a situation to get yourself into.

odysseus' eyes are wide and cautious, but not for long as you sit yourself up with the dismissal wave of your hands, "no, no... that came out weird! i was doing a joke, but it was bad timing..!"

oddly enough, you see odysseus' face fall into a neutral expression for a faint moment, before glowing up and into a hearty laugh. similarly to penelope, again, it warms you to hear him laugh so sincerely. he finds you funny, and that brings you joy.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

despite all the signs of the mutual feelings between the three of you, it'd be a good while before things are finally shared. the next few years are spent pining after each other, battling that inner anxiety, and finally... admitting it to yourselves.

your heart is big enough for both of them, and it's something you have grown to come to terms with. all of that confusion and inner conflict subsided into an understanding, regardless of how anxiety-inducing it all still was. penelope and odysseus were simply just the most open about their feelings for each other at first. it took you a bit more time to finally open up, but once you did, you were surprised at how open the both of them were to you.

it was exciting to finally be able to express your feelings to them, to finally be able to tell them how in love with them you are without being afraid of losing them.

unbeknownst to you, it was an internal battle for the two of them as well. that feeling of loving two people at once, yet not knowing what to do about it for the fear of losing both of them.

the three of you, now together as one, share more love between you than anyone has ever seen. even athena, whose lifespan escapes the confines of time, has never witnessed such an incredible bond as yours. she's also heard endless stories about your romance from odysseus, who can't find it in him to stop talking about you and penelope — but who can blame him? he's blessed with two of the best partners he could have asked for.

even as you three grow older, take over more dire responsibilities, and marry one another, your love never wavers.

even after penelope bears a child, after the dread of a war looms ever closer, and odysseus is swept off to save the lives of many — your bond is true.

it's ever lasting.

he'll come back to his spouses and son, whether the gods want him to or not.

[gatorbites-imagines]

Hi! I hope you’re having a great day! 🌟 I absolutely love your blog and your writing—it’s always so creative and immersive. I was wondering if you could write a Reverse Flash (Eobard Thawne) imagine for me? Here’s my idea: - [ do you know the fanfic that you did about him and normal reader? Well, I thought you could write about the wedding reception or what when on during the wedding] No pressure, of course—I just think your writing style would bring this idea to life in the best way! Thank you so much for considering my request, and keep up the amazing work! 💖

Eobard Thawne x male reader

Headcanons

I’ve been sending out job applications, how’s everyone else doing? I actually know like, nothing about weddings. The one wedding ive been through was thrown together in like three weeks.

you can find the fic mentioned here

The wedding could go multiple ways. It could be a huge wedding that costs more money than you could ever imagine. Or it could be something small and personal.

I think it makes more sense if it was a smaller wedding. Because sure, Eobard could show off, but he also has like no one to invite from his side, and he knows you prefer things being down to earth and calm.

The only person really invited on his side is Barry and that’s because you invited him, claiming that being rivals for so long pretty much made them family.

Your family has always loved Eobard, even if he has his moments where his villainy shines through. They’re all as normal as you, and could care less about his evil deeds. Eobard helps them repair stuff around their houses, and chased off your cousin Linda’s evil abusive ex. That makes him good in their books.

I think Eobard has little idea how to really plan a wedding, especially with someone he loves as much as you. Good thing he’s got you, and your one cousin who’s a wedding planner who’s helping you guys’ plan as a wedding gift.

Your family is pretty damn big, and you got people in all fields. Theres your uncle Bill whos got a major catering business, and your younger cousin who has a band willing to play. Your aunt Jenna gets the flowers for cheap, and your uncle Michael and his husband Diego run a security company.

I can even see Eobard being close to uncomfortable with just how open and supportive your super normal family is. Your nieces and nephews love Eobard for many reasons, from his red hair to him teaching them self-defense.

If it wasn’t for you, Eobard would become a major bridezilla, or should I say groomzilla? He wants it to be perfect, from location, time, season of the year, everything. It needs to be just as you guys planned. You succeed in pulling him in before he starts spiraling most days.

I can imagine Eobard would want to wear a yellow suit, but you and your groomsmen and bridesmaids end up talking him out of it. Instead, he wears a black suit with a yellow, and you wear a white suit with a red tie.

You spend quite a lot of time talking him out of stress or anger when things don’t go right, or when he’s starting to get overwhelmed. Theres multiple times you have to talk him out of time travel to get what he thinks is best.

The wedding goes off with little issue. There is a moment where Eobard wants to be mad about Barry showing up. But at this point it’s more just because he’s so used to being evil when he sees Barry. It’s like a trained reaction.

Barry brings a gift of course, off the registry since he doesn’t really know you too well.

Your family assume that Barry is related to Eobard in some way since they have a “similar energy” around them. Barry gets along well with your family, and fits into the wedding guests easily.

Eobard will never admit it, even if your family get it on video, that he started crying when you guys were saying your vows. His vows aren’t long, but are meaningful to the two of you, and it’s obvious he’s trying his best to express those feelings to you verbally.

The rings you guys wear are probably made out of some material Eobard got his hands on. something that can’t be broken by him using his powers or in battle, and something that cant be copied by others since he’s possessive.

There is of course a large party afterwards, with lots of hugs and congratulations from everyone in attendance.

As your family are all over you, laughing and celebrating, Eobard pulls himself to the side for a breather. He loves you so much, but it can be so overwhelming sometimes to feel so normal and accepted, loved even.

Barry would saddle up beside him with a drink in each hand, so the two of them end up standing side by side as people dance, drink and eat.

Barry would express how happy he is for Eobard, that he found someone who matters so much to him. That Eobard looks so much happier and healthier than the last times he saw him. Eobard would grumble but flush, mumbling about how he’s obviously better because he has you.

In the end you guys celebrate to your heart’s content, and when the party is over you guys don’t go to a hotel. Instead, Eobard runs you guys’ home so you can cuddle in bed and just be together.

Theres not much reason to hold a honeymoon in the way most others do. If you guys want to go to another country, Eobard will just run you there. Instead, you take as long time off work as you can, so you guys can just be together and do whatever you want.

[these-written-reveries]

Simon would be so unamused about you quoting Graves in any way related to him, but I think we'll let it slide this time bc it made me laugh -as with many of your other notes 🤭

I'm so happy you enjoyed it! I wasn't sure if you'd think my take on Simon was right -according to how you view him personally, but I'm relieved to hear you loved it! I'm excited to delve into his character more in the future!

Once again, thank you so much for taking the time to read these fics and leave such detailed feedback. It truly made my whole day to read these. You're so wonderful and I am very grateful 💞🫂🫶

Great Heights

‣ Pairing: Simon Riley (Ghost) x GN!Reader

‣ Genre: Flangst (angst & fluff)

‣ Summary: When Simon realizes he has feelings for you.

‣ Warnings: Avoidant behavior, Simon being a stalker, Simon being completely incompetent at handling his emotions in a normal and healthy way (but we love him anyway, don't we?).

‣ Word Count: 1,214

‣ A/N: Idk about you, but I believe Simon Riley almost always resorts to stalker/creep behavior when he has feelings for someone. It's inevitable. He's either avoiding them like the plague, or going borderline yandere on their ass, with no in between. He doesn't know how to be normal about this at all. Good luck to whoever he falls for, 'cause you're in for a wild ride with this guy.

➼ Simon will distance himself from you almost immediately after realizing he has feelings for you.

• He is an avoidant type; known for burying his emotions and running away from any sign of vulnerability.

• Love makes him vulnerable. Love makes him weak.

• Claims he doesn't have time for love or relationships. That those things would distract him from his job.

• He'll indulge himself in meaningless one night stands on occasion, but that's as far as he ever takes things.

• His job always comes first.

• But then you came into the picture.

• He may not have consciously put the pieces together at first (the man needs AT LEAST 3-5 business WEEKS before he is finally able to truly understand his feelings), but he knew immediately upon meeting you that you were different.

• Not in a bad way, not in a "you stick out like a sore thumb," kind of way…

• More in a "you're so beautiful and your voice is so nice and your laughter is adorable and when you look at me I get all tingly and warm all over and it's kinda hard to breathe and I'm definitely not gonna be able to stop thinking about you anytime soon," kind of way.

• He'd never experienced that with anyone else before. So, to him, meeting you was a total shock to his system.

• After many days of random run-ins and conversations with you, he began to get really freaked out by his feelings and the way he reacted every time he was around you.

• You made him feel like he was free falling from a great height, unable to control the experience and unsure of when it would end, or if he'd survive it.

• It scared the shit out of him.

• Can you believe it? Simon RIley. Ghost. Scared.

• This was definitely uncharted waters for him.

• So, he promptly began avoiding you.

• He made no attempts to keep it subtle either. Every time he so much as caught the smallest glimpse of you, he was spinning on his heels and power walking away from you.

• He knew you knew he was avoiding you, but thankfully, you hadn't tried to bring it up to him.

• (How could you when he was bolting out of any space with you in it faster than you could blink?)

• He buried himself in his work, told himself he didn't care, that this was just a stupid, fleeting crush. He didn't need you. He didn't need anyone. He was better off alone.

• This little avoidance game lasted a good handful of weeks. He was thrilled when he was sent on a mission, hoping the time away would serve as a detox to get you out of his system.

• It didn't. In fact, it made everything worse.

• Now he couldn't even go a second without thinking of you. He wondered how you were doing, what you ate for breakfast, what pretty little outfit you decided to dress yourself in that day, if you had slept well the night before, if you were safe, if you were okay.

• If you were thinking of him too.

• Soon enough, the mere passing thoughts and silly daydreams turned into deep-seated longing. An ache for you that pervaded his chest. An ache to see you, to hear your voice, to protect you, to hold you.

• He needed you.

• He ached for you to need him too.

• You were hit with a wave of whiplash when he got back from his mission.

• Suddenly, he was popping up left and right. Most times from afar, silently keeping an eye on you. You'd catch him in the corner of your eye as you went about your day, or feel his watchful gaze on you, only to spot no sign of him when you turned to look around.

• He was there, though. An ever-looming presence in each and every day.

• If it were anyone else, you'd be frightened. But for some reason, knowing Simon was around, even at a distance, made you feel...safe.

• It also confused you. Why did he go from avoiding you to spending every moment of his spare time around you?

• Why hadn't he attempted to speak to you?

• One day, you'd finally had enough.

• The next time you'd caught him watching you from afar, you beelined straight towards him.

• It would've made you giggle, watching him grow visibly tense as he straightened his spine, eyes darting towards the nearest exit. But, you were committed to appearing serious to him. Him avoiding you for weeks and then stalking you like a creep was no laughing matter!

"Hello, Simon."

Stood rigidly before you, Simon cleared his throat, his mask hiding what you were sure to be a similarly tense and nervous face.

"Hello."

"Whatcha doin'?" you asked in a sing-song tone, though your eyes held an interrogatory intensity as they remained locked on his.

He broke contact with your eyes, and you had to stifle the smirk that tugged at your lips when you caught sight of his throat bobbing beneath his balaclava.

"I-erm, nothing."

You let the silence drag on for a moment, watching as his eyes flickered to and from you as he visibly struggled to decipher what your intentions were, before finally putting him out of his misery.

