#the faucet keeps coming loose because there's less and less counter for it to hold onto

[naomiknight-17]

Just arranged to have our rotten countertop and rusty sink replaced. It's gonna eat up every bit of money I have, but we'll have a safe and functioning kitchen again so I need to believe it's worth it

[nicb0723]

Find Your Worth

John Wick x Reader

Summary: You meet John in an unconventional way.

Notes: Depression trigger warning 

Word Count: 11,754

Read Chapter 1

Chapter 2

**

Before work you go grocery shopping and run some errands. You clean up a lot and wonder how the hell John��s personality will fit in your tiny apartment. He doesn’t say much but he can be so intense. You can’t imagine the two of you together, alone, in this tiny space. 

In the bathroom you hesitate as you pick up your prescription. The doctor thought it would take the edge off your anxiety, and make the depression manageable. She also made sure you were seeing someone for therapy.  For now, the pill once a day does work. You can breathe. You can function. You’d be a fool to think all of your problems would disappear overnight. You still have a long road of recovery ahead, but this makes it less overwhelming. You place the little plastic container in the medicine cabinet, somewhere John won’t see it. You wouldn’t put it past him if he snooped, but in a way you're proud that you were able to talk about your problems and get some help. 

At work Sam is with you and currently making fun of your limp after you tell him why there’s a bruise on your foot. He’s asking if you want him to go buy you a cane when John waltzes in, hair slicked back and suit jacket blowing from the wind. How someone can look like a model in a gas station you’ll never know. He stares until you go to him and ask what the hell he’s doing here.

“Getting gas.” He answers and reaches for his wallet.

You don’t say anything and ring him up, glancing outside to his car parked in spot one. 

Sam is watching you two interact and he has the biggest grin on his face. Is that your boyfriend? He mouths behind John’s back and you cough in shock. No, and yeah right, like you could ever get a guy like John in a million years. 

“Hello!” Sam says loudly and teasingly bumps your hip with his behind the counter. 

John raises an eyebrow and glances to you first, then nods to Sam. “Hi.”

“John, this is Sam my co-worker and Sam, this is John my um… friend?”

True surprise flickers in John’s brown eyes and he looks pleased, a slow small smile spreads on his lips. 

“She’s actually my boss, but nice to meet you.” Sam says and his attention is drawn to the classic car outside and the gushing begins. 

You let the two of them talk until you hear John offer to show him the engine and they both move to go outside. “Hey, I’ll see you later?” 

Sam smirks and you nod at John, wondering how he knows where you live. It’s a little weird that he broke into your place just to fix a leaking faucet and he was in your apartment without you even knowing.  In the back of your mind, you think that it’s actually pretty thoughtful. You mindlessly wonder why he would waste his time though. Why he would do any of the things that he did. He said that he would help anyone in the same situation as you, but you’ve been thinking about that question since the day at the lake, and you’re too scared to ask him. You’re scared to see the look on his face, the look of pity because that’s all you can think that he’ll say. 

You hear John’s car peel away and Sam comes back inside, still grinning like an idiot. 

“What?” You ask, not really wanting to know.

“Nothing.” Sam hops up on the counter and he knows he’s not supposed to sit there. “I think he likes you.”

“And what makes you say that.” You deadpan, pushing at his butt with the tip of your pen.

Sam slides down and knocks over a display of gum. “He told me to look out for you.”

“Oh yeah? I can see you’d be very threatening.” You point to the packs of gum all over the floor. 

He bends down and starts to pick up the mess. “What’d you need looking out for anyway?”

“Nothing, he's just being protective I guess.”

Sam looks at you with concern. “From what?”

“Nothing. I promise, okay?”

For the rest of the night Sam shows you his karate moves and chops up air until closing time. 

**

John is folded up in the corner of your couch with his legs crossed at the knees and his black leather shoe tapping your coffee table. He’s reading one of the old magazines you have laying around. 

“How was work?” He asks, folding the magazine shut, like this is the most normal thing in the world. 

You check the locks on your door to see if they’re broken, but they’re not. You turn the handle again to make sure the door is shut all the way. 

“I should probably give you a key if you’re going to let yourself in.” 

John shrugs. “If you want.” 

Tossing your purse on the kitchen table you make your way to the living room and sit on the chair across from the couch. John looks so out of place, but you can tell he’s trying to blend in, make himself belong in your little apartment. 

“Who’s taking care of your dog while you’re here?” You ask, kicking your feet up. 

“Pooch? The little girl next door. She loves him.”

You let out a surprised laugh. “Don’t tell me you actually named him Pooch. I don’t even think that’s an actual word, I think my grandma made it up.”

John shrugs again you can tell he’s definitely not a man to waste any words. “It stuck. It’s... cute.”

“Cute? I can’t see you thinking anything is cute.” You grin and stand up to take your jacket and shoes off to get more comfortable. You can hear him mutter something under his breath, but can’t catch it.  “So do we know if Max is officially out yet?” 

“No, I’m waiting for the call though. I’ll know as soon as it happens.”

You don’t have any doubt.  “Do you want something to eat or drink?” You open the refrigerator for some juice. ”I usually have a snack when I get home. Feel free to take anything you want.” 

John tries to settle back on the couch but he seems stiff. “I’m fine, thanks.”

“You can take off your tie and your jacket at least. You’ll probably be here for awhile.” You call out to him, your head sticking in the cupboard looking for the popcorn you put in there earlier. 

John doesn’t move and you gesture for him to get up as you crawl back in your chair with a bag of food. 

“You sure about that?”

“Yes of course I’m sure. Why would I not be sure?” You look at him like he’s crazy as he slowly stands and oh… that’s why.

The suit jacket comes off and he carefully lays it over the side table. His slender waist is circled with a large utility belt with three guns, two clips, and probably a knife. The sight makes your eyes widen. He stares at you as he slowly unfastens the buckle and gently places it on top of his jacket. 

“Don’t go near that.” He points sternly and sits back down, this time more comfortable. He takes his cell phone out of his pocket and sets it on the couch next to him. 

“Definitely not. Are you planning on using any of that?”

“Scare tactic.” 

Silence fills the room as you crunch on your popcorn and you’re actually feeling pretty tired. You’d like to go to bed, but you’re not sure what John’s plans are exactly. 

“So how is this going to happen?” You ask.  “Are you going to come to work with me too? Are you going to run my errands with me? I mean, I’d love the company but I don’t see you wandering around Target for an hour.”

“I don’t mind going to Target with you.” His voice is so serious you can’t help but smile. “I don’t think he’ll come around during the day though. He wants you alone. Scared. Vulnerable. And I have my cop friend keeping an eye on you at work. It’s on his beat anyway.”

“Okay.” That all sounds reasonable. Dread and doubt suddenly take hold of you. “Look, maybe I’m wrong? Maybe he won’t bother with me and we can just forget about it? Maybe there’s nothing to worry about at all.”

John shakes his head. “I read his record. It’s not good.”

Well, crap. You don’t want to talk about Max anymore and you don’t want to ask the one question that’s been hounding your mind. You’re still too scared to know the reason John is here, so you ask something else. “Are you ever going to sleep? You can’t stay up all night waiting.”

“I’ll sleep until I know he’s out.” John says easily. “Then after that I have motion detection alerts on my phone from the camera outside your floor.”

You blink at him. “There are cameras on the door of the elevator?”

“There are now.”

“How’d that happen?” You’ve never noticed any security cameras anywhere. 

“I talked to Francis, the apartment manager. He’s a nice guy.”

You blink at him again. “I know, but he only speaks Russian. How’d you talk to him?”

John smirks and says, “Bez truda.” 

It’s all a little too much and you get up, shaking your head in disbelief. “How is this my life right now? How do I get myself into these things? I have an assassin in my apartment… I’m going to take a shower!” You announce after a minor anxiety attack. “Feel free to turn on the TV, get comfortable, whatever you want.”

The water feels good as you scrub away the day. It relaxes you until swarming thoughts of John sitting on your couch make you hurry out of the tub and wrap yourself in the flannel bathrobe you always wear. Before you lose your nerve you walk back into the living room and find John where you left him, now looking at his phone. 

“They’re just starting to process paperwork. That means it’ll be a few hours.” John’s talking, but doesn’t look up. You start to brush your wet hair out and twist it loosely on top of your head for the night. Usually you’d smear face cream all over but that obviously is not going to happen. 

“Look, John. I know we hardly know each other, but you can sleep in the bed, okay?” You start to turn off the kitchen lights and check the front door one more time to make sure it’s locked. “It’s plenty big enough and I would just feel better.”

He’s looking at you with warm eyes now, his mouth open but nothing is coming out. It’s like his brain turned a switch and decided something important. Whatever he’s thinking must be big because his whole demeanor changes. You can’t quite figure it out, but he seems content to be here with you, where just a few moments ago he had a guard up and was struggling with something on his mind. Somehow and unknowingly, you sense that you’ve just started to break down his wall.  You have no idea what you did, you’re just being yourself, but for the first time John is vulnerable. He’s blinking slowly, as if he’s seeing you for the first time in a new light, or finally giving himself permission to really see you.

It doesn’t matter though, because you know you look like a complete dork in your bathrobe and suddenly you feel incredibly stupid. Shame floods your stomach and you almost feel sick. Of course, this man wouldn’t want to be in the same bed as you. He’d probably rather die. You can’t believe you even suggested it. Also, your therapist would be terribly disappointed in you for talking down to yourself like this. 

“Okay.”

“Okay?” 

He stands up and grabs a small leather bag you hadn’t seen by the widow. “Yes. If it’ll make you feel safer.” 

No. No. That’s not how you wanted it to happen. You wanted John to want to sleep in the bed, not because you asked him. “Listen, I didn’t mean… I’ll take the couch, okay? You probably don’t want to share the bed with me, I totally understand. And you’re doing me a favor and I just want you to be comfortable.”

Utter confusion crosses his handsome face. He scratches at his beard with long fingers, trying to make sense of what you want. “What good would that do? With you sleeping on the couch?”

You stammer and can feel a flush develop on your cheeks. “I just thought… I don’t know.”

“If you rather, I can book you a room in a hotel for a few nights. I won’t… do anything to you. I can promise you that.”

Oh God. This conversation could not get any worse. You’re horrified that he thinks something like that and you try terribly to explain. “No, no that’s not what I meant. I don’t want to go to a hotel. I just meant that um, you probably don’t want to share a bed with someone like me.” 

“Someone like you?”

The flush is creeping up to your neck as you become more embarrassed. You point at your bathrobe and general dorkiness. “Yeah, like someone… not… exactly… uh… cute?”

He seems to realize what you’re trying to say and laughs a little. “Well it’s a good thing there’s no one not cute in this apartment. I don’t know how I could ever sleep.” He walks towards you and gently tucks the hair that had fallen in your eyes behind your ears. It’s very intimate and you feel yourself start to smile. “Can we go to bed now?” He moves his arm out for you to lead the way and you feel silly. John is a nice guy. Even if he really didn’t want to sleep in the same bed as you, he probably still would because it’s what you wanted. 

“Yeah, sorry.” You mumble and walk into the bedroom with him following. There’s not much clutter and it’s pretty bare besides the newly bought self help books on the nightstand and regular girly stuff littered on the dresser. John throws his bag on the floor and you grab some pajamas for yourself, heading to the bathroom to change. 

When you come back John is wearing a white t-shirt and soft blue sleep pants. He’s incredibly adorable and you can’t believe your luck of having him in your room right now. He must’ve grabbed his phone and weapons because they’re both on the nightstand on his side of the bed.

He looks you up and down in your tank top and shorts as you plop on the mattress, quickly getting under the covers. 

“This okay?” He asks and points to his own clothes. Was he expecting for you to want him to sleep in his suit?

“Yeah of course. But...  can you fight in pajamas?” You wrinkle your nose and tease him. “That’s not very assassin-y.”

He barks out a laugh and lays down, but he doesn’t get under the sheets. His feet are bare and long, and you keep peeking at his toes.  “I think it’ll be fine.”

You roll over and face him. He’s looking up at the ceiling with his arms crossed behind his head. 

“I can’t believe you’re here right now.”

He doesn’t move. “Why?”

Your eyes start to become heavy and you watch his chest move up and down in slow rhythmic breaths. “People don’t usually do nice things for me. I’m used to being on my own.”

With that he shifts on his side, towards you.  His hair falls in his eyes and you long to brush it away. “I can tell.”

“I don’t like asking for help.”

“You never asked me for anything.” John points out. There’s plenty of space between the both of you and flop your arm towards his side, pointing at him teasingly.

“Oh, I distinctly remember asking you to do one very specific thing and you failed.”

He squirms from the quick stabs of your pointer finger at his ribs. “I don’t know, I think things turned out pretty perfect.”

You scoff and roll to your stomach now, sliding your arms under the pillow. “Perfect? Yeah right, I’m sure this is the last place you want to be.”

“It is perfect. This bed is very comfortable.” John finally gets under the blankets and you giggle sleepily. His cologne is stirred by his movement and you savor the spicy smell. 

“It’s new. I got a raise at work. I’m an assistant manager now.” You tell him proudly, even though you know it’s not that big of an accomplishment.

“Oh excuse me, Miss Assistant Manager.” John smiles and acts extremely impressed. “Congratulations, by the way. I should take you out to celebrate.”

You have no idea if he’s serious or not so you just laugh and snuggle down more into the bed. After a minute you ask, “Do you think Max will come tonight?”

John pauses, thinking. “Hard to say. He doesn’t have a good past. He has friends in high places who will probably help him. How’d you meet a guy like that anyway?”

“How is that you know my name, where I live, my phone number, where I work, what car I drive… literally everything about me and you don’t know that?”

John brushes the hair from his eyes and you can see the tan line around his ring finger has started to finally fade. “That’s just part of the job.”

“Fixing leaking water faucets is part of being an assassin?” You ask, teasing again.

A sweet pink flush spreads on John’s cheeks. “Shush.” 

“That’s what I thought.”

He pretends to glare. “Maybe it is. You don’t know.” 

“You’re right, I don’t know.” You yawn and let your eyes fall close. “Can I tell you tomorrow though? I’m gonna pass out.”

You hear the click of the side lamp turn off and you want to stay awake, to soak in this moment a little more but sleep is overpowering and you drift off into a peaceful rest. 

**

Until about two o’clock in the morning, and then you start to toss and turn. You swear there’s a noise out in the living room but you also know you’re probably being paranoid. You can see the shape of John’s body just a few inches away and you want to reach over to him. 

“Hey.” He whispers and his voice startles you still. “Are you okay?”

“No.” You sit up a little and look towards your bedroom door. There’s a stream of light from the street lamps coming in through the window, but other than that it’s dark. “I thought I heard something.”

“It was just the air kicking on. You’re fine.”

“Are you sure?”

You feel John’s palm rest on your arm and squeeze. “Positive.”

“Is he out? Did you get a text or anything?”

“Hey, don’t worry about anything, okay? I promise you’re safe.”

You fall back on the bed with a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry I woke you up.”

“Don’t be sorry.”

You're wide awake and this whole situation is baffling. John Wick is in your bed, squeezing your arm and comforting you. 

“Isn’t being an assassin illegal?” You blurt out, the darkness giving you courage, and you instantly regret asking the question because he pulls away.

“It’s the only thing I’m good at.” He says quietly. “Trust me, I tried to retire and I got sucked back in somehow. People seem to want only me for really hard jobs.”

“Couldn’t you get arrested or something if you got caught? Could I get in trouble with you being here?” 

“No. Sometimes cops need bad guys to go away too. You won’t get in trouble.”

“Oh.”

“Feel better now?”

“Yeah. Sorry, I just don’t always get myself into the best situations. I feel really safe with you, I just…” You don’t meet an assassin everyday. You have no idea what it really means. 

“It’s fine.”

“I don’t want to offend you.”

He laughs softly and his fingers brush the back of your arm now. “Nothing you ever ask will offend me. It’s actually quite refreshing. I just hope…”

You wait for him to finish, but he seems to be gathering his thoughts and you don’t want to rush him. 

“I hope you can think of me as a friend before an assassin. And I hope that I don’t scare you.”

“I don’t scare easily.” You mumble and yawn, glancing back to your bedroom door. You ignore the friend comment because you feel like you’ve already been through hell and back. You don’t know if you could consider John as a friend and then lose him someday. It might break you all over again. But then you think of how far you’ve come. “I could probably take Max. I could get him to leave me alone now that I have my mind straight.”

“You think so?” John is sincere and you can hear he’s happy at your mental growth. 

“Yeah maybe. As long as he’s clean and not hopped up on something. Then it might be harder.”

“I guess we’ll see.” John checks his phone and puts it down again after looking briefly at it. “Are you going to be able to get back to sleep?”

“Yes. I’m sorry if I woke you up.”

“Stop apologizing.” He shifts to his side, with his back to you. 

It’s a strong, solid back with his shoulder blades poking out from underneath his t-shirt. You stare until your eyes feel heavy again. You feel safe.

**

The next time you wake up the sun is blaring from the window and John is gone. His leather bag is still by the bed though, but his suit jacket and all of his guns are gone too. 

You start to go about your business, not believing John would leave you alone if you were in any kind of danger. It’s almost creepy how your phone alerts a few seconds later with a text, like he knows that you’re up. 

No need to worry. I know where he is. I’ll see you later tonight. Let me know if anything happens.

You text back sounds good and John tells you to have a nice day.

It just so happens that you have the next two days off from work and you don’t know what to do with yourself. Your foot still hurts from the baseball bat incident so you zone out in front of the TV for a while, trying to forget all of your problems. That doesn’t really work so the next best thing is to venture through the kitchen. You have snacks but not much else. Maybe it would be nice if you could fix John a nice dinner or something, for hanging out with you and like, protecting you from a shitty ex boyfriend. 

Some nice meat might do the trick. A nice steak with a potato and veggies. One thing grandma did that was awesome? Was to teach you how to cook. Wanting to actually cook was a different story for the last few years, the thought making you ill when you were practically a walking zombie, but now the thought excites you. It’s also different to cook for someone than just yourself because it’s usually not worth all the hassle.

Quickly, you get dressed and head out to the nearby grocery store. It's quiet and you take your time walking down the aisles with your cart, wondering what sorts of things John likes to eat. He probably stays healthy but a part of you thinks that he might have a sweet tooth. You grab everything you need, including some pie for dessert and head back home to get started.

There’s a ton of food so you text John to come over hungry and don’t eat any dinner. 

He doesn’t reply back immediately and your stomach starts to sink. What if this is too much? Is this weird? It’s just dinner, right? Friends have dinner together. John has to eat sometime. 

He eventually texts back a simple okay and you take it for what it is. There’s nothing you can do about it now, and since you’ve never really cooked in this kitchen before, if it turns out terrible you can always order pizza. 

It doesn’t turn out terrible, in your opinion, and you’re actually impressed with yourself. There’s a knock on the door right when you're finishing setting the table and John scolds you for not asking who it was before opening the door. He’s still in the middle of his speech when he gets a whiff of steak and sees that the table is set nicely. 

“What’s all this?” He asks, smoothing down his expensive silk tie. 

You pull out a chair for him to sit down. “It’s just a little thank you.”

He doesn’t look happy with that answer.

“It’s me making my friend dinner… randomly?” You try again. 

He laughs and nods, accepting that instead and removes his suit jacket, draping it over the back of his chair. “Do you mind if I…” He points to his waist and waits for you to nod before unclipping the belt, putting it in the bedroom for the night. 

“Wine? Beer?” You ask, debating which you want. 

“Usually I would, but…”

You understand that he’s working, even though he’d hate it if you said it aloud, and put them both away. “How about some ice tea?”

“Sure.” John sits and folds a napkin in his lap. He’s watching you and when you bring over a plate full of food there’s an unmistaken gasp. “Wow, this is amazing. Thank you.”

“It’s nothing.” You sit down too and pass him the salt and pepper. “I forgot how much fun it is to cook. I haven’t made anything since grandma was sick and I stopped eating. But today it was like she was in the kitchen with me.” You stop and close your eyes, embarrassed. “Sorry, that was weird to say.”

“Not the weirdest thing you’ve ever said to me.” He reminds you hesitantly, but with a small smile. 

Heat warms your cheeks and you have to chuckle in agreement. “True. I feel like that was so long ago though. I’m like a different person now. You must’ve thought I was crazy.” You don’t say that you’re grateful you accidentally gave your phone number to a police informant.  That it was John who showed up that day. That it wasn’t some crook who could’ve used a few hundred dollars. 

“I didn’t think you were crazy.” John takes a big bite of steak and moans a little. “This is really good. I haven’t had a home cooked meal in a long time.”

“You don’t cook much?” You ask, waiting for him to make another noise of pleasure. 

“I hate cooking for just myself.” He says, but otherwise he is disappointingly quiet. 

You take a bite of vegetables and nod in agreement, trying to hide your swelling of excitement. Well, that’s that. He is single. No big deal, you tell yourself to calm the hell down in your head. It doesn't matter anyway. It’s not like anything would ever happen. “So, you didn’t think I was crazy? What did you think?”

John puts down his fork and looks at you, his chin resting on his hand thoughtfully. “I thought you looked really tired. That you needed help and had nowhere else to turn.”

You gently rub a finger under your eye, where you know there used to be darkened circles. Now your eyes are bright and alive. You blush at his observation. 

“What’d you think when you saw me?” He asks, interested again in his steak but keeping an attentive ear to everything you say.

You don’t know why, but you feel a surge of confidence. “I thought I was talking to the most attractive hitman in all of New York and that there was no way I could afford your... business.” 

John raises an eyebrow and laughs. “Really?”

Shrugging, you take another bite of food and swallow. “I don’t know what I was really thinking, honestly. It was not my best day. I just wanted to get the conversation over with. I wasn’t in the right mindset.” 

“But therapy is going well?” 

You’re not surprised that he knew about that, but it does make you pause that he actually asked. “Definitely. It’s going very well. And she’s a fan of you, by the way.”

“Me?” 

“Don’t worry, she thinks you're an undercover cop.” 

John leans over his plate, trying to get closer to you. “What exactly do you say about me?”

“That’s personal!”

“Fine.” He leans back now in his chair and crosses his arms, fake disappointment in a pout on his lips. “Then I won’t tell you about what I found out today.”

You glare at him. “Isn’t that blackmail?”

“Or extortion.” He shrugs, waiting for you to answer.

“Ugh.” You roll your eyes and sigh.  “I told her about all of the nice stuff you did for me, even though it was creepy, and how you probably saved my life.”

He blinks at that, obviously not expecting you to be so forward. “Oh. And what did she say?”

“She said to be careful about you breaking into my place and stealing my car… but that it sounded like I made a really good friend.”

John is suddenly silent and tucks a stray piece of hair behind his ear. His voice is quiet when he finally speaks. “Just… just a friend?”

Your stomach does a little flip and you’re not sure where he’s going with this. “I’m pretty sure all I can have is friends right now.” You tell him slowly, trying to get all of your words exactly right. “I need to find my worth, be happy with myself… before I can do that for someone else, you know?”

John nods and his eyes are sad for a brief second but when he looks up at you, he’s proud. “I think that’s great. And I’m happy to help remind you that you’re pretty awesome.”

“Reminders are nice.” You tell him with a small smile. “Especially considering they come from a bad ass assassin.”

John chuckles and finishes his steak. He loosens his tie and unbuttons the top button of his dress shirt. He looks a little tired and you wonder what he did all day.

“So what were you going to tell me?”

“Oh, right. Max. He seems to be doing well. He’s living with his mom across town and he was spotted going into an AA meeting.”

