#the contrast between them.... okay i will have a dr pepper now

[hide-your-bugs-away]

i'd like to thank the wonderful country of Scotland for taking pity on me and putting this in my hands 🙏

i was trying to order a compilation-book of TeenBeat articles from 1965-1967 at the beginning of the month and had to resort to ordering it from a German book store due to it not being avaliable in the UK... and three weeks later (today), they refund me and canceled my order 😐 probably because they were afraid of my power if i had this image in better quality:

[emerald-chaos]

Already Gone

**gif not mine, credit to the owner below!!**

Oh hohohohoho besties. You are in for it on this one. The other night I had an idea that popped into my head and to say I got carried away with it would be a gross understatement. This is the first time I've written smut in forever so bear with me as I get back in to it. I hope you guys enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. As always, please feel free to send feedback!

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Word Count: 5.3k (oops)

Warnings: Smut, 18+ (MINORS DNI), language, ANGST (holy shit is there angst), fingering, unprotected sex (please be smarter than these two), infidelity, and I think that's about it? Please let me know if I left something off.

A/N: Thanks to my sweet, sweet friend who read through this for me and helped me fix a few things. Also I take the, MINORS DNI, warning very seriously, so please only interact if you are of age. Please have your age in your bio so I can confirm. By clicking "read more" you agree to this. I really don't want to have to block people.

The cacophonous trill of shattering glass erupted through the space. Raised voices, thick with rage, echoed off the walls. It was difficult to tell which words were coming from which mouth, the both of you overlapping as you spewed out hatred toward one another.

“What in God’s name is going on here?!” Steve shouted as he entered the room, coming back from a late night run at the most inopportune time.

“Stay the fuck out of it!” Your two voices shrilled together as you both pointed toward Steve.

You could feel your chest heaving and it almost felt as though you were foaming at the mouth. Rage was completely consuming every crevice of your body and spilling out into your actions and your words. You turned back to the object of your aggression and watched as he ran a hand through his hair and turned to walk away from you.

“You’re nothing but a coward, James Barnes. A goddamn selfish, son-of-a-bitch, coward!” You screamed with every ounce of energy you had left in your body.

The two of you had some knock-down drag-outs in your past, but it was nothing compared to this. Months of pent up feelings, insecurities, jealousies, and secrets were all coming to a head at this very moment. The last few months the two of you had been incredibly short with one another - a stark contrast from your usual loving tone. Passionate kisses became brief pecks to the cheek, midnight roaming hands became backs set to one another, and ‘i love you’s’ felt more like a habit than a genuine feeling. In your heart you feared it would come to this one day. No matter how hard you tried, how much you wanted to, you were never going to be able to fix what had been done to the man you loved. There was no amount of love in the world that could reverse the tragedy of the Winter Soldier - at least that’s what you were convinced of now.

The man in front of you turned and strode across the room, minimizing the space between the two of you. His metal hand in a fist as he brought it up to jab a finger into the middle of your chest. Pupils were blown wide, what was once a lustful look was now filled with only pure anger. As he opened his mouth to speak, spit flew into your face.

“And you are a self-righteous, ignorant, self-important bitch!”

As your eyes raked over the contorted facial features of the man standing in front of you, you realized you couldn’t recognize them. The man standing in front of you was not Bucky. It was not the man who twirled a strand of your hair when he sat with his arm behind your chair, not the man who pulled over the car to help a turtle cross the road, and definitely not the man who held you in his arms as he cried after a nightmare. The man standing in front of you was a frightening enigma of hatred and rage. This was not your Bucky. In fact, you were almost certain you lost your Bucky months ago.

* * *

You hadn’t noticed the bouncing of your knee until the man who sat beside you gently cupped it with his hand, stilling your nervous movements. It was enough to break you from your thoughts as you turned your head to meet his kind eyes.

“We don’t have to do this, you know. I’ll have them turn the car around and we’ll go back to the airport. We catch the next flight back home.” He whispered in reassurance. Even though your mind was anxiously racing, you couldn’t help but smile at the compassionate gesture.

“Of course we do,” you started, cupping his cheek with your hand as the sunlight glinted off your pristine wedding ring, “Tony was one of the most important people in my life. Plus, I’m pretty sure he would haunt me if I didn’t go to his funeral.”

8 years ago you promised yourself in the taxi ride to the airport that you would never step foot in this place again. That all changed when you got the news of Tony’s death. Your time working with the Avengers was a life-changing experience and it was all thanks to Tony. The memory of him seeking you out to work alongside Dr. Banner in the research lab was one that you could never forget. Tony was an arrogant, pompous asshole but he was undeniably a good man. You would curse yourself for the rest of your days if you let your own baggage get in the way of that.

“Alright,” your husband responded with a sigh as he squeezed your knee, “But please, promise you’ll tell me if there’s anything I can do for you.”

“Promise.” An agreement that you sealed with a kiss.

Mike was a good man, he was someone who cared for you deeply and who made you feel safe. After your transfer to the DC Shield Office, you had sworn off any more office romances. Those never ended well. That was until your path crossed with Mike. From the beginning of the relationship, you were upfront about your past issues with relationships and how you weren’t ready to dive into anything and he simply stated that he was okay with that, that he would wait.

The marriage was a happy one, Mike always playing the role of doting, caring husband. No matter how much you pushed back against him, he was always willing to give you space and to let you feel what you were experiencing. Mike was a good man. But he wasn’t him.

Your gaze left his as your eyes returned to the skyline, the familiar pressure clawing its way back to your chest. It’d been 8 years since you saw him. 8 years since you packed your bags and left the only home you’d ever truly known. Sure, you had this new life - a new husband, new friends, new job with similar duties, but there was still a piece of you that was missing. A piece you knew could never possibly be filled again. You had come to terms with that, slowly, but it had happened eventually. Now that you were back, you knew you were going to have to see him again - see all of them again. While a lot of good memories resided within this area, there was a hell of a lot of pain that went along with it. All you could do in that moment was remind yourself that you were here for Tony - to honor his memory and pay your respects. You didn’t owe anything else to anyone else. Something in your chest, however, told you that wouldn’t be the way things played out.

* * *

The service was beautifully executed. It was obvious that Pepper had poured her heart and soul into ensuring that Tony Stark was remembered as he should have been. The walls of your heart tightened as you saw Pepper clutching their young daughter to her side. Although Tony had made a lot of mistakes in his life, he spent his last years making sure to do good and to make things right. While it felt like a hot knife had been stabbed into your chest as you said goodbye to a once dear friend, you took solace in knowing that Tony was so loved by so many. That his legacy would live on in so many different ways. And that Pepper was there to say goodbye.

It had been your plan to attend the service and then leave immediately after it had ended. Of course, life has a funny way of never doing quite what we want it to.

It was Sam who stopped you first, pulling you into a tight hug against his form as your fingers gripped his jacket. Sam, being the angel he was, never once mentioned anything from the past and instead expressed his happiness with seeing you again and learning that you were doing well. The one thing Sam was not good at however, was keeping his mouth shut. Word quickly traveled through the crowd of your attendance and one by one old friends began to find you. Wanda didn’t have much to say but kept you in a grateful embrace while you expressed your condolences for Vision. In a shocking turn of events, It was actually Peter who was the most difficult to see. The once bright, happy-go-lucky, smiling boy was visibly devastated - heavy dark bags lingered under his eyes and his glow had been severely dimmed by the loss of his mentor. You couldn’t help but cry as you held him in your arms, expressing to him how proud of him Tony was and how he’d told you just that on several occasions.

After the hellos, the hugs, and the reminiscing you had told yourself that was it, that you were going to leave. It was then that Pepper stopped you with a soft hand on your shoulder, a kind smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes, and a warm embrace. After a pause of silence, she pulled away and invited you and Mike to stay for the gathering that had been planned following the service. Your mind screamed at you, begging you to politely decline - tell her you had to get back to DC, that you had a flight already booked that you couldn’t miss, that you had important business to get back to.

“Of course, Pepper. We’d love to.”

* * *

The gathering was exactly what Tony would have wanted. It was family and friends gathered around eating and drinking, but most of all - it was a bunch of people talking about Tony Stark.

You told Mike before the two of you arrived that you would stay for 20 minutes tops. That it simply would be out of respect for Pepper and once you felt your presence had been noted that the two of you would slip out unnoticed in the sea of people.

That was 2 hours ago.

Laughs came easy, tears flowed frequently, and stories were shared amongst friends. Surprising to you, it felt good to be around these people again. A familiar pang of home would hit you every now and again as you reconnected with those who you hadn’t seen in years. You introduced Mike to your old friends, who welcomed him warmly and with open arms. What you had thought would be a stressful, gut-wrenching day had actually turned out to be a joyful celebration of life. The day had been progressing smoothly and you wanted to chastise yourself for being so pessimistic.

That was, until you saw him.

Hands stuffed into the pockets of a black bomber jacket, long chestnut hair falling onto his shoulders, and a familiar collection of facial hair decorating the lower half of his face. He looked as terrible as you felt at the beginning of the day. Dark circles had only grown more prominent beneath his beautiful blue eyes and the corners of his lips were drawn down in a permanent frown. You couldn’t help but notice that he’d lost a considerable amount of weight. The once broad, thick man was now far more lean and toned than you ever remember him being.

A breath caught in your throat as the cerulean eyes met yours. Unable to stop yourself, you shoved your drink into Mike’s chest and hurried off to the nearest bathroom. Barely making it in time, you emptied your day’s stomach contents into the toilet. Breathing heavily, you fought back sobs as they threatened to leave your throat. To anyone else, it may seem you were simply grieving the loss of your friend, perhaps taking it harder than most. Oh how you wish that were the case.

You knew it would be difficult to see him again, but you didn’t expect it to feel as though someone had set your entire body ablaze. The heavy feeling of grief, anxiety, and stress from the beginning of the day was crushing your lungs, your stomach still trying to lurch although it had nothing left to give up, and tears burned the rims of your eyes. As you cleaned yourself up and flushed the toilet, you exited the stall to wash your hands and rinse your mouth. You tried to convince yourself it was the entire day's worth of emotions that had led you to this moment. That man no longer had this kind of hold on you - you had moved on. Or, so you thought.

Slowly, your gaze met your reflection in the mirror. The woman there looked worn and tired, like she had been fighting a raging war that she had been losing miserably. Mascara had begun to run down the apples of her cheeks and lipstick was smeared across her mouth. A heavy sigh left your lips as you did your best to make yourself more presentable. A shaky hand entered your clutch as you retrieved your lipstick and applied another layer. You gave yourself a final once-over and decided that your current appearance was as good as it was going to get. Just as you were going to turn around and return to the party there was movement in the mirror that caught your eye. The door was being pushed open from the outside. You turned to protest, to let the intruder know that the bathroom was occupied.

“Excuse me, sorry, there’s someone--”

It felt as though all the air had been taken from your lungs and your heart threatened to beat out of your chest as you came face to face with the man you had tried so hard, for so long, to forget. It was as though you were frozen in time, as if he were Medusa - turning you instantly to stone. Logically, the thing to do would be to tell him to get out or for you to leave the bathroom so that he could occupy the space alone. However, all you could do was stand and watch as he closed the bathroom door behind him, as his fingers closed around the lock and clicked it into place.

Then it was just the two of you. Bodies unmoving, aside from the rapid rise and fall of your chests in tandem. The air felt 100 degrees warmer than it had when you were alone. The silence, paired with the thump of your heartbeat, was deafening to your ears. You were hyper-aware of his gaze as he studied you the way you had him not minutes before. His eyes finally met yours once more and there was a poignant silence before he finally spoke.

“Can’t believe you still have that dress.”

Your eyes blinked a few times, brain trying to process his words and the situation you had currently found yourself to be in. You looked down to the front of your dress and smoothed your hands down it. How could you have gone the whole day without realizing that the dress you were wearing had been a gift from Bucky on your first anniversary? You were positive you had rid yourself of anything even remotely related to him. In fact, you distinctly recall dumping a box of momentos into a barrel and tossing a lit match inside. You don’t remember making the conscious decision to keep the dress, or why you would have made the decision. Now here you were - mere feet away from the man who had put it on and so delicately took it off of you many times.

“S’perfectly good dress. Shouldn’t go to waste.” Was all you could muster as a response in that moment.

The man before you took a step forward and you took a step back, hips coming into contact with the cold marble counter of the sink.

“Thought I’d never see you again. Y’look...different.” His gaze roaming its way down your body once more.

As his eyes landed on the diamond ring nestled onto the 4th finger of your left hand, you felt a lump begin to form in your throat.

“Congratulations.” His words were cold. Inauthentic. “He’s a lucky guy.”

“What the fuck are you doing in here, James?” The words were supposed to be sharp, but instead came out shaky and insecure.

“Saw you out there, starin’ at me. Guess I just wanted a closer look at you.”

By the end of the sentence he had closed the gap between the two of you even more, chests threatening to bump one another. His metal hand slowly reached forward and brushed a piece of hair off your shoulder. The cool appendage felt like fire against your skin and you know he heard the way you sharply inhaled, but you just couldn’t help it. You swallowed hard, head reeling and knees trying to buckle beneath you when you felt his cool palm cup your fiery cheek. It took everything in your body to avert your eyes from him, especially when you felt him even closer than before - warm breath fanning the expanse of your face. Why was he doing this? What was he going to accomplish? The fight or flight response in your body was screaming at you to push him away and run, but you didn’t.

“I’ve thought about you every day since you left, sweets. There’s not a moment that passes by where you’re not on my mind.”

Your eyes closed tightly, tears now welling up and spilling over.

“Everything you said about me that night was true. I am a coward. A coward who lost the best fuckin’ thing that ever happened to his sorry, broken ass.”

A small sob escaped your chest as your hand flew to your mouth, failing to keep it from tumbling out. Bucky found a loose thread and was slowly unraveling everything you’d worked toward in the last 8 years, every step toward progress and peace that you had worked so hard to find.

“I’m so fuckin’ sorry, doll” Bucky was now fully cupping your face with his large, calloused hands, “I’m so sorry that you fell in love with someone like me - a broken son of a bitch who never got put back together. I’m sorry that I hurt you so badly. I’m sorry I didn’t protect you the way I promised I would. I’m sorry that -”

In a moment of weakness, before he could finish his sentence, you were crashing your lips to his. There was nothing else that existed in your world - there was only you and there was only Bucky. Seemingly moving on their own accord, your hands found their way into his hair, grasping wildly for something to hold on to. As your fingers tugged on his roots, Bucky let out a deep moan into the kiss, sending a shiver down your spine.

The kiss was sloppy and desperate, all tongue and teeth. It was a balance of dominance between the two of you - although you were the one who initiated the kiss, Bucky was the first one to gain access to the inside of your mouth, and you were the first to tug his lower lip between your teeth. A pathetic mewl left your lips as Bucky’s mouth began trailing wet kisses across your jaw and down the column of your throat. The heartbeat in your ears from earlier was much worse now, making your head throb in pain. Every nerve ending in your body felt as though it was on fire and a small voice in the back of your head kept pleading with you to stop. For a moment you entertained the idea of shoving him off and telling him to fuck off, but that was before he started sucking that spot on your neck that he knew drove you mad. It was your turn to moan this time as you involuntarily arched your back, pressing yourself up against his firm torso.

You knew the way that you were tugging on the strands of his hair had to be incredibly painful but it only seemed to urge Bucky to continue. A soft gasp tumbled past your lips as you felt Bucky’s thigh push against your aching core. The sensation had you digging your fingernails into the back of his jacket as you finally released your grip on his hair. Before you could stop yourself, you could feel your hips grinding yourself down against his clothed thigh. Your dress had been pushed up around your waist, now only a small piece of cloth covering you as you desperately chased a high.

“I shoulda never let you go. Shoulda been at the airport to stop you before you got on that plane.”

His teeth sunk into your pulse point once more, earning himself another moan from your lips. The sting was soon replaced with the cool sensation of his tongue tracing the marks he had left.

“I love you, doll. I haven’t ever stopped lovin’ you.”

“Show me,” you whimpered pathetically against his shoulder, “show me you love me, Bucky. Please.”

An audible breath caught in his throat as he pulled himself back to look at you. Your chest was heaving, make-up smeared once more, and your pupils were blown wide with lust. You obviously weren’t able to see the look you gave him, but judging by the way he looked back at you it was fair to say you looked broken, pathetic, and desperate for him. The eyes looking back at you had the softness to them that you remember, the strokes of his hands against your body contained the passion that you’d so been longing for, and the tone in his voice told you that he was desperate for you too.

Within seconds your feet were lifted from the ground and your ass made contact with the cold, wet countertop. There wasn’t a lot of room, objects were scattered onto the floor and others were left to push into your hips with aggressive force, but you just didn’t care. It was impossible to care when Bucky moved your knees apart and dragged a finger along your clothed pussy. The sensation made your head fall back against the mirror with a hard thud but you couldn’t feel any of the pain from it at all. The only thing you felt was the way electricity rippled through your body when he used his thumb to apply pressure to your aching clit. Bucky groaned and rested his forehead against yours, lips slightly parted as he felt your need for him growing.

“So wet for me, just like I remember. Lemme make you feel good, sweets, hmm?” He had leaned forward to whisper softly in your ear as his teeth grazed your lobe.

It was you who reached down and shoved your panties down your thighs, meeting a surprised look from Bucky as he helped you drag them down to hang around your ankle. Bucky’s tongue darted out to wet his bottom lip as he hooked his hands underneath your knees to spread your legs open for him. Another groan came from him, this time more guttural than the last. You felt small underneath his gaze and the cool air in the bathroom brushing across your soaking core made you shiver.

Your hand flew to your mouth to suppress the noises you made as his finger slipped through your folds, running up and down to collect your wetness.

“More. God. Please, Buck. Need more.” You whined, attempting to roll your hips against his hand to find any form of friction that you could.

“Anything for you, baby.” He whispered as he gently inserted a finger inside of you. The two of you moaned in tandem.

There was a brief moment of embarrassment with the way your walls immediately clenched around his finger and the way his finger immediately found that soft spot. It was shortly replaced with a feeling of ecstasy. Bucky captured your lips with his to swallow your moans as he added another finger. The way his fingers were curling and pumping inside of you already had you close to the edge. Bucky pulled back and held your gaze as he added pressure to your clit with his thumb, circling the area as his fingers continued to repeatedly hit that spot inside of you.

“Please, please don’t stop.” You begged as you felt the pressure building within the lower part of your body.

“S’okay. I’m right here.” Bucky’s other hand was cradling the back of your head as he whispered to you. “I know you’re close. Can feel you squeezin’ me. You can let go for me, I got you.”

As your eyes met his, foreheads pressed together, you finally came apart. The white hot sensation tears through you as your legs quake. You squeeze your eyes shut and allow Bucky to help you ride through your orgasm as he peppers light kisses along your neck.

“I almost forgot how pretty you look when you cum.”

You whine at the emptiness and loss of contact when Bucky removes his fingers from your center. As your eyes flutter open you see him push the fingers into his mouth and suck them clean. The look on his face was euphoric.

“God. Almost forgot how fuckin’ sweet you taste too.”

Mustering up all the strength you had, you sat up and pulled him closer by his belt. The two of you worked together to rid him of his pants and boxers. Your hand wrapped around him, thumb swiping the red tip and using the pre-cum to help lubricate as you pumped your hand down his length. Bucky’s jaw clenched as he moaned at the sensation. Just as you were going to leave the counter, you felt his hands grabbing your shoulders and halting your movements.

“Maybe a different time, sweets. But right now I gotta be inside you.”

You caught your bottom lip as you nodded and released your hold on him. Bucky’s hands wrapped around your thighs as he pulled your hips to the edge of the sink. The metal hand left your thigh as he grabbed himself at the base and pushed his length through your folds. The two of you once more shared a moan at the sensation. As he lined himself up with your entrance, your hands wrapped around his neck to pull him in for another kiss. The next thing you felt was the familiar sting of his cock stretching your walls as he slid into you. Your lips left his and your forehead found itself pressed against his once more. Both of you panting heavily as neither of you dared to speak a word.

Following a moment of silence, allowing your body time to stretch to accommodate him, you nodded slowly as to signal to him that it would be okay for him to move. His thrusts were slow and calculated at first, as if he was attempting to regain his memory of your body - one that he once knew so well. You couldn’t help but dig your fingernails into his shoulder as you held on to him for dear life, subconsciously afraid that if you were to let go of him he’d be gone again forever.

“Faster, Bucky. Please.” You whimpered into his ear as you took his earlobe between your teeth and nibbled softly.

A low growl left his chest as he grabbed your hips and lifted you off the counter, moving slightly so that he could cage your body against the wall. You wrapped your legs firmly around his waist, locking them at the ankle. His thrusts became faster, deeper, and it was apparent he had gained his confidence back.

“You feel so fuckin’ good, baby. Just the way I remember.” He grunted as he dug his fingers harder into your hips.

His lips were on yours again, this time tears were starting to decorate the corners of your eyes. The pleasure, the regret, the passion, the guilt - every feeling was building up along with your orgasm. Bucky pulled away from the kiss to tap on your bottom lip with two of his fingers, which you greedily accepted into your mouth. Your tongue swirled around his digits until he pulled them out and used them to circle your clit. The added pleasure was almost too much to handle.

“C’mon, baby. Wanna cum with you. Can you do that for me, huh?” Bucky whimpered, his thrusts beginning to falter from the calculated snaps he was giving you before.

All you could do was nod your head quickly as the pressure steadily increased, bringing you to the brink of your second orgasm.

“I love you. I love you. I love you so fuckin’ much, oh my god.” Bucky grunted as the two of you reached your peak together.

You leaned forward to bite down on his shoulder and suppress the scream that left your mouth as pleasure erupted through your body. The two of you assisted each other through the high of your release and you felt your ass make contact with the cool countertop once more.

The only noise present in the space was your heavy breathing and a small dripping noise that came from the sink. Bucky’s final words before he came replayed in your head over and over again as you attempted to slow your breathing and bring yourself back down to earth. Your body shuttered slightly as Bucky slipped himself out of you. As you sat up, you noticed he was looking around the bathroom.

“Shit, sweets. I don’t think there’s anything I can use to help clean you up.” He sighed and turned to meet your gaze that was locked upon him.

“It’s fine, Buck. Not a big deal.”

Bucky bent over and helped you pull your panties back on before he redressed himself. Neither of you spoke for what felt like eternity.

“I-...” You muttered finally, “I love you too, Buck. I thought I was over you, I thought I moved on but...I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop loving you no matter how hard I try.”

Bucky reached out to stroke your cheek with the back of his hand as he listened to you lament to him. His eyes were soft and caring and you could almost swear he was looking into the depths of your soul.

“I think —“

Your conversation was cut short by the sound of knocking at the bathroom door.

“Hey, are you okay in there? Do you need anything?” Mike’s voice had your entire body flooded with the shame of your infidelity. In one swift movement, you were on the floor and turning the sink on to make it appear you were just washing your hands.

“Y-yeah I’m fine! Just finishing up! I’ll find you out there in a minute!” You squeaked.

Mike seemed to pause for a moment before you heard his footsteps retreat from the bathroom door. A wave of relief washed over you, but it was only temporary. As soon as you were relaxed the gravity of the situation you were in was clouding you once more.

“I have to go. I can’t give him any reason to think he needs to come in here.” Bucky nodded, eyes not leaving yours as you spoke while collecting yourself, “but we need to..we should..we have to address this. Later.”

“I agree.”

“Our flight leaves tomorrow night. I’ll...see what I can come up with as far as an excuse. Then we can put this to bed for good.”

“Absolutely, sweets.”

The nickname made your knees buckle once more as you sighed.

“Goodbye, James.”

You finally tore your eyes from his as you unlocked the door and slipped out of the bathroom. In reality, however, you knew this really wasn’t goodbye. Not even close.

[clanwarrior-tumbly]

Could I request something where Girlfriend and the reader want to introduce their families to each other, but the reader comes from a family of angels? Thank you in advance!

“So uh..Cherry?”

“Yeah?”

“You know how you said you wanted my family to meet yours? Well..I-I’m not sure if it’s a good idea.”

“Why not? If you’re worried about them because they’re demons, don’t be! I’m sure your family will-”

“They're angels."

"....and?"

"Angels and demons have hated each other since the beginning of time."

“.....ohhhhh.”

Once the brunette came to the realization, she nervously smiled at you, resting her chin on her hand. “Ahaha..I-I completely forgot about that. But I don’t wanna cancel our meeting plans on a whim so...I guess we’ll have to make sure they don’t kill each other?”

“Sounds like it.” You sighed, shaking your head.

Unfortunately, like Charlotte, many people were oblivious to the fact you were the child of supernatural creatures--appearing almost perfectly human in appearance.

Your angel family was also notorious for singing, though they performed sweet love songs--a stark contrast to your friend's rock-loving demonic parents.

But it wasn't their different taste in music that you were concerned about. That was by far the least of your worries.

“I’m sure we won’t have to worry too much.” She tried to reassure you, despite her wavering tone betraying her. “I mean..that silly grudge between the two is super old. I don’t think they can still be that petty.”

You wanted to tell her “you’d be surprised”, but you just held your tongue and decided to part ways with her, getting ready to introduce your family to hers later tonight.

All you could do was hope and pray things would go semi-okay.

.........

“So..you’re the guardians of [y/n]?”

“Well, it’s nice to finally meet you both.”

Luis and Monica both held grimaces on their faces, forcing smiles as they gazed at the two angels who stood by your side.

Compared to the demons’ purple skin, black eyes, and dark clothes--your parents had silver metallic-like skin, halos, multiple bright blue eyes, and white clothing that made them look quite ethereal.

Neither you nor Cherry wanted to get involved should anything disastrous happen, so you were excused and went to the kitchen. While your parents talked, you both split a cherry Dr. Pepper, listening in on the conversation in the next room over.

So far there hasn't been any indication of hostility between either party, though you heard your parents question hers:

"Are you sure your daughter is a demon? Or did you just-"

"No," Luis grunted. "We did not kidnap some random human child. She is a demon who...prefers a human appearance."

"And we don't judge her for it." Monica chimed in. "She has horns but insists on growing her hair out to hide them. What can I say? She takes after her mother well." She chuckled.

