#the sun is literally rising and I need to sleep before any more light gets in this room

[flonkertn]

𝐑𝐀𝐅𝐄 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐍𝐒

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 : rafe cameron x reader

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 : pure fluff, proofread like once so apologies for any mistakes!

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 : 1.5k

𝐚/𝐧 : this is my first time publishing any writing so feedback would be greatly appreciated!! these hcs are mostly fanon!rafe but i tried to incorporate some of his canon traits. for the most part, i just wrote about scenarios/pieces that came to mind and sprinkled in some of my own fantasies (also that butterfly took so damn long i nearly gave up)

𖡼 he hates the fact that you work, it’s not that he values tradition, but he longs so desperately to provide for you, to take you away from the stress of your job and have you relax at home all day. he wishes he could come home after a long day and find you curled up on the sofa, asleep or covered in a blanket watching a show or cooking a meal for you both and feeding him a spoonful to make sure it tastes just right. he begs you to quit work and let him care for you and treat you all day every day by simply letting you do nothing.

𖡼 when you do have a bad day at work, he’s devastated (but also very smug). he runs you a bath and slowly takes off your clothes, wiping your tears as he does so if it’s been an especially unpleasant day. he sits you in the tub and tells you to wait, bringing in a bottle of wine or champagne (or just straight vodka who knows) and lighting a candle before quickly stripping off and sinking into water. he pulls your legs up so that they rest on his body and rubs your feet whilst you tell him about your day, having you let all your emotions out here and now, nodding along and chipping in with a “i know, baby” or a “i’m so sorry, love”

𖡼 he loves surfing and any other water sports, he just needs to be on the sand and by the ocean, but he knows that you sometimes aren’t in the mood for something so thrilling or dangerous. so there’s days where he takes you down to the beach, playing with your hair as you read a book leant against a palm tree and constantly asking if you’re thirsty or hungry, running off to get you anything you mention before you can even finish the word. as the sun sets he gets a paddle board, sitting on the edge and rowing through the soft waves as you lie down in front of him, head plush on his lap as the sun hits your back, perfectly highlighting the drops of water that have found their way onto your skin.

𖡼 he hums, like all the time. it doesn’t matter what he’s doing, wether he’s pottering about or cooking or literally just walking down the corridor, he’s humming a tune. it’s so soft and quiet that you can’t hear it unless you really listen, but he makes sure to be a little louder when you’re lying your head on his chest at night, his hands gently massaging your hips as your body rises and falls in unison with his heavy breath, his heartbeat echoing in your ears as you fall asleep.

𖡼 he loves to wake up the same time as you, he wants to lie with you for ages whilst you both get your bearings and keep asking you for five more minutes whenever you try to get up. if he wakes up before you and has nowhere to be, he’ll just go back to sleep, or at least pretend that he has, just so you can take your time and eventually wake him up with kisses.

𖡼 he’s always late because he’s too busy watching you get ready. sometimes he’ll stay lying in bed if you’re out before him, lazily watching you as he props himself up on his elbow, a smile pulling on his lips. the way you hum to yourself and hesitate before each step of your routine trying to remember whats next is so satisfying to him. he does the same on a night, rushing to get ready just so he can sit and watch you, often placing himself behind you and planting kisses on your cheek and temple and neck, all the while staring at you through the mirror, waiting for your cute little smirk when the two of you make eye contact. each time you ask him what he’s doing, his answer is the same.

“jus’ tryna memorise it. what if you want me to do it for you when you’re too tired?”

𖡼 he likes to be impossibly close when you sleep with one another. even when you can hear the soft snores escaping from his lips, his arms are wrapped around you or fingers tangled in your hair or body beneath yours. even if he just gets to have a hand on you, a fingertip, it’s all he needs to fall asleep, and he always makes sure to help you. his hands find your waist as he rubs against your sides, grazing your skin up and down or smoothing his touch in soft, slow circles. his breath falling warm on the back of your neck or against your ear and calming you into a deep sleep.

𖡼 his camera roll is FULL of you. like he genuinely runs out of storage sometimes because he can’t stop taking pictures and videos of you. he’ll go through it with you as well. you’ll be lying in bed reading or just waking up and he’ll mumble something with a smile on his face.

“look at this one, babe”

he rests his phone in front of you, a candid picture from the night before filling your eyes as a wide grin is plastered on his face behind the screen.

“aren’t you beautiful? my perfect girl.” he murmurs as he pulls his phone back to him, staring at the photo for a minute more and smiling to himself, before swiping onto the next item and repeating the process.

𖡼 most of his camera roll, however, is pictures of you sleeping. not in a creepy way, he does sometimes take a picture of you in bed when you just look too perfect to forget, saving it just for his eyes, but he can’t help it. a large amount of these pictures are the times when he does have to get out of bed before yourself, he has a stupid meeting or a stupid mistake to fix that pulls him away from you. he’ll creep out of bed and quietly get ready, scrunching his nose and squinting his eyes every time an action is louder than he wants it to be. just as he comes in to kiss you goodbye, he has to stop and look at you. you’re so beautiful. your hair sprawled out against the pillow and tangled in your mouth. the faintest snores falling from your nose and the duvet he’d only just neatened up is already disheveled from your movement. he can’t help but snap a quick picture of you and press his lips against your forehead, lingering there for just a little too long.

𖡼 he keeps a picture (or twelve) of you in his wallet. he keeps them everywhere. he just needs to look at you all the time. a keyring with your face attached to his keys. his wallpaper(s) on his phone and work computer are all you. his desk is covered in framed pictures of you so he can sit staring at your face and your smile, head resting in his hands whilst he avoids work and thinks of how he can treat you that night, desperate to spoil you.

𖡼 Rafe will never argue with you, he never even raises his voice at you if it isn’t laced with excitement. despite his short-temper, and his impatience and (at times) his arrogance, he refuses to show you that side of him, or at least direct it to you. if he does disagree with you or he feels something coming on, he’ll simply excuse himself, muttering “jus’ one minute” and squeezing your hand gently before walking into a separate room. he sits there, trying to slow his breathing and pressing his forehead into his palms to try and gain some perspective and, if nothing else, calm himself down. the first few times he did so you just stood there confused, eventually following him and peeking round the corner of the door, to which he’d raise his head and rush over to you, practically chanting the word “sorry” and kissing your hands as he pushes you out. you soon realised he needed the time and space to gather himself, and left him alone until he was ready to carry on the conversation, greeting him with a wide grin each time he came back to you.

𖡼 his hand(s) are on you at. all. times. it started as an act of protection, to ensure nobody tries it on with you in public but he’s become so accustomed to it that it’s now a constant. he’ll walk around with a palm spread across your lower back, arm swung around your shoulder, fingers intertwining with yours, hand squeezing your side, and it only gets more intimate at home. tracing patterns on your back, grazings his fingers against your thighs, peppering kisses on your stomach and cheeks and jaw and nose. he acts as though he’d die if he didn’t feel you against him for more than five seconds.

𖡼 he can read you like a book, literally nothing gets past him. you could walk into a room, a smile plastered on your face, not a hint of sadness around you in a meter radius, and Rafe would still be asking what’s wrong. before you even realise you’re upset he’ll be comforting you and insisting you tell him what’s got you “so worked up.”

𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 : @sadfury

[clus444]

John Price vs H.O.A? More like H.O.E

The first part is the same as the snippet, and there will be an indication (RP) that the repeat part is done, but I recommend reading all of it. fair warning this is long to me.

Warning: Mature content, Despcritive words,

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John Price is a lot of things.

He is a captain of the 141. He's the man that people rely on to get home. Especially three men in particular. He has to be four steps ahead while you're at one. Not only are lives in his hands, blood, that cakes on his skin for however long it takes for them to evacuate. Every move he makes is calculated, not only for himself but for his team.

He is a friend when his boy's pride is too high to go to anyone else for help. They need someone to talk to but how can they when the aftermath of a mission is too much. He's the tough love, words of encouragement, or hell even drinks, whatever it takes to help them get up the next day. In some cases fight.

He is a husband to Y/n Price. He is her protector even when he's away. Call it obsessive but he'll be damned before his woman is left astray. But to focus more so on when he's home...Since the beginning of their relationship, he finds it easier to sleep with her around.

Whether he wraps her up in his arms to pass his warmth to her, as he knows his wife gets cold, or when she wraps him up when the world is too loud. Those were the days when the ringing was non-stop and he couldn't bear to get up. Though those were rare she still forced him to cut back on smoking.

He always thanks her when his body's personal alarm clock wakes him up before her. Like clockwork, John gets up at the ass crack of dawn. He takes that time to get important business matters out the way. But when the sun rises a light blue starts taking over as a sign for the rest of the world to wake up.

He slides the covers off you and pauses his movements as you shiver from the cold. He notices your nipples tense as a reaction as well. He licks his lips like a hungry beast looking at his prey. He takes the straps of your silk nightgown and slides them down to reveal your breasts. He leans down and lightly pecks both nipples. Soft whimpers come out of her mouth.

John pushes his tongue out and he circles his tongue around the pebble. He takes his left hand and circles his pointer finger around her other pebble before, lightly squeezing. He pushes himself away and makes his way down to her wet cavern. He slides the dress completely off and my god was it slow. His patience is on a thin line with it.

He opens her legs and takes a whiff. It sends tingles from his head down to his dick. He rolls his tongue out to let spit that piled up roll off his tongue and dribble down to her folds. Not a moment later he goes in for the kill. He laps at your clit like no tomorrow and you jolt awake," F-Fuck!"

Let's come back to the main point of this.

John Price is a lot of things, but someone's bitch?

I think the fuck not.

(RP)

Imagine this... John is pulling up in his drive-through after a tiring day of training recruits. It seems this batch of 'em are as hard-headed as they come. Between sticking their nose and sometimes dick in things they shouldn't (Quite literally), and trying to find loopholes in any and everything.

He sighs as he turns off the car and leans back in his seat. He closes his eyes and runs a hand over his face. Soft lines on his face show the hard work and dedication he's put forth to his job. At the very least his job has granted him a week off.

He's gonna use that time to bury himself into forgotten hobbies and maybe his sweet juicy wife if she's feeling up to it. He grunts and hauls himself out of his truck. John landed on his feet with a soft thud. As he's walking up his pavement to his door he sees a white paper taped to it. He takes a second to survey his surroundings, trying to find anything suspicious. He runs through different scenarios in his head.

He sure as shit pays his bills on time so his pretty wife can have a roof over her head. All loose ends were tied and cut off from his previous mission but god help anyone that tries to reattach. He walks closer to his door, inspecting it cautiously. Call him paranoid but when you make as many enemies as him, he's sure they wouldn't go above lacing the paper.

Red lettering that read ' H.O.A' catches his attention. He grasps the paper, slightly crumbling it as he opens it.

H.O.A of Shefield.

8/6/24 Type of complaint: Written Warning/ fined

We regret to inform you that we will be charging you for 3 violations that you or someone in your household have been found guilty of.

$100- Not using the H.O.A garbage disposal that we kindly provide.

$75- Excessive amount of cars in the driveway/Lots of guest.

$50- Grass is the embodiment of needs help.

Total: $225

Any questions or concerns please make a report and leave it at the committee office.

Now john wasn't a sensitive man. He didn't cry when watching the boy in the striped pajamas, hell! He doesn't even get mad when the protagonist does something stupid in a horror movie. But like stated before John is a protective man especially when it comes to his wife.

How was this person who wrote this supposed to know that, and that his wife cut the grass for him as a way to give him a break. When he found out, he nearly had a heart attack and spanked that attitude right out of her (All in good fun). It feels like his whole body has taken offense to this paper.

But honestly, 225 dollars is nothing to John. It was more of the fact that this H.O.A. person had the nerve to want to make his family their new victims. Johns heard talk of the power-tripping H.O.As that were newly elected in office. His wife even had a run-in with them and he had almost given them a piece of his mind then and there. But his oh-so-lovely wife always wanted to be the peacemaker. He knew that this bud should have been cut the first time.

But you know what they say... Happy wife, Happy life.

John grumbles as he heads inside and looks for his wifey. His footsteps are heavier than before as he finally spots her. "John? What wrong-," He walks closer to her and picks her up to take her to the bedroom. When she lands she uses her elbows to hold herself up. She sees the wild look that takes over his features. She bites her lip.

He grabs the end of his shirt and yanks it off before quickly disposing of his pants, leaving him in his boxers. "That oll of this off," He gives her a hard look as he yanks her down by her legs. She takes care of her clothes as fast as she can but I guess she was too slow because in the end, he ends up tearing her panties off.

He palms himself as he looks over her bare body. Her soft, plushy thighs stay raised and open. " John-" he slaps the fat of her cheek and she shrieks.

"Did I say speak," He questions leaning down and she quickly shakes her head no. He raises a brow as if daring her to defy. He'd be lying if he said he hoped so but knew his good girl wouldn't. John runs his pointer finger through her folds. Feeling her slick on his finger as he plays with her a little, she lets out a moan. " I see you did as I asked," He starts fingering her with two fingers," Stretched yourself out for me, huh?" Her muscles tense as she responds, "Y-yes Captain."

He stops and brings his fingers to his mouth and cleans them. Her mouth parts as she watches him, she puts her hand over her breasts and squeezes. Her nipples tingle and she pinches them to keep the feeling going. He slides his boxers down and pumps his cock. Spreading the precum to slicken him up, she feels her hole clench as she watches him.

Her walls moisten up more to prepare for the beating she knows her pussy is about to take. She can already feel the delicious and painful stretch which causes her to get more excited. He takes his tip and moves it against her clit a few times before pushing in. She feels the air gets punched out of her as John tries to pushes his way through. He grunts at the feel of her gripping him like a vice. " Let... Me... In"His words match his long and deep strokes as he tries to fit more.

It sometimes amazes her that even with all the natural lube they both produce she still has a hard time taking it sometimes. With no patience to wait, John circles her clit with his thumb as he pounds at her pussy.

*pat pat pat pat*

The bed rocks from the strength of John's thrust. Y/n cries out as her back arches, her toes tightly curl and her nails dig into his back. "Captain," she moans as it feels like John's harsh thrust is digging for gold. He grunts and groans as he starts moving to hit the spongy spot that makes her see stars. "oo ooo oooo," her breath comes out in pants as she throws her head back.

"W- why are youuu... f-fucking me l-like thissss," y/n tries to get out as coherently as she can. John grins as he fills her tighten around him. A couple moans slip past here and there as his balls begin to tighten.

He puts her into a deeper mating press. Her hands are around the backs of her knees and her ankles land where her ears are. Their moans and grunts become tangled as one as he fucks her. " They have the audacity," He stops to thrust into her deeper," to make fun of my wife," He says it like he cant believe it even as the words come out.

He pulls out and quickly manhandles her onto her stomach. He pins her hips to the bed and grabs his cock to slide it back into her. Her moans sound like music to his ears. He lifts a leg onto the bed to fuck at a better angle. " Whoooo," she whines out as her hole clenches again. The pressure quickly built up in her lower abdomen.

" The fucking H.O.As! I'll show them the embodiment of needs help," He grunts as he takes them closer to the edge. His head leans back as he gets lost in her pussy.

" Fuck! Captain, Im comingggg, please, please," She begins begging. He speeds up and her hand goes to her clit to draw herself closer.

*pat pat pat pat pat*

Y/n cums first and the hand that was gripping John's back draws his blood. He lets out a couple more grunts before releasing and pushing all the way forward to plug his wife. They breathe heavily in unison and Y/n can swear that her body is floating. She starts fighting to close her eyes as a wave of fatigue washes over her. She holds tight onto John as he moves to start his aftercare," Stay please."

He nods and kisses her before laying on her chest and plotting against the H.O.As. He doesn't care how crazy it is. They think they can run people with their fines and threats that scare others. But he's seen true terror. Things that regular people would try to get him sent to the loony bin for. He's been up close and personal with the things children would call monsters and adults would call murderers.

To others, it may be fines and words on paper about his grass, the garbage disposal, and guess parking. But to him it's so much more. His wife rightfully chose another garbage company because they care about the environment and won't just dump it anywhere. His wife needs her friends because it can get quite lonely and who are they to isolate her! His wife, although warned to not do it again, tried her best to take care of his chores on the week that he failed to do so. Plus he'll be damned if he employed another man to take his job.

So yes, maybe it wasn't a big deal to others but John always hated those who abused their power. He had no problem telling people to fuck off and mind theirs.

So if I had to add to the list of things john is and ask his wife to weigh in.

It would be that John fucking price is crazy.

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How good did I just cook right now?

anywayssss hope you enjoy!!! I honestly couldn;t stop thinking about writing this i had so much fun.

Requests are now open!

Snippet

Original thought

Masterlist

[a-spes]

This is how I imagine what would happen if R decides to propose to Carol — and for once it is really just tooth rooting fluff, I promise there is no hidden angst, just two women deeply in love 🙃

You have been walking back and forth for the past few hours, waiting for the woman to return from her mission. Yet, this time, there was so much in your mind that the motion wasn't enough to soothe your worries.

She doesn't know you are here, and she probably does not expect you to be in her living room because that is the last place you are supposed to be. Damn, you should be on earth, not in a spacecraft landed on a planet which you don't even know the name.

How are you supposed to explain that to her? You definitely can't admit that you have used your skills to track her localisation, and then begged Tony to help you find a way here. You have spent the last few hours thinking about what you are going to tell her, but no words felt right, and you start to worry that she might be angry when she sees you — which would make sense because you literally broke into her ship.