You’re stunned. In a good way. “Really? He was always such a heavy drinker. That’s where I met him. At the bar across the street from the hospital. When visiting hours were over and I didn’t have to work, I’d go there a lot. And well, I guess he spotted a weak one.” You think back to those days when he was nice to you at first, which quickly changed into becoming manipulative and controlling. The final straw was when he said that you couldn’t visit your grandmother anymore. You lost it and he raised a hand at you, several times. You never want to be that weak. Ever again.  “Well that’s good news, right?”

“Yeah.” John rubs at his beard. “Let’s just hope he doesn’t relapse.”

You stand up and start to clear the dishes from the table. “So you don’t have to stay the night, probably.”

“No, I’ll stay at least one more night. Just to be safe.”

You give him a disapproving look. You really hate to waste his time.

“Seriously, I wouldn’t be able to sleep if I wasn’t here. One more night and I’ll be out of your hair.”

That’s not at all what you meant by giving him a look so you just shake your head. “It’s nice to have the company. I just don’t think my apartment is where you want to spend your nights.”

“And where exactly do you think I spend my nights?”

The sink is full of soap and John stands to clear the rest of the plates and cups. “I picture this really fancy nightclub or rave with techno music and neon lights and beautiful women dancing around you.”

John hands over a plate and looks at you like you’re nuts. “You have a very vivid imagination.”

“Oh, like that’s never happened.” You deadpan.

“Well, I can’t say never... “ John leans against the counter and offers to help you. 

“No, I got it but thank you. And also, I knew it. I just don’t see you like… dancing to techno music.” You make a face and stick out your tongue a little. You hate techno.

John laughs. “I don’t go there to dance. If I’m at a club or something it’s usually for work.”

“Ah, I see.” You move to get the dish rag to dry the silverware. “So, where do all the beautiful women throw themselves at you?”

He’s not really paying attention when he answers and he’s looking at something on the ground. “Well lately it’s been at a lake and a local gas station. Is that a bruise?” John bends down and slowly traces the swirls of black and blue colors on top of your foot. The touch stings a little but you hold still. 

“Oh uh... “ God, how stupid. You didn’t think it was that noticeable. “Yeah.”

“Your whole foot is swollen.” His eyes are huge when he stands up and looks at you, his hands on his hips. “What happened?” He growls out and you push past him, considerably embarrassed and turned on all at once. 

“I did it to myself, okay? It’s not a big deal.” 

“You’re limping.” He exasperates, but he gently puts an arm around your waist and helps guide you to sit down. You put your foot on the coffee table and it does look worse than it did yesterday, puffy and colorful. 

You grimince and don’t want to tell him. “It was just a silly accident. Sam at work already made fun of me, so let’s just forget it.”

John disappears to the kitchen and you can hear ice being gathered. He comes back and sits on the coffee table, slowly moving your foot to his lap and putting a towel full of ice by your toes, where the worst of the purples are blooming. 

“You really don’t have to do that. It’s not that bad. I was just on my feet all day and I didn’t think about it. It’ll be back to normal by tomorrow.”

His fingers are so gentle around your ankle and you can’t help but to stare at his big hand surrounding your delicate bones. “Hey.” John taps on your skin until you look up at him. “You’re worth being taken care of, okay?”

Well, he got you there damnit. “Oh, that’s a good one.” You’re impressed and you let him hold your foot, sitting back to relax. Your therapist would be really pleased that you let someone help you.

“Are you going to tell me or are we going to sit here all night?”

You briefly tell him how you got the bruise and his fingers stop tracing over your skin long enough for him to laugh. Loudly.

“It’s not that funny.” You scowl at him.

“It’s really funny.” He’s snickering now and you swear there’s a tear at his eye. He moves to wipe it away and mumbles something like, “you are the cutest... “ and then clears his throat and straightens up. “You’ll have to show me your moves.”

“Uh, no, I think I’ve embarrassed myself enough for tonight, thank you.”

John rubs at your ankle again, squeezing around your leg lightly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be mean to the patient.”

“Exactly right.” You agree and smirk when you think of payback. “You gonna kiss it better?”

Without hesitation John takes off the towel and presses his lips to your cold skin. All you can do is stare at his beard and then at the teal nail polish on your toes. You’re speechless.

“It didn’t seem to work.” John says, disappointment in his voice. “I guess I’ll have to work on my technique.” 

He says that last part suggestively and you sit up in the chair, ready to change the subject. “I got dessert. You like pie, right?”

“Do I like pie? What kind of question is that?”

“Can you get it?” You smile sweetly at him. “It’s on the counter.”

He gives you a knowing look but lifts your foot to get up. You can see his reflection in the window as he moves around in your kitchen and you watch him in disbelief. You realize you’ve never had anyone in your apartment. Not even grandma, she was already too sick when you got it. Max always made you go to his place. John comes back with one plate and two forks, a big slice for both of you to share. 

“This is the best anyone has ever paid me to do a job.” He jokes and you smile back, taking a fork and scooping a bite for yourself. 

You point to an envelope on your desk. “Speaking of getting paid… I know it’s not much, but I did promise you--”

“I was kidding.” John cuts you off. His face is instantly annoyed and hurt. 

“John, please.” Your foot is still propped up on the coffee table and you can’t really move. “I just thought I’d offer.”

“Well, take it back.” He says and you put your hands up in defense, silently telling him not to be mad. “And you just lost pie privileges.” 

“What?”

He stands up and walks over to the couch, as far away from you as possible. “Yeah that’s right. I’m eating all of this myself.”

You huff and struggle to sit up. “That is a radical punishment.”

“You need to learn your lesson.” He takes another big bite, making a show of it. 

“That’s it.” You get up and hobble over to him, practically falling into his side and he lets out a grunt when you accidentally lean into his ribs. You decide to just lay where you are for now, you can’t move if you wanted to. “John, seriously. Pie please.”

He shakes his head with amusement and feeds you a small piece. You take it happily and let your head rest on his shoulder while he finishes and feeds you some more until it’s gone. Both of you are quiet. This is the closest you’ve ever been and you just want to feel his warmth. You know eventually you have to move so you peer up at him and smile. “You have blueberry on your lip.” You tell him, reaching to smudge it off with your thumb. At the same time he licks at it and you both laugh.

“C’mon, cripple. I’m helping you to bed.” He tells you, putting the plate and fork down on the coffee table. You use his thigh to get yourself up and he steadies your waist as you balance on one foot. You’re standing between his legs and he’s looking up at you with the sweetest eyes. 

“Thank you for dinner.” His voice is sincere and determined to get his appreciation across. 

You put your hands on his shoulders and lean some of your weight on him. “John… thank you. Thank you for everything.” And with that you let yourself drop down and you hug him hard. He pulls you close and rubs his hands over your back. His hair brushes your cheek and you breathe in deeply, his scent rushing to your head in the most pleasant high.

Awkwardly, you push yourself away and he grabs at your hands. “You want me to carry you to bed?”

You shoot him a glare and he laughs, letting you wobble towards your bedroom while he takes care of the dishes and turns out all the lights. 

When he’s satisfied everything is in the right place, he walks into your bedroom and stands in the doorway, watching you while you sit on the bed and tie your hair up over your head for the night.

“What?” 

John breaks his stare and walks around to the other side of the bed. “Nothing.” 

“Do you want to watch TV or something?” You ask, grabbing the remote to the set up you have on your dresser. You tend to fall asleep to sitcoms rather than complete silence with thoughts running through your mind at full speed. 

“Actually do you mind if I take a shower?” He asks. “I did a lot of running around.”

Your mouth goes dry and you try to get it together before he notices. “Did you get all sweaty tracking Max today?” You guess, smiling when he looks impressed that you got it right. “See, I could totally be an assassin!” Your smile fades when he points to your foot. “Okay, well I could be an assassin’s secretary. I could like, get all the payments and make appointments and travel arrangements and get your guns cleaned and all that stuff!”

He walks around to his bag and gathers a pair of clean sleep clothes. “And take care of all the dead bodies too?”

You gulp. That’s so disturbing. “Yep. And I could take you to the doctor if you get hurt real bad.” You think back to the bruised knuckles and the dried cut on his face.

He cocks his head to the side and thinks for a minute. “That does sound helpful.” 

“Really?”

“Yes and also dangerous. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

You stand from the bed to get him a towel. “Um, just to let you know, I’ve seen all the assassin movies.”

“Oh, so you’re an expert.”

Opening your closet, you pull out the softest towel you own. “That sounds very sarcastic.” You push it to John's stomach and he grabs it from you, but you don’t let go and tug it back gently. “I’ll have you know I’m a very quick study, Mr. Wick.”

John briefly closes his eyes and takes a step closer to you. He leans in to whisper, his mouth close to your ear, “You better get off that foot.”

A giggle escapes and you sit down on the bed. “If I didn’t have a bruised foot... then could I be your secretary?”

He walks into the bathroom, and right when he closes the door he stops to tell you no.

Frowning, you crawl back to your pillows. You notice John forgot his pajamas on the bed and you’re about to get up and give them to him, but you decide not to. This should be interesting. 

You’re watching TV innocently when the bathroom door cracks open ten minutes later. Steam is hovering around John’s form and you hide your smile.

“Um… I forgot my…” He points to the clothes on the bed and you point to your foot. 

“I would help you, but I’m a cripple.” You tell him, now smiling because you can’t hide it anymore. You’re trying not to laugh. 

He glares at you when the door opens and you see the towel wrapped around his waist. 

“I swear I won’t look.” You tell him, covering your eyes. 

“Are we twelve now?” He mocks, stepping out and picking up his clothes. 

Your smile fades when you look at him because damn. “No, we are definitely not twelve.” You murmur to yourself, and you don’t mean to gock, but he’s fresh out of the shower, glistening skin and tight muscles, toned and strong. He pushes his hair from his face and notices you watching him. 

There’s a smug grin when he turns around and your heart completely skips a beat. All you see are flashes of tattoos, black lines and shading on his back. Maybe on his arms too but it was so fast. If you could only make time stand still. 

Now you’re glaring when he comes back into the bedroom a few minutes later. He’s glancing at you very casually. “What?”

“You did that on purpose.”

He laughs and gets under the covers. “What? Forget my clothes?”

“No. Showing off all of your…” You gesture to his body. “Never mind.” You can’t believe this is happening and turn towards the TV, trying to forget the hotness laying beside you. Nope. You can’t. “John, why are you doing this?”

He sits up a little. “What do you mean?”

“Why are you here? Why are you helping me?” There. You finally asked it. Here comes the pity party.

“Why wouldn’t I?” He asks, confused. When you don’t say anything, he asks another question. “Would you help me if I needed it?”

You don’t hesitate. “Yes, of course I would.”

“Well,” he lays back down and looks blankly at the TV. “There’s your answer.”

“But you hardly know me.”

He briefly glances at you. “Does it matter? I would want to help anyone. What are we watching?”

You laugh at how simple it was all this time. You should really stop overthinking everything. “Do you want to watch Friends or Seinfeld?”

“Who and what?” He asks, not knowing at all your favorite shows. 

You caress his cheek and pet him softly. “You poor, innocent man. I have a lot to teach you about laughing.”

He shoves your hand away playfully. “I watch TV… sometimes.”

“When you’re not doing assassin-y stuff.”

John sighs and closes his eyes. “Yes, when I’m not working.”

“Mmhm.” You don’t really believe him. You figure he reads a lot or studies, or does something really smart. Never really does anything just for fun. “We should totally go to a movie tomorrow!” You say it jokingly, like he would ever agree to something so mindless, but you can hardly believe it when he nods and says okay. “Really? You would go to a movie?”

“Isn’t that what friends do together, right?”

You wouldn’t have any idea. You don’t have friends and you haven’t been to the movies in ages. You hate going by yourself and you never had enough money.

“I think so?” You respond, not really knowing.

He lets out a little yawn. “All of my friends are… well, you know. I don’t see any of them going to a movie.”

“But you would?”

“With you? Yes. You’re not in the business, clearly.”

You throw a pillow at him,  but he quickly catches it and puts it behind his head. You mumble to yourself of course and turn off the light. “Just for that, I get to pick.”

He groans and you laugh as you tuck yourself in under the covers. You feel excited for tomorrow. Your therapist was right, you did make a good friend. Even if both of you have no idea what exactly that means. 

**

You’re still in bed when John is getting coffee from the kitchen, looking at your phone for movie times. “Don’t worry, I will not make you sit through a chick flick… or a disney movie… or a musical.” 

“Do you take cream and sugar?” John asks, popping his head into the bedroom. You nod yes to both and he disappears again.

“Oh! There’s a new sci-fi movie out. You like aliens, right? It looks scary too.” 

John comes back into the room with two steaming hot cups. He hands one to you carefully and you take a slow sip. “Mmm. This is really good, thank you.”

He looks pleased with himself as he gets back into your bed, sitting with his legs crossed under him. His hair is messed up a little and he’s still in his pajamas. The sight is really cute. You’re kind of sad that it was the last night he’s here. You quickly got used to him in your apartment and having someone to come home to was so nice. He already mastered your crappy coffee machine and he does the dishes. But the sleepovers are done and you wish it had lasted a little longer, purely for selfish reasons. 

You must be staring at him for too long because he stops drinking his coffee and gives you a small smile. “What?”

Dunking your head, you’re embarrassed that he caught you. “Nothing.”

He grins, like he can read your mind but doesn’t want to ruin the moment. “What time’s the movie?” 

“Let’s see…” You tap at your phone, scrolling through the options. “How about this afternoon? Then we could get something to eat or whatever.”

Now he’s really smiling and now he really does call you out. “Wouldn’t this be like… a date? Did you just ask me out on a date?”

“What!” You shriek and put your coffee down on the nightstand, stretching your leg over to try and push him off the bed, but he doesn’t move an inch and just laughs at you. “Oh. My. God.  Absolutely not, you weirdo. Why can’t two people just hang out? Jerry and Elaine do it all the time!” You point to the TV in your defense, trying to remind him of the show you watched last night. 

“Okay, okay. Sorry.” John puts his coffee down too and grabs your foot to inspect the bruise. “Wishful thinking, I guess.”

You roll your eyes, still not being able to fathom John Wick flirting with you. It’s probably all a joke to him anyway so you continue to ignore it. “What’s the verdict, Doc?”

He slides your pant leg up and takes a closer look. “Well, it’s not as dark as it was yesterday. Still a little swollen.”

“Told you it would be fine.”

“You’re welcome.” He cracks a smile and you remember the kiss he placed there last night. “Do you need anything else to feel better?”

“Ugh, gross.” Rolling your eyes even harder. “Your flirting is terrible.” 

He grabs at his heart like it hurts. “I take offense to that.”

“Good, that was the point.” You get up from the bed and open the closet, searching for something to wear today. “It’s probably the one thing you’re not good at.”

“I could be good at it.” He says, sipping his coffee again. “I’m just rusty. I need to practise.”

You don’t turn around. “Obviously.”

“Obviously.” He repeats slowly, and then horrified, “Wait.. I’m not skeezy am I?”

That makes you laugh and you sit back down on the bed. “No, John. You’re not skeezy. You’re like the opposite of skeezy. You’re too nice to be skeezy.”

“I’m too nice?”

“Yeah.” You get up again and fiddle with your hair that’s fallen in your face. “I know you say these things just to be nice to me. I know it doesn’t mean anything. It’s sweet though, it’s fun. I get it.”

Slowly, he shakes his head, trying to comprehend your thoughts. “So, you’re saying I could never be serious about flirting with you?”

“Ha, not in this lifetime.” You gather your bathrobe and head for a shower. “Don’t worry, I’m not that stupid. I know exactly how far out of your league I am.”

Now John is the one rolling his eyes. You don’t give him a chance to say anything though and close the door to the bathroom, finally able to catch your breath a little. He still makes you nervous, you realize, and you hope the feeling fades the more time you spend with him because it seems like he needs a friend just as much as you do.

**

You’re brushing your teeth when John taps a knuckle on the door.

“Do you mind if we stop at my place before the movie?”

“You don’t want to wear a suit all day?”

“Not really.” He smiles. “And I have to pick up the dog.”

“Oh right!” You spit into the sink and wash your mouth. “I want some puppy kisses.”

John looks at your lips and then to your eyes. It’s fast, but you still see it. And if you didn’t he mutters, “tease” and leaves to go out the front door.

You grab your purse on the way out and he waits patiently for you to lock the door behind you. He has his bag with him and you’re disappointed it’s not still in your apartment. You wonder if he’s wearing all of his guns and try to sneak a peek under his suit jacket at his waist. You’re not paying attention so you run smack into his back when he stops for the elevator. 

Yep, he’s wearing one gun because you feel it hit your stomach. He looks at you oddly and reaches a hand out to steady you.

“Do you always carry a gun when you go places?”

“Usually.”

“Do you ever have to use it?”

“Sometimes.”

The elevator ride down is quiet and you wave to Francis walking by in the hallway. John nods towards him too, like they have some sort of secret understanding. 

His car is glistening in the sun and you have to admit, it is a pretty sweet ride. John opens the door for you after he throws his bag in the trunk and you move carefully, afraid you might scratch the paint job. You fold yourself neatly in the seat and stay still. 

He smoothly gets in and before you can process about how annoyingly attractive he is, the engine roars to life and he’s speeding out of your complex onto the main road. You have a hard time not watching his hands because his fingers are long and look good around the steering wheel. He drives fast but not enough to make you nervous and glances at you a few times to make sure you’re okay. You don’t say much but it’s a comfortable silence with the windows down. You watch the town go by as you start to relax. 

It’s only about a ten minute drive until the car pulls up to the most gorgeous house you’ve ever seen. Of course, this is where John would live. In a house built with huge windows and high ceilings, with a big open yard that’s perfectly manicured. 

He parks in the driveway but still pushes a button so the garage door goes up. 

“C’mon, I’ll only be a minute.” He tells you and curiosity gets the best of you because you had planned to stay in the car. 

“Are you sure? I can wait here.”

“Why?” He doesn’t wait for you to answer, obvious that he thinks your question was dumb, and he moves around to open your door again. 

“Such a gentleman.” You praise, not being able to help yourself. You can’t remember the last time anyone opened anything for you.

He smiles and leads the way into the house. “Well, I try.”

“This is really pretty.” You tell him, stepping into a long hallway where you can see the living room off to one side and the kitchen off to the other. 

“You want the tour?” He asks, throwing his keys into a glass bowl and taking his suit jacket off. There are actually two guns on his belt, the one on his right hip you hadn’t seen. 

“No, it’s okay. Just seeing the downstairs is enough to make me depressed about my small apartment.”

John scoffs and opens the front door to let in some air. “I like your place. It’s comfortable there. And the cooking’s really good.”

You laugh and he steers you more into the kitchen, which is huge with a tile floor and what looks like all new appliances. “I’d love to cook in this kitchen. There’s so much room!”

“Yeah?” He stops and looks at you very seriously. “You officially have an open invitation to cook here any time.”

“Ha ha.” You push at his shoulder and walk to the big wood dining table, looking around. There are a bunch of picture frames, but they’re all in a pile on a shelf by the coffee maker. You wonder what kind of pictures he has and why they aren’t on display. You don’t want to be nosy though, so you run your finger over the espresso machine that looks like it cost more than a month of pay. “Marry me?” You bend over and ask it, breathing in deeply the scents of coffee. 

John laughs and points at a smaller hallway. “Laundry is through there.” He points at a door. “Basement.” He walks through the kitchen and into the living room, which is sparse but still lovely. You wonder if he decorated this place himself or if he had help. 

“Evening entertainment.” He points to the TV even though you see a stack of heavy books on the coffee table, some of them well read. “Upstairs?” He asks, starting for the staircase. You shrug, trying not to seem eager and interested. 

The amount of sunlight the house gets is incredible. There are windows everywhere, but you can’t see any neighbors and it’s fairly quiet. This is like your dream house. 

“Wow.” It’s all you can say when you enter the master bedroom. A huge bed in the middle that looks so very soft. There’s a sitting couch and table, with a bureau next to the walk in closet. The view is fantastic and you can even see the lake from here. You walk to the other side of his bedroom and almost press your face against the glass. “You live right across from the community college campus! That’s so cool!” 

John is in his closet, probably getting new clothes for the day, but you can hear him say, “Yeah?”

“Yeah! You could walk there if you wanted to! Save a ton on parking.” You mutter, more to yourself. 

Suddenly he’s right behind you, now in a white cotton shirt with long sleeves. “What do you mean?”

“I applied to go to school in the fall. I want to take some classes, maybe try for a degree or something. My place is far, so it’ll be a hassle but that’s okay.” You tug on the hem of his shirt as you walk by him, throwing your purse on the bed. “What else is up here?” You ask, peering down another long hallway.

He has a proud look in his eyes and he’s still gapping at you a little. “I didn’t know you’re going back to school.”

“Oh, something you finally didn’t know, I can’t believe it.”

“Well, I saw the application on your kitchen table but I didn’t want to assume.”

You laugh because of course he did. “Were you snooping, John Wick?”

“Never. I just observe.”

“Oh, I see.”

He opens the door to an empty bedroom with no furniture. “This was supposed to be a guest room but I never got around to it.”

“What about that room?” You point to the door at the end of the hallway. 

“My office.”

“Ooh. Do you have assassin secrets in there?” You smile teasingly and walk back to his bedroom to get your purse. 

“No, those are in the basement.”

Laughing, you can’t tell if he’s joking or not. You don’t think he is. 

The windows are calling again and you can’t help but to take one more look of the view. “This is just so nice. You have everything in walking distance. The lake, the school…”

There’s a beat of silence before he says, “You should move in here.”

That makes you throw your head back and really laugh. How funny. “John, don’t be stupid.”

“How is that stupid?” He asks, his tone is serious but kind. “There’s an empty room. You can walk to school. You can watch the dog for me when I go on… work trips. You would have a kitchen to cook in.”

This man seems to keep surprising you. “You’ve only known me for like a month. What if I smell bad or something?”

He doesn’t hesitate. “You smell amazing.”

“What if I play loud music really late at night?”

“You can’t keep your eyes open past ten.”

“What if I have parties all weekend long?”

“While you work and go to school? Be my guest.”

“What if I’m messy and leave my clothes everywhere?”

John’s eyes narrow with suspicion. “Did you just pretend to be neat while I was at your place for two days?”

He’s right, you do like a clean house. “Whatever, John.” Hoping that he drops it. “Don’t you have to get the dog?”

“Damn, stay here. I’ll be right back. Their house is just down the street.” He runs down the stairs and you can hear the screen door open and shut. 

You look around the bedroom again and take it all in. What a completely different life this would be. Not that you don’t like your apartment. It’s cozy and you’re proud of what you’ve established for yourself. This is too fancy for you anyway. Plus, you like having your space. John would be the weirdest roommate ever. You can’t even imagine. 

You jog down the stairs to wait on the couch. You spot some more picture frames stacked nicely in a pile and you’re just about to sneak a look when you can hear them approach the house.

“Puppy kisses!” You cry out and kneel down to gather a happy dog in your arms. If you had any idea this was the dog driving you mad all those nights, you would have taken him for yourself. 

“Pooch! Get down.” John’s Alpha voice is hot and both you and the dog stop everything. 

He trots over to his doggy bed anyways and plops down. “Cassey, the little girl, wore him out at the park this morning.” John says. “Are you ready to go?”

The movie! You had almost forgotten with all the excitement of being in John’s house.

“Yeah, let’s do it. And don’t worry, I’ll protect you. Don’t get scared.” You tell him, in a bravado voice. 

“Can we get gummy bears?” He asks and you crack up on the way back to the garage. 

