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tinylilemrys · 1 year ago

Text

Lonely In London

Relationship:

Trent Crimm/Ted Lasso

Additional Tags:

Angst and Romance | Romcommunism | Friends to Lovers | Romantic Comedy | Alternate Universe – Canon Divergence

Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Summary:

Henry, worried about how lonely his dad seems to be in London, writes into an advice podcast for some help. A podcast run by an ex-colleague of Trent's – one that he listens to religiously. If Trent falls a little for 'Lonely In London' because he reminds him of Ted, well that's just coincidence. An homage to romcommunism, largely based on 'Sleepless In Seattle' with a few others thrown in for good measure.

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CHAPTER 3

As June ticks over into July, Ted declares that July 25th is going to be his and Henry's Christmas. Henry is sceptical at first, until he realises it comes with actual presents. Then he's all in.

Part of it is motivated by wanting to spend something close to an actual Christmas with Henry, the other part is that he's genuinely running out of things to do with his son to keep him entertained. Even the initial rush of going through the podcast fanmail (all pre-screened by Ted) is losing its shine. This way, whenever Henry gets bored, Ted can declare it's Christmas crafting time and the two of them pop on a Christmas movie and get to making streamers, Christmas ornaments, cards, snowflakes – anything that Ted sees on Pinterest that looks vaguely doable. It seems to work well for a time, until Henry declares that he's bored of this too.

The only thing that seems to hold his attention for longer than a few minutes anymore are his training sessions with Jamie and Roy. Jamie adores Henry as much as Henry adores him, and it turns out that the great Jamie Tartt isn't too bad at the whole coaching thing either. Roy's reasons for being there, as always, are more of an enigma, but he insists he's just there to make sure Henry's getting the training he deserves.

He rarely interferes with Jamie's process, however, instead holding back until afterwards when Jamie looks at him with earnest expectation, as if his thoughts on how it went are the most important thing in the world to him. And Roy always comes through. Ted gets the sense that Roy sees the same glimmer of potential in Jamie that he sees.

If nothing else, Ted has been enjoying watching the camaraderie the two of them have been developing through it. Considering where they were with each other a couple of years back, Ted can hardly believe it. If there's one thing he can take away from his time at Richmond so far, it's that.

Still, despite his pro one-on-one training, Henry has been restless. Ted tries not to take it to heart, but he can't help but feel like he's getting it wrong. Like he would know how to do this better if he was around Henry more. Like the time he's missed with Henry has caused a fundamental disconnect between them. And it's only getting worse now that Ted is back at work for pre-season training. Now that Henry's cooped up in whoever's office he wants to be in that day (usually Roy and Trent's or Rebecca's), or else pitch-side, itching to play but not allowed to. Not for the first time, Ted wonders if it was stupid of him to have Henry the whole summer. Maybe he should have sent him back just before work started back up again.

Add to that the fact that Rebecca is on his ass about beating Rupert in the upcoming season and the way Trent seems to be giving him the lukewarm shoulder for no good reason (other than that maybe he stepped over some kind of line during their last hangout), and Ted is wound tighter than a rubber band round a prosperity preacher's weekly takings.

It comes to a head one night when Ted's trying to get a team report done for Rebecca. Henry, midway through sticking bits of felt to a cheap Christmas stocking while watching The Grinch, declares that he's bored again, and Ted can feel the last of his patience slipping out of his grasp.

"Bud, I don't know what to tell you," he says, looking up from his report. "I've given you stuff to do. I've got to get this done for Rebecca. It's important, alright? If you're not feeling the Christmas crafting, find something else to do."

"I want you to play something with me," whines Henry.

"Henry, I've told you, I'm busy," says Ted. "I don't have time right now."

"Mom and James would have played with me," says Henry.

Ted knows Henry doesn't mean it. He knows it's just because he's tired and bored and barely shy of ten years old and a child of divorce and far away from his home and his friends and his mom. It doesn't stop the words from ripping his heart in two. Ted's last thread snaps and he stands up from the table.

"Fine!" he says, trying not to yell, but feeling the frustration boil from the pit of his stomach and up through his throat. "Hell, kid, If it sucks so much to be here maybe you should head to bed so you're one day closer to going home."

The look of hurt, betrayal, and even fear on Henry's face evaporates whatever anger was there a moment ago, replacing it with the most awful sick feeling. He watches helplessly as Henry bursts into tears and runs off to the bedroom. All the sound leaves the world along with the feeling in Ted's fingers. He's panicking.

He breathes deeply and tries to run through the grounding exercise Dr Sharon gave him. He begins describing the colors of the walls. What he can smell nearby. What the counter at his fingertips feels like. Three different sounds he can hear.

One of the sounds is Henry crying miserably in the next room.

He messages Dr Sharon to set up an emergency session and tries to keep breathing. He knows he needs to apologise to Henry, but he's never messed up with him this badly before. He doesn't know what to do. Where to start.

He's fucked up big time.

His fingers are typing before he can fully think about it.

Do you ever feel like you'll never get the full grip of this whole parenting thing? That you're always getting it wrong? That you're just doomed to make another broken grownup like it's some cursed family heirloom?

He doesn't know why he reached out to Trent. It's not like they usually commiserate about their parenting woes. He just needed to vent to someone who might understand. In any case, after weeks of nothing but polite small talk from Trent, he's really not expecting anything to come of it anyway. Which is why he nearly drops his phone when it starts actually ringing.

"Trent Crimm! To what do I owe the pleasure?" he says, trying to keep his voice as breezy as he can make it.

"I received your text," he replies. "Ted, are you okay?"

God, he never would have messaged if he thought Trent would call.

"Oh, sunny as a bunny, dandy as candy," he says. "No complaints here."

There's a deep sigh from the other end.

"Cut the bullshit, Lasso," says Trent. "You know better than to deflect that weakly around a journalist. I can hear your voice is shaking. Now tell me what you did that has you convinced that you're a horrible parent."

"Trent Crimm, always bringing that heat," Ted says, taking one last stab at humor. He's rewarded with deadly silence on the other end. "I yelled at Henry. I yelled at him in the most awful way. I told myself I would never raise my voice at that kid, but I went and did it anyway. And god, he looked scared, Trent. Like actually scared."

"Oh, Ted," says Trent gently. "Would you like to tell me how that happened?"

Ted explains the incident, including the stress leading up to the blowup. He leaves out that Trent's sudden aloofness was part of it.

"Well, okay, here's how I see it," says Trent after Ted has said his piece. "Children are almost scientifically designed to be the most annoying fucking creatures on the planet. Right? They get in places they're not supposed to be. They see themselves as the centre of the universe. They push our buttons and say the most hurtful things without meaning to. But they're kids. They're literally learning how to be people as they go. Not good people. Just people. From scratch. Pushing the boundaries is part of how they figure it out. It's our job as parents to gently reinforce those boundaries."

"Yeah, well I goofed on that one big time," says Ted.

"Sure," says Trent. "You did. There's no denying it. But the thing is, as parents, we're going through the same process. We're still learning how to be people from scratch. We're just a little further along the road. And the part of the road we happen to be on is the part where we figure out how to be people that are parents too. We're figuring it out as we go. We're figuring out where the boundaries are too. And our kids tell us when we've crossed them."

Ted let's out a long exhale of breath.

"You're a good dad, Ted," says Trent. "You just had a moment of bad parenting. But the good news is that now you've learned another way not to do it. Next to 'I love you' and 'I'm proud of you', what's the one thing you wish you'd heard more from your parents?"

"Probably 'I'm sorry'," says Ted.

"Exactly. And you now have the painful privilege of being able to say that to your boy. Henry's a great kid. Better than most. You should be really proud of the person you've helped shape."

"Thanks, Trent," says Ted, feeling so much gratitude and affection he might burst. He's missed Trent so much. "Say, you know you're real handy with your words. You ever thought about going into writing?"

"Goodnight, Ted," says Trent, though there's amusement in his voice. "And good luck."

He hangs up the phone before Ted can reply.

Ted scrubs his hands down his face and takes a deep breath. He can do this.

His phone dings and he sees it's a text from Trent.

Wait – I know this seems counterintuitive, but please give it at least 20 minutes before you go talk to Henry. You'll see why in a moment. 🌻

That's weird, but Ted trusts Trent implicitly. He must know what he's doing. Fifteen minutes later, there's another ding from his phone.

Front door.

Ted half expects to see Trent when he opens it a minute later, but instead there's a bag on the ground, held closed with what looks like a small sunflower hair clasp that he suspects must belong to Anabelle. Ted looks up and down the street, but if Trent delivered it, he's disappeared into the night.

Smiling, Ted grabs the bag and heads back inside. When he opens it, he finds two cartons of ice-cream: one strawberry, and one peanut butter flavored. His and Henry's favourites.

He fires off one last text to Trent before grabbing two spoons and heading to the bedroom to fix what he broke.

Ted's phone lies unlocked and abandoned on the counter when the first tentative giggles in the background signal that all is well. And below the short, simple 'Thank you, Trent 🌻', three dots appear and disappear.

***

To Ted and Henry's delight, Christmas in July ends up becoming a club-wide family event and, Trent decides, the opening chapter of his book.

From what Trent understands, it started with Jamie catching wind of it during one of Henry's training sessions. After telling the rest of the team about it, they all demanded to be allowed to buy Henry presents. Upon seeing the enthusiasm surrounding it, Ted declared that Christmas in July would be open to all. The Secret Santa lists were sent out (Trent included), and preparations at the club began. The main focus is on creating a magical day for the kids of the club, which includes, Trent is touched to learn, Anabelle.

"Well of course we're including Anabelle," says Ted, like he's silly for not knowing this. "You're going to be part of the Richmond family this year. Anabelle's one of ours now."

One of ours now. The words are like the warmest hug.

It's the last time Ted and Trent talk for a while after that though. Despite their phone conversation a few weeks back and the fact that they're now pretty much sharing an office, he's still trying to keep his distance. He knows now how Ted feels about him and how worried he is about the club's PR, so he's not about to do anything to put that at risk. And he's learned that too much talking to Ted leads to dangerous waters. Thus, most of their interactions come down to nothing more than a friendly "good morning" to each other at the beginning of the day, the occasional observance about the weather, and then hours of having their noses buried in their respective tasks.

He learns a lot about AFC Richmond in the lead up to Christmas in July that he didn't know as an outside observer. He learns that Roy Kent listens to a suprising amount of Enya for someone who always seems so highly strung. He learns that Jamie Tartt is secretly a massive fan of Doctor Who. He learns that Isaac McAdoo is a part-time barber. He learns that Ted brings Rebecca his homemade shortbread every morning without fail. He learns that Rebecca is one of the funniest people in the building and slightly whacky beneath her ice-queen image. He learns that Higgins is seen like a dad to a lot of the lads, and that Higgins sees all of them as members of his already large family. He learns that Coach Beard is even more eccentric than Trent suspected, and that no one speaks Nathan Shelley's name out loud. No one except Ted, who despite looking heartbroken when he does, always says it with kindness and respect.

Mostly he learns that every good and lovely thing at AFC Richmond seems to have Ted's fingerprints all over it, and it does nothing to ease the growing feeling that Ted might be the only man Trent could ever feel a hundred percent comfortable handing his heart to again.

He's not supposed be letting himself think like that.

As the 25th of July rolls around, it brings with it much excitement. Despite the sweltering summer day, the café has been transformed into a magical winter wonderland – an impressive feat considering that the majority of the decorations are handmade by the team, who all jumped in over the weekend to help when it became clear that there was no way Ted and Henry were going to be able to craft enough for a whole big room.

As Trent walks into the party with Anabelle who is beside herself with excitement, he can't help but feel another layer of loneliness peel away. It's difficult to think of London as bleak when you're faced with a room full of people from all over the world, from vastly different backgrounds, all mingling together and genuinely enjoying each other's presence.

Like family, Trent thinks.

"Merry Crimmas!"

Trent jumps at the sudden voice behind him, and immediately whips around to see Ted, wearing a smile so wide it almost blinds him.

"Teddy!" yells Anabelle, holding out her arms demanding one of his famous 'helicopters'. Ted doesn't need telling twice, immediately scooping her up and spinning her around. The whole falling in love with Ted thing would be so much easier to deal with if the man was terrible with his daughter. But no. They adore each other.

"Merry Christmas Santa-Belle," he says. "Henry, Chloe, and the Higgins boys are going to be so excited to see you. They're over there by the probably ill-advised chocolate fountain."

"Ill-advised indeed," agrees Trent as Anabelle runs off to find her friends. "Anabelle isn't going to want to move from there. Happy Christmas, Ted."

"Happy Christmas, Trent," Ted replies. "Wait, y'all really say 'happy' Christmas here?"

"Is that a problem?"

"No, of course not," says Ted. "But you have to admit that it's weird though. Doesn't quite roll off the tongue the same. Happy Christmas. Happy Christmas. Happy Christmas…"

Trent leaves Ted alone with his semantic satiation and goes to say his hellos to the rest of the room.

For all that it's a Christmas party in the middle of summer, Trent has a wonderful time. The kids get a massive pile of gifts each, and have a wonderful time playing with them together. Even the adults' Christmas party goes well. He gets a set of expensive-looking leatherbound notebooks from his Secret Santa, Rebecca, and is thrilled when Roy likes the bagful of books he bought for him.

An hour or two into the party, the main entertainment becomes Roy, who somehow keeps accidentally standing underneath sprigs of artificial mistletoe. Now that Keeley and him have split, he's technically a free agent. Still, most people seem wary. So far no one has dared actually kiss him, but it's entertaining to watch various people get caught under it with him and weigh up the merits of trying. Rebecca asserts that she can't imagine anyone being brave or stupid enough to try, and Trent happily takes that bet. He's rewarded with twenty quid a half hour later when Jamie plants a huge smooch on Roy's cheek.

"Oi! What the fuck was that for?" Roy shouts. Jamie, wearing his trademark shit-eating grin, doesn't look contrite in the least.

"Mistletoe, innit?" says Jamie, winking at Roy as he swaggers off.

Roy stands there, perplexed, for several moments, before growling out a "fuuuuuck", and marching off to see what Phoebe is up to.

It's all fun and games until he gets caught himself an hour later. It's thankfully not with Roy, but at this point, being caught with Ted isn't that much less horrifying.

"Vaping still ain't great for you, you know," says Ted joining Trent out on the balcony where he's trying to catch a moment of fresh air.

"I promised Anabelle I'd quit smoking," Trent says, suddenly feeling self-conscious about it. "It's a temporary stopgap until I have the nerves of steel it takes to go completely without nicotine."

"Well, can't really argue with that," says Ted. There's a bit of silence between them again, like the conversation is a timid cat he's scared of spooking and Trent's heart aches. All he wants to do is talk to him. But it's dangerous.

Still, it's Christmas, a time for indulgences.

"Henry seems to be having a grand time," Trent observes, turning to look through the large glass doors to wear Henry is in a nerf gun battle between all of the kids and close to half of the Richmond team. "You don't regret opening this up to the whole club?"

"A bit," Ted admits, looking a little ashamed of himself. "But only a bit. The team needed a big old hype up to get the season going anyway, and it means a lot to me that everyone sees each other as family enough to go through all this fuss."

"I know what you mean," Trent replies. "It meant a lot to me that Anabelle and I were included. I've never had anything like this before."

"The Independent didn't do big old shindigs like this?" Ted's regarding him curiously, like he's trying to figure something out.

"Oh they did," says Trent. "But they were the most insufferable, lifeless events. Half the room was made up of the snobbiest kind of person with the most overinflated ego, the other was made up of a gaggle of journalists who would sooner stab someone else in the throat with a pen for a front page feature than ask about their personal life."

"That's… vivid."

"It's the truth," shrugs Trent. "I don't think you realise how rare this all is. Finding this many people who love and genuinely like each other? It's almost unheard of. Especially in this city."

"Well, then I'm glad we could make you a part of that."

You actually mean that, don't you? Trent thinks, not for the first time.

He lets out a huff of laughter and tilts his head back, more to escape Ted's gaze than anything. It's so fond that Trent is about to combust in it.

Unfortunately, glancing up reveals that the two of them have somehow found themselves beneath a sprig of artificial mistletoe. He can't help but throw Ted a panicked look, which immediately sends Ted's eyes up to see what caused it.

"Oh boy," says Ted. "Seems like we've found ourselves a little predicament."

"Yeah," says Trent, unable to form much more than that. Sure, he knows that kissing Ted will likely be a monumental mistake, but that doesn't change the fact that he wants. He wants so much that it hurts to think about. And here he is with this perfect opportunity. This beautiful moment of plausible deniability.

Neither of them say anything. They don't need to. The distance between them shrinks to nothing and until the agonising, perfect moment where their lips make contact and Trent knows he's fucked up.

It's tentative at first, but then Ted takes the smallest step closer just as Trent parts his lips and suddenly it's all hunger and longing, both of them trying to take everything they can from this moment, both knowing how fragile it is. Trent's world narrows down to the scent of peppermint, the sound of the blood rushing in his head, the feeling of the wool he's clutching to like a lifeline.

And then a car hoots in the distance and just as quickly as it happens, the moment is gone.

Fuck. Oh fuck. There's no going back now. That wasn't just a mistletoe kiss, Trent knows it wasn't.

Trent throws a nervous glance to where the party is still going on, where all of AFC Richmond is as full of the joy and spirit of Christmas as they would be in December, and Trent suddenly understands. He understands why Ted can't risk a PR nightmare. Why he needs to protect this. Now Trent also has to.

"Trent," Ted whispers, trying to lean in again, but Trent pulls back.

"I have to go," he says, trying to keep his voice steady as he does. "I just… I have to go."

Without another word, he strides back inside, gathers Anabelle and her newly acquired pile of toys and heads home. He's running away, he knows, but he can't bring himself to consider that this might be a bad idea. It's what AFC Richmond needs. It's what Ted needs.

Once Anabelle is safely in bed and fast asleep, Trent puts on Love Actually as a form of self-flagellation and begins working his way through his scotch collection. He doesn't normally allow himself to drink like this on his own – especially not when Anabelle is in the house – but he can't afford to think tonight. He just can't.

It's only the next morning, with his mouth feeling like it's full of rancid cotton, with the Love, Actually DVD menu playing on loop, that Trent fully remembers why he can't be trusted alone with alcohol.

Squinting against the brightness of his open laptop, Trent realises, with a wave of nausea, that he's sent an email to Lonely In London.

Fuck.

***

Ted isn't going to think about the kiss. He's just not. He can move on and pretend it never happened. That's definitely something he can do.

"So, Bud, how'd you enjoy your summer Christmas?" asks Ted, not thinking about the kiss, as he and Henry finally collapse back onto the couch in their living room.

Trent had tasted like mango sorbet. But he's not thinking about that.

"I had so much fun!" says Henry. "Can we do it again next year?"

"Of course," Ted replies, actually forgetting the kiss for a moment when he sees how happy Henry is. He pulls him into a tight hug. "This one's not over yet though. How could we possibly go to bed without watching the greatest Christmas movie of all time?"

"Muppets?" asks Henry.

"Muppets," Ted nods.

Ted continues not thinking about the kiss while Michael Cane acts up a storm in a sea of felt. He doesn't think about the way that Trent had clung onto him. He keeps his mind far away from the way he'd looked at him before it happened. Like he couldn't believe it was happening. He doesn't think about how hungry it had seemed. From both of them.

Maybe he was over-confident in assuming where he and Trent were at, but he doesn’t think he's been reading the signs wrong. Trent had wanted him, at least in the moment of that kiss. Whether that kiss was what put him off was the big mystery.

Ted despairs as he imagines where that's going to put their already fraught communications.

Not that he's thinking about the kiss.