Simon nearly flinched when you suddenly presented a water bottle to him in your outstretched hand.

"Good. Can you help me open this?"

Your small smile seemed to set his nerves at ease a bit as he silently nodded, grabbing the bottle and giving it a simple twist before handing it back to you.

A sweeter smile was offered to him now as you took the bottle from him. "Thanks!"

Another silent nod from the burly man was enough to make you take things one step further.

He grew tense again when you took his hand and began pulling him towards where you were before.

"Come on, then! If you're gonna be a stalker, you might as well be a useful one."

• The two of you worked on completing your task together, and slowly but surely, you managed to pull Simon out of his shell. He began talking to you more, responding verbally instead of silent nods and quiet hums.

• You'd caught him staring a few times, and simply giggled at him before returning your eyes to what you were focusing on before.

• Normally, this kind of interaction would leave him wanting to run as far away from it as he could.

• Surprisingly though, he found himself enjoying it. Somehow, you'd managed to make him feel...safe.

• A switch had flipped in Simon's heart. Suddenly, he wasn't quite as terrified anymore.

• Maybe this whole relationship thing wasn't such a bad idea, after all? Beats being cold and alone and missing you by a long shot.

• Before, he couldn't stand being around you. Now, he couldn't stand to be away from you.

• Nor could he bear the thought of a future without you in it.

• When he met you, he knew you were different, but never had he expected you to be such a powerful force of change in his life; melting away his cold, steely exterior and exposing his battered heart to your mercy.

• All it took was one soft smile, a gentle touch, a knowing look, to anchor him to you—every fear dissipating as he looked to you as his guiding light.

➼ He decided then that he was alright with falling, so long as you'd be there to catch his heart in the end.

➼ Main Masterlist ➼ Request Info

‣Taglist: @jslittlebirdie @alittlesmartcookie

‣ If you’d like to join the taglist for Simon Riley/Ghost, let me know by sending me an ask/message, or comment on this post!

[sweaters-and-silly]

When The Laces All Caught

Wrote my first full fic in about a decade. Mostly Buck-centric but thinking about Tommy and his home throughout.

Rating: G Words: 2,376

Read on AO3 or below:

Buck crashed as soon as he got home. He’d showered at the station and just stripped off his clothes and crawled into bed. He’d left his jeans, hoodie, and t-shirt in a heap on the floor and fell asleep before he even thought to change his boxers. 

That’s what the morning was for anyway. 

He’d worked 72-on, having switched a shift between two 24s to help out Ravi on B. It had made for a grind of a week but had given him three days off in a row on the back half. He’d survived the shift but fell into the sleep of the dead when he got home. 

It didn’t last. He thinks he might have been out six hours when the scent of fresh smoke roused him. It wasn’t the smoke caught in his hair or the scent of it in sweat, this was fresh and acrid, stinging his nose and eyes. Instinct had him on his feet, pulling on his clothes and dialling 9-1-1. “This is off-duty firefighter Evan Buckley, I’m smelling—” he was interrupted by the blaring fire alarm in his building, “and hearing signs of a fire at 524 Grand Avenue.”

“Buck! Hey,” Josh replied, “you’re our third call from there. We’ve got a fire confirmed, evacuate the building, the 122 is en route.” 

“Thanks Josh, I’m headed out,” he replied. He grabbed his wallet and keys, resisting the urge to start packing the things he valued and instead headed out of the building, leaving his door unlocked. 

Buck was a friendly, curious guy, which meant he knew the names of most of his neighbours and the families who lived on the floor below. Only the sixth and eighth floor were loft style, there were two- and three-bedroom units below him. Four seniors lived in the building, Mr and Mrs Cunningham were away for all of December and January visiting their kids. Mrs. Lawson was spry for her age and lived in one of the lofts. He winced sometimes thinking about the widow tackling those stairs daily but he’d also seen her carry a mountain bike down the stairs so he didn’t dare say a word to her about it. 

He did pound on every door he passed heading to the stairs, making sure people knew to vacate. Once he’d checked his whole floor he went down to five, not just to notify everyone but check on the last senior in the building.

Ms. Klassen was on five and had a bad knee. She could barely handle the stairs in the garbage room and often asked Buck to take a bag down with him when he went. He never minded helping her out, she was sweet and over Christmas had taught him how to make stained glass cookies. She had told him they were her grandson’s favourites and since Buck’s young man wasn’t coming around as much, maybe he should give her Dennis a call. 

Dennis had been mortified that his grandmother was giving his number out. They’d had fun chatting but despite his grandmother’s support, Dennis wasn’t really looking for a serious relationship — “I’m 25, man!” he’d teased. “What were you doing at 25?” and Buck didn’t have a good answer because that year started with a wild night in Peru and ended with him stealing a fire truck for a hookup. 

Buck knocked on all the doors on five, saving Ms. Klassen’s for last.  “It’s Buck!” he called as he banged on the door, hoping it wouldn’t startle her. She answered after several long minutes. Buck had started wondering if he should break it down, just to make sure he could get her out. 

 “I’m coming, I’m coming, I just can’t get Freddy into his carrier!” she was frantic, her glasses were askew, a shawl pulled tight over her shoulders. 

 “OK, I’ll get him, where is he? “ Buck asked, stepping into the room to get a look. He’d been there to make cookies and Freddy had not been a fan of him. He hissed whenever Buck got too close, which was weird because Buck was good with animals. 

 “He’s hiding under the couch, his carrier’s on the coffee table,” she explained, voice shaking. 

 “While I get him, you get a bag and throw in medications you might need tonight for yourself and him,” Buck’s voice was gentle but commanding. The small woman bustled away to follow his instructions. Buck knelt on the ground to find a hissing cat under the couch. He sorely missed the heavy duty gloves on his uniform. He took a breath, reached under and grabbed the angry feline by the scruff, dragging it out and stuffing it into the carrier. The beast clung to his arm digging claws deep into flesh. 

He wrenched his arm free knowing when the adrenaline was gone he was going to regret it. For the moment he just rinsed his arm and wrapped a tea towel around the cuts. 

“Ready to go?” he called out, the cat carrier full of angry cat tucked under his arm. 

“Yes, yes, I’m coming Buck,” she called as she bustled out of the bedroom. “I couldn’t leave my photos of Henry, no one has copies of these,” she explained. It squeezed Buck’s heart to think of those pieces of life that would be lost forever if the fire wasn’t stopped before it got this far. 

“Ok, we have to take the stairs, but I’ll be with you the whole time,” Buck directed her toward the stairs. Mrs. Klassen balked, leaning on her cane. 

“Buck, I don’t know if I can,” she withered a little as she followed him toward the fire door. The smell of smoke was heavier in the stairwell, making Buck’s stomach churn a little. He hated the idea of being trapped with someone in need without his gear. The cat carrier had a shoulder strap, he tossed it around his back making Freddy growl with rage. 

“Then I’ll carry you, we have to go,” Buck’s voice was firm. People were streaming down the stairs still, some carrying far more than he’d thought to grab. 

He’d left Chris’s drawings stuck to his fridge, a set of photobooth pictures of him and Tommy tucked into a book on his shelf, the wooden box of postcards Maddie had saved for him on the coffee table. 

He picked up Mrs. Klassen in a bridal carry, moving quickly and carefully down the stairs with her in his arms. Even not being able to jump the railing and skip the last flight, he had her out of the building in 90 seconds. He set her down in the parking lot, got her settled on a bench with Freddy in his cat carrier, and began to move through the crowd, checking in to make sure no one was hurt and trying to get a rough idea of how many had made it out. 

He looked up and could see the light of flames glowing on the seventh and eighth floor. Whatever started the fire, it had a hold on the building now. 

The 122 screeched into the parking lot, firefighters bustled around, Buck reported to the captain that he’d cleared five and six but didn’t know about the rest of the building. All he could do now was watch, he settled in next to Mrs. Klassen, lending her his phone to call Dennis to come pick her up. 

The air was heated from the flames that had escaped the windows, licking at the quickly darkening sky. He could see his windows from here and watched as they began to glow orange long after the sun set. He felt like the heat was raking over his skin, burning away all the pieces of himself left behind. He knew what had turned to ash, a book Hen had given him for Christmas, half-read on his bedside table, about queer history and LA. The heat would warp the roasting pan Bobby had owned and used before he merged his house with Athena’s, something for Buck to build his cooking collection on. Glass would crack and shatter on his picture frames, the rubber on his mountain bike tires would melt, the frame twisted from the flames. 

He’d lose his clothes, a wardrobe he’d built slowly to be able to showcase the man he’d become from the boy he’d left behind. Souvenirs from three dozen pit stops on backcountry roads and open highways. 

The gaming system he used to keep in touch with Chris. The computer he did his therapy on. The bed he’d bought just four months ago because his old one wasn’t big enough for two grown men. 

He’d lose another couch. It was almost embarrassing the number of couches he’d been through at this point. 

The fire was loud. Mrs. Klassen watched in silence, sometimes her eyes on the building, sometimes her eyes on Buck. Dennis was coming and when he had the chance he needed to call someone and let them know he needed to crash. Maddie, Eddie, Hen, or Bobby, he could have called any of them for a room to sleep but it wasn’t the number he wanted to dial. 

He watched the glass shatter in his apartment as the flames won out. The firefighters pulled out, confident the building was empty, giving up hope on saving this one. 

He’d asked Tommy to move into that loft, asked him why be apart when they could be together, and saw Tommy tell him they’d be better off apart. 

“I’m not your last, I’m your first,” he’d said and it felt like the apartment had caught fire in that moment. A tiny spark that burned when Buck wasn’t looking, that was smothered in baking and family and work and distractions. But it had burned its way through Buck anyway. The flames eating away his life had been there for months, it had just taken until this day, this moment, to manifest. 

He’d tossed that phrase through his mind, replayed that scene in his head a hundred times and wondered at it. Dissected the pieces, ached at the way Tommy had called him Buck, raged at the dismissive attitude he’d had when he talked about what Buck had wanted. 

And for the first time, in the heat of the winter night, waiting for a little old lady’s grandson to pick her up, he remembered what else was said. 

“No matter how bad I wanted to be.”

A truck whipped past on the road and jammed itself into a spot near the firetruck. “Park better, ya mook!” the captain of the 122 yelled after the driver. The noise caught his attention and he looked over to see Tommy flip off the man. 

“Get fucked Deluca!” he called, making Buck blink. 

“Tommy?” Buck stood, looking over at the man. 

“Evan, oh my god,” he jogged over and slammed into Buck bodily, wrapping his arms around his neck. Buck hugged back, feeling his chest tighten and lungs constrict. 

“What’re you doing here?” he asked muffled against Tommy’s shoulder, not wanting to pull back yet. Tommy clung to him, not letting go either. 

“I heard the address on the radio when I was leaving work and … I was so worried,” he replied. Buck pulled away, blinking back tears, struggling with the sudden urge to yell or run. He didn’t know what he wanted, feeling so overwhelmed. 

“Why?” was all he could ask. 

“What?”

“Why were you worried? We broke up.”

“Evan,” Tommy’s voice was filled with dismay, “I still care about you.”

“Then why aren’t we together?” 