“You’re a grown man, you can get whatever you want.”

John hurries to open the car door for you again. “I meant, would you have any or would you like something else?”

“Hmm, I don’t know, that’s a big decision.” You slide back into the car and think to yourself that you could really get used to the chivalry John is showing. You wonder how long it could last. “I think I have to see all my options.”

John smiles as he starts the car and lowers the garage door. “This is really serious.”

You fasten your seatbelt and get comfortable. “When’s the last time you went to a movie?”

He turns his head to back out of the driveway, putting his arm around your seat. His face is very close to yours and you notice that his eyes are a very pretty brown when he’s not working. 

“Good point.”

You grin, breaking the eye contact because it’s making your stomach fill with butterflies that you mentally quiet down. 

The theater is busy and you realize it’s a Friday during summer, so all the teenagers are here. John’s phone rings as he parks and tells you he has to take it, so you decide to get in line and buy the tickets. He’s leaning against his car, chatting while looking around at his surroundings and smiles at you when he catches you checking on him. 

You quickly see that the movie is sold out and not knowing what to do, you walk back to John and the car just as he’s finishing his conversation. It sounds like he was speaking in Russian, but you can’t be sure. “All set?” He asks, sliding the phone in his pocket and reaching to put his hand on your back. He hardly ever really touches you, but his hand hovers over your body constantly. 

“It’s sold out.” You tell him. “Do you want to see something else or maybe come back another day?”

“Oh.” He looks disappointed. “But you really wanted to see that movie.”

“It’s okay, shit happens, right?” You shrug it off easily. This is not the worst thing that could happen. Plus, you’re hanging out with John, so you could be going to the town dump and you’d be happy.

“Hold on. Stay here, I’ll be right back.” He takes off towards the theater and leaves you by the car. You watch him go and it’s almost like he’s in slow motion again. You wonder how just his stride oozes that much confidence. 

In a few minutes he’s back with two tickets. “Here we go. C’mon.”

“How’d you do that?” You dumbly follow him to the theater doors and he guides you to walk in front of him.

“It’s a secret. What do you want?”

You’re still staring at him in a silent awe as he looks at the refreshment stand. A beautiful young worker comes to help and John’s gaze is just on you.

“Um… gummy bears? Right?” You ask him, trying to snap out of it. “That’s what you wanted?”

He leans in close, dark hair falling into his eyes. “I’m asking what you want.”

You don’t really remember what the hell you say, but somehow John pays and leads you down a long hallway and to your seats. Now he’s really close to you and the smell of his cologne is making your legs weak. 

“You okay?”

“Yes!” It comes out too fast but you realize you’re acting weird and need to get with it. 

John nods and crosses his long legs, sitting back in the chair and shifting towards you, whispering as advertisements play on the big screen. “I have a question.”

“Yes?”

“Do friends hold hands at the movies?”

You close your eyes. “No, John. They do not.”

“Not even when I scored tickets that were sold out?”

You lean in to him and smile. “If you tell me how you did that, I might reconsider the answer to your question.”

“Hmm…” He runs fingers over his beard as he thinks. “I talked to the manager.”

“And?”

“And I paid him.”

“John!”

“What? You wanted to know, so I told you.”

You shake your head in disbelief as the lights lower and the movie starts. “You’re crazy.”

He doesn’t disagree with you, but he does turn towards the screen, still touching your elbow throughout most of the first half of the movie. When it gets really creepy, he covers his mouth every time you jump in your seat, hiding his smile. 

You somehow get closer to his shoulder, shielding your eyes and turning into his body when you jump again, grabbing onto his arm. The muscles you feel are solid, and you technically knew they were there, you just never really considered them before. And you are definitely considering them now. 

John lets you hold on to him, and even offers to hold your hand when the movie winds down and you link his pinky with yours, not wanting to totally turn him down. He seems satisfied with that and smoothes his thumb down your hand a few times before the credits roll.

“That was so good!” You exclaim, getting up from your seat and stretching. “I forgot how fun the movies are!”

“You were scared.” John teases, playfully shaking your hand with his. 

“Was not.”

“Was too.”

“Whatever, you were scared too.” You tell him, pushing the heavy doors open and heading to his car. The sky is darker now and the wind has picked up, chilling your arms. You wish you had brought a sweater.

“I was definitely not scared.” John laughs, his hand hovering over your back again. You feel it because you stop for a car and his arm is suddenly pressed into your waist. He moves quickly though, opening the door for you to get inside. 

He turns on the heat as soon as he can and asks where you want to eat. 

“It’s up to you. I could go for anything.”

“Sushi?”

That surprises you and you can’t help but look at him with a raised eyebrow.

“What?”

“Nothing, I just didn’t know John Wick likes sushi. I see you more of an all meat kinda guy.”

“I have a very sophisticated pallet.”

“Oh, my mistake.” You laugh and tell him to lead the way. 

He takes you to a really nice place and you talk about the movie and the food all throughout dinner. It’s nice, not forced, and fun. These past two days, even with the weird circumstances, have been really fun. You want to pay for the dinner, but of course John beats you to it without you even realizing until it’s far too late. You glare at him and tell him that friends usually split the check. He apologizes with a sparkle in his eye and you know he’s not sorry at all.

When John pulls up to your apartment you thank him for such a great day. 

“Are you sure you’re not going to be scared?” He asks, after telling you he had fun today too.

“Yes, John.”

“I could spend the night again, just to make sure.”

You roll your eyes. “I’ll be fine. And you have to get back to Pooch.”

“You could spend the night at my place.” John offers, completely innocent but realizes what he says and adds, “I could take the couch, of course.”

“Good bye, John.” You tell him and he wants you to let him know if you need anything, or if you hear from Max. “I will.” Waving, you open the car door before he can get out and do it for you. The walk up to your apartment is quiet and just a little lonely. 

Once you get inside it’s worse, but you try to ignore it. Instead, you lay in bed where John had slept and cuddle the pillows. 

He texts you once he’s home, to make sure you made it to the apartment okay.

You didn’t let me walk you upstairs, he texts with a sad face.

Instead of telling him that you’re a grown up or you don’t need his protection, you simply text back next time. 

You really hope there’s a next time.

TBC Chapter 3

[gagmebucky]

my first steve fic... don’t drag me about the characterization please i did my BEST and that’s all the matters, really 😌

[boxer!steve. size kink. doll.] 

His jaw ticks. “It’s not a challenge, doll,” he bites out. “It’s a warning. If I tried to get inside you, I’d split you in half in the process.” His eyes flicker down, and your nipples are pebbles against the thin, easily-rippable fabric—you’re testing him, and he’s failing. “Goddamn it,” he hisses underneath his breath. “That - that shouldn’t turn you on.” Bristling, he drops his hand and pedals backward—he’s on his last thread, and it’s his sole chance to make a clear-headed decision. 

in which steve can’t resist what he feels for you. (includes boxer!steve x coach’s-daughter!reader, steve’s pov, dirty talk, mild choking, size kink, grinding, unprotected sex, creampie kink, overstimulation.)

—

Steve Rogers has impeccable self control. He knows how to control his emotions, to maintain a clear head amid the mist of commotion, to command his body to follow his head and not the violent, primal instincts that prickle underneath his skin. 

And despite the lifelong effort required to uphold this principle, he’s found great fortune in the endeavor. Most don’t realize it, but in his occupation, there’s a certain level of restraint necessary in order to be successful. He has experienced it on both ends so he’s aware of just how important it is. 

Growing up, he hadn’t known better. In the numerous instances where he’d been provoked and pushed, he gave in; consequently, suffering gravelly. Knuckles split, bones broken and face bloodied, his anger got the better of him, and his opponents always got the benefit. 

But that’s where your father came in, and showed him the way to fight back and win every time, to redirect his mania into his fists and funnel them in tactful blows that resulted in trophy after trophy. Once Steve learned how to do that, everything became a breeze. It’s more than a combat style but a way of living. 

Ultimately, he gets what he wants because he can make logic-based decisions and utilize his visceral drive in executing them. And a wallet fat with unmatched winnings, a house for his family and a luxurious apartment of his own, his name on the lips of the masses, it’s a fucking amazing life—for the most part, anyway. 

Except for the one part: you.

The problem with self control, he has come to realize, is that when he truly desires something, he sees the cons of that thing. Usually, if it outweighs the pros, he’ll stop it before it begins. However, in the case of you, that formula isn’t working like it’s supposed to. 

You see, he knows he can’t have you, and he knows why. You are the daughter of his mentor, the only child of the single reason that he’s evolved into the East Coast’s Golden Glove Champion three times in a row, and pursuing you is beyond disrespectful. 

So why the fuck can’t he get you out of his head? 

That’s what he keeps asking himself. Another glorious win, and it won’t stop rattling inside his skull like a hammer on a gong. The crowd is chanting his name but yours is beating a tattoo inside his rib cage. The post-win rush surges through his veins and hits harder than any blows he’s ever received but spotting the proud tilt of your lips amongst the masses is like punch from God themself.

His clean-shaven jaw locks as the referee lifts his right arm and everyone goes wild, losing your face in the fanfare. This is the part where he basks in it, where he loses himself in the victory of sweat and blood slick across his skin; money and recognition, a reminder of the advantages of self-discipline; his reward of what he gets when he uses his brain and not the urges that prickle underneath his skin. 

This time, however, it’s not as gratifying as it’s supposed to be. No, it’s fucking agitating because instead of being the thing that gets him what he wants, it’s the obstacle in his way. 

He can’t pin-point exactly why the desire is striking him this intensely but he suspects it has something to do with the fact that you’ve just returned after a while, and your father is still gone—which means you’ll be upstairs in the gym’s apartment, alone, when he comes to see you (and he will come and see you, what’s the quote about looking and not touching?). 

The tension in his muscles advises his better judgement not to. The wild thump thump thump of his heart to the tune of your name dictates he find some other not-forbidden girl to release the mania coiled inside him before he does; that, it’s not like you’d mind he greet you in the morning—in fact, you’d understand. 

Except, he feels like a live wire right now, and there’s a pull inside him that feels like you’re the only thing that can fray his edges back into stability. 

You’re on the counter when he walks in. Barefoot, you’re kneeling on the flat surface to reach a high shelf in one of the kitchen’s cabinets. One arm stretched above your head, you blindly search for the contents for a cup, palm slapping against wood as you do. After seconds of failure, a cutely disgruntled noise leaves your throat, and you shuffle up to your toes. 

For a moment, he’s entranced by the display. A smile quirks the corner of his lips, running his gaze down the outline of your figure. Adorned in a tank top and ass-hugging jeans, there’s not a flaw in sight; other than his hands not on you, exploring every inch, crushing your body against his. Oh, that and you’re about to fall. 

“Oomph!” expels in a feminine grunt when you flail backwards and collide with the cushion of his embrace. His forearm hooks around your waist like an anchor and packs you against his chest before gently sliding you down his body to the safety of the ground. In doing so, momentarily, he’s caught up in how you feel against him, your back huddled into his front like puzzle pieces.

Everything about him is big, and it occurs to him that everything about you is small. His herculean stature dwarfs yours: six-foot of towering strength versus your soft, shorter frame. You barely require an ounce of strength to be lifted, and his blood rushes to his lower region with what he can do with that knowledge. 

Subconsciously, he tightens his hold until you tilt your head back to blink up at him with those enamoring big eyes. With that, he snaps out of his daze and relinquishes you with a quiet, “Sorry.” Before you can respond, he reaches beyond to grab the item of your desire and hands it over.

Your lashes flutter. “Thanks, killer,” you breathe cheekily as you accept it, the delayed rise and fall of your decolletage slowly regulating. You step out of his space. leaving him cold in your wake, and pad over to the sink with your back to him. “You did good out there, by the way.”

At the praise, his smile restores, and he inches toward you. “Just good?” he echoes after you’ve turned the faucet on and off and crosses his arms in faux offense.

Lips curled around a drink of water, you whirl around and finish a swig. Droplets glisten on your Cupid’s bow, and he swears you’re doing this on purpose when your pink tongue licks the liquid clean. “Do you really need little ‘ole me feeding your ego?” you tease and lean against the counter. 

“You are little,” he agrees with a perfunctory nod. 

You roll your eyes playfully and set the half-full cup down. “No. You - you’re just huge.” You gesture pointedly at his broad, muscle-laden build; dragging your stare down his squared shoulders to his defined abdomen to the tree trunks he has for thighs. An airy quality lingers in your voice, almost high pitched, as you add, “I don’t understand how your competitors don’t go running for the hills when they see you.” 

Taking another stride forth, head cocking, he observes you. There’s something in your expression he can’t quite explain but it pumps confidence into his blood. He glances at himself, white under armor t-shirt and gray sweats, but there’s no downplaying the physical strength he possesses. “You think I’m intimidating?”

You scoff and shake your head vehemently. “To other people, yeah. Me? Not so much.” A devious grin curves into those alluring lips of yours, and you straighten against the counter (not that it helped any with the height difference). “I could take you better than any of those losers you’ve gone against.” 

He laughs, husky and genuine. “Oh? Is that what you think?”

You stand your ground and encroach upon him, stabbing a finger into his chest. “It’s what I said, isn’t it?” 

Alarm bells ring between his ears, but he’s too lost in the beautiful arrogance on your face to listen. “Okay,” he says then backs up to the middle of the room where space is more ample and beckons you over with both hands. “C’mon then.” 

As he expected, you don’t back down. You smooth your hand through your hair and kick off the bottom cupboard. Rolling your shoulder, you enter his orbit; a friendly competitiveness gleams in your dilated pupils, darkening enough for him to notice beneath the kitchen’s warm-toned luminences. 

Your stance is nothing less than perfection (much like the rest of you). Orthodox, you project your right side but spread your weight evenly through both legs; a smidge wider than your shoulders, you bounce on the balls of your feet. Hands in a loose fist, your elbows are drawn together, and your chin tucks, looking up at him through your knitted eyebrows. 

There’s no question about your combative ability but his just more developed—given this is what he does for a living—so while you’re fast and your punches twist like it comes straight out of the textbook, he has the upper hand. 

In a half-hearted demeanor, he humors you. For a moment, the both of you encircle each other, him with a suppressed smile, you with concentrated brows. Like lightning, you advance on him and push through a superlative jab. But as quick as you are, he’s quicker. 

Deftly dodging your knuckles, he catches your dainty wrist. A squeal escapes your throat as he wrenches it behind your lower back. The swift action draws your body against his once again; the dull ridges of your back molds so close to his front that he knows you can feel the hammer of his heart beating an imprint between your shoulder blades. 

You wiggle briefly, and he has to bite down on a groan at the faint jean vibrations against his sweats, but you eventually relax with a long whine of, “No fair!” 

“You said���”

“Not what I meant,” you interject breathlessly, a salacious underlying in the words that he can no longer play oblivious to—dawning on him in a gut-clenching heat. “When I said I could take you, Rogers, I wasn’t talking about in a fight. Though, I won’t mind if we got a little violent. . .”

His breathing hitches. “I knew it.” A truth he long-buried—the strike of realization he avoided confronting in an attempt to hinder his own feelings—hurtles in his rib cage as he unwillingly accepts the reality you want him in the perverse idiosyncrasy he wants you. That beastly part of him roars in ravenous elation while his practiced erudition advises you in a low and pained plead, almost a groan, “You gotta stop.” 

With a breezy laugh, a twinkling song of laughter, you repeat a doubtful, “Stop?” and do the exact opposite. Your body careens into him, specifically your ass grinding encouragement against the hardening bulge in his pants. “Doesn’t feel like you want me to.” 

You’re right. “I don’t.” The reply rumbles through his chest and wrenches out strangled. The grip on your wrist increases before vanishing altogether. “But you’re Coach’s daughter, and out of all the things not to do, you’re number one on that list.” 

Freed, you twirl around and retain the lack of distance. You look up at him with unwavering seduction. “When you’re looking at me like that, does that really matter anymore?” 

Again, you’re right. But that’s not the issue—not the prevailing one, that is. “I’ve thought about you a million different ways but in reality, I’d break you,” he admits in a ragged exhale and licks his bottom lip. Another analytical once-over confirms his deduction; your danity frame clashing with his would be something beastly. “How would your daddy react knowing I ruined his pretty little girl?”

To his pleasure and displeasure, it doesn’t dissuade your attraction. No, it seems to have heightened it instead. “Is that a promise?” you ask, lust scintillating in your eyes like moonlight on the ocean, and he has to recoil away because you’ve got too much power over him with a look like that. “Steve—” 

Your hand grapples his before he can get far, an earnest strength he doesn’t have to bat an eyelash at. But it’s that—another reminder of your size differences and how easily he could bend and fold you to his liking—that has a carnal current torrenting from the depths of his soul, demanding an innate action. 

On impulse, he lurches forward with an inhuman growl and herds you backward until his hips are trapping yours against the counter edge. His hand wraps around the column of your neck, partially spanning your jaw to tilt upwards. 

“In every one of those fantasies, I use you like a rag doll—fast and rough, never gentle. And you wanna know why? ‘Cause you’re fuckin’ small and it’s the only possible way for me to fuck you,” he rasps, strained and serious, imploring you to understand the gravity of his words. “That’s in the case, that I can even fit inside you in the first place. So, you may say you can handle me but the truth is, you wouldn’t be able to take just one of my fingers.”

The speech is to deter you; invoke some common sense in that intelligent brain of yours because all of his is withering by the second. In lieu of his intention, it excites you further. Your pulse races against his palm but the flames in your gaze tell him it isn’t from fear. “You seem so sure about that but. . . but I don’t think so,” you purposely goad that volatile and competitive aspect of him. “Why don’t we try and see who’s right?”

His jaw ticks. “It’s not a challenge, doll,” he bites out. “It’s a warning. If I tried to get inside you, I’d split you in half in the process.” His eyes flicker down, and your nipples are pebbles against the thin, easily-rippable fabric—you’re testing him, and he’s failing. “Goddamn it,” he hisses underneath his breath. “That - that shouldn’t turn you on.” Bristling, he drops his hand and pedals backward—he’s on his last thread, and it’s his sole chance to make a clear-headed decision. 

“No,” you state simply, following after him. “I - I think you’re scared. I think you don’t want to admit that someone as small as me could take you so easily—and I mean easy—where everyone else fell to their knees.” A coy smirk upturns the corner of your lips. “Though I also wouldn’t be opposed to getting on mine right now.” 

That’s it. The last shred of ascetic lessons from the past six years bursts into ash. The fire ignites an unhinged frenzy, tunneling into his veins and coursing through his blood like the water of a previously dammed river now freed of placating obstruction. 

With unrestricted strength, Steve hauls you into his arms, cording underneath your ass and hoisting you high around his abdomen. In a gnashing kiss, he crushes his lips against yours. There’s no delay in your response, returning his passion in a rivaling degree. 

That formerly-leashed, hedonistic entity within him preens from its shackles and livens with unhinged reign. Electricity crackles underneath his skin and tingles violently in feral need. Every filthy imagining he’s conjured of you strobes through his mind, and he feels like a man who hasn’t eaten in years, and you’re the delectable T-bone steak he gets to devour. 

You moan into his mouth, a pretty vibration he swallows, as he laps up your taste. The musical sound, the way you explode on his tongue, it all goes to his head like a hit off a drug and slithers down his spine to the ache in his cock. 

His hips snap forward, and his grasp on you intensifies; clutching your ass, he’s rocking your center into his cotton-clad erection roughly. Shards of pleasure ricochet through him, but it’s not enough—he needs more, needs more of your titillating sounds, more of your body on his, of you coming undone because of him, you making him fall apart. 

As you writhe against him with breathy sounds, he sets you on the counter and goes for your pants. Logic evades him at this point—like the fact it’d be the same amount of time with less effort it’d be if he slipped off—and his hands tear the denim material down the middle. Using little effort, he continues to remove what separates you, doing away with your panties next. All the while, you’re gasping in surprise and possibly outrage but he can’t focus on that right now. 

“You don’t understand,” he speaks laboredly, shoving his sweats to his knees to reveal he’s gone commando. “How bad I’ve wanted you. How hard it was—how hard you make me—to keep from myself taking you in every disgusting way I dreamed about.” 

Slicked with precum, his veined manhood is just as thick as it is long; past lovers have gawked at the formidable steel, shying away immediately after, and he’s always understood that. But you, you look at him starry-eyed, licking your bottom lip like you want him exploding on your tongue. 

And as much as he’d marvel at the sight of your cheeks stuffed like chipmunk with his cock— has thought how hot it’d sound when you’re gagging relentlessly around him—he’s got his attention lasered on that tiny prize between your thighs. 

A teasing triangle of perfection, daring him to completely abuse and batter as he pleases. You’re glistening like diamonds in the sunlight, effectively blinding him in a bind of corporeal desire—there’s no thinking, only action; no right or wrong, just what he wants.

His hands pinch underneath your knees and slide you to the edge. In tandem, he slots himself flat against your weeping heat, squishing the length of his cock between the split of your slit, burrowing himself there as if it’s his new home. 

Mutual moans and shivers expel through you both. It’s better than he’s ever imagined; mentally-created experience has nothing on the raw reality. Soft like silk, the honeyed aperture of your sex is eclipsed by his tanned thickness, barely shrouding a third of him, his tip twitching at your navel, and it’s a snapshot to behold. 

“Shit, shit, shit,” he rasps, jaw locking before he reels you tighter and snaps his hips forward, rutting against your throbbing clit. It’s the match that starts the fire, a million sparks prickling all over that has him taking you like a madman. 

“S - Steve!” you cry, music to his ears, as he hooks his elbows under your knees, bending them over his shoulders, and works your divided folds up and down the length of his translucent-white dribbling cock. Your arms shoot around his neck desperately while you bury your face in his neck, mewling into his collarbone; the vibration unmistakably his name. 

“I am going to fuck you, doll,” he promises through gritted teeth, using his hands palming your ass to grind your little pussy into him harshly, at the same time his hips rock into the assault. “I am going to shove every inch of my cock inside you, make it fit if you can’t. But first—first, you’re going to cum on my cock then you’re going cum around it.” 

Your weight is nothing to his hulking strength, bouncing you in undulation like you’re his own personal fuck-toy (somewhere in that darker, aggressive facet of him chides that’s exactly what you are; a wanton toy to use to his desire). 

Every upward thrust is grating over your bundle of nerves, coaxing gush and gush of your essence. Mixed with his own liquid arousal, it further lubricates his slippery anatomy and empowers quicker ministrations—filling the room with your crescendos of whimpers and moans. 

“Y’like it when I make your pretty lil’ pussy grind against my cock? When the tip rubs over your soft clit?” he says, winded, in your ear as you shake like a leaf in the steel cage that is him. “Or d’you like knowing despite how bad I need to be balls-deep inside you I have to wait ‘cause your tiny pussy won’t be able to take it yet?” 

“Oh. God. Steve—” you moan, raking your nails into his flexing back muscles, and he revels in the faint sting. “I - I—it feels good. Fuck, it feels so good.”

Shocks needle down his spine and gnaw in his lower stomach while static nibbles at his limbs; a prelude to a knee-buckling reckoning. “Y’gonna cum for me, beautiful?” He can feel the tautness constricting in your body, the crook of your calves as your toes curl. “Want you to. Wanna know what’s gonna happen when you do?” He doesn’t wait for a response, especially when you’re borderline incoherent. “It’s gonna loosen you up for me. Get your pussy prepared to take all of my big, fat cock. And, you fuckin’ will. Y’hear me?” 

At that point, he’s unsure whether you nodded or not because your head does bob, but so does the rest of you. His neck muffles your cry as you buck wildly against him, and if that isn’t telling enough, he can feel your engorged nub pulsating with euphoria. 