A ding from his phone pulls him out of his self-pity and it's a welcome distraction. It's another Lonely In London email. He's largely started ignoring these on the advice of Dr Sharon after he complained that they could get overwhelming, but something about the opening line of this one grabs him.

Dear Lonely In London

London is a lonely shithole. It's cold, grimy, and the people aren't much better. It can make you feel like you're the only person on Earth sometimes, even when you're surrounded by people on all sides. I've been here my whole life and in 46 years nothing has changed that.

Until you.

Now, please don't misunderstand – I'm painfully aware of how crazy it is to put all that on you, a stranger from a letter on a podcast. For all any of us know, you could be completely fictional. Something made up by the hosts to boost their listens. You're not a stranger to me, though. You're real to me in a way not many people in my life are.

I'm currently watching one of those overwrought romantic comedies with several morally dubious storylines, and I'm hating every minute of it. However, it has made me realise that my whole life, I've been content to play things safe. Everything from my career to my ex-husband to the area in which I live seems as though I set up to risk nothing. And even with that, I've still lost so much.

But now there's you. And you can't know how much you've changed my mind about risk, even in just the short time I've known of you.

And that's why instead of playing it safe this time, I'm going all-in on a grand romantic gesture.

This Christmas Eve, at 8pm, I will be waiting at the arrivals gate at Heathrow. Meet me there. I know you have no idea who I am, but I have to believe you'll know me when you see me, just as I'll know you.

At the very least, you have a whole five months to decide. If you're curious, or haven't found anything better by then, you know where I'll be.

Even if nothing ever comes of this, I trust this email, at bare minimum, helps make London less lonely, the way yours made it feel less lonely for me.

Yours,

Isolated in Islington

"That's like Love, Actually!" says Henry, startling Ted. He didn't realise he was reading the email too. "It's Christmas in July and they're talking about Love, Actually. It's a sign. What if this is the love of your life?"

It can't be, Kiddo, thinks Ted. It's not Trent Crimm.

"Yeah? And what if it's a crazy axe murderer?" laughs Ted, gently poking Henry in the ribs causing him to giggle too. "Or worse, an accountant?"

"But, Dad," says Henry. "You have to meet them. It's like a movie."

"Not all movies have happy endings, Bud," says Ted.

Sometimes you get left under the artificial mistletoe, not knowing how you got it so wrong.

"A lot of them do though," says Henry. "Can we at least say 'we'll see' for this one?"

'We'll see' is what Ted says when his answer is mostly yes, but he doesn't want to admit it yet.

"Hmm, we'll see," says Ted, tickling Henry. "Before we ever cross that bridge though, we've got to talk about how it's a little on the impolite side to read things on other people's phones unless they specifically tell you that you can."

"Sorry, Dad," says Henry and then because Rizzo is yelling "light the lamp, not the rat" on the TV, Ted loses his son to the movie once more.

The idea of living out a grand romcom moment isn't the least appealing in the world. Trent's clearly not as interested as he thought he might be, and whoever this Isolated in Islington is, they seem, at the very least, to be on the same page as him.

In any case, the arrivals gate at Heathrow is about as public as public gets. There's plenty security around. Other than maybe a bit of press speculation, what would he really be risking?

Disappointment, Ted realises.

He decides to file it away to think about later. He's got 5 months to figure it all out after all.

He briefly debates texting Trent, to see if he can coax out a conversation about what happened, but decides against it. If Trent doesn't want him, he doesn't want him. It's as simple as that.

He'll leave being a muppet to Gonzo.

Next Chapter

#tedependent #tedtrent #ted x trent #trent x ted #trent crimm #ted lasso #ted lasso fanfic

11 notes · View notes

figthefruitfaeth · 2 years ago

Text

written on a lonely, friendless day. nancy wheeler x-files au character study taken from s3ep15. angst ahead.

It’s raining when Nancy wakes up. It pitter-patters weakly against the window, barely heard under the creak of the waterlogged floorboards as she dresses.

White blouse, dark blazer, clean cut and sharp. Snappy sensible heels and curls teased high and delicate. Thin gold chain around her neck. The clasp is loose, by age, by damage—snipping at the hair on her neck, digging into sweaters and leaving holes. Barb’s. Before.

It’s raining as she pays for her coffee, as it slips down her throat and a hiss of pain whistles past her teeth. More than a drizzle, less than a storm. It doesn’t beat against her skin, doesn’t leave her soaked. It sinks into her hair, catches the heel of her sock. They’ll be frizzy and wooden respectively by lunch.

The train is quiet. Her car is only half full, other sleepy commuters unrestful in their seats. She can’t hear it this deep underground, can’t hear it over the rush of wind and grinding of steel as they all hurtle deep into the dark. All, but not together.

She can’t hear it, but she feels it. Hot, humid. The warm wet squelch of her shoe against the linoleum floor, the uneven drip down the line of her back, a pinprick of cold sinking into her skin just as quickly as it appeared. The car and its sleepy passengers all drying at once, all trying to shed water and only getting halfway. A compromise of liquidity, of body and temperature.

It’s not like home. Summers hot and clawing, winters that bite and draw blood. Virginia—DC—it’s mild. Rain which falls but does not thunder, heatwaves and snow days which creep in and pass quickly. The Goldilocks zone. That’s what she’d said, voice low over the phone, a false cheer Nancy could feel wrapped in the tangled cord even a thousand miles away. It’s supposed to be a relief. A compromise.

The office is a nagging buzz, no breaking case or celebration, just a few people milling around chatting. This might be the usual for them, she doesn’t know, doesn’t care. It’s not her department, not her floor. The only reason she’s up here is for the coffee maker. They’ve got their own, down in the basement. Old, paint chipping off at the bottom. But Robin’s been out sick since yesterday, and it doesn’t work for anybody but Robin. Not really theirs at all.

Her second coffee drips, drips into the mug. Pitters against the ceramic blue base, stains the beige countertop in dark liquid. Sputters and spits mostly tap water.

“Agent Wheeler.”

She turns around.

Owens. Standing in the doorway, one hand at his hip, the other in a pantomime of a knock. It’s a strange little thing, a tired whisper of a joke played when you don’t know someone very well or when you’re trying to keep twitchy fingers occupied.

Owens knows Nancy very well.

“Can I see you in my office?”

It’s not a question or a request, even though it tilts like one at the end. Not a demand either, despite her lack of choice in the matter. A lukewarm duty.

She nods, grabs her coffee. Freshly brewed, but barely hot enough to warm her stiff fingers. Tastes like dirt, like rain. Choking on mud.

Her heels don’t clack along the hallway, a sharp echo announcing where she’s going. Instead, they’re muffled, mixed in with the whirring of a nearby printer, lost to the jangle of Owens’ keys, and then altogether silenced in the carpet of his office.

He offers her a seat, which she doesn’t take. She’s never taken a seat in here and he knows that.

“Alright, straight to it then. A memo came across my desk last night. Thought I should call, but I figured, better to hear it in person.”

“Is this about the ship?”

Their most recent case. A salvage vessel off the coast of San Diego with big claims of dragging up a UFO and no explanation for the crew littered in radiation burns. A case, whether extraterrestrial or not, Nancy could sink her teeth into.

“No, no,” Owens shakes his head, shifts his weight to the right.

Nancy squints. He’s dragging this out, taking his time with an uncomfortable truth instead of just telling her. A misplaced care for her feelings turning whatever bad news he has for her into a pity performance.

He runs a hand through his hair, tries to lean against his desk which Nancy can tell is further away than he expected—stumbling half a step before he hits wood.

She doesn’t have time for this.

A tight smile, “I’ve got my hands full today, Owens. So if you just wanted to talk about last night’s game, then—“

“It’s about you. And, Barb.”

Barb.

A drop hits the top notch of her spine, slithers down a few inches, bleeds into her blouse.

He doesn’t say anything, he just looks at her. Looks, like it’s the last time he’ll see her. Looks, like she’s already gone and buried.

Barb.

Sudden and violent is the urge to slap him, to feel the sting of the terrible secret he’s got red against her palm. Needs him to yell, to scream, to do anything but try and coddle her. To look at her like she’s breakable. Like she’s already broken.

But her throat won’t work, tongue heavy behind teeth that won’t open. Her hands won’t move, won’t pry free from their place on her mug. Indiana State University. Barb’s blue mug.

“It’s been five months and neither the DC police team or the Bureau have found any new leads or evidence for her murder. I’ve been told—I’ve been told the case is to remain inactive until further notice.”

Inactive until further notice. A polite way to say over. A bullshit, sugar coated way to say it’s another cold case file shoved into a cabinet left to rot.

Nancy wants to laugh, wonders what would happen if the little bubbling tendril inside escaped. Would it come out right? If she could speak, tongue pushing speech past the bite of her mouth, would it sound human? Would it even make any noise at all?

She takes a sip of her coffee. It’s not hot, and the day is too warm, too wet to have it go cold just yet. When she sips, there’s no sensation, no punishment in either direction. It’s just an action, just a movement without meaning. The grit of mud between the grind of her teeth for nothing.

Her hands are trembling, she realizes, ring clinking against her cup just enough to drown out the rain tapping against the office windows.

Barb.

He sighs, scrubs at his face.

“I don’t like it either, Nancy, but I don’t think there’s anything behind this. With all the other shit this department is handling—badly, I might add—I think it’s simply just a case of not enough people for the job.”

Nancy blinks.

Nothing behind this.

As if Nancy’s placement in the X-Files wasn’t just a thinly veiled excuse to spy on Robin. As if she didn’t start getting turned away from resources and contacts because she wouldn’t outright call Robin a crackpot. As if case after case of concrete evidence of a government conspiracy going up in smoke was just coincidence.

Nothing behind this.

A fucking platitude, that’s what Owens is selling her. Does he think she needs this? That she’d be happy with half assed excuses and empty promises? That she needs her hand held? They’ve worked together for two years and somehow, she finds he doesn’t know her at all.

He’s saying something else, talking about going to Brenner’s office and talking some sense into him, getting the case back open, but she can’t hear him, not really. The world zeros down to the sharp clink against her mug, vibrating in her hands. Zeroes down to her borrowed necklace tight on her throat and dripping hair and the white hot, blind rage curling in her gut.

Barb, Barb, Barb.

“Nancy—”

She stops, half out the door unaware she’d ever started moving. Her coffee is half empty, and she’s not sure whether it’s splashed across his carpet or lying in the pit of her stomach.

“Right. Because that makes sense.”

Her voice works. Quieter than she wants. Softer than she feels.

“It makes total sense, that a man can blow up a building halfway across the country and we can still pull enough evidence to put him away for life. Right? That makes sense to you. But in the case of a woman, my—”

Friend. Pinkie promises in twin sized beds, lingering glances on double dates, and phone calls with more said in the static of a bad connection than ever in person. Nothing behind this.

“Barb. Barb, murdered in cold blood in a well-lit, reputable hotel with multiple, reliable witnesses and fingerprints clearer than the ones you get at the fucking bureau. All that, but we can’t even put together enough to keep anybody interested. That tracks, right?”

He sighs, “I don’t think this has anything to do with interest.”

“Oh, that’s bullshit!” This time she does laugh, and it’s human, and unlike anything inside herself.

“You can’t believe that, I know you don’t. Tell me you don’t.”

Tell me you haven’t left us here to rot. Tell me you have and let me crawl my way out.

Owens holds her gaze, then looks away.

That’s her answer, isn’t it? Right.

“This has everything to do with interest. Just not yours, and not mine.”

Her heels are silent against the hallway, as is the swing of the women’s restroom door, and the lock latching into place.

She slams the mug against the sink, rips the necklace from her throat and watches it clatter against porcelain.

Compromise.

The last five months spent either on a case or on her case, scrounging data reports and paper trails and eyewitness accounts. Bed and fridge empty as she spent every night calling contact after contact, dead end after dead end.

Nothing behind this.

The case that could’ve meant the end of the X-Files or the end of Them—but didn’t. Where nobody died and nothing changed for anyone of consequence.

Barb.

Her first visit to the city since the sticky, wet summer after training. The phone call Nancy had made, telling her, I want to see you. And the phone call when she finally landed, Stay. Stay in the hotel room and order room service by herself while she tried to save the X-Files, while she tried to save Robin.

Stay. And then she hung up, rushed out the door by the whirlwind nature of it all. Line gone cold, last word hanging in the static.

Nancy is never going to know what Barb might’ve said.

She lets the curling, festering thing in her gut grow, lets it eat at her, lets her body bite and bleed itself dry and full, wet and hungry until all that’s left is rage. Hot and fast, water evaporating from her body and finding nowhere to escape, clinging to the lining of her jacket, the creases of her palms. Her mouth opens, parting for a blood curdling scream, a cry of injustice and retribution, for something, for fucking anything—

Nothing comes out.

On the sink, the mug stares at her, blue and unscratched. The chain lies stuck in mud.

It’s raining. A weak pitter against the vents. It’s raining as Nancy hunches over a bathroom sink, and weeps.

#nancy wheeler #my work #my writing #stranger things fic #nancy wheeler fic #noviakart's xfiles au lives in my head rent free 25/8 #thinking about a part 2 idk though we'll see

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anthrcpophagi · 1 year ago

Text

SUMMER of JULY 1990. Camp Ameewagan, Catskills, NY, USA

The night air is cool, a bit too cool for a summer night in the Catskills. Maren knows it’s an omen of something bad to come, but she’s determined to make the best of this summer. Maybe even make a friend. Luke was nice, and she hadn't done the bad thing in a while, not since Penny Wilson. And if she started getting the urge she could run off and sneak back into the girls’ cabin before anything could go wrong. It sounded like a fool-proof plan, or at least she wanted to convince herself that it did.

The sticks and dead leaves crunch beneath her sneakers, a graveyard of summer scattered across the forest floor as autumn slowly creeps upon them. She follows Luke, following his scent more than his body. The night is dark and all they have is a little kerosene lantern Luke stole from the storage shack. But he smells like cedar and bubblegum, like sweat and excitement, and she follows it like a shark with blood in the water.

His tent sticks out like a sore thumb in the middle of the trees and flora. It’s nothing fancy, but Luke’s smile would make one believe otherwise. His pace quickens as he nears the tent and Maren hurries along after him. She watches as Luke holds open the tent flap for her, ushering her in like a true gentleman. He’d probably seen his father do the same for his mother and he knew it was only fair to respect a lady. Maren had never truly known respect, but she bows her head in thanks and slips into the makeshift hideaway.

He follows her in and as soon as the flap closes, he turns on the lantern, almost as though he timed it to perfection. The light wasn’t very bright, a dull flame that flickered on its last breath, but it was enough to illuminate the patterns on the walls of the tent. The outer layer was a ratty blue tarp that he'd probably stolen from the storage shack, too. But the interior had more personality. The inner layer was a mixture of old Superman bedsheets and Batman beach towels draped over a metal skeleton of what she could only assume used to be a much more sophisticated tent than this. He beamed as she took in the sight of his secret hideout, the light just bright enough to reflect off the edges of his features, rounded cherubic cheeks and a smile with missing teeth. The innocent cheeks of youth, the timestamps of age. It was contagious and Maren actually smiles back at him.

“I like you, Maren. I never shown anyone else this place before.”

She knows it’s a compliment so she nods and smiles gratefully, but there’s a churning in her stomach, a seed of dread bubbling up from her molten core. She doesn’t pay attention to what he says as he rambles on about his summer so far and the things he plans to do between the end of camp and next year’s camper orientation. It’s only when he mentions his father that she tunes back in, like a radio signal, a part of her desperate and eager to live vicariously through someone with two, loving parents.

“My Dad’s gonna teach me to ride a horse next summer. Says I’m not tall enough now, but I should be come next year. He'll get me boots and everythin'.” His smile is wide and it’s obvious he’s waiting for some kind of validation from Maren, but all she can imagine is her own father teaching her to ride a horse. This faceless spectral in her memories holding her hands as she clutched the reins. “Because I’m gonna be a park ranger. Gonna ride horses and protect the animals and forest.”

Maren blinks, and her confusion must be clear enough because he continues. “Like a superhero of the woods. Makin' sure people are camping right, and the animals are safe from hunters and poachers. You know what poachers are?”

She shakes her head.

“They’re people who hunt animals for bad reasons. They kill the innocent animals because they want to, not ‘cause they need to, like the cavemen used’ta.”

“Poachers are bad guys?” She asks as she watches Luke grab a lukewarm Sprite can from his little blue cooler. How long it’s been stashed out here she couldn’t tell, but she could tell by the dripping water that clung to the can that it’d been long enough.

He cracks open the can of soda and brings it to his lips. He takes a sip, carbonated water dribbling down his chin before he wipes it off with the back of his hand. Maren cringes, but he must not see it because he holds out his hand and offers her a sip, ever the gentleman. She shakes her head again, but all she can focus on is the rising warmth in her chest, a gnawing sensation that she couldn’t quite place. She knows she should leave, that she should get back to the girls’ cabin before her counselor notices.

“I should get back. I don’t wanna get in trouble.” The tarp beneath them crinkles as she moves toward the exit, desperate to slip away before the monster inside of her gets too loud.

But Luke grabs her arm and the look on his face is pure and beautiful and his eyes are too sparkly for her to say no.

“Please stay. Just a little longer.”

Maren doesn’t fight against his hold, not that she needed to. Luke Vanderwall was a gentleman, after all, and his grasp on her was gentle, but pleading. She doesn’t sit back down on the tarp, but she doesn’t continue her trajectory to the outside either. Instead, she watches as he rips open a bag of Doritos and offers her a Dorito from his stash of snacks, his fingertips caked in cheese dust and dirt.

Her nose tickled with the overwhelming mixture of aromas. She could smell his sweat and the wet dirt beneath them. She could smell the cheese and citrus scent of the Sprite can, emptied and cast aside. She could hear his heart pounding, the blood of a nervous child pumping as he speaks to a girl he likes.

Maren retreats back into the tent, letting the flap seal the two kids inside once more. As he holds his hand out, Maren knows it’s coming, something bad. Something really bad and she knows she should run and leave now before the bad thing happens, but Luke stares at her with his sparkly eyes and red cheeks and she clenches her fists with defiance. But it doesn’t last long.

In the blink of an eye, she leans forward and wraps her mouth around the triangular chip, a gesture that might’ve been sweet if not for the sweat on her brow and the way her lips enveloped his fingers as well. She bites down, and she doesn’t know if the crack she hears is the corn chip or his bones, but his cry of pain makes her think the latter.

He tries to pull back his hand, scared of the pain but not necessarily of Maren, but her jaw is locked and there's no escaping fate now. Not for either of them. He should be scared of Maren. But there’s hardly any time for the fear to grow because without any further hesitation she’s on top of him, legs straddling his little body as she devours his fingers one by one, moving from wrist to forearm to shoulder until all that was left was the Dorito crumbs on the tarp floor and an eerie silence that felt deafening.

She’d done it again. Just like before, with Penny, but now she was old enough to remember, old enough to know it was wrong. She knows she should feel bad, should cry or scream but all she can do is smile, little giggles bubbling out from her bloodied lips as she feels the adrenaline rush through her. She feels light, like a feather floating down from the heavens, but she knows the feeling won’t last forever.

Come morning, everyone will be looking for little Luke Vanderwall and they’ll never find him. Because she hadn't left anything to find, devouring him bones and all. The camp will shut down early, the parents will be called to come rescue their children, and Mama would know exactly why and what happened. And she will be so mad.

#you could’ve been something someday ( luke ).#the truth won’t set me free ( headcanons ).#violence tw #gore tw #q

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anthrcpophagi-moved · 2 years ago

Note

📼

Send 📼 to see an early childhood memory of my muse’s

SUMMER of JULY 1990. Camp Ameewagan, Catskills, NY, USA

“I like you, Maren. I never shown anyone else this place before.”

She shakes her head.