Your parents joined in on the laughter, which made your minds more at ease. But the conversation had you turn to Charlotte in curiosity. "You actually have horns? That's cool."

"Oh..um..yeah! I sometimes forget I do." With a soft giggle, she ran her fingers through her hair, feeling the tips of her horns. I'll have to get a haircut or..I can always wait for them to grow. Whatever happens first, I guess."

"How long will they get?"

"It depends on strong my powers get..and they're not very strong right now."

"Oh same, but with our halos." You said in hopes of sympathizing with her. "Mine's so hazy you can't see it yet."

Even though you both feared that the meeting would end horribly, it actually went better than expected. Your parents managed to push aside the millennia-old grudge between them and accept each other.

There's no better feeling than the relief that you could still see your best friend.

[bhcangels]

sunsets and selflove - fluff

Dom’s POV

I stumbled through the front door of our apartment, closing the door after wrestling my keys out of the lock. I chucked my bag down by the door, kicking off my shoes, and proceeding to walk through the flat in a search for her. All I could focus on was the silence floating through our home as I failed to find her in any of the rooms. Looking around, I smiled upon the realisation of where she was, picking up a thick blanket and my keys, heading out the door and up the stairs to the rooftop. I took the stairs two at a time until I reached the top, pushing my body against the heavy metal fire door and stepping out into the cooling summer air. She turned her head to greet me, offering me a small smile.

“Hey darlin’,” I smiled, walking closer and taking a seat beside her in the middle of the blankets and cushions she had surrounding her.

“Hey,” she replied, her voice soft as she leaned towards me.

I settled with my back against the wall, throwing the blanket over my legs as she leant her head against my chest, cuddling the side of her body against mine with one arm over my torso.

“How was your day?” I asked, placing a soft kiss on the top of her head as I awaited her answer.

“Not the best, I tried to get my assignments done but I couldn't concentrate to save my life,” she grumbled, wrapping her arm around me tighter.  

“I know what that’s like,” I grinned, a chuckle escaping my lips as she joined in with a small giggle, “and besides, you don't have to be so hard on yourself, so what you didn’t get much done today, sometimes the most productive thing you can do is breathe, and that's okay, we all need a break sometimes,” I ran my middle finger up and down her spine as I comforted her.

“But you never take a break, you seem to just be able to get everything done that you need to and more, it's not fair,” she pouted, nestling her head into my chest as she spoke.

“Yeah, that's just good old ADHD and Dr Pepper,” I laughed as she lifted her head and giggled at me, her nose scrunching up as she did. After a moment she rested her head back on my chest and exhaled deeply.  

She broke the silence, her voice coming out  small, “I just start to feel useless after a while, I guess, when I haven’t gotten anything done and I feel like I’m drowning in my own head,” she paused, and I could hear the hesitation in her voice before she asked, “do you ever feel like that?” her voice coming out quieter than before.

“Yeah…” I paused to arrange my thoughts that seem to come all at once, “I think as humans, we all have those days, we get too deep inside our own heads and after a while it feels like there’s no way out,” I spoke softly, reassuring her as I continued to stroke up and down her back. She sat up slowly, shifting her body to sit next to me, leaning her body against the wall behind us as she gazed out at the fiery sky with the sun setting lower.

She opened her mouth to say something, but decided against it, and so there we sat, in a dead silence. It wasn’t an awkward silence, or uncomfortable, we were both swimming around in our own thoughts, trying to make sense of the world in our own ways before sharing these ideas with each other. She wasn’t looking at me, but I knew she could feel my gaze on her. She was staring off to the sun, slowly descending over the skyline of buildings in the distance, and I couldn’t help myself but think of how breathtaking she looked; the way the orange glow of what was left of daylight would catch right on the tops of her cheekbones, highlighting her freckles (one of my favourite features of hers), her honey-blonde hair seemingly glowing in the warmth of the setting-suns rays.

“Why don’t you love yourself?” My loud thoughts pierced the silence between us.

She didn’t even turn her head to look at me, as she took a deep breath in, she responded “What is there to love? I’m just shattered pieces of the girl I used to be,”

I know she didn’t expect a response but I gave her one anyway.

“You’re not broken, I don't believe that for a second,” I shook my head, turning my gaze away from her to admire the mesmerising view of the sunset.

“You don’t know that, Dom. You don’t know how messed up I am inside,” she argued, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Who let you believe that what other people think of you defines your worth?” I asked, intending it to be more of a question for her to ponder rather than an accusation, but I don't think it came out that way.

“I think we both know the answer to that.” she bit back sharply, taking a moment to close her eyes and release a breath I didn’t notice she was holding.

“Your mother?” I ask, although she was right, once I’d already asked the question, I realised I knew the answer.

“She taught me that I should always present myself to company confidently and to be perfect; ‘don’t let them find any flaws and they’ll believe you don’t have any’,” she spoke in a tone I’m sure would make her mother red in the face if she heard the imitation of her voice. The thought made me smile.

‘You know what, fuck that!” My statement came out louder and bolder than intended but that didn’t stop the smile beginning to spread across her face, “you’ve got to wake up every morning and make yourself a nice cuppa while you sit in the bay window of our apartment and listen to the birds singing as the sun rises, you’ve got to come home from a long day of classes and relax in the soothing burn from the shower against your skin, you’ve got to buy those bright yellow boots you loved and wear them with that stripey jumper of mine that you love just because it brings a smile to your face, and then you can wash it in that god-awful lemon shit that I hate but you still love, just because you want to,” I paused, laughing loudly as I shook my head, standing up in front of her, “ you’ve got to go to all of the art shows and film festivals and music shows and museums your heart desires, you’ve got to tell that girl on the train that you love her green hair and tattoos, and you’ve got to strike up a conversation with the person on the train that’s reading your favourite book. You have to do all of these things that make you happy and bring back life to yourself, because if you don’t then nobody else is going to do it for you.” I was standing in front of her now, jumping and waving my hands around as I spoke. She opened her mouth to speak but I continued, “I’m not finished. “You,” I pointed at her, “need to stop taking everything so fucking personally because in 10 years from now none of these things you’re stressing over are gonna matter. You’ve got to stop asking everyone for their opinions. Just fuck it! You’ve got to love yourself.” I stared at her, the biggest smile on her face that I’d seen in a long time, it was until now that I realised how down she’d been lately. She was grinning and shaking her head all at once, looking up to face me as the smile slightly slipped, she tried to catch it, but I saw her falter. “Tell me what’s going on in that pretty head of yours,” I spoke significantly quieter, contrasting to my passionate rant just moments ago. I took my seat beside her again, reaching over to take her hand in mine.

She looked at me, her eyes meeting mine, and she shuffled in her place, before moving to rest her head in my lap. I gave her a few moments to collect her thoughts, on the rooftop with her head in my lap as I played with her hair, a comfortable silence on repeat in the background as I waited for her to share the ongoings of the inside of her head with me.

“It gets a bit loud in my head sometimes…it’s been happening a lot more since you’ve been gone”. She trailed off as she spoke, referring to me being on tour.

“And what do you do when it gets too loud? How do you self medicate?” I asked her quietly, threading my fingers gently through her golden locks.

“Well I usually come out here, I bring my blanket with me and I lay on my back and look up to the sky, and I count the stars, I stare at the moon, and I think,” she confessed.

“Isn’t thinking what usually causes the loudness in your head” I know her too well.

“Well, yes,”  she hesitated, “but instead of my problems I think about things like what if I lived on the moon, or what if I woke up one day and all of this was just one big dream, or what if I woke up as a penguin?”

“You and your endless ‘what ifs’, really, a penguin?” I laughed slightly, raising a brow and her strange imagination, “and what do you mean, if everything was one big dream?” I questioned her further.

“Okay, maybe not if it was a dream, but what if, I don’t know, say, the butterfly effect was real, and it happened in our world, and things as we knew it weren’t the same or they never happened in the first place,”

“That’s an interesting theory,” I thought aloud, “but I thought you believed in fate?” I challenged, as well as I knew her, the inside of her head was still a massive puzzle to me, with no right answer. I think it was the same to her.

“Just because I believe in something doesn’t mean I can’t ponder other propositions,” she tested.

I get that,” I spoke softly, causing her to giggle, “Do you ever come out here and think about me?”

“Now, how would I manage to fit you into my tight speculation schedule when I have to consider what it would be like to live on the moon, or the first thing that I would do in my new life as a penguin?” She giggled playfully, turning her head to smile up at me.

“You cheeky fuck!” I exclaimed, a grin spreading across my face as she giggled, a real laugh this time. “I’m sure you can make some time for me,” I grinned back.

“We’ll see about that,” she paused, returning her head to press against my lap before she continued, “sometimes, when I think about you, I can’t stop and then you’re on my mind for days at a time. I’ve never felt like this before, I’ve never felt so all-consumed by my own feelings, and I’m scared,” she confessed, as I once again placed my hands in her soft hair.

We sat in our comfortable silence again, our bodies close together surrounded by blankets, keeping us warm as the sun adventured beyond the horizon; I continued playing with her hair.

“Would you do me a favour?” I glanced down at her as she spoke softly, with a frown across her beautiful face.

“Anything,” I replied simply.

“Would you make sure the moon knows my name?” she asked with tears returning to her eyes.

“Of course I can, baby, I’ll shout your name from the rooftops, or even visit the moon just to tell it myself,” I spoke with confidence. No matter what I had to do to make her happy, you can rest-assured that I would do it.

[igniting-quill]

korest (south korea x estonia)

Finding Solid Ground

Magical AU, early 1900s

Ship: Korest (South Korea x Estonia)

AN: 

If I was a better writer (and more efficient one) I swear I could have completed this. It started as a 1K, grew to 4K, and is still incomplete! Such a frustrating thing writing is. 

I am a college student taking difficult courses this semester, and to be honest a little burnt out from working on this… so unfortunately this WIP has been put on indefinite hiatus (don’t fret! I have ‘finished’ it with an ending, albeit a kind of bittersweet one. However, most of this piece has not been written and/or edited yet). For now, the story has multiple flaws: weak research, a lack of continuity, and a lack of meaningful scenes: it’s a first draft. However, I still think there’s lots of good parts in it too, plus I feel like I should respond to an ask that is like 5 months old by this point. I have peppered in Author’s Notes to supplement some of those weaknesses. The further into the piece, the more frequent AN’s will pop up. All AN’s will be inside “<” and “>” like <this>. It’s a tad cringey and reminiscent of early 2000s fic, but it’ll have to do. Anon and anyone else reading this, feel free to take what I wrote and continue it. Parts of the good in this that can get salvaged? I think it’s a rather interesting AU, and would be honored if people expanded on it. Just please make sure to credit me. 

I didn’t have great world building in my writing, so this is a brief introduction. The setting? Middle of nowhere Korea, early 1900s. I have blended elements of history and fantasy. The “magic” here can either be inherent (like magical powers people are born with) or learned (Like in Harry Potter where the people have to learn spells to actually do anything as a wizard/witch). Additionally, sort of like a hunger bar in Minecraft, “magic” can run out when the magic user is tired/famished/overusing spells. There are only a few people in this AU that have magical power. Think of it as I made the Hetalia cast have magic in place of their immortality.

TL;DR: Anon, I spent a whole lot of time on this to no avail. I think I ship Korest now though.

---

The first thing Eduard saw was a night sky. Moonlight streamed through soft clouds and stars peaked behind gaps. Beautiful.

But then, a cold wind whooshed past his ears and bit into his skin. He glanced down. Then, his eyes widened in shock. The trees looked like tiny, snow-covered bushes from up here. 

Teleport!

Nothing happened. Shoot. Why did his powers have to fail him now?

He flailed, his arms grasping at thin air as he plunged toward the earth and braced for impact.

“AGH!”

His right shoulder lit up in pain as it crashed into a branch. Crack. He hung there for a second, the branch swaying dangerously before it fell away from the trunk, dropping him lower. 

“Oof! Gah! Eouh! Tss!”

He was out of breath by the time he landed on the frost-sprinkled forest floor. He was dazed, soaking in what just happened. The leaves and snow softened the blow of the fall, but his shoulder still stung. It didn’t help that a bit of his blood was trickling out in the snow. His head throbbed dully. He propped himself up with his arms and his glasses fell off his face. 

Now the world was a blur, including the glasses themselves. He narrowed his eyes and brought the glasses up closer to his face. They were broken along the bridge, split into two halves. He brought the right lens closer. The glass had a crooked vertical gash running through it, ending with a broken rim. He picked them off the snowy ground and placed the pieces into his pocket. Slowly, gingerly, he stood up. He hobbled over to a tree and leaned against it. 

“Hello?” a voice asked in the distance. Eduard blinked, trying to keep his eyes open. He shifted his head to look toward the sound, but all he saw was a blurry forest and a faint glow far away. 

The last thing he remembered was the world turning to black.

---

Eduard drowsily opened his eyes to see a small room. He was in a bed with a thick comforter. It was dark, the windows showed a navy blue night outside. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see a stranger walking over with a lit light source, eerily warm for being so small. That’s all Eduard could tell without his glasses. He touched his pocket, relief pouring in when he felt his eyewear. But he still felt tense. One thing was certain: this was an unfamiliar place, he had to get out of here. He tried to muster the energy to teleport, but his body stayed firmly in bed. His magic still wasn’t working it seemed.

“You’re awake.” The man noted, walking over to him.

“Who are you? Where am I?”

“I’m Yong Soo.” The other man said. Eduard narrowed his eyes, trying to make out Yong Soo’s facial features. But it was still too blurry. “I found you passed out on the forest floor and thought to bring you home. But first, no weapons please. Empty your pockets.”

Yong Soo respected him enough not to ruffle through his things. Not that Eduard had anything to defend himself with anyways. Reluctantly, he decided to take out his broken glasses. The man took them and examined the pieces.

“You better not take my glasses for long.” The threat sounded empty, even to Eduard himself, but it felt better than nothing. Being in an unfamiliar place with his blurry vision was putting him on edge.

“Don’t worry about them,” Yong Soo flippantly responded. “Now, my turn: how did you end up in this forest in the middle of nowhere?”

That question stilled him. Eduard wondered how to logically explain falling out of the sky without the use of magic.

“I… don’t know. I didn’t mean to land here. And you still haven’t told me where I am.” 

Yong Soo gently placed his lantern on a nearby table. “We are kind of a new country. I do not know if you know about us, Mr. Sorcerer.”

“Sorcerer?”

“Magic user.” Yong Soo recited an incomprehensible (at least to Eduard) verse and waved his hand. The lantern slowly got brighter.

Eduard sucked in a gasp: that move was powerful. All he knew was transportation spells.

“I’m pretty sure it’s my fault you ended up here.” Yong Soo gestured with his hands, trying to describe his thoughts. “A sprinkle of magic and a bit of boredom, and… poof you’re here now. The spell I used attracts other ‘magic users’ like you and me. I was trying to get my brother, but looks like I can’t get to him for some reason” He sighed, as if he had something more to say but didn’t have the words. “Anyways, I am sorry for barging into your life. Hope that this somewhat makes up for your fall.”

Yong Soo grabbed ahold of Eduard’s hand. Lightly, he nudged Eduard’s fingers so that the palm of his hand would face up. With a flick of the wrist, he produced fully fixed glasses and laid them between Eduard’s thumb and pointer finger. 

“Woah...” Eduard whispered in disbelief, examining Yong Soo’s work. There were spells of all kinds, but he never saw one that ever smoothly put objects back together like this. He put his glasses on and looked at Yong Soo. His blurry vision became sharp. 

The clothes Yong Soo was wearing were so different from the stuff back home. Eduard didn’t have the vocabulary to describe them. He wore something akin to a dress, and the waistline was high, right under the chest. The top of the outfit had long sleeves that were wide, hanging down instead of staying tight around the wrist. He also held a thick book in one hand, part of it hidden under the sleeves.

The light from his lantern lit him up so that his pale beige skin contrasted with the darkness of the room. Dark brown eyes and ink black hair, a flyaway curl sticking out the side. An Eastern Asian man. There was a happy smirk on his face, one that triumphantly proclaimed that he succeeded in fixing the glasses.

“Just a simple little time reversal spell” He tapped on the edge of the frames for emphasis, and Eduard pushed his glasses back up with a huff. “Keep those safe, they’re expensive.”

“Now could you please tell me where on Earth I am? I know I’m not at home.”

“Korea. A bit ago we were Joseon. Now, what’s your name traveler?”

“Eduard.” he paused, trying to grasp everything that was happening. First things first: “How long has it been since I got knocked out?” 

“A few days.”

“Shoot.” Eduard sat up and got out from the covers, ignoring the sting from his right shoulder. “I’ve got to go. Back. You know. Before I got transported to this place.” He tried to muster up the energy to teleport out, but, ever frustratingly, his body still didn’t budge.

“Well. How do you even begin doing that?”

“If I could just…” Eduard concentrated, envisioning his home, and pulling himself mentally closer. But nothing happened. Eduard inwardly groaned.

“Okay there?”

“You don’t understand.” Eduard grumbled, trying to avoid worsening his wounds as he shuffled back under the covers. “Before I teleported, I was writing up this article. I’m part of a team attempting to get an Estonian newspaper off the ground. And well, it’s important to me for my article through… that sounds odd but let me put it this way. Though it may sound simple, it could propel us to become our sovereign nation! Independence, that’s something that has been a rarity. And with all the Russification going on, it’s been rough going.”

<Above probably needs development, I don’t know much about this topic and did minimal research> 

Eduard paused. “Wait a second, how the hell are you speaking Estonian?”

“When I saw that you were European,” Yong Soo showcased the thick book he was holding, “I used up my resources. I searched up a spell that would break a language barrier. Unfortunately, due to my own lack of language skills, I wasn’t able to understand that deciphers written words unfortunately. Then it would be easier to read this damn thing”

Eduard looked toward Yong Soo’s spell book. He recognized the Latin letters, but not the language of the script. “Now where’d you get this from?”

“I got it from a... ” He hesitated, “An acquaintance. From out East, Japan. And he got it from a British guy. My acquaintance is not on good terms with magic, even if he was once enthralled by it, and so I bought it from him.” 

Eduard heard rumors of a strong British sorcery. The spell should be pretty good.

Yong Soo kept going. “It was a good choice too. I have translated some spells in here and they are the only things keeping me from going bonkers. I isolated myself in the middle-of-no-where after all. Turns out it’s good to have a companion, even if that companion is a book.”

Eduard looked at the spell book, intrigued. “Since I can’t go back home anyways, should I test to see how well your spell holds up?

“Aren’t you already doing so? With, um, Estonian, right?”

“Well, if I *speak Russian you’ll understand me?*”

Yong Soo nodded. “Your accent changed a bit though.” 

“And, *if I stretch it… do you understand some broken German?*”

“I do.”

“How about-”

“Hold on. How do you know so many languages?”

Eduard frowned a bit, pausing to understand what Yong Soo was asking. “I’m a polyglot.”

“Yeah, I just so happen to be a polyglot too. But I learned about other languages out of necessity. I used to have a life of splendor, politics, and drama.” He pointed out the window. “I took a break from that by moving to a place with more trees instead of people. Right here. Now, what… ‘normal’ man would be that talented? There has got to be a driving factor.” 

Would it hurt to tell this Korean man about his life? If Eduard teleported out of here as soon as he could, it couldn’t do damage. “I told you earlier, I work for a newspaper. Using language, even other languages too, are my thing. At the same time, polyglots aren’t rare back home. I guess that’s what I get for being born into a place that got bulldozed over by neighboring powers continuously. The place gets pretty bi and multilingual. Other languages get impressed onto us.”

“By… ‘Us?’ You mean, ‘Estonians?’ Of a country that doesn’t exist?” 

“Yes.” Eduard said it with finality.

The Korean man seemed to be mulling over the words, unease spreading over his expression. “I wonder...” Yong Soo stopped abruptly. He walked over to a makeshift kitchen area. “I wonder if you like pickled, spicy food.” He beckoned Eduard to come over too.

“Pickled, yes. Spicy, no. Plus, I told you I have to go back home somehow, even if it is too late.”

Yong Soo looked at Eduard with a knowing glint in his eye. “If you could teleport back now, you would have already.”

“You’re not wrong.” Eduard gestured towards Yong Soo’s hands. “But, you also have a spellbook in your hands. If you really wanted to help, you would have given me a magic boost. I would have been on the way.”

Yong Soo frowned. “I don’t even think there’s a spell for a magic boost. I could be wrong though. I got this book very recently and only a few spells have been translated.”

“That means?”

“Considering the fact that you being here is the combination of both my magic power and yours, it seems like the way back is if I incorporate my magic with yours once more. Unless you can teleport for long distances, you’ll have to stay here with me.”

Eduard felt his heart plunge. They were quiet after that statement. 

<AN: Eduard has a hard time dealing with this new reality that he has to stay in an unfamiliar place. I didn’t give enough breathing room to write his experience with that.>

Yong Soo pointed toward a dish on the table. “I’ve got some cabbage-based kimchi. I have been living on this stuff for months here in the middle of nowhere.”

Eduard walked over to the table, looking over the unfamiliar food. “What are... these?” He tapped on a small porcelain bowl filled with cooked white grains. Then he gestured to two evenly shaped straight sticks, each about the size of a rectangular-ish, thinner, flatter pen.

“A bowl of rice and chopsticks. Of course.” 

Eduard searched around. “You don’t have forks?”

Yong Soo looked up at Eduard and a tangible pause lingered in the air. “Ah. You don’t know how to use chopsticks, do you?”

Eduard crossed his arms. “Look, I appreciate this, but I can’t even eat the food you’re offering me.”

“Well,” Yong Soo took the chopsticks for himself, showcasing how they were used. “I could teach you.”

Eduard’s stomach growled, as if on cue. He sighed, grabbed the chopsticks, and looked up at Yong Soo. “Well then. I guess I’ll have to learn.”

“First of all, you're holding it wrong.” Yong Soo picked up his own pair and let Eduard see his hand. “You raise and lower the top chopstick. And then you can do this.” He grabbed a piece of the cabbage kimchi and lifted it over to his bowl of rice. 

Eduard fidgeted with his hand. He tried to ignore the feeling of embarrassment while trying to get a semblance of the position.

Yong Soo let go of his chopsticks and leaned forward. He guided Eduard’s hand to the right position. He backed up after he was satisfied. “Now try it. Move the chopstick above up and down.”

Eduard tried to focus on his shaky hands. He slowly nudged the chopstick up, but then the lower one clattered onto the table. Yong Soo smothered a giggle.

“Hey, hey now. I’m a beginner.”

“I know, I know.” Yong Soo smiled at Eduard and handed him the fallen chopstick. “Try again.”

Eduard eventually got the hang of the chopsticks. He tasted a bit of the food, gritting his teeth at the unfamiliar taste of kimchi.  

<AN: Yong Soo insisted it was a very common Korean staple, and concluded that Eduard just had a low spice tolerance for the red chili pepper.>

---

“You know what? I think I’ve rested for a couple of days, I should try a simple transportation trick. Transporting objects and people are my inherent abilities.”

“I say go for it.”

Eduard laid his chopsticks on the table and shook out his arms. Then, he closed his eyes and concentrated on the chopsticks, making sure to stay a bit away from them. “Come to me now…” 

The chopsticks vanished in a shower of sparkles. Eduard looked toward his hand expectantly. They didn’t appear. 

“Oof!”

A disgruntled Yong Soo pulled the chopsticks out of his hair. He handed them to Eduard. “They tumbled from the ceiling and ran into me.”

“Are you okay?” 

Yong Soo rubbed his head and then cracked up in laughter, “I don’t know about you, but I think you need to rest a bit more.” He tapped on the thick spellbook, “Maybe we can look through this together in the meantime.”

“Sounds fine by me.”

---

<AN: Brief continuity error below.>

“There’s something that’s been weighing on my mind Yong Soo. I normally travel short distances. How the hell will I get back home to Estonia?”

“You could make pit stops?”

“Not everyone is as hospitable as you, Yong Soo. Who knows what situation I could end up in.” He sighed, closing his eyes, taking off his glasses, and placing his head in his hand. “I've already been gone for awhile now. If I go back, I’ll get lost and be gone for good.”

Yong Soo looked up, at least that’s what Eduard could tell from his blurry vision, and stretched out his arms. “Well I am trying to work through this spell book to help you.”

“How are you translating it? Can you read English?”

“What do you mean?”

Eduard put his glasses back on and pointed at the spellbook. “The book’s in English, right? You said it was originally from a British sorcerer. I’m wondering if you can read it.”

“I can’t, not really well. But I did get my hands on this dictionary: English to Korean.” He lifted up a second, smaller book for Eduard to see. “I wrote a few notes for myself in the margins.” He pointed toward some notes on the sides. “English… is very different from what I know. Letters versus characters. It’s hard to decipher the text.” Yong Soo gave him a tired look, “You’re lucky, you know that? This dictionary was a really hard find. Without it you’d be stuck here with me until you walk to a port on foot and find a boat headed to Europe. The process is still extraordinarily slow, and I don’t know the vast majority of spells in here at all.” He looked back down to his book.

“Thank you for all this work you’re putting in for me. As a speaker of many European languages, maybe I could help?”

Yong Soo considered it and opened the spell book and the dictionary for Eduard to see. “Why not.”

<AN: they look over the spell book and determine which spells would be useful. This is a process that is tedious but rewarding.>

---

It was an abnormally warm winter night, so the two men decided to head outside and make a campfire. After all, it was brighter than a candlelit room with small windows. Out here, they had the stars and the moon too. Yong Soo clutched his spell book and wrote in the margins while Eduard semi-deciphered the word and matched it up in the dictionary. 

<AN: they get in a fight over something which gets somewhat physical, the dictionary (I was also considering the spell book?) slips into the campfire and burns up to a crisp. Imagine like a super comical, ‘keep the book up in the air like a volleyball’ shenanigans before it falls straight into the fire>

Eduard sat down, stunned. “I’ve solidified my own fate. I’m going to be stuck here forever. Shit.”

It was quiet except for the sound of a crackling fire. The two men started as the flames ate up the last of the pages.

“Maybe… maybe… how did you get that dictionary in the first place? What if we try that pathway again.”