“I know how this ends—” Tommy began and Buck pulled away sharply, out of his arms a step or two back.

“Do you? Or do you just think you know everything and get cynical and hopeless about the future?” Buck shot back. “Because you said I was unbelievable. You said I was unlike anyone you’d been with before, did you mean that?”

“Yes, of course,” Tommy replied quickly. “But—”

“But nothing. If I’m unlike anyone you’ve been with before you have no idea how this ends. Because you can’t predict what you haven’t seen,” Buck replied. Tommy blinked, his mouth opening and then hanging there as if he lost the words he was trying to say. “And just so you know, what you said about me figuring out relationships and all that jazz? Bi-phobic as fuck. I’m still an adult and I know what I’m looking for.” 

“Uh — I didn’t mean —”

“I need a place to stay,” Buck interrupted Tommy’s floundering. Tommy looked like he was lost again. Buck didn’t mean to keep him off balance but everything he found himself saying needed to be said. “So here’s the deal, I go home with you and we talk this out. We figure our shit out without making assumptions and by actually communicating. Or I call Maddie and crash with her and you lose my number, forever.” 

“Evan, I don’t know—” Tommy began to hedge

“Make a choice, right now, because I’m not watching my life burn down twice,” Buck replied, his chest tight, afraid of Tommy’s answer. He needed to know, needed to feel closure or a future. He owned nothing, every sneaker and book burned to ash. 

“I’m parked over here, come on,” Tommy replied. “We’ll talk.” 

Buck sighed, shaky, he looked at Ms. Klassen, “we have to wait for Dennis.” he said, remembering his responsibility. 

“No dear, there are two dozen first responders here and Dennis is on his way, you go ahead,” she told him. She looked at Tommy sharply, “and you, be good to him. I’ve got three more grandsons I could introduce him to.” The threat cracked a laugh out of Buck’s chest. Tommy nodded at her solemnly and tossed his arm around Buck’s shoulder. 

“C’mon, I better get you home before your neighbour gives you away,” he teased, leading Buck toward his truck. 

“Longshot, but is there any chance I left a clean pair of boxers at your place?” Buck asked, fighting away a yawn. 

“We can make a stop on the way home,” Tommy offered. Buck nodded, getting into the truck and leaning against the window, turning his body to watch Tommy get in. He was on his way home.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Hi hello good morning/afternoon/night<3 I’m quite new to Tumblr and I really like your writing style! I haven’t read too much yet but I think it’s really good, and if requests are open could I please suggest anything Riddle x reader related? If that’s okay, of course.

It’s winter and cuffing season so there’s a WIDE range of fic scenarios I can imagine just now—then again, only if you’re up to it of course, not pressing or anything, I just really like how you write the characters plus Heartslabyul is my fav house and I love Riddle.

Sorry this is long.

Thank you for reading if you do 🫶

Hello, hello, newcomer ^^ I hope you continue to enjoy your time here on this blog~

For your prompt, I decided to go for a prompt of "sick!Reader reunites with Riddle (now Dr. Rosehearts) 10 years later"~ (When I think of winter, I think of getting sick, lmao)

What comes after Ever After?

You didn’t even notice you were falling until you collided with something solid and fleshy. Another body—that of the man that had been walking a little ways ahead of you. He had turned in time to catch you, and now awkwardly held you against his chest.

The buzz of people around you is dullened by your sickness. It’s like you’ve stuffed cotton into your ears, yet your head still spins as if you’ve climbed off a roller coaster. Your eyes and mouth and nostrils are so chapped they burn, your nose running like a leaky faucet.

“Are you feeling alright?” came a posh-sounding voice littered with concern.

Though your head felt heavy as cinderblocks, you managed to crane it and weakly nod. It was a barely passable lie, even to yourself.

“Let me see,” the man insisted. “Are you able to stand on your own?”

“Y-Yes.”

You stepped back with a sniffle—and realized that the man standing before you was a smallish redhead with prim blue-grey eyes. Two strands of hair formed an almost heart-like shape atop his crown. Wrapped up in a pristine white coat, he resembled a rose laid in the snow.

Red hair… heart-shaped… like a rose…

You audibly gasped. “No way. Is that you, Riddle…?!”

He frowned, but it was slight. There was an attempt at a smile, although that, too, was slight. “These days, I go by Dr. Rosehearts—but for an old classmate, just ‘Riddle’ will suffice.” He lifted a hand, allowing it to hover over your clammy forehead. “May I? I fear I lack a thermometer for a more exact reading.”

“O-Oh, sure,” you squeaked, half dazed.

In your delirious state, you wondered if this was even real. Riddle’s touch on your bare skin, his serious face so close, the ease with which you picked up from where you had left off 10 years ago. Those long, drawn out days in a balmy rose garden, the aroma of Darjeeling permeating the air.

It was like a dream, one you weren’t sure if you wanted to take up from.

“… You’re flushed and burning up,” he announced, retracting his hand. “It’s a wonder you were able to drag yourself out of bed. You should have stayed home and rested.”

“Then I’d have missed the reunion,” you protested hoarsely. I’d have missed seeing you again.

“Of all the foolish reasons to jeopardize your health! As a medical professional, I cannot say that I approve of this decision.” Riddle heaved a sigh, his eyes half-lidded and judgmental. Then a brief smile flickered onto his lips. “… But as a friend, I am glad that you feel so strongly about rekindling those lost connections.”

He reached into the pocket of his white coat and retrieved a packet of tissues, offering them. From his other pocket, cough drops appeared. “Here, take these. They should help tide you over for the duration of the event.”

“Thank you,” you said shyly, accepting the items. Your cheeks warmed, and you didn’t know if it was from the cold or from his kindness. “Um…”

“Yes?” he prompted. Patient, steady, like a rock in a river.

“Would you mind walking by me? And staying by me, too. I-In case I get dizzy again!” you blurted out.

Riddle chuckled into a fist. What a lovely, soft laugh he had, like summer wind chimes melting the icicles. “I would be honored to. It would allow me to monitor your condition—and it would also be an excellent opportunity for us to catch up.”

“I’d like that,” you murmured. “I’d like that a lot.”

[lovetaroandtaemin]

Firsts

Lee Seokmin x Reader

Word Count: 1,506

Genre: Pure fluff

Rating: PG, however I still ask that minors DNI with my blog.

Summary: Y/N and Seokmin celebrate their fifth anniversary with old memories and new surprises.

Content warnings: A tiny bit of anxiety over finding the perfect gift. If you think there's something else that needs a warning, let me know!

A/N: This fic is a birthday gift for the absolutely wonderful @miniseokminnies. Happy birthday, Bennie!!! Your friendship means so much to me. I hope your day is as special as you are!!!!

Taglist: @xomakara, @notyourjaem, @heechwe, @shadowkoo

Fic is under the cut.

You always sort of hated your anniversary. Not because you didn’t enjoy celebrating another year with Seokmin, of course. You loved every moment with him. But, if you were completely honest, you always struggled to pick the right gift for him. It didn’t exactly help that your boyfriend was so good at choosing gifts, either. Every anniversary, Christmas, and birthday left you amazed by how well he knew you, and every celebration ended with you wondering how the hell you got lucky enough to be loved by someone like him. That’s why you were determined to find the perfect gift for your five-year anniversary. After all, five years was a big deal to both of you, and you wanted Seokmin to know just how much you loved and appreciated him.

Of course, finding the perfect anniversary gift was easier said than done. You’d spent countless hours wandering through various stores in your city, looking for something that Seokmin would actually like. Every store that you looked in had the same boring stuffed animals and cheesy cards that both you and Seokmin hated. After leaving your fifth store, you were starting to lose hope that you’d figure something out.

When the idea for Seokmin’s gift finally came, you weren’t expecting it at all. You had a rare day off from work, and you were sitting on your couch scrolling through your photos, since there was nothing productive that you needed to do. You’d made it far enough back into your phone gallery to find photos like the one you’d taken of him on your first date, various pictures that you both had taken of each other on your first anniversary, and countless others that captured your favorite moments in your time with Seokmin. That was when you had the idea to print some of your favorite photos and put them in an album for him. It was different from the other gifts you’d bought or made for him in the past, but that was exactly why you were so sure that he would love it.

Since you had quite a bit of time before Seokmin would be back home from work, you went to your local craft store and bought a photo album. When you got home, you checked to see if your boyfriend was back at your shared apartment yet. When you couldn’t find him anywhere, you went to your home office and started printing the photos you’d selected. Once you had all of the photos printed, you started to arrange them in the album. After all of the photos were arranged the way you wanted, you wrote the following note on the inside of the album’s cover:

“My darling Seokmin,

Thank you for the best five years of my life. Every moment that I’ve had the pleasure of being loved by you has made every heartbreak before you worth it. I hope that you enjoy looking back at all the memories currently stored in this album as much as I have, and I hope that we get to continue to fill it with even more memories of us.

Happy anniversary, my love.”

Once you were done writing, you signed your name, and the gift was ready. As you admired the album, you couldn’t help but feel proud of yourself for choosing a gift that was both beautiful and sentimental, just like Seokmin’s always were.

About a week later, your anniversary finally arrived, and you woke up to Seokmin’s voice whispering, “Happy anniversary, baby. I love you so much.”

With a gentle smile on your face, you hugged your boyfriend tighter and said, “I love you too. Happy anniversary.”

Not wanting to let go of each other and start your morning routines, the two of you held each other close while a comfortable silence took over the room. One of the many things that you loved about Seokmin was that you didn’t feel pressured to fill the space with words when you were with him. His presence was all you needed.

You almost started to fall asleep before Seokmin asked, “Hey, what time do you have to be at work?”

That was when you sat up and grinned, answering, “I don’t. I took today off since you told me you had a day off too. We get to spend the whole day together.”

Seokmin almost knocked you over with the force of the hug that he gave you as he said, “God, you have no idea how happy that makes me. I’ve missed lazy days with you.”

“I have too.”

For a long time after that, the two of you stayed in bed together, enjoying each other’s company while the world around you seemed to stand still. Every time you looked into Seokmin’s eyes, you couldn’t help but think about how grateful you were that his eyes were almost always the first thing you saw in the morning and how badly you wanted that to be the case forever.

As much as you loved just staying in bed with Seokmin, after a while, you started to get a little bit restless. You tried to just relax and enjoy the moment, but you were so excited about the album that you’d put together, you felt like you were going to explode if you didn’t get to give it to him soon.

Seokmin noticed that you were getting restless and asked, “How about we get up, baby?” You happily agreed, and you both got out of bed and went about your typical morning routines, minus getting ready for work.

Once you were both out of bed and felt like functioning humans again, the first thing you asked was, “Can I give you your gift now?”

With a soft laugh, Seokmin answered, “Sure, baby.”

That was when you ran back to your room to pull the album out of its hiding place in your purse. When you got back to where Seokmin sat in your living room, you grinned and handed it to him, asking, “What do you think?”

Seokmin opened the album and read your note, and with tears starting to form in his eyes, he said, “I love it. Thank you, baby.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

As Seokmin started to flip through the album, he noticed a specific picture and asked, “Hey, isn’t this one from the day you moved in with me?”

“Yeah, it is. We’d just gotten all of my stuff inside, and you insisted on taking a picture of me to celebrate that I was officially moved in.”