“They’re people who hunt animals for bad reasons. They kill the innocent animals because they want to, not ‘cause they need to, like the cavemen used’ta.”

“I should get back. I don’t wanna get in trouble.” The tarp beneath them crinkles as she moves toward the exit, desperate to slip away before the monster inside of her gets too loud.

But Luke grabs her arm and the look on his face is pure and beautiful and his eyes are too sparkly for her to say no.

“Please stay. Just a little longer.”

#you could’ve been something someday ( luke )#the truth won’t set me free ( headcanons )#gore tw #blood tw #answered #long post #okay i know the gif doesnt /really/ fit but its exactly baby maren and you cant convince me otherwise

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ratsetflummi · 6 months ago

Note

All of the odd numbered weird asks! (But feel free to skip any that you don’t want to answer of course 😅)

1. who is/are your comfort character(s)?

currently artemis entreri, previously strahd von zarovich

generally there seems to be a theme of mentally ill little bastards with a bunch of trauma who are suffering from The Curse™ and who just kind of want to die but can't

don't read anything into that

3. do you leave the window open at night?

i leave it tilted (because i got the good european windows that you can tilt), so the murderers don't get in, but i also don't suffocate

5. what color are your eyes?

blue

7. hair-ties or scrunchies?

i'm bald

but back when i still had long hair i only ever used hair-ties

9. which do you prefer, hot coffee or cold coffee?

ideally lukewarm, but i'll also take cold. i'm very sensitive to heat, so hot coffee just kills me

11. favorite extracurricular activity?

i haven't been in school in almost a decade. and back when i was still in school i never did any extracurriculars. i always wanted to do theater, but my anxiety was way too bad to actually sign up for it back then

13. when was the last time you ate?

two hours ago. i went to my parents' place to bake a lemon tart with meringue, and i ate a piece of that before i left

the tart in question:

15. are you a parent? (all answers qualify)

only to a pair of little idiot cats

17. are you farsighted or nearsighted?

nearsighted, but i only have to wear my glasses at university, for everything else my eyes are still good enough

19. imagine we’re at a sleepover, would you paint my nails?

yes, and they might not even look horrible, i've been getting better at that lately

21. something you’ve kept since childhood?

the only thing that comes to mind is my fear of dogs. had that since i was a child. as far as like objects go i'm pretty sure everything's been replaced at some point

23. how do you feel about chilly weather?

love chilly weather, the chillier the better, bury me in snow and i will be happy (i am currently suffering from summer)

25. perfume/body spray or lotion?

body spray

27. about how many hours of sleep did you get?

more than i usually get recently, which is to say about 7 hours. the cat i'm currently cat sitting keeps screaming me awake way too early in the morning, but last night i finally caved in and put in some earplugs, so i actually slept more than five hours for once

29. how do you like your shower water?

warm. not scalding, but i refuse to step into a cold shower

31. what type of music keeps you grounded?

metal. a strong baseline and drums help me calm down. which sounds like a joke, but it really isn't

33. the last adventure you’ve been on?

i'm currently living at a friend's place out in the middle of nowhere, because she's on vacation right now and i agreed to take care of her cat, and going back and forth from my place to hers takes for fucking ever. and honestly just figuring out how to live out here is an adventure of its own

35. what’s your timezone?

i would have sworn that it's gmt+1, but apparently it's gmt+2? or cest. my friends in the uk keep calling me a bloody future person because i'm one hour ahead of them

37. someone in your life, other than a relative, you’ve known for 10+ years?

only person who i still talk to is thisfairytalegonebad on here. we weren't technically actively talking until we did our finals at the same time, which was only 7 years ago, but fairy is the reason why i'm even on tumblr in the first place, and that was 11 years ago

39. do you use lip balm?

nope, my lips always feel worse when i try

41. how do you take your coffee?

with ridiculous amounts of milk and sugar

43. what’s your take on spicy foods?

i can handle a bit of spice, but too much will kill me

45. can you remember what happened yesterday?

i had to think long and hard about it, but i think i reconstructed most of it

the highlights are going to university, doing a horrible job drawing my friend's old dnd character during a lecture, visiting a friend at work on the way home, failing to kill a boss on elden ring for like two hours, talking to friends on vc, and doing a way better job redoing the drawing

the drawings in question (from 2021, yesterday morning, and yesterday night, in that order):

(yes, that is jarlaxle's hat. well, technically jack axel's hat, who was my pc in dragonheist, and who totally wasn't just the jarlaxle we have at home when mom says that we have jarlaxle at home)

47. what was the last message you sent?

asking my mom whether she has finally applied for the new job she was looking at and whether her coworker has actually quit yet. that was five days ago, she hasn't answered yet

unless we're talking discord messages, in which case it was me talking about what i'm gonna cook for my friends when i go visit them a month from now

49. can you skip rocks?

absolutely not. i've tried a couple times, but i never actually got anywhere

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februaryflowers · 2 years ago

Text

through the night

even in the latest, most tiring moments, you and wonwoo never fail to make each other feel loved

warnings: uses of terms of endearment if that makes you uncomfy

fluff, 1130 words, boyfriend!wonwoo x reader | established relationship au

a/n: sorry but we are taking a break from our scheduled programming of summer fair drabbles for wonwoos birthday 🧎 but i did write most of this before then 😅 oh yeah reader does wear wonwoo’s t-shirt btw

As Wonwoo pushes open his front door as quietly as he can, he takes in the scene of his apartment. The living area is completely dark, except for the small, warm glow from the lamp near the sofa, sitting on the far end under the window. He then turns his attention to the kitchen, where a few plates sit in the dish rack. While he surveys the room, he spots a pot cover on the island counter.

Despite Wonwoo being away for most of the day, it’s well lived in. A smile finds its way to his lips. This isn’t just his place. It feels like a proper, dearly loved home.

Slipping off his shoes, he tip toes towards the bar to pull off the lid, revealing a small dinner. It’s grown lukewarm in the hour or so it’s been out, but Wonwoo appreciates the thought and the effort.

He puts the noodles in the microwave, setting the timer before making his way to his room. It’s pretty much your room too, with how much you stay over. You practically live at this place, though technically you do have a lease somewhere else in the city. Not that Wonwoo minds your presence here at all, though. It’s quite the opposite, actually.

The handle is cool to the touch, and as slowly as he can, he pushes it down and the door out, causing the smallest creak to come from the wood.

Moonlight shines through the window and on your skin, illuminating the side of your face squished against his pillow. Maybe a strand of drool is falling from your open mouth as you take deep breaths, exhausted by your long day.

And then his eyes fall upon your clothing. You’re still wearing the jeans and top from when you left in the morning. He chuckles as he imagines you earlier in the day, plopping down for what was supposed to be a short nap until you probably gave in to your fatigue and passed out on his bed.

He tries his best to take quiet steps before he sits on the edge of the bed, lightly tracing the shape of your face with his fingers.

“Angel,” he murmurs.

You make some sort of responsive hum as you snuggle your face further in his pillow. An old, faint scent of peach and cucumber meets your nose and causes you to smile, almost like you’re in a pleasant dream. Your favorite thing about Wonwoo’s room, his whole apartment, has to be how even just being in it reminds you of him, makes you happy. Everything is infused with him, his personality, his essence. It’s a constant reminder of the person who brings you joy all the time and it spreads to the deepest nooks and crannies in your brain when you need it most.

“Let’s get you changed into something more comfortable,” he says, coaxing you out of slumber slowly with his smooth voice.

“Too tired,” you mumble before you hide your face further in the soft pillow to avoid the moonlight, causing your words to get muffled by the fabric.

While he offers a small smile, he does worry about how uncomfortable sleeping in this outfit all night will be, so he presses his lips to your cheek and whispers a simple “Please?” against your skin.

His breath tickles, causing your lips to curl no matter how hard you try and how much you want to stay in bed, which only makes you whine.

“I’ll help you, okay?”

You grumble but force yourself up, rubbing your eyes with your palms.

“There’s my angel,” he coos.

He stands to press a kiss to your head and pad over to the dresser, pulling out his most worn t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants you leave in his drawers.

You’re still blinking sleep out of your eyes when he places the folded clothing in front of your slouching figure, kissing the crown of your head as you try to get your brain in a conscious enough state to change.

When you think you can finally see without the blurry film of drowsiness, you shake your head to rid yourself of the last bits of the feeling. With your vision and thoughts finally somewhat clear, you glance up and Wonwoo is gone. He can be so polite sometimes. Even after all these years he still likes to give you your privacy, even when you don’t mind.

The somewhat worn cloth has the familiar smell of fruit, and the softness of the fabric is already lulling you back into the cozy slumber you’d been in minutes earlier despite your efforts to resist. Wonwoo’s clothes just…remind you of him, like a nice hug both for your whole being, the comforts of belonging, of love, of home, all wrapped up in one thing.

Once you’re changed into his shirt and your bottoms, you creep into the hallway and spot Wonwoo at the counter, munching on his old noodles.

“I’m sorry they got cold,” you whisper as you approach him, wrapping your arms around his waist and pressing your face against him.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, settling into your touch despite jumping a little at the coldness of your hands seeping through his own pajama shirt.

He eats in silence, with you falling asleep attached to his back and him happy to ease you into dreaming again. With his eyes wandering while he chews, they find your reflections in the oven door.

He can’t seem to stop his lips from curving and smile from blooming when he notices the way the old cotton of his shirt sits on your shoulders. Knowing that you prefer soft t-shirts, especially with his scent, to sleep in, he’d given you his, and he can’t say he doesn’t like it. It’s a nice little reminder that you are his to love and cherish, that you feel the same things towards him.

As he finishes the last bite of his dinner, he places the plate and utensils in the dishwasher. They’re tomorrow’s problem. Right now, he just wants to bring his favorite person to bed and cuddle you until you’re both fast asleep.

Patting your locked hands that rest on his middle, he begins the journey to his room, letting you drag your feet on the wooden boards and use him to move yourself. Regardless, he would never tire of your weight on his back.

Once you’ve returned, he closes the door behind you before helping you into bed, pulling the blanket up to your chin and crawling in next to you.

“Sleep well, love,” he whispers, pressing one last kiss into your cheek.

“Mm, g‘night.”

What a good night it is. You would dare even say it’s the best kind of night.

a/n: i am no good at sappy notes, so i make no promises on how good this one will be either. i don’t know wonwoo and wonwoo doesn’t know me. but in some of the most volatile, terrifying, stressful and hopeless times of my life, i looked to you, and, while i didn’t think everything would suddenly be okay, at least i felt a little better. and i don’t know just seeing you can make me smile. if i could say anything to you it simply would be thank you. thank you for all the happiness and respites you have given me, whether you know it or not. and i hope that it is paid back to you and then some. i hope you are and will always be happy. whether or not i’m a carat for a long time, i will be grateful for you.

happy birthday, my dearest. i hope you are having a great birthday filled with love and joy.

-another carat on the internet

#caratwritersclub #seventeen scenarios #seventeen fluff #seventeen imagines #seventeen x reader #seventeen x you #wonwoo scenarios #wonwoo x reader #wonwoo imagines #wonwoo fluff #seventeen wonwoo #mei's #this was self indulgent bc i like to wear soft tshirts to bed 😭#so thats where the idea came from 🧎#mei.svt

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samingtonwilson · 3 years ago

Text

my little love

summary: there is a difference between hiding the grey of falling in love accidentally and shining in the brightness of choosing to grow in love purposefully-- so you’ll choose him as many times as you can.

pairing: bucky x reader

warnings: language, some angst, a lot of pining, very tiny sex mention. it’s me so there’s a lot of fluff and jokes.

a/n: no tag list because i couldn’t compile one lmao. this is just a former-fwb to friends to lovers fic that i started writing before wandavision or fatws came out so let’s pretend those shows don’t exist for the sake of this story! shout out to my best friend @allcaps1928 for the text “IDIOT!BUCKY RIGHTS” after she read this.

also yes i know what the adele song i took the title from is about but it’s also about feeling love in a time of loneliness.

The sip of coffee turns to ash on your tongue— acrid. Caustic when you swallow.

You smile, though. Bright, it convinces Bucky.

He grins around a sip of his latte. Cinnamon, brown sugar— something warm and sweet which sticks like glue to ribs gone brittle under decades of ice burn. His tongue sweeps over his lips, still smiling.

You could keep it up for that. Hide the grey and let your smiles radiate every color he needs.

Blue like ice when he’s on fire, green like sycamores when he needs to breathe. Something yellow to keep him warm, white to guide him home. Pink and red crêpe paper hearts, roses and boxes of chocolate— Valentine’s Day grins glowing with love.

There’s something purple about this one. Velvety and comforting. A promise in the curve of your lips, in the twinkle of sleepy eyes. Lavender aromatherapy turns to smoke when he looks away. Soot in your lungs, you cough.

It burns, doesn’t it? Singes your tongue with every breath? Maybe that’s why you can’t speak.

Maybe it’s why you haven’t spoken for weeks now, the extent of contact lying in a wave to say good morning across the line of treadmills and ellipticals, a nod to say good night as elevator doors slide shut.

He’d asked about it. Had the good manners to not blame you entirely with a soft concession that he hasn’t been around much lately anyway. Not good enough manners to leave you be as you’d gotten up to walk out of the conference room, though. Not good enough manners to just let some things go with a shrug— manners rotten enough to demand coffee in the name of playing catch-up.

The café is a familiar space.

It began as a place of refuge from missing the echo of Steve’s voice in the quiet halls of the Tower. A place so different from Tony’s labs where Peter and Morgan would spend hours tinkering with suits left behind for no one in particular while Pepper handled business. Somewhere you wouldn’t find Natasha’s hair ties or those pastel pink plates and mugs which she knew would be met with questions only to preemptively decree that she likes pink, okay? Sue me.

It hosted the two of you after a mission in Kolkata and withstood the degradation of its lukewarm, overly spiced chai in comparison to the sweet, piping hot doodh cha in clay cups you’d snuck out of the hotel for at four in the morning, sleepy Sam in tow. The mustachioed chaiwala had made no comment of your black eye, the bump on Sam’s forehead, and the limp in Bucky’s step and instead offered striped packets of Parle-G. The café walls didn’t hear the end of that for the hours the two of you spent huddled in the corner.

It kept the two of you cool in the summer of 2024 when a teenager in cork sole sandals and a light blue mesh top with cloud print told anyone who would listen— and yelled at those who would not— about how you are all so fucked, how climate change is gonna get us all because of the oil companies and the fucking government. You think the fires and disease are gonna stop? Get a goddamn clue, New York! You’d nodded along, applauded by snapping your fingers in agreement while Bucky glared down anyone who even contemplated opening their mouths in opposition.

It calmed the fire behind your ribs after nights— and sometimes afternoons— marked by urgency, a solution to loneliness and a-far-from-guaranteed tomorrow. Iced green tea with a squeeze of lemon and a brown sugar latte with a touch of cinnamon, a shared slice of apple crumble. Shyness in the colliding of your forks despite the bareness of only a small while before, unacknowledged and ignored intimacy beyond physical forcing your silverware apart. An echoing of the promise to maintain brick boundaries, words unsaid aching in the hand you want him to hold, the lips you wish he’d kiss outside the darkness of your bedroom.

It’s your space. Yours and Bucky’s. Holy perhaps to no one, but sacred to the two of you.

And it feels ruined now. Under snowfall and ash, frostbitten noses, your fingers burnt from desperately clutching the few remaining embers of wasted emotion, the café feels ruined. Your crumbling Parthenon.

He smiles at a tricolored corgi seated on the floor a few tables over. His question takes a sledgehammer to one of the remaining pillars, “Fuck the sneezing. I should get flowers anyway, right?”

“Flowers?” an attempt at a nonplussed expression, a casual sip of tea. You aren’t sure of your success.

“Yeah, my ma would make a big stink about it whenever I’d take a girl out.” His smile is fond, nostalgic. Only a little sad— he’s been working through it. “S’a li’l old-fashioned, I know. But it’s been three months. Feel like it’s the right time to get a little cheesy.”

You’d thought about calling it off. The bricks had fractured, grout eroded from love which burnt like acid.

But he’d beat you to the punch. Something about a third date. Something about going steady. Monogamy. He’d smiled, too, as if the words tasted like candy. Perfect white teeth bearing down on your heart as you could only grin along. Yellow with warmth even as you felt yourself freeze over.

Was it all his responsibility?

Or was it your palms, blistered and sore from pushing, pushing, pushing?

“Flowers are nice.” You draw the number 8 in your drink with a paper straw. “A little cheesy is nice.”

He returns your smile with one of his own, flicks a finger against your knuckle. “Tell me what’s goin’ on with you.”

You shrug. “Nothing to report.”

“Find that hard to believe. I can hear you an’ Sam getting back late at night, you know?” He taps the curve of his ear. “Super soldier hearing, remember?”

Eyes rolling, you skate a fingernail around the rim of your tall glass. “I’m coming back with Sam. What could I have to report if I’m coming back with Sam every night?”

“Fair enough,” he says after a moment of thought. There’s laughter in his voice, bright and happy, and, though you know he isn’t taunting you, there's the pang of an insult in your stomach. “Just thought something— someone— outside the Tower might be keeping you busy.”

It’d started on a Wednesday. Rainy and so windy you’d watched a woman lose her umbrella from your window and hissed sympathetically through your teeth. After one of those dinners Sam arranged on a night most of you were free, smiling over Doordashed gnocchi in an attempt to keep the few of you who were left together.

Wanda, green eyes dull and haunted, had spoken for the first time in ten days. Told Sam he should be proud she’d dragged a brush through her hair for him, stared at her plate with sight blurred by tears when he said he was.

Peter had dropped a can of soda and screamed at the burst, apologized with his hands over his ears.

Sam, for the first time since you’d known him, had looked defeated. Something so profoundly fractured deep within him rose to the surface. The shield comes with a lot, he’d once said after a mission went south. Just gotta find the right stance to balance it all.

During the mission he’d smiled, but that night over dinner you’d seen beneath it.

So, since that Wednesday night, you’ve taken up more missions. Carried more responsibility. Played Mother Goose to Wanda and Peter. Become Sam’s sounding board for strategy. A lap for him to lay his head in on nights in and a shoulder for him to lean against in cab rides after nights out.

If he needs reminders, you’ll paste Post-It note affirmations to his mirror. If he needs to forget, you’ll take him to his favorite bar and match him drink for drink.

He’s healed since that night. Found a stance which favors balance, set the fracture and let it mend under a cast wrapped in red, white, and blue.

Yet, because of the nights you drink more than he does and the nights you cry into a bowl of popcorn at movie scenes meant to bring warmth, he lets you imagine you’re stitching his heart together when your fingers really work to keep together the walls of your own.

You held his hand through it so he’ll hold yours. No matter whose benefit you think you’re doing it for.

“Work things,” is your explanation to Bucky. You smile then. “Saving the world is more time consuming than I thought it’d be.”

“S’a real shame they don’t cover that in orientation. I went into this thinkin’ it’d be a straight-forward nine to five.”

“Those ‘out of the office’ emails just don’t work the way they used to.” Before he can smile, you sit up straight with an apologetic frown. “So sorry.” You slow your speech, raise your volume, and make large gestures, “An email is electronic mail. It’s sent via this thing called the internet through, like, electronic devices—”

“Christ’s sake,” he laughs, loud and happy. Rolls brightened blue eyes. “You think you’re a real fuckin’ riot, don’t you?”

“Absolutely,” you say through laughter of your own. “Why? You gonna tell me I’m not?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He sits back, grin firmly in place. “Who am I to tell you the sky ain’t blue?”

“Wow, don’t give out compliments too freely now. I might start to think you missed me.”

He hums out a sigh. There’s a gentleness despite the intensity in his stare. “You wouldn’t be wrong if you did.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“I know,” he nods. He drains what remains in his cup and smacks his tongue against his lips. “Work things.”