And he can’t resist it. The threat of his violent upcoming orgasm; the fact that he knows your channel is clamping down hallowly; the earlier declaration of being able to handle him easily, it all overwhelms him. 

In a millisecond, before his mind comprehends what his instincts are doing, his hands slip from underneath your bottom to either side of your slit, and his thumbs spread your opening. He heaves you up, and when gravity brings you down, his well-endowed cock drives into your spasming insides. 

With an audible wet slush and slap of skin, he powers through your channel harshly until he’s seated to the hilt. In the throes of your orgasm—before he could stretch you first like he intended—inches that outwardly reached your belly button, width that dwarfed your mound  invades your walls in one blunt movement. 

The orgasm is still flooding you but it’s combined with the convulsions of vanquished hollowness and encompassing fullness. To be perfectly fucking honest, it’s heaven: snug, fervid heaven. And he wastes no time losing himself in you, fucking you through your stimulation while you’re rendered to a babbling mess.

“Oh - oh, my—Steve!” you squeal as your rubber-band-like resistance desperately tries to accommodate the intrusion of his size. “Big—you’re big—I didn’t realize you were so b - big—” 

“But you’re going to take it, aren’t you? Said you could, swore you’d handle me like no other before, right?” he croons and continues to decimate your swollen valley. “I told you you’d cum on my cock and around it, and that’s what you’re gonna do.” The order has your strangling heat fluttering in delight. “Unless you aren’t as big and bad as you claimed to be.” 

You gasp and cling tighter. “I can - I can,” you whimper, and it’s so cute—he can’t wait to fuck you until you pass out. “Just a minute. I can’t cum yet—n - not yet.” 

He laughs huskily because he knows he’s gonna to make you do exactly that. “Yeah, we’ll see about that, doll,” he practically purrs and cinches you closer so with each pass of his hips, your sensitive clit is chafing against his pubic bone; it has the intended effect of forcing your swollen walls to quiver around him.

“Shit,” you choke. “I can’t - I can’t—”

Motivated by your disbelieving insistence, he reaffirms his grip and pistons through your folds quicker. He ebbs deeper and deeper with the combination of his hips ramming in and his hands controlling your body so your channel swallows him all the way. 

Rising sensations pulse within him at an alarming rate, numbness climbing up his toes to cover him completely, encasing his nerves with an escalating bliss. In a minute, he’s going to blow and empty the contents of his balls into your never ending, clamping depths—and he can’t wait to see your reaction when he does, what it’ll look like to have his thick white dribbling out of you. 

That thought spurs him on, and he abruptly props you on the kitchen counter. There’s no break for your used pussy as he slithers a free hand to fist your throat, laying you flat against the cold granite.

“You are gonna cum for me,” he growls, voice unrecognizable with animalistic carnality. The sheening and flushed exertion on your face, the moans vibrating up your esophagus and the wriggle of your body is mesmerizing and provoking. “And you’re going to make me cum while you do it. Your tiny pussy is gonna milk my big cock until I’m flooding you full of me.”

He ruffles your shirt up and out of the way, giving him a glimpse of the single hottest thing he’s ever laid his eyes on. As his hips jut back and forth, the indent of his bulbous tip prods visibly from your stomach; he can see himself bulging low in your belly. 

He releases the unholiest of groans as lightning zaps through him, tactfully shocking his pressure points while his blood pumps to his dick, and he swells bigger inside you. The temperature is boiling to the top, and when your warbling voice breaks into his haze, “Steve—Steve—Steve—!” his eyes snap open. 

His gaze drags further down, he’s greeted with the eyeful of your exploited mound: puffy and swollen from his unyielding, punishing onslaught, your clit peaking through faintly as if beckoning for his touch. Of course, he obliges you—he has zero idea how he managed to deny himself of you in the past. 

The second he thumbs at the little nubbin, you’re sobbing his name and squelching around his cock. In a domino effect, the lava blasts from the bottom of his gut to your enveloping convulsions; sheathed to the hilt, a visual ingrained in his memory of his cockhead pushing up inside your stomach, he pours all the mania he’s kept locked away into you. 

Riding out the wave, he watches how you cream around him when he retreats from you. A ring of clear white contrasts against your bruised sex and his tanned length, the mix of your essences oozing down his balls and onto the floor. 

“Fuck,” he says hoarsely. “That’s hot.” 

There’s a periodic twitch of you, and he glances up to see you staring at him, glossy-eyed but undoubtedly satisfied. “You. . . that was. . . God,” is all you manage, and pride blooms in his chest—at the fact that you kept up, and at the fact he did you good. “You’re amazing.” 

“You did good, doll,” he speaks roughly, the hand around your throat tracing your pulse. “I couldn’t have thought of a better way for this to have gone. . .” Despite his recent orgasm, there’s a hunger clawing back to the surface as he observes the way you’re splayed out like an offering, fucked to the point of limpness. “Or, to be going. . .” 

“S - Steve,” you whimper but it isn’t a protest, far from it, he can tell. 

So he continues to trail his hand to your clit, encircling it while you give a half-hearted bleat. He rakes his teeth over his bottom lip and maneuvers his hips until his growing semi is teasing your cum-dripping entrance. “Y’said you could handle me, doll,” he murmurs and promptly glides right back into you, and a wanton cry tears from your lips. “Let’s see how true that is.” 

[masterlist / feedback]

[seancekitsch]

Fountainhead

a/n: smut, blood, mention of ptsd, addiction, thinking sad things during sex, drug use, loosely based on real events

Klaus was maybe at his most beautiful when he was squirming below you. Because today was his birthday, you weren’t going to let it be any other way. Your entire plan was to spend the day pleasuring him before his siblings came over for a little joint birthday dinner you were hosting with pizza Allison was picking up. And you offered— Klaus offered to host in your little studio apartment because you finally had a kitchen table. A bistro table from the little bar around the corner that forgot to chain and lock it up after closing. Free table. You could fit four of them there, and with the tv trays you found at goodwill, you could fit two more on the couch. You and Klaus could sit on the bed (now with a bed frame that may or may not have been his deceased fathers) or the floor (now with a rug instead of a bedsheet) to be comfortable, but this was mainly to show that your flat was becoming more like a home. But until his siblings arrived, he was all yours. You were making good use of that time.

It starts in the morning shower, with you washing his hair while he sits himself down on the floor so you can reach. And after all of the shampoo rinses out you reward him for not fussing or trying to make a beard out of the suds by straddling him on the shower floor and ride him until the water turns cold. He leans over you to turn off the faucet without letting you go from his grasp. Next you towel each other off while stepping out of the cold shower onto the equally cold tile floor and give him a loving firm reach around, catching his spunk in your hand and taking the time to gently pour it into your mouth before kissing him and suggesting breakfast. Eggs, if you have them. If not, waffles, your treat. He smokes a little birthday joint you rolled for him, one of many that spelled out his name on the little bistro table this morning when you woke him up. By the time you plate breakfast he’s high and handsy, grabbing at your hips before you push back to grind your ass against his hips. If he wants to take you from behind against the counter while the food you just prepared goes cold, you’re happy to oblige. Someone only turns thirty-two once (with the exception of Five).

And so he does. He deftly pulls your underwear to the side and thrusts long and hard into you. You lean down to rest on the counter and push back into him, sometimes sneaking a small bit of his waffles when you think he isn’t looking because they’re right near your head and they just smell so damn good. His pleasure is all that the day is about, but you’d be damned if you didn’t get a little reward for your efforts. So waffles it is, you think. Waffles, and the sweet blunt ecstasy of Klaus steadily fucking into you, his hip bones punctuating his motion against your ass. Fucking deep while you cry out his name between bites. Klaus had become a bit more dominant as the stickiness of summer came and went, fading into fall. He’s by no means the one that takes charge, but every once in a while he surprises you.

You suppose it’s because he’s been with you for so long. He told you one night, the same night you both celebrated two months of ‘sobriety’ aka free from anything hard enough to ruin your lives, that you were the person he had been with the longest in modern times. At first it confused you, but then you remembered he spent some time in the 1400s and the 1960s.

“You mean Dave?” you asked, quiet, almost nervous about his answer.

“H-how do you know about Dave?” bingo. Dave. You’d heard him mention a Dave before.

“At the clinic. Y’know. In your sleep? You talk,” sparing him any embarrassment. He wouldn’t talk, but scream Dave’s name in his sleep while he went through withdrawal in the room across from yours. You knew about Dave.

Klaus opened up to you that night, fully. Of course you’d known him and he told you who his family was, but this was new. This was Klaus on the inside, his heart and his soul bared to you. A Snickers bar bearing its nougat and caramel to a kid who stole it from the corner store. You were okay with Dave being Klaus’ true love. You didn’t think that what you felt for Klaus could be classified as love yet, and even if Klaus’ true love wasn’t you, you had him now. He had Dave and Dave was very special, and now he has you, and you’re special enough to be around this long. Vietnam in general was different. Vietnam has Klaus jumping and shutting down at fireworks and thunderstorms and trash trucks backfiring too loudly near the apartment. Vietnam made Klaus cruel sometimes, though you supposed that could also be a product of a lifetime of abuse. ‘Sobriety’ was new but post traumatic stress was not, and sometimes he didn’t know how to hold his tongue or cope with the ghosts or his own demons. Sometimes you’d lie awake, eyes glassy with unshed tears, rubbing Klaus’ back wishing you could take away Vietnam for him without taking away Dave. ‘Sobriety’ had made you less selfish that way. A week after he told you about Dave, you told him about your life. About how you’d been in a clique of drug snorting scholars from a young age, starting college early and taking too much on your plate. You told him how he was your first age appropriate partner, how you’d been a serial monogamist because it was easier to keep a steady source of prescriptions coming your way. How you were engaged to someone quite literally because you were on the same research team and they had a nice house and nothing else. How you’d spent weeks digging and struggling through articles and research until you cut sleep out all together with a flour bag filled with various adhd drugs and other stimulants all ground up and mixed together to snort at a moments notice. How empty and meaningless everything you had was outside of work and drugs. How—

When he finishes inside you, he kisses your neck. He reaches down with one hand to help you finish as well, skillful fingers dancing on your clit while he softens inside you. It doesn’t take you too long to come around him with a shuddering, squeaky moan. He kisses your neck again, and then asks you to pass him the half eaten waffle. There’s a whole one next to it, but he’s done this before. He likes to eat the same food you do.

* • • • •

This was Klaus’.... fifth blow job of the day? But you’re taking your time to make this one special. The setting of the sun makes his skin glow warmly as you push his form back onto the bed and the movement of your kisses heads south. He lets out a noise between a sigh and a ragged groan as you playfully bite his left hip bone where it protrudes as you undo his pants. You take your time dangerously slow to pull them off of him and to free his cock from its confinement. Inch by inch it strains until it’s free, and bounces back up against his stomach. You stop pulling the pants down around when you reach his knees, impatient and eager to please him.

You’d begun to feel a little lightheaded before you began undressing Klaus, but you chalk it up to a day of post-coital dehydration and figure you’ll have some water or a beer when the rest of his siblings arrive. You defocus the unsettledness in your head and focus back on the gorgeous cock in front of you. Cock isn’t the most beautiful thing on earth, but as far as phalluses... phalli.... cocks go, Klaus’ is a beauty and not just because it’s attached to him. You take care to make eye contact, before running your tongue across your lips and pressing a wet kiss to the tip. He stares into your eyes as your lips caress him, a look in them full of wonderment and desire, like for the last breakfast sandwich for the day at a gas station, but with a depth that no greasy bacon or cheese could satisfy. The look doesn’t last long, because the second your tongue swipes the slit his head lolls back between his shoulder blades and he slumps into the mattress.

“Fuck— ah- thank you, doctor,” he giggles, breathy and in a haze.

As your cheeks hollow out, you take him to the back of your throat; almost his entire cock, but what you cannot fit you wrap your fingers around. You almost remind him you’re not that kind of doctor, but you don’t. Thank god for spit being nature’s lube, you think as you start to stroke the base of his shaft. You focus on the stroking with your wet fingers, the light massage that comes to the underside of his shaft with the movement of your tongue, before pulling almost all the way off of him. You never fully take him out of your mouth, instead taking a deep breath before sucking and moaning on the head, reverberation from it earning you a moan in response from the birthday boy.

But as you bob your head once, twice, and then finally back down to take him to your throat, you taste something off. Something coppery. Not spit, not spunk.

blood.

Your eyes shoot open and you try to tell him. Your lightheaded feeling before was the onset of a nosebleed, not dehydration. Fuck yourself for having a deviated septum. Fuck snorting so much for a third of your life that it got to this point. Fuck yourself for not getting that fixed. You try to say “blood, nosebleed, big problem” but with his cock in your mouth it reverberates the same as before and he moans, grabbing the back of your head. The exact opposite of what you wanted from him. So you take your hand off the base of his cock, the one you didn’t realize was covered in nose blood instead of your own spit, and smack it on his chest to get his attention.

He jolts up, and you meet each other’s eyes with panic.

There’s a knock on the door. His cock falls from your mouth.

FUCK.

Another knock.

“Maybe it’s just Allison? She was bringing pizza. She’ll understand,” He reassures, both of you still not moving. The blood was not a trickle, not a brook or small stream. This was as if someone had turned the knob on fountain as far open as it could, and the floodgates opened and gushed down your face. It was still steady as the seconds passed.

“Klaus? Y/n? We’re all here for dinner. Pizzas getting cold,” Diego’s voice exclaims through door. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuckity fuck.

“Maybe they won’t notice? I get nosebleeds all the time,” you offer, now sat up with blood finding its way to your chest and shirt as well. “Quick, pants on. I’ll get the door.”

He obeys, quickly shuffling his pants back up over his still hard cock and goes to stand while you dash to the door. You fumble with the lock, wipe your face with the back of your arm, and open the door. Behind it you’re met with shocked and alarmed faces of the entire Hargreeves family.

“Come in! Come on in. Happy birthday,” You smile, wide, like the cat that had caught the canary. Vanya looks you up and down, not even having to ask before you supply, “don’t worry, deviated septum, you know.”

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Allison asks and you nod, maybe too enthusiastically. She heads to the kitchen with Luther, both either fully satisfied with that answer or not at all. But nonetheless Vanya offers to help you clean up in the bathroom and you’re happy to leave Klaus with his other siblings to get out of the embarrassment. But as you reach the door, Five calls out to you,

“Make sure you get something to clean up out here too, Y/n. Your blood got all over Klaus.”

Fuck.

[seafleece]

funnily enough, one of the first things they do is go to bed.

jester’s still shoving them along all the way into caleb’s dome, cheerful edging on a snarl, and there’s this freshly awful silence while everyone’s waiting for him to draw the circle.

“where are we going?” he says, and no one answers for a moment.

“i need a place, or it won’t work and i will have to start over. where are we going?”

“the xhorhaus,” jester says from besides beau, and turns to beau when she speaks again. “home.”

caleb looks up at her, between the two of them, and sucks in a breath between his teeth. “ja, okay, home it is.”

“beau.” they’re barely out of the lucid bastion, and jester reaches for her coat. “beau.”

“later, jes, okay?”

she’s still shaking.

jester gives her a look. it’s funny, how she’s been waiting to see jester angry, and now all she is is scared. “later.”

she doesn’t let go of beau’s coat the whole walk back.

—

and it probably seems like she’s avoiding jester, still, when they get back, but honest to gods she really does fall asleep in the bath.

the big clawfoot one down the hall from her and jester’s room— there are running faucets here, it’s always such a luxury after time on the road or in inns— she fills it and lets her hair down and even dumps in some of the citrusy-smelling stuff on the counter and sinks down, wincing.

mom would laugh, she thinks. if they did the thing they did with jester’s mom, stayed and listened to her tell stories about how their friend grew up, her mom would laugh and tell everyone that beau always hated baths. that beau hated having her hair fussed with.

but she doesn’t. she never did.

she hated how quiet they were. how her mom would hold up the stained ankles of her trousers and click her tongue and make that face, the one she always made when she knew dad would be mad but had no intention of standing in the way.

mom tugged at her hair, too, not because she didn’t like putting it up, but because dad never gave her enough time to do it in the mornings. she’d wake beau so early, and when she was too sleepy to get ready properly, mom would get angry because she was scared. dad would still be asleep, and still his anger, the fear of it, flowed all the way through mom and into her, suffocating and cold.

the first time she cut it short was to help— if she had less hair, it wouldn’t take so much time, right? but mom had crawled her fingers over her mouth like it was her arm she’d cut off, and not her hair.

(the second time she did it was because a guard had almost grabbed her by it.)

the xhorhaus is one of the only places since that’s had faucets— she watches it drip for a few long moments before tipping her head back against the edge.

she doesn’t need it. the metal basins at the soul were perfectly fine, she could go back to them— or would she not be there, either? would she even remember it? what would she have left?

what would there be left of her?

—

“i don’t know what it’s going to take.”

she comes to blearily. it’s dark out, not that it’s any indicator of the time, but the water’s still mostly warm.

jester’s pulled up one of the low stools to the side of the tub and is looking heavily at the floor, chin propped on her fist.

“what?”

“i don’t know what i have to do, beau.”

she sniffs, and godsdammit, she made jester cry.

“you keep not getting it, you know?”

“jes, i’m sorry, i—”

“you know, sometimes the rest of us do know what we want? that when we say— when i say i want you around, i mean it? that you would actually hurt me more by leaving, even if you think it’s better, or whatever.”

she turns to look at beau, and her face is flushed the same deep purple as when she’d scried on yasha, all those weeks ago. “sometimes you are really stupid, you know that?”

“yeah.”

“i’m really sorry that we made you go home, and i think your parents suck and we never have to visit them again and i think it’s really sweet that you did it anyway for nott, but we’re here, too, this time.” she reaches out, rests her hand on the rim of the tub, and beau takes it immediately. “it was really scary when you shut us out again. it was like before we knew you. it was like you didn’t want to know us anymore.”

“i’m sorry.”

“and you’re wrong, you know. or that witch is, if she told you. we’re not going to split up when this is over— we have this house all together and you can come and live at the chateau with me and momma, and we’d figure something out even if you couldn’t, because we don’t do that anymore, okay? the being along thing. we’d be dead if it wasn’t for you, so many times. we need you.”

jester squeezes her hand, and her eyes drift to beau’s shoulder, the curling green lines.

“i know you like to tell that molly story, about leaving better than you found something, but it’s not the same, okay? we’re not a town waiting for a god, we’re your friends. we can come with you.”

“i just—” she’s on the edge of tears, too, again, dammit. “if i leave when it’s good, i won���t be able to mess it up again.”

jester scowls at this, drops beau’s hand to grip both on the edge of the tub and pull herself forward, almost into beau’s space.

“why don’t you believe people want you around for more than what you do for them, beau?”

“i—”

now she really is crying. stingy, irregular tears merging with the cooling water. she thinks of mom gasping when she’d cut her hair, she thinks of the first days at the soul, before she’d given up on getting out. it’s your dad’s money, they said.

but then. she thinks of dairon, watching her with that half smile. offering a hand after beating her into the ground. the look in her eyes when she told beau she’d made her an expositor.

caleb and nott, clinging to each other under the grey sky and clinging to her, in front of molly’s grave. fjord laughing on the deck when he was teaching her sailing knots. caduceus next to her on watch, leaning on his staff— “you know, miss beau, i think you’re my favorite.” yasha reaching to touch her shoulders in the little room past the cathedral, yasha uncurling in sleep between her and jester in the rexxentrum cottage.

jester. clinging tight to her back on the ship under the wide, grey sky. pushing her knees into the hollows at the back of beau’s when they went to bed. holding her by the face when she healed her. cradling her head in her lap when she’d passed out under orly’s needle.

marching into the den of a witch after beau had offered to give them up. after beau had offered to leave her.

“i don’t know.” she looks at the water again. “i’m scared to think other things.”

jester tips forward further, so her forehead knocks against beau’s.

“just. remember this, next time you think about it, okay? imagine me crying because you are gone, because i would, beau, i would never stop crying and i would die of dehydration and it would be your fault and i would haunt you forever. i want you around all the time, i promise. i always will.”

beau reaches up to wrap one arm loosely around jester’s neck, hovering partway over the tub as she is. if jester minds that she’s dripping water onto her sleep clothes, she doesn’t say.

“okay.”

[kingofdirtandnothing]

@polyfacetious big ass Christmas Drabble Extravagaza: Day Twenty One

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.

Steven looked at the blinking cursor at the end of the sentence on his screen, an accusing slow blink of black against the white background, and chews on the edge of his lip. He’s already worked his chapped lips past the point of being salvaged with chapstick. The next tug of his teeth against skin comes away with a strip of dead skin and the rusty taste of blood from the split against his tongue.

The line was good, he could feel the weight of it behind his teeth, and he could hear the ebb and flow of it in his own internal voice. It was melodic, it moved in all the right ways. So why was it that Steven couldn’t leave the line alone and move on? He’d been staring at it for seconds going on hours now, and it still wasn’t enough.

It was because something wasn’t sitting right, and Steven didn’t know how to suss it out. How did you root out the needle in the haystack when every time you ran your fingers through it, it came out just the same?

“You’re thinking too hard.” Luke’s voice, light and playful despite the depths it had plumbed to in the time between their last meeting years before and now, walking the same halls and living under the same roof again. Luke’s voice had been a puddle at Aunt Janet’s pitchy and splashy, full of ups and downs. It was deeper now, a little choppy at the tops of his words but you could feel the still waters running deep behind the consonants. 

That wasn’t the only thing that changed. 

Gone was the little brother with the coke bottle glasses and the lisp, with his big boy hat and his wide eyed hero worship of his older brother. Fine blonde baby hair had given way to something deeper, that cradled his skull and made his skin look brighter. It dusted across his forearms, down into the vee of his shirt when he wore the ones he slept in, worn out at the neckline into a soft scoop. 

There was some alien creature in front of him, wearing the subtleties of his little brother around the edges but little else to tie the ‘then-Luke’ to the ‘now-Luke’. His brother had become a song that you could hum the melody to, but you couldn’t remember the words to the song, no matter how hard you tried. 

(Elfin had been the first word that he thought of, when he was trying to slot some definition in his mind next to this new person in his life, overflowing from the old box in the back of his head that Steven kept him in. But nothing about Luke was elfin. Neither was he rangey, or coltish. There was too much weight to him, too much heft. Steven was still struggling to find the right word for him.)

“Sorry.” Steven scrubs a hand over his mouth and marvels at how different the voice that leaves his mouth is compared to the one he hears in his head. There are moments when it’s vertiginous, this separation between the inner and the outer. Sometimes, Steven isn’t sure which one is the right one. The real one. 

The real Steven Crain. Was it the mild mannered, bespectacled author who signed books in a shop down the street from his house to auction off for charity? Or was it the man who stood beneath the shower’s spray and found his thoughts swirling down the drain just like the water from the faucet? Steven wasn’t even sure that he wanted to know the answer to that question. 

“I’m having a hard time with this one.” Steven has made his name, and his living off of historical novels. Always with a sprinkle of the supernatural, a dash of despair. A winning recipe he’s not keen to change, even if there’s been half an idea brewing in the back of his head for months now that he doesn’t know what to do with. 

A different kind of story, when you got down to the marrow of it. Sure, all of his stories carried the same sort of melancholy to them, the same sense of longing. But this was less a vein running through the center of a stone and more a river cutting through the rock to carve its own path. Steven hasn’t even mentioned it to his publisher. He doesn’t know if he will. 