You glance at the door, expecting the woman to barge in at any moment, but it doesn't move. The spacecraft is silent, if not for the sound of your steps and the one of the clock. Everything is still, and the wait starts to get on your nerves —; it is almost midnight, and you have already been here for the past five hours. The truth being that you have no idea when she will be back.

—

By the time she gets back to her ship, it is almost the morning. She can see the sun rising for afar, and she sighs because she doesn't want to think about the fact that another day is already about to start when hers isn't done. She is exhausted, and all she wants to think about is the hot shower she is going to take before throwing herself under the covers.

Yet, the universe seems to have other plans for her — she knew, from the second she entered the ship, that something was wrong. She was about to turn the lights on when she changed her mind, remembering that thing that someone told her about keeping the lights off when there is an intruder in the house. She knows the space, not them.

She walks carefully to another room when she notices that no one is in the living room. It is when she steps into her bedroom that she sees it, a figure in the dark that doesn't seem to move.

Suddenly, she can breathe again. The woman doesn't need to turn the light on to know who was sleeping in her bed, she knew it was you, and the sight was adorable. A part of her felt bad, she knows that you have probably waited for her for hours.

She walks closer to you, careful to not step on the candles that stopped burning a few hours ago. One of her hands finds a place on your cheek, her thumb caressing your skin slowly. “Hi, baby,” she whispers. A smile spreads on her lips when she notices the confusion on your face — you were supposed to surprise your girlfriend, not the other way around.

"Carol? W- what time is it?" you ask, your voice being raspy because you weren't completely awake yet. Something that you realize only a second later. “Wait, did I-"

“Fell asleep? I fear that you did, love..,” she chuckles, but her laugh is soon replaced by a frown, “but what are you doing here?” she asks, and you can hear the worries in her voice. It is true that you wouldn't have come all the way here if you hadn't a good reason, and the woman could only imagine the worse scenarios.

“I was missing you,” you whisper back, and the way you almost whined those words makes the woman's heart clench. It is only when you pronounce those words that you both realize how true they are. It makes you want to cry.

“And..?” she asks, knowing that there is more to your presence here. It is not your kind to do something like that. She has other questions in mind, as how the fuck did you do to enter her ship without triggering the alarm? Or, how the fuck did you find her localisation? But you come first, and she can feel that you are keeping something from her. “You know that you can tell everything, love?” she says, trying to coax you into sharing with her what was on your mind.

"I wanted to ask you something..," you admit, but suddenly this whole thing sounded stupid, and you couldn't look at her anymore.

"And it couldn't wait?" she chuckles, but as you aren't looking at her, you can't see the smile on her face. She has never been so much in love with someone, and anyone could see it on her face right now.

"Not really," you reply. You take a deep breath, trying to find the courage to pronounce the words you have thought of the past few hours. "Wait,-" you say, realizing that you don't know where the black box is. You find it a few seconds later, it has fallen on the ground while you were asleep.

"Carol Danvers," you start in a serious tone. You take one last deep breath, but as you are about to speak, the woman cuts you.

"Wait a second," she says, holding a hand to stop you from saying it. She knows the words you were about to say, because she has been dying to tell them to you for weeks.

Still, you can feel your heart dropping — does that mean she doesn't want to get married? You look at the woman as she disappears into the living room, and you can feel tears in your eyes. What feels like an eternity goes by before she comes back.

You, on the other hand, haven't moved an inch. You are still kneeling on the floor, holding the box, as if you were hoping for things to go differently. You are so lost in your thoughts that you realize that she is back only when she kneels in front of you, holding a box that is similar to yours.

"We say it ar the same time, okay?" she says. and you nod. Yet, you are a bit lost, and unsure of what is happening. "Would you marry me?" you both say at the same time, your voice joining the woman's.

[llondonfog]

a little jjk/twst au concept with silver as a cursed human and lilia as his curse; any inconsistencies are my own, i literally finished binging the first season & movie an hour ago :') // @admiraltdevanto i hope this satisfied a bit of the need <3

the final cursed spirit lets out an ear-piercing shriek, one that sets silver's teeth on edge and locks his jaw in place, as it all but bursts into smithereens like a shredded mylar balloon. essence, lurid purple and rancid like decaying flesh, splatters around him, and he raises his sword in an attempt to shield his face from the smoking pieces that fall around him like a poisonous rain.

he needn't have bothered— faster than any human eye could blink, faster than they had sliced through the vengeful curse before them, leathery wings sweep around him like a cocoon, enveloping him with ease in the shelter of their embrace.

the tense muscles in his jaw automatically begin to loosen into the beginnings of a crooked smile when taloned fingers brush against him in the darkness, probing and far more gentle than their wickedly sharp nature would appear. he stands obediently still as they investigate the superficial bumps and bruises from the fight, new additions to a never-ceasing collection. it is only when those thin digits meet and pause at the oil slick of blood sluggishly oozing from a nasty scrape along his hairline that he hears a sharp inhale from behind, and his brief respite from the harsh light of the world outside falls away in one clean swoop.

silver winces as his eyes become reacquainted with the viciously cheerful gleam of the afternoon sun, and the curse flutters his wings in equal parts agitation and lingering aggression, fangs bared as if still wishing to sink them into the dissipated spirit for belated retribution.

"lilia, i'm fine, i promise," he's quick to reassure the curse hovering before him, unable to wipe the returning smile as it creeps along the corners of his mouth. "really, it looks worse than it is— i'll go to a hospital to get it checked out and say that i tripped and fell, alright?"

eyes a shade of crimson that put the fresh droplets of blood against silver's temple to shame fix upon him with an ancient magnitude, at odds with the almost child-like pout creasing a delicate, pointed face. for a split second, silver is wildly grateful that there are not any sorcerers lingering on the grounds, lilia's vulnerability a private moment for the two of them alone as a cold hand rises to cradle his cheek and wipe it clean. ". . . i eliminated it too quickly," the curse grumbles, all too human in his bitterness. "i did not see when it managed to land such a blow against you." "i will be fine," silver stresses once more, sword returning to the sheath along his hip with practiced ease. "you kept me from the worst of it, and for that . . . i am grateful."

perhaps it is a selfish pleasure, but it is one sin that he finds himself so willingly committing— it had been abundantly clear from their first meeting that the curse before him was not used to, nor expected, gratitude and praise, much less words so unconditional and genuine. as expected, lilia falters minutely before tucking his wings away with the barest hint of a preen, a sparkle returning to his ruby eyes that had been darkened by the heat of battle.

"and more importantly," silver continues, tone gentle and quiet so as to not disturb the sleeping figures tucked safely beneath the desk behind them. "we managed to save them." the two children sent napping to escape the horrific scene before them by silver's own gentle wash of cursed energy, the only gift he could grant them before the spirit haunting the school discovered their presence mid-battle.

with an off-key hum, lilia crouches by their side, a hand outstretched and hovering, but not quite caressing the hair of the boy closest to his feet. "i suppose they were cute enough to spare," he comments lightly, rocking on his heels as if he hadn't blasted a dripping hole the size of a boulder through the spirit's core the moment it had tried to target the children. "not as adorable as you were at this age though, my dear."

silver has to suppress a smile at that, though it's tinged with a bittersweet taste that lingers in his mouth. lilia is kind for a curse, too kind, in fact— he does not allow his hand to touch the child's head, to disturb silver's gift of pleasant dreams with nightmares of warfare and strife. it speaks of a weakness that neither he nor lilia address, that the curse strokes silver's head until he sleeps and that silver never complains of his haunted dreams.

"you would know best— wouldn't you, father?"

[moodymisty]

Hi! May I request something comforting with Strife and a female reader? Work is exhausthing (a new hr system was implemented, it's not going well😑 - the project team could not delay the go live, so we now have less features and a nonexistent or randomly working interface). I'm done with everything... Hope your days are going much better!!

[ 𝕸𝖔𝖔𝖉𝖞𝕸𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖞'𝖘 𝕸𝖆𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙 | 𝕬𝖔3 ]

Author's Note: I understand the feeling, anon. Here's some cuddly Strife, I hope that makes you feel a bit better.

Relationships: Strife/Fem!Reader

Warnings: Just some early morning cuddles, I thought that would be the most comforting thing to enjoy a nice sleep after a shitty day :3

Word Count: 586

To wake up in one piece after confronting the literal Apocalypse is...

Something.

You don't know if you'll ever get used to it. People are just walking around and trying to go about pretending as if it never happened, to start back up where they left off, but humanity still has a permanent mental- and in many ways physical- scar that won't ever go away. Not many can say they don't flinch at shadows or loud sounds, or when the sky gets grey about to rain.

To go from that unknown terror to trying to sleep at night and go to work the next day for many has been, an adjustment. Especially with Humanity's new neighbors. At least the new friends were some of the better thing to come out of the End of Days.

The Makers have been more than incredibly helpful in rebuilding, but even then progress has been s-

"Why's it so Creator damned bright all the sudden?"

You were woken up by Strife's body shifting as he roused from sleep, his face buried in the nook of your neck. His right arm lays over your stomach, while the other is tucked somewhere under the pillows. You'd say his legs are tangled with yours, though given the size difference it's more like his are weighing yours down underneath the blankets.

He loves to hold you almost like some sort of stuffed animal. It's endearing, until you need to move anywhere.

"That's because the sun is rising, Strife."

The Nephilim lets out a groan as his face presses deeper into your neck, attempting to block out the morning sun. It's the crack of dawn, and you have no business being up this early. Nor do you want to be, as you close your eyes and attempt sink into the mattress and fall back asleep.

It seem Strife doesn't have any plans to let you do that however, as you feel him wiggle yet again. His warm breath fans over your skin as he attempts to fall back asleep same as you. His weight that pushes the limit of the bed frame's max limit makes it shift enough to jostle you, and wrench a groan from you.

To think he'd go from being so hesitant to get close his eyes around you to this. It's been interesting, seeing him finally let his guard down.

He loves the 'cool guy' facade, the rootin' tootin' gunslingin' Nephilim, but in reality his walls are nearly has high as Death's. He's just better at not showing them to anyone.

But now he has the security, that you aren't going anywhere and that nothing bad is going to happen. That he finally has you with him. And because of it, the Nephilim conks out like a light the moment he decides to sleep next to you.

Not this time however; As he moves his leg that dangles part way off the bed around and wakes up once again from the in-between space between awake and asleep. You weakly smack his arm.

"Strife, quit moving."

He finally raises his head and looks at you, glaring with his messy, sleepy face. You can't help but compare him to a beloved pet that you wake up from the middle of a deep sleep, frazzled and face scrunched. You can just barely make out a pile of armor and weaponry in the corner of the room behind him, where he'd dumped it the night before.

"Then fix the light issue, Princess." You look up at him, barely able to make out his shapes through the blur of sleep. You fill your cheeks with air to blow a raspberry at him, but he just uses his hand to force the air out with a pinch of your cheeks. It frustrates you, which is always his goal.

"I can't make the sun just go a-"

Suddenly Strife grabs a handful of the blanket and pulls it overtop of both of your heads, covering you completely. And now back in near total darkness apart from the tiniest bit of light bleeding from the top most part of the blanket, Strife resumes his trapping of your body in his limbs, his nose pressing against your cheek. You feel his lips against your skin as he talks.

"There, solved."

It's so warm underneath the blanket, despite the frigid cold weather outside.

But it's not as if you have anywhere you need to go anytime soon. And if you do, it clearly wasn't important enough for you to remember. After terrible your week has been as of yet, you'll gladly forget about all of that for awhile.

Strife clearly smiles against your skin as you sigh and grasp the part of his arm you can reach, wiggling to get comfortable and falling back asleep as the sun continues to rise.

[scribbling-dragon]

don't turn out the lights (kiss yourself goodnight)

summary:

“Hi,” Martyn continues to grin, even as it turns awkward and even guiltier. “I'm coming over. Can I come over?” Martyn pauses on the bridge then, as though just realising his presence might be unwanted after ditching him all morning. “I don't know if I should let you,” he says. It’s not an answer either way.

(ao3 link)

(7,119 words)

[hi! talking in bold so this catches your eyes ooOOooo anyway! this is the FINAL PART of this series! it's done! this is the end! meaning, everyone dies in this fic. there's your warning! there's gonna be death, injury, blood, etc. all the fun stuff! so just keep that in mind when you read it. also! it'd be really nice if you could reblog this because it took me a long time and i put a buncha effort into it! comments in the tags are even cuter- they let me know you liked it! i write for fun but i post because i want other people to also enjoy what i make, letting me know that you did quite literally makes my day.

anyway! hope u enjoy! <33]

The Isles is almost eerily quiet.

It is expected. The losses they had experienced only a day prior are enough to stun even the loudest of people into silence. It seems their world is only mirroring their mourning, not even birds singing to greet the dawn. Instead, it leaves everyone to prepare for their day, silence permeating the air around them. Even the sun appears muted, watery, as it tiredly heaves itself over the edge of the water, already beginning to chase away the deep purples of night.

He doubts any of them will be around to see another miserable sunrise such as this one.

Scott runs a cloth over the dull edge of his sword, wiping the dried blood away as best as he can manage with only a scrap of damp fabric. It’s already stained red, beyond any kind of repair. The dried blood remains stubborn, clinging to his blade as the last few echoes of others’ lives.

It flakes away as he scrapes against it with a single, sharp nail. The dried blood of friend and foe alike clumps together as it gathers beneath his nail, forcing him to stop his task and pick it out once he can no longer stand the feeling of it. He flicks it to the ground beneath him, hoping the flecks of red will become lost amongst the yellowing grass he sits upon. He still finds his eyes picking it out, like berries nestled amongst the dry stalks of grass that are determined to catch his eyes whenever he glances over.

He pauses at the sound of creaking floorboards above him, a few grains of sand pattering down onto his head. He cocks his head to the side and listens a little more intently as more creaking follows. Martyn had still been sleeping when he got up, curled comfortably in their shared bed. Scott had been tempted to stay and enjoy the peace a little longer, but his own mind was restless.

He hadn’t wanted to disturb the last few peaceful moments Martyn would probably get before this is all over, rising and attending to small tasks that didn’t really need to be done; tasks that were there to busy the hands rather than be productive. He doesn’t have that sort of time to waste, still target number one, certainly, his clock ticking down from higher numbers than everyone else, but his time is as limited as the rest of them.

His sword had been cleaned and sharpened. The blade, previously coated in dried blood so thick you could barely see its shimmer now gleams in the rapidly strengthening sunlight.

The purple hue of the skyline has been almost completely wiped away, leaving a pink sky in its wake. The light of it dyes the ocean a deep red, churning against the edges of their island as though it can hardly wait to devour it all once they're gone.

He continues to listen as footsteps echo overhead, uninterested in continuing to prepare for murdering his friends, waiting for Martyn to poke his head through the doorway and begin chattering away. He’s always more talkative in the morning, as though he has to make up for not speaking all night.

He looks over at the sound of a quiet splash, sitting up and sword forgotten as he stands a moment later. He pokes his head out of their storage room, watching as Martyn swims away from their island and towards the mainland. He dips beneath the waves a few times, swimming quickly.

Scott lingers in the doorway, watching as Martyn emerges onto the sandy shoreline, not even bothering to rid himself of the water he’d collected on his trip over as he usually would. Instead, he looks around, searching for…something. Scott isn’t certain what it is that he’s searching for – they hadn’t even had a conversation yet that morning to go over what should be done, who to avoid, who to target – and apparently not find it as he trudges into the treeline, quickly disappearing into the murky darkness that seems to cling to any dark oak forest, still soaking wet from his short swim.

Scott withdraws into their storage room, confused and more than a little hurt. His mind races a mile a minute, barely giving him a moment to process anything before he’s thinking of another potential explanation. Did they have a conversation last night that indicated Martyn was going to do something like this? Did Martyn assume he had already left and gone searching for him?

Only, Martyn had swum over there like a man possessed, like he would die if he didn’t reach the shoreline as quickly as he did. And yet – and yet – the moment he reached his destination he had looked around, as though uncertain of where to go.

Scott likes to think that he can read Martyn quite well, after the multiple times they’ve gone through these games together, and also the time they’ve spent together on this very island. He likes to think he can read Martyn well. And the way Martyn had looked around, on that shoreline, had not been with the intent of finding something lost, it had been done with the confusion of someone that had walked into a room and forgotten what they were going to do.

But, there’s no point in catching up with him yet. No reason to dive after him and catch up; see if he can shake any answers loose from the man. Not when he still has arrows to make and a bow to restring.

They can talk later. It’s fine. It’ll be fine.

=== === ===

“Now, I'm not a professional,” he tells Cleo, hopping down a few more blocks and squeezing into the gap he’d left for himself. There’s no redstone involved in this, only the tiny guide in the back of his head that’s jumping between steps as he attempts to remember how to do this, struggling to reconcile the new information he had with the idea that he’d already gotten it right.

He’d done it wrong last time, his hands still stinging from the hot blast that had gotten him before he managed to shove his shield in front of himself, letting that take the brunt of the explosion rather than absorbing it with his face.

“Never said you were,” he feels a shadow fall over him as Cleo leans down to peer at what he’s doing. “Reckon you're gonna blow the both of us up again?”

“I wouldn’t stand so close,” he chuckles, feeling rather than seeing as Cleo steps back. He slowly, carefully, places another bundle of TNT into the minecart, feeling the thing rattle with the weight of how much TNT he’s shoved into it. The sculk clings to his hands as he sets it down onto the block, gripping onto him as he attempts to pull away, unwilling to release him.