An uneasy silence seems to set over the café. Something unsaid and ignored in the skepticism of his voice is a suffocating blanket spread over words which, free of context, are innocent enough. You think you could scream under the heavy blanket and go unheard, struggle with all of your strength and remain tangled. Fleece in your fists, fleece in your lungs, fleece between your teeth. It may be easier to lay there, may be more difficult to struggle.

It’ll all go unseen anyway.

An incoming notification brightens the screen of your phone.

Two hours have passed.

Two hours in asking if he should go with the grey button-down— it’s smart, brings my eyes out, too— or the black sweater— I like black, always have.

Two hours in wondering whether the restaurant Pepper suggested is a good option— Stark took her there n’ I’m no fuckin’ Stark; that Depression frugality stuck— before he settled on Sam’s suggestion— Wilson knows a good plate-a food, I’ll give his dumb ass that.

Two hours in thinking about some chocolate— hell, I could use some chocolate myself. Maybe flowers— is sneezing unattractive? Because roses fuck me up fast.

You sit in the ruins, temple pillars reduced to dust and rubble at your feet, and remind him, “You’re gonna be late.”

He shakes himself from the daze of expectation. “Right.” A drag of his hands down the lap of his jeans and he gestures vaguely toward the exit. “Come on—”

“Sam’s actually my ride. Pepper signed us up to build sets for Morgan’s play.” Setting your chin in your palm, you look up at him as he stands and smile. Shake the snow from weeping willow trees to make it reassuring. “Have a nice time tonight.”

It’s interesting to inspect the damage to the temple once he leaves. To see the debris of delicate stone deities and the spilled wax of burnt out candles. To hear the echoes of prayers once whispered and laughter once sung like hymns. To feel Earth stop its slow spin in mercy. And to be the only one to experience it.

The barista still places cardboard cups under the espresso machine, her manager coaches himself into presenting customers with rehearsed smiles. A family of three sits by the window, two smoothie glasses and three straws between them. A girl in a tennis skirt places a kiss on the pouted lips of a girl in tight black jeans, eyes wide and loving. Small temples of Pentelic marble. Complex, but sturdier. Foundations of intention, rather than accident. In their golden age while you sit, Athens fallen around you in a loss against Sparta.

Sam orders a three-shot oat milk latte, extra hot— to go, even though he moves to sit for a couple-a minutes. Murmurs something about having a long night ahead of him when he takes the seat Bucky had occupied. There’s concern in the deep brown of his eyes as he appraises you.

Frowning, he means to ask but twists his mouth in a grin instead when the café manager— rehearsed smile in place— sets a slice of reine de saba in front of him.

“On the house, Cap. I mean, Mr. America,” the manager, a tall short man with a mop of brown hair, pauses as he registers what he’s said. “Mr. Captain Wilson, sir.”

Sam has enough manners to only smile. You, however— forced to cover your lips with your hand to laugh quietly— seem to have forgotten the concept of manners.

“Thanks, man,” Sam says, digging a fork into the slice. “S’why we do what we do. The free cake.”

Sam wastes no time once the manager walks away. Scooping up what should be a decent mouthful of cake and slivered almonds, he asks, “Wanna tell me why you look like that?”

“Like what?” you take the fork he offers you and cut a small piece for yourself. Eyes narrowed, you drop the mere morsel and cut a bigger portion. “Keep in mind that I’ll suffocate you in your sleep if you say anything other than ‘ethereal’ or ‘radiant.’ I know where you live, Mr. Captain Wilson, sir.”

“I was gonna say ‘like shit,’” he tells you. He laughs when you hold your fork up to threaten a stabbing. “I’m sorry. Like radiant, ethereal shit.”

“Sleep with one eye open,” is your response, accompanied by a glare. To answer his question, though, “I didn’t get much rest last night.”

“Why’s that?” You shrug. “Those melatonin gummies are a damn lie. S’just shitty candy.”

He doesn’t buy it. Skeptically, “You sure?”

“Yeah, it just sticks in my teeth. And what kind of flavor is ‘midnight berry’ anyway?”

He says your name. In that low, sighed way. Pushes what remains of the gateau in your direction so he can focus more directly on his coffee. “If you’re—”

“I’m fine,” you say with a laugh. You poke at the cake. “Gonna try that Sleepytime tea nonsense tonight and if that doesn’t work, I’ll come to your room. One of those painfully boring stories of yours and I’ll be out like a light.”

“Boring, huh? I think you might be mistaking me for Barnes.”

“As if. Look how handsome you are,” you reach across the table and roughly pinch his cheek, grinning when he slaps your hand away. “Barnes doesn’t even compare.”

“Don’t think flattering me is gonna get me to stop worrying,” he warns. “I’m persistent.”

“I think what you mean to say is ‘a pain.’”

He rolls his eyes but otherwise drops it. The sip he takes of his latte is long and slurped, the sound drawing a laugh from you. “Tastes better that way.”

“Yeah? Does obnoxiousness bring out the notes of chicory?”

“Molasses, actually.”

A fond shake of your head and you rise when Sam does, waiting as he stuffs a small bundle of bills into the tip jar on the counter.

“Did you ever find out what play they’re putting on?” he asks when you walk ahead of him to the door. He reaches around you to pull it open, holding it as you pass through.

“Jack and the Beanstalk.”

He frowns in consideration as the two of you reach where his car is parked. “Do we know which character Morgan is playing?”

“Not yet. Auditions are tomorrow. She’s gunning for the bean saleswoman.”

“The what?”

“Bean saleswoman,” you repeat just a little louder, laughing when Sam exaggerates his confused expression further. “She’s the one who takes Jack’s cow and gives him magic beans.”

“I thought that was supposed to be a scary old man.”

“Morgan thought about all the characters and their motivations and decided she liked the bean seller’s motivation the most.”

“Which is what?”

“According to Morgan, ‘the bean seller has lots of beans and no cow. And she really wants a cow.’ Morgan likes cows.” Grinning when Sam snorts, you sit back against the plush passenger’s seat.

“Why isn’t Barnes helping?”

“He has a date tonight,” is your sighed reply. It earns you a brief look from Sam. “And with the way his relationship’s going, probably his wedding next week.”

“He’ll have to postpone holy matrimony.” Sam shrugs when you glance at him. “There’s a situation in Kyiv and I’m sending you two on Saturday.”

“You were sitting on that in the café?”

“The car’s a secure location, right?”

Shocked laughter is fractured by a nervous tremble. The world turns slowly once more. Your mouth opens, shuts, and opens again until you land on, “But the play—”

He offers you a strange look. “It’s only three days. You can build sets when you get back.”

Your movements feel slow, as if you’re moving through syrup. You feel each aching centimeter of your stomach falling, each flexing and stretching muscle when you nod. “Okay. What’s the situation?”

“Ukraine’s got parliamentary elections coming up. Prime Minister Shmyhal is worried about what the Svoboda and Batkivshchyna parties have planned.” He takes a slow sip of his coffee and puts the cup in the holder again. “There are rumors of a repeat of 2012 and 2013 when Svoboda and Batkivshchyna deputies accused MPs of voting for absent colleagues. It escalated to fist fights and xenophobic chants during a televised speech, and the Batkivshchyna stormed the podium in parliament to prevent swearing-ins. These guys have attacked members of the press, allegedly killed four national guardsmen, and constantly threaten violence if they don’t get their way. All the rumors are made worse by the new president dissolving parliament during his inauguration.”

“Can he do that?”

“Court said it was legal when the last guy did it and called for snap elections. The Svoboda hate this guy and the idea of losing whatever seats they managed to hold onto during the Blip. So it’s not a good scene.”

“And all of that is only gonna last three days?”

He shakes his head but keeps his eyes on the road. “Fury’s had his agents in place since the presidential election. They noticed Svoboda party members flyin’ in from Lviv and getting rooms near the Verkhovna Rada building two days ago. Timing’s off, need to do some recon to see what it’s about.”

“You can’t come with me instead?”

Another strange look. “Barnes can speak Ukrainian, spent a couple months there when he was on the run so he knows his way around. You gotta talk yourself into some places, blend in in others. You can’t do that with both of us knowing fuck all about the language.”

Sam watches as you attempt to burrow into the seat further, your arms crossing over your chest. “Fine.”

A brief pause, thick and lingering like smoke, floods the car until, “Is something goin’ on?”

“Huh?” You watch the light change from red to green. You ignore the burning feel of Sam’s stare. “No, not that I know of.”

𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁

You sit in the glow of five bright screens.

Eyes narrowed beneath a pair of thick glasses, your fingers are sticky with grains of sugar and citric acid. One leg rests on the dining table, one is bent with your knee at your chest. A tablet sits unsteady on your thigh, blueprints of the hotel suite and floor digitized with X’s marking the areas covered by a camera, their scope accounted for with dashed-line borders.

Bucky winks into the camera he’s set up. The leaves of a fern— which sits in a corner of the living room— cover part of his left eye, blur the cockiness of his expression. He grins when your scoff rings through the comms. “Hi, sweetheart.”

“Hi, Buck.”

“Got a good view?”

“Wouldn’t know,” you reply, popping another Sour Patch Watermelon into your mouth. Bucky can hear the smile in your voice. “Your giant head’s in the way.”

“Oh, that’s the best view, honey.” Your poorly suppressed laughter receives a small smile in return, more to himself though it’s captured by the camera. “Can you see both couches?”

“Not really. Turn the pot about 30 degrees clockwise.”

“Come on, it’s been 15 minutes of turning the damn—”

“We can argue later. Agent H said their session wrapped as of four minutes ago and they’re heading back.”

Sighing, he crouches out of sight and the view shifts. You have a clearer view of the desktop— not clear enough, however. “S’better,” you say. “There’s a leaf in the way.”

Vibranium fingers struggle to tuck the leaf aside and a handful of too-long seconds pass this way. You watch as his frustration grows. Exasperation shines over his features until he rips the leaf from its branch, the force of which moves the camera a few inches. “Fuckin’ stupid—”

“If you’re done fighting a leaf, you just moved the camera.”

His eyes meet the lens. Pleading. You almost feel bad. “I can’t just stick this shit on a table?”

“This is a better vantage point. The tables are too close to the center of the room.” You glance at the other screens. “Okay, slide the pot two inches to the right.”

He crouches again. Once the view shifts very slightly, “That good?”

It’s fine. Yet, “Not really. Slide to the right.”

You hum when he complies. “Now slide to the left.” The plant is moved less than a few centimeters to the left, leaves rustling. “Take it back now, y’all.”

The plant is scooted barely half an inch back before Bucky stands and glares at the camera. The chill of ice is felt through the screen.

Nonetheless, “One hop this time.” A pause. “Right foot, let’s stomp.”

A roll of his eyes.

And he stomps his right foot.

“Left foot, let’s stomp.”

He stomps his left foot.

“Cha cha real smooth.” Drumming a beat against your thigh, you attempt to beatbox along with it, not deterred in the least that he is standing entirely still. “Turn it out.”

Bucky— long-suffering expression, long-suffering tone— asks, “Can you see the whole room?”

“Can you do the Cha Cha Slide?” When he only glares, you sigh. “It was fine before. Move it up half an inch and to the right half an inch, buzzkill.”

“Is that right? I’m a buzzkill?” He rights himself once the plant is in place. “Who was it that told Sam about my plan?”

“You wanted to tie these guys up in our room until the elections were done without evidence of wrongdoing. That’s kidnap.”

“It’s incapacitation, you li’l tattletail.”

“Incapacitation by kidnap.”

A dismissive wave of his hand. “Semantics. Besides, I wasn’t gonna charge ‘em ransom.”

“You don’t have to ask for ransom money for it to be a kidnap.”

“Yes, you do. Otherwise it’s just hangin’ out. And a spectacular waste of time.”

A less than attractive raspberry bubbles past your lips. “Your legal knowledge is changing my life, Bucky.”

“And it’s free of charge. You struck gold when you met me.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Your phone buzzes with an incoming message from Agent H: Entered hotel lobby, heading toward elevators.

“They’re headed to the elevators.” You check each screen, note the perimeters. “The cameras are fine where they are. You should—”

The door to your room clicks shut.

Bucky— much too casually in your opinion— makes his way to you as he removes his gloves. He snorts at your gun still pointed in his direction, his jacket landing in a pile on the couch as you flip the safety back on.

He doesn’t notice your incredulous stare until he’s beside you, checking each camera angle for himself. He returns your stare with one of his own, brows lifted. “What?”

“What ‘what’? I could’ve shot you.”

You receive a skeptical look in return. “You aren’t rash enough.”

“You don’t even wait for my signal? You just stroll back?”

“You said they were headed to the elevators,” he shrugs. His hands are set on the table, one on either side of you, so he can stare at the monitors comfortably. The warmth rolling from his chest seems to thaw the tension in your shoulders. “Don’t worry. I checked if the hall was clear.”

“What if the camera angles were still off?”

“I prioritized not getting caught,” his voice is now an absentminded mumble, chin set on top of your head.

He slides the hotel service folder toward himself and flips through the laminated pages with vibranium fingers. There’s a faint scritch scratch of his stubble against your hair when he asks, “How do you feel about dessert for dinner? They’ve got medovyk.”

He pumps his eyebrows twice when you tilt your head back to look at him. He grins wide in an attempt at persuasion.

The person who boarded the Quinjet just two days ago was resolved to maintain a modicum of professionalism. A certain strength of boundary. That person sat far from the cockpit. Played music loud enough to ache the eardrums below shaking buds. Cracked open a book which had gone unread for eight long years.

It took one conversation for that person to vanish. Just a casual question about exfoliation and you set your book aside. After all, should one really break an eight year pattern?

You and Bucky fell into your usual rhythm over those two days. You shared looks across Verkhovna Rada chambers when you posed as security guards. You hid your laughter behind cups of coffee as you met with Agent H and Agent L for morning briefings. You took half of his deruny at dinner and he took half of your varenyky. No pillow border divided you at night, nothing to stop your toes from burying themselves in the warmth of his legs or his nose from nudging your forehead.

You wave a dismissive hand and use the tablet to disable the looped footage you’d sent to the hallway security camera feeds. Both of your legs now rest on the table, crossed at the ankle. “Order what you want. I’m not too hungry.”

He straightens and shakes his head in disappointment. “How can you be when you fill up on junk?”

He scoops a handful of tiny sugar-coated watermelon slices from the bag of candy and tosses it all into his mouth. He wags his finger in your face as he chews, nearly striking your nose. “Shit’s awful. You’re gonna pass out one day from malnutrition.”

You hum and watch as he takes another handful. Your lips curl in playful anger. “Yeah, maybe I’ll adopt your diet. What’s it called? The ‘everything in sight’ diet?”

“Are you saying I eat a lot? That’s rude, sweetheart, and I’m sensitive.”

He rolls his eyes at the pout of sympathy you offer him while you set your hand under his chin, guiding his head to the left, then the right. Eyes narrowed, you inspect his features and place your fingers against his pulse point, concluding seconds later with, “You’ll live.”

His sole response when you laugh and sit back, thoroughly satisfied with yourself, is a sarcastic smile.

A sarcastic smile which shifts seconds later into something genuine. Something soft.

Two days of stepping in that old rhythm and Bucky’s taken a dive into familiarity. Headfirst. Nothing graceful, not at all coordinated. He’s sure he’s going to bash his head against concrete soon enough, yet he kicks and kicks hoping it’ll get him there sooner.

It’s sadistic, isn’t it?

Craving the pain of it. The crimson blood stains going brown against the sidewalk. Everything inside of him— all the sadness, the devotion, the love— spilled at your feet only to be scrubbed away moments later so your steps aren’t given a chance to falter. He’s prepared an apology for the marks on your shoes, for the heart your heel goes right through.

It may be for the feel of the fall. The floating when his legs ache from kicking, the soaring when he spreads heavy arms. A smile and wordless conversations over morning coffee, a laugh if he’s lucky. He would spill his blood all over the pavement, let you tear his heart to shreds under your soles, for that.

“You got time for the café when we get back?”

“You’ll have to ask Morgan.” Your voice comes muffled, head in the minifridge in the search for a cold bottle of water. Bucky has a plain look over his face once you stand. “She’s in charge of scheduling for the play staff and has taken all of my free time. If I want time off, I have to file a request at least 48-hours in advance. She has forms and everything.”

“Christ, is this a Broadway production? Is she in charge of that fuckin’ John Adams show?”

Water bottle at your lips, you pause. “Do you mean Hamilton?”

“I guess,” he shrugs.

“No,” you snort, “but she’s taking her job very seriously.”

“Play hooky,” is his simple suggestion. He pushes the menu aside, determined to order all three entrées he finds appealing. He then attempts to level you with a wide-eyed look. “C’mon. It’s a post-mission tradition.”

A frown pulls at the corners of your lips. “I made a promise. Besides, don’t you have to go see a certain someone when we get back?”

He scoffs away the playful lilt of your voice. “I’d still make time for you.”

You smile. Warm as the sun. You watch him melt in it. “Well, that’s sweet but I’m sure she wants all the time with you she can get. I’ll make you a latte with brown sugar for the debrief with Sam, though. I’ll even write ‘Bunky’ on it and it’ll be like we’re right there in the café.”

His own smile is brief. “S’not just about the latte, you know?”

If you tell him the temple has been leveled under ash and snow, that all the candles have been extinguished and all the hymns have come to an end. If you tell him deities you’d sculpted from delicate clays and sands have fallen to dust, if you tell him the sight of the ruins breaks your heart all over again, would he hear you?

Has he seen it?

Has he felt the universe pause in mercy?

He stands on a foundation of intent now. Not like the foundation the two of you built in search of something else. Can he feel the difference?

“I know.”

𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁

“You wanna hear my Cab Calloway impression?”

Passing him the plain black duffle you’ve spent nights begging him to replace, you receive a sideway glance from Bucky. It lingers for a beat too long, even as you avert your gaze to the tear running parallel to the struggling zipper. “You have a Cab Calloway impression?”

“Locked and fucking loaded.” You’re emptying your weapons locker into your own bag intending to clean the guns later, sending him a smile over your shoulder. “You know the Betty Boop version of Snow-White? From 1933?”

You start humming St. James Infirmary Blues in an attempt to jog his memory, giving him your bag, too. You gesture with your hands, widen your eyes as you walk down the jet’s ramp to the helipad. “You know?”

Bucky stops even as he’s several steps behind you, stopping you as well with a simple, “I’m sorry.”

You turn to see him staring confusedly, brow furrowed at you. “How the fuck do you— Are you older than what you’ve been letting on? Because if you’re from the fucking thirties or forties, too, —”

“No,” you say once you’ve laughed sarcastically. “Turns out some of the nonsense from those racist, anti-Semetic, awful times manages to be great now, too. Some of the music, some of the movies, —”

“Some of the people,” his smile growing as his voice trails off.

You tilt your head. Features twisted in question, you blink. “What people?”

You can’t help your laughter when his teasing stare slowly fades into a glower. “Like Cab Calloway, you mean? Yeah, he’s still cool.”

His sigh is heavy, lips struggling against another smile.

“Do you mean Steve?” you ask, voice higher pitched as it pinches in withheld giggles. “Miss that guy.”

A step in your direction. “No, I don’t mean Steve.”

“One of the other Commandos then?” you punctuate your question with a wink, a nod in sly understanding. But his budding grin falls as soon as you say, “That Gabe Jones? He was hot. Drew hearts all over his picture in my history textbook and everything.”

Your laughter grows louder as he walks right up to you, a dark look in the grey-blue of his eyes. “You’re such a fuckin’ little punk, I swear to—”

His name is hollered behind you. Voice higher than yours, lighter than yours. There’s an effortless joy to the way she says his name, to the way she races up the ramp to meet him halfway. She stands a few inches shorter than you do, but her smile stretches miles wider. She’s uncorrupted and bright, stares up at him with an unrivaled openness. Just like he deserves.