Yong Soo mulled over the question before answering. “No that’s impossible. I got it through farway political connections.”

Eduard raised an eyebrow. “With a friend from Japan too?”

“Not friend. Acquaintance, and no it is not from him” He sighed and looked Eduard dead in the eye. “There’s no reason to hide the truth to you about it if we live in the middle of nowhere. Royalty: emperors and all. I used to work for them. Sort of. There’s a lot of things I can do with my inherent ability… I fixed your glasses with it. Mostly I fixed things there too: both physical and politically. In my free time I would make my own little inventions, tinkering with objects, and rewinding their physical state when I really messed up. But I was also a political advisor type. That’s where I really screwed up. Sadly my time spell doesn’t fix everything: it does not work well at all with organic matter for example. I left. I usually have some control over situations, with magic and all, but yet there I felt powerless. I feel like I ran away from it all.”

<AN: I wish I got more details as to what sort of role Yong Soo would play in an Emperor's palace. But I didn’t do my research and frankly don’t know what he would do.> 

<AN: This scene, where the two stare at this fire, is supposed to be a tender, shippable moment: people at their lowest bonding. Talk about YS’s background with Korean Royalty/government. YS’s fears are shown, he’s being vulnerable and talks a bit about his worries. Like Korea being smothered by its neighbors of China (Qing Empire) and Japan, at this point in history, leaning toward the latter. Eduard comforts him, and talks about his own life experience, like how Estonia doesn’t have that sweet sweet independence but it could come (ahem foreshadowing 1918). After the tender moment, with the power of teamwork, YS uses his time-manipulation-on-objects ability and Eduard uses his transportation ability to bring back the dictionary. The logistics behind it have something to do with the fire being extinguished, the ashes being clumped together, lots of back and forth, before they legit reverse a chemical reaction. They are tired out afterwards but satisfied dammit. >

---

<AN: There’s a scene in which they learn each other's languages. It’s cute, it’s quirky, and they bond. I’m in no place to implement this because I don’t know Korean or Estonian. A few more sessions of meeting up later, or maybe even in this section, they figure out a mix of spells that can get Eduard to go home.>

---

It was time.

The morning was quiet. Eduard looked out the window at the woods. The landscape was dusted with snowflakes. He wore his original clothes, no use of borrowing a hanbok now that he was heading back. Yong Soo joined him next to the window. He scooted closer till their shoulders touched. Despite how cold it was, Eduard felt warm.

“I can’t believe we did it.” He said, looking over to his Korean companion. “Thank you.”

“To think-” Yong Soo shifted, and Eduard turned to look. 

Yong Soo closed his eyes and leaned forward a tad, his bangs shifting to cover his face. 

“Okay there?”

“Yeah.” He sucked in a breath and composed himself. “Before you go…” He handed Eduard a piece of paper covered with beautiful strokes of black calligraphy.

“I haven’t learned these characters yet. What does it say?”

“My name. Three characters read from top to bottom.” He pointed to the very top. “Im,” to the middle, “Yong,” to the last, “Soo. 임.용.수.”

He pulled out another piece of paper for Eduard and a calligraphy pen. “Write your name down now.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want to forget you.”

He looked Yong Soo in the eye, forlorn dark brown irises glancing back. He felt a sob rise in his chest and pushed it down. 

Eduard broke eye contact, and signed his full name on the blank sheet of paper. He handed it to Yong Soo. 

“Hold my hand, will you?”

He spread his fingers across the palm of Eduard’s hand. Yong Soo’s sleeve covered up their touch, but Eduard could feel their fingers lacing together. A solid grasp, and Eduard felt fulfilled and broken all at once. When he went home, could he ever feel this intact again?

“I don’t think I could forget you if I wanted to.”

“Write to me?” Eduard smiled despite the regret that he felt, swirling in his body. “I still need to learn that Korean.”

Despite his sad expression, Yong Soo broke into a smile. “Definitely.”

“Thank you.”

“No, thank you.” Yong Soo let go of Eduard’s hand and stood back, flipping through the spell book in preparation. “In a time where I felt distant from the rest of the world, you were my solid ground.”

“I’ll miss you,” Eduard whispered. He closed his eyes.

Before teleporting away, Eduard heard a faint murmur in response. “I’ll miss you too.”

---

Footnotes:

“An acquaintance. From Japan. And he got it from a British guy. My acquaintance is not on good terms with magic, even if he was once enthralled by it, and so I bought it from him.” 

I have long strayed from the Hetalia canon, but this is influenced by those episodes where hws Japan couldn’t see the magic-spirit-types in the hot springs but hws England could.

“At the same time, polyglots aren’t rare back home.“

I have no idea if this is true, but I would think it would be. At least in modern times, it seems as if there's some sort of forced bilingualism that people from small countries that deal with. In this case, for an educated man like Eduard, I think knowledge of other languages (Russian for example) would be very helpful.

“I wonder if you like pickled, spicy food.” He beckoned Eduard to come over too./“Pickled, yes. Spicy, no.”

I was going to have this be a whole bit. About culture comparison and stuff! Turns out, as someone who is neither Estonian or Korean with very little motivation to read through a wiki page, I didn’t have enough content to implement my idea.

“But I was also a political advisor type. That’s where I really screwed up. Sadly my time spell doesn’t fix everything: it does not work well at all with organic matter for example. I left. I usually have some control over situations, with magic and all, but yet there I felt powerless.”

His mess up refers assassination of Queen Min aka Empress Myeingseong. I’m debating whether to keep this part in at all because it’s rather horrible to add things in with little research yet I keep doing it.

Thank you to @/alfredtalia for giving me insight into Yong Soo’s name. If your interested, here’s the link to the post.

There’s probably more that I could write here. I’m fine with discussing unanswered questions about this fic thru tumblr asks.

Thank you for reading this long long post!

[cagestark]

How about Peter, having had enough of Tony making fun of his short height (Tom is 1 inch shorter than RDJ), just coming to the Tower in high heels and Tony just short-circuiting

Sorry this took a minute! Thanks so much for the prompt

Peter is 18yo. 5k. Smut below. Ignores most canon. Pretty much all canon. Fuck that canon!

Read here on AO3. 

-

“Everybody scoot together. Come on now, act like you like each other. Please remember the rules, absolutely no bunny ears, no crude gestures, and no gang symbols are to be thrown. Am I using that right? Peter? Thrown? Okay—something isn’t right here.”

There is collective groaning as the original six Avengers—minus Dr. Banner who is on sabbatical halfway around the world, plus Bucky who can be trusted to go anywhere Captain Rogers goes, plus, well, Peter—let go of the breaths they’ve been holding and the smiles they’ve plastered on. At this point, Peter’s lips are wobbling from the strain of holding a pleasant expression. Captain Rogers, in one of his more sentimental moments, had insisted they take more photographs to document their time together before Peter went away to college, but no one had anticipated how difficult it might be.

“Who let the centennial man the camera?” whispers Mr. Stark into his ear. Warm breath fans across the younger man’s neck and Peter shivers, covering the reaction with a huff.

Never one to enjoy a laugh at someone else’s expense, Peter’s conscious demanded he stick up for Captain Rogers—though, the man had already accidentally taken the picture twice. “Come on Mr. Stark, he’s doing the best he can.”

“That’s what frightens me most.”

“Everybody, focus on me please! This would be a lot less painful if everyone could stand still for longer than it takes to blink. Now—wait—Peter I said shortest Avengers in the middle. No wonder we’re lopsided. Switch places with Tony to stand by Natasha, please?”

“With all due respect, I’m not the shortest, Captain,” Peter says helpfully. Because he isn’t. “That’s Mr. Stark.”

“Only one way to solve this,” Clint says, who has already used two previous opportunities to try to avoid taking the photograph altogether. He sprints away, leaping over a loveseat and disappearing down the hall. For a man who could be so stealthy, the sound his boots made on the floor was thunderous.

“Hate to break it to you, kid, but I’m taller,” says Mr. Stark. The older man draws himself up to his full height, and standing as close as they are (nearly chest to chest!), a tiny part of Peter wants to melt into a puddle. Except he’s been working on trying to appear more adult to Mr. Stark, which includes not wearing his character pajamas around the Tower anytime he spends the night, not creating edible volcanos out of his mashed potatoes and gravy at communal dinner times (even if Clint does it), and being one entire inch taller than Tony Stark.

So instead of melting, Peter pushes his own chest out until they look like two alpha birds posturing for dominance.

In the background, Natasha mutters: “This is like watching two penguins decide which will stand on the egg for the next month—“

“Miss Romanov, everyone knows that it’s the male Emperor Penguin who stands on the egg—“

“So you’re calling yourself the female penguin in this National Geographic love story scenario?” Mr. Stark asks, grinning. He breaks away and leans against the counter of the marble island. His face is warm, crow’s feet and laugh lines blooming in his mirth, and Peter’s stomach suddenly feels so full of butterflies that he can’t even open his mouth for the fear that they’ll all come fluttering out.

“If anything,” Bucky mutters to Captain Rogers behind them. “Peter’s the egg.”

Clint bursts back into the room. In his hand is a tape measurer, a metal, industrial looking thing more likely to be found on a construction site than in Stark Tower. “Alright gentlemen. Stand up straight, shoes off. We’ll settle this here and now.”

Peter nudges off his shoes, laughing. Mr. Stark does the same with his expensive dress shoes. Beneath the polished leather, he is wearing posh, brightly colored socks—Calvin Klein. Nice. Cute. God, even Mr. Stark’s feet are cute. Peter is so, so fucked.

They measure the older man first, the group crowding around, debating on whether the fluff of hair should be discounted.

“Tony—sixty-nine inches. Nice.”

Mr. Stark wiggles his eyebrows behind his tinted glasses. Peter’s face burns at the implication and all eyes turn to him while Clint runs the tape measurer from his heels up his spine to the crown of his head. Everyone holds their breath. Or maybe that’s just him. “Peter—sixty-eight.”

“What?” Peter cries. Mr. Stark bows, blow kisses while a few other Avengers applaud as if he’s done something extraordinary in that two-and-a-half-centimeters alone. Peter could have sworn he was taller, even just infinitesimally. He frowns, nudging his feet back into his sneakers and not bothering to tie the laces. So what if he’s pouting? The way Mr. Stark ruffles his hair, like Peter is a whole foot shorter and only ten years old, is downright counterproductive to his image!

“Now that that’s settled,” Captain Rogers says. “Can we get everyone in their spots please? Their proper spots.”

Begrudgingly, Peter switches with Mr. Stark to stand beside Natasha, who squeezes his shoulder, conciliatory.

“It’s okay, kid,” Mr. Stark says in his ear again, voice a warm vibration. “You’ve still got years of growing left, no doubt. All I have left to look forward to is growing in reverse. That’s shrinking, by the way.”

“Yeah, thanks Mr. Stark,” mutters Peter.

Captain Rogers calls their attention from behind the camera. “Okay, it’s all set. 8 seconds people! Say cheese—“ before dashing off to his spot at the end of the line.

Everyone makes last moment adjustments as the camera’s automated feature counts down. Peter shoves his hands into his pockets, tries to look happy. And then Mr. Stark’s hand comes up to press against Peter’s lower back as everyone shifts closer together. His breath stutters, feeling the warmth through his clothes, in the flush of his cheeks, and in several other even more embarrassing places.

“Cheese,” Peter breathes.

-

“You look like a lobster.”

Peter rips the photo out of Ned’s hands, face burning nearly as badly as it was in the photograph. One glance down proves that Ned—while not tactful—is certainly not wrong. Peter looks like he’s suffering from a terrible sunburn. It’s a direct contrast to how Mr. Stark looks next to him, regal, suit immaculate, glasses tinted to hide the squinting of his smiling eyes. He presses the picture in between pages of a textbook on his desk and slams it shut, willing it out of existence.

But not totally out of existence. Because God Mr. Stark looked so good.

“Besides Natasha, I’m the shortest Avenger,” Peter says, slumping into his desk chair. He picks up a sleek, metal ballpoint pen to click anxiously.  “How dorky is that?”

“You’re taller than I am,” Ned offers.

“Not taller than me,” MJ mutters, tapping away on her phone.

“I wouldn’t care about any of it except—I don’t know. I always thought I was taller than Mr. Stark.”

“Your height is cute, Peter,” says MJ, as if this is the most banal concern he’s ever expressed. “It’s endearing. You’re like a damsel in distress, so tiny and helpless—“

Peter takes the metal pen between his hands and bends it in half, tossing the pieces at her. “Damsel in distress?”

MJ brushes the pen to the floor, unimpressed. “Stark can do that too.”

“Not with his bare hands!” Ned chimes in. Peter beams at him. Ned is always in his corner—and together, they almost have enough neurons to keep up with MJ’s scathing repertoire. Almost.

Still: “This—none of this is the point, though,” says Peter. “I just need a quick way to grow three inches. Overnight preferably.”

“There are some sketchy surgeries I’ve heard of,” Ned suggests. Peter winces. Thanks, but no thanks.

“Just wear lifts, Peter. Stark does it all the time, how else do you think he comes close to being taller than Pepper Potts?”

Peter frowns. “Lifts?”

“Or heels.”

“Like—shoes for women?”

MJ finally looks up from her phone. Her expression is both disappointed yet unsurprised—bland but scathing, her curls a wild mane around her sharp features. “Shoes are for feet. You have feet. Not to mention, heels are a big turn-on for most men. And the confidence they can give? Wild. You’re missing out.”

“Heels are a turn on when Pepper Potts wears them. Besides, I doubt manufacturer’s even make them in my size—”

“Yeah, because your size nine feet are unheard of,” snarks MJ. She kicks off her stylish flats and nudges them across the room. “Try those. We’re the same size.”

Peter slips his feet into them and—okay. Not bad. They feel like they’re liable to fall off any moment but there are no laces to press into the top of his feet all day until they’re aching. And he has very nice ankles. He’s always thought so.

But what would Mr. Stark think? This whole gap year between graduating high school and going away to MIT was supposed to be spent finally making a definitive move on the man he’s been pining after since he was old enough to pine. So far, his progress has been lackluster. And by lackluster, he means non-existent. What was it that MJ said heels gave her? Confidence?

He could use some of that.

“What’s the verdict, Pete?” Ned asks.

Peter clears his throat. “MJ. Do you, by any chance, own any heels?”

-

“Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” Peter mutters with every step. “Jesus, Mary, Joseph—”

“They aren’t that bad,” MJ says. She’s smirking, and definitely is angling her phone too far towards Peter for it to be innocuous. If she’s filming or taking pictures, so help him God— “I’m actually a little jealous right now. Who knew your legs were so long, Parker.”

The heels are modest by the standards of MJ’s collection: two-and-a-half-inches, black. There’s a strap that goes around his ankle though it’s hidden by the hem of his skinny jeans, but it’s digging into the bone a little too much to be comfortable. The arches of his feet already ache, and he’s using muscles in his calves and shins that he didn’t even use when slinging webs thirty stories above the city. Not to mention, the heels themselves were so, so pointy.

“Cosmo said that wedges are easier to walk in, we should have picked some of those,” Peter mutters. They’re in Peter’s makeshift bedroom at Stark Tower. He doesn’t use it often, even though he’d certainly like to make use of the bed more than he does now—or Mr. Stark’s bed, if he’s being completely forthright.

“Wedges aren’t as sexy. You look hot,” MJ says. She slaps his ass, laughing when he yelps. “Please make sure you take a mental picture of the look on Stark’s face, okay? He’s going to flip his shit.”

“You think?” Ned asks from where he’s lounging on the bed.

“Yeah—do you really think so?” Peter’s fingers toy with the hem of his shirt, turning this way and that way in the lengthy mirror to see himself from every angle.

“Have I ever been wrong? Go get him, Parker.” She hauls Ned up off the bed. “Text us the details!”

-

By the time Peter makes it down to the lab, his stomach is in knots. He pauses just outside the elevator to breathe, wondering if he’s going to be sick. The only solace is knowing that Mr. Stark—Tony, for this, for now, let him be Tony—is alone in his lab. Most of the other Avengers don’t even have the clearance to come down to this level.

“Come on, Parker,” he mutters to himself, shifting in the heels. They’re pinching his toes, a little. “You’re Spider-man! Spider-man! You’ve fought actual real-life villains. This is cake. Absolutely cake. Okay. Okay. Let’s go—back upstairs—”

“Peter.” FRIDAY’s voice overhead nearly sends him stumbling to the ground.

“Yes?” He croaks.

“Boss is wondering if you’re going to come in or spend the rest of the evening in the hallway.”

Peter clears his throat. “Let him—tell him I’m coming.”

The lab still takes his breath away—the gleaming glass, the glowing holograms, the glistening metal. This is where magic happens. Tony is in the center of it, sitting on the floor, surrounded by papers, floating diagrams, and two different cups of coffee at various volumes. The older man is no longer in the suit he was wearing this morning for the picture. Instead, he’s wearing a rumpled t-shirt—who the hell the Raconteurs are, Peter has no idea—and blue jeans that fit tight around his thighs. His hair is mussed, and Peter has spent more than one fantasy wondering how it would feel under his fingers.

“Hey, kid,” Tony mutters around a pencil in his mouth. He reaches out to flick at one glowing hologram and it spins away. “What can I do for you?”

“Just came to—uh—see if you had plans—for dinner.”

Peter didn’t think he would make it this far. His palms are sweating, even as he wipes them on his jeans. What the fuck is he doing here? Wearing a pair of high heels? He’s a fool, the biggest, most naïve idiot. After this, he’ll never be able to show his face to Tony or the other Avengers again, he’ll probably have to flee the country, maybe change his name—

“I do now. How’s pizza sound? I just need to finish up some work here and then we can order in. I’m feeling like a homebody tonight.”

Peter’s heart soars. Suddenly he’s flying—forget fleeing the country, he’s going to move into Stark Tower permanently, probably never leave the older man’s side unless it’s to patrol or see his friends and aunt, hopefully become a permanent fixture in Tony’s bed and heart—“I’m pretty sure when you’re rich Mr. Stark, they just call homebodies recluses.”

Tony laughs. “Better than a hermit. Come help me up, kid, my knees are killing me.”

He only makes it one step. He stumbles—his enhanced sense try to save him, but he’s not used to the added height or obstacle of walking on his toes like this. He overcompensates, and then he is biting the dust, sprawled on his ass, tailbone aching as fiercely as his feet.

“Peter—” suddenly the older man’s knees are fine, downright impressive considering the speed with which is rises and crosses the room. Standing over Peter, he casts an impressive shadow, warm eyes washing over him from his hair all the way down to—Tony’s eyes widen. They literally widen, and Peter feels like if he were any less skilled with his poker face, he might have gasped like one of those ladies in the Victorian days, always swooning from scandals. He recovers quickly, reaching down to help him up.

Peter doesn’t need help though—now that he’s taken a spill, it’s like his body has acclimated. He bounces up with surprising grace, wincing at the throbbing in his ass even as it fades.

“Are you okay?” Tony asks carefully.

They are face to face, close enough that he can smell the older man’s body wash—and Peter has to look down, just ever so slightly, to look Tony in the eyes. Tony has an incredible set of eyes—the color of mahogany, framed with perfect dark lashes. They have the same effect on Peter as a knee to the gut might, stealing his breath. Jesus, this much eye contact can’t be healthy. It’s making him hard even, and Peter doesn’t know whether that is a feat or a failure. His throat is dry, so he swallows. “I’m fine. Great! So. Pizza?”

“Kid.”

“Personally, I’m feeling pepperoni.”

“Pete.”

“It’s an American classic.”

“Peter.” Tony clears his throat. He waves a hand towards Peter’s legs. “What’s this?”

“What’s what?”

“That—is not proper footgear to be in a lab—”

Supporting most of the smaller man’s weight, though Peter is fine Mr. Stark, really! Tony helps him cross the room and settles him onto a rolling chair. Peter’s embarrassment wars with his total dejection; it figures that his last hope at impressing Tony or coming across as anything other than a barely-post-pubescent teenager was a bust. Literally. Tears fill his eyes but he blinks them away.

“Peter—are you alright? Did you hurt yourself?”

“Just my pride,” Peter mutters.

Tony snorts softly. He stalks away to stand with a hip cocked against one of the metal tables. There, he takes his time and leisurely looks Peter over again, eyes catching and failing to pull away from the delicate heels on Peter’s feet. He licks his lips, and even as Peter’s breath catches, he explains it away. Chapped lips. Duh. The air down in the lab is very dry—

“So, what’s the deal, kid? Did you lose a bet?”

That just makes it so, so much worse. Peter crosses his legs, trying to shrink in on himself. Tony’s eyes track the movement, center on the flash of the delicate clasp around his ankle. Sniffing wetly, he picks at a loose thread on the side seam of his jeans and smiles weakly. “More like, I got some poor advice.”

“They look—good.”

Tony’s voice—the tone, like he’s trying to say something without saying it—makes Peter look up. If he was worried at all what he looked like, he needn’t be: Tony is staring at his shoes, head tilted like it’s an equation he’s trying to solve, or like he’s a patron at an art gallery looking at a particularly interesting Magritte painting.

“They do?” He asks. Peter isn’t above fishing for compliments, especially from this man, this incredible idol who could probably make Peter’s heart sing (and his dick harden) with half a glance and a kind word. “They don’t look—stupid? On me.”

“I was alive in the 70’s and 80’s kid. Heels were a thing. Hell, Bowie did it—I had the biggest crush on him when I was young.”

Peter perks up. Everyone knows that Tony doesn’t care about gender in his partners, but it’s rare for him to bring it up so casually in conversation like this. Every piece of information he learns about Tony is so fucking endearing, his heart aches in his chest. Quickly, he does the math in his head. “Really? A crush on Bowie? But—well. He was so much. You know. Older.”

Tony turns away. He bends to retrieve the pencil he dropped after Peter’s fall. “Yeah. Well I was seven. Age was just a number.”

“Is just a number.”

Tony hums, scribbling something down before tucking the pencil behind his ear. “It’s—the perspective is a bit different from the other side of thirty, kid. Take my word for it.”

“I’m eighteen,” Peter mutters. “Quit calling me kid.”

“What should I call you? Short stuff?”

This isn’t working, Peter thinks. Nothing will work, because this whole endeavor is just a fool’s errand. Nothing will ever change.

Peter can’t help it—he bursts into tears. Tony doesn’t notice right away, because Peter is a pretty silent crier, elbows planted on his knees, face in his palms, shoulders shaking. The silence must go on too long, because then Tony is crouched in front of him on his haunches, warm fingers wrapping around his wrist to carefully pull them from his face.

“Hey—hey, hey. What’s wrong, Pete? What hurts?”

“This—!” Peter says, tilting his head to wipe his damp cheeks on his shoulder. “You—not taking me seriously!”

“I take you seriously—I take you very seriously.”

“You don’t. You’re always calling me kid, like, like I’m still that little boy from the Stark Expo! And then, you’re one single inch taller which doesn’t matter at all in the scheme of things but I know you, I know you’re just going to use it as another excuse to keep from seeing me for the adult I am, and—”

“Is that what this is about,” Tony asks, wrapping a hand around Peter’s ankle. A thumb drifts under the cuff of his jeans to run along the strap of the heels. It hurts because it feels so good, makes him shiver with longing that he knows won’t ever be quenched. “You want to be taller than me?”

“I want to make out with you,” Peter snarks. “But at this point, yeah, whatever, I guess I’ll settle for being taller—”

“Peter.” Tony is soft and stern when he takes Peter’s chin in his hand. He shifts up onto his knees so that they are closer to the same height, those warm brown eyes drifted from Peter’s own down to his lips and then up again. All Peter’s breath seems to be caught in his lungs, he can’t move, can’t even blink for fear of missing a single moment as Tony leans forward slowly, giving the younger man ample time to turn away.

But Peter doesn’t—because he’s not dumb. Because this is everything he’s wanted for so long that he almost feels like it’s a dream.

Their mouths are open at the first press, heads slanting to slot together like they’ve been doing this for ages. His tongue can’t help but reach out, eager to taste the older man, and the first slide of Tony’s tongue against his own is. God. It’s orgasmic. It’s overwhelming. The rough press of facial hair, the firm grip of Tony’s hand as it slides around to cup the back of his head and bring them closer, Peter’s knees shifting open to create more space for their bodies to come together. He tastes like coffee, black. Tony tilts his head just a little more, coaxes his jaw to open wider so that he can lick into Peter’s mouth, and it’s wet, so sensual, Peter goes from soft to hard so quickly that it hurts, head dizzy.

“God,” Peter breathes into Tony’s mouth. Tony laughs softly but Peter barely gives him the chance, pressing his eager mouth forward, licking Tony’s teeth and sucking the man’s full bottom lip into his mouth until he’s the one groaning and sighing.

Tony pulls away, smiling when an upset, undignified noise comes out of the back of Peter’s throat. One of Tony’s hands—fuck, why are his hands always so hot, like there’s a fire burning right underneath the skin?—drift down and he runs his thumb along the obvious erection in Peter’s jeans until he whines. “You want to be taller, Pete? Well here you are. What next?”

“Didn’t think I’d get this far,” Peter gasps. His hips twitch upwards, desperate for pressure on his aching cock. Tony’s hand comes away instead, moving upwards to thumb at the button on Peter’s jeans.

“I have an idea,” the older man says lowly. He thumbs at the button of Peter’s jeans. “Can I, Pete?” He asks lowly, his knuckles slipping underneath the younger man’s shirt to brush against abs that jump at the contact. “You can say no. I wouldn’t be upset.”

“Have you even been listening?” Peter pants. “Yes, yes. Please Mr. Stark—“

Tony groans at the moniker. His fingers are nimble and practiced as he undoes Peter’s jeans, sliding them down his hips when he shifts up to make room. “We’ve got to break you of that habit. Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” Peter breathes. He’s so hard it hurts, cock straining obscenely at the front of his boxers, fabric dark and damp with precum. Under the older man’s gaze, he feels like he could combust, burst into flames.

“I’d undress you properly, but I’d really like to keep these on,” Tony says, eyes half lidded as he runs his palm down Peter’s calf to the heels, thumb stroking the exposed top of his foot.

“Whatever you want, just, please—it hurts—“

“What hurts?” Tony sounds mildly alarmed, pulling back.