“I was so excited.”

“Wow. ‘Was?’ I’m hurt, Seokmin,” you said with a laugh.

“Oh, shush. You know that I love you.”

“Yes I do.”

You continued to watch Seokmin flip through the book, and when he stopped on a specific picture, he turned to you and asked, “When did you take this?”

“Our first date. You asked me to take the photo before we went into the restaurant because you were proud of yourself for actually putting together a nice outfit instead of panicking and throwing on whatever you found in your closet,” you answered with a laugh.

“Oh my god, I forgot about that! I can’t believe you kept that photo.”

“I was going to delete it after I sent it to you, but I forgot. Then, we started to get more serious, and I didn’t want to delete it anymore. It’s the only time I’ve ever been happy that I forgot to do something.”

You and Seokmin continued to flip through your album together and reminisce about your relationship. You remembered every moment, from your first kiss to his first time meeting your family and the first time you spent the night at his apartment prior to moving in together, and all you could think about was how happy you were that you got to have all of those precious moments with him. As you laughed with him about falling out of bed the night after you moved in, you couldn’t help but think that you wanted to spend every moment with him for the rest of your life.

You weren’t sure how much time had passed before you finished looking through the album and Seokmin asked, “Can I give you your gift now?” You nodded, and he stood in front of you before getting down on one knee, opening a small box that he’d tucked into his pocket when you weren’t looking, and saying, “(Y/N), the past five years have been the best of my life. Every moment I’ve had with you so far has made me happier than words could ever say, and all I’ve been able to think about today is how badly I want to spend every moment of my life by your side. Will you marry me?”

You nodded again, tears filling your eyes as you said, “Yes!”

Seokmin immediately stood up and placed the delicate ring on your finger before pulling you close and saying, “I can’t wait to celebrate more firsts with you.”

Thank you everyone for reading! I hope that you all liked the fic. If you did, please make sure to like and reblog! If you wanna check out my other works, my masterlist can be found here. If you wanna see what I'm working on, my upcoming works list is here. If you'd like to be tagged whenever I upload a new fic, my taglist form is here!

Thank you again for reading, and happy birthday, Bennie!!!

[lamentationsofalonelypotato]

@roseblue373

Thank you so much for the reblog my wonderful friend! I'm so happy you liked this fic 💗💗💗 It was such a joy to write! 🤗

I Can Explain!

Pairing: Russell Shaw x f!reader, Reader POV

Prompt: "How Do You Know Where I Live?"

Requested by: @vixaaa

Summary:  When you meet a gorgeous green-eyed stranger at a bar and agree to go home with him, everything goes off the rails and you're strapped in for the ride.

Tropes: Awkward Rom-Com? Forced Proximity? Protective Russell.

Word Count: 10.6 K (But You'll Laugh The Whole Time)

Warnings: An Unhinged Game of "Hear Me Out," References to Sex, Sexual innuendo, Little bit of self-deprecating thought (reader), Reader is kinda awkward and clumsy, Gunfire, Weapons, Talk of Murder, Shooting?, Brief Description of Torture, Brief Description of Murder, Terror, Fear, Cursing, Kissing, I think that's everything? I promise this one is a rom-com despite all the warnings. 😅

Note: This is told from Reader's perspective. Any references to the reader is made using you or your. There is no use of y/n. I tried my best to proofread, but nobody's perfect. If you don’t like, don’t read, but if you do like, you’re my favorite!

Internal monologue is in italics and is in first person.

Main Masterlist

Prompt Celebration Masterlist

A/N: Hey guys! This is another wonderful prompt request that I got for my prompt celebration from the enchanting @vixaaa! This one is based a little bit on the movies "Knight and Day" and "RED." If you've never seen either of those, go and watch them right now. They are some of my favorites!

P.S: Yes, this is the one I've been writing that has just been making me wheeze/cackle laugh the whole time I wrote it...

“Alright, hear me out… Gil, the angelfish from Finding Nemo. There is no way in hell he was made for kids.” Your friend Liza says wobbling slightly on the plush leather bench seat of the booth before taking a shot of vodka. Her peacock blue No. 2 hair shimmers like a beacon in the dimly lit bar. 

“That’s low hanging fruit.” Kay snorts from your left while leaning heavily into your shoulder, the smell of her vanilla perfume wafting up with the movement. “That scar? The tragic backstory? And voiced by Wilem Defoe? Sign me up.”

You giggle into the shot glass clasped in your hand before you knock it back, face scrunching at the taste and pleasant burn.

The “Hear Me Out” drinking game your two best friends proposed to clear your head from the nuclear level bombing of an exam you just took in your Physics One class, had been successful so far. You couldn’t remember any of the questions from the test that made you scream obscenities into the strawberry shaped pillows on the couch in your living room earlier. Exactly where the two of them had found you when they got back to your shared apartment at the end of the day.

The live music in the crowded bar thrummed through your veins and the shots were giving you just the right amount of buzz to feel more carefree than you had in the past week. The week that you’d spent approximately one million hours studying for the test and trying to memorize all the formulas that looked exactly the same. 

Four times you’d fallen asleep on your computer and had the imprint of the keyboard on your cheek, three times you’d had a mental breakdown and decided to change your major promising yourself that you were sure you could make it doing freelance whatever the fuck sounded good at that moment, and you couldn’t count the number of times that you’d gone to the library to study only to get distracted by whatever else was better than studying for a physics test.

Spoiler alert, there are a lot of things that are.

But you knew you were screwed the second you saw the first question and the rest of them had only been the final nails in the coffin that was the dream of getting an “A” in the class before the semester was over. 

The glimmering sheen of hope at the end of the semester you once had, was ebbing to a dim lantern being swung by a lighthouse keeper in a hurricane, hence the large tray of vodka sitting prettily on the water ringed table in front of you.

You were sure to regret every single shot, but your next exam was two days away and you didn’t want to think about it yet, not when the shadow of the last was poking you in the back with a pencil like someone looking for your final piece of gum.

For a Tuesday night, Duke’s, the bar the three of you frequented so often that the rotating circle of bartenders knew you all by name, was crowded.

There was the familiar glow of the neon signs posted on every wall, a new band performing a set on the small stage in the corner, a collection of screaming girls in the front row of the crowd snapping photos and drooling over the base player, a group of frat guys shouting obscenities at a tv blasting a football game, and a few patrons trying to unwind from a long day while nursing multi colored drinks and sitting sporadically around the crowded bar while the bartender of the hour leaned against the counter and tried to hear orders people shouted over the din. 

You would have been more than happy to spend the evening on the couch eating a greasy pizza and drinking margaritas back at the apartment, but Kay and Liza refused to let you rot on the couch. 

The three of you had been inseparable since freshman year when you’d been assigned as roommates together. Liza was an art major hoping to illustrate book covers one day, Kay was a hardworking pre-med student, and you were… undecided. Physics 1 had been the idea of your advisor, who after a year of trying to get you to declare a major was close to throwing in the towel, you believed that he was using Physics 1 as a form of payback for driving him almost to the point of early retirement. 

“Okay, okay I see you.” Kay giggles, before grabbing a fresh shot. Her long black hair is pulled back from her face with a claw clip, but a few pieces bob around her head with the movement of her head to the music. “And I raise you Kerchak from Tarzan!”

“The daddy gorilla?” Liza asks, leaning into her fiance, Matt, where he lounges back against the faded maroon leather beside her. 

There was a half full glass of beer sitting in front of him, one he’d ordered when he found out what everyone else at your table was drinking. But he’d been a good sport so far despite all of his suggestions to the game being so obvious there was no reason for him to defend his choice and the rest of you mocking him endlessly for it. 

“Sweetie, he could be my daddy any day of the week.” Kay winks and throws back her shot. 

“You’re disgusting.” Liza rolls her eyes, refusing to take a shot to agree with Kay. 

“Hey! What happened to ‘we listen and we don’t judge?’” You interrupt, putting your arm around Kay who holds up a middle finger in answer to Liza’s taunt.

“Where was that when I said Jessica Rabbit two turns ago?” Matt grouses from his side of the table, crossing his large arms over his chest. His blond hair had tumbled out of the bun at the back of his neck to cover the grass stain on the collar of his jersey. He’d come straight from practice when Liza called. 

And then Kay and you had to suffer through the long make out session the two of them had when they reunited as if they’d been separated by war for fifty years and not two hours. They were recently engaged and you loved Matt, which is why you’d let them make out for exactly thirty seconds before Kay and you started making exaggerated gagging noises while they kissed. 

Kay’s boyfriend hadn’t been able to get out of work, but Kay was going to walk to the coffee shop inside the library to pick him up when the tray of shots in the center of the table sat empty. Usually you’d worry about that sort of thing, your friend walking alone on campus at night, but because Kay had the highest tolerance out of all of you, Matt included, and a total badass who welcomed the challenge of anyone who tried to test her, you were willing to let it slide. 

That and the three of you tracked each other’s location with your phones.

“Because Jessica Rabbit isn’t a hear me out! Everyone knows that she’s super sexy!” You argue. “She doesn’t fit the criteria of this game!”

“She’s right babe.” Liza says, squeezing his arm with a sympathetic smile. “But it’s okay. I love that you’re a basic bitch.”

“But she’s animated!” Matt exclaims, obviously confused.

“So? Flynn Ryder is animated and he’s every woman’s dream.” You shrug, picking up a glass to take your turn.

You begin to shuffle through the mental file folder you have on characters who possessed “the energy” that made them so attractive. Truthfully, Kay and Liza had already said most of the ones you were thinking.

“You want to talk about every woman’s dream?” Kay smirks, her eyes flick over to the bar. “Check out green eyes over there. Holy shit, I’d let him rock me like a hurricane all day and all night!” 

“I’ll be sure to tell Sean, your boyfriend of three years-” You begin to say, but Kay pinches your cheeks between her fingers and turns your head so you can see who she’s talking about. 

Oh.

The stranger sitting at the bar is everything she suggested and more. He’s the kind of handsome that didn’t exist outside of the stack of communal romance novels that sat on the bookshelf in your living room and served as the perfect reminder of how single you were. 

The man is taller and broader than any of the so-called boys you went to class with each day, his tight fitting dark t-shirt pulling up over muscular arms that rippled with taunt muscles and were decorated with smoky tattoos curling beneath the ink colored sleeves. His chocolate colored hair is long and pushed back over his head, but a few strands hang forward to frame a well defined jaw covered in a thick dusting of facial hair.

Your throat suddenly gets very tight. 

The man’s gaze is focused on you, the green of his eyes brilliant, crinkled just around the edges with his smile. He winks and your entire face takes on the identity of a strawberry with your flush.

“Holy shit!” Kay nudges you. “You have to go over there.”

“What?” You squeak. “Are you insane? That guy is-”

“The kind of man who would make you forget all about that physics test?” Liza raises an eyebrow.

“The kind of man who would break the laws of physics with you all night long?” Kay adds. “Babe, come on, it's been months for you. Why don’t you go over there and say hi?”

“No way.” You shake your head vehemently, hyperventilating a little bit at the thought of going up to a complete stranger. 