You don’t notice the way he continues to watch you, don’t notice the halfheartedness in the hug he barely manages to return.

But you smile at her when her eyes find you. She’d hesitated looking away from him. Didn’t want to tear her eyes away for even a second. It’s sweet as honey, and you hate her for it. “It’s good to see you.”

She says something back— something kind— and Sam approaches the three of you only to throw an arm around your shoulders, but Bucky’s only focused on your outstretched hand. Your eyebrows lifting when he only gapes back. “I can take my bag. You two probably wanna catch up.”

“No,” Bucky answers even as you manage to wrestle the bag away. He notes the narrowed look being sent to him from his left, but keeps his attention on you and Sam. “No, we have to debrief and—”

“I can handle it.” The reassurance he finds in your smile feels like a cold breath to aching lungs. A forest the morning after rainfall. It shifts to something tighter when your eyes lower to his left. “Have a nice night, you two.”

Sam and Bucky nod at one another as the latter passes. Soft fingers thread through those of vibranium, and their departing steps come with the low hum of hushed conversation. Bucky’s eyes meet yours before the elevator doors shut and cut the thread between you, and you exhale a burning breath from your tight posture and slump onto Sam’s shoulder.

Knowing, he asks, “Have a good mission?”

“Incredible,” your gaze is still fixed on the elevator, voice strained. Sam notices. He’s always noticed.

“In love with Bucky?”

You nod and meet his eyes. Deep brown— coffee-hued, coffee-warm. “Yeah.”

𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁

You used to find an empty gym blissful. A quiet space in a Tower that always bustled enough with laughter, and arguments, and life to echo in memoriam for months.

Those echoes began to linger like ghosts. Waiting for you behind every corner, refusing to be drowned out by the hum of a treadmill or the smack of a fist against a punching bag. So you played your music as loud as you could, you laughed at Sam’s jokes with all the joy in your body. Pulling it from your limbs, your fingertips, your toes.

In the morning it was as if you could see them in thick rays of carmine yellow when the sun shone in through the long wall of windows. And at night they rode along the sparkle of city lights. Often you asked FRIDAY to roll down the panels of blinds Tony never expected anyone to actually use, often you asked the AI to keep the overhead lights as bright as they could go. Hiding from shadows, from the sun like the moon and from the moon like the sun.

But you refuse to hide now. You refuse to muffle the echoes that sound like home. The sun shines on your back, your shadow dances against the wall.

Your heart aches in your chest, but it beats. Full and rhythmic.

“Haven’t heard from Peter in a while.”

Sam is sent a few centimeters back with the strength of your punch against the bag, shoes sliding over the smooth floor. He braces the bag tighter. “I know. It’s great.”

You level him with a plain look, lowering tired arms. “Sam.”

“Keep going,” he says. He waits until you assume your stance again to continue, “Happy’s keepin’ track of him.”

“Is anyone looking out for Wanda?” The angle of the next punch you throw is off, an ache splintering along your wrist. “She hasn’t called me back in a while.”

“She’s—” he sighs, allows you to relax for a minute when he lets go of the bag. “She’s hard to find if she doesn’t want to be found.”

You catch the roll of tape Sam tosses you, unraveling the mess around your knuckles. It’s an easy task, sweat wetting it loose. “So it’s just us three on the roster?”

“For most jobs.”

“Which means, hypothetically,” you begin— slow and easy, “if I said I was benching myself for a little while— that’d be a pretty big problem, huh?”

You meet gentle eyes when you look up. Watch him smile something adoring. “I don't know how long I’ve been asking you to take a break and now that you finally wanna take one— Ain’t a problem at all.”

“You sure?”

“Barnes and I can handle the field.” He catches the tape you throw to him easily. “Did you attain enlightenment overnight?”

“In some ways,” you laugh. Shaking out your shoulders, you find your stance. “I’ve wanted to take a break for a while now. Since Berlin, maybe. I just kept waiting for the world to calm down enough or for something to force me into it. But then we got snapped away and— I need to do the things I want. Wanting them is a good enough reason to.”

“The world’s never going to calm down.”

“It can’t. And trying to make myself less of a person won’t ease the pain of that. I need to heal, which I can’t do if I keep acting like I’m not hurt.”

Sam stares at you silently for several moments. “Should we start paying your therapist more?”

Snorting, you throw a hard enough punch to force him into a stumble. “Make the check out to yourself. Your little support group’s been helping.”

“I’ve never seen you at—“

His mouth screws shut when you smile at him. “Baby, I’m a spy. You only ever see me when I want you to see me.”

“You creepy shit.”

You drop your stance to laugh, hands on your knees before you take a short leap and flick your fingers against Sam’s forehead. Screaming when he springs into action, you spin around immediately and run across the gym as fast as your feet can take you. Your words and laughter jumble together, “You called me creepy!”

“You fuckin’ are!” he shouts back, chuckling, too.

You face him once you’ve rounded the long line of treadmills, shifting from side to side just as Sam is. There’s a teasing glint in the brown of his eyes, his usual warmth omnipresent as the machines divide you. “Still shouldn’t say it! I don’t point out how— how—“

“How what?” he asks. He’s grinning as he takes off in the direction you decide on. “Can’t find jack shit to say. S’what happens when you’re fuckin’ perfect.”

“If you’re perfect,” you start, coming to a slow stop when Sam is only a few feet from catching you, “then I really did attain all enlightenment last night and am now Buddha.”

You emphasize your point by placing your hands in abhayamudrā and shutting your eyes for less than a second. You open them in time to see him lunge for you and are only able to whirl around before he wraps a strong arm around your waist to lift you from the ground. Your gasp easily fades into a laughing scream, breath knocked from you.

“Is this kinda workout not available for anyone else, Sam?”

Sam sets you down, still chuckling as the door comes to a slow close behind Bucky. “I’d throw my fuckin’ back out trying to pick you up.”

Bucky, short hair damp from a long run, snorts but nods a moment later. “Yeah, fair enough. Hi, sweetheart.”

“Hi, Buck,” is your grinned response. It glows in pink and red, loving and bright. He can almost taste chalky heart-shaped candy.

“Haven’t seen you since Kyiv.”

Sam leaves the two of you to gather his water bottle, phone, and headphones from the bench closest to your punching bag and you shrug, smiling at Sam when he nods, supportive. “Yeah, I’ve—“

“Been busy?” Bucky guesses. He lets his eyes run along your profile. The slope of your nose, the length of your eyelashes. The smile still comfortably on your lips, reaching the subtly creased corners of your eyes.

You shake your head and meet the curious blue watching you. “Not really. I’ve been around. Doing paperwork, training, —“

“Being creepy as hell,” Sam interjects, passing you to the door. His eyes are narrowed.

“Building sets,” you amend to Bucky. Door shutting behind Sam, you call, “I’ll see you in your dreams tonight, Sam. There’s no hiding.”

You can hear his laughter even as he walks down the hall, smiling to yourself at the sound.

“What’s that about?”

“Apparently hiding in the shadows during his support group meetings is frowned upon,” you snort. “Go figure.”

“He just doesn’t know how to take a compliment.”

Sighing, you nod. “You always get me.”

Warmth blooms in your chest at his chuckles, his small grin.

Going to Kyiv felt like coming home.

Riding alongside Bucky in the Quinjet, laughing and holding his stare a little too long, felt like home.

Seeing him now, smiling at you with that same playfulness in his eyes and comfort easing his posture, feels like home.

“Bucky.”

A home with a foundation you can strengthen by acting purposefully. Intending to choose Bucky and doing so over and over.

He nods. He’s rolling tape onto his knuckles, placing his phone on the bench as you sit. “Hm?”

You pick at the tape around your own hand, peeling it slowly. “I kinda— I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Okay.”

It’s silent for a few beats. Long enough that he looks over his shoulder, eyes kind and questioning, before he turns to face you completely. He smiles and whatever bricks remain of that terrible wall your heart had spent months clawing at crumble away.

He’s so handsome. So sweet, so kind, so understanding—

“What’s—”

It pours from your mouth on the notes of a quick exhale, “I love you.”

His smile falls and that little wrinkle between his eyebrows deepens.

“I’m in love with you. And I know you’re— That you have someone and I think she’s great. I’m really so happy for you.” You hope your smile is as green as you intend for it to be. “And I don’t want to blow it up by saying something I probably have no right to say but— I've been losing my mind holding this in. I need to do right by myself and by you and finally be honest.”

He’s still silent, still staring. He looks like he’s expecting you to say more. Unmoving, unsure.

You stand, thick band of orange tape hanging off your palm. “That’s all.”

“I don’t—“ his voice stutters as miserably as the heart in his chest.

“You don’t have to say anything.” You jab your thumb in the direction of the door. “Morgan’s got me on a tight schedule so— So I’m gonna go.”

𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁

Bucky’s pacing. Cockpit to his locker, his locker to the cockpit. His boots barely make a sound, steps so light Sam is scared out of his mind every time he hears a heavy sigh just inches away.

It’s been days of this. Watching Bucky pace, hearing him sigh like the weight of the world is compressing his lungs. He’s lost several slices of pizza to Bucky’s insistence that he’s not hungry only to practically inhale everything Sam’s ordered for himself. He’s lost hours of sleep to knocks on his door at three AM, because Bucky needs to ask about the plan again.

What’s the strategy? Who’s rescuing the hostages? How much are they willing to negotiate? Are they willing to negotiate at all? Is it true a cat took Fury’s eye?

Frankly, Sam’s had enough.

But he’s resolved to not interfere. It’s not his business.

But it’s been three fucking days. “If you sigh one more fucking time, Barnes, —”

“Sorry.” Nonetheless, Bucky sighs again. Falls into the co-pilot’s seat, leg bouncing and thumbs twiddling. “Sorry. I wasn’t— I thought we had another two days before coming back. It’s throwin’ me off.”

“Thought it was a good thing to wrap shit up early,” Sam mumbles. His gaze remains focused beyond the windshield. “Get a nice break. I can make it to Morgan’s play, you can see your girl. Maybe take a fuckin’ nap.”

“We—” another sigh. Sam might put his foot through the jet’s damn wall if this keeps going. “I ended that. I couldn’t pretend to be available to her when— when—”

“When the girl you love said she loves you.”

Humorless chuckle, and he shakes his head once. He should’ve known you’d tell Sam. “Well, yeah. But I ended it the night we got back from Kyiv.”

The way Bucky says your name— like something so soft and precious, almost intimate— makes Sam think it’s wrong for him to even hear. “It felt too good to be around her again, felt like I was cheating. And that day in the gym, when she said she— I didn’t know what to say.”

“I don’t think she expected you to say anything.”

“Sam, she ran off last time. When shit started to get real, she pushed me as far away as she could and ran off.”

“I can’t promise you anything. But the change I’ve seen in that girl,” he shakes his head. So much for none of his business. “She’s takin’ a break from work, letting herself be a person. She lights up at someone even mentioning you and brings you up whenever she can. She’s different now and wouldn’t have told you what she did if she was plannin’ on running off.”

Bucky’s leg stops bouncing, but his thumbs still knot together. The vibranium plates of his left palm pinch his delicate skin. Voice rough as gravel, “Still fuckin’ scary.”

“Yeah. Shit works out sometimes, though.”

𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁

“You know, there’s no shame in saying ‘no.’”

“Yeah? Did that get you here?”

You look up from the student in the seat placed before yours and meet Pepper’s gaze. Her eyes sparkle in humor, her smile poorly hidden. She nods toward your hand, covered in stray flecks of face paint and makeup, and then at the sponge you’re using to spread white paint.

“I don’t count,” you press. You get back to work, holding Keith’s face in one hand to get the white paint as close to his ear as possible. “I’m not her mom. And I like doing makeup. Especially Keith’s.”

Keith grins at you, chubby cheeks blown wide when you wrinkle your nose at him. Dipping a thin brush into a pot of black paint, you nod at him. “Okay, no more smiling. Your spots will look weird if you do.”

He nods back and immediately drops his smile, letting loose a single giggle at his own abruptness. He peeks at you with a teasing green eye and looks away as soon as you gasp.

You smile to yourself as you outline a series of black spots. One or two on each cheek, one around his right eye. “You can’t let Morgan throw an after party. She’s a kindergartener. You can’t start letting them throw after parties until, like, third grade. Gotta set boundaries.”

“And you know this from all the kids you’ve parented.”

“I don’t have kids,” you reply, tongue poking through your lips in concentration as you fill the spots using a new sponge. “None that I know of, at least. I’m just a genius. Keith, I need you to hold still if you want to be the cutest little cow this school has ever seen.”

He stops wiggling and Pepper snorts. “He looks like a dalmatian.”

“A cute dalmatian.” Once the spots are filled, you paint on a small pink nose and allow him to place the headband with floppy cow ears into his chestnut hair. “Those beans better be worth their weight in gold.”

He straightens the white and black crewneck sweatshirt he wears and turns to the mirror, grinning at his reflection and bursting into laughter. “I’m a cow!”

“You are!” you cheer back, laughing with Pepper when he moo’s as loud as he can. He hops out of the chair and onto his feet. “Be careful, you’re not fully dry yet! How much you wanna bet he’s gonna fuck up his makeup before the show can even start?”

“I’ll put more on you getting caught cursing before the show can start,” Pepper says with a roll of her eyes. She sits in the seat Keith had occupied, the wood creaking under an adult’s weight, as she helps you clean the sponges and brushes. “I know Morgan hasn’t said it yet— she was planning on making a speech at her after party— but we appreciate how much you’ve been helping.”

“It’s no big deal.” You look to the mirror and take a cleansing wipe to the streak of white on your forehead. “I’m trying to take a break from avenging and haven’t really found other things to do yet. This was a nice way to get out of the Tower.”

Pepper hums. “Morgan’s got a whole thing about how her favorite Auntie Avenger saves the day and the show.”

You cock an eyebrow. “Maybe you should let her have this party.”

She barks a sarcastic laugh and stands when she hears a shrill “Mom!” shouted across the backstage area. “Try to hold the ‘fucks’ in.”

“No promises!”

One more swipe across your forehead to fully clear it of white paint, and you sigh to yourself at the creaking of the chair. “In those five seconds, I managed to hold the fucks in—”

Blue eyes— so soft, so gentle and kind— watch you expectantly. He waits for you to focus on him, pays little attention to the relaxing of your grip and the package of wipes which falls to the floor as a result. A small smile, one he can’t help, begins to pull at his lips. “Hi, sweetheart.”

“Hi, Buck.” The silence which settles over the two of you is comfortable, broken when you reach to pick up a brush. “Did you need your makeup done?”

He shakes his head.

“Well, backstage is cast and crew only,” you pout playfully and grin when his shoulders shake in a silent chuckle.

“I guess I don’t have long to say this.”

He sits up straighter, drags his hands— metal and flesh alike— down the lap of his dark jeans. He rehearsed what to say on the drive over, asked Sam if what he wanted to say was too blunt. Asked if he should add a preamble of some kind, maybe a disclaimer that he hasn’t had a grip on his mind or heart for months.

He can’t remember any of it now that you stare at him from that canvas and wooden chair, blinking owlishly and looking at him with so much love it steals the breath right from his lungs.

“I— I forgot everything I wanted to say.”

“That’s okay. Take your time.” You lean in and he feels himself pitch toward you as well. At your smile he feels the softness of velvet, the comfort of lavender. “If anyone tries to kick you out, I’ll fight ‘em. I’ll fight a kindergartener.”

He laughs, loud and bright. “Fight a kid, huh? You must really love me.”

He watches you sober, he watches you choose him.

Your grin shrinks to something pink and you take as deep a breath as you can. You nod. “Yeah, Bucky, I do.”

He hums, he chooses you, too. “So do I.”

“What?”

“I love you. And I’ve wanted to tell you everyday since you took me to that café.”

#bucky barnes #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x you #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes angst #bucky barnes fluff

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sunkissedpages · 3 years ago

Text

instead of you [part sixteen]

pairing: [best friend’s brother] tom holland x college!reader

summary: you didn’t expect to spend your summer pretending to be your best friend’s girlfriend- then again, you didn’t expect to fall for your best friend’s brother, either.

warnings: swearing, mentions of alcohol, smut (18+) additional warnings under the cut

word count: 3.1k

series masterlist

smut warnings: female masturbation, porn, mentions of choking

“‘We’? Like, you and me?” you clarified, hoping you had misunderstood.

“Yeah, it’ll only take a second,” Tom assured you.

You looked to Sam for help, but he looked just as lost as you were. “I’ll go try and find a microwave to heat up your leftovers,” he offered and took the container back from you. “I’ll be right back, babe.”

“Okay...”

You watched him shrug past both you and Tom and then disappear into the hallway with a sinking feeling in your chest, knowing he trusted you completely. He had no reason not to, and that’s what consumed you.

“What do you want?” you muttered, reluctantly stepping to the side to let Tom in.

He didn’t answer right away, giving you a moment to collect yourself. His eyes followed you around the room as you found your pants and tugged them on. He averted his gaze when he realized you were getting dressed mumbling a “sorry” as he trained his eyes on the carpet.

You sat on the edge of the bed and looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to explain why he was there.

“You weren’t there today,” was all he said.

You blinked. “Yeah?”

“Was it because of me?”

“I wasn’t feeling well.”

Tom’s tongue poked at the inside of his cheek. “Is that all?”

“I had a lot to drink last night,” you reminded him.

“So you don’t remember anything?”

“I never said that.”

“So it was because of me?”

“I never said that either.” You sighed. “If you’re here to ask me if I told him you kissed me, I didn’t. And you could’ve just texted me to ask.”

“No that’s not why- I don’t have your number anyway.”

“I’m in the trip group chat with your family.”

“Oh, right. I’ll save it to my contacts.”

The tension in the room was palpable. It felt like all of the air had been sucked out and replaced with thick, suffocating silence. Arbitrarily, you wondered who the most famous person in his phone was. He was a Marvel actor, he probably had Simu Liu’s number, right? Who would your contact information be sitting in between? Maybe if you ever forgave him for what he did you could ask him.

“Is something funny?” The firmness of Tom’s voice cut through your train of thought and brought you back to the present. “Why are you smiling?”

“It doesn’t matter,” you said despondently. “Sam’s gonna be back soon. What did you want?”

“I just wanted to check up on you. Sam said you were sick.”

“Oh, so you wanted to see if I was lying?”

“No! God, why is it so hard to believe that I’m genuinely concerned about you?”

“Because last night you only seemed concerned about yourself.”

Tom pursed his lips and shoved his hands in his pockets, expelling a breath harshly. “Okay, I deserved that.”

You hummed in agreement, and let your eyes trail down the veins of his arms to where they disappeared into his pockets. It looked like he was fiddling with a coin or something small, but you couldn’t tell.

“Are you feeling better?” he said the last part through gritted teeth.

“Yes, thank you. This chat has helped considerably.”

Tom rolled his eyes. “You’re impossible, you know that?”

“Well, lucky for you I’m not your problem to deal with. I'm Sam’s.”

He flexed his hand in his pocket and sighed. “Okay, well, I also wanted to apologize again for...” the word kiss seemed to die on his lips, poetic irony at its finest. “Being a dick.” Less poetic.

He finally fished his hand out of his pocket, holding a delicate piece of paper between his pointer and index fingers. He shifted uncomfortably where he was leaning against the dresser. “We went to the Academic Gallery today. I saw this in the gift shop and thought of you.” He presented you with what turned out to be a postcard, creased down the middle unevenly and smudged with pen ink.

You turned it over to look at the front first, admiring the artwork printed on it. It was a picture of Michelangelo’s David drawn in swoopy black lines and filled in with watercolor paint. Instead of a museum, the statue was in the middle of a garden, the centerpiece among dozens upon dozens of flowers.