He continues pulling his hands back until the sculk accepts its loss, releasing his fingers and withdrawing back to the dirt block he’d provided for it. He watches as it curls itself into the dirt block, then simply engulfs it. He has no better words to describe the way it simply spreads over the block, too fast for him to even track with his eyes, until the entire patch is made of sculk.

He withdraws even more carefully, slowly easing himself out of the hole. He’s aware of the way the dirt clings around his shoulders. One wrong move could set off the trap he’s just spent the better part of ten minutes setting up, and he’d probably be blown to bits alongside it.

Cleo waits until he’s completely free of the hole before continuing to speak. “Where’s your other half today? Didn’t think you came as a single package anymore.”

“Very funny,” he forces a laugh as he turns to glare at them. “I don't know,” he answers. Not at all bitterly. “He ran off this morning before I could even get a chance to speak with him, went off to do…something.”

He sees Cleo frown, eyebrows creasing together. “And you haven’t tried to find him?”

“He needs something, then he’ll find me.” He dismisses Cleo’s worries easily – he’s been dismissing his own all morning, ignoring them in order to actually get anything done. Dismissing Cleo’s probing questions and slightly worried glances is far easier. “He’s been acting all funny recently anyway. If he’s gone off to sort himself out, then that’s fine.”

“Wait, Scott,” Cleo moves around him, pressing their hands down onto the small tunnel entrance and blocking him from poking around in there a little more. He leans back on his heels, knees digging into the ground as he glares up at her. “That’s not at all like Martyn. He sticks around other people as best as he can, even if it means bouncing between several groups. You're telling me he’s disappeared and you're not even worried?”

“Of course I'm worried, Cleo.” He huffs out a breath, resisting for only a moment before he raises his hands to his face, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes. It relieves a little of his stress, and also means he doesn’t have to look them in the eye anymore. “But there’s nothing I can do about it, so I just have to wait and sit tight and hope he shows up.”

“You said he was acting weird,” Cleo asks, after the silence has hung between them for a moment. “Weird…how?”

“I don't know,” he sighs, dropping his hands. Cleo stares at him. “Ugh, I guess, like, spacing out? He was acting really weird after, uh, yesterday and the whole,” he waves a hand, “canary business. But I thought that was just the shock of all that, and then all the stuff after that. I didn’t even speak to him this morning, but there was this weird air around him. It was really fucking strange, Cleo, and I don't even know what it means!”

“Yeah, alright, alright,” Cleo hesitates for a moment, before patting him on the shoulder. “I think that’s just how he gets at this point. I think he was like this last time? I’d have to repeat myself several times for literally anything to get through to him.”

“I keep forgetting you were partnered with him last time,” he huffs out a laugh. “So he just gets like this every time? Why doesn’t anyone say anything?” He pauses. “Have you said anything?”

“To Martyn? No.” Cleo glances over at a shout from the Clock Tower, then back at him. “To anyone else? …Also no. I didn’t think it was my place to pry or ask around, and I guess that’s the common sentiment. Maybe he’s done it every single time. Maybe he only started doing it last time. Who knows? Maybe he's just gone insane.”

“Pretty sure that’s Joel you're thinking of,” he jokes, and then regrets when it opens up a pit in his stomach.

“Maybe go find him,” Cleo says. They both ignore the slightly heavier air around both of them, the mention of Joel souring their moods rather quickly.

“Yeah,” he brushes the dirt from his hands. “Yeah, I will.” He stands, eyeing the inconspicuous path ahead of them. “Thanks, Cleo.”

“No problem. Hope you find him.”

So do I, Scott doesn’t say. Hope you're still kicking around when I’ve found him, he keeps to himself too. He knows the Clockers aren’t doing well for time, all of their clocks far lower than his own, even after donating some of his time to Scar earlier.

He can feel Cleo watching him. Maybe they're giving him some of their own well wishes.

=== === ===

Going onto Skynet is never his favourite thing. But he’s been poking around on the ground for long enough that he’s rather certain Martyn isn’t hanging around there. Unless he’s dug himself into a hole underground as it currently hiding there until his clock runs out, he’s not on ground-level.

Meaning, into the skies he goes. The ladder is wonky and the rungs are thin enough that they threaten to snap under every step he takes upwards.

He can feel his hands growing sweaty the higher he ascends, nervousness making him glance down and come to terms with just how high he was in the air. With nothing to support him but a quickly and shoddily built ladder to nowhere.

He hauls himself up onto the main chunk of Skynet, grateful for the ground beneath his feet; solid despite being a thousand feet in the air. A drop from here would definitely kill him. A real risk, he realises, when an arrow thunks into the ground at his feet.

He glances over in the direction where it came from, dropping into a crouch. He’s not certain whether that shot was a mistake or a warning. It could have been fully intended to send him stumbling backwards and over the edge. But another arrow doesn’t follow, leaving him staring across the gap between their bridges, the group of three staring back at him.

…Three?

He can just barely see Etho crouched behind the makeshift wall he’s thrown up, the very tips of fuzzy white ears peeking over the edge of the dirt barricade, and Tango beside him is distinctive with his hair aflame. Meaning, no, his eyes are not deceiving him; Martyn really is crouched over with the other two, watching as they shoot at him.

He straightens up, almost planting his hands on his hips and yelling across the gap then and there. For Martyn to just ditch him earlier, and then for Scott to find him with people that have been relentlessly hunting him? Unacceptable. He only holds his tongue because shouting across such a wide gap is embarrassing, and not at all conducive to a proper conversation.

He stares across the gap a little longer, before holding a hand up in the universal gesture for wait.

He then takes a very brave step away from the main landing pad at the top of the ladder, the bridge narrowing even further and leaving him running quickly across the thin branches of Skynet. He keeps his shield held loosely at his side, and can only pray that Etho and Tango – or, gods forbid, Martyn – decide to get in an easy kill and shoot him.

He gets onto the same bridge as them before they start shooting at him, close enough for Scott to start talking to Martyn, even if it means he has to yell to be heard.

“Etho!” He jerks to the side as an arrow skims past his face, close enough that he can hear it whistle as it passes him. “No need!”

He hears Etho chuckling easily enough, even hunkered down behind his own makeshift shelter, only daring to peek over the edge once a moment has passed and his heart no longer threatens to leap from his chest. Martyn, Etho and Tango all peek back at him, lined up near perfectly. Scott might be tempted to take a photo if he wasn’t so irritated.

Another arrow shoots past his face and he scowls, pulling his own bow out and firing right back at them. He sees Tango jump in place and duck down as the arrow goes right over his head, far too high to actually hit anyone.

Several arrows embed themselves in the front of his small defence within a few minutes, making it easy to reach over and collect them up, adding them to his own quiver. “I've got arrows for days!” he calls over to them, grinning and urging them to continue shooting at him.

He notches another arrow, back pressed against his barricade before popping back up again, aiming and ready to fire.

Martyn visibly startles when he reappears, halfway across the bridge connecting them. He almost falls, Scott thinks, teetering dangerously on the edge as he readjusts his balance, shield held cautiously but not protectively in front of himself.

“Martyn,” he warns, not releasing his arrow but not dropping the bow either. He keeps it carefully trained on Martyn’s face, even as Etho and Tango continue to watch the two of them curiously. Martyn glances upwards from where he’d been watching his feet, smiling guiltily. Good.

“Hi,” Martyn continues to grin, even as it turns awkward and even guiltier. “I'm coming over. Can I come over?” Martyn pauses on the bridge then, as though just realising his presence might be unwanted after ditching him all morning.

“I don't know if I should let you,” he says. It’s not an answer either way. Something that Martyn seems to realise too, as he doesn’t keep moving forward, remaining rooted in place on the stupidly thin bridges that TIES built on a whim and everyone else decided to use. “Why are you with them?” He jerks his bow towards Etho and Tango, taking it off Martyn for a single second.

A single second which is, apparently, long enough for Martyn to run across the rest of the space and drop down beside him, both of them huddled far too close behind this too-small barricade. His knee knocks against Martyn’s, their legs pressing together when he lets them. He’s twisted awkwardly to continue aiming the bow at Etho and Tango, reluctant to take his eye off of them even if Martyn demands his attention with pleading eyes.

“Because I've not seen you yet today,” Martyn’s hand is warm on his arm. Near burning at the point of contact as he pulls at him, urging him to lower his bow. He holds the string of his bow tense for only a moment longer before heaving a great sigh and loosening it gradually, allowing the arrow to fall free from where it had been notched and into his open palm. Martyn continues, seeing him giving in, “I woke up and there was no-one here. There, wherever,” Martyn shrugs. “And then I just…” he trails off, eyes sliding to the side.

The hand on his arm slackens a little, turning from a comforting grip to a weight on his arm. The point of contact no longer burns, his skin warming up and adjusting to the sudden heat of another person.

“And then you just…?” Scott prompts, frowning when Martyn doesn’t give him a response. He’s still watching something off to the side, but when Scott turns to look where he is, there’s nothing there. No person trying to kill them or mysterious floating entity that would cause the kind of look Martyn currently has in his eyes.

“Hey,” he waves a hand in front of Martyn’s face, frowning when that continues to get no response from him. He rests his hand on Martyn’s cheek, growing even more concerned when that fails to get a reaction from him, sliding his thumb along Martyn’s cheekbone. His hand slips lower to cradle Martyn’s face, bringing his other hand to pat him on the cheek, like trying to wake someone up.

Martyn blinks, eyes refocusing, and then jolts. Scott holds onto him, keeping him in place as he regains his bearings from…whatever the hell just happened.

“When’d you get so close?” Martyn asks, clearly going for joking and missing it by miles. He lands somewhere around confused and worried instead, which only concerns Scott more.

Scott pauses for a moment, considering his next step. “Aw,” he tilts his head to the side, thumb still brushing against Martyn’s cheek affectionately. “Don't tell me you got so caught up in seeing me that you forgot to pay attention?”

Martyn laughs, leaning in a little closer, close enough that their noses are just shy of touching. His eyes are completely focused now, not drifting over Scott’s shoulder to look at something only Martyn can see. It eases something in his chest, something he hadn’t realised was so tight until it loosened all of a sudden.

“Well, it really is quite easy to get lost in your eyes. The depths of them are like an unexplored ocean-”

He shoves Martyn away from him with a laugh. “Don't you start with that,” he warns, mock angry as he wags his finger at Martyn. “That’s a terrible pick-up line, and one that doesn’t even work right now! My eyes are as red as they can be, so don't be silly.”

“Then your eyes are like the ocean in the morning,” Martyn counters. “Did you not see how red it was this morning? Like the sunrise itself had spilled into the waters.”

“How romantic of you.” He doesn’t mention how this morning was the only time the waters were dyed such a colour by the rising sun. Martyn wouldn’t know that, as a late riser, but Scott has watched those waters shimmer beneath the sunrise every morning since they were dumped here.

“Get a room!” Etho very bravely yells over at them, still hiding behind his barricade. “We wanna get past you!”

“Run on past then!” Scott yells back. “What’s there to be scared of!”

“What we might see!” Tango contribute, popping up beside his teammate. “I don't know what you two’re doing behind that!”

Scott scoffs in disgust at the idea. Not only is the entire place made of dirt, but they're also miles in the sky. Not exactly something he’d jump at the idea of.

“Go the other way then!” he yells, getting to his feet. He pulls his shield up just in case, but no arrows come his way. He offers Martyn his hand as he watches half of TIES (two-thirds, his brain supplies helpfully. Two-thirds.) deliberate over their next course of action.

“Cowards!” Martyn yells as Etho begins retreating.

Scott laughs at the offended noise Tango makes, loud enough for them both to hear it. Laughing is easier than thinking about what just happened. Easier than turning Cleo’s words over and over in his mind.

Easier to take Martyn’s hand and lead him away as though none of that happened at all.

=== === ===

He can see Etho watching him as he climbs, ears twisted backwards and crossbow held at the ready. He’s just as pleased to be up here as Etho is. All roads lead to Skynet, apparently, meaning he’s back on the hellish thing, praying that nothing breaks.

“We’re just here to talk,” he assures, crouching on the lip of cobblestone just above the ladder, reaching a hand down slowly for Martyn to take. He feels it slot into his hand easily, burning hot against freezing cold.

“Promise?” Etho keeps his crossbow held tightly in his hands. Not that Scott blames them. This is the time for temporary alliances, certainly, but he doubts anyone is above faking a temporary alliance to get closer to someone just to kill them.

“Promise.”

Martyn settles onto the ledge beside him, though Martyn sits down, legs swinging off the edge as he watches Martyn. Scott remains crouched, one hand flat against the cobbles, hunched over like some kind of gargoyle.

He probably looks like one, too. Fish-like spines and fins make it rather hard to hide the changes he’s undergone since going red. The scales layering over his skin and remaining thick until his elbows make it even more so. He can only be glad that he still has his legs, or that It didn’t decide to give him some kind of tail to weigh him down further.

“Okay,” Etho takes a step closer, and, in an incredible show of good faith, tucks his crossbow away so none of them have any weapons. “Let’s talk, then.”

Scott grins, more than a little satisfied with himself. It’s always risky reaching out for another alliance this late in the game, but taking the risk is better than leaving the ending unknown. This is a way for them to have a better shot at winning.

“The biggest hour- time, thingy, is the Nosy Neighbours,” he starts. “Pearl and Grian have the most time right now.”

“And they're a pretty strong team,” Etho glances over in the direction of the Neighbours’ tower, expression considering. “There’s three of them in it.”

Martyn hums something that vaguely sounds like agreement, but when Scott looks over at him, he’s staring off into space again, not at all registering the space around them. Scott shuffles a little closer to him, pressing his hip into his side in the hopes that the contact can bring him back from wherever his mind has wandered off to. Contact has helped, in the previous moments where he’s been like this.

“And we’re two sets of two,” Scott says. He feels momentarily guilty for pointing it out when Etho looks saddened by the reminder that Tango is gone now, too.

“Well,” Etho rocks back on his heels. “I can’t find Impulse at the moment- not a clue where he’s wandered off to.”

Maybe Etho’s words summon him, because Scott watches a blur plummet down onto the Mansion, disappearing under the water for a moment before resurfacing. Even from their distance, he’s able to make out the distinctive yellow ‘i’ on his shirt.

“Grian fell from Skynet,” Martyn says, blinking back to reality.

“Uh, no,” he gives Martyn a confused look from the corner of his eye. “That’s Impulse.”

“I- what?” Martyn glances over at the Mansion, “Oh! Yeah, yeah, that’s Impulse. Yeah.”

Etho gives them a funny look, eyes squinting as he studies Martyn.

“We can summon him over here,” Scott says, distracting Etho before he can ask too many questions. He’d been hanging out with Martyn earlier, could have seen his spacy-ness. Could identify it as something to be used later. Something that Scott would prefer him not to do. “Tell him we have Etho.”

“Like some kind of hostage situation?”

“Ooh, yeah,” Martyn nods along with Etho’s suggestion. “Let’s take him hostage.”

“Or we can just go down and meet him?” Etho suggests. He doesn’t look excited at the hostage idea, go figure. “I don't want to make him climb all the way back up for nothing.

“I don't really want to climb all the way back down there,” he complains, but its for nought as Etho clambers up to where they're sitting, leading the (very slow) charge down to the base of the ladder. His arms feel shaky by the time he reaches the bottom, from both exertion and exhaustion. He feels like he hasn’t slept properly in weeks.

Scott taps out the message on his comm, feet firmly planted into the nice sandy ground below him. It’s a comfort, to be back on truly solid ground again, even with the TIES’ wonky tower casting a slightly uneven shadow over them all.

<Smajor1995> come to us

He follows behind Martyn and Etho absently as he continues to type, hopping over the small blast craters easily and circling around the larger ones just as easily. He has to pause for a moment to bat away a zombie, sword slashing straight through its chest and sending it dissolving into a pile of dust.

<Smajor1995> we have etho

He knows its an ominous message to leave it on, especially when the two of them have been separated for who knows how long. Etho chuckles a little at it, but doesn’t send a message to reassure his teammate. A sense of urgency makes for swift feet, and they want to deal with the Neighbours as quickly as possible, he supposes. Better to do it now than when their timers are about to run out.

“What do you mean you have Etho?!” Scott spins on the spot to greet Impulse.

“As a friend!” he calls back. “We have Etho as a friend!” A skeleton shoots him as he speaks, managing to actually hit him when he’s sluggish on putting his shield up. It’s enough to make him realise how surrounded by mobs they’ve gotten, closed in on all sides, each of them beating back at least two mobs at a time.

“Let’s go!” he calls out, looking around for a place for them to actually go. He only manages to spot the little cave entrance by chance, remembering the little nook beyond that they can hunker down in for the night. Martyn catches up with him quickly when he realises where Scott’s heading. “Told you framing it like we had Etho as a hostage would work.”

“Yeah, wasn’t you he tried to run through with his sword.” Martyn mutters.

“He didn’t try to run you through with his sword,” he rebukes softly, speaking quieter as they enter the cave, aware that their voices will echo over to the following pair.

“He was thinking it,” Martyn says darkly. “I could sense it; hear it in the air.”

Scott doesn’t even get to ask what the hell that means, because Impulse is suddenly slamming the door shut and saying something about “not letting the zombies in too!”

The plan is laughably easy to make, once they get over their bickering and the small taunts they throw at each other. It’s hard not to point out Impulse’s attempts to blow him up earlier, something that Impulse receives with good grace and lets go as water under the bridge.