“What’s giving you trouble?” Luke’s hip juts out, a flash of skin between tank top and lounge pants, there and gone. He’s palming a bottle of juice, twisting and tightening the lid in the webbing between thumb and index finger. It’s oddly mesmerizing. 

“It feels…” Steven lets the words fall off the cliff of his tongue with nothing to follow. Because this was the crux of it, wasn’t it? He didn’t know what the problem was. The words on the screen lined up nicely, there was a music to them. They should be practically perfect, good enough that Steven wouldn’t mind Nell over his shoulder, or his editor taking a look at it. 

But something about them wasn’t sitting right with him. Steven pulls his gaze from Luke’s hands and turns it back towards the glare of the white screen, the cursor pulsing at the end of the last sentence like a lethargic heartbeat. 

“Disingenuous? No. Dispassionate? No.” It’s somewhere in this ballpark, a word that starts with ‘d’ that Steven just can’t put his finger on. “Distant.” It’s not a perfect fit by a long shot and Steven shows his displeasure of it with a crinkle of his nose. But it was going to have to do, or this conversation would be stalled for God knows how long. 

“Distant?” Luke echoes, the back end of it tugged up into a question. It’s a leading question, meant to give Steven the room to work it out on the free air, instead of the caged confines of his own head. Steven is more grateful than he can put to words right now. 

“Usually, when I write, I feel myself in the main character.” Even with his female leads, Steven could find enough of himself in them to do a passably good imitation. He’d never know exactly how a woman’s mind worked, Leigh was sure to tell him that, but Steven did okay. But not with this piece. 

“With this one, it feels like I’m standing over someone’s shoulder. Like I’m repeating their story instead of telling my own.” And that shouldn’t be a problem. Hundreds of stories were told that way, with limited perspective and distance to help control the narrative. Just not Steven’s stories. His stories were about being in the meat of it. Feeling what the character felt. No matter how painful. 

“Do you think it’s the wrong main character?” It’s a perspective that Steven would have never thought of for himself. Of course, Luke was always good at things like that. He and Nell saw the world differently than Steven did. And it helped him immensely when they gave that insight into their world view. 

“I don’t know.” Steven hums, drumming his fingers against the laptops casing in a rapid staccato. “Really, the story is supposed to be about the man who buys the house. He’s surrounded by this...maw. This gaping, ravenous darkness and he has no idea. It keeps growing around him, creeping in and he doesn’t even see it. Like the frog in the pot of water. He doesn’t know he’s boiling until it’s too late.”

Steven’s gaze slips to the window, unfocused enough that Luke is a series of soft shapes against the backdrop of golden sunlight. “It’s a ghost story, right?” The Luke shaped outline lifts the bottle of juice and finally takes a drink. Steven is grateful for the distance so he doesn’t watch the way that his throat works. “Why not write it from one of the ghosts perspective?”

That was...a very interesting thought. “I do have a couple of spirits who aren’t inherently evil and haven’t been driven mad by the house.” The ‘yet’ feels heavy on his tongue, but Steven doesn’t want to commit to anything, not when they’re rebuilding on top of the very foundation of the story right now. 

“Yeah? Like who?” Luke moves away from his perch against the counter and comes back into focus in Steven’s peripheral before he slinks down into the kitchen chair across from the laptop, knees wide and shoulders rolled down loosely. So much new muscle and length that he didn’t know what to do with yet, or how to move. 

“There’s one…” It comes out guarded to his own ears. Steven tends to keep his stories to himself until he can filter the biggest parts of himself out through the narrative. “An heir who dies to keep the rest of his family safe.”

An older brother who dies to protect his siblings, both the beloved and the ungrateful alike. But Steven can’t say that out loud, he can’t admit how much of his writing is just wish fulfillment turned into something just different enough to pass muster. 

“There you go.” If Luke catches on, he doesn’t say anything about it. And he doesn’t wear any of it openly across a face that has never kept a secret in all its life. Steven was grateful for that. For as much as Shirl and Theo had grown and changed into people unrecognizable from the siblings he grew up with, there was still enough Nellie and Luke left in this young adults who moved in with him just last year for Steven to find comfort in.

He’d never mistake this kitchen for Aunt Janet’s, but at least he could look at his brother and still see someone who cared for him looking back. 

Luke says it like it’s so simple. There you go. As if shifting the entire narrative was just that simple. Make a choice, and commit to it. It couldn’t really be that simple, could it? Steven scrubs a hand against his stubbled cheek and finally looks at something other than his brother or his words. He looks at his coffee cup, and buys himself precious seconds with an overly sweet mouthful of still too hot coffee. 

Just like that. A new perspective. The same story, just told through a different lens. 

You could turn a villain into a hero with a new perspective. And you could excuse things that might be inexcusable otherwise. 

“There I go.” Steven parrots it back to him with a slow, wonder drenched shake of his head. “I don’t know how I finished any books without you here.” He’s rewarded with a big, bright grin that lights up Luke’s entire face, somehow reminding him of the kid he knew while simultaneously making him look every bit the adult he was now. 

“Y-you’re welcome.” That stutter sets off something warm and pleased in Steven’s chest. Luke didn’t stutter nearly as much as he did when a kid, but it was just as often a good thing these days as it was something stressing him out. 

Steven takes another sip of his coffee, this time so that he can hide his smile behind it. Given the eye roll he gets from Luke, Steven doesn’t think it’s very successful. But when he says “How many porch light metaphors are too many?” and gets a laugh in return, it all feels successful enough. 

[mattzerella-sticks]

Reflection, a Buddie fic, jealous!Eddie, 3.8k

Eddie Diaz knew a few things. His wife, Shannon, was no longer with them. While he will always love her, it was time for him to move on. Surprisingly, his heart already did without his notice. It set up camp in the hands of his best friend, Buck. And he was too late to do anything about it.

Because Buck has a personal trainer. Buck has a crush on his personal trainer.

If Eddie ever meets the man, he might dip back into his 'phase'. But knowing how that might hurt Buck, he hopes they never run into each other. At a party in Buck's apartment, there's a high chance their paths will cross. Only what happens when Eddie meets Buck's personal trainer?

Eddie stands in a corner, scanning the crowd for a particular face. Shoulders tense, expression smooth like the marble of Buck’s kitchen counters, he broadcasts a very clear message - stay away. Appropriate behavior if Eddie were back at his station overseas and not at a party. A party celebrating a very important person in his life.

He catches Buck’s eyes in the crowd, the other man in the middle of a conversation. Buck lights up, waving him over. Eddie declines, darting away to sip at his beer. Too slow to miss him deflate at the snub.

His heart stutters over itself. A low growl rumbles through his mind, sharp teeth chewing him out for causing Buck’s smile to dim by ten percent. Barks at him to push off from the wall and join him, even at the risk. Slide in close and interrupt Buck while he works through his fifth tangent. Because Eddie knows his friend loses the plot easier than a loose contact and everyone around him looks antsier than soldiers during a surprise mine sweep.  Eddie would then reel him towards an ending, helping lighten the social traffic.

It’s exactly what he wants to do. But a phantom hold keeps him from following through on the fantasy. The fear that, if he were to go over and enjoy himself, the very person he wasted already too much time searching for would surprise him and ruin his fun.

If there’s no fun had there’s none to ruin.

“You doing okay there Eddie?”

Hen and Chimney double team him, fencing him in and blocking his view of the entire party from his post. Any chance of escape stolen by Hen bracing her arm against the wall and Chimney spreading his legs in an awkward way that he finds comfortable. “So I’m not shifting around all the time.”

“But it’s a tripping hazard!”

Chimney smirked, “Too bad.”

Eddie frowns, carefully constructed mask slipping to expose his raw nerves. It rights itself in the next moment. Only the damage was done.

“What’s wrong?” Hen asks, “This is supposed to be a party! Why are you the treating it like a funeral?”

“I’m not -”

“Eddie’s not imagining himself at a funeral, Hen,” Chim interrupts, “no, no, it’s like he’s surveying a fire for any stragglers.” They snicker into their drinks, Eddie rolling his eyes at their antics.

“Real funny, you two,” he sighs, “Look, sorry if I’m being a little bit of a buzzkill but I’m not in the mood to party.” “Then why’d you come?”

He answers with a soft gaze towards the apartment’s entertainment section, Christopher sitting wedged between Denny and Harry playing with Denny’s Switch. Two more controllers added since his birthday, so they can all play Mario Party. Christopher shakes the controller madly to win whatever mini-game randomly chosen, laughing when Harry knocks into him.

“Hurry up dad!” Christopher urged Eddie. He waited by the front door, bouncing with excitement. Eddie shrugged on his jacket, telling him to be patient. “But I want to see Buck!” he said, grinning, “Don’t… don’t you want to?”

Eddie did, but he wasn’t alone. There’s another person here that probably feels the same flutter in his stomach whenever Buck’s form crosses their gaze. Except they can act on it, whereas Eddie has to wait for his stomach acid to digest those damned butterflies.

“That’s sweet,” Hen says, cup over her heart. “But that’s not explaining the stiff upper lip thing your face is doing.”

Chimney nods, “You’re no Brad Pitt but you have a better poker face than this, man.”

His lips thin further, and Eddie wishes a tornado would sweep through the room and suck him out of the apartment. It’s the only natural disaster he feels his family aren’t equipped to handle, meaning they’re less likely to rescue him from death. Although Eddie believes, even if a tornado found a way to travel across the Midwest and to Los Angeles without dissipating, his Texan blood would keep him alive for the fallout. “Maybe I would perk up a little if people stopped harassing me about why I’m not the life of the party?”

“Hey, don’t make us out to be the bad guys,” Chimney says, “we’re first responders.”

“We’re just doing our jobs,” Hen adds. Her finger pokes his chest three times, on the fourth Eddie waving it away.

Chimney steps closer, voice lowering to a whisper. “Really though,” he says, Eddie straining to hear him over the background chatter, “are you okay? You can tell us?”

“Was it therapy?” Hen asks, “I saw you leaving in a huff. Completely ignored me by the way…”

Eddie winces, unaware Hen saw him storm out of their therapist’s office. “My bad,” he winces, scratching his neck, “I would’ve said ‘hi’ if I saw you.”

“I know,” she says, “I could tell you weren’t paying attention. You had this intense glare in your eye like you had before we showed up.”

“Is that what it is?” Chimney arches a brow, “Something your therapist said that rubbed you the wrong way? A breakthrough you weren’t ready to hear?”

Chimney throws darts blindly and lands one close to the bull’s-eye without thought. Eddie bristles at how closely his friend’s guesses were. Although there are a few facts he has wrong.

Like the breakthrough Chimney thinks Eddie wasn’t ready to hear? Not true. Eddie understood his newfound feelings for Buck almost immediately. Already experienced the blinding, gasping fear that came with the development. Scared how things might change, to be around Buck, and what would happen if his affection went unanswered. Especially since he couldn’t hide his heart as easily as he thought. Frank sniffed them out at their session after Eddie’s revelation.

“Why did you shut down just then?” he asked, leaning forward in his wheelchair, “When you were talking about Buck.”

“I didn’t shut down,” Eddie said, crossing his arms. “I finished with the story… not much else to talk about.” Frank chuckled, rubbing at his eye. “What’s so funny?”

“Usually when it comes to the topic of your… friend , Buck, I have trouble getting you to move off the topic.” Shifting, he brings his pen to the notepad and scribbles a few words. “Has there been another rough patch in your relationship?”

Eddie scowled. “I wouldn’t say that. We’re fine.”

“Fine?”

“ Dandy. ” If falling in love with your best friend and coworker could be boiled down to a word, it wouldn’t be that. But did Frank expect Eddie to tell him the truth?

He did. They spent half the session verbally sparring about Buck, Eddie drawing his line in the sand and making sure Frank wouldn’t wheel across it.

“I thought you didn’t like talking about Buck?” Eddie growled. Squeezed the arms of the chair in an effort to keep his cool. “Why are you making this such a big deal?”

“Because you’re making it one.” Frank lost any pretense of entertaining Eddie’s efforts then, laying into the other man. “You think I’m being annoying with this? Imagine what might happen after you leave this room. How are you going to react when your mood shifts when talking to friends or family - or Buck? When you spend time with Buck will you shut down like you did earlier? I assure you that will only draw more suspicion your way.”

Eddie sunk into his seat. “I can handle myself…”

“Or,” Frank continued, “why don’t you let me help you through whatever you’re working through in this safe space. Where, I promise, there is no judgement.”

He mulled it over for a minute, giving Frank the benefit of actually considering his offer. A scene played through his mind, Eddie in the same room with Buck. Neither doing anything important than existing next to each other. In the sequence Buck turned to him and grinned, little birthmark rising slightly and eyes squinting like he stared up at the sun.

Eddie hoped his cheeks didn’t burn like they were in his head, in that room with Buck.

“Okay,” he started, thumb brushing back and forth across his knee, “if you want the truth…” It spilled forth rapidly, Eddie accidentally twisting the knob on his faucet off and unable to stop it. Went over how, after Shannon, Eddie didn’t know if the hole in his chest would ever be filled. That the pain from losing her once hurt so long, and this time her exit was more permanent.

But, without his notice, someone grabbed a shovel and set to work. Slowly Buck stepped into a new role. Went above and beyond what a friend normally did. Especially given his own condition, dealing with the possibility that his career and life were forever over. At first Eddie thought Buck used his time with him and Christopher as a distraction. To numb the terror of not being able to return to the firehouse. Except the cast came off, and Buck stuck by their side. Became even bigger parts of their lives. Sometimes he picked up Christopher from friend’s houses when Eddie or Carla was busy. Or joined them in grocery shopping. Stayed late into the night, helping Christopher to bed and chatting with Eddie until it was one in the morning. No matter how hard Eddie begged, though, Buck would return to his apartment. Eddie watching him hop into his Uber and waiting until he received a text from Buck to go to sleep.

“God,” Eddie scrubbed his face, “I had it bad for him this whole time and I didn’t notice?”

“You wouldn’t be the first,” Frank comforted him, smiling, “When we go through trauma, it’s easy for things to fade into the background while you heal. Things change, around you and inside, that you might not notice for awhile because the immediate pain takes up all your attention.”

“I guess you’re right,” he sighed, “I spent so long being glad that I had Buck… I didn’t examine those feelings too closely because I was just happy that the pain from missing Shannon wasn’t there.”

“And when Buck abandoned you, as you mentioned in a previous session…” Eddie shifted in his seat at Frank’s choice of words. “How did you feel? Really feel? Looking back on it with the clarity you have now?”

“I… I don’t know,” Eddie said, “I guess it… pushed me over the edge. Two people I loved choosing to walk out on me and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Felt like I was letting Christopher down because I couldn’t give him a stable home… was more like a hotel with one of those revolving doors. It made me mad. And I wanted to hurt people, because maybe then I wouldn’t be hurting inside... God,” he wiped his eyes, laughing, “Buck was right. He was part of the reason I had my… phase . If he found out… his ego was insufferable before.”

“Your confession is safe with me,” Frank told him, “I’m glad we could work through this in today’s time. If you held out a bit longer I was afraid we’d be cut off in the middle and it’d be forever to get you to where we’re ending today.”

“Thanks, Frank,” Eddie said, standing, “I… I needed this.”

He scheduled another session the following week, proactively dealing with his issues. While they covered many things in the hour there were still more to discuss. When his next appointment arrived Eddie wasted no time dumping the remaining worries at Frank’s feet. Like a man dangling off the edge of a skyscraper begging for someone to help him away from the edge.

Frank hauled him onto solid ground with sound logic. “If Buck is all that you say he is,” he explained, “than in the possibility where he didn’t return your feelings occurred, he wouldn’t call it quits like that. You need to have a little faith that things can turn out good.”

“It’s hard, though. When every time I have that faith it all goes sour on my end.”

“Well maybe this time things will turn out differently.”

Eddie took Frank’s advice, deciding that the next moment alone with Buck he would hand him his heart and pray he kept it.

However he could never be alone with Buck.

In the following weeks, any chance where they were the only two in the room was spoiled by a third party joining almost immediately. From fellow firefighters to random strangers. Christopher, when Eddie tried sneaking out to meet Buck. Caught and forced to bring him along since he cannot say no to his son. While at the park, watching his son play, he thought about telling him there. But then Athena walked in, apparently on patrol. So desperate Eddie considered faking an emergency so he could claim the ambulance for him and Buck and confessing on the way.

Eddie was desperate.

Instead of risking a felony, Eddie went with an even riskier option.

“Buck,” he sidled up to his friend, swinging an arm over his shoulders, “You good to join me in the gym for a little one-on-one?” Not the safest place given how accessible their gym was in the open floor plan. If he timed the barbell lifts right, Eddie could give them some protection.

Buck deflated, stepping away from Eddie’s hug. “Sorry, Eddie… no can do.”

“What? Why?”

He frowned, tilting his head in confusion. “Really? You know why…” At Eddie’s silence, Buck continued. “Ever since the accident I… I can’t work out like I used to. I had to switch up how I do things and… find new ways.”

“Oh,” Eddie mirrored his expression, “How, uh… how have you been exercising then? Because - I mean - you’re still looking fit and everything and you had to keep up your strength when going through training of course…”

Buck smiled, ducking his gaze to hide a blush. The sight of flushed skin sent chills racing down Eddie’s spine. “Been doing some classes, got a personal trainer… who I really like. He’s - uh, he’s cool. Derek, I… it’s been different, but uh - uh new. In a good way.”

A good way. Said to the floor yet Eddie still bears the brunt of the blow. Repeatedly suffering with each mention of ‘Derek’. Especially since, after first finding out about him, he becomes a recurrence in his life.

“There’s this really cool trick Derek showed me that’ll cut cramp recovery in half the time.”

“Derek, he had this really funny story he was telling in the middle of our planks…”

“I didn’t think yoga was that effective, but after one class with Derek I can see why people do it.”

Derek. Derek. Derek. He took his place in Buck’s life as his exercise partner without him knowing. The longer he waits the better chance he has of graduating from ‘trainer’ to ‘boyfriend’.

But Derek keeps him at bay. The specter of him shadows every conversation they have. Eddie imagining telling Buck his feelings only to be shot down because some random guy swooped in and struck the scalding iron while Eddie didn’t even know the metal was hot. As more time passed, Eddie sparingly saw his friend.

“It could be nothing,” Frank said. Eddie ignored him, pacing the room. “If you talked to him -”

“I mean it’s perfect,” Eddie spiraled, “being a trainer means that he can get close without there being any questions. Touch Buck’s muscles or - or press his chest to Buck’s back while showing him how to do a move or whatever.”

“If he does then that’s harassment, Eddie. Buck pays him to be his trainer and nothing more.”

“But it could be something,” Eddie turned to him, “The way he talks about Derek… there’s this stupid smile on his face that he gets when he has it bad for someone. Had it when he told me about Abby, when he was with Ally... “

“Did he ever have it when he was with you?” Eddie stayed firm in his silence, refusing to answer him. Frank continued, undeterred. “You’re jumping to conclusions without all the facts. If you talked to him -”

“It wouldn’t make a difference! He’s already gone on some other lucky jerk.”

“And is that so bad?”

He stiffened. “What do you mean? Of course it’s bad!”

“I don’t believe you think that,” Frank said, “To me, it sounds like you’re using this Derek as an excuse to back out of confessing your feelings to Buck. You’re afraid Buck might say no. Having Derek there is the perfect option because if he’s in Buck’s life than you don’t have to tell him.”

Eddie imploded. Glared at Frank, biting down every bit of bile he wanted to spew at his therapist. Swallowed it all and stormed from the room before he did something he regretted. Carried that dark cloud with him from the parking lot to Buck’s apartment where they surprised him with another party. Celebrating him being off blood thinners and hopefully not have it end like last time.

“What happens in therapy stays in therapy,” Eddie mumbles, pushing off the wall, “now if you’ll excuse me.” He escapes them, squeezing through the sewing needle loop between Hen and Chimney.

They follow, matching his hurried pace. Trying to carry the conversation even though Eddie keeps dropping it.

Luckily he sees a distraction by the mirror. Christopher stares at himself, smiling. Eddie walks over and crouches down next to him. “Hey, buddie, what are you looking at?”

“Denny said I had a piece of spinach stuck in my teeth,” Christopher says, “but I… can’t see it.”

Eddie studies his son’s teeth, aware of the figures standing behind him. “I don’t see it either.”

“Denny probably did that so he could cheat,” Hen sighs, “boy is the sorest of losers.”

“You should get back to your game, then, before you end up in last place.” Eddie squeezes Christopher’s shoulders, resigned to losing his shield against the circling vultures. He reaches forward and places a hand on the mirror’s frame, using it to steady his ascent.

At full height, Eddie notices his reflection fading somewhat. Suddenly a figure pops up, smiling and sweating, frozen in mid stretch.

“Whoa, whoa, hey,” Buck rushes over, smile twitching with nerves, “what, uh… what’s everybody doing?”

Chimney jerks his thumb at the scene. “Wondering why there’s a man trapped in your mirror?”

“There is?” Buck feigns surprise, eyebrows disappearing into his hairline. “I don’t - I don’t know how he got there?”

“What? Of course you do, Buck,” Maddie says, joining the conversation, “I helped you set him up and everything.”

“Maddie -”

“Maddie,” Chimney cuts Buck off, “you know what’s going on?”

She nods, pointing to the man in the mirror with her cup. “Being Buck’s sister I was the only one who was forced to listen to him complain about how he was going to lose everything he worked so hard for. Just because he couldn’t work out like he used to because of the accident. One day while listening to him go on and on about it this ad popped up for mirrors that double as personal trainers.” A string snaps in Eddie’s mind, the sound echoing madly. He looks over to Buck, the other man watching his feet while his ears burn. “Anyway I said I would personally buy this mirror for him if it would get him to shut up. He agreed, but only if he liked it. Day after it arrived Buck wasn’t complaining anymore. Best paycheck I ever spent…”

“Wait,” Hen glances between Maddie and the mirror, “so this is a personal trainer?”

“Yeah,” Maddie leans over to tap the glass, despite Buck’s attempts to stop her. The screen shifts and an array of faces smile at them. Derek’s larger than the rest, head enlarged and name clearly labeled below it.

There he was. Derek .

“You can pick from a whole array of trainers depending on what classes you want. It’s really interesting, and Buck seems to like it.”

“Maddie -”

“I figured you all knew about it since he’s replaced complaining with praising his trainer Derek,” she chuckles, elbowing her brother. “Little teacher’s pet.”

“ Maddie .”

Their small crowd thins after that. Christopher returns to his game, and Chimney leads Maddie towards the kitchen to steal some more food. Eddie stares at Derek, a mixture of confusion and relief churning in his stomach.

Hen sidles up to him. “You wanna know something?”

“What?”

“That Derek guy kind of looks like you.”

Eddie whips around in shock, ready to fire a denial. She dips before he can pull the trigger, safe by her wife’s side. Loaded and nowhere to go, Eddie looks at Derek. Sees how, in a certain light, they could be reflections of each other. However Derek’s hair is much longer than his, pulled tight in a bun, And there’s a mole under his nose that draws the eye to it without trying.

Derek disappears, the mirror returning to normal. It’s his face gazing back at him now, Eddie’s a few inches to his side.

“So,” he says, “you’ve met Derek.”

“Yeah. I did.” Eddie turns to him, “Why didn’t you tell me he was in your mirror? I’ve been here how many times, used this mirror, and it had a double life?”

“I… I guess I was embarrassed,” Buck tells him, wringing his hands, “of…”

He guesses, “Of him being in a mirror.”

“Well, that,” Buck says, eyes bouncing around the room, unable to meet Eddie’s stare, “and, because…” His words dissolve into dust.