“Sorry it’s folded,” he mumbled. “It wouldn’t fit in my pocket.”

You flipped it over to read the back only to see iou scribbled in his handwriting and nothing else. You turned it over again to see if you had missed something on the front, but there was nothing.

You looked up at him in confusion. “Iou?”

“Yeah, you know... I feel really bad about last night, and I don’t really know how to make it up to you so I’m letting you decide.”

“That’s not really how it works.”

“I think that this counts as an exception, since we’re kind of in uncharted territory.”

“Maybe for you. My boyfriend’s brothers make out with me all the time.”

“Fuck you, I didn’t make out with you- it was barely a peck.”

You narrowed your eyes at him. “It was more than a peck.”

His cheeks were beginning to grow pink with what you couldn’t tell was either embarrassment or frustration. He cleared his throat awkwardly and changed the subject. “Anyway, if you ever need a favor or anything, just let me know. Think of it as me owing you one.”

“And do I have to give back the postcard when I cash in this ‘favor’?” you asked.

“No, you can keep it.”

“Good, because I was going to keep it anyway.”

He chuckled in spite of himself and shook his head. “Knew you’d like it.”

You flattened the card on your lap, smiling as you tried to iron out the little crease with your fingers.

“It’s pretty, thank you.”

Tom nodded in acknowledgement and straightened his posture. “I should get going. I just wanted to give you that, and see how you were doing since tomorrow’s a travel day and I know you get a little motion sick sometimes. I didn’t want... whatever you’d come down with to make it worse.”

How did he know that? Had Sam told him? You didn’t have time to ask because he was already walking towards the door. He paused when he reached it and turned his head towards you, hand already on the knob.

“Good night, y/n.”

“Good night, Tom.”

He opened the door and let himself out into the hallway, catching it suddenly on his foot as he saw Sam coming off the elevator. Tom held the door for Sam, since his hands were full, and then said goodnight to his brother as he finally left.

“Sorry, I couldn’t find the microwave,” he explained. “I had to ask the night manager and they heated it up in the break room for me.”

“Oh, Sam, you didn’t have to do that! I would’ve eaten it cold.”

“I know you would have, and that’s why I’m not letting you.” You gave him a look, which he ignored and handed you the container of food. “It’s carbonara, it’s one of the things Rome is known for. I couldn’t have you eating it lukewarm.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

He ran a hand through his hair and took a seat next to you on the edge of the bed, pulling the ottoman closer to use it as a makeshift table. He watched as you tried the first bite, gauging your reaction. It was something he did whenever he cooked for you, especially if he was trying out a new recipe. He always needed your approval, and valued it above anybody else’s. But he hadn’t even made this, and as his eyes searched your face you found yourself wondering if they were looking for something else.

“Do you like it?”

You breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Your paranoia was starting to get the better of you. “It’s delicious,” you assured him. “I’m sad I missed dinner.”

“I’m sad you missed the whole day. Spending time with my family without you was hell.”

“Oh come on, it’s probably good that you got some real family time.”

“It’s real family time when you’re there. It felt like something was missing.”

You let a small smile slip past your lips despite the guilt that bubbled under the surface. You pushed it down and took another bite of the carbonara.

“You’re not just saying that to make me feel better, are you? It can’t have all been bad. Tell me about the good stuff. I wanna hear that.”

Sam nodded and pushed his curls back again, grinning like he’d been caught. “Fine, maybe there were some okay moments.”

“And what were they?”

“We went to the Accademia Gallery today. I think you would have really liked it. They had a whole wing of instruments from some of the most famous inventors and musicians from history. They even had pianos from Bartolomeo Cristorfori, the inventor of the piano.”

“Wow,” you said, impressed. “I bet it was beautiful.”

“Of course if it was played, it wouldn’t sound anything like the piano we’re used to hearing today, but I’m sure it would still sound incredible.”

“Even if it hasn’t been tuned in a few hundred years?”

It was his turn to give you a look. “Yes, of course.”

“Sorry.”

“And they had a Strativerius, I don’t even want to know how valuable that thing is. It must cost millions. I took some pictures for you, but I know they won’t compare to the real thing. The lighting in museums never does the art justice.”

He handed his phone to you to scroll through. You swiped the photos, smiling whenever you came across a selfie he’d taken with a statue or painting. You reached the pictures of David and couldn’t help but zoom in on-

“Hey!” Sam yelped and grabbed his phone back from your hands.

“What!”

“Michelangelo would be so ashamed of you! I bet he’s rolling in his grave right now.”

“No way! If anyone appreciated good dick, it was Michelangelo.”

“Unbelievable.”

“If you don’t want me to judge these statue’s penises, don’t take pictures of them.”

“I didn’t take pictures of their penises! I took pictures of the whole statue- you’re zooming in on- you know what, nevermind. Arguing with you about this is pointless.”

“Smart boy.”

Sam rolled his eyes at you and put his phone in his back pocket. “Oh yeah, did Tom give you that postcard?”

“He told you about that?” you asked, suddenly panicking. Sam hadn’t said anything about last night so far, but maybe Tom had-

“Yeah, said he wanted to give you an iou for the limoncello last night.”

“What?”

“He said you paid the tab for it since he left his wallet in the room and that he wanted to pay you back for it.”

“Oh. Right.”

Another lie. You had very much not paid for the drinks last night. Tom had. And you knew he had to make an excuse for why he was buying his brother’s girlfriend something from the gift shop, but to add another lie to the ever-growing list made your throat burn with regret. You wouldn’t be able to keep the secret forever, and it was only a matter of time before everything came crashing down around you.

In the morning you took the train from Rome to Naples, and then took a taxi to Sorrento to spend the last bit of your week in Italy by the sea. The atmosphere was much more relaxed than it had been in the busy cities of Rome and Florence. Even though there were still hordes of tourists, they were far more dispersed and less overbearing than you expected. The whole town seemed slowed down, like it had escaped the chokehold of time.

Sam’s parents took everyone out to lunch by the water and went over the schedule for the next day and a half.

“So, you’re on your own after dinner tonight, and then tomorrow morning we’re going to take the ferry to Capri for the day before our flight that night,” Nikki explained as she read through the spreadsheet on her phone.

“There’s an Irish pub down the street from our hotel,” Harry said. “Do you guys want to go after we eat tonight?”

“I’m down,” Sam agreed.

“Sounds good,” Tom chimed in.

The boys all looked at you for your answer, but you hesitated. Thinking about what happened the last time you drank didn’t make you eager to do it again, and you were already exhausted from travelling.

“I’ll pass.”

“What? Why?” Sam asked, sticking out his bottom lip in a pout.

You leaned into him, resting your head on his shoulder with a sigh. “I’m tired, and I’d rather go somewhere Italian... since we’re in Italy.”

Harry shrugged. “Your loss.”

“We’ll have a shot in your honor, babe,” Sam said and pressed a kiss to your temple.

“Please don’t. Something tells me you’ll have plenty to drink without an extra shot for me.”

“You know us so well.”

After dinner, you walked back to the hotel with the Hollands and said good night to Sam’s parents before parting ways to your separate rooms. Sam went with you to change into clothes for going out while you changed into pajamas.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go?”

You nodded from where you were on the bed and yawned. Sam didn’t push any further, instead resolving to finish getting ready in silence. He paired his black jeans with a pair of converse and a dark green button up over a black t-shirt.

He turned to you for approval.

“Fake girlfriend approved?”

“Fake girlfriend approved,” you repeated and gave him a thumbs up.

“Okay, well I’m headed out,” he announced.

“Have fun! Don’t kiss any cute girls without me!”

It was something you always said to each other, but it sounded strange since it was supposed to be coming from his girlfriend. Sam just chuckled and blew you a kiss as he let himself out.

You heard him greet his brothers outside and then listened to their footsteps fade into the distance before pulling up an incognito window on your phone. It had been weeks since you’d been able to get off and it was killing you. The amount of stress this trip had given you only made it worse. You were wound so tight that you were sure you’d snap soon if you didn’t get some relief.

And you thought that maybe if you rubbed one out it might help you forget about... the confusing feelings you had for your best friend’s brother.

Seeing as you had the night to yourself, you figured you might as well take advantage of it. You copied a link from your notes app and pasted the url into the address bar. You didn’t feel like digging through your luggage to find your earbuds so you set the volume low enough for only you to hear.

The video started playing and you let your hand wander from your side up to your neck, brushing your hand lightly across your collarbone. You traced the curve of your breasts with a finger before squeezing one of them gently, feeling your nipple harden under your palm. You only had one hand to use since the other was holding your phone, but you made do.

The video was one of your favorites, one you found yourself watching at least once a week. It was one of the few videos of hetero couples you had favorited, and it started with the guy going down on the girl before fucking her...

You admired the muscles on the man’s back, watching intently as they flexed whenever he moved his head. The woman moaned, struggling to keep her legs open while he brought her closer and closer to orgasm.

You let your hand travel down further until it was sitting at the waistband of your pajama shorts. You knew you had a while before Sam would be back, but you were too impatient to wait. You propped your phone up on a pillow next to you to free your other hand as you started to play with your clit.

You pictured someone’s head in between your thighs, imagining them moaning against your pussy as they tasted you for the first time.

The man was taking his pants off now and lining himself up with his partner’s pussy. You tried to follow along, putting yourself in the moment with the couple. You gathered your own wetness on two of your fingers to lubricate them and slid them inside yourself, sighing in relief. Your entire body tensed as it accommodated to the stretch and you gave yourself a few beats before moving your fingers.

When you finally did, you felt yourself relax and sped up your pace so that it matched the actors on screen.

The angle the video was shot at hid the man’s face and you found yourself wondering what he looked like. If you squinted you could almost picture Tom- no. You tried to shake the thought from your mind, but it was already there.

Closing your eyes didn’t help either. You just imagined Tom’s fingers sliding in and out of you instead of your own, imagined the veins on his arms becoming more pronounced as he tightened his grip on your thigh.

“Fuck,” you cursed, knowing you should stop.

You were too close to stop now, and the pleasure was clouding your judgement. Suddenly the man brought his hand up to the girl’s throat and began to choke her, sending her hurtling into her own orgasm. You moaned accidentally, thinking about Tom’s hand around your throat. You curled your fingers up so that you were hitting your g-spot and whimpered pathetically.

This was wrong. This was bad. Not only were you fantasizing about your best friend’s brother, but you were confusing yourself even further.

You tried to fight it, at least that’s what you told yourself, but all you could hear were Tom’s moans echoing through the speaker. You pictured the way he’d look on top of you. His eyes would be so dark and he’d be smirking like the cocky asshole he was, chain hanging down in your face- just inviting you to take it into your mouth. It didn’t take long before you felt your orgasm begin to build. The video was still playing in the background, the man still chasing his own high and bringing his partner to her second orgasm, but you’d tuned it out by now. You came around your fingers thinking about Tom’s hips snapping into yours.

You were fucked.

lmk what you think!! i always appreciate feedback

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unbridgeabledistances · 4 years ago

Note

ian + mickeys neck (was thinking of the drunk ian fic and wondered if you would be interested in pursuing this idea further?) <3

anon i am CRYING thank u so much for this!!!! i have been feeling like i need to make my contribution to the “mickey’s neck” discourse for a while lmao and this is my opportunity (esp bc ian holding mickey in the 11x12 stills wrecked me)

in the spirit of following up 11x10 i decided to write this based on an amazing post @mickey-millagher made/a prompt that @pombby sent me about ian teaching mickey to swim at a public pool during lockdown at some point early s11- i hope u enjoy<3

(this is the tiniest notch steamier than what i usually write but it isn’t smutty fyi- tw for descriptions of choking😌)

There was no one at the park— the air hung heavy and humid over the empty picnic tables and wooden benches that punctuated the fields of dying grass. As much as people on the Southside were definitely not taking any part of this lockdown shit seriously, it didn’t surprise Ian how silent the public park was— there was still a scarcer number of people out on their stoops or lounging on street corners this summer. Ian guessed that the few people who didn’t think that this was a hoax realized that this COVID shit was serious enough that they couldn’t afford healthcare if they got it, or whatever— but regardless, that meant that this Southside summer was weirdly stagnant somehow, and felt different from the noisy and crowded rhythms of summers past.

It was the late morning, just as the air started heat like a convection oven as the sun rose over the skyline— and Ian had his heart set on teaching Mickey to swim today. The conversation had come up last night at dinnertime, when Debbie was complaining about the heat wave— and they had all started reminiscing about the rickety, tin-sided pool they used to put up in the backyard years ago until Carl had taken a hatchet to it when he was 11 when he was trying to tear it down. Sitting next to Mickey at the kitchen table, thighs pressed where their chairs were scooted close together, Ian had suddenly remembered his words from their road trip to the border, years ago now:

“You could try swimming across the border.”

“I never learned how, man.”

And he’d immediately opened his mouth, not catching the words before they moved from his brain to his mouth, and asked Mickey in the middle of the dinnertime chatter: “Hey Mick, did you ever actually learn to swim?”

It was funny, and arbitrary, and stupid; they were married now, but for some reason this small fact about Mickey, the fact that he used to not know how to swim and by now he might have learned without Ian’s knowledge, made something warm pool in Ian’s stomach. He’d known Mickey, and had been itching to be closer and closer to him, for a full decade—and there were still so many things that he didn’t know. And this was proof, this question that Ian still didn’t have the answer to about some weirdly fundamental aspect of Mickey��s identity— he was always going to want to keep asking things about Mickey. And he was always going to get to.

Mickey had looked him with daggers in his eyes, then flickered a defensive glance at all the smirks growing on Ian’s siblings’ faces. “Fuck you. I was doing plenty of other shit in Mexico, didn’t really get the chance to lounge on the fucking beach.”

Ian had reached under the table and placed a hand on Mickey’s knee—a peace offering, an apology for whatever Mickey-can’t-swim quips Carl and Lip would inevitably think up as a low blow the next time they all butted heads at breakfast time— but as the chatter about backyard pools and heat waves continued at the dinner table, Ian felt an idea stirring.

Which is why the next morning he’d woken his husband up by pressing a tender kiss to his jawbone, both of their skin damp and clammy from the heat in the stuffy bedroom, and whispered into his neck:

“I wanna try something today.”

Mickey’s mind had immediately veered in… other directions, his eyebrows raising in vaguely disappointed disbelief when Ian had explained his idea to go to the public pool and teach Mickey to swim with an exuberant grin on his face; but after some very enticing morning persuasion that had a lot to do with the fact that Mickey was still half asleep while Ian had pressed kisses down his spine and dragged him out of bed and handed him a pair of swim trunks, now they were at the public pool in the nearest park at midday, with Ian leading the way and Mickey dubiously and sleepily straggling behind him.

Ian slid open the lock on the chain-link fence that surrounded the pool, the same pool that was usually crawling with groups of teenagers smoking weed and toddlers in floaties who were sticky with melted ice cream on a summer day like today. And maybe he was just all hopped up on nostalgia, but Ian was feeling cheerful— there was a lightness to the blinding summer sunshine, radiating through him as it pooled on his skin, that made him feel weirdly exhilarated and giddy about teaching Mickey to swim in this grimy Southside pool, just because he could.

“I still can’t believe you never learned how to swim.” Ian said it over his shoulder as he strode through the gate, holding it open for Mickey.

Mickey just flipped him off, following behind him and setting down two towels and the 6-pack of beers he’d grabbed from the fridge as they’d shuffled out the door minutes before. Ian grinned. He knew the beers would be warm and syrupy in minutes—the air was muggy and humid, without any hint of a breeze for relief. Ian could already feel the sweat dripping down the back of his t-shirt; he peeled it off as he walked over the sunwarmed concrete towards the pool’s edge, crumpling the shirt and throwing it on top of the pile with the beers and the towels. Mickey was hesitant, not following Ian to the border of the water just yet.

“Seriously. I can’t count the number of times I was shoved into our bacteria-infested backyard pool when I was a kid. I’m pretty sure that Frank tried to drown me in there at one point.”

Mickey just shrugged noncommittally, his fingers slack around the bottom hem of his shirt and his eyes zeroing in on the pool of water. Ian thought Mickey would say something in reply— but the only sound in the air was the faint shouting of kids playing a basketball game the street over.

Holy shit. Ian had been so buoyant and excited about his nostalgia-fueled idea of going to the public pool on a summer day and teaching his husband to swim, dragging Mickey out of the house without a second thought, that he hadn’t realized it until now— Mickey was scared.

Ian swallowed down the grin that was threatening to overtake his face— one he knew that Mickey would immediately notice and hate, because he it drove him crazy when people gave him shit in vulnerable moments like this, when Mickey couldn’t do something. So instead Ian kept talking, hoping his chatter would loosen some of Mickey’s nerves.

“Didn’t you and your brothers ever go down to the other pool over on Trumbull?”

Mickey met Ian’s eyes then, raising an annoyed eyebrow. “Clearly not.”

And, okay. This was understandably bringing up some childhood shit. Ian tried to snap Mickey out of his head— he strode over to where Mickey was standing, a good six feet from the poolside, and snaked a hand onto the back of his neck, squeezing gently in what he hoped was a grounding and comforting touch that would drain the trepidation from Mickey’s defensive stance.

“One summer Debbie was so afraid of getting drowned at the public pool that she learned how to hold her breath for 4 minutes.” Ian grinned at the memory of Debbie dunking her head in a tub of water in the kitchen, making him and Lip time her. “Honestly, it was probably for the best you never went to the public pool. It was a shit show.”

Mickey scoffed, but the lightness was back in his eyes. “If I knew how to swim back in the day I probably woulda been the one doing the drowning.”

Ian barked out a laugh— and why did he immediately turn back into his 15-year-old self, with a god-awful crush on Mickey Milkovich, whenever Mick said shit like that? He pressed his lips into a smile, squeezing Mickey’s shoulder once more for good measure.

“Yeah, yeah. Okay, king of the Southside. You ready to get in the water?” Ian’s hand trailed down from its grasp on Mickey’s shoulderblades, dropping to encircle Mickey’s wrist and guide him towards the water.

Mickey immediately recoiled, yanking his hand from Ian’s hold and taking a step back, squinting and holding up a hand to block the bright rays of sun out of his eyes now that he wasn’t standing in Ian’s shadow.

“Fuck d’you mean? I’m not just gonna fucking hop in there and drown. You gotta show me what to do.”

Ian grinned again, without being able to hold it back. He knew what Mickey was like when he was afraid of something— defensive and grumbly and avoidant to touch. He rolled his eyes. “Can’t really teach you to swim when we’re not in the water, Mick. C’mon.”

Ian walked over to sit on the edge, then slid his torso down into the pool. The water was lukewarm and tepid, barely providing any relief from the sticky air— but it felt nice. Ian let out a little breath of relief from the heat as he waded over to the shallow end. Mickey was still standing by the mound of the towels the ground, watching him warily. Ian raised his eyebrows.

“You coming?”

Rolling his eyes, Mickey aggravatedly pulled off his shirt, tossing it behind him— sunrays bounced off of Mickey’s pale skin, owing mostly to the fact that Mickey had barely left the house in the last few weeks because of their prolonged “honeymoon.” He slowly walked to the very edge of the pool and, in a movement that made Ian’s heart grow ten sizes, hesitantly dipped a toe into the water like a cat trying to paw at something. A corner of Mickey’s mouth flickered downwards almost imperceptibly, a worry line sprouting on his forehead.

“I don’t know, man.”

Ian breathed out a laugh. Leave it to Mickey Milkovich, shit-talking king of the Southside, to be afraid of the shallow end of a public pool. Ian reached out a hand in what he hoped was a comforting gesture, still smiling like a sappy motherfucker at his painfully endearing husband.