Peter’s face burns. He palms at his cock. “My—you know—I’m—“

Understanding comes over Tony’s face, concern draining away. “Don’t worry, Pete. I’ll make it better.” And then he is leaning down, nuzzling Peter’s hand aside and putting his mouth over Peter’s clothed cock. Even through the cotton of his boxers, it is the most intense thing he’s ever experienced: the heat, burning him inside out, the pressure, the flash of whiskey eyes that won’t leave his own, always making sure Peter is interested in this, okay with this.

“God, Mr. Stark, yes. Fuck, fuck, that’s so good—so—oh—wait—“

Tony pulls back immediately, but it’s too late: Peter is cumming, balls drawn up tight against the heat of his body and throbbing, cock twitching as he spurts into his boxers. “Noooo,” Peter whispers, reaching down to jerk himself off so as to not ruin the orgasm. It’s still the hardest he’s ever cum, Tony watching on, looking pained himself with one hand between his legs and gripping his own cock. The rasp of flesh on denim is just loud enough to be heard.

“Why’d you stop me?” Tony asks.

Peter is gulping for air. At times like this, he wishes he knew sign language. “I didn’t want—not so soon but then—too late and—“

Tony smiles. “It’s okay Pete. I don’t care how long you last. I wanted you to feel good.”

“It felt so good Mr. Stark—“

Tony groans, laughing a little at the face Peter makes when he pulls his sticky boxers away from his half-hard cock. He shuffles on his knees to grab a cloth from inside a nearby cabinet and watches while Peter cleans himself off, still palming himself. He winks. “I’m glad. Never stop stroking my ego, kid.”

The motion of the older man’s hand between his own legs catches Peter’s eye and he swallows, mouth dry, thinking of doing the same thing Tony did just a moment ago, pressing his mouth to Tony’s clothes cock, feeling it jerk under the denim— “Can I—help you, now? Please?”

Tony’s mirth disappears. He stands, joints creaking, and turns away to adjust himself in his jeans. “I didn’t do that for reciprocation, Peter.”

“You did it because you wanted to?”

“Exactly.”

“Cool. Now I want to.” When he stands (after his legs have stopped shaking), he feels six feet tall. His legs feel endless. At the dark look in Tony’s eyes, he feels elegant, powerful, desirable. Tony lets him back him up against the table, box him in with his arms. This man is so powerful: a superhero, smart enough and strong enough to do anything he sets his mind to. And he’s shivering between Peter’s legs, smiling contentedly like he already has come. Peter isn’t hard again yet, but he can’t remember ever feeling this turned on, this sexual.

Carefully, Peter drops down to his knees. He crosses his ankles behind himself demurely and looks up through his lashes to watch Tony’s throat bob as he swallows. “Can I, Mr. Stark?”

Tony groans, head rolling like his neck isn’t strong enough to support it. He cards his fingers through Peter’s hair. “If you want to. I’m yours.”

Peter hums. Tony’s words feed a dark part of himself that he didn’t know was ever hungry. He feels drunk undoing the older man’s belt, drunk with lust and power. It’s as if he’s possessed by some sultry spirit who despite Peter being a virgin has no qualms leaning forward to mouth at Tony’s clothed erection.

The sharp inhale above him and the subtle tightening of fingers in his hair just sends him higher. Deeper. Tony’s scent is strong here, musky but clean.

“I’ve never done this before,” Peter says lowly, brushing his lips against the hard cock as he speaks.

Tony’s breaths are downright shaky as he laughs. “As long as you don’t bite me, there’s no way you could go wrong. I feel ready to blow my load as it is, fair warning.”

“Not yet,” says Peter, all wide eyes and shiny lips. “I want to play with it first.”

He carefully tugs down Tony’s boxers to take in the sight of his cock. It is flushed dark with arousal, twitching happily under Peter’s gaze. Instinct has him wrapping his fingers around the base where there is a nest of dark curls. Then he laps with the flat of his tongue at the head where there is a glistening wetness. He’s only ever tasted himself before, but Tony is remarkably similar. He takes the head into his mouth to suckle, tonguing at the frenulum to coax out more precum.

“Look at you,” Tony says quietly. They’re words that might usually inspire insecurity, but Peter is too far gone. He’s let the anxious part of himself relax to a safe place in the back of his mind. Here, he knows now, he is safe. There is no embarrassment, just his own arousal and the arousal he’s fanning in the man above him. Tony’s hand leaves Peter’s curls to cup underneath his jaw. When his thumb brushes against the rim of Peter’s lips wrapped around his cockhead, the young man opens his mouth to let the thumb in too, running his tongue over each in turn even as the cock jumps. “On your knees, but you still feel taller than me, Pete. Such a good boy—such an amazing man. Already a better man than I’ll ever be. Jesus, baby, just like that—whatever you want to give me.”

Peter opens his mouth wider. Tony’s thumb slips free even as his cock slips deeper. Peter can’t help it—his eyes slip closed. The skin feels like velvet on his tongue as he laps at it, being careful to keep his teeth away. One hand comes up to cradle Tony’s balls and he feels more than hears the groan it draws from the older man’s chest. He establishes a rhythm, sucking as best as he can around his own whimpers, pulling back sometimes to lap at the head. When the cock approaches the back of his throat, he swallows on instinct and Tony’s hands slip free from his hair to scrabble at the metal counter behind his hips, knuckles white. The whole time, Tony keeps up the litany of filthy praise, and if both his hands weren’t busy, Peter would absolutely be palming his own cock which has returned with a vengeance.

“Almost there, Pete,” Tony warns softly. “You can pull back if you want to.”

He doesn’t want to—thanks for asking. He closes his lips around the cock head while running one hand over the shaft, slick with his spit. The precum increases, the balls in his palm grow tight and Tony tosses his head back as he comes, the noises leaving his mouth making Peter throb and whine even as he works to swallow the hot load of cum that floods his mouth.

When he pulls away, there is the briefest moment of insecurity. But it is smothered between them as Tony gathers him in his arms, tilting his head upwards just slightly to press their mouths together. Surely he must be able to taste himself, but he doesn’t seem to care.

“You’re incredible,” Tony murmurs into Peter’s neck, placing a sweet kiss there. When he pulls back, his eyes are decidedly misty and more vulnerable than the younger man can ever recall seeing them. “All this effort—Peter. I don’t know if I’m worth this.”

“Let me decide,” Peter says. He lifts his chin just barely to place a kiss on Tony’s forehead. “And from now on—if anyone asks—”

Tony snorts softly. “You’re taller?”

“You read my mind.”

“On one condition.”

“Anything.”

“Keep the heels.”

[stephfights]

MRI, Ports and chemo...oh my!

I know it has been a while since I blogged but it has been a very busy few days!  

Lets start with last Wed.  I went to get my breast MRI.  This was going to tell me if the cancer had spread to anywhere else in my chest.  Me being scared of needles was a problem because they had to do the test with contrast.  So Chris and I went in a little early to get the IV started.  And it was a breeze!  The woman was so nice and had no problem getting it going.  So I’m thinking lets do this scan and get on with our day!  Yeah....any of y’all ever had a breast MRI?  They called me back and put me in one of those glamorous and breezy robes.  then march me to the MRI machine and tell me to lay down on my stomach.  Now at this point most of TN has seen and/or touched my boobs and these ladies are trying to hold this size XS gown on me to protect my dignity.  Look people...my dignity is long gone.  Hell, if you want to video this procedure at this point come on!  Let’s go!  So I jerk the gown off and plop down on this table face first and stuff my boobs into two cut out holes in the table.   These ladies are cracking up at this point as they adjust and pull and tug and get me exactly the way they want me.  Flat on my stomach, boobs in 2 holes, face in a little hole and arms stretched out in front of me like I’m Superman.  Sexy!!!  They tell me that I cannot move.  If I move I am going to mess up the scans and will have to start over.  Then they move me backwards into a tube.  Whew....I have never thought of myself as claustrophobic but sliding into that dark tube started messing with my head.  They put an emergency button in my hand and told me to hit it if I needed something.  The tests begin with lots of loud noises and them telling me to breath between each round.  On one particular round I took a nice deep breath and my butt cheeks literally touch the top of this tube.  I start freaking!  I mean...as a fat girl the last place you want to be is stuck naked, face down in a tube when you die!  Just as I am about to hit my emergency button one lady says we are are injecting the dye now.  Wham...it hits me like a freight train!  I am literally breathing it out my nose and tasting it in my mouth and my stomach starts rolling!  I bang on the emergency button and they come running in asking what is wrong.  I am yelling get me out of here I am going to puke!  And they tell me no.....you read that right...they told me no.  Satan’s henchmen are holding me hostage in this tube!  In all seriousness they told me that there was 9 minutes left and I would be done.  If I got out then I would have to come back and do it all over again.  I did not want that.  So...I literally shut my eyes and started thinking about what yummy restaurant Chris would take me to when I was done.  And it worked.  I made it.  I will have to do another one in a few months after the first round of chemo is done but I am not going to worry about that right now.  The Dr. called that night and told me that the results were good.  There was no more cancer anywhere else.  My chest wall was clear, my right breast was clear and my lymph nodes were clear.  One more hurdle was crossed.  And I was thankful. 

I spent the next 4 days hanging out with friends and family.  Monday morning rolled around and it was time to go have surgery to have the port put in.  I don’t have a crazy story for this one.  I honestly don’t remember much about it.  I know the nurse missed the first time she tried to put the IV in and the person ahead of me cancelled so I was taken back to surgery before my parents even got there.  Apparently I was very angry with the recovery nurse because she wouldn’t let me lay flat down and she wouldn’t give me a drink....even though my mom says I was very “firsty”  I don’t remember coming home or anything else about that day.  I’m guessing I slept pretty good!

Tuesday morning sucked major balls!  I was in a tremendous amount of pain from being cut open...once right below the collar bone and once in the side of the neck.  I was still groggy and exhausted from the previous days surgery and I had to start chemo.  The last thing I wanted was for anyone to touch the port but here I was at the ball crack of dawn looking at another one of Satan’s henchmen holding me down by my collar bone and trying to pop the catheter in place and not miss!  I cried like a baby.  A big baby!  That was freaking painful!  If I could have punched that lady in the face I would have.  But I know now she was just doing her job.  I guess I should apologize for the curse I put on her afterwards.  But anyway....after that lovely start to my day I went for the infusion.  They put Chris and I in a tiny room with a crappy pleather hospital recliner for me and a white plastic/mesh chair for Chris.  Not as bad as I have seen but I’ll be honest....I was disappointed.  I was hoping for a Lazy Boy.  But we did have a really nice TV and DVD player.  My chemo nurse was really nice and started explaining to me how everything was going to go.  I would be receiving 4 different types of chemo.  They broke down into 1 hour, 1 hour, 1 hour and a half and 1 hour.  So a total of 4 1/2 hours at the very least.  They started bag #1, Chris and I high fived and we started a movie.  Bag #2...I fell asleep and Chris finished the movie.  Bag #3...now here’s the fun part.  This certain type of chemo causes neuropathy in your fingers and feet.  To try and counteract it you do ice baths.  You literally put socks on your hands and socks on your feet.  Cover them all with baggies and stick them in ice for as long as you can stand it.  Now if you haven’t tried this then you need to haul your ass to the freezer and get you some ice and party down!  It is a blast let me tell ya!  I never knew how strong I was.  I lasted a total of 1 hour and 20 minutes in the ice.  That’s right....ya girl rocked it!  I swear I have never seen Chris look as proud as he did at that moment.  Bag #4...that was scary.  They started bringing in other bags of emergency equipment in case I had an allergic reaction or my heart stopped.  Chris took my hand, kissed me on the forehead and they hooked me up and we waited.  Nothing.  I had no reaction at all.  It was smooth sailing.  The only word I know to sum it up is THANKFUL.

I came home after my long chemo day and crashed.  I remember waking up the next morning and thinking “hmmm....I don’t feel sick“  Then the next morning...still not sick.  I am post chemo day 5 today.  I have only been sick for 1/2 a day and have had a little diarrhea for 1/2 a day.  I did have some bone pain for about 3 days.  I feel okay.  I am VERY tired and struggle to hold my eyes open sometimes.  But I am so happy that I am not puking my guts up or in terrible pain. 

Chris, Clayton and my parents have been SO good to me.  I don’t even have to ask for anything.  Clayton was worried that the medicine was not working because I have not been as sick as we prepared for him to be.  We told him that so far I am one of the lucky ones and we are going to be thankful for one more day that mama is not sick.  I have received many gifts and cards and I cherish each and every one.  My brother is keeping Amazon busy sending me special things to keep my spirits up. 

Nothing I drink tastes good.  The Dr. Pepper bottling company is probably going to come burn down my house because it tastes so horrible to me now.   All meat except red meat taste terrible.  I tried lemon drops and that was like sucking on a penny.  I have a metal taste in my mouth and my urine smells like chemicals.  But I am alive.  And today was a good day.  That is all I can ask for.  One more good day. 

Love to all,

Steph

[lobsters-on-their-heads]

Continuing Travels of Cophine, Part 2, Chapt. 10

Disclaimer reminder: I haven't been to the Middle East, so if I've gotten some details wrong, please let me know in a respectful manner. This chapter and the upcoming ones involved some interesting research, and I've tried talking to people who've been there, but of course things slip through sometimes. Let me know!

You can read the entire work from the very beginning here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12116799

The night after the party, after a small dinner at Sarah's house, Cosima and Delphine rode with Sarah to the airport as cold evening rain peppered the city. Most of the trip was silent, with Cosima in the front seat and Delphine in the back with their carry-on bags. Delphine had spent most of the day recovering and doing a great unintentional impression of a cartoon sloth, but the after-effects of last night's brownies had worn off by late afternoon, and she was more or less back to her usual self.

As the airport infrastructure came into view, Sarah sniffed loudly and rubbed her nose.

“You gonna be a'right, then?” she asked.

Cosima peeled her face from the passenger side window and blinked at her sister. “Yeah. Yeah, we're gonna be fine. Why?”

“No reason.”

Sarah steered the car towards International Departures and sucked on her teeth.

“We will have personal security from the moment we arrive in Baghdad,” Delphine assured her. “It's a highly reviewed company, personally recommended by our contacts both here and abroad.”

“Yeah, I know.” Sarah rubbed her nose some more and the airport itself came into view. “I would feel a bit better if Helena went along with you, though, to be honest.”

Cosima laughed and imagined Helena following them around the Middle East. Hell, just getting her through airport security would be a trick to write home about. Putting a hand on Sarah's shoulder, Cosima said, “Do not worry about us. We're okay with what we have, and Helena needs to stay here with her boys. And don't go reading too many news stories about the places we're going to, either.”

Sarah laughed. “Not often someone accuses me of reading too much. Anyway, it's not me. It's the kids, reading up on every place you two go off to. I've got Alison on my case, too, telling me every little horror story she sees online –”

“Yes, we've heard,” Delphine cut in. “She's been on our cases, too.”

“She's calmed down recently, though,” Cosima added.

“And Art,” Sarah went on, like the words were being pushed from her body against her will. “He's coming to me every week with some other story he heard from one of the translators about someone's brother getting his head cut off, or somebody's sister being sold off to IS for God knows what. It's not like I just can't listen, Cos.”

The car wound its way into the departures lane and down the alphabet of airlines as everyone thought about what Sarah had said. Aer Lingus, Air Canada, Air France...

“Well,” Cosima said, “just remember, and tell everybody else this, too, that the stuff that makes the news, and the stories people tell, are the exceptions. I mean, yeah, obviously it happens, but not every day. Aid workers go in and out of Iraq and Syria every day without getting any more than a paper cut or a couple of nasty pimples.”

“We're being careful,” Delphine added. “We're being very careful.”

Sarah made a face. “Right.”

Five minutes later, Sarah pulled up to the curb near the Turkish Airlines sign. There were hugs and promises to call once they'd arrived in Baghdad, and as Cosima and Delphine went inside with their suitcases and bags, Sarah leaned against her car and watched them go.

Inside, the check-in process was smooth and the security checks predictable, and when they settled into the airport-standard restaurant close to their terminal, they still had thirty minutes before boarding their plane. They sat sipping water and nibbling on what passed for a “harvest salad,” and Cosima watched the other late-night fliers going by while Delphine did her daily social media Leda check, twelve hours later than she usually did.

“You did yours, then?” she asked Cosima.

“Yeah, at lunch time. You were kinda busy trying to remember that pool noodles aren't sentient, though, so you get a pass.” Cosima kissed Delphine's cheek, then her lips. It would be weeks, or possibly months, before she could that in public again. “You were super cute the whole time, though, fyi.”

Delphine grunted and resumed flipping through status updates of new bikinis, inspirational quotes, and cute babies.

“By the way, didn't Gabriela call you last night?”

“You mean while you were baked out of your mind and climbing all over my sister?”

Delphine looked like she had a retort coming, but just rolled her eyes. “Yes.”

Cosima giggled and squeezed her fiancée's arm to show no ill will. “Yeah, apparently her husband's divorcing her. Guess he was only in it as a monitor, and he was kind of convinced they could have kids, but when that obviously didn't happen, he peaced out.”

“Hm.” If Delphine had any thoughts or comments about being a monitor herself, she kept them to herself. Her thumb hovered over her Facebook feed. “Look at this.”

“What's up?”

The post Delphine pointed to was in Hebrew, and the picture beneath it showed a hand with an IV going into it.

“Oh, shit,” Cosima whispered.

“It's Avigail Chernev,” Delphine said. “One of the Israelis. It's the first time she's posted anything in almost a year.”

Cosima scooted her chair over to get a better view. “Is that her hand? For sure?”

“I assume so. It looks like yours.”

Cosima held her own hand up next to the picture on the phone and squinted. “I'll take your word for that. You are, like, the Leda expert at this point.”

Delphine's eyebrows twitched. “Yes, I suppose I am. You're still my favorite, though.”

“Thank fuck for that.”

Delphine took a screenshot of the Facebook post and emailed it to David Margolis, their Hebrew translator and Israeli cultural guide based back in Toronto. They would translate it themselves, too, with Google, but David's translations were more accurate and nuanced, and he could more easily match up the texts with others he had on file for both Israeli Ledas.

“There's WiFi on the plane, at least,” Delphine went on, “we'll need to monitor this pretty closely.”

Despite the severity of the situation, Cosima smirked. “Did you seriously just say monitor? Even after what I said about Gabriela's husband?”

Delphine stuck her tongue out and copy/ pasted Avigail's status into Google translate. In a second, the English side read Third treatment of the week, here we hope we can cure it soon!

“Third of the week, shit,” Cosima murmured. She pulled up a map of the Middle East on her phone and measured the distance between Baghdad and Tel Aviv. It was a hell of a lot closer than Toronto, but they weren't exactly next door neighbors. And then there was the whole messy political situation.

Meanwhile, Delphine pulled the Europe and the Middle East notebook from her carry-on bag. She flipped through it and tapped her finger on the first Israeli entry.

Avigail Chernev, born 11 June, 1984, in Bet Shemesh, current residence Tel Aviv Monitor as of 2016 – Daniel Fridman Primary care physician as of 2016 – Dr. Joseph Blachar [two msg sent by D.Cormier via D.Margolis, no replies] Social media contacts attempted 21 July, 3 September, and 4 December – no response

Delphine added a line about today's Facebook post on the otherwise empty page that stood in sharp contrast to the information-crowded pages on either side. The page before detailed the medical history and social media habits of Lonah Gerbi, the clone in Haifa they had already made an appointment to treat. Delphine tapped Lonah's page.

“We're not scheduled to be in Israel until the end of May,” she said. “Eight weeks from now.”

“Right, and we scheduled Lonah's treatment after all these other countries for a reason.”

She checked the time. They had fifteen minutes until boarding their plane to Istanbul, where they had a five hour lay-over before flying on to Baghdad. Baghdad, of course, being in one of the many countries with restrictions on travelers who'd had their passports stamped in Israel. Then she looked at Avigail's hand again. Third treatment in one week. Failed treatments, almost certainly, probably radiation or some kind of chemotherapy. The side effects alone probably kept her from working or taking care of her family or whatever else she would have been doing otherwise, and it was quite likely that the treatments had actually hastened the disease's progression, as it had in Jennifer Fitzsimmons.

“She can't wait until May,” Cosima said. “None of the other clones in the Middle East have shown these kinds of symptoms.”

“That we know of.”

She nodded. “That we know of.” Of course. More than once before had a Leda stayed quiet and private right up until she was dying, and only then did Delphine and Cosima hear anything about it. Desperation brought people out of hiding. Or, in the case of Nooran in Djibouti, brought the attention of enough people to point Cosima and Delphine in the right direction.

Delphine was watching her with those big doe eyes, waiting for her to say something, but the decision was obvious.

“I'll email the airline from the plane,” Cosima said. “Change the flight from Istanbul to Tel Aviv instead of Baghdad.”

Delphine's face didn't change, though. She licked her lips. “We still have to cure the others, though. Even if they don't have symptoms, we still have to – ”

“Oh, for sure, we're curing them, too. But we have to get to Avigail first.”

“Yes, but – ”

The airport announcement gong sounded, announcing preboarding to Turkish Airlines Flight XXX bound for Istanbul. They packed up their things, threw away their trash, and went to loiter near the gate with everyone else. At this hour, the crowd of passengers was quiet, mostly businessmen buried in their phones or newspapers.

“What if,” Cosima offered, “we just ask them not to stamp our passports in Tel Aviv?”

Delphine snorted. “Yes, certainly. Have you ever tried telling a passport controller what to do?”

“Not yet, no.”

“Well, I don't think it's a very good idea.”

Some of the businessmen looked up from their devices to listen to the only conversation happening, but the announcer called for first class boarding, so Cosima and Delphine hoisted their bags back onto their shoulders and got on the plane.

Once they were in their seats, enjoying the perks of the frequent flyer program, Cosima said, “Maybe someone else can go to Israel. Cure the Israelis, and we finish up the rest of the Middle East.”

“It's an idea,” Delphine agreed.

Cosima pulled out her phone and texted Scott while the coach passengers filed past.

A minute later, though, that idea was shot. I'd love to, he replied, but I can't take that kind of time off work. We have a big project right now.

She swore under her breath but typed, Okay, thx anyway

The faces of Clone Club flashed before her eyes, and she imagined all of them in lab coats in an Israeli clinic, syringe in hand. Art, Sarah, Alison, Helena, ... None of them fit that image. None of them had experience putting needles in people. Well, Helena might, but she probably wasn't used to aiming the needles with the intention of helping, and she had none of the other necessary skills for this endeavor.

She tapped on her phone until the crew directed them to turn off their devices, and held Delphine's hand as Toronto faded away below them. When the city was entirely gone behind clouds, she turned to Delphine and said, “Rachel would do it. She gave me my treatment, and she knows clone stuff.”

“And she is completely inaccessible to anyone who wants to contact her.”

“And there's that. Fuck.”

Once the fasten seatbelt sign was off, they both had their laptops out, emailing everyone on the Clone Club listserv for ideas and support. David Margolis confirmed their translation of Avigail's status and offered to reach out to her in Hebrew for them, which Delphine replied would be very helpful. Delphine posted a notification on the Foundation's website, just in case Rachel happened to be checking in from wherever she was. Cosima's Google searches confirmed that, indeed, for most of the countries they would be traveling to in the next two months, entrance was denied to anyone who'd been to Israel.

After thirty minutes, though, Cosima found herself staring into space at the shadowy clouds moving below them, forgetting what the hell she'd been typing, or starting one sentence and finishing it with another thought entirely. Beside her, Delphine kept trying to hide her yawns.

“It's after midnight,” Cosima said, dropping her head on Delphine's shoulder. “Maybe one of us should get some rest.”

Delphine kissed her forehead. “You go ahead. I'm used to working late.”

“And I'm not, is that what you're saying?”

“Mmm, yes. You work late, of course, but not like this.”

“Not on an airplane.”

“Correct.”

*

Delphine was right. Something about traveling had this way of knocking Cosima right out. Maybe the sound of a motor, steady total-body vibration, and occasional rocking back and forth made her feel safe, like she was six years old again and her parents were taking care of everything.

When she woke up, the window shade was closed and Delphine's light travel blanket was tucked around her shoulders. To her right, Delphine dozed with her arms across her chest and her head tipped to one side, laptop still open on her tray. The rest of the cabin was bathed in daylight and a flight attendant went down the aisle announcing the last call for beverages or snacks. According to her phone, it was 7:20 in the morning, but when she raised the shade the sun was well above the horizon.

Right. If it was 7:20 am in Toronto, it was 2:20 pm in Istanbul, and they were scheduled to land at 3:15.

She opened her laptop, trying not to jostle Delphine as she checked the clone business email. Five new messages.

Art said he would look into it but made no promises, which could really apply to most of the emails they'd exchanged with him over the past year.

David Margolis forwarded both Cosima and Delphine the email chain with Avigail Chernev, her medical team, and himself. Avigail's primary doctor right now, it said, was a Dr. Ada Bronstein, and both she and Avigail were excited about the possibility of a new treatment option.

There was an email from her mother, linking to an article about a suicide bombing in Basra and begging Cosima to be careful while she was over there.

Her advisor at U Minn sent her a list of epigentics conferences that Cosima “really should consider presenting at.”

And to her surprise, Rebecca Twell replied to Cosima's mass email, saying she was so sorry to hear that another of their identicals was ill, but Rebecca could not take off that kind of time, either, and regardless she did not feel comfortable administering any kind of medical treatment to anyone. She ended her email with a reminder that if and when Cosima and Delphine made it to Scotland, they should absolutely drop by for a pint.

Cosima went back up to the email chain and tapped Dr. Bronstein's number into her phone. That five-hour lay-over coming up in Istanbul was starting to feel awfully short.

*

At Istanbul Atatürk Airport, they got microwaved sandwiches and juice from Starbucks and found a terminal waiting area with no one else sitting in it, so they could spread out over several seats and the floor, charging everything that needed electricity. Delphine exchanged more emails with David Margolis and Avigail's medical team, and compared her symptoms with notes in the MEDICAL notebook that listed all observed symptoms and treatments with side effects.

Cosima called everyone, starting with Adele. Alphabetical order seemed as good as any order right now.