You were not the confident girl in the group that did that. Kay was. It was exactly how she had met her boyfriend Sean three years ago, by using a cheesy pick up line that made him snort so hard he had beer coming out of his nose. Liza wasn’t much better. She’d met Matt in this very bar when her heel broke and she stumbled into where he was sitting with his friends at the bar. 

And the truth was it had been a few months since the last relationship (if you could call it that) fizzled out… and with both of your friends in relationships you often were the awkward fifth wheel. It wasn’t that you didn’t like your friends' boyfriends, Matt and Sean were great and they always did their best to make you feel comfortable whenever you were out with everyone, but you were kinda tired of being the spare tire.

“I don’t think we should be encouraging her to go off somewhere with a random man from a bar that she just met.” Matt says with a frown. 

Matt often held the braincell in your friend group and was the one who was more focused on making sure that everyone was safe. He was the one who followed up with a text whenever someone left to go home, the one who made sure that everyone stayed together when you were out late, and was usually the designated driver. 

“You’re such a hypocrite.” Liza boops Matt on the nose. “You were a random man that I’d never met before. And if I’m not mistaken we met in this very bar.”

“That’s different.” Matt sighs, but he leans towards Liza, the tension dissipating from his shoulders as he looks at her and his frown slips into a smile. 

They were one of those couples that no one ever thought would work. Liza was the carefree art major with no plan in the world and Matt was the All American, blue-eyed, blond haired football player that everyone said was “going to do great things” when in reality all Matt wanted to be was Liza’s husband. He didn’t care about anything else, but making her happy. Hence the giant engagement ring on her finger, the same one that he’d let her design because he knew that was important to her. 

They were everything you wanted in your own relationship. A beautiful merging of crazy (from you) with someone stable and structured, preferably someone with a strong jaw, brilliant green eyes and-

Great, he’s already invaded my subconscious. 

You glance up again to see if the stranger is still looking. He is, but this time his smile is just a little wider, and you watch his eyes drag down the length of your body for a moment appreciatively before flicking back up to yours and catches you doing the same thing. 

You weren’t wearing anything revealing, in fact, you hadn’t bothered dressing up to go out because you didn’t feel like it. You were still wearing the blank sweatpants and oversized sweatshirt combo that you’d worn to your exam. 

When you caught him looking at you, it made you regret you hadn’t worn something more eye-catching.

“Come on, that guy is checking you out! Go over there.” Kay nudges you, jostling the forgotten tequila shot in your hand. 

“He looks like trouble.” Matt says half-heartedly, but he’s too busy staring into Liza’s eyes to really care. Her hands are entwined at the back of his head pulling his forehead down to hers.

When it got to that point of the night, it usually meant that the two of them were about fifteen seconds from calling it an early night and going back to Matt’s apartment. Technically Kay would probably end up there as well because Sean was now Matt’s roommate and that meant you’d have the apartment to yourself…

“How can you tell? Are you looking at his reflection in Liza’s eyes?” Kay takes a shot from the collection of the remaining few in front of her.

“We all know that if Sean was here, you’d already be practicing your scuba breathing.” Liza gently brushes back the few strands of blond hair that hang forward into Matt’s face which only makes him sigh softly and look at her like she’s the last woman on earth. 

You try not to be jealous. 

Kay only rolls her eyes. “Alright, I’m taking initiative.”

“What does that mean?” You begin to ask, but Kay shoves you out of the booth and towards the handsome stranger who hasn’t taken his eyes off of you since your eyes met moments ago. 

“Kay. What the hell?” You turn back to look at her, but she’s already holding up your forgotten shot. 

“Take this and go over there.”

“But-”

“The only butt you should be thinking about is his, in those deliciously tight jeans. You will thank me in the morning.” She refuses to budge. “And then come home and tell me everything the two of you did, because Sean’s about to go visit his family for a week and I will need something to fantasize about.”

You wrinkle your nose in disgust, but then look to Liza hoping for help. Unfortunately she’s too busy counting Matt’s eyelashes to defend you. You look back at Kay who is still holding up the shot, gaze unwavering. 

I can’t believe I’m about to do this. 

You think to yourself with a sigh, before taking the shot, hoping that it will give you some of the confidence you need to talk to the most attractive man you’d ever seen in your life. 

I can do this, I can do this-

The internal monologue repeats itself over and over again with each step as you weave your way through the crowd to make it where the man is sitting, dropping your gaze to the people around you as if you’re more focused on them.

You weren’t, but staring at him while you were walking towards him seemed too predatory, and you could already feel how warm your cheeks were from your flush.

You grip the firm edge of the bar when you make it to him, using it to ground yourself there in the moment before you find the strength to meet his gaze.

There’s a faded green jacket hung over the high backed barstool behind him that you hadn’t noticed before.

Your eyes trace over his body, just a quick glance, but snags on his arms for just a second too long to be casual. They were even more glorious in person, tan and flecked with cinnamon colored freckles hidden beneath twisting tattoos that disappeared into his dark shirt sleeves.

“Hi.” You smile shyly at the man when you meet his gaze.

“Hi.” He rumbles with an easy smile while the green of his eyes flashes in the neon sign hanging behind the bar.

His voice catches you off guard. You weren't expecting it to be so smooth, silk over your skin, but also like the rough drag of the ocean against sand as it pulls it out to sea.

“Hi.” You say again as all other thoughts evaporate from you mind and you fight the urge to facepalm. 

What the hell am I doing over here? I might as well do the walk of shame back to my own table. 

Russell raises an eyebrow, his smile widening. “Hi.” He echoes.

You open your mouth-

“Before you say hi back sweetheart, why don’t you tell me what you’re drinking instead?” He winks making your cheeks warm with their flush.

Honestly, you were expecting him to be turned off by your somewhat awkward introduction, but if you bothered him, he doesn’t show it. He leans towards you curiously, eyes drinking you in. 

You clear your throat while your mind scrambles to come up with something appropriate or sexy to say other than ‘wow you’re pretty.’ You settle on. “Whatever you’re drinking.” 

Smooth real smooth. 

You glance back in the direction of where your friends are sitting as the man’s gaze turns to the bartender so he can order you a drink. Kay makes an obscene gesture with her hand that makes Matt kick her under the table, and Liza gives you an encouraging thumbs up.

Kill me now. 

You turn back to the man lounging against the bar, unaware that he’s watching you again. 

“You seemed like you were having some fun over there. What were you talking about?” He nods his head in the direction of your friends, the motion causing more of his dark hair to fall into his eyes and you fight the urge to push it back from his face and find out if it was as soft as it looked.

“Oh um.” Your mouth goes dry. The last thing you wanted to say to the gorgeous man was that your friends and you were discussing what animated movie characters turned you on. So you blurt out. “The First Law of Thermodynamics.”

It had clawed its way from the dark recesses of your mind where the rest of the test answers had been hiding from you when you tried to summon them earlier. 

“What?” The man laughs while you feel your face begin to blaze. 

“The First Law of Thermodynamics?” You clear your throat. “The theory that energy cannot be created or destroyed."

Where was that when I needed it for the test?

“Huh.” He smirks and takes a long sip from the beer in his hand. “Didn’t think Tarzan had anything to do with that.”

Oh sweet baby potatoes he heard the daddy conversation. Why couldn’t he have heard the Jessica Rabbit conversation instead?

“Ah.” You laugh awkwardly, realizing exactly what he overheard. 

The bartender puts down a bottle of beer in front of you and whirls away to another patron sitting on the opposite side of the bar. The band begins to play a new song, this one louder with more drums than the last one, causing the man to lean closer to you so you can hear him. 

“So.” The smell of the man’s cologne wafts over you. He smells like pine, mint, whiskey, and there’s an odd smell you can’t place, something that smells almost a little bit like smoke.

You ascribe it to cigarettes, but you don’t realize how wrong you are. 

There’s something about him, more than just how attractive he is or how good he smells that draws you in. Maybe you’d just been burned by far too many boys and were blinded by the man sitting in front of you, but he had a roughness and self-sufficient air that you found refreshing. 

He was assertive, sexy, with smoldering green eyes that somehow seemed soft and hard at the same time and filled you with an unholy amount of desire. 

“So?” You parrot, bringing the beer up to your lips, hoping that a sip will take the edge off. 

“Don’t you want to hear mine?” His voice is low and sultry, breath warming the air between the two of your faces. 

You sputter out a cough, choking on the sip you took in surprise, and his eyes widen in concern.The man brings his hand down against your back with a hearty smack to clear out your lungs.

“Are you okay?” 

“Never better.” You choke out, voice a little wheezy. “Wrong pipe.”

This is quickly becoming the most embarrassing moment of my life. 

“Are you sure?” The stranger’s eyes trace over you as if he fears you’ll start asphyxiating at any moment.

“Mhmm.” You clear your throat again. “What were you saying?”

“I asked if you wanted to hear mine.”

You suddenly forget how to breathe, the only thing grounding you to this moment is the hand you placed on the cherry wood of the bar. “Sure.”

“Rain.”

Despite the last few seconds of you feeling so awkward it made you want to sink into the floor like quicksand and the fact that your throat is still burning from when the beer went down the wrong pipe, your mouth quirks up in a smile. “The horse from Spirit?”

“Mhmm.” He smiles a little wider. “My little sister used to watch that movie non-stop, and there was always something about that horse.”

“Huh.” You muse taking another sip of the beer, this time successfully not choking on it. “I didn’t peg you for a horse guy. You seem more like a Nala person.”

“Oh that lion did it for me too.” The man leans closer to you and you can feel your knees getting weak. “She definitely had bedroom eyes.”

“She did!” You laugh at him. “The animators knew what they were doing.”

It was getting easier to talk to him now and you could feel your nerves slowly going out to sea. There’s a comfortable silence that fills the air between the two of you.

“Why did you say the First Law of Thermodynamics earlier?” He asks before taking a sip from his beer. The condensation trickles down the side of the glass to pool against the wood of the bar.

“Because I didn’t want to admit what we were talking about.” You answer honestly. “And I guess it’s still a little fresh in my mind-”

“Why?”

“I had a physics test today. Completely bombed it. That’s why my friends brought me out tonight, they were trying to make me forget it.” You wave a hand dismissively, but it was the first time you’d thought about the test in the past hour and it still stung a little bit. 

You were hoping that by this point of the night it wouldn’t have mattered anymore, but it did. Not to mention you didn’t exactly want to be talking about your most recent failure with a man who looked anything like he did. 

But something about him made you feel comfortable talking to him about things that were not on the pre-approved list of subjects you created when you spoke to people you were attracted to. He didn’t seem to just be some hot stranger in a bar, he seemed like he actually cared, and that he was invested in what you were going to say. 

It made him even more attractive. You weren't used to boys wanting to actually listen to anything you had to say.

“I’m sorry.” His face pulls down into a sympathetic frown. 

“Me too.” You sigh. 

“Maybe you didn’t do as bad as you think you did.”

“Oh I did. When I turned in the test, the professor made a face.” Your thumb rubs against the glass of the cold bottle clutched in your hand. “I studied all week for it and it kinda feels like I wasted all that time.”

The man studies you for a moment. “I think that if you learn something from it, then it’s not a waste. There are no accidents.“

“Are you purposely quoting Master Oogway to make me feel better or is that just a coincidence?” 