It’s only worrying how often Martyn spaces out, only ever chiming back in with something that nearly has Scott questioning how he knows Grian is currently away from the base, or that Pearl is up on Skynet, nevermind that all of them are underground and have been for the better part of twenty minutes, formulating the plan they're going to use to try and eliminate their biggest threat. How Martyn knows this is a mystery, but not anything that anyone is questioning, for some reason?

It doesn’t stop Scott from inching a little closer, until they're close enough to touch. So Scott can make sure he’s still real, still there. Not yet gone and seeing things that only the dead are meant to see.

It’s unnerving, how Martyn’s eyes go far away when he thinks about something, considers a question that he realistically shouldn’t have the answer to.

It’s terrifying when he tilts his head to the side, as though angling himself to listen to something more intently.

=== === ===

Oh this is new, he thinks, when he enters the tower that he knows BigB is in, and there’s no-one there. He holds his sword steady, laughing a little as he looks around.

He’s not invisible, no small swirls of smoke giving away his position as he moves. There’s absolutely no indication of where BigB is, other than the faint impression that there’s a person right in front of him.

“Oh, you're invisible,” he says aloud, mostly to himself.

“Am I?” BigB’s voice comes from a little to the left, and he swings for it, sword sweeping in a wide arc as he hopes it catches on flesh. It jerks to a stop as it embeds itself in…some part of BigB. He stares hard at that spot in front of him, but his eyes refuse to focus, sliding away whenever he tries to look for longer than a second.

“You are,” he confirms, ignoring BigB’s small grunt of pain as he yanks his sword back towards himself, holding it up defensively. This entire fight just got a lot harder if BigB isn’t the one doing this. It can only be one other doing this, sabotage against him. Something to make him fall a little easier. He loses track of where BigB is, the empty tower around them making his footsteps echo and hard to track. “I'm sure this fight will be easy enough, though.”

“No it won’t!”

Gotcha.

He swings around, spinning on the heel of his foot to make it quicker, flipping his sword at the last moment and slamming the blunt edge of his blade into BigB’s side, winding him rather than slicing him in half.

He swings his sword up to block at the shing of a blade being unsheathed, feeling the invisible weapon press down against his hands, heavy and forcing him to bend beneath it. He bends his knees, sinking a little lower. BigB laughs, excited at this upper hand he’s gained.

Scott holds it a little longer, ignoring the way his arms begin to shake from the strain. Only when he’s certain BigB is pressing most of his weight down against him does he slip away, dropping his sword and darting out of range as fast as he can.

‘As fast as he can’ is apparently not fast enough, feeling the cool metal of a blade dig into his back before he manages to slip completely away, hissing through clenched teeth at the burning sensation that quickly spreads over his back.

“Hah!” BigB cheers at this small victory, even as Scott turns back to face him. The wavering outline of something vaguely resembling a person is all he has to go off of. It’s like the wavering air above stone on a hot day. “Still confident?”

“Of course,” he scoffs. He ignores the way he has to readjust his grip on his sword, hand sweaty as he backs up another step. Whatever invisibility gift this is, it’s not fair. He has a rather good idea of who is doing this, and he cusses them out silently in his mind. Maybe They’ll be able to hear his swearing. “You think I’ll go down that easily?”

He can feel the blood soaking through his shirt rather quickly. For a surface wound, it’s bleeding a lot, and really quite painful.

He still swings when BigB comes at him again, the sound of feet on the cobbles his only indicator. Swinging in such a wide arc wrenches something in his shoulder, and he swears he can feel the flesh tearing further, strained apart like the threads of a garment, stretched beyond breaking point.

In the end, BigB catches him unawares. A rather easy feat, considering he can’t see the other man.

He gasps at the feeling of a blade piercing his flesh, stumbles back – tries to stumble backwards, finds himself stuck on whatever weapon he’s just been impaled with. The weapon he can’t see, but his mind still registers the pain pain pain of a slow death. Still registers the blood blossoming around the puncture.

He can see his insides, vaguely and through a distorted lens. It warps, as though he should be seeing something other than the tearing of his blood vessels and his parted flesh. He can see organs you're not meant to see, curled around himself in the way that he is, can see the puncturing of these probably vital organs which is not a good sign for his continued survival. His flesh is darker than he thought it would be, and bleeds for far longer than he expects.

He lasts far longer than he expected, shallow breaths wheezing out of him as he crumples to the ground.

“Woah, hey,” hands he can’t see lay over his arms, the faint feeling of pressure against his skin the only thing his mind registers. He can see his skin indent where hands press against his forearms, idents that can only be created by hands holding onto him. Hands that he cannot, for some reason, see. “It’ll be over in a sec, I’m sure.”

Scott tilts his head back and allows himself a small groan. He’s bleeding out slowly and sluggishly, he thinks he can afford a singular moment of pain amongst this shitshow.

He almost reaches the point of asking BigB to just slit his throat when the room spins dizzying circles around him, and words are coming from an unseen mouth, unseen hands brushing up and down his arms in what is probably meant to be a reassuring gesture, but is actually just unnerving.

He chokes on the blood in his mouth, and wakes with it still coating his teeth.

=== === ===

“Do you want to get BigB again?” Martyn asks, turning to him with a gleam in his eyes.

Scott hasn’t decided whether he likes this new Martyn yet or not. The Martyn of earlier, with his listless expression and drifting thoughts was not fun to deal with nor exciting to observe, but the Martyn of the here and now, the Martyn with an anticipatory gleam in his eye and a pep in his step at the thought of killing someone else is also not reassuring.

“Not really,” he replies, as casually as he can. “I got my time back from him.”

“And you don't want more?”

“Uh, not really, no.” He and Martyn are alone right now, Impulse and Etho splitting off from their little group momentarily. He doubts they’ll join back together again, everyone’s clocks hanging far too low to trust someone you only made a temporary alliance with.

(For just a moment, Scott wishes they’d come back. Come and act as a buffer between him and the ally that he no longer recognises. The gleam in his eye is dangerous, it warns. A herald of what is to come. He considers, briefly, slipping away into the night and disappearing until his clock runs out of time. Until that last grain of sand in his hourglass slips through and buries him completely. He’s not sure he wants to see what will happen if it’s just him and Martyn. When it’s just him and Martyn.)

“Alright,” Martyn drags the word out, as though he doesn’t believe him. Maybe he doesn’t, with the red-blindness that seems to descend onto everyone at this point, looming over their shoulders like a particularly grim reminder. He can almost hear the clocks ticking down, beat by beat, moment by moment. “If you say so.”

“I do,” he says. “I do say so.”

Martyn considers him for another moment longer. Watches him with those red eyes that seem to hold nothing but calculations behind them. A measure of how long it would take to overpower someone, how long it would take to bleed them dry of their blood and their time. How many arrows to divert someone from their chosen path. How many swings of the sword before their time can be claimed, like the spoils after a hunt.

Scott hates it. Hates this. Hates what his friends become. Hates what it is – who it is – that makes them do it.

Martyn shrugs and turns away. His walk is casual, deceptively so. He moves quickly, off to kill whoever it is that he’s set his mind on. Possibly the Nosy Neighbours, eyes set on them as a target, like a dog with a bone, relentlessly gnawing on it as though that will force it to produce something more.

Ah, yes. That’s what it is.

Martyn watches him as though his heart no longer beats, as though he is nothing more than a chunk of flesh to be devoured for the benefit, what he might gain from it.

Scott walks in the opposite direction to Martyn and hopes, rather selfishly, that they don’t have to cross paths again.

=== === ===

All paths lead back to the clock. All lead back to the timer ticking down, hanging heavy over their heads and around their necks; a slowly tightening noose.

Perhaps it is fitting, then, with his clock at a negligible amount that they arrive at the Clock Tower. Built at the centre of their little world. Everything revolves around the clock, and the Clockers have made sure they cannot forget that.

The face of it peers down at them, despite Scott not being able to see it from where he stands now. He can feel it. Can feel the ticking of the hands, the shifting and grinding of the gears that allow it to turn. Will allow it to turn long after each of them is dead.

Martyn and Impulse watch each other warily, watch him warily. He watches them back, far less wary than either of them.

He can see how this plays out, can see the end already in the tight grip of a hand upon a sword. Can see the way such a hand refuses to release the last weapon he holds, refuses to give up his one advantage here. Can see how the hand hesitates when moving to unstrap his armour, to unbuckle the plates and let them fall loosely to the ground.

Scott undoes the strap in one unceremonious movement, only grimacing slightly at the clatter as it hits the ground, rolling uselessly around his feet.

Martyn watches him, suspicion misting his eyes. His hand continues to falter, resting over his heart and over his chestplate. One that has still to be removed. Impulse’s armour lays on the ground, too, scattered around in pieces as though he’d simply tossed it aside carelessly in his eagerness to get it off.

Scott tilts his head to the side, almost imperceptibly, watches the way Martyn tracks the tiny movement. The way Impulse does not.

There is a question in his eyes, one that he is not sure Martyn can read anymore. The Martyn of yesterday would have been able to. The Martyn that still cared to scrub his hands free of blood, the one that cared enough to clean beneath his nails, so not even the slightest speck of blood would continue to stain his hands.

The Martyn of today is not the one he has spent time getting to know better. He is not the one that could read a question in the tilt of his eyebrows or the squint of his eyes. He is not the one that would be able to read the question in his eyes right now, swimming just below the surface. Maybe Martyn reaches for that understanding he once had, but the explanation slips away easily, a fish disappearing beneath the surface once more.

So maybe he doesn’t read the implicit permission. The silent question that doesn’t need an answer. Because Martyn might not be able to read his eyes, might not be able to read anything from him at this point, but Scott can still read him. Can still see the plan in his eyes, the way it whirrs in his brain as he smooths out the crinkles and finalises it.

Still, despite Martyn’s plan being finalised, set in stone and ready to be carried out regardless of what anyone says, Scott gives him a small nod that he might not catch. A granting of permission. A better you than anyone else. Martyn might not understand it. May have lost the ability to read him entirely.

He still ends up with a sword through the heart, pulled out slowly, longingly. Blood coats the inside of his mouth, and when he coughs, feels it spilling over, it feels like a parting kiss.

[spicy-picklez]

My Lady (Pt 2)

Includes:

Murder, marking/ownership kink, praise kink, fingering, cunnilingus,

Characters:

Brienne of Tarth x fem!reader

Summary:

After a near death encounter, Brienne and Y/N's relationship flourishes.

Word Count:

2.9k

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A/N: apologies for the long wait guys. To say I've had a rough few days would be an understatement. My phone completely fucked itself the other day then the night I got my new phone, my mates and I went out for skids to bring in my mates birthday. Twenty minutes into her birthday, we almost died. The car started sparking and caught fire, one of my mates and I were locked in the back and directly over the fuel tank and the doors were opening. We had to literally step over flames to get out and barely got away before the car blew up. 😅

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By the time you woke the next morning, the sun had just finished rising, the soft morning light settling over your face. Brienne’s arm is slung lazily over the dip of your waist and you smile, feeling her muscular presence behind you. Moving further back into her embrace, you feel her stir behind you. Brienne’s eyes widen as she realises she still had her arm locked over you. “Sorry, my lady.” She mumbles, retracting her arm from your side as she pulls away from you. A deprived whine escapes your lips at the lack of contact. “Get back here before I dislocate your knee again.” You murmur, your voice heavy with sleep.

“Sorry?” Her voice is full of confusion, convinced she misheard you. Taking her arm, you pull it back over you, moving back into her warm embrace as you sigh contentedly. Brienne is shocked. No one had even dared to get close to her, the only ones who did were the ones who were sent to hurt her. She was expecting you to wake up and regret asking her to sleep next to you, not… this. “My lady, what are you doing?” Confusion is evident in her tone as she watches you relax back into her arms.

“I want you here with me.” You say and she can’t help but smile at your words, nodding gently against the back of your neck. Happiness fills her veins, hearing your words replay in her head. More than anything, she wants that too. She lets herself relax behind you, sighing in content at the feeling of you in her arms. What wouldn’t she give to wake up like this every morning.

The birds had long been chirping by the time you and Brienne decided to start your day. The bright sun is now warm against your faces as you slip into your armour. Fastening your sheath around your waist, you step closer to Brienne, placing your hand against her steel armour as she looks at you with confusion. Your other hand wraps around to the back of her neck as she leans down, her arms wrapping around your waist. Tender and loving, you place your lips on hers. A smile pulls at her lips as she pulls you close, deepening the kiss. “Come on, we need to get moving.” She murmurs as you break the kiss. You nod before falling into step with her, enjoying the giddy silence between the two of you.

After a few hours of idle conversation as the two of you hiked through the woods, you and Brienne had come across a rabbit’s burrow and successfully killed the two rabbits inside. You had just finished eating when footsteps sounded through the trees. Two Baratheon soldiers come into view and you freeze. “You.” One of them snarls upon seeing you, both of them drawing their swords. “Arthur. Benji.” You say, unsheathing your sword. You’d already guessed they weren’t too happy with you. After all, you did ruin the entire alliance between the Starks and the Baratheons by leaving Renly at the altar. “Stannis is going to love this. Do you have any idea how big the bounty is on your name, dearest Y/N?” Arthur says, a sickening grin on his face.

“Doesn’t matter, you won’t be collecting it, Lady Y/N is under my protection.” Brienne says, her voice a tone deeper than usual as she towers above the two knights opposite you. “Brienne the Beauty, don’t tell me you’ve grown a soft spot for Y/N over here.” Benji snickers as she tenses beside you, hearing the ingenuine tone behind her well-hated nickname. “She is beautiful, isn’t she? And I do have to agree with what she said. I'm not just some bounty to collect, Ser Brienne outsmarted me fair and square.” Brienne’s eyes dash towards you with shock at your words. You are literally about to be decapitated and yet you still defend her?

A disapproving sound leaves Arthur’s lips before he lunges forward, your sword ready to block him. The noise of clanging metal echoes through the trees as he continues his attack on you. You skillfully deflect each jab at you as you put your leading leg at the front. With his next attack you let his blade slide down your sword, getting caught on the hilt as your free arm wraps around his sword. Flattening the back of your hand against the hilt, you pull back, trapping his sword under your armpit as he’s left defenceless. You quickly kick your leg out and he falls to the ground. With one fatal slash of your sword, he’s left with a puddle of blood oozing from his neck as he collapses, dead in front of you.

Turning around, you see Brienne battling with Benji, his back exposed to you. Stabbing your sword through his armour, Brienne’s face is splashed with blood droplets as Benji lets out a final strangled breath before you kick him off your blade. Both of you breathing heavily, Brienne looks at you with an unreadable expression. “They were going to kill you, yet you still defended me… why?” An amused smile pulls at your lips. “My dearest Brienne, you still haven’t figured it out have you?” Her confused look signals for you to continue. “You are the most gorgeous woman I have ever seen. If those incompetent goons had killed me, no way was I going to let the last words I hear be a lie.” You say, stepping closer to her.

Her hand reaches out to cup your face as she quickly closes the gap, pressing her lips firmly against yours. Grinning against her lips, the two of you pull each other closer, dishevelled hair falling on your faces. “You’re an idiot. You know that right?” She grins as she rests her forehead on yours. “Only for you… But we should get out of here. Did you want a new sword?” You laugh, holding up Arthur’s sword, embellished with the House Baratheon symbol. She shakes her head, an amused grin on her face. “I’m good but yes, we need to go.” You chuck the sword down as the two of you leave the scene, disappearing into the trees.

“Your sword’s oddly familiar. I just can’t figure out how I know it.” Brienne says, leaves crunching under her boots as you walk. You let out a slight chuckle, unsheathing it so Brienne can have a closer look. Taking it in her hands, she runs her hand up the blade. “I can tell you what sword comes to mind when I look at this but it can’t be.” You chuckle as she admires your sword, a look of fascination and disbelief on her face. “Ice.” Your voice is soft, a tone of amusement behind it. Brienne’s eyes widen as she looks at you. “I thought it was! I heard it’d been stolen from your father though… That was you!?” She looks at you in disbelief as you let off a small chuckle at her reaction.

“It’s quite easy to steal from your family. After I left Renly at the altar, I hung around the outskirts of Winterfell for the rest of the day. Later that night, I snuck into his room while he slept. To be fair, it wasn’t really sneaking, it’s not overly odd for me to be heading into my father’s quarters. Anyway, I replaced it with a cheap knockoff and once I had it, I ran and haven’t been back.” You grin, remembering the adrenaline rush of that night. The middle of the night, dashing through into the forest with only the occasional peek of moonlight through the treetops to guide you. The sound of the six-foot Valyrian steel sword inside its sheath had only fueled you to keep going.

Brienne marvels at the sword in her hands, delicately twirling the blade in her palm as she admires the detail in the hilt. “You are absolutely insane.” She says, disbelief still prominent in her voice. You can’t help the smile pulling at your face as you watch her reaction. Her face is lit up with fascination and a warm feeling grows in your chest at the sight. Sheathing your sword as she hands it back, the two of you continue through the forest, now on the topic of Ice and other well-known swords.

As the sun begins to lose its heat, the two of you decide to call it for the night, finding a small area to sleep for the night before heading out to hunt. Brienne had become a lot more open with you since the incident with Arthur and Benji. The two of you talked for hours about anything and everything, from your first kills to your favourite past-times. By the time you finished eating, the sun was setting. The two of you lean against the base of a tree, staring into the flames of the fire, your armour long since unburdened beside you.