Adele answered with a dynamic yawn. “Oh, hey, Puddin' Pie, how are you doin'? How's Delphine, more to the point? She back from her brownie trip yet?”

“Yeah, yeah, she's good,” Cosima said. “Did you get our email?”

“Huh? No, I haven't checked yet. Why, what's up?”

While Cosima explained the situation, Adele responded with various “uh huh,” “yeah,” or “well shit.” When Cosima finished, Adele laughed. “Oh, honey, I wish I could help you. I really do. But heroin is the one drug I will never, ever touch. Needles skeeve the hell outta me. I stick to drugs that go into holes my body already has.”

Cosima had not said anything about heroin, but she laughed for Adele's sake and said, “Okay, that's cool. That's, uh, probably for the best, actually.”

“Yeah. Hey, have you tried Colin, though? He's gotta have some skills there, right?”

“Uh, not yet. I don't have his contact info, actually. Do you?”

“No, but you know who does.”

Felix picked up on the third ring. “You want Colin's phone number? What for?”

“For the stuff I emailed you about. Did you get our email?”

“I mean, I skimmed it. I've only been up for about 30 minutes. Why? You still haven't found anybody?”

“No. Colin's, like, potentially our last hope.”

Felix muttered something unintelligible, but a moment later produced the number for her, and listened as she read it back to him. “He won't go, though,” Felix added. “I'm certain of that.”

“Why's that?”

“Well, first of all, he's hates flying. He's only flown once, and that was to Calgary ten years ago. He doesn't even have a passport.”

“He doesn't...?” She had forgotten that people could even exist in the world without a passport. “Wow.”

“So, feel free to call him. Tell him that I'm not pining away in his absence, and that he's much more attractive when his head's not shoved up his own arse.”

“You know, I think I'll let you tell him all of those things, and I'll just stick to clone business, okay?”

She called Colin and left a message, and checked the message that had dinged while she was talking to Felix. A picture greeted her at the tap of her thumb: the main room of Nooran's apartment in Djibouti, with the girls and Mohammed, the younger boy, sitting around a folding table that had not been there when Cosima last visited. On the table were the art supplies Cosima and Delphine had given them, and each of the younger children held up a piece of artwork to show off. Fatima sat the farthest from the camera, and she held a book close to her chest, a smile tugging at her lips. The table wasn't the only new item in the photo – a calendar and a flag decorated the wall, and a drying rack laden with laundry snuck into view in the lower right corner. The cell phone used to take the picture must have been new, too, since the family had not had one before.

While Cosima studied the picture, distracted for a moment from Avigail's troubles in Israel, another message popped up, this time showing Nabil taking a selfie with his siblings in the background. Tapping Delphine to get her attention, Cosima took a picture of them together, Delphine smiling and Cosima making a face, and sent it to the kids.

“They are such good kids,” Cosima remarked. “We gotta see if we can keep helping them out, somehow.”

“Mmhm.” Delphine's attention was already back on the task at hand. “Julian can't go. Neither can any of my other medical contacts, including the doctors we know are aware of the cloning situation. All of them are busy, uninterested, or no longer reachable at their former email addresses. I texted Ali, even, from Tripoli, but he's tied up for the rest of the month, apparently.”

“Why Ali? He doesn't have medical training.”

“No, but I thought maybe he could at least transport the cure to Avigail's doctors for us. They could administer it, I expect, on their own, although I haven't confirmed that with them.”

“Oh, yeah. That is a good idea.” She texted Clone Club back with that idea – not to treat, but to transport. Anyone could do that. Anyone that didn't need to go to any of the Muslim-majority Middle Eastern countries that Cosima and Delphine needed to go to, that is.

Colin called back at 4:23 pm Istanbul time. “I'm sorry, you want me to do what, now?” he asked.

She gave the spiel again. “And you're really our last hope.”

“Why can't you do it?”

“Because once we get an Israeli stamp, all these other countries won't let us in. It's geopolitical bullshit.”

Colin exhaled into the receiver. “I don't think you understood my question. Why can't just one of you go, and the other one go to all the other countries? I mean, there are two of you, right?”

Cosima bit her tongue and pushed her hand into the top of her head. “Well, for starters, all the people we're curing look exactly like me. Haven't you noticed? We're clones. It's gonna be pretty weird for me to look all of them in the eye before treating them.”

There was another heavy sigh on the other end of the phone. “And you can't futz your way around that for one dying woman? Wear colored contacts or something? Seems like it'd be pretty easy. I thought you were supposed to be the smart one.”

Felix's last comment about the location of Colin's head came to mind, but Cosima said, “Just trust me. It's not the best idea.”

“Well, I haven't got any other ideas for you. I am not flying to Israel for you. I am not sticking a syringe into a woman I've never met for you. I am not going to deliver biological material that I have not personally inspected to a doctor I've never met for you. I don't even work with the living, remember? I sure as hell don't speak Hebrew.”

“That part really doesn't matter. Think about it, at least?”

“Yeah, maybe. But I'm not changing my mind.”

Just go yourself. She could change her appearance somehow and treat both Israeli Ledas while Delphine was in Iraq, but then Delphine would be in Iraq all by herself. And several weeks after that, Delphine would have to go to Syria all by herself, because Cosima would not be allowed in either of those countries.

Cosima made her way down her contacts lists and called everyone she hadn't already talked to, to see if they or anyone else they knew would be willing to pick up the job. Some people she called again, just in case.

“We'll sort something out,” Sarah assured her after coming up with no new ideas. “I already gave Art a call.”

Cosima even called her mother.

“Oh, Sweetie, I'd love to help,” her mother said, her voice heavy with sleep, “but I am completely unqualified for that kind of work. Even though you know your grandma's been trying to send me to Israel for decades, like with that Birthright program, you know, but for older adults instead of teenagers? Anyway, Israel would be great, but I really just can't go treating someone's illness. I'd probably do it wrong and make everything worse. I'd stick the needle in the wrong organ or something. I work with fish, not people.”

“Well, maybe you could just bring the cure into the country, then? Drop it off and take a week to see the sights.”

“Oh I can't. I'm having bunion surgery tomorrow. Did I tell you that?”

Bunyan surgery. Great. “Uh, no,” Cosima said. “You didn't. How 'bout you send me an email all about it, huh? I have to make some other calls. Unless you think your podiatrist might want to go to Israel for us?”

Sally laughed. “No, but she is Jewish, and I think she's been before. Hey, why don't you just mail it? The treatment, I mean? It's all sealed up, isn't it? You'd have to pay extra, but I don't think that's a big issue.”

Cosima could have kicked herself for not thinking of that earlier, but still, the idea didn't sit well with her. She and Delphine made a point to personally carry the treatment whenever they travelled specifically because they didn't trust anyone else with it. When she floated the idea to Delphine, Delphine's face mimicked her own.

“I mean, it's possible,” Delphine conceded. “But certainly not ideal.”

“I don't know how many other options we have, though.”

She shook her head. “Not very many. None that I like very much. We have a phone conference with Dr. Bronstein in about ten minutes, though, so we can always run it by her, see what she thinks.” Delphine checked her watch and muttered “putain” under her breath before winding the little knob to get in sync with local time. “It's very last minute, of course. I was afraid we might have to wait until tomorrow to talk to her, and, like we've been saying, Avigail doesn't have much time left. Dr. Bronstein seems willing to do whatever it takes, though.”

In the time before their phone conference, Alison called, and after a moment of checking in, repeated Colin's suggestion. “I don't know why you don't just go over there yourself, Cosima. You and Delphine are the only ones who have any experience with this. Put a surgical mask on and no one will notice you look the same.”

Cosima bit her tongue. “So you don't know anyone who could step in and help us out? No one at all?”

“No one who I'm willing to out myself to by sending them to Israel to treat one of my clones, no. Just go! You can rejoin Delphine when she's finished treating all our sisters in those... other countries. Or, you know, like I've been saying all along, you can just split the work and get it all done in half the time.”

“Alison,” Cosima began, “People recognize me. They recognize that I look like other people. Don't you remember how you felt way back when Beth first contacted you, first said you were a clone...”

Delphine nudged her before she could continue. “Dr. Bronstein's calling.”

“Gotta go, Alison. We'll talk soon, yeah?” She hung up before Alison could say anything else, and popped in Delphine's left earbud so she could participate in the conversation without annoying the few other passengers now camping out in the waiting area with them. Cosima took a deep breath to center herself and switch her brain from Sestra mode to professional mode as Delphine gave Dr. Bronstein a warm greeting.

“Yes, hello to both of you,” Dr. Bronstein said with a voice that reminded Cosima of character from Downton Abbey. “It's so felicitous that you've found us. I'm afraid Ms. Chernev's prognosis is quite poor at this point.”

“Yes, that's my understanding, as well,” Delphine said. “She knows that you're in contact with us, yes?”

“Oh yes, I've just spoken with her and her family, and Ms. Chernev has signed the agreement allowing me to discuss her condition with you and your translator, Mr. Margolis. I believe a PDF of the agreement has been emailed to you, as well.”

Cosima didn't see it right away, but considering everything else they were doing to save the Ledas, she wasn't too worried about a single release of information form.

“So, Dr. Bronstein, can you give us another quick run-down of Avigail's symptoms and prognosis so far?” she said.

“Well, she's been in my care for almost two years,” Dr. Bronstein told them, “starting with lung polyps that remain and have no clear cause.” She went on to give every symptom of the disease, and all the attempted treatments. Avigail had had numerous seizures that resisted the effects of anti-convulsant medications, and she'd been on oxygen full-time for the past year. Her doctors had tried every treatment that Cosima would expect them to and then some. Avigail had lost her hair and now weighed only forty-one kilograms. Her vision was spotty, She had difficulty swallowing. She was jaundiced. Her kidneys failed almost a year ago, and she was on dialysis, but the rest of her health conditions kept her off the kidney transplant list.

“Anyway,” Dr. Bronstein concluded, “I don't know exactly how you've found us, but any help you can offer is incredibly welcome. We don't know how much time she has left, since we've never seen something like this before, but, well, to be honest, it might not be very much time at all. Her family's been advised to help her get her things in order.”

Cosima hung on every word Dr. Bronstein said, picturing the cells and tissues and organs, and the woman lying on the hospital bed. “Third treatment this week,” she'd said, just that morning, on her Facebook page. The understatement of the century, it seemed. If nothing else, Avigail's attitude seemed positive.

“I'm glad she has her family with her,” Cosima said.

While Dr. Bronstein gave a standard sort of agreement, Delphine put her arm around Cosima's waist and held her tight, until an airport employee walked by and gave them a double take, and Cosima scooted away. On her own cell phone she typed We're in Turkey again, babe and showed it to Delphine. There could be no public displays of affection here.

“So, Dr. Bronstein,” Cosima said, “we've actually seen this condition a few times before, and we're very interested in treating Avigail if she'll let us, but, um –”

“Yes, that's what your colleague said in her email. How soon can you get here?” She laughed, and Cosima had a mental image of large front teeth.

“Well, that's just the thing,” Cosima began. “We'd love to get there as soon as possible, but –”

“–but we're also going to a lot of other countries in the region,” Delphine finished when Cosima's hand flapping indicated she needed help.

“I see,” Dr. Bronstein said.

“For the same purpose,” Delphine went on, “and our understanding is that we're not allowed into those countries after we've been to Israel.”

There was silence on the other end of the phone, and Cosima and Delphine exchanged a long look. In her research, Cosima had run across another interesting fact – people who visited Palestine were occasionally not allowed to enter Israel, unless they were Israeli citizens. She'd made a mental note of that and moved on, since they didn't plan to visit Palestine, but now she dredged it back out.

“For what it's worth, Dr. Bronstein, we're traveling exclusively for medical purposes. We really have no interest in anyone's political positions. We just want to cure these women. And, again, for whatever it's worth, we are not planning to go to Palestine. We haven't heard of any patients there with this condition.”

“Oh! Hahaha...” Dr. Bronstein chuckled. “No, no, I was thinking more of our patient here. You see, I've reached out to other doctors, and no one has any idea, either, so I'm simply surprised, ehm, surprised that you've had so much experience. That's all. And, worried, quite frankly. I am quite worried about what will happen if she is not treated soon.”

“Well, we have the treatment with us,” Delphine said. “We could send it to you.”

“With you? As in...?”

“As in, we're sitting next to it right now,” Cosima said. “But we're worried that if we bring it over, we won't be allowed into some of the other countries that we really need to get into.”

“I see. Well, one of you could come and the other could go to the other countries. Or not?”

That idea again. The worst part was that it was right. It would be the easiest solution. It would also be the absolute worst one.

“Yes,” Delphine acknowledged, “that is one of our possibilities, but we'd prefer not to travel alone if at all possible. I'm sure you understand.”

“Well, where else are you going, exactly?”

Delphine pulled up the itinerary she had save on her laptop. “Iraq, later today. Iran, Kuwait, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria...” Below Syria on the list were Jordan and Israel, followed by the European countries, but the noises Dr. Bronstein was making on the other end of the phone interrupted that flow.

“You're going to Syria?” Dr. Bronstein exclaimed. “Have you really found a patient there in such dire straights that you must absolutely go into that blazing inferno to treat them?”

Dire straights was putting it rather dramatically for most of the Ledas at the moment, since less than twenty percent had developed visible symptoms, but that was beside the point. “Yes,” Delphine said. “We have. She may have more time than Avigail, but we don't know how much.”

“Well, you certainly are dedicated,” Dr. Bronstein said. “You're not going to Jordan, then? It's a bit more peaceful.

“We are,” Cosima said. “After Syria.”

“I see. I was going to tell you that entering Jordan and Egypt is often easier after a trip to Israel than some of the other countries are, so you may consider going there instead.”

Cosima leaned her head back against the wall. That was not the point. “We'll keep that in mind, thank you.”

“About our other suggestion, though,” Delphine said, “about us mailing you the treatments. There would be five vials, all properly secured, with extensive instructions --”

“Erm, I don't know about that. You've administered this treatment to other women, you say?”

“Yes, more than a hundred of them.”

“Oh! Well, I can't think of anyone better qualified, then, to administer than yourself. I wouldn't feel completely comfortable no matter how extensive your instructions are, if I knew that there was someone better qualified to do it. And I assure you, Tel Aviv is quite safe. You don't need to worry about traveling alone here.”

Dr. Bronstein probably had a reassuring smile on her face, but Cosima's stomach continued the drop it had started twelve hours earlier. If Avigail's main doctor did not want to give her the cure herself, there wasn't much chance anyone else over there would, either.

“And if you're worried about the stamp,” the doctor went on, “I'm told that many tourists don't get their passports stamped at all. They have this little piece of paper they stamp for you instead. You can throw that away once you've left the country, if you like.”

Cosima and Delphine looked at each other. That changed everything. “Really?” Cosima asked.

“That's what I've been told. I'm a citizen, myself, so of course I've never been in that position.”

“It's worth a try,” Delphine said.

“Can we expect a visit, then?” Dr. Bronstein asked.

“We, euh, we need a few minutes to discuss it, privately,” Delphine told her. “May we call you back?”

“Of course. This is my mobile, so it shouldn't be any trouble.”

They got off the phone, and Cosima started pacing around. “If they just don't stamp it for anyone, we've been pulling our hair out for nothing. Not that I'm complaining, but, it would be suspiciously convenient.”

Delphine tapped away at her keyboard, then her eyes darted back and forth. “Other travelers back it up, actually.”

“Shit, we should've just put that in our Google search first. Here I was trying to see if I could tear the page out of my passport without anyone getting suspicious.”

Delphine leaned back against the wall, fingers resting on her keyboard. “You want to be the one to go, then?”

“I think it makes the most sense.”

Delphine nodded. “I agree. Just in case, you know.”

“In case they don't let me in anywhere else, after all. Which is still a possibility, I think.”

“I think so, too, but I don't know how much of one.”

Cosima thought of everything Dr. Bronstein had said about Avigail, about how she seemed to be staying alive out of sheet pluck while her body fell apart all around her. In the end, there really had been only one solution – this one. “Go ahead and call her back,” she told Delphine. “I can be there by tomorrow morning.”

*

A few hours later, after a visit to the ticketing agent, a phone call with Alison, two more phone calls and an email with Dr. Bronstein, and repacking of their carry-on bags, they stood together just outside the terminal for Delphine's departing flight to Baghdad, which she would take alone. Cosima's flight to Tel Aviv left in two more hours. Outside the terminal windows, the sun had set almost an hour ago, and each of them had several more waking hours ahead of them.

“Try to get some rest where you can,” Delphine told her. “You won't do Avigail any good if you're exhausted.”

“Yeah, I could say the same for you.”

“I have a little more time. The appointment isn't for another twenty-five hours.”

“Yeah, but you have to get to it.”

Outside on the tarmac, Delphine's Turkish Airlines plane pulled up to the extendable passenger bridge. Before it began discharging passengers, Cosima nudged Delphine and gestured towards the women's bathroom.

“Come on. Last chance for a little while.”

Delphine followed her into the largest stall and giggled as Cosima locked the door behind them. “You want to have sex in the bathroom? In ten minutes?”

Cosima made a face. “Not sex, no. Not smelling like this. Just...” She draped her arms around Delphine's neck and pulled her down for a long kiss. They stood together holding each other and kissing until passengers flooded the bathroom with their chatter, their laughter, their complaints, and a couple instances of explosive releases.

“I just wanted to kiss you again,” Cosima said. “It's gonna be a couple days till I can do it again.”

Delphine cupped Cosima's face in her left hand, stroking her earlobe with her pinky finger. “It's just a couple of days. I'll text you when I land, yeah?”

“Yeah. Same. I'll... I'll keep you abreast of all affairs.” Her terrible attempt at imitating Dr. Bronstein's accent made Delphine break into giggles again, but their moment was cut short by knocks on the stall door.

“We have to go,” Delphine whispered. She peppered Cosima's face with kisses and told her how much she loved her.

“I love you, too,” Cosima said, just before the knocking resumed with a bit more force. “Be safe, okay?”

“I will, I promise. You, as well.”

When they opened the door, they were greeted by a stout cleaning lady and a couple of curious travelers, all of whom expressed some version of “oh!” Delphine gave them her best smile and a cheery “Bonsoir!” as she and Cosima maneuvered their way through the people and back out into the main terminal.

And like every other flight they'd taken in this part of the world, Cosima did not hold Delphine's hand in the boarding line, or rest her head on Delphine's shoulder. For those other flights, though, Cosima had still been beside her, and now she wasn't. She stood by the departures board and watched her fiancée move through the line of almost exclusively Middle Eastern travelers and get her ticket checked. Just before rounding the corner onto the passenger bridge, Delphine turned and paused. She smiled and gave Cosima a tiny air kiss, then made her way down the hall and out of sight.

* * *

Four hours later, standing in line at Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv, Cosima flicked through her messages. Delphine had arrived safely in Baghdad an hour before and was suitably exhausted. She said the security escort was working out fine. Cosima texted her love and sent another message to Dr. Bronstein saying that she was waiting for passport control.

Wonderful! Dr. Bronstein replied. I will retrieve you personally and deliver you to our guest house. I am the tall thin woman in the burgundy jacket, but I also have your name on a sign, so we should have no trouble at all finding each other.

In the next message, Alison assured her that “the Jewish family who lives down the street” had been to Israel and never gotten their passports stamped in Tel Aviv, and they'd never had an issue visiting any other countries. She did not, however, specify which other countries they had tried to visit. See? Alison went on, I told you this would work out just fine.

Scott texted her that one of his Muslim coworkers had tried visiting Israel a few years ago, but got turned away at the border with Jordan. But that shouldn't be a problem for you, Scott said.

The line inched forward. A baby cried. A man bragged to a woman about the ultra marathon he'd run in Israel last year. A little boy whined about being hungry. And Cosima swayed on her feet with no one to lean against.

It was after one in the morning when Cosima finally reached the passport control window. She gave the uniformed man behind the glass her best smile and handed over her passport, open to the picture page.

“Miss Niehaus?” he clarified, winning top marks as one of very few people who got the pronunciation right on the first try. He spent longer than any other passport official ever had comparing her face to her picture, confirmed her date of birth and residence, and asked how long she planned to stay in Israel.

“Two weeks,” she said. They'd made the mistake way back in Ecuador of being vague but honest about how long they would stay, so now they gave a nice firm, if wrong, time frame right up front. He nodded and began flipping through the passport, slowing down after a few fully-stamped pages.

“Um, actually,” she said, “I was wondering if I could get one of those stamps pieces of paper instead?”

He glanced up at her and resumed his exploration of her travel history. “You go a lot of places, Miss Niehaus.”

“Yes. Yes I do.”

He clucked his tongue. “Very many places. Mexico. Argentina. Oman. Libya. Saudi Arabia.” He looked up at her with a frown. “And you have visas for Iran, Syria, and Iraq. You plan to visit them later?”

“Yes, well, you see, that's why I'm kind of hoping you might stamp a different paper instead, because they might not let me in if I have your stamp, and well, you know.” She smiled and held up her hands in a “what're you gonna do” gesture, to show that it wasn't his fault politics were all fucked up.

He did not smile. He leaned over, picked up the phone receiver, and mumbled into it. When he hung up, he gestured for Cosima to step to the left. “Stand aside, please, Miss Niehaus.”

“Oh. Okay, sure. Um, can I have my –”

The officer handed her passport to a tall man in a gray uniform who approached and looked her up and down, one hand on the strap of his rifle.

“Oh, shit,” she whispered.

*

The room they took her to was tiny, with a long table on one side and two metal chairs on the other. A uniformed woman directed her to remove her boots, jacket, belt, and all of her jewelry. She then gave Cosima the most thorough pat down Cosima had gotten from anyone other than Delphine. While that went on, an middle aged woman (Soldier? Guard? Border officer?) sat in one of the metal chairs. The man who'd taken Cosima's passport placed her bags on the long table, and he handed the passport to the second woman, who set a recorder with a blinking red light on the table.

“Sit,” the woman told Cosima. “Take your hair down.”

Cosima did so, and the younger woman worked her fingers down the length of every one of Cosima's dreadlocks.

“It's okay, I left the explosive hair pins at home,” Cosima snarked when the hair inspection was about halfway done.

The younger woman paused for a moment. “No jokes, please.”

So Cosima sat quietly while the man opened up her bags, setting the electronics to one side, and the older woman looked through her passport. Maybe it was her exhaustion seeping through, but the more she watched them working, the more they reminded her of General Leia Organa and Kylo Ren from the new Star Wars movies.

The officer Cosima now mentally called General Organa began the conversation. “So Miss Niehaus, what brings you to Israel?”

She had practiced professional answer for that. “It's a medical trip. There's a patient here who's arranged for us, I mean, for me to come and treat her.”

“What's the patient's name?”

“Uh, that's confidential. Patient confidentially's very important to us.”

“Who's us?”

“The Sadler and Daughter's Foundation. Their information is on a card in my purse.”

The Kylo Ren guard emptied her purse onto the table and fished around in her things until he got the little stack of business cards, which he handed to the General.

General Organa arched an eyebrow. “So you're based in Toronto, but hold a US passport. Where will you be treating this patient?”

“At the Tel Aviv Medical Center.” When the General put the cards back on the table, Cosima added, “I have an appointment there first thing in the morning, and our patient's life really depends on me being there.”

As if on cue, Cosima's phone rang, vibrating its way in a little circle on the metal table next to her laptop.

“That's probably my contact at the hospital,” Cosima said. “She was supposed to pick me up here.”

No one moved to hand her the phone, but they waited until it stopped ringing to speak again. “And who is this contact?” the General asked.

That part was not exactly confidential. “Dr. Ada Bronstein. I can give you her contact information.”

“Please do. We also need to search your email addresses and your mobile phone.”

“Excuse me?”

“Failure to comply will jeopardize your chances of entering the country.” The General gestured to the male guard, who handed the laptop and the cell phone over to Cosima.

“Unlock these,” he said.

Unlocking her phone, she saw that, indeed, Dr. Bronstein had called her, and sent a text message inquiring about her whereabouts. “Can I just respond to these real quick?” Cosima asked.

General Organa frowned up at her, but did not say no, so Cosima sent a quick text. They're asking me a lot of questions. Then the young female guard took her cell phone and the General took her laptop. While they poked and prodded, Kylo Ren continued his search of Cosima's carry-on bag.

“I hope you like all the pictures of my fiancée,” Cosima muttered to the guard scrolling through her cell phone.

There was no reaction from the guards to her statement. Kylo Ren, though, held up the case containing the Avigail's cure, and Cosima sat bolt upright.

“What's this?” he asked.

“That's the medicine we use to treat people.”

“What is the chemical composition?”

At this point, it must have been close to two o'clock in the morning local time. Cosima's hands and legs were trembling, and biting her tongue got harder with every question they asked. Still, miraculously, she did not give the chemical composition as “the cum I scraped off your mom's face last night, bitch” but rather gave the actual breakdown of materials in each vial. The guard's face glazed over after five words or so, but the little recorder on the desk blinked away, and someone listening certainly knew what she was talking about.

“Where was it manufactured?” Kylo Ren asked.

“Toronto, Canada.”

“Where exactly?”

“The basement of a comic book shop. The Rabbit Hole.” She waved at her laptop. “Look it up. There's a picture of it on our Foundation's website.”

General Organa leaned forward on her chair. “You have been asked a serious question, Ms. Niehaus. If you wish to enter the country, I strongly suggest that you take this process seriously.”

Cosima's voice trembled and she dug her fingers into her palms. “Dude, I am as a serious as a fucking heart attack. There is a woman here in Tel Aviv who needs that medicine to survive. You can call her doctor if you don't believe me. Her number is in my phone.”

“That won't be necessary.”

Cosima bit her lip and struggled not to cry. She was in the habit of not drinking much in the last hour of any plane ride, in case she couldn't use a bathroom anytime soon after landing. The habit came in handy now, but her throat was dry and the blood vessels in her head throbbed, and crying wouldn't make any of that better. She took off her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Can I at least know why you're holding me? Or, like, your names or anything? Badge numbers?”

In college, when she participated in far more political protests, she'd had the whole spiel of what to say to cops memorized. But that was years ago, and she hadn't been exhausted or desperate to save someone else's life.