Eddie understands. Finally sees what he needs. An emotion reflected in his own eyes, not distorted by doubt or fear.

“Y’know,” he starts, running a hand across the mirror’s surface, “this is pretty cool.”

“...It is.”

“Yeah,” Eddie says, smiling at Buck’s face in the mirror, “think you could invite me over the next time you use this?”

Buck frowns, “Why? You already got a good routine going.”

“I’ve been in the mood to shake things up,” Eddie tells him, “and besides… I missed working out with you.”

“You did?” Mood shifting rapidly, Eddie swoons at the dizzying grin lighting up Buck’s face.

“Of course…” Eddie’s hand runs across Buck’s reflection, petting his chest, “there’s a lot of time I have to make up for. We can start with exercise and… go from there.”

Buck nods enthusiastically. “I’d like that.”

The party goes on without them, both men are lost in their own world. Eddie feels the darkness that ate at his heart fade, replaced by the warm embrace of understanding. In lieu of talking Eddie prepares for his exercise date. Stretches the words in his mind so they’ll be ready for the day. Imagines how it will go. And, when successful, Eddie kisses Buck. Derek long gone from the mirror. Only them captured inside it.

[elatedmarvel]

After All This Time, You and I (2/4)

Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: Bucky’s known you your entire life. Snapshots through the years.

Word Count: 1398

AN: So... I was writing and realized I have so much more story than I had anticipated, so it’s now becoming a series. Opps, not even sorry. Thank you for reading!!

Warnings: slight violence, throwing up, and a creep

Series Masterlist | Masterlist

The music could be heard from down the street as you pull up to the house. It’s been a long week, and finals were finally over. Natasha had convinced you to go out with her and Wanda, and luckily Tony was throwing a party. It hadn’t been an eager yes, but she knew exactly what to say.  

“Come on, let loose a little! Finals are over! And I heard from Steve that he and Bucky were gonna stop by.” After that, what else could you say but yes?

A yes that you were starting to regret. Wanda had found Vis as soon as you all had walked in, which lead you and Natasha to grab drinks. You were 4 deep, and still no sign of Bucky.

“I think I’m gonna go Nat.” you said, finishing off the liquid in your cup and trying not to grimace at the burn, before setting it on the table. 

“NO! You can’t go! The party’s just getting started.” she stated, dancing with Sharon. Or you think it was Sharon, the alcohol was hitting you faster than you thought, and your vision was starting to blur. The room started to feel suffocating, and the flashing lights and noise was getting too much.

“I’m gonna grab some water.” you shouted at her, not caring if she heard, before turning around and trying to make it to the kitchen. It was less crowded and quieter, people grabbing food and drinks before going back to mingle. You felt like you could finally breathe for the first time in an hour and a half.

Basically diving between people to grab a water bottle, you took an eager gulp as soon as you uncapped the bottle. Hunching over the island, you leaned you forehead on the counter, glad for the cool touch. You must have been out of it, because you didn’t notice someone coming to stand by you till you felt a hand stroke your arm. You pulled back when you realized it wasn’t Steve or Bucky, but instead Brock Rumlow, the campus sleaze ball.

“Hey baby girl, you look hot tonight.” you shivered when he bit his lip. His hand started to curl on your arm, and your panic began to rise. The headrush you got from whipping up fast didn’t help the situation either.

“Uhh, thanks. I have to get back to my friends though.” making to leave. But the room was starting to spin, and his cheap, heavy cologne did nothing to help the bought of nausea. 

“Stop, let go of me” you kept repeating, weakly pushing against him. The room was spinning faster, because of panic or alcohol you weren’t sure, but you knew you had to get out of there fast. 

“Let her go!” and a punch was all you heard before you felt his warm hands embracing you, trying to keep you on your feet.

“I got you doll.” and you weren’t sure if you even said his name before blacking out. 

It was warm and it smelled like Bucky was all you registered when you came to. Opening your eyes, you could see the clock on the nightstand read 3 AM. Moaning, you rolled closer to the edge, where a cool glass of water waited for you.

Chugging the glass, you were sure you spilled some on the comforter you were wrapped in. You eyes could just make out the silhouette figure on the floor, but you would know him anywhere. 

“Bucky?” you whispered, taking in the surroundings, you realized he had brought you back to his and Steve’s apartment. His room, to be more specific.

“Hey, how you feeling?” he whispered, hoping he wasn’t making your headache worse. He got up from the floor and sat by you on the bed, hand coming to move the strands of hair out of your face. Like a cat, you leaned into his touch, you probably would be purring too if you weren’t feeling like death. 

“Everything hurts.” you pout, eyes closed, you tuck yourself between his arm and solid body. You can feel his chuckle, and you stick your bottom lip out further.

“It’s not nice to make fun of the dead.” you tease. Startling a bit when you open your eyes, his face was so close. All you had to do was lean in, just a little, and you would get to know what he tasted like. Was it getting hotter in here, or was it just you?

“Where’s Steve” you ask, trying to distract yourself. God he smelled good, like safety and home.

“Well, after he punched Rumlow and I got you out of the way, he kicked him out of the house and decided to stay to make sure no one else was making unwanted advances.” 

“Why am I not surprised?” you giggle, always playing the guardian, your brother.

“I know, don’t worry though. I think I heard Sam say something about getting him drunk?”

“Sam’s gonna need lots of luck then.” Steve had never been one for drinking, knowing it would take a lot to get him drunk since his sudden growth freshman year, and he wasn’t fond of the taste.

“Yeah” Bucky agrees, and the room falls silent for a moment. You enjoy being pressed against Bucky’s side. If you close your eyes, you can almost imagine what it would be like to fall asleep every night like this. 

You can feel yourself starting to drift before you feel it like a punch to the gut. 

“Oh my god” you try to scramble out of the blankets, and basically fight out of Bucky’s embrace. Luckily, he lets go as soon as he feels your struggle and sits up on alert.

“Doll? What’s wrong?” you hear, but you’re already out of the room and halfway to the bathroom. You reach the toilet just in time before everything comes up. 

You gag a few more times, and you can feel Bucky pull your hair into a ponytail. He strokes your back and utters a few encouragements. 

You wonder how you can ever live this down. He’s seen you at your lowest, but this was probably rock bottom. So much for getting him to see you as anything other a friend. You’d be lucky if he wasn’t repulsed by you everytime he sees you now. You’re sweaty, and you’re the sounds your making were nightmare inducing.

What feels like an hour passes before the storm passes, you groan and curl up into a ball on the floor. Everything hurt from heaving so long, not to mention the burn in your throat. 

Ever faithful Bucky had stayed by your side, and now you can hear him stand up and the faucet run. You open one eye in time to see him squat down in front of you, and hand you the glass. 

Trying to give him a smile that probably looks more like a grimace, you take a sip of water and swish the foul taste out of your mouth. Spitting it into the toilet, you put your head between your knees, trying to ward off the dizziness. 

“I’m never drinking again” you groan, and suddenly you feel warmth bracketing your legs up your back. Signing, you uncurl yourself, and lean back into him. He’s so strong and warm, you almost forget you had thrown up minutes before. 

“You say that, but I bet the next time Nat drags you to a party you’ll be keg standing” he jokes, wrapping his arms around you. 

“Don’t even joke about that, it’s too early.” you sigh, content to back in his embrace. 

“Should we head back to the bed?” he asks. The low rumble felt on your back, how was his voice even attractive?

“No, I wanna stay here in case vomit fest 2.0 happens.” you sleepily say, slurring your words slightly. You don’t even hear his reply before your out like a light, dreaming of a certain blue eyed man holding you forever.

That’s how Steve finds you both the next morning, laying on the bathroom floor with limbs tangled together. He decides to let you both sleep a little longer, but not before taking a picture and sending it to the group chat. Looks like it all worked out.

Part 3

Tags:

@captainchrisfics  @mc225g​

[winterblues]

the shape smoke takes

andreil + shotgunning + long-haired neil, nuff said.

“Do you want to try it again?” Neil asks.

Andrew tips Neil’s chin up, softly prying Neil's lips open with the hilts of his fingers and placing the cigarette in between them. “Breathe it in. Do it slow and make sure it reaches down into your lungs. You will feel it. Here,” Andrew brings Neil’s loosely curled palm up over the expanse of his own sternum and flattens it there with his hand. Neil detects the faint stir of Andrew's heartbeat. “Hold it for five seconds and kiss me.”

Neil does as he is instructed, his every thought pirouetting around the phrase kiss me kiss me kiss me.

Andrew said it out loud. That makes it real.

read it on ao3 or under the cut

Neil’s eyes are glued to the man sitting at the table nearest to the bar; dressed as always (like he’s prepared for his own funeral.)

The heavy gleam of a stare, ambling spectrally, giving itself away in its attempts to be inconspicuous. Neil’s fingers grow warm and leave lined imprints on the shot glass he’d been polishing. He has a feeling that his gaze is being carefully returned, somewhere past the foggy algorithm of dry-ice and the pool of flooding customers, all drunkenly swishing and swaying against one another like plastic bags caught in a squall. Their movements erratic and possessed, as if the bass dropped a demon in them. He catches a quick glimpse of a pale blond head thrown backwards, and the empty glass sure to follow suit. Neil’s stomach erupts with warmth at the sight; as if touched; by something as trivial as a blink.

Neil knows how dangerous it is. If his mother were here, she would strike him in between the shoulder blades, and tell him to snap out of it. His father’s bloodhounds will kill him if they sniff him out. Whether he plays by the rules or not, someday, his past is bound to return in the form of a haunting. The dead always catch up. He may be escaping the clutches of said death, having changed his name and being forced to lie low; working in the flashy wilderness of Eden’s Twilight to keep himself from raising any suspicion and assuming a whole new identity—but, it still feels like being strangulated.

He was offered a new life, the least he should be able to do with it is live a little.

Neil’s spent the past year under the Witness Protection Program, living with a tight leash around his neck in return for that protection. It’s a borrowed freedom, and Neil isn’t sure how long it’s going to last. The sharp, familiar gaze reaches him; burns a hole straight through him. He feels the leash loosening in silent revolt and a relief in his chest like a retreating snake.

He's still interested in me.

Neil looks up, just as Roland snaps heavily-ringed fingers in his face. “Hey, Romeo. Stop ogling and start attending. I know he’s cute, but will he still be cute after you’re fired for boning a customer?” Roland’s tone is lighthearted as he animatedly twirls a glass of vodka behind his back and expertly tosses it at him. Neil catches it on instinct, before pouring a drink for an eager woman with the foreboding depths of her cleavage propped up against the counter.

Neil offers her a dull, plastic smile as she carelessly waves her credit card in his face. He plucks it smoothly from her fingers before punching the price into the machine and handing it back to her.

Neil finds himself fascinated by this night-time species, this throng of people with dazzling grins, an insatiable thirst for alcohol and fairly inexhaustive wallets. This secret world that exists like a sweet distraction from the frantic city that lies above it. The job is easy enough. He’s worked up a colorful resume over the years, and though the training period was trying, six months in and Neil’s able to tie a cherry stem with his tongue while flinging a bottle up into the air with one hand, and pouring champagne with the other.  

Thrust into eye-contact, flighty feet, glass-shard violence and wrists tilted in precision—the bar becomes a stadium in its own right. Neil has gotten so used to people divulging their life stories to him under the influence; without asking for anything in return, that he almost forgets that the truth often comes at a price.

That is, until Andrew.

“Hey,” Roland murmurs. “Tuck that shirt in, we aren’t barbarians. Bar- barians. Get it?”

Neil slides him a bone-dry look. “No.”

There are two facets of the job Neil could live without: Roland and his shitty puns, and bar dress code. The uniform is far too flamboyant for his tastes. Neil can’t help but feel like he stands out, despite his repeated efforts to dilute himself as much as he can. Every staff member is required to, at the bare minimum, wear eyeliner and body glitter. Something about fitting the customer aesthetic and subliminal sales techniques; as if people actually give a damn whether Neil glitters or not before buying a drink. It doesn’t quite help that Neil is stuck in a pair of unforgivingly tight pants. The bartender’s vest he wears on top of a standard black shirt is heavy over the shoulders and clings to his torso like hide skin, the grating magenta making him feel like some kind of a glorified eggplant. Roland of course, often works shirtless, wearing nothing but an unnecessary and painfully bright tie around his neck. The eyeliner is doable, but the glitter splashing his eyelids and cheeks is rather itchy and unfavorable.

Luckily, Neil usually sweats it all off by the end of a routine shift. Unluckily, it gets extremely hot as the crowds drool in, and Neil hasn’t had a haircut in weeks. They’ve taken on a life of their own at this point and grown out just past his chin. He keeps the hair that will cooperate tied back in a bun, but it still manages to fall apart from friction. Neil would have chopped it shorter if it weren’t for the fact that Andrew seems to like getting his fingers tangled up in it. Now that his protection has been more or less secured, Neil has taught himself to let go of the clutch of contact lenses and hair dye. He’s still reminded of his father everytime he looks into a mirror and cold blue eyes stare back, but he’s still learning. He can’t live his entire life hiding. It’s not worth half the effort that goes into it. There’s also the fact that anyone with a keen enough eye would be able to recognize his frail disguises with no trouble. If he has no choice but to hide, maybe he should do it in plain sight.

It isn’t until the cocktail crowd clears up a little that Neil’s eyes gravitate to him again. This time, Roland’s gaze follows. “Can we share him? He could be my type. He’s a little short, but look at that body, and he’s got that whole dead-inside, estranged bad boy vibe going on. A mysterious hunk with definite chances of a damaged past. They’re usually really hot in bed. Kinky, too. That is, once you endure the tragic backstory, but it's worth it. Trust me. ” Neil can practically see the thirst building in Roland's eyes and alarms sound off in his head. “When he returns for a refill, I’ll be the one to serve him.” Neil isn’t sure if his voice sounds unnaturally gruff, or if he’s just imagining things. By his side, Roland pouts. “You never let me have any fun.”

“Sink your dirty claws in someone else,” Neil snaps, without sparing his coworker the attention he so craves.

“Uh oh,” Neil hears the grin in Roland’s voice before he realizes the insinuation it carries. “Threat Level Midnight.” Neil ignores him in favor of frothing at the mouth as Andrew begins to amble over, but now Neil’s caught up in the way the strobe lights limn the sharp length of his jawline, like the edge of a blade. In a millisecond, Neil’s caution furls into a disbelieving and growing fascination. Maybe it’s because he’s spent so much of his life in the shadows—but he’d convinced himself long ago, that he's incapable of conceptualizing notions of butterflies & pounding heartbeats & urges beyond that of the animal.  

Andrew parks himself right in front of Neil and swirls a vague finger at his empty tray. “Hi,” Neil’s voice trembles like a short circuiting wire, his hands reaching for the faucet. As he watches the gold liquid sloshing around in it, he puts every remaining ounce of effort in trying not to think about the places where Andrew’s lips met the rim of the glass.

Andrew slants an intent look his way. “When do you get off?”

Their eyes meet, and Neil’s anxiety ebbs away, transforms to a solid state of certainty. “That’s up to you.”

Roland’s lips curl up into a suggestive smirk. “Get out of here, you two. I’m practically suffocating in the fumes of your oh-so-sexual tension.” Andrew does not acknowledge the comment, but Neil turns his head. “My shift is still—”

“I’ll cover for you tonight, but you owe me one, Foxy.” Roland had taken to calling Neil that, solely because he turned up to work in a graphic t-shirt with a cartoon fox on it one time—and that had only been because Stanley had picked it for him. It isn’t long before Neil finds himself on Andrew’s solemn heel as they head down a dimly lit hallway. The smoking zone allows for just a little more room than an airport bathroom stall. It’s a small, airy balcony that Neil often takes the liberty to close off to the general public. This is not the first time Andrew and Neil have ended up here together, and it won’t be the last, but tonight feels different.

Tonight feels like a confession.

Andrew clambers onto the edge and settles down with his knees drawn up to his chest, and his back against the cold wall. Neil joins him, a leg dangling loosely on either side. There’s rain trapped in the air, and the clouds hang like blemishes yet to burst, a humid breeze that preys on skin. The steady trickle of dull music springs up from the ground beneath their feet, all too easy to compare to a heartbeat. Neil finds himself inexplicably drawn to Andrew, pulse thrumming like rippling water.

Andrew produces a pair of slightly bent cigarettes out of his back pocket and hands one to Neil. At his appraisal, Andrew leans in and bunches a fist in Neil’s collar. “Your shirt reeked of nicotine last week,” he explains, and lets go; even though Neil doesn’t want him to let go.

Andrew lights them, and Neil accepts his without a thought. The pure orange flame glows in the night like a rescue flare. Andrew’s cigarette slips effortlessly in the hollow between his lithe fingers, as he places it, like the barrel of a gun, to his mouth. Something craved and immediately lost in the thoughtless routine of the movement.

(They are caught up in this dance, in this game, in this ritual. Neil spoke his first truth in years, out loud in some back alley under a bleary moon, staring softly into a disenchanted pair of honeyed eyes, his words a relief and an invitation; spilled into Andrew’s open mouth; his chest soaring with quiet sounds of touch and need and want—all words that bloomed like roses along the thorny stems of resolute promises. Neil has never been interested in another person before, not like this. Even as his toes itch with the whim to run, his ribs burn for more, more, more. This is something he wants to hold onto. Does that make him selfish? Does that make him greedy? Does he care?)

“You’re staring,” Andrew says, watching the distant highway lights, the predictable performance of miniature cars snaking past narrow roads in a gentle, vein-like flow. Low sounds of traffic popping and fizzing far away from where they are. “Did you notice me watching you?” Neil knows the answer, but maybe he can trick himself into taking a confirmation as a promise. “I could barely focus on my job, you know. It’s starting to become a real problem.”

“Your problem,” Andrew corrects, and Neil smiles, cigarette flickering in a suicidal haze between his fingertips. “What’s one more problem to add to my multiplying list?”

Andrew falls quiet, and Neil chews on his bottom lip nervously. That’s a new feeling. He's spent a laughably large portion of his life in acute danger, and now he’s on a nightclub rooftop, growing nervous over something like this. Growing nervous over someone . Curious, too. Neil's mother used to say that learning about people will do him no good. Do you bother to learn the name of every road you tread on, to get you where you need to go? Of course not.

He doesn’t care. He’s hungry to know—every conceivable thing, hungrier more, for what’s invisible. The reason for the black cloth that veils Andrew’s forearms, the reason for the technicolor bruises he wears around his knuckles, the reason why he understands Neil, on a seemingly molecular level— without a morsel of question or concern.

“When did you start smoking?” Neil inquires, to which Andrew only blandly says, “You do not get an answer out of turn.” Neil frowns. “How about a bonus round?” When Andrew says nothing, Neil sighs and meets the other man’s eyes. “I do actually want to tell you something, and you can have this for free.” Andrew nods, before tilting his chin and taking a lengthy drag.

"Andrew-"

Neil hesitates, throat closing up at the sight of the muscles working in unison under Andrew’s neck and making a blue vein strain in result. Andrew exhales with the same efficiency, plumes of smoke exiting his lips like fluid ghosts, leaving him in search of the light.

“This… whatever it is we’re doing. It means a lot to me. I’m not used to having desires, or being attracted to other people. I didn’t even think I was capable of anything like it. You make me want to be something other than nothing. You… You don’t have to answer. I just wanted you to know that.”

Cool fingers close around his neck. Neil’s body is slack with notions he’s grown weary of trying to comprehend, notions bigger than the both of them, bright and wide as rivers. Neil’s attention flickers to the rapidly dying cigarette—and why does it feel like it’s burning him down with it?

“Did I ask for a reason?” There’s a stray ringlet of blond hair interrupting Andrew’s eyes. The urge that dawns over Neil is heavy and explorable, but it’s only when Andrew does not back away, that Neil raises his thumb to gently brush it off, tucking it as far as it’s willing go, just above the slender curve of his upper ear. “You asked for the truth.” Neil says, hand falling into his lap in between them; lest his touch mistakenly linger.

“The truth has its limits,” Andrew’s face is close and not close enough. Neil wants him so close that he can longer tell their bodies apart.

“Mm,” he mutters, absently; skin hot from the humidity or maybe from the need to be touched—not just any need. The need to be touched by Andrew is different—but maybe it’s more than different, something too sacred for words. It's not a purely sexual feeling, it's a certain, overwhelming sense of safety (a notion as unfamiliar as the surface of Mars). Safe. Somehow... Andrew makes him feel safe.

“How do you know?”

“Because you seem to have none. Come here,” Andrew’s fingers against the nape of Neil’s neck are shaping; guiding, as he gently pulls Neil towards him and picks the half-exhausted cigarette from his hands, before flicking it away. “How wasteful,” Andrew says, tone tinged with the palest hint of disapproval, while his lips part in earnest. “I need the smell, but I don’t really hold a desire to smoke it.” Neil admits. Andrew shoots him a hard glare, and it feels, for a moment, as though there is nothing in between them—not even air or moonlight. Neil can’t look away from the face of the man he has been kissing in silent corners for six months. He can’t quite keep his lungs from pooling either, like light through a doorway.

“Yes or no?” Andrew asks.

Neil’s answer is an incontrovertible ‘yes’ gasped out like a dying man’s final wish.

There’s a sudden look behind Andrew’s glassy eyes, and maybe Neil is just seeing what he wants to see, or maybe not. Maybe there was a shock of increible feeling that momentarily eclipsed Andrew, before passing as swiftly as it had arrived. Then again, maybe it was just a smoke-induced hallucination.

Andrew draws closer and Neil stares at the way his cracked and peeling lips navigate around his cigarette, how his fingers tremble without volition. Andrew watches him back; closely. Neil is unsure of the steel expression betraying nothing; but the flicker of his eyelids suggest he is furiously muling something over, something clearly substantial. Andrew lets out a preparatory breath, before taking one of Neil’s hands with his free one and placing it over his shirt, just beneath his ribs. The world shivers and Neil’s pulse rings out like a snare-beat. This is the first time Andrew has ever allowed him to touch him like that. To touch him somewhere below the neck. Neil finds himself suddenly overwhelmed with more gratitude than he can convey in the involuntary twitch of his fingers against the worn fabric of Andrew’s shirt. Andrew makes it a point to keep a firm hand wrapped around Neil’s wrist; now pressed into his diaphragm, before he inhales, deeply. Their gazes are rapt on one another. Beneath the scar-ridden skin of Neil’s fingers, Neil can feel the conscious rise of Andrew’s chest, the strong muscles expanding beneath his stomach, the lick of heat as Andrew's lips slide open to meet his own and he pours his breath into Neil’s mouth. Momentarily suffocating; dreamy. Libation-spill.

Neil’s eyes fall closed.

The back of his throat scalds and he has to repress the urge to break into a coughing fit, but then the discomfort passes, to be replaced with an indelible need. Even the smoke escaping between them seems to linger reluctantly against their mouths, and then everything within Neil returns to the eager slide of Andrew’s tongue. A gasp of pleasant surprise and a soft scratch of teeth and delicate devouring. Neil’s hair coming undone, his grip on Andrew’s shirt growing more faithful, their breaths rattling out heavy and indulgent.