A brief chuckle sounds from beside you. Looking over at Brienne, you signal for her to elaborate. “You know, you look incredibly hot when you're fighting.” She says, continuing to look into the fire with a soft expression. “Oh really?” You can’t help the grin on your face as you hear her words. Her eyes glint with desire as she nods. “It makes me wonder… how well you move without the burden of armour.” She says, finally bringing her eyes to meet yours. Heat pools in your core as her gaze moves down to your lips, trailing further and further down your body. The look in her was one of hunger, she hadn’t felt the touch of another in so long. She craved to feel you against her, to be able to express just how much she cares for you.

Moving closer to her, you lean towards her ear. “Well, why don’t you stop wondering and find out.” Your lips brush over her earlobes with each word. She moves back to bring her lips to yours, igniting a kiss of passion and desire. Her hand trails down your thigh, pulling it up over her lap for you to straddle her. Your hands cup her face as she darts her tongue out to run over your lower lip. Opening your mouth slightly, the kiss deepens. Your tongues work together to elicit soft moans from both of you. Her hands slowly caress down your sides before catching under the fabric of your black gambeson. Lifting it up over your head, the two of you gasp for air as your lips separate.

Her breath hitches, seeing the seven red scars covering the length of your torso. "You're beautiful." She whispers, softly trailing her fingers over the healed wounds. You grin as you flick your hair out of your face, bringing your lips to her neck. Drawing the sensitive skin into your mouth, your hand moves to her hair as a breathy moan escapes her.

Your hands unbutton her leather tunic as she reconnects your lips with hers. Slipping her tunic off her shoulders, she pushes you back, laying you down on the ground as she crawls over you. Grasping at your pants, she drags them off your legs as she peppers kisses over your scars. The sight of you in just your undergarments fueled a fire in Brienne's core, arousal dripping down her leg. Trailing her mouth down your stomach, she positions herself in between your legs. Flicking her eyes up your body, she makes eye contact with you. "Can I?" Her voice drips with desire as you nod, wrapping your hands in her hair.

"Please." Your voice comes out in a soft breath, a fire lighting in your core from anticipation and need. At this, Brienne's doubt slipped away, replaced by a carnal urge to claim you as hers. Her fingers hook under your panties, dragging them down your legs as she gently nips your inner thigh, sucking the sensitive skin into her mouth. Moving her lips closer to your aching clit, she lets out a growl at the sight of your wet cunt, arousal dripping down your leg. Darting her tongue out to taste you, a soft moan escapes her before she sucks your clit into her mouth. Your back arches at the sensation, your fingers tightening their grip in her hair as her name falls off your lips. Her tongue is agonisingly slow over your clit as she watches your body react to every movement. Trailing her fingers over your entrance, your body arches as she pushes two fingers inside you, pressing firmly up against your sweet spot. A string of moans are elicited from your mouth as she increases the pace of her tongue, flicking it over your sensitive mound. Your grip tightens in her hair as she works you closer and closer to orgasm.

She loves the sight of you, such a dominant female with a wild spirit, a moaning mess beneath her. Mesmerised by the way your hips are grinding on her fingers, she increases her pace. Her nails dig into your inner thigh, leaving red scratch marks down your skin. The coil in your stomach tightens as she thrusts her fingers in and out of you at an ungodly pace as your legs begin to shake. “You’re mine, darling.” She growls, euphoria filling your veins as you let yourself succumb to pleasure. “I’m yours.” Your body twitches beneath you as Brienne’s name falls off your lips amongst a string of moans. Your chest rises heavily with each breath as she slows down her pace, dragging out your high. Trailing her lips up your body, she brings you into a passionate kiss as she allows you to taste yourself off her tongue.

Sitting up, she moves to straddle your lap as your fingers tighten in her hair, pulling it back to expose her neck. Gently trailing kisses down the sensitive skin, your free hand reaches down her ass, giving it a gentle squeeze. Lifting your knee up, you twist your hips and roll her onto her back. One hand up by her head, the other reaches down to play with her nipple as you bring your lips to hers. A soft moan is elicited from her as you run the top of your thumb over her now hardened nipple. Kissing down her jawline, you lower your mouth to her other nipple, sucking it into your mouth.

Brienne allows herself to give up control, pleasure coursing through her veins as your mouth trails further down her body, placing soft kisses on her lower abdomen as you position yourself between her legs. Lifting one of her legs over your shoulder, you gently nip at the sensitive skin on her inner thigh as you pull her panties down. With a slow, controlled movement of your tongue, you lick from her entrance up to her clit, collecting her arousal in your mouth. A small growl leaves your lips as you taste her. Bringing her lips to her exposed mound, you gently lay a kiss to it before sucking it into your mouth. Brienne’s back arches as her hand flies down to your hair, a smile pulling at your lips from her reaction. Circling her clit with your tongue, you tease her entrance with two fingers, feeling her arousal running down them.

A soft moan falls off her lips as you slowly slide your fingers inside her, not ready for the depth having her leg over your shoulder created. Her back arches as you feel your fingers hit her sweet spot, her breath hitching. Your eyes are unable to look away from her, fascinated by how her body moves with every flick of your tongue, every thrust of your fingers. Her moans are heaven for your ears, every beautiful sound her mouth makes only fuels you to keep going. You could stay an eternity between your knight’s legs.

You begin spelling out the word “mine” on her clit with your tongue. A soft gasp eliciting from Brienne’s lips as she realises what you’re writing, arousal dripping down her leg as you add a third finger inside her. A desperate whimper escaping her, her body begins to shake. Her grip in your hair tightens as her back arches, euphoria flooding over her. Your name falling off her lips is the most perfect sound you’ve heard in your life, a grin pulling at your lips as your tongue slows down its movements over her clit. Helping her ride out her high, you leave a trail of hickeys up her inner thigh, staining the sensitive skin with reds and purples.

Both of you breathing heavily, you bring your lips up to hers. Running your tongue over her lower lip, she moans as she tastes herself, a grin pulling at both of your lips. Her arms wrap around your waist, pulling your naked body flush against hers. “Now can I call you my lady?” She chuckles as you break the kiss, a grin plastered on your face. Giving her another quick kiss, you nod. “I suppose I’ll allow it.” You chuckle as she pulls you back closer to her body, enjoying the feeling of your skin against hers.

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[little-cereal-draws]

ok I need witchy help again. There's a grove of trees behind my dorm that's being cut down and I know there's nothing I can physically do to stop it but I want to protect the animals that live there.

There are two barbed wire fences and a highway separating us so I've never actually been in it, but I've been spending several hours a day looking at this grove for abt a year and a half. There's a shipping company located behind the trees and semitrucks with shipping containers drive around it. Idk what company it is but now they're cutting down the trees, adding lights that block out the stars, and paving over it. I watched them rip about a fourth of it out with their machinery this morning.

It makes me so fucking furious I want to go over there and tell them to stop and so sad that I want to cry. Those trees have been such an important part of my own mental health even if I can't get close to them and I know SO many creatures live there. I've started having stress dreams abt them ripping it out when they started abt a week ago and a lot of my dreams involved using magic to stop it.

I tried googling it but I couldn't find any protective charms or spells for the environment, they were all protection for yourself that uses the environment. I don't want to want to hex that company, I just want to protect the animals that live there and give them a new place to stay. I am a baby witch who's also a broke/busy college student so smth that's quick and easy would be preferred but I'll take anything.

More of my angry rant under the cut bc I'm furious

List of animals that I've seen living in the trees and in the small swamp in front of it over the years:

opossums

multiple families of raccoons

a cat colony with kittens

eight different species of frogs

cranes

many different species of corvid

owls

bats

a family of red shouldered hawks

vultures

rabbits

foxes

many different species of jay

snakes

leeches (yes they deserve to be saved too)

turtles

skinks

lizards

geckos

many different species of insects, there's no way I can list them all

hummingbirds

mourning doves

a singular alligator

Every single fucking day I watch the cranes fly East to sleep on the river as the sun sets. I've seen them fly West to the swamps as the sun rises too. I saw two vultures courting the other day. The raccoons, cats, and opossums don't run from me anymore and will happily let me get within a few feet of them (I never try to touch them). I know exactly which trees the bats live in. I saw a moth that was bright blue and orange, mimicking a species of wasp. I saw a species of hawk I had never seen before. I talk and sing to the trees even if there are no animals there. That was the only place I've seen a wild fox. The cranes land in the swamp and hunt the frogs. There's a huge bullfrog that lives in the back corner. I've saved baby snakes and turtles from cars. They both easily fit in the palm of my hand. I thought I found an injured bird the other day and was totally ready to help it even though I don't know how (it turned out to be fine, just behaving really strangely). Every time it rains, I go out and pick worms off the sidewalk for hours. The trees are where I go to get away from the stress of my schoolwork, my two jobs, and my roommates.

I need this ecosystem so fucking much, I have hung so much of my mental health on it and now they're coming in and ripping it out and paving over it!!!! They're putting more barbed wire, more pavement, more streetlights. I want to see the tall grass and the puddles and the trees and the hills not a FUCKING PARKING LOT WITH TRUCKS BEHIND A FENCE. I AM SO SCARED FOR THE CREATURES THAT LIVE THERE, I NEED THEM TO BE OK. EVEN IF I LOSE THE TREES, I'LL FEEL BETTER KNOWING THAT THE ANIMALS ARE SOMEPLACE SAFE. THERE'S A HIGHWAY LITERALLY ON ALL SIDES, I DON'T KNOW WHERE ELSE THEY CAN GO. I NEED THEM TO BE OK

[halfagonyandhope]

when the skies catch fire │ch. 31

first chapter (x); previous chapter (x)

Obi-Wan can’t help but feel surprise when the sun eventually rises. It’s a familiar feeling, one that has greeted the daylight more often than not since his return. He’s not sure he wants to know what this says about him.

Satine is already pinning her hair back in an elaborate plait, not a strand out of place despite the lack of holo-mirror or reflective surface. Instead, she uses her shadow, cast from the morning sun onto the wall nearest Obi-Wan, to track her movements. Obi-Wan glances at a still-sleeping Soléa in her bassinet before moving his eyes back to Satine. 

He watches her from the mattress and takes her in. She wears the lavender tunic they’d traded for when they arrived on Dantooine. She’d been pregnant then, though they hadn’t yet known it. 

He sits up, swinging his legs slowly off the mattress so that his bare feet touch the ground. 

Satine hears the shuffling of the bed linens and turns toward him, expression soft. “I was just about to wake you,” she says. “I have a few moments before I need to take a call, and you need a shave.”

Obi-Wan runs a hand over his stubble. “Still not sure about the beard?” he asks her.

Satine laughs. “Oh, I am quite sure, my dear - sure that it hides too much of your handsome face.”

He feels his heart echo in his chest like the words from years past. 

Satine reaches for the shallow water pail on the nightstand and the barber’s blade. It’s part of their morning, a vestige of when Obi-Wan literally did not have the strength to hold the blade steady during the first few days after his return. Much of his beard had been beyond saving after Mustafar and then his torture on Mandalore, and he’d asked for her assistance in shaving it off. These days, his strength has returned enough that he can shave himself. Satine knows this. And yet, she’s continued offering to help. So, dutifully, every morning - the only time when they have time - she shaves him, careful to avoid stitches and wounds in the process of healing.

Satine steps to him, pushing aside one leg to stand between his knees, and begins to lather his skin before raising the blade.

“I haven’t asked you about Léa’s birth,” Obi-Wan says suddenly.

Satine catches the apology in his voice. With only a look, and without pausing in her task, she tells him that no apology is necessary. 

“Every sinew, every fiber of my being is focused on getting through the next hour, or the next day,” he says after a moment. “It’s not a state that lends itself to being aware of others.”

“Well,” she says, resting a hand on his shoulder and looking down at him. “You have spent the better part of four decades only thinking about others, so it seems quite fair for you to worry about yourself for once.” Her hand moves back up to touch his chin, guiding him to look the other direction so the light hits the unshaven side of his face.

Her tone is soft yet slightly sardonic, and Obi-Wan cannot help but laugh quietly.

Satine grins, and his heart pulls at how much he has missed her unreserved joy. She seems to be thinking along the same lines because she says, “I have dearly missed that laugh, my love.”

His hands find her waist, and Satine puts down the barber’s blade, reaching instead for a cloth that she dips into the water to rinse his face. The water is still running down his face, his neck, his chest when he pulls her against him. Her arms cradle his head against her breast.

Obi-Wan breathes her in.

She kisses the top of his head and then breathes out. “To answer your question: I remember very little of the pain. Hormones, apparently, are quite a powerful force.”

Satine pulls back slightly.

“However, I do remember enough of it that I do not wish to become pregnant again at any point in the near future,” she says, her tone making Obi-Wan chuckle again, his hot breath rustling Satine’s clothing. “The med droid who assisted with my pregnancy frequently reminded me that the probability of my implant failing was 3,720 to 1.” Her eyes wander, and Obi-Wan knows she’s thinking of their time on the transport to Dantooine. And, in particular, of one specific night. “But somehow, you and I have always managed to beat the odds.” Satine takes a deep breath before continuing. “Nevertheless, I opted for a different type of implant after Léa’s birth. Just in case.”

Satine smooths Obi-Wan’s hair back, away from his eyes.

“I’m afraid I must take my leave,” she says, pulling back slightly. “There is a call waiting for me from Alderaan in the conference room.” Satine takes another step back but holds his hand still. “Will you drop Léa at the crèche?”

Obi-Wan makes to stand, and Satine’s hand shifts around his to help pull him up. He brings her fingers to his lips and nods.

Satine gives him half a smile. She doesn’t offer a goodbye, but she slips away.

Turning to the small chest where they keep their personal items, Obi-Wan opens the lid and reaches for a clean tunic. He slips into boots that he swears still carry the scent of ash. Then he runs his fingers through his hair. 

A year ago, he would have been horrified to see how he expects his current reflection appears; now, he can’t find that he much cares about appearances. 

Maybe he would care - if he had the energy to spare.

Obi-Wan shuts the lid of the trunk, deliberately avoiding looking at his lightsaber. Instead, he turns to Léa’s bassinet, and he reaches for his daughter.

---

Obi-Wan turns the corner to the crèche, and the bright walls greet him immediately. He steps inside, and Padmé swoops in to grab Léa out of his arm, brushing her lips against the infant’s temple. Léa giggles and squeals. Obi-Wan can’t help but feel the tension leave his shoulders as he leans on his cane, glancing around the crèche at the younglings engaged in various activities - from reading to crafts to play. The sounds of joy seep through him, reaching his bones.

Padmé steps to Obi-Wan and kisses first one cheek, then the other. She doesn’t ask how he is doing, and he is grateful. Someday they will talk about losing Anakin - and then finding out they hadn’t lost him the way they’d thought they had - but he’s not ready for that, and he doesn’t think she is either. 

Her hand lingers on his elbow. She squeezes his arm gently before pulling away. “Another class today, then?” she asks.

He latches onto the topic of conversation. Ever since his return, he’s struggled with knowing what to say, with how to break silence. “Neha thinks there are too many students for just herself to properly train,” he says, referring to both the taala - the Mandalorian Force-sensitives who had abandoned the Dantooine base in fear after Satine had been overthrown as Duchess, only to eventually be found on Jakuu and convinced to return back to the base for their protection - and the Force-sensitive children the Phoenix cell has continued to smuggle off Mandalore since the dawn of the Empire. “However, I suspect her real motivation is to train me.”

Padmé hums in agreement. “I suspect you are correct,” she says. “Are you alright with that?”

Léa’s head turns to her father, as though she too is interested in his answer. Obi-Wan brushes his thumb against her small cheek.

“My feelings are unimportant,” he offers. “Those of age need to learn to defend themselves. And I have the knowledge to teach them.”

“Your feelings aren’t unimportant,” Padmé says gently, though she sighs. “But I understand. And if it means I get to spend more time with my niece…” She trails off, tickling Léa’s belly so that she shrieks again, smiling widely.

It’s the first time Padmé has referred to Léa as her niece. Obi-Wan’s mind flashes to the prior week, when Korkie had started calling Obi-Wan “uncle” after realizing that Satine and Obi-Wan had married.

Obi-Wan decides he quite likes the idea of both.

“Are you sure it’s not too much trouble?” Obi-Wan asks. “You’ve got a fair number of younglings to look after already.”

But Padmé is already shaking her head. “Obi-Wan, it is no trouble.” Suddenly, a quiet smile escapes her lips. “I managed to make contact with Sabé,” she says. “She’s traveling to the base as we speak.” There’s something in her voice that takes a moment for Obi-Wan to place. Eventually, he realizes that it’s hope. “She will help me care for the younglings, at least until we have a more formal schooling system in place.”

She’s still smiling softly. It’s a smile he’d grown used to - he’d often seen it when they were in the company of Anakin, when Padmé would try and fail to hide her feelings. Curious, he makes a mental note to ask Satine later. He’s still having difficulties reading people - which he understands is common after a massive trauma - but Satine will be able to shed light.

Whatever the meaning of this particular smile, he’s hopeful, too, for Padmé. She had never deserved to be loved for the sake of loving back, and he hopes that whatever Sabé is to her, Sabé is more than that.

Out loud, though, he says, “I’ll be glad of her presence at Phoenix Base.” Then he reaches down to tap a finger against Léa’s diminutive hand. “See you soon, my dear,” he says, and Léa watches him with wide eyes, as though she comprehends each word. 

He nods in thanks at Padmé and retreats, beginning his trek to the training rooms in search of Neha.