The young female guard came around in front of her and held Cosima's phone up so the screen was a foot away from Cosima's nose. “Who are they?” she demanded.

Cosima put her glasses back on to see the picture of Nabil and his siblings around their new kitchen table. “Friends. Their aunt is a friend of mine.”

The guard handed the phone to her superior and looked down at Cosima with a face that had switched from professional indifference to outright contempt. “Where are they?”

“Djibouti. Why, you wanna call them, too? Wake them up in the middle of the night?”

The General's body language also changed when she saw the picture. “How do you know these children?”

“I just told you, they're my friend's nieces and nephews.”

“What friend?”

“A friend in Djibouti. She was also a patient of mine, and the kids are in her custody.”

The General shoved the image closer to Cosima's face. “Those children are not Djiboutian. They are Arab.”

If she had been less tired, Cosima would have rolled her eyes. “Yeah, you got me, they're from Yemen. They're refugees. You might be aware that there's a bit of a refugee situation, like, fucking, globally right now, right?”

“Well, that's a bit closer to the truth, finally.” The General pointed to Nabil's selfie, not to his smiling face but to the wall of their apartment, where a green flag with white swords decorated the drab brown and gray. “What symbol is that, Ms. Niehaus?”

“I...” She looked again, with the feeling of being dropped into the most important geography pop quiz of her life. The flag looked Saudi Arabian, but the swords pointed up more, and there was a book between the sword tips that wasn't present on the Saudi flag. The flag wasn't Djiboutian, Egyptian, Algerian, or any other country she recognized, either. “I have no fucking clue. I'm sure you have a specialist somewhere in Tel Aviv who can answer that question for you, though.”

“Smart ass,” Kylo Ren muttered, shaking out her underwear once piece at a time.

“Ms. Niehaus,” the General said, “I suggest you give us a very good explanation for this photo, right away, or I shall have to deny your entry into our country, not only for today, but for the next ten years at the very least.”

Tears fell from Cosima's eyes before she could speak. So much for not crying. “What the fucking hell,” she whispered into her hands. “Please,” she said, looking at the General and opening crying now, “they're just kids. They're good kids. Their parents are dead. I don't know what the flag means. They probably don't know, either. For fuck's sake half of them can barely read! This has nothing to do with Israel, or, or with anything else! Just let me cure my patient and leave! Then I swear to God I'll stay away for the next ten years or forever if you want me to!”

General Organa might have said more, but the door opened and a trim young officer stepped in and addressed her in Hebrew.

They stepped out together, leaving Cosima with her guards, staring at her belongings scattered across the table and quietly sobbing. Delphine would have been out of here by now. She would have said just the right things, had just the right whatever-the-fuck, and they would have let her in the country with no problems. But now, hopefully, Delphine was sleeping peacefully in a hotel bed, in a country that everyone had told them not to go into, and Cosima was this close to being denied entry into what Alison called “the only civilized country in the Middle East.”

Cosima had almost dozed off on the little metal chair when the door opened again and the General came in with Cosima's passport in her hand and a scowl on her face. “You're very lucky, Ms. Niehaus. We've been instructed to let you into the country without further delay. Get your things together, please.”

Keenly aware of the guns still pointed not exactly at her but certainly not away from her, Cosima stuffed everything back into her bags, only taking any care with her cell phone, her laptop, and the cure. She asked no questions and made no comments. Once she was finished, she turned and held out her hand for her passport, but instead, the guards led her back around to the passport control desk.

“Dr. Bronstein will meet you through those doors,” the General said, her voice dripping with disdain. Then she cut in front of the other people waiting to get into the country, went into the passport control booth, and stamped Cosima's passport with the Israeli travel visa.

[kilojulietsierra]

Chapter One - Damage Control (Bright - Female OC/TBD)

I’m a terrible person that can’t focus on one story at a time. This one wouldn’t leave me alone so I thought I’d share. 

After the events of Bright the Shield of Light send one of their best problem solvers to clean up the mess. She’s used to her job being difficult, she only ever gets called in when shit’s gone so far south nobody else can save it. Critical Mission Failure is her specialty, but this time... she might be in over her head.

Violence/Language/Possible NSFW later

Chapter One

As soon as her boots hit the grimy, rubble strewn pavement Kora knew her day was ruined. She didn't have much hope for the days to follow either. “Well, what the fuck happened here?”

Donovan walked around from the opposite side of the SUV, “A clusterfuck of epic proportions.” He finished of his bottle of Pepsi and after an unimpressed glance around his surroundings tossed it towards the curb to join the rest of the garbage. “Let’s deal with these jokers and get to work.  Sooner we get this cleaned up the sooner we can get the fuck out of here.”

Kora took her own glance about and followed it up with an exasperated sigh, “Agreed.”

The jokers to which her partner referred stood on the opposite side of the street, staring at them from in front of what remained of the house at 341 Abrams.  Kora had no more than lifted her foot to take the first step across the street than the three of them rushed to meet her. “Ms. Carmichael!”

Before the tiny blonde could say anything more Kora held up a hand, “I just spent more than 13 hours in the air and another hour coming through customs.” She focused on each of the three in turn. Setting them all with a cold, no bullshit stare, “You. Tiny. Tell me what happened.” Kora walked through the middle of the three with Donovan a step behind her.

‘Tiny’, as she had been nicknamed by Kora took a quick stutter step to keep up with Koras long legged stride. “Okay, so, on the night of May tenth Los Angeles Police Department responded to a code…”

“CliffsNotes version TIny. Just play me the highlights reel.”

“Oh umm, okay. Cops responded to a disturbance call, report says they were fired upon, they exchanged fire and then entered the premises to do a final sweep. Feds responded just in time to see the explosion, wrote off as a gas line that got clipped in the gunfire.”

Kora and the group had stopped at the main entrance to the house, or at least what was left of it. “Uh huh One of the cops involved was the orc cop right?.” She looked over the burnt shell of the building then to the three that had come to meet them. All three silently nodding “Okay. Man Bun, what really happened?”

“My name is Seamus.” He griped, but answered the question nonetheless. “Not that anybody is telling us anything for certain, but our best guess: the bright, either Tikka or Leilah, maybe both got into an altercation with police and it didn’t go well.”

Everyone followed Kora into the ruins, watched as she picked her way through the charred remains, while she contemplated. When they came to the courtyard with the drained pool and burnt tree in the center she heaved a heavy sigh. “The wand? Tikka? Leilah?”

Nobody wanted to answer that question. Which was an answer in and of itself.

“So we lost the bright willing to work with us, the leader of an Inferni coven and the only wand we’ve seen in years?” She kicked a piece of floorboard and it clattered into the wall several feet away.

The group of three remained silent while Kora collected herself. Donovan the least concerned of all of them. His partners antics were not unexpected, “Who’s left?”

“The three of us.” The third member of the welcoming party spoke up for the first time, “Two others that have gone to ground and Serling, who is still locked up in a federal facility somewhere we think.”

Kora walked a circle around the once sacred pool before she responded. “What’s your name?”

The young man looked at his companions and then back to Kora, “Shawn, ma’am.”

She nodded, “Okay, Shawn. You work on tracking down our missing people.” Kora traipsed back through the rubble and wreckage, speaking to them over her shoulder as she went. “Tiny, you and Donny are gonna find us a new safe house. Here, in this neighborhood. And you, Man Bun.” She stopped just short of the dilapidated front door, paused in contemplation again with them all staring at her, “Go find us some pulled pork tacos. Flour shells, not corn. With two Pepsi's.”  

Nobody said or did anything until Donovan added, “Large Pepsi’s. Soon would be good.”

Finally the three of them set off to do as they were told. Man Bun, Seamus, muttering under his breath.

Donovan and Kora stood side by side, just inside the threshold of what had been one of their most well hidden, well manned and well supplied safe houses in the U.S. Kora pulled a pack of cigarettes from her jacket pocket and lit one. “One hell of a mess they expect us to clean up.” She let a cloud of smoke roll out the door and back into the afternoon sun before immediately taking in a second drag. This one she inhaled completely.

Next to her, her partner nodded. “If it was easy they wouldn’t send us.” They stood there for a few moments while Kora smoked. Until something caught Donovans attention across the street. “Visitors.”

“I see ‘em.” Kora inhaled more of her cigarette, “Find out who they are.” She pulled her sunglasses from the front of her shirt and slipped them on as she stepped back out onto the sidewalk.

“What are you gonna do?” Donny followed after her as she stepped into the street.

“Find out where they’re holding Serling.”

~~~~~~~

Kandomere gave a slight pause as she opened the door to his office, but he didn’t let on that he had noticed right away. Not until he had the door securely closed behind him and his suit jacket hung on its hook. He could see her just fine as it was, but he flipped the light switch anyway.

A young woman was sitting in his chair, behind his desk. Long legs resting on the corner, toe of one of her heeled boots bouncing dangerously close to a stack of files placed on the edge of his desk. He noticed something strange about her. More than one something. The most obvious of which was a dark discoloration over the bridge of her nose, over part of her brow and under her right eye. Most of it was covered by a pair of large, mirrored, aviator sunglasses. “There’s no smoking in federal buildings. If you plan on making a habit of sneaking up on people you should consider giving up the habit.”

“You’re probably right. It’s a bad habit to have.” She took another puff and seemed to enjoy it immensely. “But, it kind of comes with the territory. My partner, that kid cracks a Red Bull before I’ve had my first cup of coffee, Mtn. Dew, Coke, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper… breakfast, lunch and dinner.” She paused for another drag. “Then there’s your partner, everyone knows what his nasty little habit is.  Doing what we do, we need something to get us through the day and the long nights. We all have one. Don’t we Kandomere? Of course, I don’t keep mine a secret like some people.” Kora finished her cigarette and snubbed it out on the sole of her boot. She examined the cigarette butt for a moment before she tossed it on his desk.

All the elf did was stand with his hands in his pockets and stare at her, blank and cold. He watched her carefully, scrutinized her, and then took a deep breath. He caught something else strange about her, something hiding underneath the cigarette smoke.  “No, but you aren’t without your secrets either, it seems. Now, who are you and what do you want?”

“You know something I’ve always wondered. Why do people ask questions they already know the answers to? Are they hoping we surprise them and tell the truth or are they hoping to catch us in a lie?”

His eyes were drawn to the 99 cent lighter she twirled between her fingers. “Alright. I knew your people would send somebody. Now, here you are.”

“Here I am.” The lighter continued to spin. “Where’s Serling?”

WIth a silent chuckle Kandomere moved a few paces to his left.  “Coming back for your own? How Gallant. Here I was certain you had come for the Bright.”

Now she chuckled, but didn’t cover it as he had. The lighter stopped spinning. “Come on, we both know you don’t have any clue where she is.” A smile spread across her face. One that even gave Kandomere reason to pause. “But, we will find her. If you help me now, then when we do find her I will let you know.”

“You’ll give me TIkka in exchange for your sword wielding comrade?”

“Not a fucking chance!” She laughed outright this time and took a minute to light another cigarette. “But, if you take me to see my ‘sword wielding comrade’ I can make sure you get any relevant information she gives us when we do find her.”

Another cloud of smoke began to fill his office, just when he was so close to figuring out what was off about this woman. Her bargain was intriguing. “Not just information. I want to speak to her myself.”

The silence between them was thicker than the stench of the cigarette smoke. Neither of them moved. All Kandomere could do was stare at his own reflection in her sunglasses. At least, until she finally moved, kicking her feet up and over the precarious pile of paperwork to set her boots on the floor with a thud. “I can live with that.”

“Alright then. I will take you to see him. FIrst thing tomorrow morning.”

She stood, but stayed behind his desk. “How about we go now?”

He couldn’t look away from the dark splotch of skin that stood out in a stark contrast to her pale skin and ink black hair. “These things take time. Some of us have to go through proper channels to get what we want.”

“Ha, now that’s funny.” She dropped her second cigarette butt on his desk and stepped around, walking to the office door. There she paused and dropped a piece of paper in the pocket of his jacket on the hook, “I’ll be anxiously waiting for your call.” With one hand on the doorknob she paused. With the other she pulled off her sunglasses. “And since you’re wondering it’s called Large Congenital Melanocytic Nevus.” With a mirthless smile she slipped her glasses back on and opened the door, “We can’t all be born perfect.”

~~~~~~~

[tony-luvv]

Nurse’s Call Button

Summary: Thor and Tony getting caught in the rain leads to teaching Thor another Midgardian custom, playing doctor.

Side Notes: This is for Howling_Moonie (on Ao3) Also I had my friend, who is not at all into fan fiction, edit this story (thank you @vebekah) & she was cracking up so hard. I should’ve recorded it, but she would’ve smacked me. Hope this story makes you laugh as hard as she did!

Links to Ao3 and Fanfiction

Tony laughed, soaked to the bone, as he and Thor ran hand in hand through the rain. They were only a mere three blocks away from the Tower when the first couple of rain drops fell. After that, it didn’t take long for the weather to take a drastic turn, and go from a light sprinkle to a heavy downpour.

With no umbrella, and nothing but thin, fall jackets on their backs, Tony grabbed his boyfriend’s hand and took off running for Stark Tower. Thor could have easily passed him, with his god stamina and superior body, but this was amusing. Rain didn’t bother him in the least, but he knew too much exposure could be harmful to his mortal lover. So he allowed the smaller man to pull him along, keeping pace right behind him.

They reached the tower in half the time, pushing through the glass doors into the main lobby. It was mostly empty at this time of night. Most of the employees were at home where it was dry. The few people they did see stopped and smiled at them as they passed by. Looking around, Tony apologized for the mess they were leaving behind, but the custodian simply waved them off with a “Goodnight gentlemen.”

Carl, a long standing employee, smiled at their antics, “Go dry off Mr. Stark, we don’t want you catching a cold staying in those wet clothes.”

“See Thor, this is why we pay Carl the big bucks.”

The elevator door closed behind them as Thor pushed Tony’s back against the cold, mirrored panel, leaning down to kiss him. It was a mess of open mouthed kisses, since Tony was still trying to catch his breath after their run in the rain. The genius superhero was giggly as Thor’s thick beard scratched against his own.

Tony leaned back and really looked at his boyfriend, with adoring eyes. Dear Lord, was this man beautiful. A demi god among men, you could tell from just a glance that this man was not at all ordinary. Thor’s life as a godly prince radiated in his appearance. Golden locks that looked like silk framed his masculine face. His eyes, the lightest shade of blue, seemed to glow even when he wasn’t calling upon his lightning. His bushy beard only added to that perfectly constructed jaw line. Tony just stared at the taller man, even when Thor quirked a curious eyebrow.

He couldn’t help it. He was just so happy. His relationship with Thor was something he never would have predicted, but thanked any higher power that was listening for this. Them. They almost didn’t happen. Honestly, it was something they started out of sheer curiosity.

A renowned playboy that never lost his sex drive and a god of fertility that was eligible; it made for quite the pairing.

Tony and Pepper stopped working. It was a slow decline, until one day they both just knew it was over. Together, they agreed that they still had love for each other, just not the type that made for a long-lasting relationship. So while Tony and Pepper were attempting to find their ground as friends again, Thor and Jane were calling it quits. They had passion together, but it doesn’t matter when you’re always apart. So now it was back to the dating pool for the both of them.

It didn’t take long at all for the friends to realize there was something more between them. It started right before Ultron happened, when they were trying to one up each other by praising their respective girlfriends. After their break ups, they took a liking to each other as two souls disheartened because they lost what they thought to be “the one.” They were just two men, in love with women that were simply too amazing for them. In all reality, the ladies were better off without them. They could only cling on for so long. But neither regretted their prior relationships. In fact, they even had a small pissing contest to see who came out better, thanks to the women they loved and dated.

That must have been how they had gotten here. They wanted love and companionship, but it was hard. Tony had a boat-load of trust issues and enough work to keep him out of the dating game for three lifetimes. Thor was an alien god on a foreign planet. Being a Norse God ‘Christian Mingle’ wasn’t really an option for him and he preferred time on Earth over Asgard for now.

So they started sleeping together. After the first few times, Tony pitched the idea of more, and the rest, as they say, was history.

Fumbling out the elevator, lips still locked, Tony was hit with the brisk air. He pulled back, goose bumps rising from the chilled air and making his teeth chatter. “Fuck, its cold! Okay, we really need to clean up or change clothes before we get sick.” He wrapped his arms around himself attempting to get some heat back in his body. He glanced at Thor, taking in his lover. The big behemoth was standing there, long hair and wet clothes dripping onto the floor, looking completely unbothered by it all. “Scratch that, before I get sick.” His eyes swept over the bulging muscles of his man, “Hmm, sorry to break it to you babe, but I don’t think you’d pull off the sexy nurse’s outfit.”

He tried to imagine it, just for a moment, before laughing at the idea. Another chill ran over him and he’d had enough. Time for a hot bath.

Tony turned and left the room, leaving Thor to stand there or follow him. He chose the latter. “What is this ‘sexy nurse’ thing you are referring to?”

“It’s kind of a double meaning. In older times, woman wore a nurse’s outfit and took care of someone. Over time we’ve turned it into a sex thing, you dress up and ‘take care’ of someone.” He was in the bathroom, bent over the tub and making sure he got the water to the perfect temperature. When he was satisfied, he got up and caught sight of Thor. He was doing the confused puppy head tilt thing.

“So basically, you put on a cute outfit and please your partner.”

Tony sighed when Thor’s frown deepened. He really didn’t want to break out a tablet and explain this whole thing to Thor. His bath was almost ready! “I feel like I’m still not quite getting this concept, a nurse is a healer correct? Why would their clothing make for such a…ritual.” Tony was starting to accept his fate of another ‘Welcome to Earth Culture’ lesson when Thor continued, “Anthony, I think a demonstration would be most helpful in this matter, will you show me?”

Huh. Tony was removing his clothes, his head popping free of his wet shirt when the blonde finished speaking. He blinked at the older man, thinking about doing a little roleplaying and thought, ‘what the hell, why not?’ “You know what? Sure, this weekend. We’re playing doctor.”

“Is this for theater?”

Tony threw his hands up, “NEVERMIND. Just shut up and get in the tub.” Thor happily stripped down and joined him.

Tony couldn’t believe he was doing this, Thor was so fucking lucky. He went all out. After much debate with himself, he went online to find an outfit, only for that to turn out to be a complete waste of time. From what he could tell, anything for a guy was overdone and trashy and all the women’s versions expected him to be busty up top.

He caved and went to an old friend to get a custom-made outfit. But the results, he hoped, were well worth it. His dress hugged him perfectly. He had a three button collared top that was opened to reveal his collarbones and just a little bit of his chest. Red outlined the edges of the material. It highlighted where it cuffed his bicep and stopped high on his toned thighs. The red cross symbol was a bold contrast on his right breast and the little nurse’s hat he had gotten made to go with. To top off his outfit, he got thigh high white socks and 4-inch white heels.

He looked over the outfit once more, his hands fiddling with the hat one last time before making sure it was perfect on his head. He looked at his reflection, shrugging at his own reflection “Here goes nothing.” With a confidence he spent years crafting, he left the bathroom.

“Hello Mr. Odinson, how are you feeling today?” With the grace of a gazelle, he strode through the room towards the other. He walked in the heels like he was born to do it, not a single slip or buckle. He stopped in front of the king-sized bed, where his patient lay, giving him a chance to take it all in. Thor’s eyes started at the four inch heels and crawled slowly up his body. Tony could see it, the lust and hunger in his eyes, increasing rapidly the more they looked.

“Not so good.”

Tony’s dick twitched as Thor’s voice got deep and rumbled like the thunder he controlled.

“What seems to be the problem?” They talked about this, Tony walking Thor through his ‘role’ to make this work. Thor reached for him, a big hand grabbing his thigh. He squeezed the flesh visible between the socks and dress then trailed down the material over his legs.

“I have an itch that needs to be scratched.”

He hummed, slightly distracted by the wandering hand. “Mhmm, and where is this scratch?”

Tony wasn’t disappointed when Thor’s free hand reached for his cock and growled, “Here.”

So fucking worth it, he thought climbing into Thor’s lap. He straddled him, placing his bare bum (since he didn’t bother with underwear) against the hard length he could feel under the sheet. Thor shifted a little below him, but otherwise sat back and let Dr. Stark handle everything. His left hand went to the head board and his right rested on the t-shirt over his lover’s pec. In place he started rocking his hips, rubbing over Thor’s growing hard on. He kept the motion slow, dragging the movements out and being a delicious tease about it. “Is this helping Mr. Odinson?”

He looked at Thor who was just lying there against the pillows. Satisfied smirk firmly in place on his face and big heavy hands hot on his thighs. “Mr. Odinson?” His right hand scrunched up Thor’s clean white tee where he was still holding onto him. He looked at his lover, trying to gesture with his eyes for him to follow along. Hello! This is your que…

But nothing! Just that stupid smirk that was starting to really irritate him. He stopped moving his hips, “You’re supposed to go along with it, what are you doing?” Thor’s smile was starting to show teeth now.

Tony pulled back, hands going to cross over his chest as he let Thor’s lap take all of his weight. He gave him an imploring look, trying to figure out what was going on in that giant head of his. What the hell?! He was just sitting there with this cheeky look. Like the cat that got the canary, the cream, and–

“Wait,” there’s no way, no fucking way– “did you just fucking troll me?!”

“What is trolling?” He tried, eyebrows scrunching in confusion and eyes trying to be all innocent. But it was that damn smirk that gave him away.

“YOU FUCKER.” He smacked the back of his hand on Thor’s chest. He couldn’t believe that he was trolled into wearing this fucking outfit but somewhere deep down he was impressed that the big lug was able to pull it off. “I can’t believe it.”

Thor chuckled, his arm came up and wrapped around him. Holding him as he rolled them across the bed so that he was kneeling above Tony and he was laid out beneath him on the mattress. “Believe it Anthony.”

Tony laid there, heels still in place, socks torn and dress pushed up but mostly still on. Basking in the afterglow of amazing sex, “Well Anthony, I’m honored to say you make a lovely ‘sexy nurse’ and I would not be opposed to another ‘check-up’.”

He didn’t hesitate, just threw a bunch that landed somewhere on Thor’s side.

Grumbling under his breath he rolled away but Thor’s body and happy laughter followed right behind him.

Ending Notes:

HERE’S TO ANOTHER ROUND OF PROMPTS. I hope the content is better this time around.

Also Prompts are Always Accepted, no guarantee on the response time tho.. Likes, Replies, and Reblogs are always appreciated.

If You’re Willing, Support Me: Buy Me Coffee

[llexeh]

Do You Remember Tijuana? - Steve Rogers / Tony Stark

Part 1 of “Steve Is Going to Lose His Damn Mind”

Summary: He had a sudden urge to just go to bed. Maybe he was too old and his age was finally showing. He wasn’t certain he could still blush after the super serum, but it was a blushable situation. So, yeah, he had been in the army and they were all filthy and he wasn’t actually as much of a prude of people made him out to be. But it was still a blushable situation.

He knew he should have just given Natasha her present and maybe a hug. But Steve was many things, and he thought supportive was one of them. He was right in that assumption, but at what cost?

Warnings: edible dicks, deepthroating competition, alcohol consumption 

Rating: explicit

Pairings: Steve Rogers / Tony Stark, Darcy Lewis / Bruce Banner

Tags: pre-slash, crack treated seriously, slowburn, everyone is alive, wild Dr. Foster

Word count: 6087

A/N: This has been on Ao3 for ages, I’m still trying to get the whole series finished and I’m posting it on here in a desperate attempt to kick-start my fanfic productivity. You may have noticed the “crack treated seriously” tag, it’s there for a reason. This is ridiculous and ooc for the most part, but I also love it enough to share it with everyone who will read it. This has not had the loving touch of a beta, so excuse whatever mistakes I’ve missed.

The first time he was left speechless by how attractive Tony was, it felt a lot like being hit by a train. Steve didn’t have the best track record with trains. (Ha! Track record.) When he was young, he watched people get on them and never return. He dropped Bucky from one. He watched helplessly as the one he was on sped wildly through Seoul. So the first time he realised he was attracted to Tony Stark, it felt like he turned his head and all of a sudden he was standing on the railway and headlights were closing in on him, there was no time to move aside, and his breath was stolen from his lungs.

There had been hints, and even half formed thoughts when in between insults and petty arguments, Steve thought Tony was above average. Which, he thought, as he recovered from the train running him over, was complete bullshit. And not only was Tony above average, he was god damn beautiful. Steve just gave up: his mind was a mess, and he figured this was what happened when people survive train trampling. Which was no one. Except for Bucky, but that was falling off a train, and Steve just gave up again. It was pointless.

He needed a stiff drink. It was hardly the first time the need arose, and he was perfectly aware he couldn’t get drunk, but it was more the sharp pinch of the alcohol on his tongue, the soothing way it burned its way down his throat that he wanted. It was anchoring in a way few things were. Fighting was one of those things, but Natasha was terrifying, and this was her birthday party. And on top of that, Steve genuinely cared for the redhead and wanted her to have a good time. And she was terrifying. So unless she instigated some group brawl, that was not an option.

There were plenty of bottles pretty much everywhere around the large common room in the tower, but Steve also needed a dark corner to brood for a little. There was a poignant desire to lament his inability to get drunk. Because maybe if he could, he’d pass out and it would finally get quiet in his head. Like many other things that night, that wasn’t an option. So he sat down and drank scotch straight from the bottle, trying to attract as little attention as possible.

Maybe if he thought of it tactically, as if it were a mission he needed to plan. He took a deep breath and another swig from the bottle. Situation: the reality he found Tony Stark attractive. Extra information: not only did he find his fellow Avenger attractive, he was rendered speechless, mid conversation with… someone because he found him so attractive. Problem: he found Tony Stark attractive. Gosh, Steve was well happy no one could actually read his mind. They’d either pass out with the sheer stupidity that floated around, or pass out from laughing too much.

The problem wasn’t that Tony was a man, or even that he was a fellow Avenger, or that he was Howard’s son, or that he was a dick most of the time, or that even if he was remotely attracted to men, he wouldn’t go for Steve’s righteousness and stubbornness and whatever it was that annoyed him about Steve. Oh, wait. Those were the exact problems. Maybe not the Tony being a man part, because Steve always knew he was a bit not-straight. And coming back into the modern day and age, he quickly adjusted to the fact that he didn’t need to stick a label on himself. It was a stark contrast to going into a battle against the Nazis with the distinct thought that some men wear a uniform better than others.