Neil’s mind mimics a blank slate, Andrew’s breaths run through him. His free hand slips into Andrew curls. He does not tug or disrupt, just holds on for some sense of an anchor and Andrew’s palm latches harder onto Neil’s neck, a finger twisting a loose strand of hair. Just as Andrew begins to draw away so that they can catch their breaths, Neil tugs at his lower lip and pulls him in once again. The smoke is long lost to the whims of air. Neil can feel the way Andrew’s stomach contracts with the sudden gesture, how his body falls slack as if aching to be reshaped, the pronounced jut of his neck. This time, Andrew rips himself away and takes Neil’s lower lip between his fingers, pinching them together in feigned annoyance. They’re tangled together like a pair of wrinkled clothes on a washing line. Neil’s heart pounds dizzyingly. Andrew’s eyes slant lazily and take on a starry glaze, a consequence of a kiss shared like smoke and digested.

Andrew’s cheeks are red and raw with stray constellations of sticky flecks.

“I'm sorry I got glitter all over you,” Neil hums, unapologetically.

Andrew blinks a sparkling speck out of his lashes. "Liar."

"I've never kissed someone like this before."

"I can tell."

There's a pleasant halo of warmth spreading around them now. Neil pushes his hair back from his face. "You're really good at that."

(A perfunctory pale stare.) “You claim to hate it yet you consume like a junkie.”

(More importantly,) Andrew hasn’t dropped Neil’s wrist yet.

“I think I could get used to smoke as long as it comes from your lungs.” Neil grins. Andrew shoots him an unempathetic look, but it holds no bite. He looks so young all of a sudden, with glitter dust highlighting his features and Neil's hand held to his lungs, standing as a counterweight to the fumes.

"102%."

"What does it signify?"

"The likely chances that I will hurl you off this ledge to your untimely death."

“Before you kill me..."

"Do you want to try it again?” Neil asks. Andrew tips Neil’s chin up, softly prying Neil's lips open with the hilts of his fingers and placing the cigarette in between them. “Breathe it in. Do it slow and make sure it reaches down into your lungs. You will feel it. Here,” Andrew brings Neil’s loosely curled palm up over the expanse of his own sternum and flattens it there with his hand. Neil detects the faint stir of Andrew's heartbeat. “Hold it for five seconds and kiss me.” Neil does as he is instructed, his every thought pirouetting around the phrase kiss me kiss me kiss me . Andrew said it out loud. That makes it real. That makes it a promise. Neil’s hand creeps up Andrew’s chest and locks around his neck. He leans in and Andrew’s mouth falls open invitingly, swallowing the smoke that seemingly travelled light years to reach him.

They’re still kissing long after the smoke has dissipated and their mouths are sore and Andrew’s cigarette has died out in his hands. An airplane grazes the night sky overhead, drowning out the consequences of body heat and the sound of hitched breaths and transparent bodies colliding; like a car crash in the dark.

When they finally break apart, Andrew has glitter sprawled over his nose and Neil’s body is an ocean.

“Fuck,” Neil breathes. “Andrew, you’re amazing.”

Andrew blinks at him, expression steady, chest still heaving from the aftermath. “Don’t say stupid things.”

“I mean it,” Neil insists. “Thank you for…” He fumbles over the words for a moment, unsure of how to put a feeling so massive into a weak network of words. So he reaches out for Andrew's shoulders instead. The delirious feeling of fingers digging into the soft skin of his inner forearms, and tracing back. “Shh,” Andrew moves smoothly, like the start of a flame, and then he has Neil pinned down, the weight of a knee digging into his chest, and an arm, coiled over his side as counterweight to the ledge. Voice tender. “Stay.”

“Will you?” Neil asks, breath thin and collapsable.

The longest silence in the universe.

“I am not going anywhere.” Andrew’s tone is perfectly dry, but it conceals open wounds. Wounds Neil wants to fill with kisses and shared cigarettes and a heady rush of safety. The sort of imagined, persistent safety found beneath blankets after midnight, at the bottom of cardboard boxes, along a line of streetlights.

Neil smiles—big and genuine. “Me neither.”

Neil wants to see Andrew. Again and again. Why? Because of the way roofs cave in to mounds of snow, because of how a hand can be transformed by the simple act of touching another hand, because of a dry spell in the tropics, because of alcohol warming a system, because of the blood spoiling almost every single one of his shirts; the smell of nicotine. And the way that the world feels calmer; less angry, less out to get him. The way their friction reinvents hope and blocks out both sun and shadow. Because he does not want to live like the dead when he's not dead yet. Because Andrew’s breath tastes like a promise. Because he wants to be selfish and brazen and in love with something he can’t understand (not yet). Because Neil is tired and everything hurts and he just wants to feel something good. Because Neil could choose to run, like he always does, but he doesn’t. Not tonight. 

Because living like that doesn’t mean a thing.

[eddiekasp]

Must Be a Better Word- Ch13

Love. There must be A better word. -Adam Gillon.

I’m so sorry it’s been a while!! Have some angst!

Eddie sat in Richie’s bed, legs tangled in the still warm sheets while he propped his knees up, a copy of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" rested easily on his legs like a stand. Not a foot away, Richie stood with his bare feet on the floor, searching for something in the drawers of his desk. This was never an easy feat, as although the drawers have generally become cleaner since the two started dating, within days they would become rearranged and would require another clean up soon after.

Eddie stared at the boy, waiting for him to come back into bed so he could continue reading. This was their habit, to read all of their school books together, with Eddie’s soft voice narrating the story and Richie’s head resting on Eddie’s lap or shoulder or just on the pillow next to him, eyes softly closing after some minutes. Even though they had different English teachers, the curriculum for the Sophomore class remained the same, and this made it easy for Richie to relax while Eddie read to him.

Now, Richie was looking for a highlighter for Eddie. Richie didn’t need much note taking (or even, really, much paying attention) to get good grades in school. Eddie, however, wasn’t let off that easy, and had to scribble in the margins and mark important parts to study for their reading quizzes. Richie would get annoyed since it disrupted the flow of the book and Eddie’s voice, but Eddie told him to fuck off because not all of them were born smart AND lucky.

Richie hopped gracelessly back into bed, drawing a small laugh out of Eddie before he was handed a highlighter. He quickly marked the notes and continued on reading. Richie insisted that he always read the dialogue for Billy Bibbit, since he was nearly a carbon copy of their own Billy and Richie could impersonate Bill’s stutter the best.

“‘Nuh! Nuh!’ His mouth was working. He shook his head, begging her. ‘You d-don't n-n-need!’” Richie narrated, as Eddie continued onto the next line, accurately portraying Nurse Ratchet.

"’Billy Billy Billy," she said. "Your mother and I are old friends.”’ Eddie continued. Richie interrupted one of the most important parts of the book, laughing. Eddie’s hands, which were tightened around the book in his fear for Billy Bibbit, loosened as he looked to Richie, annoyed. “What is it?”

“It’s just… this kid is a total hybrid of you and Big Bill! Poor kid has a stutter AND mommy issues!” Richie laughed again.

“Will you shut the fuck up? With how much you talk about my mom, it seems like it’s you with mommy issues.” Eddie rolled his eyes.

As if she heard her name called, Richie’s mother interrupted the two boys perfectly on cue. She pounded on the door loudly, without rhythm. Eddie bet that Richie’s stomach dropped at the precise moment his own did. Richie called back, asking what she wanted, without moving from his place on the bed to open the door.

Eddie knew, loosely, about Richie’s alcoholic mother, but Richie had never allowed Eddie to talk to her when he knew she was drinking. Other times, Eddie was always surprised that she had that side to her, as she’d tried to be kind and open to her son’s friends. But Richie assured Eddie that that was fake as fuck, and that she was probably the shittiest person he had the luck of knowing.

Eddie’s hands tensed again around the book as Richie’s mom took the liberty of pushing the doorknob and opening the door. She looked disheveled to say the least. Her hair was placed in a messy bun at the top of her head, pieces of thin hair streaming down the sides of her face like a leaky faucet, and her shirt was wet in two places. She reeked.

Eddie had pressed Richie to tell him what was going on with him and why he’d been so down recently, much to Richie’s refusal. Instantly, Eddie understood what Richie had been dealing with daily.

Richie glared at his mother, her shadow from the doorway casting a gloom onto the floor as her eyes lazily fluttered open and close. Eddie glanced at the boy next to him, seeing his cheeks had turned a bright shade of red. Eddie wondered if it was because Richie was angry, or just embarrassed. It was probably an intense feeling of both. Richie felt Eddie’s eyes on him but didn’t dare glance to him.

“What? Do you need to tell me something?” Richie said firmly. He wasn’t afraid of his mother how Eddie was, but rather just felt such intense shame that he wondered if it was wrong to wish he’d never have to see her again.

“I just… wanted to say that you’re being loud. And you’re hurting my um, my head.” She slurred out before pausing. “I didn’t know Eddie was here.”

“Yup. We’ll be quiet. Please… go away.” her son spoke uncharacteristically stern and serious, a voice he only put on when dealing with the women who acted like a 5 year old. If 5 year olds ever had drinking problems.

“Mhm,” she mumbled, “but… uh, Richie… but you gotta go downstairs and um, clean up. I’m gonna lay down.” She stepped away from the door but left it hanging limply open. Richie sat without moving for a minute, eyes cast downwards as he picked the hem of his shirt and tried to blink tears away.

After some time he got up swiftly, unfurling his long legs from under the sheets and nearly jogging downstairs to clean up whatever mess his mother had left. He had swung the door with his hand as he exited, hoping to shut the door as a sign for Eddie to stay, but he didn’t push as hard as he thought he did and the door only swung back without shutting. Eddie hopped off the bed himself, nearly bounding through the (still slightly open) door nearly as quickly as Richie did.

His bare toes padded down the stairs rhythmically, and he held the railing as his feet flew miles ahead of him, worried he’d fall. When he finally reached the bottom of the staircase, he walked slowly into the open kitchen where Richie stood, head down, observing a couple of nearly empty glasses left in the sink.

Eddie recoiled, trying to hold back a gag, as he covered his face with his hand in attempts to ward off the smell of Richie’s kitchen. A mix of vodka and vomit, and something sickly sweet-- maybe cranberry juice. Eddie’s first response was to step back, but then he saw Richie’s hand, shaking slightly, reach for the dish sponge and turn the faucet on.

Eddie walked to Richie’s side near the sink, taking another dish sponge to assist him in cleaning the dishes. There really weren’t too many cups in the sink, maybe six or so, so it didn’t take them too long to clean up. Eddie sat Richie down at the counter as he wiped it down with a bottle of bright blue Windex and a paper towel. The clean scent of the spray masked the pungent odor that wafted through the house a bit, which both of them were thankful for. After Eddie finished cleaning up, he went to the sink to wash his hands quickly with the dish soap and sat down next to Richie.

Eddie’s eyes were huge, fearful, worried. He tried to get Richie to look up and him, grabbing one of his shivering hands. Richie noted how he instantly felt safer, at least Eddie wasn’t angry. Not yet, at least.

Richie looked up at Eddie’s face, and Eddie attempted to give a smile but only succeeded in upturning one corner of his mouth a millimeter. Richie’s expression softened before he briskly pulled his hand out of Eddie’s hold and hopped off his seat.

“I think you need to go, Eddie.” Richie said curtly, walking towards his front door in a sign for Eddie to follow suit. Eddie hopped off the seat and stood, unmoving, shocked that Richie was… actually kicking him out.

Eddie was so surprised, he didn’t even know what to say. He knew how horrible Richie felt, but didn’t that mean he should be here for him?

“You don’t wanna come with?” he said after a moment, almost desperately, “we can go to my house or the arc-”

“No, I want you to leave. Can you just… please go now.” Richie spoke in a near whisper, trying harder than ever to keep his hot, angry tears from dripping out of his eyes and onto his cheeks. He hoped his glasses would do him the favor of hiding him nearly crying.

Eddie furrowed his brow and sighed, walking straight past Richie and out the door. When he stepped out onto Richie’s front step he turned around to say something, but was met with the quite slam of the door instead. He remained for a minute, before turning on his heels and beginning to walk home. Richie had drove him over after school, so this was his only way home.

When Eddie finally opened his front door, his cheeks burned pink from the cold wind, as did his hands, although less so, as they were spared by the pockets of Richie’s warm sweatshirt.

That night, Eddie called Richie’s phone at the same time he always does. It rang twice before going to voicemail.

[ryqoshay]

How to Handle a Nico: Homesick

Primary Pairing: NicoMaki Secondary Pairing: NozoEli Words: ~1.6k Rating: K Time Frame: Maki is in med school. Nico is working as an idol producer. They are living together as a couple, but not married yet. Story Arc: "Home" Homesick Homecoming

List of all HtHaN scenes

“I’m home…” Maki called before setting down her bag and starting to remove her shoes.

Silence.

Of course, only silence greeted her; nobody was here. Nico was on tour; her first actual tour as a professional idol. After a long hiatus to get her production company up and running, Nico was finally able to perform again. Nico was finally able to live her dream of shining brightly on stage as a professional idol. After all this time Nico was… not here.

Nico wasn’t here.

Maki sighed as she kicked her shoes in the corner without bothering to put them away neatly. Slowly, she trudged to the kitchen where she opened the freezer and removed a pair of bento boxes. Next, she opened the fridge, placed the frozen pair on a shelf and removed one that was thawed. Lastly, she loosened the cover of the box, placed it in the microwave and turned it on. Just like last night. And the night before. And the night before. It was a routine she had performed for over a week now.

Nico had taken off work the day before she went on tour and spent the entire time cooking. She stuffed their freezer with enough prepared boxes to provide Maki with breakfast and dinner for about two weeks. For lunches, she had picked up a bunch of dry goods; protein bars, crackers, dehydrated fruit and the like, which she partitioned out to match the other meals. Though her tour was three weeks, it was expected that Maki would supplement the supply by other means.

Maki retrieved her bag from the entry while her food cooked and returned to the kitchen when it was done. In addition to retrieving her food, she also grabbed a large can of beer. Without Nico around to scold her and tell her to eat at the table like a normal person, she wandered listlessly down the hall to her office. Though her bag was tossed haphazardly in the general direction of her chair, her food and beverage were set down carefully on her desk.

Less than half an hour into her study session, Maki was already returning to the kitchen to toss her bento box in the sink with the rest from earlier and retrieve another can of beer. A couple hours, and a couple more cans later, she closed her textbook and shoved it and her notebook back into her bag. From her bag, she retrieved her MP3 player and shoved the earbuds in her ears.

Maki’s heart skipped a beat as Nico’s voice flowed out of the tiny speakers. Under normal circumstances, she would listen to her preferred genres of music, but with her girlfriend away, this was one small way to keep her close. She then made her way to the bathroom where she turned on the tub faucet before retrieving a lighter for the candles which she lit while the tub filled. After turning off the water, she undressed, not taking off her earbuds, and slipped into the water. She almost fell asleep during her half hour soak, but eventually, she dragged herself out of the water, dried off and tossed the towel loosely back on its bar.

Retrieving her phone from the counter, Maki noticed she had missed messages from Nico.

No1Idol: Don’t stay up too late studying

No1Idol: Idol’s orders

NishikinoMaki: I’m heading to bed now

NishikinoMaki: I love you

Maki tossed the device on her bed and put on her pajamas. She was just crawling under the tangled mess of sheets and blankets when she heard another message come through.

No1Idol: I love you to, Maki-chan

No1Idol: I can’t wait for our next Skype session

No1Idol: Good night

NishikinoMaki: I’m looking forward to it as well

NishikinoMaki: Good night, Nico-chan

Sighing once again, Maki set her phone on the nightstand, rolled over, grabbed Nico’s pillow and hugged it tight. Closing her eyes, she tried to fall asleep, knowing full well it would come slow. Just like last night. And the night before. And the night before. It was a routine she had performed for over a week now.

Maki jumped at her phone’s ringtone. She hadn’t expected a call immediately on walking in the house. Was it her imagination, or did the sound actually echo in the empty hallway? She checked the ID. Nozomi?

“Hello?” Maki answered the call.

“Hey, Maki-chan!” Nozomi’s cheerful voice came over the line.

“What’s up?”

“Oh, just checking in on my favorite med student. How are you?”

“I’m fine.”

“Oh?”

“Yes.”

“You sound tired.”

“I’m fine.”

“Classes going alright?”

“More or less.” Maki admitted. “It’s a lot of work.”

“Well, you are in medical school.”

“Yeah…”

“Well, I know you’re probably busy with studying and all, but Elicchi and I are thinking about going to a movie later. You’re more than welcome to join us.”

“I’ll… think about it.”

“Or you can come over if you just want to talk.”

“…”

“Any time you want.”

“…”

“You don’t even need to call ahead.”

Maki yawned.

“Was that a yawn I heard?”

“Maybe…”

“Have you been sleeping alright?”

“Uhm…”

“Are you sure you’re alright with Nicocchi not there?”

Maki sighed. Nozomi wasn’t giving up, and of course, she was spot on. “It’s strange.” She admitted.

“Well you two have been practically attached at the hip for the last few years.” Nozomi said, though not in the teasing tone Maki would have expected, rather her voice remained calm and soothing.

“Everything feels different.”

“How so?”

“Well, not everything. Just here.”

“Here?”

“Classes are fine.” Maki started to explain. “Really, the days are fine. But then I come back here and…” she trailed off, not quite certain how to phrase it.

“It feels different.” Nozomi repeated Maki’s earlier description. Good enough.

“It’s hard to concentrate on my studies.” Maki continued. “I met with my group at the library and that went better, so I may try to study there again from now on.”

“That might help.”

“But I still come back here and I still can’t sleep and…”

“Have you hung out with Rin-chan and Hanayo-chan lately?”

Maki wrinkled her brow at the unexpected change in topic. “No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. I guess I’ve really just been busy studying.”

“And I know you haven’t hung out with Elicchi and Umi-chan recently either.”

“…”

“Have you done anything social at all recently?”

“… Not really…”

“Why not?”

Maki sighed. “I don’t know. Everyone else seems fine and is having fun and I’m just… I don’t know.”

“And you’re having trouble studying and sleeping there?”

“… Yes…”

“Not really motivated to do anything?”

“… I guess…”

“Feeling irritable?”

“… Maybe…”

“Sounds to me like you’re homesick.”

“What?”

“You’re homesick.”

“But… I am home…”

“Are you?”

“I…” Confused, Maki looked around. She was tired, but she fairly certain this was her house. “I don’t get it.”

“You’ve heard the old saying, home is where the heart is, right?”

“Yeah…”

“So, are you home?”

“…” Maki thought about what Nozomi was implying. If her heart was with Nico, then that would mean… “… No…?”

“When is your next video chat with Nicocchi?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Come over here, Maki-chan.” Nozomi offered again, though more a gentle command. “Elicchi and I will make you feel at home, or at least a little less homesick. Have you eaten yet?”

“No, I just got ho… or… uhm… here…”

Nozomi laughed lightly at Maki’s confusion. “Elicchi is on her way home from the restaurant and she’s bringing enough for the three of us.”

Wait, did that mean Nozomi knew Maki would agree to come over? Of course she did. Maki chastised herself for still being surprised by the things the spiritual girl knew.

“You may not be able to beat her,” Nozomi was still talking “but if you leave now, you won’t be too far behind.”

“Alright, alright.” Maki shook her head. “Just let get my shoes back on. I’ll be over in a few.”

“See you in a bit.”

“Yeah… Oh, Nozomi….”

“Mmm?”

“Thank you.”

No1Idol: Nozomi says you’re staying at their place tonight

NishikinoMaki: Yeah

NishikinoMaki: In your old bed

No1Idol: So I guess I don’t have to tell you not to stay up too late studying

No1Idol: because I’m sure Nozomi will do that for me

No1Idol: or Eli

No1Idol: maybe both

NishikinoMaki: I didn’t even bring my books

No1Idol: Who are you and what did you do with my girlfriend?!

NishikinoMaki: Idiot

No1Idol: You love it

NishikinoMaki: Maybe…

No1Idol: Skype tomorrow?

NishikinoMaki: I wish we could now

No1Idol: I know

No1Idol: I do too

No1Idol: But I need to be up early tomorrow

No1Idol: So do you, if I remember your class schedule

No1Idol: And you know how long we would talk despite that

NishikinoMaki: I know

NIshikinoMaki: Sorry for bringing it up

No1Idol: It’s fine

No1Idol: But we can talk as long as we want tomorrow

NishikinoMaki: I know

No1Idol: I love you, Maki-chan

No1Idol: Talk to you tomorrow

No1Idol: Good night

NishikinoMaki: I love you too, Nico-chan

NishikinoMaki: Good night

Maki sighed as she set her phone on the nightstand. However, sliding under the newly washed sheets was not part of her routine; it was different. And nice. Nico’s old bed, now being used as a guest bed in Nozomi’s apartment after Nico moved out and Eli moved in, was nowhere near as new, big or well-made as the one she and Nico shared now, but it was different. And nice. Knowing that people she cared about were mere meters away instead of kilometers was also different. And very nice. Perhaps there was something to that phrase Nozomi had mentioned before, because as Maki closed her eyes and felt sleep start to take hold, her last thoughts were that she felt more at home than she had in over a week.

Author’s Note: I very much headcanon Maki living like a stereotypical bachelor when Nico isn’t around. Dirty dishes left for untold days in the sink, dirty clothes tossed in a heap, clean clothes rarely making it to hangers or drawers, bed never made, empty beer and coffee containers abound, probably a few takeout boxes as well, etc. I figure she was raised in a wealthy household with servants or cleaners or the like that took care of such things before she moved out. College dorms are... well, college dorms. And by the time she moves in with Nico, she’s so busy with everything involved with being a medical student that she lacks the time, energy and motivation to do it. Of course, this scene depicting her first long-term separation from Nico since The Incident just compounds the issue.

Nico, on the other hand, was the primary cook and cleaner for a household of five and is more than happy playing the happy housewife for her girlfriend when they live together. She takes pride in how well she takes care of their home and loves spoiling Maki by cooking her favorite meals.

This isn’t to say that Maki doesn’t eventually learn to start picking up after herself and start doing her share of housework, just that she’s a little behind the norm in learning such things.

[brettanomycroft]

Like Desert Rain [Kallura, VLD]

It's something like desert rain: uncertain, unpredictable, utterly quenching

Fandom: Voltron Legendary Defender Paring: Keith x Allura Words: 5326 Rating: T+ Tags: Kallura, crushes, developing feelings, back on Earth, embarrassment, Keith really can’t thermoregulate, fluff, some angst, bonding

Part 1 of a 2 part birthday fic for the wonderful, beautiful, fabulous @stardusted So many thanks to @flusteredkeith and @heretherebefandom for all of their help! 

Read on AO3 Part Two (coming!)

...

After years of the cold crush of space, Keith’s not so sure what to make of home.

Of course, it’s not home, not really: home was a twin bed with a handmade chili pepper quilt; home was the crack and pop of bacon frying in a pan over the sounds of the morning weather report; home was his father on the front porch swing, staring up at the night sky.

But Keith’s been away from home for far longer than he’s been away from Earth, and nowadays, he supposes the creaky desert shack that’s been in his family for decades is about as close to a home as he’s going to get.

The place is sand-caked and dusty from lack of use, and Keith fumbles at an apology when Allura first steps foot in the place. She waves him off with a tight smile. At least her “It’s not like I expected you to get here early and clean up,” sounds genuine. He tests the faucets and, through some miraculous luck, the pipes have held up. He offers her the first shower, with no promise of warm water or towel, and takes the time that she’s in the bathroom to sweep as much of the sand as he can out the front door. He discovers the busted glass panel in the living room window - the primary suspect in the sand-flooding case - and patches it up the best he can with duct tape.

After that, he runs through the motions his father taught him all those years ago. The cistern is given a once-over, and the tarp is pulled off the solar panels on the southern side of the roof. The bed is stripped and linens replaced with the only other set in the shack. The mexican blanket is rearranged on the couch. The kettle is filled with water, and set to boil. He doesn’t reflect on how easy it is to fall back into that old routine. That was the purpose of a routine, wasn’t it?