---

Obi-Wan is giving final words of encouragement - not that the trainees need it; they are Mandalorians - at the end of class when his comlink chirps. He excuses himself and ducks into a deserted corridor, glad to have the opportunity to disappear without making small talk.

“Kenobi,” he says lowly.

“Master?” Despite the static, he would recognize Ahsoka’s voice anywhere, and Obi-Wan suddenly cannot breathe. But she wastes no time on niceties. “We’re about to jump to hyperspace so I don’t know if we’ll be able to get further communication to you for some time, but I needed you to know - I found them. Your family is alive, Master.”

Obi-Wan vaguely registers the sound of his cane hitting the floor.

His free hand searches for a moment before landing against the wall, and he tries to steady himself. He can’t keep his breathing even.

“Master, hold on a moment,” says Ahsoka, and there’s a shuffling sound where the static grows louder. Then - 

“Obi-Wan?”

The way the Force sings at the sound of the woman’s voice - he hasn’t heard that for more than thirty years.

He tries to form the word, but it feels strange on his tongue. 

Finally, he manages it.

“Mother?” he whispers.

[ladyhoneydee]

30 Day Song(fic) Challenge: Day 30!!!!!!

Ahhhh this is it!!!! Finally the last day of my Song(fic) Challenge! It's been quite the ride, and while I might do a little self-indulgent reflection post tomorrow, tonight I am going to try to get this done before it's literally 2am the next day where I live lol.

The prompt for today was "A song you want to share". I couldn't pick one, and so I ended up synthesizing two: "To Be Enchanted" by Sleeping at Last, and "4 O'Clock" by V and RM from BTS. "To Be Enchanted" is a more recent song discovery for me, and one I've related as it comes to feeling pessimistic about myself and my journey and needing to remind myself of the joys in living; by contrast, "4 O'Clock" has been a beloved favorite of mine since 2019, and I've listened to it as a soothing entry on hundreds of night walks over the years.

Shadows and Sorrows

Game: Ocarina of Time

Pairing: Sheik & Link (although Sheik/Link is endgame to me ofc)

Word Count: 2430

Keywords: angst, hurt/comfort, healing

The comfort ached like too much sugar in the center of a molar, but he clung on for Link’s sake, as he squeezed Sheik’s hand so tightly the bones ground together. They sat in heartbroken silence: the boy who had to grow up too fast, and the boy who had forced it upon him.

Read the fic on Ao3, or under the cut!

Bright light, shaded in blue, illuminated on the Triforce mosaic over Lake Hylia. Sheik shaded his eyes as he leapt behind the withered old tree just behind it, alarm and adrenaline pulsing through his body. That was Link’s teleportation magic, from the Ocarina of Time Zelda had tossed him all those years ago…but the timing was wrong. The lake hadn’t been restored yet, as Sheik anticipated would happen with the purging of the Water Temple and the awakening of Princess Ruto as a Sage. Worse still, it was still night, with hours yet until morning; Sheik had calculated, based on Link’s speed at completing the two previous temples, that if he emerged successfully, it would be along with the rising of the sun.

He was too early. Far too early. Was he hurt? Had something gone wrong? Sheik rummaged in his bindings for potions, gauze, anything that could help the hero, as the light gave one final, blinding flash, and flickered out. Sheik swore he could hear the echo of the final note of the Serenade of Water in the air. 

Link’s silhouette, recognizable by his pointy hat, the breadth of his shoulders, and the glow of his white tights in the moonlight, crumpled to its knees with a wretched cry. Sheik gasped, and forfeited the meager cover of the tree to race to his side. 

“Link?! Are you alright? Where are you hurt?”

His hands hovered over Link’s body, desperate to run along the planes of him to ascertain that he was okay, but terrified of hurting him further with careless touches. 

Link looked up, and Sheik flinched back at the tear-soaked hollowness in his eyes and the dark puffiness of the skin beneath them. A bloody line, thinner than one of Sheik’s throwing needles, traced the curve of his right cheek, and he could make out the shadows of a bruise blooming on his lower neck just above where the collar of his tunic could hide the rest.

“I’m okay,” Link whispered hoarsely. Sheik had never heard him sound so incredibly ragged, as though his throat had been scoured with sandpaper. “I’ve had worse.”

Sheik’s head, which had been craned down to scan Link’s torso for any obvious injuries—damn the dark blue of the tunic, making it so hard to see bloodstains in the dark!—snapped back up. “I have seen you with a bone sticking out of your leg and most of your body covered in third-degree lava burns, before your last fairy got to you. That does not give me confidence!” Sheik clenched his hands into fists to keep from closing them around Link’s shoulders and shaking them. “Are you as far gone as the Fire Temple, or not?!” 

Link blinked at him, wide-eyed, and Sheik felt the skin of his palm burn beneath his nails at the shrieking silence of not knowing. 

“No, it’s not,” he finally said, head drooping down as if it could not lift even the weight of Sheik’s fearful, furious gaze. “I only have a few cuts and breezes. The worst is on my stomach, but it’s not deep at all.”

The heat of Sheik’s anger whooshed out of him with his heavy exhale. “Thank the goddesses.” He retrieved the only potion he had on him, its crimson shade gone grayscale in the moonlight, and thrust it towards Link. “Drink.”

“I wouldn’t want to waste—”

“You have a cut on your stomach. I don’t think even you know where that tunic has been, so you have a good chance of infection if you don’t treat it or at least clean it.” The potion pressed none-too-gently into Link’s unbloodied cheek. “Drink.”

Scowling, Link took the potion from him, and uncorked the lid. Two swallows, and he lowered it again.

“All of it.”

The scowl deepened. The potion disappeared. Sheik took the empty bottle back, and watched Link as the agony of feeling his skin knit back together twisted his face and made him double over with a wail. A shiver of sympathy crawled up Sheik’s spine with spider-like legs.

Even after the last trembles of the painful healing worked their way out of Link’s frame, he remained hunched over, his long blond bangs obscuring his face. It took a few moments and for a new sort of jolting to begin for Sheik to realize that he was crying.

“Oh, Link…” 

Sheik wrapped one arm around Link’s back, and guided him to the ground. Link followed limply, as if he were nothing more than a puppet, the only fight in him the shudders of his sobs. Sheik crouched before him, brows knit together, heart like a dark, cold stone in his chest.

“What happened?”

Sheik didn’t get an answer for a long while, as Link cried and cried. Even after he ran out of tears—which was very concerning, didn’t the boy carry any water with him?—the seizing wheezes of his lungs and sniffling of his nose continued far longer than Sheik had thought possible. (Of course, Sheik hadn’t allowed himself to cry like this since he was eleven, so he had no guidelines for what could be considered ‘normal’.) 

Eventually, Link wiped his nose with the sleeve of his white undershirt, leaving it glistening in the moonlight. With a final sniffle, he began to speak, or try to.

“In the temple…”

Fresh tears. Another few moments. Sheik’s thighs began to burn from the strain of holding his crouch for so long, and he reluctantly lowered himself to sit fully on the ground as well.

“In the temple, I met…me.”

“Like…your reflection?” Sheik’s brows wrinkled. “Yes, water is prone to that…”

“No, not…it wasn’t the water. It came from the water, but it wasn’t the water. It was me.” Link paused, as if realizing what he was saying didn’t make any sense, and let out a heavy, wet sigh. “I mean, it looked like me. It was like…my shadow, given shape. Physical form. With a sword just like mine.” One hand rose to brush the familiar pommel hovering over his right shoulder. 

“A shadow given form…” Sheik pondered this. Growing up, he’d heard legends of a Realm of Shadows, a place where monsters were eternally reborn to infest Hyrule, and where ‘shadows slept’. He’d had nightmares about it that upon awakening only increased his terror, that these dreams, too, might be prophetic. 

What a wonderful world they lived in, where the every nightmare of a disbelieved child came to life to stalk the earth and haunt the ones who had hoped to put them to rest.

“I think it was more than just my shadow, though.” Link hesitated. “When I looked at it…it was like looking at the darkest parts of me.” His voice quivered. “It was so…sad. It had this longing in its eyes, and it looked…haunted. And angry. But not at me.

“I thought I had to kill it. It was in the same sort of room that I’ve faced minibosses in before, big and empty besides the entity. And I…I wanted it gone. I didn’t want to look at it anymore. It was just…too much like me. So I drew my sword and I slashed at it, but when I did, it mirrored me, exactly.” He motioned towards his abdomen. “That’s how I got cut.”

Sheik sucked air through his teeth and winced in sympathy, but said nothing, letting Link take the space he needed to continue. 

“I kept trying to attack it, but I was scared. I didn’t want to get hurt. It was just as good as me, and I didn’t know how it was doing that…and as I got more scared, it got more…sad. I could see its eyes. They were so…” Link stiffened in remembrance. “It…pitied me.”

Hesitantly, Sheik reached out and patted Link’s knee in comfort. Link gave him a wan smile, but dropped it again almost immediately.

“Eventually I stopped. And it stopped too. And it started…talking.”

At this, Sheik couldn’t hold back anymore. “Talking? What did it say?”

Link flinched back at his volume, and bit his lip. “It said. It, um. It said.” He paused, and Sheik saw the sobs building again, the jolts of his diaphragm beneath his tunic. “It said that I couldn’t defeat it. And I got mad, and I told it, I told it ‘How dare you!’. All righteous. And it saw right through me. It…it took my hand. I saw its hand around mine, but I couldn’t feel it.”

Sheik could picture it. The shadowy grasp around Link’s own, thunderclouds obscuring the sun. The alarm and fear Link must have felt, when most every touch he ever experienced was intended to hurt. Sheik’s heart ached for him. 

“It said it knew me, because–because it was me. And it said that I could never defeat this part of me.” A thick sob snapped Link’s voice like a twig, and when he spoke again, it was in a croaking whisper that made Sheik lean in closer to be able to hear properly. “I thought I’d failed. I thought I was going to die, that it was going to kill me. Because, because that’s what defeat means!” 

Sheik swayed back in alarm at Link’s sudden shout, at the dried-blood panic encrusting his expression. Link flinched immediately as well, and crumpled again, chest caving in and shoulders slumping.

“And then…it touched my face. And it told me that I needed to ‘realize why I’m here’. Well, I didn’t know what to say to that, and I told it so. I said that I was there because of Ruto. Because she needs help. I said I was there for—for you, because you said I needed to do this. I said I was there because of duty and fate and all those things Rauru said. I said I was there because of Zelda.”

Sheik kept his face stone-still, but inside was sent reeling, as if pitched from a cliff into the void. The first time his old name had been used around him in years, and it was in—what even kind of context was this? Did Link resent him? Hate him? He must, to keep Zelda in the same company as duty and fate.

…It didn’t matter. Bury the feeling, bury the guilt. Bury it beside Zelda in the grave she needed to stay in, until she was needed once again. Right now, Link was the important one. 

“It wouldn’t tell me what it thought. It just begged me to–to keep trying. It sounded so desperate, as if it was hurting even more than me. And then it…it just melted away. Into me.”

“Into you? Nayru’s love, Link, are you alright?”

He nodded miserably. “It didn’t hurt. I just…felt cold. And I just…all at once…” Link made a motion with his hands resembling a storm and a spiral in one. “I couldn’t stay there anymore. I had to get out. So I…came here.” He cast bloodshot eyes in Sheik’s direction. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Me too,” Sheik whispered. And for the first time since he was eleven…he reached out and took someone’s hand.

The comfort ached like too much sugar in the center of a molar, but he clung on for Link’s sake, as he squeezed Sheik’s hand so tightly the bones ground together. They sat in heartbroken silence: the boy who had to grow up too fast, and the boy who had forced it upon him.

“Link?” Sheik whispered, after what could’ve been one minute or one hour.

Link wiped away another trickling tear with his free sleeve. “Hm?”

“I don’t know if this is what the—what your shadow meant. But…I think…I want to say…” He trailed off, frustrated. “There’s no good way to say it, so just—Link, you don’t need to defeat the part of you that’s scared and sad and angry. You don’t exist to fix the messes other people made. You exist to be happy. To take in the enchantment of every moment. To be able to take time and heal when something hurts you. And I, I’m so fucking sorry that you don’t even know you can do that. No one should grow up thinking that life exists just to hurt.”

Link had gone wide-eyed at Sheik’s swearing, but as tears of Sheik’s own welled from red that had stayed dry for so long, they rounded further into shock. Sheik wanted to scrub away the liquid vulnerability tracking down his face, to pretend it had never happened, but…it wouldn’t be right. Somehow, tonight, they were both tearing holes in their personas, exposing the feelings underneath the masks. And Sheik couldn’t bare everything to Link the way Link had to Sheik, even if he wanted to, so…the least he could give him in return was his throbbing heart.

Link blinked those wide eyes at last, and his long lashes glistened in the moonlight with new wetness. “Now why are you crying?” he teased brokenly. The words fought through a throat bubbling with mucus. 

“Because I’ve never related more to anything or anyone before,” Sheik whispered. He squeezed Link’s hand in his own, gently. 

They both deserved enchantment. It was the cruelest trick of the gods that all they could manage was shattered fragments of honesty under the cold light of the moon. 

Link reached his free hand behind Sheik, and despite the slowness of the motion, he had to remind himself not to jump or wrestle or cut down. But Link’s touch never landed on Sheik’s back or shoulder. Instead, it lightly patted the golden harp strapped to Sheik’s back. 

“Could you play something for me?” He bit his lip. “Just until morning comes. I don’t think it’s far off now.”

Somehow, he was right. While they had cried together, the moon had quickened its descent towards the western horizon, and the croaking of the last surviving frogs in the muddy puddle that had been Lake Hylia had traded out for the melodic calls of the earliest songbirds. 

He unslung the harp and strummed the strings. “I’ll play for you as long as you want.”

And Sheik would. Fuck the temple, fuck the timeline, fuck the shallow poetic beauty of shooting an arrow into the sun that Sheik had planned for Link. They’d get to it all when they were ready. For the rest of tonight, they didn’t have to be. 

He played, and the stars faded. He played, and Link’s head became a warm, sticky weight in his lap as he finally collapsed into sleep. He played, and the red flush of dawn finally freed them of their moonlight blues.

[nix-writes-mcyt]

Nix beloved, I've got something to say. Too nervous to say it upfront so I'm anon.

You were the first person in the Hermitcraft writing community I ever read. I read all the stories you had at the time, and you were the first Tumblr page I bookmarked. I got to know you and more people in the community, and it felt good to have people who understood me in a way my friends and family didn't. Every morning before school, during classes, and about one an hour or so I'd refresh the page to see if there was anything else. It always made my day. Your fics were also what got me into Third Life, so that's another thing!

Now, I've grown to know you as a friend, and talking to you is often one of the best parts of my day. I often hear people referring to their Tumblr community as "their family", and I never understood that until recently. You offer me support and appreciation in a way I wish I could get from my real family. I feel at home when we interact, because I could never be so understood by my parents nor my sister, and they would never support me in little side projects that I want to do, like writing. All they think my future could be is what they want it as, and they always make me put others and my education in front of what I want to do and my own wellbeing. But then I have you telling me to take care, that I come first, not to be pressured by deadlines, to be more open. I've found a friend in you I never could have imagined I would in someone I met online, and it's so precious to me--I wouldn't change it for the world.

Take care, and much love ❤️ /p

Nearly 5 am and I'm about to cry (/pos, I'm also about to sleep so shh, I know I know, it's late, I've been having issues lately)

I relate to a lot of that, especially the stuff about family. What they want for you isn't always what you want for you. That can create a lot of bad situations and it's never easy. But it's your life, it's our own lives. Not theirs

Outside of the internet I really have no one. Even my partner and I met online and are still long distance after 2 years (we're working on it)

The truth is I don't get along with people well, it's hard to find people that share the same interests as me, hard to find people that will accept me as I am. I'm a very blunt, say it as it is person and people don't like that, another reason my family an I don't get along as they're not good people

It's sort of surreal to me when people say that I'm the reason they came here on tumblr or encouraged them to get to know people or I inspired them to start writing. I'm someone who struggles massively with self worth for a number of reasons and it often just feels detached from me, but like, it's happened. I have influenced people in positive ways.

The part of me that holds and deals with my struggles is the same part that makes sure to remind others of their self worth, to look after themselves. I often wish I had someone to tell me and so I tell others in case others feel how I do. That's often the case with things I do, I offer support or an environment I wish I had in the past (and now really..)

I'm not a very big blog, I don't have many people I interact with. I'm glad to have the few I do have, yourself included, and I'm happy to be able to call you my friend as you're a wonderful person.

I hope we can continue to speak and get to know each other, but even without that I'm glad I could be here and I could brighten up at least a few days

Because really that's all that I want to do, provide a safe, positive space where people can enjoy fandom things and just.. make friends, with me or others.

Much love Anon /p (who I definitely don't know who it might be /sarcasm which I can't remember the short indicator for)

[that-foul-legacy-lover]

When Childe’s Younger Sibling is Recovering from Surgery HCs

"TW for surgery mentiom:

Im not sure if brainrots or requests are open, but I recently (today) had gallbladder removal and it hurts like a son of a glitch. Would you perhaps give ideas of a older brother F.L/Childe comforting a reader that had that?

Forgot to mention: IM ALIVE! JUST VERY QUIET HERE RIGHT NOW."

Requested by @jayastronomicnova !