“He’s a smart turtle.” He laughs pleased with himself that he made you smile. “But you remembered the First Law of Thermodynamics. And I thought it was a nice pick up line. Might use that sometime.” 

“Shut up.” You laugh and raise your hand to hit him on the shoulder, but he catches it with his.

The contact of the rough palm of his hand in yours makes electricity zing through your body, bringing a wave of heat coursing behind it. 

“That’s not very nice. Keep trying to hit me like that and I might have to take you to court, Sweetheart.” He winks.

“Oh please-” 

“How else am I going to run into you again?”

“Well-” You swallow trying to find the next words, but they’re stuck in the back of your throat. 

I am so out of practice. 

“Well?” He raises an eyebrow in a silent challenge, the end of his perfect mouth teased upwards in a smile. 

“This doesn’t have to be goodbye.”

“What did you have in mind?” The heat of his gaze sends goosebumps dancing over your skin and you swear you can feel your heartbeat in the base of your throat. 

People do this all the time. I can say it. I can-

“Maybe-” You scoot closer to him, summoning some courage from the tequila. “Something like this.” 

Your free hand curls into the front of his shirt to pull the stranger closer for a kiss.

Unfortunately, you pull him just a little too hard, with a little too much enthusiasm, and he falls off the stool with a startled cry in surprise and knocks his head into yours. 

“Ow.” You groan rubbing at the red mark forming on your forehead. “I am so sorry.” 

By now your cheeks are so warm that you could fry an egg on them and you were sure you looked like a giant raspberry. You had never been so clumsy or so embarrassed in your entire life. 

“It’s okay, you just surprised me a bit.” The man says, but he’s peering at the mark on your forehead. “Are you okay?” 

How many times is he going to ask me that tonight? 

“Yeah the only thing that’s hurt is my pride.” You let out an awkward laugh. “I’m just gonna-“ You gesture with your thumb over your shoulder to signify that you’re going to leave. 

The anecdotes that your friends were going to tell from tonight had already begun to manifest in your head:

“Hey, remember that time you tried to flirt with a gorgeous man at the bar and you headbutted him?”

“Hey, remember that handsome stranger? The one you told all about your failed physics test instead of sleeping with him?”

“Wait.” He gently puts his hand on your waist, sending your heart into a gallop. “Can we try that again?”

“Huh?” You blink in surprise.

So far all you’d done was head butt him and tell him your sob story about failing your physics test. 

Worst seduction technique ever. 

“Don’t move.” He smiles. “Don’t want to have to take you to the hospital for a CT if you bump my head again.” 

It would have made you laugh if he wasn’t already kissing you.

It might just be the alcohol talking, or the fact that the last thing you kissed was the strawberry pillows on the couch in the living room last week when Liza, Kay, and you were watching your favorite paranormal tv show and you were imagining the male lead, but this kiss is nothing like any of the others you’d had in the past. 

His mouth devours yours, beard scratching against your cheeks in a way that makes your entire body buzz. The man’s hands tighten your waist to draw you closer, closing the space between your bodies, and all you can feel is the wonderful drag of his fingertips against the end of your sweatshirt, the burn of his beard, the press of his chest onto yours, and the tangle of his tongue as you sink further into him. 

A moan vibrates up through his chest and into your mouth that you echo with a soft sigh, your hands slipping over the taunt muscles before finding purchase against his back, your fingertips curling into the soft fabric of his t-shirt. 

The rest of the bar is rendered to a dull throb of life at the back of your mind, the man in front of you absorbing the rest of your attention as he should. He is nothing like anyone you’d ever met and you wanted to know more. You wanted to see the end of the odd shaped scar just at the base of his throat, trail your fingers over the dark tattoos that decorated his skin while searching for more in places you couldn’t yet see, and sink into the deep green sea of his eyes. 

“Better?” He breathes.

“Much, but if you’re not into that, I also know the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Just to give you something to remember me by.” You mumble against his lips, still slightly embarrassed. Your hands were still curled behind his strong shoulders, fingertips digging into the firm muscles.

“Beside the bruises?” He smirks before he kisses you again, the languid roll of his tongue against yours makes you forget your own name. “I’d very much like to hear it.” The rumble of his words vibrates through where your bodies are pressed against one another. “But first let me get the car and then I’ll let you tell me all about it.” 

He brushes his lips to yours one more time, before he puts cash on the bar, and leaves you breathless as he saunters away towards the front door. 

Holy fucking shit. How did that work?

“Girl Yes!” You hear Kay, before you feel her hands come down on your shoulders to shake you excitedly. “I was a little worried in the middle there for you with that head butt, but yes! That’s how you do it!” Her excited squeal brings you back down to earth from the cloud you were floating on with Russell. 

“Where’d he go?” Liza asks. Matt was holding her from behind, his chin on her shoulder as he slowly rocked her to the music.

“To get the car.” Your cheeks flush at the insinuation. 

“Fuck I am so jealous. The only thing I’m going to get to do tonight is Sean’s back.” Kay gives an exaggerated sigh. “It’s acting up and that means I’m going to have to give him a massage for an hour and not the good kind. It always knocks him out.” 

“Aww babe.” Liza says. 

“It’s okay.” Kay shrugs, but then sends her a saucy wink. “I can do some laundry. His washing machine has this spin cycle that makes me see stars.” 

“I didn’t need to know that you’ve been molesting our washing machine.” Matt closes his eyes as if trying to scrub the image from his mind. 

“It’s money well spent, Mattie.” Kay batts her eyes at him. 

He huffs, but then turns his gaze on you, his blue eyes are filled with concern. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”

“Yeah.” You shrug, nerves popping and sizzling inside so much that they might as well be giving off enough electricity to power New York City. “I don’t get a creepy vibe from him. I think he’s actually kind of nice.” 

It was true. Your radar was usually on point with things like this, and there was something about Russell that didn’t scream axe murderer. He seemed surprisingly laid back and honest, and you found yourself curious to know more about him. 

Matt doesn’t look convinced.

“It’s okay babe.” Liza says, swaying her and his body to the music. “We have the app on our phones and we all know the safe word.” She continues, referencing the word the three of you designated when everything was okay as well as the other word that meant everything was going terribly wrong. 

You didn’t think that you would need it. 

He sighs. “Fine, but if he tries anything weird-”

“What qualifies as weird for you?” Kay asks, raising an eyebrow. “I’ve always been curious about your kinks.” 

Kay always took pride in getting under Matt’s skin. You never knew why that was, only that it seemed to be her mission to make him crack. He never did. 

“Be safe.” He nods at you before he drags Liza towards the door. 

“Seriously babe.” Kay begins to back away. “Be safe. Because the last thing you want to pass right now is a pregnancy test.” 

“Why are we friends again?” You groan as you follow behind her, weaving through the mass of bodies writhing to the newest song. 

The air outside the bar is cooler, but there’s just a hint of something on the wind. Spring was coming, but it was still far enough away to leave just a light chill in the air. The street in front of Duke’s was populated sporadically with cars of varying shapes and colors, but you couldn’t help but wonder what kind of car the mysterious stranger drove. 

Why didn’t I ask him for his name? 

“Because you’d be lost without me.” Kay laughs at you, but then pulls you into a hug. “Have fun and please try not to think about that stupid test. You’re so smart and I promise that one test is not going to define your entire future. If that were true my first organic chemistry test would have come with a refrigerator box to live in, because that test was literally the stuff of nightmares.” 

She frowns at the memory. It was the first test that she had ever failed in her entire life, and although you were the one who usually obsessed over grades, it was the first time you’d ever seen Kay so disappointed. That was also because her professor had asked her to stop by for office hours and told her that there was no way she’d ever be able to get the grades she needed in his class. 

But a weekend marathon of Sex and the City listening to her mentor Samantha Jones, had brought her back to life and she’d sauntered confidently into the classroom armed with a flat white latte and sat in the front row at every lecture the rest of the semester. 

She’d gotten the highest grade in the class. 

Basically, Kay was your hero, that was the real reason why you were her friend. 

“I’ll try my best. Tell Sean hi for me.” You squeeze her just as tight, before she walks away down the darkened path back to campus where Sean would be waiting for her. 

There was an odd glow over the sidewalks tonight, a yellowed light that crawled along the cracked brick building that housed Duke’s and halted just shy of the opening of the alley that ran between Duke’s and the bank next door. No other people were visible. Even the small crowd that usually leaned against the rustic brick wall outside of the bar smoking was nowhere to be seen. 

It was odd.

You rub your hands down your arms with nervous anticipation. You’d slept with someone from a bar one time before, but one night stands were not your forte at all. The last time it’d happened, you’d gone back with a guy to his apartment only to find out an hour later when his girlfriend got home that he wasn’t single. She hadn’t seemed surprised that you were in bed with him, but you had been when she pulled out a switchblade the size of your hand and began to slash through the neatly arranged collection of plush squish-mallows on the floor while screaming obscenities at the guy.

In hindsight, maybe the squish-mallows were a clue that he was in a relationship. 

But you didn’t have any bad feelings about the man you’d met. He was attractive, witty, nice, funny, and he genuinely seemed concerned about you when you almost choked to death on a sip of beer. 

I will make him forget the entire awkward encounter. 

You promised yourself, but you also began to be a little bit nervous. You didn’t know why it was taking him so long to find the car. 

A bird caws overhead, sweeping low across the buildings, feathers an inky black in the night air, its shadow flickering across the moon. 

Another two minutes pass and you start to get antsy. 

Maybe he just left?

The thought brings a wave of disappointment over you. The stranger was the first person in a long time that you’d felt genuinely attracted to and now you couldn’t help but think that maybe he lied and when he said he was going to get the car, he really was trying to get away from you as fast as possible. 

You take a few steps in the direction that Kay left thinking that you might as well cut your losses and see if you can catch up, but hesitate. 

What if I leave and he comes back? What if-

An odd noise that sounds like a cat hacking up a hairball comes from the alley directly to your right, followed by the sound of something heavy hitting the pavement. 

You turn. Most of the alley is obscured in shadows, several large dumpsters jut out from grimy brick walls stained with God knows what, but you don’t see anything out of the ordinary. 

There are some lights fastened to the wall that runs the length of the bar, sending a dingy orange light over the bags of trash, empty flattened cardboard boxes, and plastic cups strewn over the wet ground. 

The door of Duke’s swings open for a moment, bringing the sounds and smells of the bar through the doorway as a woman enters tugging a sullen looking man behind her.

You turn your attention back to the empty alleyway, and catch the low rumble of a voice that sounds oddly familiar. It echoes through the darkness bouncing off the stone, metal, and bags of trash to where you stand at the dimly lit mouth of the alley.

That’s weird. 

Another sound follows the voice, a wet sounding thud that piques your interest. You take a tentative step forward into the darkness.

Wait. Isn’t this how every horror movie starts?

It was a valid question. But then you hear the voice again, it’s louder, vibrating against the brick and mortar, and it pulls your forward. 

Anxiety hums through your body as you inch down the alley, sticking to the well lit side that runs the length of Duke’s.

“Who sent you?” The familiar voice asks.

There’s no answer, and the sound of the cat choking up a hairball comes back. 