“C’mon Mick, just stand here with me first.” Ian was waist-deep in the shallow end, the water pressing against his upper thighs— he knew that at this height the water would be at Mickey’s waist, right where his swim trunks met his hipbones.

Mickey’s brows furrowed from where he was still perched on the concrete lip of the pool ledge, his two feet firmly rooted. “Explain what I gotta do first. To swim, or whatever.”

Ian blew out a breath, still grinning like an idiot. “It’s not that hard, Mick. You just gotta circle your arms and circle your legs. But you have to get in the water first.”

Ian treaded over, pushing through the water to where he could rest his upper arms on the edge of the pool beside where Mickey was standing, staring up at him with what he hoped was a convincingly pleading face. Mickey’s eyes were still fixated on the water, lapping at the pool’s edge from where Ian had rippled through it. And suddenly Ian had an idea.

With a teasing grin, he reached a wet hand out from the water and encircled it around Mickey’s ankle, splattering the concrete with drops of water. Mickey immediately jerked like an electric shock had jolted through his body.

“You gonna come in, or do I have to make you?”

Mickey tried to shake his ankle out of Ian’s grasp, but Ian had hold of him with an iron fist. Mickey leaned over and tried to swat at Ian’s arm without losing his balance on the pool’s edge.

“Cut that shit out right now, Gallagher.”

Ian just grinned, squeezing Mickey’s ankle like he was about to tug him in. “Come on, Mick.”

Mickey’s eyes widened and, just as Ian had imagined he would— he started to freak the fuck out.

“Ian stop that shit right now, I swear to god I will fucking murder you if you—”

They were at the 6-foot marker in the pool, right where it was deep enough for Mickey to stand on the very tips of his toes; and with this knowledge, Ian tugged at Mickey’s calf— causing him to falter, his arms circling like a cartoon character before he lost his balance and crashed into the water on his side.

Ian immediately placed his hands on Mickey’s hips, standing him upright before his head even fell under the water— but Mickey was still sputtering and splashing, like the drama queen that he was. Once Mickey regained his composure and realized he was easily standing on the bottom of the pool, his head bobbing just above the water, he swiftly splashed healthy burst of water into Ian’s face, the chlorine stinging his eyes and nose.

“Fuck you, Gallagher!”

Ian coughed at the water that had shot up his nose, but immediately splashed Mickey back—and then, because there wasn’t any way this whole pool situation was going to go anyways, he and Mickey were immediately engaged in a life-and-death splash battle, circling each other in the middle section of the pool.

Ian was laughing so hard he felt a stitch in his side— and Mickey was finally grinning again, water dripping down his cheeks and clinging to his hair. After a few minutes Ian threw his hands in the air in surrender, the water cresting at his shoulders.

“Truce!”

Mickey splashed one more surge of water at Ian’s chest for good measure, grinning like a kid in a candy store— then he took a step closer to Ian, eyebrows raised.

“Truce.”

Ian beamed down at him, pressing a quick peck to the top of his damp hair. “Sorry for throwing you in the pool.”

Mickey rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah.”

“But in my defense, it had to happen eventually.”

Mickey shoved him squarely in the chest, taking a step back. “You ruined the fucking truce.”

Ian gave a smug smirk. “Do you wanna learn how to swim, or not?”

Mickey flicked another burst of water at him, just enough to cast a slew of droplets onto Ian’s cheeks. “Alright. Get coaching, Michael Phelps.”

Ian hadn’t really considered how he was actually going to teach Mickey to swim— but it couldn’t be that hard, right? He tried to think back to when Lip had taught him how to tread water, on an equally as sweltering day in the backyard pool, when the yard was packed with lawn chairs and drunk neighbors and smelled of ashy barbeque smoke.

“Okay. So you’ve gotta move your arms in circles, kinda, to stay floating. And your legs too.”

Ian swam over to the deeper end of the pool, just an arm’s length away from where he and Mickey’s feet could touch, and tried to demonstrate how to tread water. “I feel like the easiest way for you to learn is just by doing it. C’mere.”

Mickey looked at him reluctantly, brows furrowed again in an outward display of his bundled nerves. “No fucking way.”

Ian sighed in exasperation. “C’mon, Mick. I’ve got you. I’m not gonna let you drown, you can hold on to me the whole time.”

Mickey raised an eyebrow— but then hesitantly took a step towards Ian, the water reaching up to the bottom of his chin.

“Alright, good. Now step where you can’t reach and try to tread water like I did.”

Mickey stepped forward again, then started to circle his arms under the water— and he was doing great, for a second, before he seemed to get too in his head about the mechanics and started to grit his teeth.

“Little help here, Gallagher?”

Ian grinned and stepped forward. “Here, you can hang onto me.” He stood where Mickey could reach and grab onto his shoulders if he needed to— but Mickey seemed to regain his confidence, and was starting to steadily, if a little bit clumsily, tread water.

He kept it up for a while, until Ian could see that he was overexerting himself— waving his arms under the water with a little too much gusto, brows furrowed and his teeth digging into his lower lip in concentration.

“Mick, you’ve got it. Chill out for a sec.”

Ian reached an arm out, a branch for Mickey to grab on to— because he had been joking before, yes, but he really didn’t want Mickey to fucking drown— and when Mickey grasped onto it, Ian pulled Mickey towards him in the water, kicking backwards so they were suspended in the deeper end of the pool with Mickey clinging to Ian’s neck.

Mickey looked nervous as Ian veered them towards deeper waters, his eyes darting from side to side where they were floating, his fingers digging into the back of Ian’s neck— and Ian smirked at how freaked out he seemed, standing only a few feet from where they could both confidently stand on the tiled pool bottom. But Mickey didn’t resist, or try to propel himself back into the shallower waters— he let himself cling on to Ian, fingers interlaced behind the tops of Ian’s shoulders, as he kept them afloat. Ian laughed softly in a warm, wet gust across Mickey’s cheek. “You okay?”

He could feel the heat radiating off of Mickey’s body, squeezing up close against him— and Ian couldn’t help it, the wave of fondness that came over him as he looked down at where Mickey was pressed against his chest; trusting Ian to keep them above the water, trusting Ian enough to go along with his stupid plan to teach him to swim in a public pool on a random morning just because Ian wanted to. Ian couldn’t help but feel warmth in his stomach at this simple moment, at the two of them bobbing in the pool— at teaching his husband to swim, something Mickey’d never gotten to do as a kid but something that they had the rest of their lives to do together.

“Maybe we could teach Franny to swim next summer. If we have our own place.”

As he said it, Ian hoped that Mickey could see the flood of hopes that he had for them in his eyes— that he wanted a place with a pool, and a balcony, maybe a backyard, and maybe even a fucking garden—he’d always wanted to grow tomatoes. More than anything he wanted to build something sturdy, that could stand up to whatever ground would inevitably shift beneath them in the years to come— he’d been thinking about that a lot these days, especially with all of the pandemic shit that had pulled a rug out from under this entire neighborhood.

Mickey’s gaze flickered up from where it had been boring a panicky hole in Ian’s sternum, meeting Ian’s eyes at the phrase “our own place”— and Ian instantly knew that he got it, that he could see the dreams that Ian was building for the two of them right in front of their eyes. That after months and years of obstacles and chaos and other voices infiltrating their heads, now it was just them— now it was just Ian and Mickey, clinging to each other and drifting through the calm, chlorinated waters.

And maybe it was their proximity, or the intensity Ian knew he was pouring out in his gaze, but instantly the air between them shifted as Mickey looked up— starting to hang heavy like the press of the humidity in the air. Their faces were centimeters apart— and Mickey’s lips parted slightly, his eyes now cast downward at Ian’s lips. Ian could smell the sweet, warm beer on Mickey’s breath, mingling with his own; he looked at Mickey, whose arms were still wrapped around his neck, water dripping down his face from the hair that was fanning over his forehead—and Ian just had to pull him in, had to place a hand in the damp hair at the nape of Mickey’s neck and tug him closer, backing them against the tiled wall of the pool.

Ian could taste the faintest bitterness of chlorine on Mickey’s lips, from the water droplets lingering there, as he took Mickey’s bottom lip between his teeth. Mickey’s hands were still limply wrapped around Ian’s neck, keeping himself afloat— even though Ian had backed them against a wall in the shallow end of the pool again, and Mickey could probably touch his toes to the ground if he wanted to.

Ian raised his hand from under the water, wanting Mickey closer— he pressed a hand to the side of Mickey’s neck, slick with water, and slid a thumb over Mickey’s collarbone, pressing down with the pad of his fingers.

And Mickey gave a little involuntary noise from the back of his throat, sending a jolt down Ian’s spine.

Ian’s hands circling Mickey’s neck was definitely not a foreign concept while they were kissing— it was something they did a lot these days, especially as their hours in bed had taken a turn from the crazed, I-missed-your-body-so-fucking-much sex they were having in the beginning days of being in prison together and those early months after Mickey had gotten released— but both in prison and during this fucking quarantine, they’d gotten a bit more experimental, and a bit more reckless—especially before Ian had gotten his warehouse job and they were still on their structureless “honeymoon,” spending entire days lounging in bed.

It was those days of lazy, languid kisses, after years and years of already knowing each other, that Ian realized that he was maybe a little bit obsessed with Mickey’s neck. He’d always joked about liking Mickey’s legs, and that was true too (if he was being honest, there wasn’t a part of Mickey’s body that didn’t make his blood run hotter)— but the first time Mickey had grabbed Ian’s hand and put it up to his neck while they were tangled together, pressing down until Ian’s hand covered most of his throat, Ian knew that they’d opened Pandora’s fucking box.

By this point, Ian’s hand was pretty much always on Mickey’s neck at some point while they were fucking or even just making out— if he was being totally honest, Ian’s hand was on Mickey’s neck more often than not in lots of contexts these days, once they realized how much they both loved it. But there was something about this current moment, of Mickey wantonly desiring a point of contact there, right now, while they were very randomly and decidedly making out while floating in a public pool on a lazy weekday afternoon, that made Ian’s blood run hotter than usual, and rush quicker through his veins.

Ian let the pads of his fingers creep up the velvet skin of the side of Mickey’s neck, pressing a little deeper, a prelude— he could feel the vibration of Mickey’s heartbeat starting to flutter from where Mickey was still pressed against his chest, still clinging to his neck in the water.

They’d already extensively discussed limits and everything, Mickey would tap his wrist twice if shit got too intense— but even with that in mind, Ian pulled apart from Mickey for a second, trailing ghosts of kisses up the side of his neck and nipping at the underside of Mickey’s jaw. Mickey stretched his neck back and gave a little involuntary sputter of a moan, bubbling out of his mouth before he could stop it. He fisted a hand in Ian’s hair, at the nape of his neck, and leaned forward again to press their lips together with more fervor.

Ian pulled back again, his upper back resting against the concrete lip of the pool. Mickey looked disheveled and wrecked, half-dry chlorine-crusted hair sticking up from where Ian’s other hand had been cradling the back of his head, his blue eyes gleaming and catching the over-bright summer light. Mickey was still clinging his arms around Ian’s neck, holding on— they were in a fucking pool, and Mickey still couldn’t really fucking swim yet— and even though they were standing in a place where Mickey’s toes could certainly touch the ground, the whole thing felt weirdly insular and intimate, like they had to cling to each other.

Mickey raised his eyebrows at Ian, like he was daring him to keep going.

Ian leaned forward, breathing heavily into Mickey’s mouth, but not pressing their lips together yet—and he reached a hand up again, against Mickey’s tender skin. Mickey’s legs were wrapped around Ian’s hips now, locked like a vice to keep himself upright in the water— and he pressed a little harder, gently pulsing at the sides of Mickey’s neck, in tandem with their lips pressing together over and over again as the warm waters surrounded them—the whole thing, the whole combination, made Ian feel indescribably floaty and weird and warm and blissed out; his skin stinging like ice and fire at every point of contact, electricity zapping his nerve endings wherever his fingertips met Mickey’s skin. Mickey fisted his hand harder at the back of Ian’s hair, nodding slightly—and they were definitely not going to fuck here, in the filth of a Southside public pool, but this insular closeness, the knowing what they both wanted to right now, was equally as thrilling and fulfilling to Ian in the moment. He could almost feel his own heart beating, reverberating as it pressed against Mickey’s chest, vibrating straight through Mickey and back to him as they clung to each other in the water.

Mickey’s body was thrumming, letting out little gasps of breath between kisses and touches—and Ian pulled back and dragged his lips down the side of Mickey’s neck, inhaling the sunwarmed skin. Fuck. He was never, never going to get enough of this.

Later, they’d dragged their water-heavy limbs back through the still summer streets to the Gallagher house, their skin pink and their bodies exhausted from soaking up the sun— and they’d collapsed into bed, feeling the dried chlorine coating their skin.

Ian reached a hand up, rubbing a thumb over Mickey’s cheek, their bodies pliant and fatigued— and pressed a kiss to his forehead.

“Thanks for letting me teach you how to swim.”

Mickey had smirked. “Yup, that was definitely the only highlight of today. Swimming.”

#a fluffy premise AND ian being obsessed with mickey’s neck??#what more could u want #*blows kiss to elias and stella* for u #also yes i did have a word document on my computer titled ‘neck fic’#what about it #ty for the prompt anon this was truly an experience to write #ily<3 #gallavich #gallavich fic #shameless #shameless imagine #ian gallagher #mickey milkovich #ian and mickey #ian x mickey #ixm #gallavich fanfiction #cw choking

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muertawrites · 4 years ago

Text

Fireside (Zuko x Reader)

Word Count: 1,775

Author’s Note: I am so deeply sorry this took so long to post. I don’t know what happened but after Thanksgiving the creative part of my brain completely shut down and all I could do was lay in bed and play video games. But it’s back now so 🎉🎉🎉 happy new year to all of us!

I got this request a WHILE ago and had written something else for it but after reconsidering, I totally hated it, so this is the rewrite for some cozy, wintery goodness. I also love this idea because I’m constantly cold - my feet and hands are always freezing and even in summer I’ll wear sweaters and hoodies because aircon can get pretty chilly when you have the body temp of your average vampire.

Now for a little update: in the new year, I’ll be focusing more on original works than fanfiction. I’m still going to finish Two Halves, and I’ll still write fanfiction (because it’s still super fun) but I have so many ideas for original works that are taking over my brain that it seems only fitting to shift that direction. If you’re on my subscriber list and would like to only receive alerts for fanfic, let me know and I’ll add you to a separate list.

I hope you’re all having a wonderful holiday, taking time to relax and spend time with loved ones, and generally just glad to have survived this shithole of a year. Here’s hoping that 2021 goes better - 2020 set the bar pretty low so it shouldn’t be too hard. 🥂

Snow was a rare occurrence in the Fire Nation. Summers typically scorched, followed by peaceful autumns and mild winters; a little rainfall was all one typically expected during the colder months in the Imperial City.

This year, however, was much different. The mountains that bordered the villages and towns throughout the island were white capped under gray skies; streets were slickened by thick layers of ice that settled between cobblestones and creased the panes of windows; bracing breezes swept through landscapes unaccustomed to such unforgiving weather, carrying flurries of snow that bit at cheeks and cloaked the world in a dull ivory veil. Winter came to the Fire Nation seeking a cruel, unwarranted vengeance.

You woke in the middle of the night to find the fire beside your bed had died, leaving your borrowed room in a state of bitter, slicing cold. It wasn't the first time the Firelord’s palace had left you uncomfortably chilled since your arrival for his New Year’s celebrations, as the building was never meant to withstand this type of climate - sweeping ceilings, open breezeways, and tall windows with thin shutters ensured that the cold had its way. Being from the Northern Earth Kingdom, used to sturdy wooden lodges with massive fire pits that could burn an entire tree trunk with one lighting, this strange change of the typical season made you ache for home.

Knowing there were no matches beside the hearth (given the sheer amount of fire benders that resided in the palace), you gathered up your courage and begrudgingly rolled from your mattress, taking the blankets with and wrapping them tightly around yourself. The walls around you creaked, shifting under the push of moaning winds, as you slipped into the hallway in search of your host.

You were thankful that Zuko decided to keep his personal wing of the palace confined to a space that was mostly enclosed; the only breezeways in this part of the sprawling estate surrounded its courtyards and gardens, and were blocked by sets of heavy wood doors that shielded the inner parts of the building from being overcome by the elements. As you walked, traipsing through the corridor under your mound of blankets like some sort of shadowy, death-bringing phantom, you passed one of the windows that overlooked the gardens, and found it frosted under heavy white tufts of snow; puffy, clumped flakes whirled down from the sky, falling haphazardly as they escaped the grip of the whipping wind. Even in the relative warmth of the palace, your body shivered thinking of how frigid the air outside must be.

Because of the abnormal cold, Zuko moved his mattress out of his bedroom and into his sitting room, where a large, decorative fireplace stood nestled into the far wall. You approached his sleeping form with gentle, quiet steps, being careful not to startle him; you lay a hand on his shoulder and he jolted awake, drawing a sharp breath in as he twisted to face you, blinking blearily to make out your features in the dark.

“What are you doing?” he muttered.

“I'm cold,” you whispered in response. “My fire went out.”

Zuko sighed, fixing you with an irked, exhausted expression.

“Seriously?” he groaned. “This is the third time this week.”

“It's not my fault nobody has any friggin matches in this place,” you quipped. “And besides, why bring a servant all the way up here when I have one of the world’s greatest fire benders down the hall?”

Zuko huffed, then rolled back over in an attempt to shove you off.

“There should be more blankets in your closet,” he grumbled.

“I'm wearing all of them,” you retorted.

You stood above him, waiting, but got no response. Shivering, and with an exasperated sigh, you pulled back the blankets around him, shuffling between them and nestling into his back; he snapped his head around once more, eyeing you suspiciously.

“... Isn’t this a little uncomfortable?” he wondered.

“Not really,” you replied. “We used to do this all the time when we were teenagers.”

“We haven't done this since we were teenagers.”

You hummed, recalling your time together during the war. Even on the hottest days, your body was cold, your fingers always reasonably corpselike to anyone who happened to touch them - Zuko was one of those unfortunate people, and the lack of circulation in your limbs came as quite a worry to him. Throughout the day, he would take one of your hands in his, heating his palm until your skin took on a more lively temperature. When he noticed how much you layered at night when the air became cooler, he started sleeping nearer to you, eventually curling up around you to keep you warm. After the war, when he got into the habit of visiting you around the winter holidays, you still found yourself seeking him for warmth, tucking your hands into the sleeves of his robes or curling his palm around your icy fingers, finding sanctuary in the way he heated his skin to appease you. While it was true you hadn't slept together since you were younger, you hadn't ever needed to - desperate times called for desperate measures.

“I should have remembered that you get so grumpy when you're tired,” you teased him, rubbing your feet against his; he hissed, but didn't pull away.

“You're freezing,” he commented. “I should have remembered you're dead on the inside.”

You giggled, sighing happily as the familiar heat of his skin warming like a furnace chased the chill from your toes. You slid your feet up along his ankles, causing him to shiver; his body tensed for a moment, then eased into your touch, quickly finding comfort in its familiarity.

“Aang used to assume we were a couple because of this,” Zuko mumbled. “He still does.”

“You're just a good friend,” you replied. You nuzzled your face into the broad, solid expanse of his back, breathing in his scent of scorched wood and sea salt. He felt like home. “Good friends don't let their friends freeze to death.”

Zuko chuckled, taking hold of your hands that lay on his waist and cupping them within his own; he held your knuckles up to his mouth and huffed warm, smokey air onto them, heating them until they no longer felt cold. He tucked them beneath the fabric of his tunic, keeping them tepid between the fabric of his undershirt.

“Uncle says the same thing,” he mused. “He says we treat each other like lovers, whether we realize it or not.”