~ * ~ tumblr is being SO rude and refusing to process the actual ask for this post, so unfortunately i have to upload it like this!! i'm sorry for the inconvenience :((

also, i both made this a bit vague in description, so it's a more general surgery headcanon set!! and you're Childe's actual younger sibling because i thought it'd be fun!!! i'm very sorry if that's not what you wanted :(( still, i hope this helps you feel a bit better!!

~ * ~

When Childe's Younger Sibling is Recovering from Surgery HCs

Hurt/Comfort (Mostly Comfort)

Younger Sibling Reader

Older Brother Childe (Foul Legacy)

Warning for surgery mention, pain, nausea, stitches, bandages, medication (pills), allusions to sickness

~ * ~

-Sometimes you really REALLY hate having a physical body -Sure, it’s nice when it WORKS, but if one thing decides to meander out of order suddenly you’re in pain or your entire life is in danger -And you being someone who doesn’t really know when to draw the line between “it’s just a bad day” and “I should see a doctor” can spend a few weeks trying to deal with any problems on your own -Luckily, Snezhnaya is home to some of the finest doctors in Teyvat, and when you finally visit a clinic for a diagnosis they help you set up a date for surgery right away -Because apparently, you need surgery. Fantastic. You can only pray to the Tsaritsa that you and your family can cover the expenses -The operation itself goes fine, thanks to anesthesia, and in the literal blink of an eye you’re groggily looking around and being given pain medication -It’s AFTERWARDS that makes you turn right back around and curse the Archons and Celestia, because holy hell it’s a nightmare -You drag yourself home and up to your room and promptly collapse onto your bed, immediately regretting it because the action jostles a sharp pain in your gut that makes you feel like you’re being stabbed -With a heap of blankets and the pain medicine in reach, you curl up on your bed, wishing you could just fall asleep or disappear entirely -It’s like this that your next days are spent, hunched over on your mattress and wishing for the sweet release of empty dreams yet getting almost none. The times you get up are few and far between, immediately conquered by nausea and pain -You lose all sense of time, the only indications being the rising and setting of the sun and moon and the people who attempt to get you to eat something with varying success -How long you’ve been suffering only comes to light for you when a certain someone pays you a visit -Your big brother Ajax has been long overdue for a visit home- in fact, a few weeks ago before your medical issues started to arise, you’d been excitedly waiting for his arrival. But you’d received only a hastily-written letter, saying something about work taking a bit longer than he expected -You didn’t believe him, but your family did, despite your protests that the letter wasn’t even in Ajax’s handwriting and your subsequent irritation when they didn’t listen to you -To be honest, you’ve almost forgotten about the letter and your older brother due to your surgery and stress driving almost everything from your mind, but when you hear Teucer distantly shout in joy you vaguely wonder if Ajax is home -For the next few hours you drift in and out of sleep, the pain in your body rousing you whenever you’re just about to drift off, like usual -Your painkillers are on the nightstand, but when the sun goes down and the house is mostly quiet you can’t do anything but huddle under your covers, trying to keep yourself warm as the bitter cold seeps in through openings between the windows -The door to your room slowly creaks open, although you don’t register it or the sound of heavy footsteps gingerly making their way to your bed -Only when a clawed hand rests itself gently on your shoulder do you jump in surprise and open your bleary eyes to see who’s there -Your brother, much taller and fluffier than you remember, stares back at you, singular eye unblinking and aglow. He rumbles in concern, lifting your chin with a finger and tilting your head to the side for a closer look at your downtrodden expression -You’re almost curious as to why none of your family put up a fuss or fight when they saw him like this, with horns and talons and shining like the moon, as well as how you somehow recognized him on your own -Almost. But not quite. You’re too tired to be curious -A small pill drops into your hand, and you blink before glancing up. Ajax watches you expectantly, settling on the edge of your bed as you stare at the painkiller, before gulping it down dry -It’s as bitter as it always is, and you stick out your tongue and are met with a deep, growly chuckle from your brother -You’re about to smile back and say how happy you are that he’s home when pain shoots through your abdomen and you wince, doubling over with a groan -Ajax lets out a low whine of worry, the best “are you okay?” expression he can manage in this form, inching closer to you -He reaches out and, with an odd gentleness for the sharp angles of his current self, lifts you into his arms and settles you on his lap -You feel his talons press and trail up and down your back, massaging the cramped muscles from laying in the same position for so long -His other hand rests on your torso, where your stitches and bandages are; unmoving, the hand warms your skin with quiet reassurance -You press your face into the curious ruff of fur around his shoulders, burying your hands into the soft fluff as a stabilization of sorts -Your hands clench into small fists in the fur, clinging to the comfort of your effortlessly strong and fearless big brother -The hand on your torso lifts to your face, carefully brushing and flicking tangled hair out of the way and smoothing it down again. The little game he plays with your soft locks makes you laugh, weakly, and you hear him purr in satisfaction when you do -Ajax moves to massaging your temples with his claws, similar to how he kneads and presses at your back -With a sudden, swift swoop, he wraps his glimmering cape around you for warmth, and to your hazy eyes it almost looks like a pair of wings -Your eyes begin to drift shut as the pain of your stitches fades into the background, replaced by soft, humming croons in a familiar tune -It’s a melody Ajax always sings when he comes home, something about rain and narwhals and ice-colored stars, always certain to put you right to sleep -You snuggle closer, your body small and curled against his armored one, and whisper for him to stay, so you can say a proper hello to him tomorrow -In the dark you feel him nod, and the nod seems to set everything right, here in your brother’s arms

[writing-wh0re]

October 7th. Kinky Halloween Special Masterlist

Kink: Daddy

Au!Fred x Reader.

Words: 2,524.

Warnings: Smut18+, Unprotected Sex, Female Performing Oral, Male Performing Oral, Dirty Talk, Daddy Dom Fred, Praise. Best-friends Dad (Age Gap) 

*Nova is my own character. 

The moment Nova had suggested that I tag along with her for the summer and stay at her dad’s lake house, I couldn’t refuse. I was so excited. 

One, the lake house is in the prime location, bars are within walking distance, the pool is immaculate and the view was something else all together. 

Two, Nova’s dad, Fred. 

God Fred was the definition of Dilf. 

The first time I noticed my school girl crush was Nova’s 21st birthday. Fred had booked out a private Yacht and invited most of the people from our classes. It was sweet and probably the happiest I have seen Nova. However, I spent most of the night at the top of the Yacht drinking and joking around with Fred, both of us wanting to escape the crowd. That night solidified my crush for the older man, especially the second his fingertips brushed my knee which caused my skin to erupt with goosebumps and my breath to catch in my throat. I could have sworn Fred’s eyes lingered on my cleavage a little too much that night but I’m sure it was the alcohol swirling through my veins. 

“Ready?” Nova’s voice pulls me from my thoughts, her suitcase behind her. 

“Definitely.” I confirm zipping my case and following Nova out of our dorm, excitement and nervous bubbling inside of me. 

\\//

Nova pushes the large dark wood door open, the smell of cinnamon and apple filling the air, light chatter bouncing off the walls. 

“I think my uncle is here.” Nova mumbles, leaving her suitcase on the ground and walking through the house. I follow her lead, ditching my suitcase and taking in the beautifully styled home. 

“Hey Dad, uncle George.” 

I almost faint on the spot, there’s Fred and a literal duplicate of Fred.

“Uh Dad you remember Y/n, George this is my best friend Y/n.” I smile weakly at the pair as George smiles at me.

“Good to see you again Y/n.” Fred smiles, I notice George side eye Fred quickly raising his eyebrows before taking a sip of his drink. Fred simply smirks, nodding softly, his eyes lingering on me before darting over to Nova. I frown my eyebrows together trying to understand what they are silently talking about, surely not me. I shake the thought from my head, of course two grown men haven't been talking about me, especially not my best friend's dad. Get it together Y/n. 

“So, what do you have planned for this summer?” George asks, his eyes flicking between Nova and I. 

“Definitely hitting the bars, soaking in the sun and maybe finding a man or two.” Nova winks as she hands me a glass of wine. 

“A man?” Fred questions. 

“Or two?” George questions both of them laughing at each other. 

“It's summer, why not have a little fun?” The second the words leave my lips I feel a blush creep upon my face, Fred and George both chuckling in response. 

“Maybe we should go have some summer fun Freddie.” George smirks causing Nova to gag slightly. 

“Right, that's our cue to leave.” Nova mumbles quickly downing the rest of her glass and walking back inside the house. 

“Uh.” The heat returns to my body as I get left alone with Fred and George. I leave my glass on the table in front of me and walk inside the house, once inside I turn back to take in Fred’s appearance one last time. My breath hitches in my throat and butterflies erupt inside of me as our eyes lock together. I hurriedly look away and rush through the house to get ready for the night with Nova. 

Coincidence. Just a simple Coincidence. 

\\// 

Nova and I had been dancing for hours, the music thumped through my chest, the alcohol flowed through my veins and my mind kept wandering to Fred, curious as to what he is doing right now. 

“Hey, this is Tom and we’re getting out of here.” Nova squeals excitedly, pulling a blonde guy behind her before I even have a chance to respond. 

“Seriously?” I yell, my voice falling silent over the sound of the music. I follow behind the pair, hoping to catch Nova and ask if she is seriously leaving me in the club right now. 

“Hey!” 

Nova’s body disappears into a cab before she has the chance to hear me. 

“Fuck.” I huff, the cool breeze hitting my exposed skin. Only a three minute walk back to the house, I tell myself. I quickly check the time, 11:45pm, Fred will definitely be asleep and won’t question Nova’s hodiny act. 

The walk back was quick and almost claiming. The sound of the wind blowing in the trees, owls hooting and the crispy moon light shining along the streets. 

The walk back to the house had definitely sobered me up, now fully aware of how loud my heels are against the pavement. I decide to slip my heels off before walking on the wooden deck, not wanting to disturb Fred. I search through my bag, trying to find the house key but coming up empty handed. 

“Fuck you Nova.” I mumble, slightly lifting up the doormat with my foot in hopes of a spare key, but no luck. Right as I’m about to walk around the back and sleep on the deck chairs the door pulls open. 

Fred and George both laugh and continue their conversation before their eyes land on me. 

“Oh Y/n, hello again.” George smiles. 

“Um, hey.” I smile back. My eyes quickly flick to Fred his toned chest on full display and loose grey sweatpants hanging on his hips. 

“Everything okay? You’re missing Nova.” Fred asks, slight worry filling his voice. 

“Yeah no, everything is fine, Nova is making her summer fun with Tom?” I question wondering if I should even be telling her father and uncle this. 

The twins laugh at my question, both shaking their heads. 

“Well I will see you later, nice meeting you y/n.” George smiles, “Enjoy your summer Freddie.” George’s eyes look me up and down before he walks past me, the sound of his car unlocking in the near distance. 

“Excuse me.” I mumble pushing past Fred as he stands in the doorway, I quickly drop my shoes with the others at the door, wanting to rush away to my room. 

“So why aren’t you out making your summer fun with a guy?” 

I feel my mouth go dry at his question, how do I answer this without saying it’s because of you dumbass. 

“The guy’s I typically go for aren’t hanging around at clubs.” Fred raises his eyebrow, his eyes flicking from my lips and back to my eyes. 

“What kind of guys do you go for?” 

Now's your chance, say it's him, if it goes badly act super drunk and blame it on that. I take a deep breath after listening to the internal battle with myself. 

“Guys that choose to stay in with their brothers and drink.” The moment the sentence flows through the air, my cheeks heat up, both with nerves and regret. 

Fred smirks, licking his lips before walking towards me. I back away from him slightly before my back hits the wall. 

“Is that so? Darling, I'm old enough to be your father” 

“That has never been an issue for me… daddy.” 

Fred groans before locking his lips with mine. I moan into the kiss, the sweet taste of cinnamon whiskey on his tongue as our tongues fight for dominance. His hands roam my body, falling to the middle of my back and pulling me flush against his chest. My fingers lace in his hair, tugging on the strands. 

“This is wrong.” I pant, pulling away from the kiss as our chests rise and fall. 

“Say the word and I stop.” Fred’s eyes search mine for any hesitation before I close the gap between us. His hands fall to my thighs picking me up in one swift motion and slowly walking us to his bedroom. My red dress hikes up my thighs with every step closer to the room, my black lace panties on full display. I pull my lips away from Fred’s kissing down his neck before discovering his sweet spot. His fingers grip my ass tight, moans falling from his lips. 

A surprised squeal escapes me as Fred drops me on his bed, his eyes lingering on my body. Before he has the chance to ask me I pull my dress from my skin, leaving me in just my panties, thankful that my dress didn’t require a bra. 

“Jesus.” Fred steps back, taking in the sight of me half naked and under him, egar for him. 

“Daddy please.” The nickname causes his eyes to roll back slightly, a low sigh passing his lips as he cages me in against the mattress, kissing my lips before trailing kisses down my neck towards my boobs. I arch my back causing my nipple to press against his tongue more, his teeth pulling at the hardening nub. 

“Yes, daddy.” 

Fred smirks, chuckling as the slight vibration rumbles against my skin. 

“I’ve barely touched you babygirl, look at you, so needy and eager for me.” 

“Only you.” 

My words pull yet another chuckle from his lips. Fred’s fingertips trail along the waistband on my panties causing a shiver to run down my spine. He leans down over my body, his warm breath fanning against my neck. 

“Get on your knees.” Within a second I am on my knees looking up at him. “Fuck, such a good girl.” 

I softly nod in response, my hand palming his evident erection through his sweatpants. Fred hisses at the contact before ridding himself of the clothing. 

A whimper escapes me at the sight of his hard cock. Longer and thicker than I had imagined but everything I need. 

Without being asked I take his dick in my hand, pumping up and down as I lightly swirl my tongue around the head. 

“Yes baby.” Fred’s fingers loop in my hair, holding it out of the way to ensure he gets the perfect view of his cock disappearing into my throat. I bob my head up and down his length, my tongue swirling and my cheeks hollowing out. Fred’s cock leaves my lips with a pop, he grabs his dick and slowly slides it up and down my tongue moaning at the sight. 

“Fucking perfect.” My eyes roll back at the praise, arousal leaking down my thighs and my mind hoping this isn’t some twisted dream. 

Fred pulls me up by my arms, his lips finding mine again in a hungry kiss. His fingertips brush against my clothed pussy before slipping past the fabric and rubbing my swollen clit. I hiss at the contact, Fred moans at the feeling of my wetness. 

“Daddy’s girl likes sucking dick huh?” 

“Makes her little pussy drip?” 

“Does my princess touch herself to the thought of me?” 

I meekly nod in response not wanting the pleasure to stop, however Fred stops his movements causing me to whimper. 

“Daddy asked you a question darling, do you think of me when you cum?” 

“Y-yes.” 

“Good girl.” He presses a quick kiss to the side of my head before he pushes me back onto the bed, ripping the panties from my skin. His tongue presses flat against my clit as I sigh with pleasure and surprise. 

“Daddy.” 

Fred hums against my pussy, swirling his tongue in a figure eight motion as my fingers grip the bed sheets. Fred continues to lap at my cunt, savouring the taste before his hands find mine, lacing our fingers together. 

“Fuck.” I moan as I look down at Fred, his eyes catching mine while swiping his tongue side to side. 

“Yes, fuck, oh I’m close.” I regret saying the words the second Fred pulls away from me. 

“No baby, you’re cumming on my cock.” Butterflies fill my stomach at his words, truly hoping this is really happening. 

Fred lays down next to me on the bed, grabbing my hips and guiding me to straddle his waist. His hand falls behind my neck, our lips meet in a brief kiss before being broken by my moans. Fred slides inside of me, stretching my walls perfectly. 

“So big daddy.” My fingernails drag down his chest earning a hiss from his lips. After a few seconds of adjusting to his size I rock my hips back and forth, keeping my hands placed on his chest for balance. 

“Beautiful.” Blush fills my cheeks at his praise, his soft hands rubbing up and down my sides. I keep my rhythm, every now and again swirling my hips for a different sensation, one that pulls the most delicious moans from his lips. Fred’s hands grip my ass, spanking the supple skin as I cry out in pleasure. 

“Is this what you like, baby? Taking control and fucking daddy?” I hum in response as my eyes flutter closed basking in the feeling of his cock hitting my g-spot. Fred’s hands move to my back, flipping us over as I gasp. 

“Only I can make you feel this good.” 

My lips part and my eyes squeeze shut at the new angle. Fred’s resting on his knees with my legs against his chest, ankles resting on his shoulders, his hands groping my boobs. 

“Look at you squirming on my cock, ruining you for any other man.” 

“God daddy yes.” 

“You’re mine.” 

“Only yours daddy.” 

Fred grunts at my response, his pace picking up as he starts to rub fast circles on my clit. 

“Yes!” I cry out, my pussy clenching around him. “Just like that.” 

“You cum when I say.” 

I huff, digging my nails into the comforter as I scream and cry out. 

“Daddy please, please let me cum.” 

Fred grunts, licking his lips.

“Mmm hold it for me.” 

My eyes roll back as my back arches off the mattress. 

“Daddy, please!” 

I feel Fred’s cock twitch inside of me, a deep moan filling the air. 

“Fucking cum for me Y/n.” 

A shiver runs down my spine, my body tenses as Fred’s name passes my lips. My mind feels foggy and my vision blurs. Fred grips my legs, his hips faltering as his hot release fills me. 

Fred pulls out of me, both of us sighing, our chests rising and falling, sweat glistening on our bodies. 

“Thank you.” I blurt out, feeling tiredness wash over me. 