The water in the bathroom stops running as he’s fishing out two MREs from the pantry. A minute or so later, Keith hears the door creak open.

“Keith?” Allura calls. There’s a note of hesitation in her voice. He hopes hard that there’s not another scorpion in the bathroom. Knowing Allura, she’d probably try and pick it up.

“Yeah?”

“Would you happen to have any spare clothes? I… may have been in such a hurry to leave that I forgot my bag on the Castle.”

“Yeah, hold on and I’ll check.”

He finishes sticking the MREs in their heating packets and leaves them on the counter to cook. The little bedroom is just off the side of the living room. Like everything else, the small dresser creaks as he tries to wiggle it open.

Though he wouldn’t admit it to Allura, Keith hadn’t even thought to pack a bag. They’d all been running around the Castle like frantic, headless chickens, trying to coordinate how the team would be splitting up and where they could best hide themselves, the Lions, and the Castle. While working through the code on one of the Castle’s atmospheric recovery programs, Pidge had discovered a tracker bug embedded deep in the system: an answer to the question of how Zarkon had been able to send a near-endless stream of warships and fighter drones to harass them for the last seven Spicolian movements. Coran and Pidge had figured out how to throw a temporary patch over the tracker, but Pidge warned it’d be ‘about as good as hobbit-sized blindfold over the Eye of Sauron’. Since Lance, Hunk, and Shiro apparently knew what that meant, they’d insisted on the need to vacate as soon as possible. Allura had fought hard against leaving Coran and the Castle, barely shielded, on the dark side of an abandoned moon, but the insistence of Coran and the others had won out.

So they’d split up with little more than a semblance of a plan: Pidge and Lance would be gather intel on a seedy swap moon rumored to host one of the universe’s largest and most advanced living servers; Hunk and Shiro would be tracking down Shay and the rest of Unoccupied Balmera to ask for the crystalline materials needed to rebuild the infected system; and Coran would be left, as long ago, to defend the last remaining territory of Altea. And him and Allura?

Keith scowls down at the petulant dresser drawer. He doesn’t remember it being jam-packed with clothes before he left, and it hasn’t been damp enough for the joints to swell or warp. He yanks at the handle with all his strength. The handle comes off and the dresser comes out, pulling off of its metal track and hitting the ground with a rattling clunk. The clothes tip out and all over the floor, and he doesn’t bother to swallow his loud curse.

“If it’s too much trouble, I’ll just put back on my battlesuit,” Allura calls from the bathroom. Her voice sounds amused, as if she’d witnessed his entire struggle, but when he looks back out the open door of the bedroom to the bathroom, there’s no sign of her.

“ ‘s fine,” Keith grumbles, “I’ve got it now. One sec.”

Dresser issues aside, he’s relieved to see that there even are spare clothes left over. He pokes through them with a toe, wary of nestled scorpions, and then begins picking the garments up once they seem clear. It’s a precaution borne of more than one first-days-of-winter-break, when he and his father would come out for a week. More than once they’d found the arachnids laying low in the shaggy area rugs his father used to keep in the house, or scampering under the furniture when they first plodded in. His father would laugh and tell Keith to keep to the edges of the room, then sweep or catch and toss them out the back door.

There’s a numb throbbing in his chest, not unlike the aftermath of a scorpion’s sting on skin. Keith gathers up the rest of the clothes in his arms and dumps them on the bed, ignoring the sensation. Thankfully, the clothes all appear to be his, though it makes for a questionable selection in terms of size. Allura was a little taller than him, and he’d grown since leaving Earth. He picks out an old NASA tee-shirt and the largest pair of sweatpants he has, which still have a chance of being too short.

The bathroom door is closed, though a little light shines out from underneath it. He can hear Allura rustling around inside. He knocks.

“I found some clothes.”

The door cracks open, and it hits Keith that it might be bad form for him to be staring directly at Allura as she pokes her head out. He catches a glimpse of loose, silvery hair curling over a bare shoulder before he averts his gaze. The floor makes a fine place to stare until her foot comes into view. She’s opened the door wider, and he’s dodged a propriety bullet. Although, from what Pidge and Lance have said about some unexpected crossing of paths in the training deck showers, the Altean version propriety may have a much looser definition.

Keith shoves more than passes the clothes in the general direction of where he hopes her arms will be. She takes them from him. Her toes flex against the wood floor. A small puddle of water has formed under her foot, and he sees the shine of the last rivulets still clinging to her calf. Which means his eyes had been wandering rebelliously upwards, sliding along the lean muscle of her leg. By no means is this the first time such an insurrection has occurred, but it seems inappropriate given their current circumstances. They were on a mission with a dangerous deadline, not lounging around the Castle after a bit of sparring.

So he now forces himself to look up at the ceiling. Allura hasn’t closed the door.

“Hopefully they fit,” Keith says, aiming for casual and missing the mark by a mile. “Most of the leftover clothes were mine.”

“I’m sure they’ll be fine.”

There’s a beat of silence. Clothes delivered, Keith commands his legs to turn him around and head back to the kitchen, but like everything else about him, they’re stubborn and insubordinate. He continues his examination of the ceiling and definitely does not take notice of how the bathroom door opens wider rather than closing.

“Is there something up there?” she asks.

There’s a loud creak and, startled, Keith looks down. Allura’s leaning against the door and peering up at the same spot he was.

“What?” he asks, baffled.

She jerks her chin up towards the ceiling. “You were staring at the ceiling. Is there something up there?” She squints to see what he could have possibly been looking at up in the shadowed rafters.

Keith feels warm again. Being in space really had done a number on his body’s acclimatization. He forces himself to look at her in the face.

“No, it’s just that you’re, uh, naked,” he says, trying to keep his voice cool. Maybe if he were lucky, she wouldn’t notice the slight warble in his words, or the heat in his cheeks.

Her lips twitch. No luck. “Well, that’s because I haven’t put clothes on yet.”

It’s such an Allura response that he can’t help but roll his eyes. “Plan on doing that anytime soon, Princess?”

“I would have already, if you hadn’t distracted me.”

The curl at the corners of her mouth becomes a full smile. He knows that smile well, the one she wore in the ticks after she’d swept his legs out from under him on the training deck. Keith feels a little like she’s done that now. Just like he does when she’s bested him, he purses his lips into a pout.

“My apologies,” he says, “I’ll try to stare at ceilings less often.”

“Sure, it was the ceiling,” she replies.

The door closes before he’s able to muster a response. For a moment, he’d almost felt like they were back on the Castle, falling into that familiar post-workout banter. The hallway feels decidedly cooler without her. He glances into the kitchen and sees the steam dwindling from the MREs. They must almost be done.

There aren’t many places for him to go - the two of them in line with their arms outstretched would be close to spanning the house from living room to front door - so he shoves his hands in his pockets and analyzes the ancient scuffs on the wood floor. More than one sweltering summer morning had been spent sprawled out across that very floor, trying to eke every bit of the night’s remnant cool. It had been years since then. The whorls and scrapes in the wood are a language Keith knows he used to be able to read, but now, like a stranger, the meaning scuttles away from him. Being a foreigner in the house he’s known since childhood does little to soothe the sawtooth edges of his worry.

“Better?” Allura asks as she steps out of the bathroom.

He answers without thinking. “Than what?”

“Than the ceiling.”

There’s not much room between them in the small hall, but Allura raises her arms and fans out her hands in display, looking like she’s about to own the catwalk. The ragged tee-shirt fits her well, if not a little tightly, and as expected the sweatpants are about an inch too short. She must not mind, though; Keith knows she’s capable of altering her size when the whim suits her. If anyone can pull off years-old hand-me-downs with a kind of casual grace, it’s Allura. A smirk perches on her face, crown-like.

That wave of familiar ease hits again, and Keith lets it wash over him. He shrugs and looks her over, as if he hadn’t already.

“Fewer spiderwebs than the ceiling,” he observes, and then, as an afterthought adds, “Probably.”

The expression falls off of her face, leaving blank confusion. She shifts her gaze back up to the rafters of the ceiling. It’s been long enough now that he can follow the signs of her thought process: the faintest wrinkle along her forehead, the slightest flare of her nose. This time, he follows her stare, and hones in on a dusty cluster of spiderwebs tucked between two beams. Her eyes narrow. Her jaw clenches. Belatedly, he knows he’s dead.

Allura’s syllables are slow and measured. She fixes him with a blazing glower. “Is that… an Earth joke… in relation to my age?”

“Wha- no?” comes his strangled reply. His heart gives one last farewell thud as he measures the wrath growing in Allura’s features.

“I’ll have you know,” she starts, voice indignant, “that just because I spent ten thousand years in cryosleep-”

Keith puts his hands up, placating, and curses Lance and Pidge for ever teaching Allura about Earth things like Halloween and antiquing. Of all of the stupid, stupid ways he could insult her without realizing it-

“That’s not what I meant, I promise!” he insists, but Allura slams her fists to her hips and puffs her chest out.

“Alteans hold their looks exceptionally well,” she continues, “and I guarantee that by the time you’re all old and wrinkly, I’ll just be-”

There are a few memorable occasions when Keith has been on the wrong end of Allura’s wrath. Some were more deserved than others, but in every case, there’d always been Shiro to talk him down, or a training simulation to run to. But now they’re stuck on Earth, just the two of them, on a tech recovery mission that’s going to last at least a week, and he’d rather not have Allura mad at him for all of that time. He’s going to have to channel his inner Hunk, and fast.

“Allura, I really didn’t mean it, I swear,” he starts, “This whole thing’s got me rattled and I didn’t think before I spoke, I would never joke about your age.”

The anger evaporates from her features and is replaced with amusement, but now Keith’s fight-or-flight response has him torn between making amends and throwing himself out the front door and letting the coyotes eat him. He stands his ground against his better instincts, the ones that remind him that he’s watched Allura tear a Sentinel apart limb by limb with her bare hands.

“Obviously being in cryosleep doesn’t mean you actually aged any,” Keith continues.

Allura bites her bottom lip, then cuts him off with a, “Keith, it’s fine, I was just teasing-”

“And you look beautiful regardless of how much time you spent in one of those tubes, so-”

As immersed as he is in his apology, his words don’t register until Allura’s eyes go wide. He hadn’t meant to say that out loud. He looks away.

“Oh,” she breathes.

Keith remembers in vivid color all of the ways Allura responded to Lance’s attentions over the past three years. He waits for the inevitable tirade, but nothing comes. He glances over at her, but she’s as still as he is. At least she doesn’t seem like she’s going to dismember him.

“I… please just forget that I said anything,” Keith manages. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

Allura levels him with her gaze, expression unreadable, like she was still deciding how to react. A tick later, she quirks an eyebrow. “Shame,” she says, “I was rather hoping you did.”

He flounders for a moment before settling on an articulate, “Oh,” an echo of her own sentiments. “Okay.”

She crosses her arms over her chest, but the motion seems defensive. He’d like to assure her that he did, in fact, mean it like that, though he hadn’t actually meant to tell her that, but he’s not sure it would make anything better. The silence laps between them. He looks down at the floor.

“What now?” she finally asks.

“Dinner’s ready. I’ll bring it out if you want to sit on the couch or whatever,” he says, eyes still fixed on the seam between the wooden floor slats.

“How very courteous of you, Keith,” Allura replies, voice rich with amusement. He glances up, and catches a glimpse of a small smile and two flush-darkened cheeks.

Awareness washes over him like a frigid bath. Sure, they’ve been together alone before - in the pods, in Red, in the black void of space. But there’s something, well, alien about being with her like this. They’re on Earth, in his family home. She’s got her hair tied back in low ponytail, and is wearing his old clothes. He’s made her dinner.

It’s like they’ve been transplanted into the scene of a movie he’s only ever seen the beginning of, but has now walked into the middle: he’s familiar with the actors, but never seen them like this, and still hasn’t figured out how it ends. Allura stares at him, brows furrowing a bit in confusion. He’s forgotten his line, so he exits stage left.

There’s no reason for the kitchen to feel as warm as it does. The kettle is electric, and the MREs self-heating. They’ve finished steaming and have cooled down enough to touch, but Keith blames them nonetheless. He empties the cupboard by grabbing two grimy bowls from the shelves, and pours some water out from the kettle until they’ve reached tolerable sanitation. Without a towel, he’s left to dry the dishes out with his shirt, and is glad for the half-wall blocking him from Allura’s view.

Maybe it was being back in the desert after so long that’s making him feel like he’s about to break out in a sweat. It’s certainly not the prospect of serving Allura food meant to withstand nuclear winter from a bowl he’d cleaned with his shirt.

He tears open the first MRE and dumps what looks like beef stroganoff if it’d been left in the Garrison canteen trays for a few days past regulation. Even after years of space goo and the occasional non-Hunk created paladin lunch, the meal looks as soggy and repulsive as it did to him when he was a kid. It’s with brittle hope that he opens the second MRE. Out comes a more passable, though sort of in a wearing-the-same-socks-for-the-third-day-in-a-row way, helping of cheese ravioli.

Sighing, Keith opens the silverware drawer. There’s one spoon. Belatedly, he remembers melting down the rest of the utensils to try and repair a part of one of his dad’s leftover transmitters. He’d been alone in the cabin for months on end and getting closer and closer to figuring out the source of the massive energy spikes and strange dreams, and proper cutlery just hadn’t seemed all that important. He sticks the spoon in the ravioli, sends the stroganoff a forlorn look, and hopes that Allura will find nothing unusual about the meal.

He pads back into the small living room, bowls in hand. Allura’s seated on the couch, but her glassy gaze far beyond the opposite wall tells him that she’s light years away. She’s propped her elbow on her knee and chews absently at her thumbnail. She startles when he leans over and places the bowl of ravioli on the coffee table in front of her.

Allura blinks. She bends over and peers into the bowl. “What’s this?”

He sits down on the other end of the couch - a misnomer, really, given that the size of the furniture puts him right next to her anyway. Keith gives her a half-shrug.

“It's Earth food,” and then, feeling as though he shouldn’t give her any more misconceptions about Earth, “Well, sorta.”

She picks up the bowl and spoons at the small pasta squares, then glances over at his food. As far as Keith can tell, she doesn’t look impressed… though she doesn’t look repulsed, either.

“Ah, so the myth is real,” she teases. “Though I must ask, is it Earth food by Hunk's standards, or your standards?”

“Okay, look, it would have been a waste to throw out the food goo just because it was burned,” Keith huffs. While he had plenty of inglorious memories to relive, that one was particularly embarrassing. “Hunk just doesn't get the need to conserve resources when it comes to food!”

She raises an eyebrow and waits. He tries glaring at her, but ends up glaring at the wall.

“... This stuff would definitely not meet Hunk's standards.”

Laughter fills the cramped living room. A genuine laugh from Allura is a rich, rare sound - not unlike him, she’s more inclined towards a surprised guffaw or a side-eye snicker - and the rosy fullness of it settles on Keith’s shoulders and prods at his lips until he, too, smiles.

Her next question is interspersed with giggles. “But it meets yours?”

Keith looks over the MREs. Warm, carb-and-protein dense, recognizable as sustenance. He nods. “Yeah.”

“Then it's more than good enough,” she declares.

The normal thing to do would be to turn to his own food and attempt to eat it before it got cold. But they’re not sitting around the long table in the dining room, about to partake in their customary food goo, and to be frank, there’s next to nothing normal about the situation anyway, so instead he reclines a bit on the couch and watches her take try to take her first bite of Earth food. Slippery and more than a little mushy, the ravioli slides off of her spoon twice. A delicate pout dips onto her face as she spoon chases the pasta around the bowl. With a grumble, she spears the ravioli with the tapered end of her spoon, chopping it into pieces but managing to get some of it on.

“Is Earth food always this elusive?”

“Some of it,” he replies. “You guys had the right idea with the sporks.”

She hits him with a half grin and then tries the bite on her spoon. Her eyes drift to the ceiling as she chews on the ravioli. It’s clear she’s taking in each sensation from the little flickers of emotion that cross her face, too quick for him to register. She gives a thoughtful hum, then swallows.

Pleasure blooms on her face. Her eyes widen.

“Oh Quiznak,” she hisses. “This is amazing.”

She shovels two or three more spoonfuls into her mouth and chews like she hasn’t eaten in weeks. Her eyes flutter shut. Soft noises of contentment escape her throat. She swallows hard.

“It’s so- the sort of salty, savory flavor-” she starts.

“The cheese, probably.”

“You all have told me about cheese before!” Allura says, sounding excited. “I thought you were all being ludicrous when Pidge and Hunk first explained what someone could do with Kaltenecker. If I’d only known…”

Like laughter, true delight is something seldom seen to cross Allura’s expression. Pride, sure. Uncertainty, occasionally. But Keith thinks he could count all of the times Allura’s looked truly happy on one short hand: the first time Coran mentioned the space mall (she’d looked almost like a petulant teen when Coran vetoed her trip; Keith supposes she was, though); seeing the AI of her father (joy soon smashed by the overwhelming reality that he was gone); and after the first time they’d formed Voltron with her piloting the Red Lion (it was the first reprieve from worry over Shiro any of them had experienced). The last one had them all so overwhelmed, relieved, that he’d thrown his arms around her and they’d done a dizzy spin around Red. With the way she looks now, he feels the urge to do the same again.

“If you like this, you’d lose it at an Olive Garden,” Keith says with a chuckle.

“What’s that?” Allura asks. Her words are muffled by the food in her mouth.

“A restaurant where they serve ravioli and stuff like that.”

“And that’s what this is?” she follows up, pointing at the pasta with her spoon. “Ravioli?” She tastes the syllables as carefully as she had her first bite.

“Yeah,” he says. He lets his head rest on the back of the couch, and looks over at her out of the corner of his eye. “If we weren’t supposed to be keeping a low profile, we could go into town and have a real meal.” He sighs a bit. Funny, how he’d overlooked the comforts of things like food that didn’t come out of a packet when he’d spent all those months here on his own.

“I suppose that settles things then,” Allura says, face screwing up. “We need to defeat Zarkon immediately so we can come back and you can take me to one of these 'Love Gardens’ for ravioli.”

The high wheeze of his voice matches the sudden tightness in his chest. “It’s ‘Olive Garden’,” he manages.

“Oh, I can hear the difference now,” Allura says. She scoops up another bite of ravioli like she hasn't just obliterated all remaining vestiges of his composure.

They eat in contented silence, Allura slowing down between each bite, likely to savor the sensation, and Keith doing his best to slurp up the beef stroganoff without it seeming strange. He must not do a convincing enough job, for she offers to share the spoon with him not long after. He protests, but she insists, and as was often the way, her resolve won out. He takes two of three bites of his dinner, passes the spoon back to her, and stares so hard at the bowl that he’s surprised it doesn’t crack. He’s not sure how he keeps a neutral expression through it all.

Once they’re done, Allura stands up and gently tugs Keith’s bowl from his hands. She stacks in on his, and heads towards the kitchen. He scrambles up to follow her.

“You don’t have to do that, Allura, you’re-”

“A guest?” she asks, turning back. One side of her mouth curls into a grin.

“Yeah?” he replies, stopping short. Her voice is amused, he can hear that much, but there’s something about the situation he can just tell he hasn’t gotten a read on.

“Don’t worry about it,” she says, stepping into the kitchen. “It’s the least I can do - you flew us all the way out here. Besides, it would have been mine and Pidge’s night on cleaning rotation back in the Castle, and it just…” Allura hesitates. He leans up against the door to the kitchen and looks in, but her back is turned to him. She places the bowls in the sink. Her shoulders slump. “It would feel out of place not helping.”

Keith gets that. He’d fought hard not to question why Shiro had sent him and Allura to Earth instead of going on one of the other, clearly more useful missions. Pidge had wanted a team to go back to Earth and investigate the cave where they’d found Blue, which was understandable to be sure: Blue had managed to avoid Zarkon’s notice for millennia, meaning there had to be some significant shielding technology within the cavern - something they were currently in desperate need of. But why Shiro had picked Keith - who was better with a knife than a computer screen on his worst days - and Allura - whose chameleon-like ability to change her appearance and deadly hand-to-hand combat skills would have come in handy anywhere but a desert devoid of life - to travel to Earth is a mystery to him. Maybe that, he thinks, is the source of the nagging strangeness he’s felt ever since they left the Castle. The sense of being useless from so far away. Allura runs some water in the bowls, using her hands to clean out any clinging bits of food. She doesn’t seem perturbed by the lack of soap or other form of sanitization, and if halfway through drying off the first bowl with the edge of her shirt when she jerks and looks up at Keith.

“I should have asked before I started, is this all right?” she says, gesturing at the bowl and shirt with a dip of her chin.

“Oh, yeah, of course,” he says. He steps into the kitchen. “I did the exact same thing. Pass them here and I’ll put them up.”

Keith takes the bowl from her and shuffles to the left of the sink to stick it back up in its otherwise empty cabinet. With as small as the kitchen is, it’s an effort not to brush shoulders with her as he reaches up and places the bowl on the shelf.

“I guess you do a lot of cooking here,” Allura says, humor sharp in her voice as she dries the second bowl. “This is always what I pictured when I imagined Hunk’s dream kitchen.”

He chuckles and turns to lean against the short counter. This time, their shoulders do brush. Once again Keith can’t help but notice how warm the kitchen has gotten. If he had the time he’d need to do a thorough once-over of the place and look for more cracks or structural damage. The place had lasted decades; it wouldn’t be on his watch that it fell to total shambles.

“To be fair, we weren’t exactly the hosting type. Most of the time, we cooked and ate over a fire anyway.”

“We?”

“Me and my dad.”

Keith takes the second bowl she offers without looking at her and puts it up. He crosses his arms over his chest when he leans back against the counter. As if it hadn’t been years, the images race back in an instant: dragging the large stewpot and a cooler full of vegetables out to the back of the cabin; his father distracting Keith with stories of the constellations as he skinned a rabbit caught in one of the traps near the cabin’s foundation; the tang of smoke and fat curling in his nostrils.

He knows he doesn’t quite keep the twisting grief off of his face, so he looks away from her, fixating on the wall. No doubt she’s been well aware of his past; he can picture Shiro briefing her on it, reporting “no mother” and “father disappeared when he was fourteen” with the sort of gentle neutrality that only he seemed able to pull off. Keith’s stomach lurches at the thought of what he might see in Allura’s expression if he were to turn. They’re here on a mission. He doesn’t have time to navigate her pity.

She stirs beside him. There’s the clink of the bowl as she sets it on the counter. A moment later, he feels the soft pressure of her hand on his arm.

“Thank you,” she says. Her voice is low and clear, and despite himself, he looks over.

Allura’s lips press together in a tight line, and she gazes down at him with serious eyes. There’s an undeniable regality to the way she holds herself taut.

She looks sad.

An unspoken understanding surges between them. He is, after all, not alone in the loss of a father, of a home. Keith reaches up and settles his hand over hers. He stares back at her, into the crystalline stillness of her eyes. The silence is marred by the steady pick up in his pulse, loud enough now to be a low thrum in his ears.

“It’s fine,” he says after a beat. She gives him a small smile. He doesn’t let go of her hand. “We should probably go set up the low-frequency transmitter Pidge stuck in Red. With us being out in the desert, we won’t have to worry much about weather interference, but we’re going to have to find the right place to set it up so it’s unobstructed, since the signal’s different.”

Allura’s small smile grows into a grin, and she squeezes his arm. “Roof?”

Keith nods, unable to hold back a chuckle. “Yes, we’ll climb the roof.”