“My neighbors have asked me what my husband does that takes him away for so long out of the year...” you commented, eliciting another breathy laugh from your companion. “But I think I'd know if you were in love with me.”

Zuko rolled over, turning to face you; his arm latched at your waist, his chest almost pressed to you and your noses grazing each other in the small space of his mattress. You blushed, the color blending with the soft, balmy glow of the low hearth behind him.

“What makes you think I'm not in love with you?” he wondered.

You paused, watching the flames flicker over the angular features of his face. Though he was silhouetted, and so close he seemed to envelop all of you, you could make out a tender gleam in his eye; could feel the flutter in his chest as he split it open, tentatively revealing his heart to you.

“... I'd like to think you would have mentioned it,” you answered after a moment, “but I know you better than that.”

Zuko grinned; you watched the curve of his cheek as it swelled with the action.

“I might have mentioned it,” he murmured, his voice lilting with a gentle mirth. “Just not to you.”

“Of course not,” you teased. You mirrored his smile, easing into him as his foot began to stroke against your ankle once more. ��Either way, I know you don't love me.”

“And why is that?” Zuko whispered.

“Well… you never write to me about anything exciting,” you replied. “You always seem so content to write to me about your thoughts, or what plays you've seen recently, or your conversations with Iroh. You never tell me about the impressive, world-altering Firelord stuff or your incredible exploits as a warrior.”

Zuko smirked, raising a hand to brush some hair away from your face. His fingers were calloused and lukewarm, tracing over your temple with consideration and care.

“Why else?”

“You've never tried to kiss me,” you noted, “or touch me like a lover. You never try to push our boundaries past anything that's comfortable for us. Even right now - I'm laying in your bed, but you refuse to touch me in a way you're unsure of.”

“Then you don't love me, either,” Zuko added. His body had gravitated flush to yours, your legs braided together under the pile of blankets you'd buried him in. “You only want to sleep with me when you're cold. You could just as easily call a servant for help.”

“And you only want to keep me warm out of obligation,” you agreed. “It wouldn’t make you look very good if I died of hypothermia on your watch.”

For a long moment, Zuko gazed at you. You basked in his silence, the easiness of his form so close to yours, the native feeling of his arm around your waist and his breath tickling your cheeks. The fire snapped quietly in its hearth, its flames rising and falling in time with his inhales and exhales.

“I’ve missed this,” Zuko admitted in a whisper. “Laying with you. I wish we could do it more often.”

“I’ve missed it, too,” you affirm. “I always used to sleep better with you.”

“And that’s it?” Zuko teased.

“That’s it,” you giggled back.

He chanced a kiss to your forehead, pressing his lips between your brows and letting them linger there, savoring the coolness of your skin. You shut your eyes, giving yourself entirely to his touch.

“In the new year… do you think we could be lovers?” he asked as he pulled away.

“... I think your uncle is right,” you murmured. “I think we already are.”

With a faint, bashful smile, Zuko pulled you closer (if the act were even possible), hugging you tightly to him; you held him close, pressing the whole of your body to his and soaking in his steady, comforting warmth. As the wind howled outside, shaking the flimsy wooden eaves of the feeble shelter around you, you fell asleep in the heat of his fireside, safe in the knowledge that his arms held you.

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cinnamonrusts · 4 years ago

Text

together, we can make it out alive - 1

[a/n: originally posted on my Ao3 and I decided to revamp my series some with my updated writing techniques. Hope you enjoy.]

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*BEEPBEEP BEEPBEEP*

The electronic chimes from your alarm clock blared loudly in your ear. Groans escaped your dry throat as the clock stirred you from your slumber, "Not yet--," your hand fished for the large snooze button on the top of the clock. Five more minutes, that is all you would need. Well, five minutes came and once again the alarm beeped in your ear. Your eyelids slowly lifted as you read the blurry red digits that stared in your face. "3:45 PM", it read. "Shit..." you cursed as you knew that you needed to get up and get around for your nightshift turn.

Your legs swung around the edge of your bed as you stretched with a loud yawn. Daylight peaked in through your blinds and shined directly into your eyes, "I really need some black out curtains," you mumbled to yourself as you made a mental note. This was just your daily routine now. You slept in the morning after getting off work from the Raccoon City Police Department and woke up around 3:00 PM. Ate, exercised, showered, and relaxed all before you pushed pencils on the clock at your desk.

Don't get it wrong. It was a job and you were thankful, but your duties weren't exactly what you expected them to be after the headache that was the police academy. You didn't hate your job, you just didn't -- like it. Also, you really fucking hated Raccoon City. It was not the same place that you remembered as a kid, not to mention all the weird things that had been going on lately. You just really wanted out of there. Maybe go to a warmer city... like Los Angeles or something.

You pushed yourself to a stand and turned around on the balls of your feet to head to the bathroom. When you reached the shower, you turned on the faucet and ran your fingers under the warm water. Just as it reached the perfect temperature, your phone rang. You ignored it and waited for the voicemail to pick up. But it just rang again.

"I'm coming! I'm coming!" you yelled at the telephone as you stomped through your apartment to the device on the wall. "Hello?" you answered.

A familiar, yet unwelcomed voice barked from the other end of the line. "[L/N]! Where the hell are you?!" It was Lt. Branagh. "Home. My shift doesn't start until 10." your eyes rolled as you pinched the bridge of your nose. "Get your ass over to the station! We've had reports all day of violent attacks all over the damn city!" He couldn't be serious -- it was 6 hours now until your shift! "I don't come in until--," Branagh cut you off, "I expect to see you soon, [L/N]." the call ended.

You kicked the open moving box that sat in front of you in anger. It flipped onto its side and the contents spilled out onto the floor. It was a bunch of papers that you failed to file away and as you picked them up, you noted a familiar picture on top of the mess. The photo displayed two very recognizable faces that had smiles displayed happily.

You and Leon S. Kennedy.

He was your partner in crime during the police academy. Leon was the only one who didn't see you being a woman as a weakness. The two of you hit it off immediately after he introduced himself and complimented your skills.

On top of your heads were colorful party hats that seemed to be a bit too small. Both of your arms were slinked around his shoulders as you pulled him in for a close hug. His right hand was rested on your waist and the left held up a large mug of beer that was about to spill out onto the floor. Your thumb caressed the image of his handsome face and a smirk spread across your lips. You flipped the picture over and in faded pen was your handwriting: "Graduation Celebration! JULY '98"

Leon crossed your mind often. The two of you lost contact with one another after something happened between the two of you. It was as if that party happened yesterday -- the night that he kissed you. Your eyes closed and you could picture Leon's face perfectly - the way that his lips puckered and the way that they felt.

The two of you stood outside of the bar on that warm summer night. Leon was leaned against his shitty blue car that was wrapped in faded paint and rust. You stood in front of him with your arms crossed and your eyes focused on the clear sky that hovered above. Then the sensation of fingers over your skin drew your attention from the sky, to the man. Your gazes locked and his lids were half shut but a smile was on his lips. "Leon, you're drunk, aren't you?" you chuckled. His fingers wrapped around your bicep, "Maybe," he cooed as he brought you close to him. You could feel and smell his breath, it was warm and stunk heavy of booze.

With his free hand, he moved it to your cheek and tickled it lightly with his knuckle. Your [E/C] eyes stared deep into his moonstone ones, Leon's pupils dilated before they closed. His lips met yours. They were smooth but a bit chapped - he must be an avid user of Chapstick, you thought. The kiss was quick but meaningful. When he pulled away, you grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled him in for another. When the two of you broke apart, you noted the way those moonstone pools in his head looked at you -- you could get lost in them -- forever.

The fond memories brought warmth to your heart that you lost the track of time. Pounds from beneath you interrupted your reminiscence. Your neighbor below screamed through the floorboards. "Hey, you fucking idiot! Stop using all the hot water! You're not the only one who fucking lives here!" he continued to pound and yell. "Shut up, you fuck!" you screamed back as you scrambled to your feet. Your clothing was stripped from your body as you dashed to the shower, and jumped directly into the lukewarm stream.

You knew that Branagh was most likely boiled over in anger because of how late you were already. Once you finished your shower, you pulled on your police uniform, styled your hair into a neat bun, grabbed a bagel, and ran out the door. Your car was parked pretty far down the road and rain began to fall from the sky. What a perfect start to the day. You shoved the bagel into your mouth and dashed for your car. The key slipped in your hands as you fiddled with them to get the door unlocked. Just as you grabbed the correct one, they fell onto the ground and so did your bagel.

"I've already had enough of today," you cursed and sighed to yourself as you bent over to pick them up. When you stood back up, a woman came from nowhere and threw herself onto you. She cried in panic and spoke incoherently. You noted the large wound on her shoulder and blood was seeped heavily into her shirt. "P-Please! Help me!" she grabbed onto your shirt with blood stained hands. "Ma'am!" you yelled and pushed her off of you for your own safety. She stumbled back and fell to her knee, "Let me call an ambulance!" you started to run to a nearby pay phone but she stopped you with a stutter that it was too late. "There's more of them!" her head turned in the direction of an alley to the left, then she took off from the ground in a haste. "Ma'am, wait!" you yelled as you watched her run away around the corner and into the city.

"Who's coming?" you whispered. With curiosity, you walked toward the alley that the woman had looked down but saw no one. Maybe she was one of the crazy people that were noted to be around the city and around the Arklays... If you saw her again, you'd probably call in some backup... the crazy look in her eyes... it unsettled you. You managed to shake the image of them from your mind and focused on getting out of the rain.

As you walked back to your car, you noticed the red stains that were now stained into your uniform. Whatever. You would worry about it after you made it to work. Once you got into your car, the radio started talking about more and more unrest that had spread more and more through the streets. Your finger pressed the power off, "Enough of that." the news was just the same and you just knew that you had to deal with it first hand once you arrived at the station, it just made it worse.

In front of the parking garage for the RPD were several cars that seemed to have been in an accident. Your car couldn't go any further than where you were at, so you hopped out of the vehicle to walk the rest of the way. People dashed around the streets in a panic and it seemed as if it were the apocalypse. You tried to flag people down to stop them but they all ignored you. What the hell is going on?! When you entered the station, there was even more chaos. Officers ran around like wild and some seemed to be injured as well. You felt anxious and confused by everything that was going on. What had gone on in your brief time away?

Phones rang, people yelled, doors slammed, and everything soon overwhelmed you, you could feel yourself going into an overload. But a strong hand on your shoulder was a saving grace. "There you are, [L/N]!" it was Branagh and a brief look of relief washed across his face. "I left a stack of paperwork on your desk. Sort through it and then you're going out on patrol. Some crazy shit is going down..." he gave you a light push in the direction of your desk.

As you walked to the back of the office, you noticed the banner that was spread across the ceiling in blue and yellow.

"WELCOME LEON"

Your heart pumped in your chest and you could feel your skin begin to turn clammy. There was only one Leon that you know of that was a cop. The man that you shared a kiss with and so many more feelings... Leon -- Kennedy? Was he actually on his way here? He always told you that after the academy he would eventually come find you in the city and be your partner again. You thought that it was just a joke -- but now, it didn't seem that way. How could he come here without saying anything to you? No call? No email? Nothing?

Your eyes remained on the banner and you asked your co-worker who sat on the desk beneath it, "Hey, Rita. Who's this, Leon?" She didn't look up from her desk, "I dunno. Some new guy from out of town. Last name starts with a K or something like that. Ask Neil, I'm sure he knows." You could feel a knot in your stomach and you darted to your chair. The desk that was across from you was normally piled high with boxes of paperwork, but now it was cleared off. You leaned over the divider and snatched the piece of paper on the desk. Your eyes darted across the text:

"Leon S. Kennedy, we're putting you on a very special case for your first assignment. Your mission is to... unlock your desk! The key to your success is in the initials of our first names."

The note confirmed it. It was indeed that Leon. You plopped back into your seat and gnawed on the nail of your thumb. Your thoughts were now consumed as to how both Leon and yourself would react when he arrived. You could see it now...

He would laugh with the other officers as they shot the shit with him. He would be in the center of the group, they would slap him on the back and tell him how happy they were to have him on the force. His gaze would eventually land on you and he would excuse himself from them. Leon would smile and show off his perfect teeth. He'd saunter over and slowly shake his head, "I didn't expect to see you here, [F/N]."

You swallowed hard but your thoughts were interrupted when the sounds of glass shattered right outside of the office's door.

The chatter and hubbub in the office halted as everyone's attention turned toward the door. An officer who wasn't much older than you rushed toward the noise, he couldn't make out exactly what it was from behind the glass of the door but drew his gun in preparation. He looked back at the office filled with you and your co-workers before opening the door slowly. "Hello?" he called out. His gun was pointed out into the hallway but found that there was nothing there. Then a sound of something you had never heard before or ever would forget echoed loudly in the empty hall.

It sounded like a monster, there was no other way to explain it. It pierced through your ears and then the sounds of the officer's shrieks shook your core. A loud gurgle erupted from his throat as he was tackled by a person onto the floor. This - person, dug their teeth deeply into his throat and proceeded to rip it out. Bright, red liquid sprayed from the wound across the floor. Two male officers threw themselves onto the assailant and tried their hardest to pull him off but soon were attacked as well. Gunshots blasted off in the office which then were accompanied by more sounds of broken glass. The assailant dropped dead beside the officers on the floor and everyone exchanged glances of pure terror.

"More are out there!" yelled Branagh as he held his weight against the door to stop any more of these "people" from killing everyone his subordinates. "Pistols aren't going to keep us alive for much longer," Rita cried out. "But Irons insisted we hide everything else away, remember!?" your fellow officers shouted at each other as tension rose - fear and panic began to set in.

"I know where some are," you piped up. "I have the keycard for the weapons locker," you reached into your shirt pocket and pulled out a white, plastic card. "Perks of being the newbie, I guess. I'll go." you walked toward the back door but stopped when Branagh barked at you, "You can't go alone!" You shook your head, "I will be right back, I promise." you disregarded his arguments and with a deep breath, opened the door and took off on your mission.

The hall was dark and quiet, the electricity must had been cut out in this section of town. You swallowed hard and with your pistol in on hand with the flashlight in the other, you took quiet yet brisk strides down the long stretch of hallway. All you could hear was the sounds of your bootsteps and the groans of those things that lurked just outside of the fences that kept the building somewhat safe. You needed these guns, no matter what. Or you and your co-workers would end up just like those officers - dead. Your breathing was heavy and your heart raced which could be felt in your skull, "Easy girl," you spoke out, "Just a few doors and you'll be there."

Time was not on your side, so you took off in a sprint. The feeling of being so vulnerable next to a stretch of windows worried you as you could fall victim to whatever those things were at any time. They weren't exactly "things" they looked human and most likely were but maybe they were deranged with some sort of illness. But nonetheless, they were dangerous and deadly... Just as you feared, one of them crashed through the window. Their greedy palms reached for you over the broken glass and managed to snag you by your hair. You screamed in pain and terror as their strength pulled you in but when you pulled away, you only pulled them closer. Your pistol flew from your hands and slid across the floor, too far for you to reach.

Their bloody jaws snapped as they tried their hardest to sink their teeth into your soft flesh. You could feel their breath on your skin and you struggled but could feel your strength giving way to theirs. There was only one thing you could do and it was to grab the knife that was attached to the side of your right leg. Your fingertips were just barely able to reach the handle but with one quick lunge of your body, you grabbed hold of the weapon. The desire to survive charged your strength and you began to saw through the strands of your hair that were gripped tight in the clutches of the creature. Tears poured down the sides of your face as you sawed through the strands that were the barrier between you and certain death.

The creature was now halfway over the window and their hand still had your [h/c] hair in between their fingers, jaws still snapped at you as they begged to taste your flesh. You scrambled on all fours as you attempted to gather yourself so that you could press on. Your foot slipped on a large piece of broken glass which sent you across the floor, you then landed onto a large chunk of broken glass. The sharp piece embedded itself deep into your knee and you cried in pain as you held your leg close to your chest. The creature dug its nails into the tile floor and started to crawl toward you with dead eyes, and bloody teeth. You took several deep breaths as you prepared to yank the glass from your leg and with one last deep inhale, you yanked it out. You cried in pain but knew that you had to keep going, your muscle burned as it now was exposed to the air. You made sure to grab your pistol from the floor before you continued on.

Your sprint was now resorted to a quick limp but you managed to make it to the locker room. To your dismay, it was mostly empty besides a couple of shotguns and some ammunition. "Fuck! Fuck! This isn't enough!" you screamed as you pounded your fist against one of the lockers. Inside one of the open lockers was a weapons bag which you were able to fill with the lackluster amount of supplies. As you zipped up the bag, the metal door to the room opened and the sound drew your attention. Your pistol was ready and you limped around the corner to hide behind a row of lockers to hide from who or whatever it was. The room was dark but a flashlight flipped around the room, whoever it was, they were there to look for those guns or you. Your thumb slowly pulled the hammer back on the weapon and rounded the corner, "Stop right there!" you yelled.

It was a man and he seemed to be normal for the most part. He complied and raised his arms in the air. "Turn around!" Again, he complied and did a slow 180. Through the faint glow of his flashlight, your eyes caught a glimpse of a set of familiar moonstone pools.

"[Y/N]?!" his voice raised in shock. The entire city was faced with an apocalypse scenario or even the whole world for all you knew and the one person you run into is Leon -- Leon Kennedy.

He dropped his arms and grabbed hold of your, then pulled you into a tight hug. Leon smelled of sweat and cologne, the very cologne that you bought for him as a graduation gift. You breathed him in as it registered to you that this was real, he was really here. But you pulled away, "Leon, we have no time for chit chat. We gotta get moving, people need these guns!" you pointed to the bag that sat on the floor by your feet. As you tried to throw it over your shoulder, you winced in pain. "Here, let me get it." Leon attempted to take it from your hand but you paused before you surrendered the precious cargo, "I can trust you with this, right?" your grip was tight on the strap, "When have you ever doubted me?" he asked with a smile, "You don't want to know that..." your grip released as you responded but also pointed the fact that your leg was injured.

"Sorry to be a liability," you apologized, but Leon pulled you to his side, "Nonsense. I got this and you, just keep an eye out for zombies."

You led Leon down the hallway that you had your close brush with death in, the zombie, as Leon called it, was now gone. But when the two of you reached the door to the office, it was eerily quiet. Not a good sign. You pushed the door open to find the office void of any life, nothing but blood. Lots and lots of blood. Your heart hurt as you felt a pain in your chest, was everyone dead? The lifeless body of Rita laid on the floor with her eyes opened, her brown orbs were absent of the vibrant life she once had.

Tears welled in your eyes but as you turned to flee, you bumped into Leon's chest. A look of horror on Leon's face matched yours, "I-I left them not even an hour ago..." you cried into his shirt for a moment as he held you lightly with one arm. When you pulled away, you wiped your eyes and Leon took your hand from your face.

"I'm happy you're alive, [Y/N]," you examined your matured features and you did his. His hair grew a little longer than when you had seen him last and he examined your frazzled locks. Just as you opened your mouth to speak, a door behind Leon opened and shut. A man walked out from the shadows and into the light, it was Branagh. He held onto his side and you could see he was injured with his shirt heavily stained with what was most likely his blood.

Leon pulled his pistol out and pointed it at your superior while he had a protective hand on your arm. Branagh coughed a wheezed laugh and shooed his gun out of his face. He looked over to you and smiled, "Good to see you're still breathing, [Y/N]." The Lieutenant approached your male companion and placed a bloody hand on his shoulder,

"You must be Leon Kennedy -- well, son, welcome to Raccoon City."

#resident evil #resident evil 2 #resident evil fanfic #leon kennedy x reader #leon s kennedy x reader #leon x reader #leon kennedy #leon s kennedy #resident evil x reader #ao3 original

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