So, tactically. Problem: Steve was currently speechless halfway through a bottle of scotch that did absolutely nothing to him (while everyone was having a blast) because he found his friend hot and there was no way anything would come of it for various reasons. There, that was the most compact way of putting it. Steve was thankful the babbling in his head didn’t translate into his reports. Solution: drink the entire bottle, put on a smile, and join the party before someone asks questions.

The train metaphor, Steve figured, came from the abruptness of the entire thing. It was all going fine. Natasha’s birthday was coming up and she made a point to not say anything about it. It was all a bit uncertain anyway – her age, her exact date of birth – all of it buried in triple classified files hidden in underground bunkers under a lake in Switzerland; or something. The intel was her birthday was on the 22nd of November, and they accepted it as such.

She didn’t plan anything, didn’t mention it at all, and Steve was fine. He’d bought her a hand carved wooden jewelry box from a thrift shop in Brooklyn months before. It reminded him of her with its intricate edges and vintage finish, and Steve was a sucker for gifting people things he thought they’d like. He was ready to wrap it up and present her with it at midnight if she was around, or for breakfast, and he was absolutely fine with it. In hindsight, he would have preferred it, if only to avoid a metaphorical train. Steve was less and less fond of trains with each passing minute.

Clint approached him at lunch a couple of days before with a smile (first sign of trouble), a notepad (signs two-to-five of trouble), a pen (!), and confetti on his shoulders. Steve nearly turned around and walked away. He might have looked young, but he was starting to think he was essentially an old man – what was that line in the film? Too old for this shit?

The short conversation went along the lines of:

“We’re throwing Tasha a party, tell your friends.”

“All of my friends live here, Clint.”

“You need to get out more, Cap.”

“Okay… Does she want a party?”

“It’s a surprise.”

“She’s gonna shoot all of us, Clint. And some of you are more prone to dying than others.”

“We’ll duck. She can’t shoot all of us at once.”

“She can if she gets a grenade launcher. The rest she’ll thigh-strangle to death.”

“It’ll be fine, Cap, you worry too much. Here, shopping list. Hide everything in your room, we can’t order online, she’ll know. Thanks!”

It turned out everyone was excited about it, so Steve went with it. He volunteered to be in her line of fire, shield up for when she reacted to the surprise. It went as well as expected: she walked into the dim room, shot at his shield, and pretended to be very surprised while wearing a cocktail dress and high heels. Her smile was bright however, and Steve found it endearing.

“Clint,” she started walking towards the marksman, “I know this is on you. Come, we’re doing tequila.”

Clint actually groaned. “Tasha, anything but that! Remember Tijuana?” He shuffled his feet towards the bar where Tony started pouring shots.

“Do you?” Natasha asked with a laugh. She turned to the people gathering at the bar. “Thank you so much for wanting to celebrate with me. Now drink!” She passed shot glasses to everyone and set the tone for her party.

Thor placed a crown on her head, naming her their queen for the night as soon as the bottle of tequila was finished. Someone put some lounge music on, and Steve was pleased to see his friends enjoying themselves as they mingled.

It was all very informal, with just the Avengers and their close friends. Vision trying to be inconspicuous in his white button down, drifting around Wanda as close as possible without clinging to her. Quicksilver speeding around the room smiling at Maria Hill in that downright shameless manner that made Fury cock his head ominously. Pepper and Maria converging to the side to complain about managing what were basically children. Bruce chatting to Jane and pretending not to be dumbstruck by Darcy’s pin-up dress and hair. Sam and Bucky to the side, chatting animatedly about sport, Steve guessed. It looked like a promising night. No trains in sight.  

About two hours in, Rhodey lost to Steve at arm-wrestling for the seventh time. He was about to ask for a rematch, when Natasha asked to replace him. She sat down on the bar stool opposite him, smiling widely. On top of what Steve assumed was an actual crown, she now sported a plastic tiara adorned with large silver stars that bobbed whenever Natasha moved. Her eyes were as focused as always, but there was a subtle flush to her cheeks.

“Think you can win, Tasha?”

“I don’t know, Cap. Will you let me?” She cocked her head to the side, flirty as always. The stars on her head dangled dangerously.

Tony materialised to their side with two more shot glasses. “He’s an honest guy, Natasha. Of course he won’t let you win.” He downed his and gave the other to her.

“Not even if I ask nicely?”

Steve laughed. “I value my life. Wouldn’t want to insult you.”

She nodded. “Let’s make it interesting. I’ll bet my tiara and you can bet…” She looked around trying to find something. Her smile broadened. “Ah! You lose and I get to set you up on a date!”

“Is that still happening? Okay then.” He placed his elbow on the bar and wiggled his fingers. Natasha grabbed it and signaled Tony to count. It was more difficult than with Rhodey, Steve will give her that, but in the end he was victorious.

She graciously admitted defeat. “Fair and square. Well, ignoring the super serum and the days you spend in the gym.” She disentangled the plastic tiara and placed it on Steve’s head. “I still get to set you up on a date cause it’s my birthday and you owe me for the thing in the place,” she told him.

He laughed and gave up trying to dissuade her. He’d just have to find a way out of this one as always. “You’d think there were no more people I can say no to,” he said jokingly.

“Oh, Steve. I’m only on J. We’ve got a long way to go,” she informed him.

Tony poured her another shot and drank his from the bottle. “I’ve got an updated list of Stark employees you can use. And Friday made a folder called Operation Date on the common server to simplify your mission,” he offered.

“Excellent,” Natasha said covering Steve’s groan.

The music changed to something more familiar to Steve; Bucky stopped by his side on his way to the dance floor. “Watch this,” he told them with a shit eating grin. He quickly grabbed Darcy and pulled her close. Steve groaned again.

“I swear to god, if we have a code green I’m getting the largest electromagnet in the tri-state area and I’m hanging him in Times Square,” Tony told them.

They kept an eye on Bruce as Darcy and Bucky eased into a swing dance. He had a small smile on, wiping at his glasses absentmindedly. Without the threat of a Hulk-out (and Steve was certain Bruce had more self-control than to lose his shit over this), it was actually amusing to watch. His eyes swept Darcy’s figure up and down as she moved, looking like he was trying to convince himself of something or the other. Steve grudgingly admired Bucky’s plan, but even if it worked out fine for everyone, he was still going to get punched in the non-metal shoulder for being a dick.

Once their dance was finished, Bucky put on a show of bending over Darcy’s hand and kissing it delicately. He offered his arm and led her to where their little group was gathered. Her fingers shot out towards Tony and she wiggled them in a silent plea for alcohol. Tony indulged her with a laugh.

“Well, that’s the most physical I’ve been in ages,” she told them after a quick succession of straight-from-the-bottle tequila shots.

“That’s because you keep skipping your damn training and I get bored of looking for you,” Natasha said casually. “I’m keeping track, by the way. You owe me twelve miles and four kickboxing sessions.” Darcy just grabbed the closest vodka bottle and started chugging. “And a hundred and fifty push-ups,” the redhead continued unfazed.

Bucky leaned into Darcy in a show of support. “Think how much ass you’ll kick,” he told her.

“Yeah, no, Lover Boy. There’s no motivating me, like, ever.”

“Lover –"

“It’s from a movie,” came the voice from behind them. Bruce was standing there casually, arms crossed over his chest, his glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose.

Steve remembered watching it late one night when he couldn’t sleep. “Isn’t it with the ghost guy?”

Tony snorted and offered Bruce a glass of bourbon. “Yeah, no,” he said, repeating Darcy’s words. “On the right track though, so props.”

Bruce took the drink and sipped it slowly. Steve felt like he was caught in some odd power play between people who had more of a life than he did. He poured a shot of tequila and downed it just to adhere to their standards. Tony poured him another one.

“Imagine betting on Rogers in a drinking competition. You’d make millions!”

“You already have millions,” Darcy told him with a laugh. She pulled away from Bucky and pat his cheek. “Thanks for the dance, Footloose. I better go find Jane before she has too much to drink and decides to strip.”

Bruce choked on his drink. “Dr Foster wouldn’t…?”

“Dr Foster definitely would,” Darcy told him. “College was a weird time. Don’t ever look up her arrest record.”

When she left them Tony was already on his phone. Bruce made a vague noise, gesturing wildly with his half empty glass. After several failed attempts at words, he nodded and followed her general direction. Once he was far enough, Steve turned and punched Bucky as he promised himself he would.

“Ouch, Rogers! I’m wounded!”

“You will be if you keep this up,” Steve replied. “You have no business with these nice people, leave them alone.”

Bucky grinned. “But it’s so much fun, Stevie! Besides she looked great, and who was I going to dance with? You? You have eight left feet. You’re like a clumsy spider whenever you even think of a dance floor.” Steve punched him again in the same spot, really hoping it would bruise, at least for a couple of minutes. “You know, when you were just a scrawny kid in Brooklyn and I fought all your fights –"

“I thought you couldn’t get drunk, Buck. What is this, memory lane? You always did this and I had to listen to you for hours. Hours, Buck.”

The former assassin had the cheek to look offended. “Just because you’d have died if you drank too much…”

Tony choked on tequila and turned his back to Natasha for help. She hit between his shoulder blades a couple of times. “Thank you,” he told her. “I feel I’m watching Grumpy Old Men on cable during a storm when there’s nothing else on.”

Steve was confused and was about to ask what he was on about when drumrolls flooded the large common room. Clint’s voice could be heard over the noise, belting out Happy Birthday horribly off-key. It was Natasha’s turn to groan. Steve felt almost vindicated.

Clint was carrying a huge tray of what looked like reasonably sized jell-o dicks. Steve wasn’t sure what he was seeing, but he had a Bad Feeling about it. Not like when a villain would pop out of nowhere before breakfast and coffee, but close.

“Loaded with vodka, just like you like them” Clint told Natasha. He deposited the tray on the edge of the coffee table, turning to the people sitting on the sofas. “Hurry up, make some room.” Natasha groaned again, louder than before. Steve put on his best patronizing smile and pat her shoulder.

They walked to where Clint was standing proudly admiring his work. Steve counted fifteen identical phalluses in various colours wobbling on the tray. He had a sudden urge to just go to bed. Maybe he was too old and his age was finally showing. He wasn’t certain he could still blush after the super serum, but it was a blushable situation. So, yeah, he had been in the army and they were all filthy and he wasn’t actually as much of a prude of people made him out to be. But it was still a blushable situation. There were things he couldn’t shake despite everything he’d seen. And jelly dicks on a tray was one of them, apparently.

“Clint, why?” Natasha’s voice gave away some annoyance, but mostly humour. So at least she liked it somewhat.

“Remember when I had that bartending thing in Vegas? Well, there were a shit-ton of bachelorette parties and this was popular with the ladies.” He shimmied a little and promptly burst into laughter.

“I’m assuming they weren’t chewing them in front of the strippers,” Sam said casually.

“Not until much later, no,” Clint replied. “Deepthroat competition!” he said and Steve wasn’t even sure who groaned the loudest.

Jane took a step forward, and Darcy’s hand shot out to catch her shoulder. She tried her best withering glance, but it seemed the good Dr. Foster had gone to the dark side. Steve was proud of his reference, even if he had yet to watch Star Wars. That was a new thing he’d started doing, where he privately googled popular references just so he wouldn’t be lost in conversation. He just hadn’t gotten around to watch everything he missed being frozen, and that made the cheating thought a bit less poignant. Jane nodded at Darcy, and Darcy shook her head, so Jane nodded louder, and Darcy just sighed and took a step forward too. Steve recognized it for what it was: solidarity. He’d done enough stupid shit for Bucky to know it intimately.

“What is this deepthroating?” Thor’s voice managed to boom even when he didn’t mean it to.

In the slightly tense (and also curious) atmosphere in the room, his question seemed to make everyone burst into laughter. The god’s confused expression almost made Steve take pity on him, but Pepper was quicker.

“It’s when you suck on – ah, how to – ” Her inability to not be helpful left her stranded halfway through her sentence not really knowing how to go on. “Tony?”The scientist lifted his hands in a clear sign of not-touching-this-one-it’s-hilarious-to-watch-you-struggle. Pepper looked around some more, her cheeks starting to redden.

Maria Hill of all people chose to lean forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “Dick sucking, Thor.” She prodded a jelly dick with her finger and then looked up at the god. “But really deep.” The entire room burst into laughter again.

Thor’s face lit up and he brought his hands together as he did before a fist fight. “Ah! Of course, it makes sense now. So, a competition,” he said and Steve knew that look.

Jane giggled, Pepper touched her hand to Maria’s shoulder in a sign of gratitude, and Darcy released another long suffering sigh. Wanda stepped closer, looking like she wanted in. Pietro shuddered somewhere to his right, and said a quick “Wanda, no,” to his sister. She smiled viciously. Steve was certain he would never understand their dynamic, even though there was a part of him that envied the feeling of belonging in a symbiosis of that nature.

“Tony, remember when we –"

“Rhodey…”

“Tony…”

“Rhodey!”

“Tony!”

Natasha stepped forward and knelt by the end of the coffee table. She looked up at Tony with a smirk. “Well, it is my birthday…”

“For the love of god, we don’t even know if you were born or if you hatched from a large egg!” Tony exclaimed.

“Come on, Stark. It’s gonna be like that time we were stranded in Atlantic City. I remember you taking off your shirt and well, are we still banned there?”

“Rhodes, I made that disappear from your record, I can bring it back.”

Clint interrupted their little spat. “Okay, okay, enough. Show of hands if you wanna suck fake dicks for Natasha’s birthday. She’s obviously gonna do it so we might as well show some solidarity…”

Jane put both her hands up, Maria joined her with one. Darcy’s finger lift up. Thor put one of his hands up and the other snaked around Jane’s shoulders. Steve couldn’t even begin to think about their sex life. Mostly because it was wrong to give it that much thought, but also because he wouldn’t even know where to start. To his surprise, Bucky put his hand up.

“What?” he asked. “Remember Jacques bet me I couldn’t stick a bottle of beer down my throat? I won that one.”

Steve rolled his eyes. He didn’t actually remember. His best guess is he was agonizing in a corner about making Peggy like him. He tried not to choke on air when Tony’s hand went up following Rhodes’s. “You are going down. Literally,” he heard the scientist say. Pepper joined them as well, downing her entire champagne flute. Bruce ran his hand down his face.

“Captain?” he heard Sam ask him with a smirk.

“Oh, I’ll pass,” Steve said with a small smile. “The serum removed my gag reflex, it wouldn’t be fair.” He was happy to make his friends laugh, but he was still not going to slobber over some vodka filled jelly dicks. Even though he could. And he would probably win. Still wasn’t doing it.

After a brief rearranging, the contestants sat or kneeled around the table. Everyone moved out of the way, and Clint made sure to put some raunchy music on before getting in position. He dished out the jelly dicks on cake plates and got Vision to count to three. As soon as the word was said, they all bent their heads and went for it.

Steve took a moment to observe without looking like a pervert. Pietro had given up on his disappointment and was cheering on Wanda in typical supporting-my-twin-forever way. Wanda, for her part, kept her eyes down and opened her mouth wide to slide down on the thing. Vision seemed mildly amused by it. Steve wondered briefly how lust worked in his case, but the snort coming from Rhodey’s general direction stopped his thought. The man was trying his best not to choke on both the jelly dick and his laughter, leaning heavily into his palms on the table. Pepper wasn’t faring much better, pulling back and clutching at her chest to try and stop laughing.

Sam sat opposite Bucky, both of them staring at each other. Steve was trying to decide if it was flirting or competing, but he came up short. Fury sat on the side of an armchair, drinking whiskey from the bottle, probably lamenting how much money went into the Avengers Initiative. Steve couldn’t blame the man. His good eye was starting to lose focus, and Steve felt a slight pang of jealousy at the ability.

Thor and Jane were holding hands on the table, both of them trying to accommodate as much as possible down their throats. Jane seemed to be doing better, but it could have been the fact that she wasn’t smiling like an idiot. Thor… not so much. Darcy kept her eyes trained on Bruce. The scientist still had his small smile on, Steve was glad to see. Even if it looked vaguely pained, like he didn’t know what to do with his hands, or how to lean on the sofa better. Darcy pulled back, smirked at him, actually had the audacity to wink, and wiped at the corner of her mouth before taking most of the thing down her throat. For the first time since their competition started, Steve felt some inkling of arousal.

The whole thing was arousing in a way he supposed, but these were people he would be giving coffee to the following day when their hangovers wanted to kill them. They were the people he lived with, worked with, went to die for, trusted, and cherished. And for some reason, watching them try to deepthroat wasn’t exactly touching yourself material. Especially when half of them were at various degrees of hysterics, abandoning their task altogether in favour of laughter. Darcy was… different because Darcy was putting on a show. And Steve was many things, but not made of stone.

For some, it was a bonding experience – see Jane and Thor. For others, it was an excellent story – see Rhodey and Pepper. For others, it was blatant flirting – see Darcy and Bruce (who was cocking his head to the side; and Steve was absolutely certain that Dr. Banner was the only person in the world to watch their love interest perform a lascivious sex act and find it adorable.)

Clint pulled back to cheer on Natasha who was still going strong in the middle of them all, golden bejewelled crown crooked on her head. Steve felt proud of her determination, and also slightly turned on by the way her lips held on to the jelly.

Fury clicked his tongue from Steve’s side and it spoke volumes about how distracted Steve actually was. “Aren’t you glad you’re their leader?”

Steve nodded. “Hey, if all else fails, at least they can suck dick.”

Fury snorted in his glass. “I’m wondering who Clint used for the mould.”

“I don’t think I –”  

Freight train.

Tony leaned on his elbows, bending the jelly dick so he could suck on it and also look straight ahead. His eyes seemed glued to Steve’s thighs. He figured, as a last desperate thought, that the scientist was staring at whatever was in front of him, and at the highest point he could without rolling his eyes. Steve wanted to ignore the way the man’s throat bulged as he relaxed it to accommodate the phallus. He really, really did. But he’d seen the Godfather, and there was a bit there where Michael gets hit by lightning when he falls in love and Steve had no idea why that was where his mind took him, but it damned felt like Thor unleashed his thunder god power right through his spine. Tony swallowed around the thing, and Steve would swear until the end of time that the bottle of tequila he didn’t realise he was holding most definitely didn’t shatter in his fist. He was utterly speechless. And would you look at that, he could blush.

There was a vague sound of Rhodey whooping and Natasha clapping and Bucky cursing softly and Darcy laughing and Clint patting Tony’s shoulder. It all registered in the back of his head, including the proud look Tony threw him, and Maria inviting them all to eat a bunch of dicks. Steve turned away and walked to a bottle of scotch, conversation with Fury forgotten.

He welcomed the relative quiet and solitude while he tried to command his thoughts to re-enter some sort of order. He went to run his hands through his hair and of course he’d forgotten and watched the man he was suddenly aware he was attracted to deepthroating a jell-o dick while wearing a plastic tiara. Because being frozen for seventy years wasn’t ridiculous enough. He uselessly drank some more.

The music had changed by now, and everyone swapped impressions about their competition while swaying to it. Or at least he thought they were, he didn’t care all that much. Tony was showing Natasha his throat, explaining something about it and Steve’s mind brought back the image of the bulge, and what it treacherously decided to paint as heat in Tony’s eyes. Steve really wanted to get drunk. And yes, it wasn’t his party, but he could cry if he wanted to.

Bruce sat next to him, and if Steve were to chose, the man was probably his safest bet. With his kind eyes and gentle demeanour, at least he wouldn’t get chewed for being less than subtle. Steve handed him the bottle and they shared it between them in companionable silence. When Bruce pulled a second one from seemingly nowhere, Steve nodded his thanks.

“At least I can get drunk,” Bruce offered, and Steve found himself laughing. It was useless to think people hadn’t noticed his reaction, but this, this he could deal with.

“Well, I’m not a quitter. At least there’s less for all of you to drink, and that makes me happy.”

“Vicious,” Bruce said. “Not your normal mood, but I like it.”

“She’s really into you,” Steve said, not really caring at this point. “You should ask her out –”

“Yeah, no,” he repeated her earlier words, and Steve couldn’t help but find it endearing. “I tend to kind of break things when I get out.”

“Then ask her in. At least some of us would be home, if it makes you feel better.” Steve drank some more. “Besides, she’s not the type to anger people. Unless you can Hulk out from laughing too much.”

Bruce snorted. “Never happened before. I don’t laugh much.”

“From someone who has absolutely no idea what they’re doing to someone who’s conflicted as all hell: just spend some time with her. She’s probably the second kindest person I’ve ever met.” Bruce was too polite to push. “After you, I mean. Bruce, she’d be good for you.”

The scientist turned to face him. “Okay, are you sure you can’t get drunk? Cause you’re saying some liquor-wise things right now, some of which are complete bullshit,” he laughed.

Steve joined him. “Trust me, you’d know if I were drunk.”

“Well, I’ve got a nice buzz to get me to sleep, so I’m gonna cherish it and maybe improve it.”

“Bruce –"

“Steve, don’t. We can sit here all night with me getting drunker by the minute, and you staying as sober as always, and I could be listing a thousand and one reasons why it wouldn’t work. And honestly, I’d rather have a drink with a kindred spirit and then go to bed.”

Steve was many things, but not made of stone, and not a quitter. And focusing on someone else took his mind off his own shitty thoughts. Steve was many things, and even maybe a bit selfish. “So she’s younger than you.”

Bruce nodded vehemently. “Exactly! A whole life ahead of her!”

“So choosing for her is the way to go?”

There was a pause. “Well, no. But I’m making a conscious decision to not get her caught in this even if she thinks it’s what she wants.”

“So you’re choosing for her.”

“And she’s way out of my league!”

“Right.”

“And she’s funny and kind and perky and I’m not.”

“Okay…”

“And I can’t offer her stability or a family.” Bruce drank, passed the bottle to Steve, waited, took it back, and drank some more. “Or going out clubbing!”

“Of course.”

“Stop agreeing with everything I’m saying, Steve. It’s a low tactic.”

“Absolutely.”

“And she –"

“She’s beautiful,” Steve interrupted.

“So beautiful,” Bruce agreed with shining eyes. “She has this small smile on sometimes and a frown on her left side when something doesn’t make sense. And her face lights up when she talks about something she’s interested in.”

“Mhm.”

“And she knows I prefer almond milk and makes sure to add it to all the cups of coffee she brings me.” Bruce sighed. “And in the afternoon she makes my tea for me and brings me food sometimes when she knows I’ve been to busy and forgot to eat.”

“And of course, you do nothing similar for her,” Steve told him casually. He knew the only reason Bruce was so talkative was a lethal combination of misery and alcohol.

“Well, there was that exhibit I recommended. And I save her dinner every now and then.” Bruce sighed again. “I put away all the mugs in the labs so she doesn’t have to.” There was a long pause before the scientist spoke again. For a while, Steve thought he’d fallen asleep. “Oh, I also named a star after her. I mean she’s never going to know, but it’s just one of those things –"

There was some reward in staying sober when no one else did. Steve was certain to remember the moment Darcy Lewis stepped on the steel ledge at the bottom of the bar, leaned over the tall structure, gripped Bruce’s shirt, and pulled him for a kiss. And Steve was lonely and kind of miserable so he watched them because the warmth in his chest was beautiful, and it was so much better than the loudness in his head.

When she pulled back, Bruce was dazed and very confused. He managed a weak “What?”

“I stood and listened to you go on and on about this and that and maybe I’d have walked away and processed everything and then come up with a plan. But then you mentioned the fucking star, and I swear to god Banner, you’re the worst!” Darcy told him in one breath. She looked at Steve and grabbed the bottle out of his hands with a quiet “thanks,” then poured a glass and downed it.

“I… am?” Bruce asked uncertain.

“Yes! I spent the last six months of my life trying to find a way to be close to you, and you go and do some dumb shit that I can’t even begin to understand.” She turned to Steve. “Like, how do you even name a star after someone?” Steve shrugged helplessly.

“Darcy…”

“Don’t you Darcy me! With your stupid curly hair and your glasses,” she took a deep breath when Bruce unconsciously pushed them back up on his nose, “and your rolled up sleeves, and your kindness, and your smiles! Acting like you can decide what’s best for me.” Bruce had the decency to flinch at her accusation, his face flushed at her aggressive compliments.

“I just don’t think…” he started.

“That’s the thing. For someone so fucking smart, you’re being an idiot.” She turned to Steve. “Now, you. Both this dummy and myself and kinda drunk and I need you to bear witness to all this for when he’s trying to deny it all in typical fashion.” Steve nodded solemnly, trying to hold his laughter in. Everything was surreal. His entire life was a joke. “Now, you’re gonna get up,” she said, pulling at Bruce’s hand, “and walk with me over to that massive armchair. I’m gonna climb in your lap and you’re gonna tell me every reason you have for not wanting me –"

“But I do!”

Darcy was unfazed. “And I’m gonna counter-argue with my vast debate skills – what?”

Bruce sighed and walked around the bar. He rubbed his face with both his hands and pulled Darcy in a hug. “I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything.”

Steve really wanted to get drunk before he punched someone for being stubborn and impossible. Bruce. Before he punched Bruce and got him to Hulk out and Steve was going to stop that train of thought right there. Trains. God damn it.

“So…?”

“So I think you can do better and I’d rather not waste your time,” he finally admitted defeatedly.

“I swear to god,” Darcy said and lifted her head to kiss Bruce again. The warmth in Steve’s chest was back, and maybe he wasn’t dead inside yet. She broke their kiss again, and stayed glued to Bruce’s side as she walked them away. “Thanks, Steve, you’re the best!” she said loudly, and Steve wanted to duck. Everyone who heard her turned to look at him.

Trying to at least look normal, Steve lifted his hand to salute them and touched plastic. He forgot about the tiara again. No, seriously. His life was a joke. He gave up completely and just let his head fall forward on his forearms. The metal on his back made it clear who it was that came to comfort or confront him – he had no idea.

“So, Stevie. Should I get Stark to dance with me as well? It seems to be working tonight,” he said and Steve could hear the smugness in his voice.