Someone needs to get Grizabella a glass of water.

You take another shaky step passing by the first dumpster before you reach the part of the alley that wraps around the back of the bar. 

At first you’re not sure what you see. The part of the alley behind the bar is more of a cramped street with a tire marked dirt path, bathed in awkward light from the moon and from a lazy streetlight that’s only half lit. There’s another dumpster back here, this one a little larger than the others you’d seen along the side of the building, but that isn’t what’s interesting. 

The image comes into focus. 

The stranger from the bar is standing there, his back to you, but he isn’t alone. The stranger has a man pinned to the dumpster, a large knife stabbed into the space between the man’s collarbone and his right shoulder while his other hand is clasped tightly around the man’s neck.

“Who sent you?!” The stranger roars, the knife digging into the man’s shoulder. 

Your entire body freezes in fear.

My radar was so wrong. How could it be this wrong? He was so caring and kind- That’s what they said about Ted Bundy. 

Your gaze drops to what you thought was a garbage bag at the green-eyed stranger's feet, but realize that it’s not a bag, it’s a body.

Holy shit he’s a murderer! Maybe if I just back away slowly-

You take a slow step backwards hoping to edge back into the alley that runs the length of the bar and forget this night ever happened, but instead of your foot finding solid ground, it finds a forgotten potato chip bag. 

The crinkled plastic crunches underfoot, breaking the still silence of the night. You inhale sharply and look up. Your gaze locks with the green-eyed man.

“I didn’t see anything.” You hold up your hands, backing away slowly. “Have a nice night.”

“Wait-”

“Nope.” You turn and flee down the alley hoping that someone is coming out of the bar at the exact moment who can witness the broad stranger chasing after you. His boots thud against the concrete, splashing through water in hot pursuit, contrasting against the plods of your own feet sloshing through puddles and through trash to get back to the light.

Before you make it halfway through the darkness, he grabs your arm and turns you to look at him. 

“Let me go!” You shriek, tugging at his grip, preparing to kick him between his legs, the only place that matters.

“Please wait. I can explain!” 

“You don’t have to explain!” You keep pulling at his arm. “I didn’t see anything! I don’t know who you are. And you know what? I wasn’t even in the bar tonight! I was back in my apartment watching Crime Scene Kitchen!” 

It was the first thing that popped into your head, but if it meant that you got to live, it would be your alibi.

He hesitates confused. “What’s Crime Scene Kitchen?”

“What? You just fucking murdered someone in an alley, you’re about to murder me, and that’s what you’re asking me?” You scream.

“I’m not going to murder you. And I was the one who was attacked!”

“Oh sure!” Fear clamps down hard on your throat squeezing the air coming in through your lungs. Tears begin to burn against your eyes as you try to release his grip. “Somebody help me!” You scream loudly trying to twist away from him and wishing that you’d brought your bottle of pepper spray or that you’d taken the self-defense class last summer with Kay or at least paid more attention to that scene in Miss Congeniality.

How could I have been so stupid? He’s going to kill me here and I’ll never know what that physics test did to my GPA. 

You frown slightly at that thought. It really is weird what goes through your head when you think you’re going to die. 

“Please, let me explain.” He says again, eyes wide and filled with an emotion that looks surprisingly like regret.

His dark hair has fallen forward over his cheeks that are flecked with blood, but the lights that line the wall of the dark alley perfectly frame his face. He looked like a model for a beer commercial or one that they’d roughed up a little for those weird perfume commercials you saw that never made any sense, but were always intriguing. 

Why are all the hot ones crazy? Why couldn’t he have just been a bad kisser? Or maybe a little too loud? Why is his flaw that he freaking MURDERS people? 

As you think that, there is a little voice inside your head that asks: Could I be okay with that? 

NO! OF COURSE NOT!

“There’s nothing to explain! You’re a murderer! You just killed those people!” You aim a kick at his crotch, but the man only catches your ankle with his large hand. You could feel the warmth of his skin through your sweatpants, the sensation that brought warm tingles through your body when you were in the bar, only sends a wave of fear crashing over you.

“Yes I did, but for a good reason!”

“Really? What reason was that!?”

“They were trying to kill me!”

“I don’t believe you!”

“I-”

Before he can finish his sentence, gunfire explodes over your head. Sparks fly as bullets crash into the dumpsters and rip through the night air around where you and the man are standing.

There’s a large black suburban parked in the street that runs behind Duke’s where you’re found the stranger with the body. Three men stand in front of it all in dark clothing and each one is  holding a pistol pointed directly at where you’re standing. 

“Holy shit!” You scream, but the stranger tackles you back behind the large rusting green dumpster that juts out and gives you cover from the blaze of bullets.

His body lays over yours, curving protectively around you, and his arm is behind you head so when you hit the ground, your head doesn’t. The impact of the cold, wet, concrete beneath your body jostles through your system, but you can’t focus on it too much, not when the man’s entire body is laying on top of yours and it feels as if he was made especially for you. 

He lays in the cradle of your thighs, wonderfully broad and hard, the muscles of his body contrasting to the soft curves of your body underneath your clothes. It left very little to the imagination, well… not little. 

It’s enough to make a girl forget that he’s a murderer… No, what am I saying!!

You shove him off of you and cower back behind the dumpster, the sound of gunfire filling your ears and making you realize exactly what you smelled on the man earlier that you thought was smoke. 

“Baby-” He says reaching out to comfort you.

“Don’t touch me! I’m not your baby!” You swat his hands away from you pressing yourself back into the wet wall of the alley. 

The smell of mold and trash was rising all around you in an unholy mist. The wet ground soaked into the soft fabric of your pants and left stains that you didn’t want to think about what they were. 

“Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit-” It comes out like a sickening mantra as you rock back and forth, hands on your ears to make the sound of the gunfire stop.

I’m going to die here. In this dismal back alley. In front of this gorgeous murder. If I had know that I wouldn’t have spent so much of this week studying for a mother-fucking physics test!

“Sweetheart!” The man shouts to catch your attention, but you don’t look at him. 

“What in the devil’s ass is happening?!” You shriek.

“Listen to me!” He shouts louder over the sound of gunfire and takes your cheeks in his rough palms to make him look at him. His green eyes are brilliant in the light, but filled with a determined fire that makes you suddenly feel very safe despite watching him kill someone and the active gunfire bouncing all around you. 

You wanted to trust him, but you also didn’t want to be on the news or used as a cautionary tale for mothers to guilt their daughters with. 

“I promise that nothing is going to happen to you.”

“How can you guarantee that?!”

“Because I don’t break my promises.” The determined grit in his eyes hardens as they sweep over your face. “I will explain what’s going on. But first I have to go talk to them.” He releases your face, but hesitates. 

The man wasn’t bothering to duck and cover, in fact each time a bullet ricocheted off the side of the dumpster he didn’t even flinch, meanwhile the sour taste of bile was rising into your mouth and you were sure that you were going to throw up. Panic was setting in, and your heart rate was getting dangerously high as anxiety and fear flickered along your nerve endings. 

Oh my sweet goodness he’s mentally unstable.

“Actually.” He sighs and flashes an awkward smile. “I don't want to lie to you. I’m going to go kill them. Don’t move.” He reaches into the waistband at the back of his worn jeans and pulls out a gun. 

Has he had that this whole time? HOW did I not feel it? 

“Wait what? Don’t go out there!” Your fingers fist in the front of his jacket, the fear of him leaving you more than the fear of him murdering you. At this point it was either be killed by the beautiful stranger or killed by the other guys, and being killed by the other guys meant that you’d have to meet someone new and look where that had gotten you tonight. 

“They’re not exactly going to leave on their own.” He cracks a smile despite the situation. “But promise me you’re not going to move.” His smile turns into a concerned frown, eyebrows furrowing together as his eyes settle on you once more, steely and unyielding. 

“I promise.” Your voice comes out shaky and not at all what you sound like. Truthfully you were surprised that you got anything to come out of your mouth that wasn't vomit.

He nods once. 

When he leaves, you wait exactly three seconds, counting each of them out in your head before you take off in a dead run for the front door of Duke’s bar and into the safety of the street beyond without looking back while hoping that all of this has just been a bad dream. 

Coming back to the apartment feels surreal, crossing through the living room like a Salvador Dali painting, and finally closing your bedroom door and locking it is like a mirage. 

You weren’t sure how you made it back here, only that you did, and that was all that mattered.

Kay and Liza weren’t home, predictably, but you would have tried to call both of them if you hadn’t dropped your phone in the cluster fuck that was everything that happened an hour ago. Because on top of everything now you didn’t have any way to contact your friends and let them know that you’re alive and okay.  

Your body was still buzzing with the anxiety of everything that happened, mind going a mile a minute the longer you allowed it to bathe in the memories of being shot at and watching the stranger kill those men. 

The stranger that somehow was able to trick your radar.

I just need to breathe, relax, and- 

You turn around towards your bed expecting to go to sleep and forget all of it, but the thought stutters to a halt as you realize you’re not alone. The green-eyed stranger is standing there in the center of your bedroom. He is holding a bundle of your clothes in one hand and your empty school backpack in the other. 

“What the fuck?!” You scream and reach for the Strawberry Shortcake bat your dad bought you when you moved out, hefting it high on your shoulder preparing to swing. “What the hell are you doing here?”

He raises an eyebrow at your awkward stance. “Why are you holding a bright pink baseball bat?”

“All the better beat the shit out of rapists who break into my apartment in the middle of the night!”

“What happened to murderer?” The end of his lips lift up in a smile too perfect to be real. He almost seems to be enjoying this, like he thinks you’re being cute and not accusing him of something terrible. 

“That too!”

He laughs at you, but then his smile slips into a frown.“Why did you break your promise?” You don't understand why he looks like a kicked puppy at the thought that you broke your promise. 

Of course I didn’t keep it! I was running for my life to get out of the way of the millions of bullets pointed at my head!

“What?”

“You promised that you would stay there and you didn’t. You could have been killed.” Worry flashes in his gaze, and your eyes drop to the flecks of blood on the outside of his jacket that remind you of everything this man had done tonight.

“Oh, well excuse me for breaking a promise I made to a murderer!” 

“I’m not a murderer.” 

“If the boot fits!” You snap back. “You showing up in my bedroom certainly seems plenty murdery. That and you going through my underwear drawer for a little souvenir.” Your eyes narrow in suspicion. 

“A souvenir?” The man laughs at you again, his shoulders shaking. He’s still wearing the same clothes he was in the alley, and again you’re momentarily stunned by how attractive he is.

“Why else would you be going through my drawers? And how do you know where I live!?”

“That’s not important right now.” The man shoves the bundle of your clothes into your backpack before moving back to the chest of drawers in the corner of your bedroom for another handful.

“What the fuck do you mean that’s not important right now? And what the hell are you doing?”

“I’m packing you a bag.”

“What? Why? So it’ll look like I ran away?!”

Oh holy fuck he’s still going to kill me!

You swing the bat as hard as you can, but the man raises the backpack to block your attack. 

“Calm down Derek Jeter! I’m not going to murder you, please stop saying that.”

“Why?”

He frowns and shrugs his shoulders. “Because it’s hurting my feelings a little bit.” 