He lifted his head to look his oldest, best friend in the eyes. “Fuck off, Buck.”

Next part

Masterlist

This can also be found on Ao3.

Send me opinions and thoughts and random things, ily all x

[roseamongroses]

Antithesis: Dear Diary: why?

[Specific-Summary]:  They should expect growing pains. For not everything to feel right or make sense. That doesn't mean it'll always hurt, nor does it mean they can't have fun along the way. It's senior year. Everything may be different. It won't be senior year for long. Everything will be okay.

[General Warnings]: Implied Emotional Abuse, Implied Physical Abuse, Bad Parents are Bad Parents, Mild Sexual Content/jokes,Mentioned Homophobia, Mentions of underage drinking (backround), Some Catcalling,Cursing , Self Hate,implied pregnancy talk/inability to become pregnant, adults arguing where the “kid” can hear it, adults drinking, 

[Tags/mood:] highschool au,  fluff and angst but its all good, chat fic, teen stress, its flordia no snow we die like men [Pairing:] Roceit (Roman Sanders/ Deceit Sanders), hinted future/possible logince/roloceit/loceit [Characters]Roman Sanders/Deceit (Dmitri) Sanders, Virgil Sanders, Logan Sanders, Patton Sanders, Remy (Sleep) Sanders, Nate Sanders, Dragon Witch (Diana) Remus “The Duke” Sanders (minor/brief)

(Ao3) (Previously)

(8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13) (14) (15)

(16) (17)

(Note: Please check the general warnings and character list before continuing since some changes have been made and I don’t want to throw you off later on) 

Roman slung the scarf across his shoulders, “You think I should pack this?” he said, striking a pose, “You think it’s gonna be too hot for summer or?”

“You do look good in red...” Dmitri glanced up from his laptop, still typing, “And it’s better than your fifteen--separately bought-- white jeans.”

Roman flung a trench coat at his face. “Glass-fuckin houses babe, half your closet is black and boring--plus I like the white, ” he protested, “And don’t you think the red will be a bit too much with my hair?” he untucked his curls from underneath the scarf, smoothing the sides.

Dmitri laughed, “You’re the definition of a bit too much, Ro,” he said, “But if it means anything the reds been fading for a while now,”

“Wait really?” Roman picked up a hand mirror, angling it with a frown, “Dammit,” he said, “Virgil might still have some bleach left over, but I don’t want to kill my curl pattern like he did…”

“Then don’t redye it,” Dmitri shrugged, “You’ll look good regardless.”

Roman fluffed his hair, pouting in the mirror, “How good?”

Dmitri rolled his eyes, “Fishing early I see,” he said, pausing his typing to take a better look, “The red hair nice, but the brown will soften your features since there ’ll be less contrast.”

“I’dunno if I want to ‘soften my features though...It’d look cute, but...maybe if I cut my hair?” Roman tugged the scarf off, “.…people would take me more seriously.”

“Now why would you…” Dmitri paused, setting his laptop aside nodding, “Come over here, let me take a closer look.”

Roman eyed him warily.

“C’mon now, I’ve been dating you for what? A little over a year, Have a little faith,” Dmitri defended, “I’m not a snake tricking you into sinning,”

Roman crossed his arms, eyeing him up and down, “You’ve done it before--remember?”

“Oh that was fun and you know it, now c’ mere,” He offered a hand.

“It was,” Roman sighed, relenting and taking his hand. Dmitri tugged him to his knees, Roman making panicked noises as they bumped foreheads and he used Dmitri’s shoulders to steady himself, “Close enough?”

Dmitri tilted his head, “A bit closer.”

“Closer?” Roman’s lips barely brushed his.

“There we go--would you look at that,” Dmitri murmured, “A handsome prince if I’ve ever seen one…” Roman’s expression softened and Dmitri continued, “Whoever you’re trying to impress would be stupid not to take you seriously, especially with your anal work ethic--mmph,” Dmitri’s hands flew to Roman’s waist only slightly caught off guard as Roman closed the distance. The sloppy kiss eventually dissolved into Roman peppering Dmitri’s face between giggles.

“Either you’re rewarding me or you’re trying to distract...” Dmitri’s joke died off, eyes fluttering as Roman’s attention dipped lower, trailing his jaw, “Oh that’s...that’s nice…Your brother out?”

“Mhm,” Roman hummed contemplatively, before pulling back a bit, “ Yeah he is, but...I dunno I’m not really in the mood for that…Sorry..”

“You don’t need to apologize every time you know?” Dmitri leaned into Roman’s chest, feeling Roman’s hands nestle into his hair.

“It’s just so...weird.” He could hear the frown in Roman’s voice, “Is it weird? I’m going to be gone for a while too…Am I being a bad boyfriend?”

“You’re not weird, it's normal.”

“But--” Roman’s voice was quiet, “--- it’s not like you’re not attractive-- but--I dunno-- sometimes actually doing stuff like that is just...ugh I can’t even describe it.”

“The other guys might be horny bastards 24/7, but it’s perfectly normal for you Roman.” Dmitri said, “If you want to kiss we can kiss if you want to cuddle and talk we can do that too.”

“Talk’n’cuddle,” Roman mumbled and Dmitri smiled.

“So how are you feeling about the trip?”

“Oh, I’m absolutely horrified--” Roman easily spun into a rant,” I have to be holed up in that infested dung heap with that odorous rat with only my beautiful tia’s cooking as solace?” He sniffed appalled.

“Huh,” Dmitri snickered, “I’ve never heard that nickname for Virgil.”

“I’m not...talking about Virgil.”

---

R: XXX.notalink/rated:m/dontclickfortheloveofgod/dJDoJi90

Rem: WHAT THE FUCK ROMAN Rem: WHY WOULD YOU SEND THAT

L: Why the hell didn’t you read the link first

Rem: WHO THE FUCK READS Rem: GOD NEVER AGAIN

L: I highly doubt it's that bad

L:....I stand corrected

Rem: you clicked the link too didn’t you

L: In the name of science of course

Rem: ROMAN WHY DID YOU SEND THAT

R: ;)

Rem: EXPLAIN YOURSELF

R: ;) XXXX.notalink/rated:m/oopsididitagain/dskfJjfd9dsf3gds

L: That one is more weird than disgusting

Rem: WHY DO YOU KEEP CLICKING ON THEM

L: Why is Roman still sending them?

V: as much as i like smearing my brothers good name that isn’t roman

V: [Roman conked out on the couch, in a sweatshirt and shorts, drool pooling. Jpeg]

Rem: cute photo, 10/10 L: Agreed.

V: god both of you fuckin s t op i t s t o p s t o p

R: XXXX.notalink/rated:m/you filthylinkreaders/d3gds789jk

Rem: just bc you have issues with compliments doesn't mean roman does

L:Here we go again I guess...

V; roman doesnt have any fuckin boundaries

Rem: yes, yes he does Rem: they may be thin but he Does have them

V:sorry but he’s way too nice about it

Rem: weve more then established that me calling him cute is okay and i require the sustenance of doting on him okay? Like i get it ive pushed a bit too hard before but like im trying ok???

V: k k I i hit the breaks a bit too soon this 1 time but it’s ducking thin ass ice and I’m not above sending y’all to an icy tomb if you get gross. Roman may be a bastard but he’s still baby

L:Translation: He understands your reasoning and agrees he overreacted, but this won’t stop him from questioning our intents and calling out certain actions. Roman may be okay with joking around with stuff like that and being the center of attenuation, but he’s still self conscious and sensitive.

V:why must you add feelings and adult reasoning to everything

L: How dare you accuse me of having feelings

R: XXXX.notalink/rated:m/unicornhornsanddragontails/3nskjJ03 R: XXXX.notalink/rated:m/specA-Z/54Kjjf9n R: XXXX.notalink/rated:m/asliceofme/fljkl29mfJ

R: XXXX.notalink/rated:m/laughsinspanish/5Kjd8

Rem:ye feelings are gross so moving on

Rem: anyway who the fuck is this

V: the bastard

R: you can call me duke [video of Roman, Virgil, and Remus as toddlers, Virgil playing with blocks and listening to some music while in the background Remus follows Roman around.mp3] [image of Roman, Virgil, and Remus currently. jpeg]

V: the bastards name is remus

R: THE. DUKE.

V: FUCK. YOU.

Rem: why the shits have i never met them and why the FUCK does he look more like roman then you do virgil

V: i think it's bc rem doesnt cover up his freckles

V: but yeah my mom and tia had a falling out

R: more like my dad was an asshole

Rem: oh shit same

R: shitty dad squad hmu ;)

Pat: oh hey!!! Me too!!!!

V: yeah it was Not Fun and mom and mama refused to let us go back until tia got a divorce

R: XXXX.notalink/rated:m/deodarant/298jksf

R:XXXX.notalink/rated:m/sPicydeodarant/23kjfJ

L: Are you done yet? They’re getting repetitive at this point.

---

Sun beating on his forehead, Dmitri’s chest was light and airy. His hair was tied up in a high ponytail as he worked on repotting some of his nursery plants. Usually, he’d be listening to music, but his aunt had left early that morning for some appointment so he relished the silence.

Brushing the dirt from his hands, he winced at the fresh cuts lining his knuckles.

“You’re still out here?”

Dmitri almost jumped at Dr. Montag’s voice, “Sorry for the mess” he said, gripping the nursery pot tighter, “I-I’ll clean it up right away…”

Dr. Montag crouched, waving him off, “There’s no need. I’m running a few errands for your aunt,” his hands barely brushing the leaves of one, “This is a Yucca right?”

“Uh,” Dmitri blinked, “Yeah it is,”

He laughed, “Don’t look so surprised-- I know things,” he stood back up, “Like how to use google. It’s rather impressive that y’all manage to keep up with so many of these.”

“Barely,” Dmitri relaxed, refocusing, “We used to have a lot more, but without my dad...it got overwhelming,” he shook his head, “It’s the only thing we really….It keeps us busy..”

“This is more than busy--you put a lot of work into these, anyone should be proud,” He murmured, studying Dmitri again, “I’ll be gone in a few, just need to grab her purse. You need anything from the store?”

“Uh...No,” Dmitri frowned, “I don’t.”

---

LilRed: COLLEGE BOARD CAN SUCK MY ASS LilRed: THIS BITCH GOT A FIVE

BlueRanger: Which class?

LilRed: APUSH

BlueRanger: Nice, good job

LilRed:

LilRed:

PurpleRain: L you fuckin broke him

PurpleRain:like I legit just heard a fuckin thud I think he fell

BlueRanger: I just told him good job?

LilRed: i die from validation i die w/o validation

BlueRanger: Please don’t die

PurpleRain: thats a lame ass way to die

LilRed: @purplebitch i feel so loved

PurpleRain: mama didnt raise us for us to die so b o r i n g l y

LilRed: SO HOW DO YOU SUGGEST I DIE

PurpleRain: idk im feelin,,,,rain,,,,,lots of it,,, maybe you’re watching the sea,,,,

PurpleRain: okay I got it

PurpleRain: you’re wearing a white sundress, the ends tattered but well loved. The coast empty with nly the lapping of waves your company. You’re thinking, a lot. Not of anything particular, but thinking nonetheless. The ocean always makes you think, always makes you remember--bringing about a bittersweet tinge of remorse to your heart, but no tears ever fall.

PurpleRain:You make it a habbit to watch the sunrise each day, relishing in the sobering feelings it invokes Maybe you're a masochist at heart

LilRed:maybe it’s maybelline

PurpleRain:I AM HAVING A MOMENT PRINCEY

PurpleRain: one day, you hear footsteps approach, and assume it's your lover returned from war. The news of it's end just coming days prior and making your ventures to the coast sparked with an unfamilar hopefulness.

PurpleRain: instead when you turn around, you do not feel your heart soar. Instead it sinks. An icy panic spreading through you, a curl of dread closing your throat, it's grip tight. You need to move; to get away from them. But you cant. You cant.

PurpleRain: one shot is all it took.

PurpleRain: one.

BlueRanger:....Concern.

PurpleRain: dnd just started again im prepping ok

LilRed:fuckin nerd

LilRed: huh…. i should get a sundress tho

PurpleRain: i have a few bookmarked ill show you later

BlueRanger: Is That Really What Y’all Are Taking Away From This

---

“And so the shop explodes-no not explodes it's in flames and they have the audacity--the au,” Roman coughs readjusting the webcam, “They have the audacity to play ‘Somebody to love’ as he’s fuckin mourning,” he gestured angrily, “Like Neil might as well come into my house and stomp on my heart.”

Dmitri nodded along, amused at the combination of camera lag and Roman’s erratic movements, “Before or after you watch the next episode?” he asked.

“It’s gonna have to be after cause I already finished the season. I never recovered from that scene though, ” Roman shrugged, tapping his jaw thoughtfully, “Probably should’ve started working on my commission sheet,”

“The same sheet you said you were going to start last month?”

“Yes the same one,” Roman blew out an exasperated huff, flopping into his hands, “I don’t know why it’s so hard --I feel scummy for pricing ‘too high’ and like shit for pricing ‘too lo--,” A notification rang, and he glanced over the screen, eyebrow raised, “Huh, Lo’s callin’ to video chat, you mind if I add’em?”

“Nah, go ahead,” Dmitri said, starting to fold the pile of towels.

“Alrighty,” He answered the call, “What’s up ner-” his face lit up, “Princess!”

Giggles erupted from the screen and Dmitri glanced up curious. On the screen instead of Logan was a small girl animatedly talking to Roman. She had two front teeth missing, glitter coloring her cheeks and rainbow beads rattling each time her braids moved.

“Woah, Woah-Woah,” Roman snorted, “Slow down hon, where’s your brother? Does he know you’re using his computer?”

“He’s in the shower,” she said, batting her eyes, “And know is a very strong word, but I can assure you he’s...aware?”

“Mmm, I won’t tell if you don’t,” he said, “So what’s the fairest of the land need?”

She beamed, “You at my birthday party.” she said, more of a command than anything.

Roman made of show of mulling it over, unable to keep a straight face, “I think I can make it.”

Her fist punched the air, “Ya--”

“Nieve,” Logan’s voice called out sternly.

Her eyes shot wide and she scrambled out of frame. Seconds later, Logan reappeared in the frame without his glasses, towel tucked to his chest. He didn’t look particularly mad.

He squinted blearily at the screen, “Roman? “ his gaze slid over, “Dmitri? Shit sorry did she bug you?”

“Not at all,” Roman reassured, “It’s been a while since I came over anyway,”

Logan grabbed their glasses, adjusting the frames, “Yeah...I guess it has...Since you’re here did you get that email from the school?”

“Yeah, it’s bullshit, “ Roman said, rolling his eyes, “If the state cared they would have found the funds somewhere else, it’s all shady as fuck. ”

Logan nodded, saying goodnight before disconnecting.

As soon as his icon disappeared, Roman said, “Huh, that...reminded me,”

Dmitri started on the next pile of laundry, “Of what?” he said, brow pinched, concerned.

“I’ dunno something Remy brought up…” Roman said, playing with his hands, “It’s stupid really but---”

He yelped falling to the floor, Remus victoriously sliding into the rolling chair. He spun wildly, the web camera a laggy blur, with only loud obnoxious kissing noises heard amongst the screaming.

Eventually, Remus slowed down, and it was jarring how much he and Roman looked alike. It was more unnerving seeing such a sleazy look with Roman’s face.

“Oh Dmitri,” Remus mocked, even adopting the heavy accent Roman usually placed on his name, “Embrace me with those big, long artist hands of yours, god I’m going to melt--"

“Shut up--shut up! You Rat-- give it back-give it back--” Roman whined, clambering over the chair, elbowing him, “Give it back, fuckin- MOM,” At one point Roman managed to wrestle the laptop from Remus, kicking him out of the chair and sending him off with a finger-- which Remus promptly returned.

Dmitri’s silently wheezed as Roman turned around visibly frazzled, “God I forgot what I was say-Are you laughing at me?” he said, “Stop it--stop laughing it’s not--”

“It-” Dmitri’s covered his mouth, shoulders shaking “It kinda is,” He said between snorts, only laughing harder at the offended noises Roman made.

As his snickers died down, Roman crossed his arms, “You done yet?” he sniffed.

“Yeah…” he gasped, “Yea...h... I am…” he blinked a bit, a slow smile spreading across his face, “So... what’s this about my hands?”

Roman’s eyes shot wide, incoherent babbling coming from his mouth as his ears turned a bright cherry. He slowly shrank out of frame to promptly die.

---

@daflangstlairde

@ace-anx

@cataclysm-al

[beyondforks]

Book Review: By Your Side by Kasie West

By Your Side by Kasie West Genre: Young Adult (Contemporary Romance) Date Published: January 31, 2017 Publisher: HarperTeen

When Autumn Collins finds herself accidentally locked in the library for an entire weekend, she doesn’t think things could get any worse. But that’s before she realizes that Dax Miller is locked in with her. Autumn doesn’t know much about Dax except that he’s trouble. Between the rumors about the fight he was in (and that brief stint in juvie that followed it) and his reputation as a loner, he’s not exactly the ideal person to be stuck with. Still, she just keeps reminding herself that it is only a matter of time before Jeff, her almost-boyfriend, realizes he left her in the library and comes to rescue her.

Only he doesn’t come. No one does.

Instead it becomes clear that Autumn is going to have to spend the next couple of days living off vending-machine food and making conversation with a boy who clearly wants nothing to do with her. Except there is more to Dax than meets the eye. As he and Autumn first grudgingly, and then not so grudgingly, open up to each other, Autumn is struck by their surprising connection. But can their feelings for each other survive once the weekend is over and Autumn’s old life, and old love interest, threaten to pull her from Dax’s side? 

By Your Side by Kasie West was a sweet, little story. Autumn and Dax get locked in the library, allowing them to get to know each other. There is a definite attraction, but that's only a part of the story. Autumn has had a crush on Jeff for a long time, and their great friends. So, she has a lot to contemplate once they're out of the library. She's young with all these conflicting emotions, but she's a sweetheart and doesn't want to hurt anyone. So, she has a hard time saying no and doing things she actually wants to do. Dax has his own issues, but that doesn't keep him from helping Autumn with hers. These two were so darn cute. That's pretty much how I think of this story as a whole. It was cute!

I was locked in the library trying not to panic. Literally locked. As in, no escape. Every door, every window, every air vent. Okay, I hadn’t tried the air vents, but I was seriously considering it. I wasn’t desperate enough . . . yet. My friends would realize what had happened and they’d come back and free me, I assured myself. I just had to wait. It all started when I had to go to the bathroom. Well, before that there had been a lot of soda—a two-liter of Dr Pepper that Morgan had smuggled into the library. I had drunk more than my fair share of the bottle when Jeff sat down next to me, smelling like trees and sky and sunlight every time he leaned over to ask my opinion. It wasn’t until the windows darkened to black, the librarians asked us to leave, and we made it all the way to the underground parking garage where the fifteen of us were dividing into four cars that I realized I wasn’t going to make it down the street, let alone all the way to the canyon campfire. “I have to pee,” I announced after I plopped my bag into Jeff’s trunk. Lisa rolled down her window. Her car, parked next to Jeff’s, was already running. “I thought you were coming in my car, Autumn.” She gave me a knowing smile. She knew I wanted to go with Jeff. I smiled too. “I’ll be right back. There is no toilet at the bonfire.” “There are a lot of trees,” Jeff said, rounding the car and slamming his trunk shut. It echoed through the nearly empty garage. In his car I could now see three heads in the backseat and a fourth in the passenger seat. No. They all beat me to it. I would have to go with Lisa after all. No big deal, I’d have plenty of time to talk to Jeff at the bonfire. It wasn’t in my nature to be bold in my declarations of undying affection, but with my limbs all jittery from nearly two liters of caffeine and Lisa’s warning about Avi stealing Jeff out from under me buzzing in my head, I felt powerful. I rushed back down the long hall, up the stairs, and through the glass walkway that overlooked a courtyard. When I made it to the main floor of the library, half the lights were already out. The library was too big and needed more bathrooms, I decided by the time I made it there. I pushed open the heavy wooden door and quickly found a stall. The box holding the paper seat covers was empty. Looked like I’d have to hover. As I was zipping my pants back up, the lights went out. I let out a yelp then laughed. “Funny, guys.” Dallin, Jeff’s best friend, had no doubt found the breaker. It seemed like something he would do. The lights remained out, though, and no laughing followed my scream. They must’ve been on motion detectors. I waved my hands. Nothing. I inched forward, feeling along the door, trying not to think about all the germs clinging to it, until I found the lock and slid it open. A streetlight shone through an upper window, so I was able to see just enough for a thorough hand washing. It was an eco-friendly bathroom, meaning only air dryers. I wiped my hands on my jeans, opting for speed over the most inefficient way ever to dry hands. My reflection in the mirror was only a shadow, but I leaned forward anyway to see if my makeup was smudged. From what I could tell, it looked fine. Out in the hall only a few random overhead lights illuminated the way. The place was completely shut down. I picked up my pace. The library at night was creepier than I’d thought it could be. The ten-foot-long enclosed glass hallway sparkled as snow began to fall outside. I didn’t linger like I was tempted to. Hopefully the snow wouldn’t affect the bonfire. If it stayed light, it would make it magical. A perfect night for confessions. Jeff wasn’t going to freak out when I told him, was he? No, he’d been flirting with me all night. He’d even picked the same era as I had for the history essay. I didn’t think that was a coincidence. As for the cabin with the girls after the bonfire, the snow would be perfect. Maybe we’d get snowed in. That had happened once before. At first it had stressed me out but it ended up the best weekend ever—hot chocolate and tubing and ghost stories. I reached the door to the parking garage and gave the metal bar a shove. It didn’t budge. I pushed a second time. Nothing. “Jeff! Dallin! You’re not funny!” I pressed my nose against the glass, but as far as I could see both ways there were absolutely no cars or people. “Lisa?” Out of habit, I reached for my cell phone. My hand met only the empty pocket of my jeans. I’d put my black weekend bag with all my stuff—cell phone, clothes, jacket, purse, snacks, camera, medication—in Jeff’s trunk. No. I ran the entire library, searching for another way out. A way that apparently didn’t exist. Six doors to the outside and they were all locked. And so there I was—back leaned up against the door to the parking garage, its cold seeping into my skin—stuck in a big empty library, caffeine and anxiety battling it out in my body. A heart-fluttering panic worked its way up my chest and took my breath away. Calm down. They’ll be back, I told myself. There had just been too many people getting into too many different cars. They all thought I was with someone else. Once the four cars reached the bonfire, someone would notice I wasn’t there and they’d come back. I calculated the time that would take. Thirty minutes up the canyon, thirty minutes back. I’d be here for an hour. Well, then they’d have to find someone with a key to open this door. But that wouldn’t take much longer. They’d all have phones. They could call the fire department if they had to. Okay, now I was getting dramatic. No emergency departments would have to be called. My pep talk helped. This was nothing to get worked up about. I didn’t want to leave my post for fear my friends wouldn’t see me when they came back. Or I wouldn’t see or hear them. But without my phone or my camera I had no way of passing the time. I started humming a song very badly, then laughed at my effort. Maybe I’d just count the holes in the ceiling panels or . . . I looked around and came up empty. How did people pass the time without cell phones? “. . . skies are blue. Birds fly over the rainbow.” My singing wasn’t going to earn me a record deal anytime soon, but that hadn’t stopped me from belting out a few songs at the top of my lungs. I stopped, my throat raw. It had been at least an hour. My butt was numb and the chill from the floor had crept up my body, making me shiver. They must turn the heat down on the weekend. I stood and stretched. Maybe this place had a phone somewhere. I hadn’t thought to look until now. I’d never had to look for a phone. I always had my phone with me. For the seventh time that night I walked back through the glass walkway. Everything was white now. The ground was covered in snow, the trees frosted with it. I wished I had my camera with me to capture the contrast of the scene—the dark lines of the building and trees against the stark whiteness of the snow. I didn’t, so I kept walking. I started in the entryway, but couldn’t find a phone anywhere. There might have been one in the locked office, but a big desk blocked my view. Even if I could see one, I obviously didn’t have a key. Past a set of double glass doors was where half the books lived. The other half were behind me in the children’s section. It was darker in there, and I lingered by the doors for a while, taking in the space before me. Large, solid shelves filled the center, surrounded by tables and seating areas. Computers. Along the side wall were computers. I could send an email or a direct message. It was even darker once I stepped all the way inside. Some table lamps were spread throughout the area and I reached under the shade of one to see if they were for decoration or if they actually worked. It clicked on with a warm glow. By the time I made it to the computers, I had turned on three lamps. They did little to dispel the darkness in such a large space, but they created a nice ambiance. I laughed at myself. An ambiance for what? A dance party? A candlelit dinner for one? I sat down in front of a computer and powered it on. The first screen that lit up in front of me was a prompt to enter the library employee username and password. I groaned. Luck was not on my side tonight at all. I heard a creaking noise above me and looked up. I don’t know what I thought I’d see, but there was nothing but darkness. The building was old and probably just settling in for the night. Or maybe it was the snow or wind hitting an upper window. Another noise from above had me walking quickly to the hall. I jogged up the stairs and reached the front door. I pulled on the handles as hard as I could. The doors stayed firmly closed. I looked through the narrow side window. Cars drove by on the main avenue in front, but the sidewalks were empty. No one would hear me if I pounded on the glass. I knew this. I’d tried earlier. I was fine. There was no one in the library but me. Who else would be dumb enough to get trapped in a library? All by themselves. With no way out. Distraction. I needed a distraction. I had nothing with me, though. Books! This place was full of books. I would grab a book, find a faraway corner, and read until someone found me. Some might’ve even considered this scenario a dream come true. I could consider it that too. There was power in thoughts. This was my dream come true.

I write YA. I eat Junior Mints. Sometimes I go crazy and do both at the same time. My novels are: PIVOT POINT and its sequel SPLIT SECOND. And my contemporary novels: THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US, ON THE FENCE, THE FILL-IN BOYFRIEND, PS I LIKE YOU, and BY YOUR SIDE. My agent is the talented and funny Michelle Wolfson. To learn more about Kasie West and her books, visit her website.You can also find her on Goodreads and Twitter.