“Hurting your-” You shake your head in disbelief. “Look, I have no idea who the fuck you are or why you broke into my apartment but-”

“Hi. I’m Russell.” The man now identified as ‘Russell’ holds out his hand to try and shake yours. 

That’s obviously a fake name. 

You stare at him blankly. “Are you insane?”

“No, I just told you, I’m  Russell. And we have to go.” He retracts his hand and begins to shove clothes into your backpack again.

“I’m not going anywhere with you, crazy! I have class in the morning and an exam in two days!” You heft the baseball bat higher on your shoulder as a silent threat.

Judging by the way he blocked your attack so easily a few moments ago, you didn’t have high hopes. But you did think that if you screamed loud enough your elderly neighbor, aptly named Willy due to the many, many times he’d flashed Kay, Liza, and you “accidentally,” would come over at least to see if you had any extra magazines to take back to his hoarder apartment that was stacked floor to ceiling with yellowed newspapers long out of print. 

Russell sighs, and looks from the bat to you, shoulders relaxing a millimeter, but there’s still something determined in his gaze. “I understand that you’re scared, but those guys, they saw you with me.”

“So?”

“So if I leave you here with no protection, they’re going to come here and take you.”

“You don’t know that!”

“Yes I do!” He replies, the edge of his voice is tinged with anger and frustration. 

“How?”

“Look!” Russell holds up a battered phone. Displayed on the cracked screen is a message thread of texts to an unknown number. Russell clicks on one of the pictures that was sent an hour ago, about the time the two of you met.

As it grows larger on the screen you recognize the two people in it. It’s a picture of Russell and you kissing at the bar. Your eyes are closed, hands curved over his shoulders possessively, while you smile into his mouth.

The memory of the kiss sends a warm tingle down your spine as you remember how good the kiss was. It was definitely in the top ten, hell, it was number one. 

Don’t be seduced by his charm and good looks! You saw him kill someone tonight! Not to mention he probably killed those other guys that were shooting at you.

Russell swipes his finger over the screen again, this time the picture is of him and you talking, your face on full display. You’re laughing at something Russell said with your right hand resting on the cool bottle of beer you never finished. Honestly, if anyone was seeing those photos for the first time it would look like Russell and you were together. 

“You took pictures of me!?” You shout. “You’re a fucking freak!” 

“Sweetheart, listen to me-”

“I’m not your Sweetheart. You’re just some random murder that I met at a bar!”

The things that I’ve said tonight for the first time could be an SNL skit. Why me?

“For the last time, I am not a murder! And I didn’t take those photos. The men who were after me did.”

“So? Why would they care about some random girl?”

“Because they don’t know you’re some random girl I met! They think that you’re important to me and until I figure out who they sent these pictures to, you’re not safe.”

“Can’t you text them and say that you just met me tonight? That it’s a pure coincidence?! That I’m not important to you.” You point at the cracked phone, waving your free hand frantically at it.

Russell laughs at your question. “Are you kidding? Do you think they’re going to believe me?”

“I don’t know! And how would they know where I live?”

“The same way I knew how.”

That is a good point. How did he know where I lived?

You hesitate, gaze flicking over where Russell stands with your backpack in his hand, but another idea begins to wiggle from the depths of your mind. “Wait. Is this some kind of kinky thing you do? Some fetish? Pretending to be a spy or that people are after you just to get yourself all hot and bothered?”

“What?” Now it’s Russell’s turn to look at you like you’re crazy. 

You take that as confirmation. “It is! Holy fuck, that is so messed up.”

Wow forget murderer, he’s an actual psychopath. Why the hell did I drop my phone?

Kay and Liza weren’t going to be back tonight. Especially not if they think that you took “Russell,” if that really is his name, back to the apartment. You had no other way of contacting them, except with your laptop that was sitting closed on your bed behind where Russell was standing. 

“Wait a minute. I’m not a spy.”

“Exactly, that’s the point! You’re pretending to make me-”

“No, I’m not. I promise all of this is real!” Russell sighs frustrated. “I know that you don’t want to believe me, but it isn’t safe here. And I can protect you!”

“That’s exactly what you would say to kidnap me!”

“Sweetheart. I am not going to kidnap you, I’m trying to keep you safe. I mean, if I have to kidnap you I will-”

Your eyes widen and you heft the bat high on your shoulder prepared to swing.

“Sorry, that was a bad joke.” He holds up his hands in surrender, flashing an apologetic smile. “What would it take to make you believe me?”

It was the question that you had been contemplating since he’d protected you in the alley. You knew nothing about him, didn’t know what he did for a living, and you’d only just learned his name. But despite everything that happened there was a little part of yourself that wanted to believe him. You wanted to believe everything he was telling you, well, not the part about you being in danger and the idea that people now wanted to kill you, but the part about being able to trust him. 

You think about the way he made you feel at the bar, when he listened to you complain about your physics test and made you laugh. You’d trusted him then, enough to go home with him or at least, try to go home with him. 

“I don’t know.” The bat slips a little bit from your shoulder with your honesty. “Do you have any character references?”

Russell cracks a smile. “Isn’t it a little early for you to ask me about my old girlfriends? Don’t think any of them would be willing to say anything good about me either.”

This time you can feel a little smile begin to tug at the end of your lips, one that Russell notices. 

“I know that you’re scared.” He takes a tentative step forward. “But I promise that I will explain everything to you, answer all your questions, but all I know is that you’re not safe here. And I can’t in good conscience leave, if I know you’re in danger.”

The look in his eyes had the determined fire you’d seen many times tonight, but there was something honest about it. They saw through you, and even though you had spent most of the night terrified and believed him to be a murderer, you didn’t think that someone like that would be so determined for you to go with him. 

It felt like two parts of your head were at war. You wanted to trust Russell, you didn’t think he was lying to you, but you had seen him kill those men. And there was an unfortunate part of you that worried he made all of this up to kidnap you. 

But I think if he meant to do that… he would have jumped me the minute I walked into my bedroom, he wouldn’t have said “hi.”

“I know this whole thing sounds crazy. But the last thing I want is for you to die because of something stupid I did. Please.”

You bite the inside of your cheek thinking about Kay and Liza. “If I leave, what about my roommates? They live here too.” 

He rubs the back of his neck. “I’m not going to sugar coat it Sweetheart, there’s always a chance that they’ll be hurt, but with you gone, there’s also a chance that these guys will focus more on finding me.”

“So basically you can’t guarantee their safety?”

“No.” He drops his gaze for a moment, but then he looks at you again. “But I can guarantee yours and I don’t want to take the chance with your life. And my brother is smart, maybe he can figure out a way to keep them safe too.”

You stand there for a moment contemplating what he’s saying, the memories of everything that happened tonight rising up in an unrelenting wave, not just cowering behind the dumpster, but the kiss the two of you shared, and the way he made you laugh.

I want to trust him. I don’t think he’s lying, I don’t think he’s going to hurt me. You think to yourself, and then the inevitable thought comes. I feel safe with him. 

“Do you promise that your name is Russell and that you’re telling me the truth?” You ask one more time to make sure.

“Yes.”

So you take a chance and hope to God that you’re not wrong. 

“Okay.” You nod, lowering the bat entirely. “I’ll go with you.”

He sighs in relief. “Good.” Russell holds out the backpack towards you. “You should probably pack this. If I had my way, there won’t be much in here besides underwear.”

“You’re such a guy.” You roll your eyes and take the backpack from him, but you can't help the smile that curls on the end of your mouth.

Russell returns it, pleased with himself that he'd gotten you to smile again. “That's better than you accusing me of being a murderer.”

“Jury’s still out on that one.” 

“But you have to admit… this did make you forget your physics test right?”

He's not wrong... but you don’t think that this is better.

A/N: I had so much fun with this one. I hope y'all laughed as much as I did 😂

Thank you so much for reading! Likes, Reblogs, and Comments are not required, but are always appreciated! I love hearing what y'all think! 😊 If you'd liked to be added to my taglist please let me know!

Taglist:

@roseblue373 @livya99 @mrsjenniferwinchester @zepskies @louisanalady

@yvonneeeee @kr804573 @waynes-multiverse

[dcxdpdabbles]

In the spirit of commenting more on fics/supporting authors, I’ve finally decided to stop lurking, and say, hey, hi, hello there!

How are you doing today?

I just wanted to say you’re one of my all-time favorite DPxDC writers—in fact, I’ve been following you and your work since The Bakery is a Front!…right?'s first chapter back in June 2023, and it’s been such an amazing ride getting to read all of the wonderful stories you’ve created! They’re all so very creative (and hilarious!), the pacing is always great, and I love how your way of storytelling is easygoing and mellow; it’s so casual and cozy and easy to get into (for lack of a better phrasing)!

And can I just say how much I adore the way you write each and every single character, and their reactions/inner thoughts/dialogue about whatever’s going down in the plot, be it an ongoing story, oneshot, the tags, or those adorable little “From a fic I never wrote” tidbits? 10/10 every single time! (Your dialogue’s super great!!!!!!!)

I can’t count the number of times I’ve gone and reread everything you’ve published, nor how much time passes by whenever I do so. All I know is that my worries go away whenever I read your stories; they’re quite comforting!

Your stories provide so much inspiration, it’s even gotten to the point where I made a mini analysis for Danny’s Grill, and two playlists for Danny Fenton’s Ex and The Adopted Son (though that last one hasn’t been updated, since I haven’t had a chance to officially finish the last three? parts lol; that, and both playlists share a lot of the same songs), though all of those were either unpublished or kept private.

(They’ve also given way to many plot bunnies lol)

It’s a sentiment that bears repeating: you are an amazing writer, you’re so big brained, and I love everything you’ve ever written; don’t let anybody tell you otherwise!!!

I wasn’t sure how to end this, aside from hoping you have a good day or whatever time it may be for you, so I’ll leave off with a quote from one of my favorite songs, from one of my all-time favorite musicals, that’s hopefully… er, comforting? Wasn’t sure how to describe it (and if it isn’t, then I apologize for that):

“Just keep moving on. Anything you do, let it come from you, then it will be new. Give us more to see.” — Dot (Sunday in the Park with George, “Moving On,”)

SUOGHSOHUOGFUOHUGFWUEH

THIS WAS SUCH A NICE THING TO READ!!!

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I can't believe you enjoyed those aus so much you made playlists and mini analysis, but it makes me so happy that you did.

[jaydick-week]

JAYDICK AWARDS 2025: Your Favorite Fics Ever!

We’ve come to the last award from our Superlative event. Thank you so much to everyone who submitted a work to showcase! We love it when the community comes together to honor the people who use their time and effort to give us so many wonderful things to enjoy. 

This awesome selection of fics are some people’s favorite ever. Check them out! Maybe they will be your favorites too :)

🏆 My Favorite Fic Ever Award

Put my youth in a casket by TheWayneManner

Someone You Have To Let In by Arsenic

Snow Birds by Robin Spotter

Johari Window by ivebeenbamboozled

The Wolfman by Sam4265

In the Shallows by elareine

Thank you to everyone who nominated a fic for a Jaydick Award! While this is the last award from the event, we hope to see you for Jaydick Week on April 20! Don't forget to check out the prompts here.