“No need to thank me Darling.” He places a soft kiss to my lips as I feel my eyelids get heavier, not even bothering to move as sleep envelops me. 

\\//

I wake up the next morning to the sun shining through the blinds. Instantly everything floods back from last night. I quickly lift up the bedsheets, my naked body confirming that it wasn’t just a dream. 

“Morning.” Fred mumbles, his morning voice sending wetness straight to my pussy. 

“Morning.” I whisper a goofy smile on my face. Fred pulls me into him, his nose brushing against mine before our lips meet in the middle. 

“Hey dad, have you see- WHAT THE FUCK?”

\\// 

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[yoichichi]

Their Favorite Domestic Moments

warning(s): none :) izuku favoritism

a/n: this is their favorite parts of domestic life with you/domestic things they love :) you know I love hearing from y’all 🥳 I’m thinking of making more parts w more characters and more fandoms! (hq, jjk, & aot :) - so stay tuned if you’re interested!)

characters: todoroki, bakugou, izuku, kirishima, & kaminari

Todoroki

Waking up before you

It’s something about how peaceful it feels. His natural internal clock has him rolling out of bed to start his day sometimes before the sun even rises. And maybe he doesn’t get up before you every day, but he always looks forward to that possibility. It’s quiet, just your soft breathing (or snoring, he thinks that’s cute too) and the sound of rain against the house or the faint sound of birds just barely making it past the window pane. He rolls over and drapes an arm over you, rubbing light circles into your back until he sees your droopy eyes blink open just so he can kiss your forehead gently and tell you to, “get some more sleep. It’s too early for you to be up anyways.” His favorite is when it’s just slightly chilly in the morning and he wakes up to feel you cuddled into his side, even when he begrudgingly has to pry you off of him so he can get out of bed. Waking up next to you will never get old.

Bakugou

Cooking together

I know it sounds a little cliche but it truly makes him so so happy. You don’t even have to do the work, you can sit on the counter and snack while you watch him move around the kitchen, smiling and rolling your eyes every time he grumbles about your “lazy ass” being in the way. You don’t have to be all that good at cooking to help either (truthfully seeing you be in charge of any step for dinner kinda stresses him out - control freak much?). He’ll give you little tasks like mincing the onion or pouring a cup of heavy cream, and even if they’re small he’s still side eyeing you to make sure you’re doing it right. But the way he gives your butt a little tap after and mumbles a “good job” into the side of your head when he leaves a little kiss there kind of makes his pestering worth it. The act of cooking a meal in itself has a domestic feel to it, so getting to do it with you just makes it that much better.

Izuku

Grocery shopping together

Okay no cause listen, he loves everything about this: Making the list, the drive there, the shopping, the drive back (when he’s taking those sharp turns and internally praying he didn’t just crack the eggs), bringing all the groceries in and the way he manages to make it a competition literally every time, and even putting them away and trying to figure out how to fit it all nicely. He loves the little back and forth the two of you have some times trying to decide what to definitively put on the list.

“Izuku, we don’t need that many eggs. The grocery store isn’t going anywhere.”

“We? Who said we don’t need them, you don’t need that many eggs. I need that many eggs.”

“Izuku.”

And then the way you two always buy at least three things that weren’t on the list and forgetting two that were (you guys just end up getting distracted too easily, he wants to try so many things).

And it’s not like he tries to make it a competition, but when he’s grabbing that many grocery bags and gives you a little sideways smirk when you aren’t initially grabbing as many as him, yeah, some things become a competition. And some groceries are sacrificed for the sake of winning. (Which is fine by him, it just means another trip later hehehe)

All around, it’s just such a fun thing that seems generally insignificant in your lives, but it makes him feel like time slows down a little in his busy life, and it’s even better that he gets to have fun and relax with you.

Kirishima

Doing laundry/cleaning the house

He just finds it so fun. Blasting music, dancing around while the two of you mindlessly sing along, even when it’s off key, doing your own little tasks but still doing the whole job of “cleaning the house” together. He always wants to end it with sitting together and folding the laundry that’s finished, chit chatting and watching you intently fold that towel just right and tucking it away in the linen closet. And the nap he convinces you to take after all that hard work (even if it wasn’t so hard) is like his version of a little reward for doing such a nice job tidying up. He also has a habit of reminding you how much he loves you by whispering it into your ear about 50 million times before you remind him you’re supposed to be napping.

Kaminari

Scaring each other in the house

I’m so sorry.. you’ll rarely get a moment of peace with this man. Let him watch a scary movie with you, you know he’ll be hiding around a corner choking on his laughter, waiting for the opportune moment to jump out and do his best to make you scream. And of course, who doesn’t want payback? It becomes such a big deal between the two of you that there’s now a running scoreboard on your fridge with tallies under each of your names to see who’s “winning”. (And you’re pretty sure he’s gotten rid of some of your points smh). He has way too much fun explaining to guests what the tallies mean, too. And he has even more fun hearing you whine about how bad he scared you while he laughs and sways back and forth with you in his arms; apologizing by smothering your face with kisses and telling you how much he loves you. He’s cute ig *sigh*

——————

Ahhhh it’s been so long since I’ve posted anything! I hope you guys like :)))!!

taglist: @honey-desires (ur boy is on here so thought you’d possibly want to see 👉🏼👈🏼) @c0rncheez hehehe

[notlycheesden]

Rearview Mirror

Heyyo ✌🏻 this is my first written piece for Endeavor , as a gift for my friend @kogo for the evil exchange. so I hope you like it my dude 👍🏻. A piece I will def be coming back to write more for sure.

⤍ Endeavour x reader

⤍ 3.6k

⤍ TW.incest, TW.dubcon, TW.father/daughter

⤍ Summary:

Enji was trying to be a better father, a better man.

And you never lied to him.

Guess it was a time for a lot of firsts.

Everything was always red between the both of you.

It's past four when his phone rings.

He was awake. even on his day off -those becoming more frequent now- years of routine were still strong. His body alert and aware way before the break of dawn for hours of training before patrol, and later to go to his own agency, the literal empire that wouldn't run itself.

He was pretending to be asleep, unmovable laying on his stomach, face buried on his pillow. Deep breaths in and out in a rhythmic pattern. His massive frame takes most of his king-size bed that for more than a decade he slept right in the middle, no reason to let the right side of it unoccupied.

It was almost meditation-like. There in the quiet and calm of his bedroom between his sheets, he could organize -or at least try- his thoughts. A time in his day where he gets lost in self-reflection. The things he would have to do that day, what work in his agency he would have to supervise, and even stubbornly he would do a little steaming out, analyzing his “actions and emotions”, passing commentary from the resident agency therapist threw his way.

“A strict but good man, if not for some, mishaps, from your intense and fiery nature.” was his professional opinion about Endeavor. The man really lived to throw things his way.

It used to help calm his turbulent mind. But lately there was nothing in his head but turmoil.

It was something he would do until 6 AM, when he couldn't take any longer and had to get up, body and muscles aching from staying in bed for too long, the sun already rising on the horizon, painting the sky with yellows, pinks, and reds.

The silence of his room is broken by the ring of his phone. Instead of the familiar tone of the morning alarm, it was his normal ringtone. When he opens his eyes, the room was not bright as he expects, still shrouded by darkness. Endeavor sits on his bed at once, alert.

Getting it from the bedside table quickly, his posture falls when he catches the time and the already saved contact of who was calling him: Natsuo.

Enji picks up, but before he could question the call, the time, or even say hello, Natsuo speaks, voice grave and serious.

“You need to pick up your daughter right now.”

It’s a punch to the gut. One that makes all the air from his lungs escape at once. In a second, he feels like he is thrown into a rollercoaster.

The only thing he can muster in his shock is a guttural and deep bark of incredulity “What?”

Natsuo cuts Enji off immediately. His tone triggering him into snapping, memories hushing in -not the time for this- “She just called. She was a crying mess, begged me to come for her but I live two hours away-Shouto is on patrol and not picking up and Fuyumi is with her fiance's family at the onsen-”

Enji inhales sharply. Dread takes hold of him while he can't even see straight with the sudden rush of adrenaline, sirens blasting off in his head.

“She was supposed to be with fuyumi at the onsen.” His voice echoes back at him in his bedroom walls, he doesn't realize he is shouting.

“Look, this is really not the time. She has no money and her phone’s dead. I was able to get her to tell me an address before the call dropped. she's all alone there. Are you gonna pick her up?”

Natsuo calms his own breaths now after snapping and shouting back, and he can hear shuffling noises on his father’s side of the line. The older man was up in a second, not really seeing anything, rushing through his stuff picking his keys and wallet. He hates the way his father could make him snap so easily.

Enji was completely distraught.“She said she was going to be with fuyumi…” He mutters under his breath while running through the corridors, even forgetting the phone by his ear, his son still on the line.

But Natsuo hates even more the blatant difference in the way his father treated all of them and you in comparison. Always. Like he could fix his mistakes. Hide his sins.

“Well. Think your little princess lied to you old man.”

Enji didn't even register the venom in his son's words, nor when he hangs up on him.

He’s out of the house in a blink. He tries not to rip the door out of its hinges on his way out.

——

He drives fast, almost no other car in the streets making it easier to speed up in his nervous state. The GPS voice droning about the directions, a forty-minute drive that he would make in twenty.

you said you were going to spend the weekend with your sister.

You lied to him.

Enji’s heart hammers in his chest and his flames burst multiple times on his face out of control. His grip on the wheel tightens to ground his shaking hands, his jaw set with such force that he could feel a headache already forming.

Thoughts were flying through his mind a mile a second. Where are you? What happened to you? Who were you with? Were you safe? Why were you crying?

Why did you lie to him?

It was like his heart was being squeezed by dread and being broken at the same time.

You were his youngest. After he realized what he did to his children as a father, he tried his best to do better; connect, communicate, but he was emotionally and socially stunted -Thanks doc.- and by the time he tried to reach out, it was just a little too late.

Fuyumi was the pillar of the household, replacing their mother too much young and having to fit in a mould not meant to be hers, barely holding the treads of the family and house together. Natsuo was out of the front door as soon as he finished high school and got into med school, choosing to live in the dorms and work part-time rather than stay at the manor. Shoto was another history in itself.

And there was you, a couple of years younger than your now up-in-the-ranks pro hero brother, at the time just a pipsqueak. Too young to remember Rei, remember the worst of Endeavor.

And when he tried to connect, you were there. As if just waiting. Wanting your father to look at you. Frail and innocent and just in want of care, of attention, of love. You welcomed him into your life with open arms and heart.

Enji did try to make it right by you. And for some time things were progressing, even his other children were starting to turn their heads around his direction.

Until Touya’s incident.

The media cracked down on him and his family with a vengeance, almost nothing was left unturned or whole.

Natsuo was the first to cut ties. Shouto threw himself into his hero work, completely closing himself off. Even Fuyumi decided that she was done, took the next step, and went to live with her now fiance, completely ignoring whatever Enji tried to shout about costumes or honor.

Then it was just the two of you.

He tried to be a good father.

He was a quiet man in his private life, strict and with a violent nature, but he reached out for outside help to make it right. An older and trustworthy housekeeper to not chain his daughter down at the manor, guidance from therapist to help him become a better father, a better man, anything to do right this time.

Call it atonement, call it his redemption, call it hypocrisy, he didn't care.

He only cares that at the end of the day, you were there at his side, happy.

This morning he saw the note on the fridge.

Going to onee-san family trip,

Be back on Sunday.

You never had lied to him before.

Guess it was a time for a lot of firsts.

——-

The music blasting through the night tipped him off even before his car's GPS tells him he arrived at the destined location.

He parks way down the street and assesses the place inside the darkness of his car.

Enji’s way out of the city now and inside the industrial district, the building seems old and falling to pieces, people are lingering all around the street, but it’s thicker there. At surface level the building was empty, but the music was definitely coming from there.

He dreads the worst.

Getting out of the car still in his sleeping sweatpants and tee, he throws the hood of his workout jacket over his hair to conceal himself. He’s going for discretion, get you and get out, no need to make this a public affair. Not with this, not with you, not right now.

He searches around but still can't find you. Half an hour has passed since Natsuo called. He's in a frenzy. Endeavor forces himself to calm down and think.

His son didn't mention music. He looks far into the street and he can see the entrance of an alleyway, he hushes there.

His stomach tied in knots when he sees in the dark your small figure crouched down beside a dumpster. your shoulders ate shaking with silent sobs holding your dead phone for dear life, trying to make yourself smaller than you already were, head down.

Enji barks your name and your head snaps to the entrance of the alleyway in shock, your body trembling and fat tears running down your smudged makeup.

“Daddy!”

In a second you were up and running, throwing your body against him and hugging his middle. He doesn't know what to do first, but he opts for following his instincts. Enji hugs your shaking form, shushing you lightly while petting your head. He doesn't know if it's him or you who's shaking more.

He doesn't remember how, but he manages to walk both of you to his car without being seen, his hulking form covering your smaller one.

He's shaking. When Enji puts you in the passenger seat and the car lights momentarily shine everything in an amber glow, rage fills his chest. You are in a dress he has never seen before, he knows it was not yours. He would never allow a thing like that or let you use it in public. Your makeup that before being ruined by your smudging and crying, was heavy and meant to seduce.

He closes your door and gets in the car.

He's shaking.

——

Enji can only control himself enough to not rip the wheel or step on the gas right through the flooring for only three blocks. and thank the gods again for the hour, because he could not quite see the streets in front of him. If they weren't deserted while he drives double the velocity permitted, it would be likely that the fears of his family being again under the cruel and ravenous judgment of the public eye would become reality, although for a completely different reason from the ones he has been dreading until this point.

When he reaches the fourth block, he makes a sudden stop, turning and parking harshly with the front of the car almost all the way over the curb, the tires skidding loudly into the quiet of the night and scaring you out of your still shell shock state. your small sniffles stop when you let out a muted yelp of surprise.

Enji quickly pries his hands that have a death grip on the wheel and smash the roof of the car to turn the lights on in such a way that later he’s impressed he didn't send the entire ceiling flying. As fast as he did that and the darkness of the car is now cast in warm gold, his hands are on your small frame like a striking snake, a big calloused one gripping your face between meaty fingers, squeezing your wet cheeks and the other one in your far shoulder, turning you in his direction with a barely controlled yank. Enji wasn't sure if the shaking was coming from your body or his.

He's frantic, hectic, eyes going up and down your body trying to find anything, something. “Are you hurt? tell me,” His voice is harsh, too loud into the small space. You jump startled, but his grip locks you in place, he doesn't notice.

Why did you come to a party? Why are you dressed like this? Why did you do this?

“Are you?? Someone did something? Gave you something, touched you?” He barks again louder, bending and twisting to be in your face now, eyes scanning all over your body. But again and again, they would be drawn to the too short hem of your dress, from your ruined tearstained makeup and down again to your soft and creamy thighs, trying to find a mark, a scratch, a stain. Anything, something.

“Fucking answer me!”

“Dad please!”

Enji lets you go as if you just slap him in the face. He blinks.

You are shaking. Looking at him in fear, silent tears running down your cheeks. Your jaw is set as you try to hold your whimpers back, his fingers make red marks bloom on your face and arm under his digits.

Memories come back rushing. Phantoms scourging in blue flames.

He releases you as if you burn him.

His hands hover in place, and he doesn't dare to move, still crowding you. Both of you staring at each other in fear and confusion as if something would break.

He slowly backs away, and you keep still. He turns the light off and stares at the road.

Enji couldn't take more things between both of you breaking.

He takes a deep breath. Starts the car again to drive back home.

——

Friday nights are your nights.

Enji doesn't really remember when it started. But he knows it wasn't something that was spoken of or agreed beforehand. It happened once, then twice, then his job got in the way, then thrice, and when he noticed, it was a routine between him and his daughter.

Like most things between both of you, it just… fell into place. And it just felt right.

Endeavor would arrange his schedule in a way so that his Fridays would be empty, any emergency at the agency could be easily solved that way, patrols and hero work set on the weekends so he could come home at a sensible hour, just by dinnertime.

He would be just taking his blazer and shoes off at the entrance when Enji would hear your running steps from the kitchen, your pinky apron-clad figure hushing to meet him with a bright smile, eyes shining.

you would get a hold of his tie and gently tug down for him to bend at the waist to your level, your arms were thrown in a warm hug on his neck and a sweet and lengthy kiss on his cheek after he steps through the threshold. you would giggle against his face from the tickles you got from his stubble while warmly welcoming him, the food still hot on the table.

It was one of your multiple habits together, just the two of you. And it felt right.

It was routine. And it felt so domestic, warm and right.

Friday nights are your nights. After he gets home, you guys have dinner, something you cooked by yourself, sending the older housemaid away earlier.

Sometimes it is a new recipe, sometimes something you already tried before. But it's always good, and when Enji compliments your cooking skills and how much he enjoys it, your cheeks blush red. You daintly try to hide your smile as you thank him, bashful behavior so alluring even when he knows is just a little act, playing coy. There's warmth in his chest.

The lights in the dining room cast everything in this whimsical warm glow and maybe it's the beer, but Enji thinks it reflects lovely on you and the color of your blouse today. He says so.

“Looking so pretty tonight, princess.”

The red on your cheeks grow stronger. From across the table, he hides his smirk behind his can at seeing how you fidget in place, trying to contain your coquettish smile while biting your plush bottom lip. The warmth spreads lower.

Only later it dawns on him. Enji was flirting with his own daughter. And it was a habit.

It was routine.

Enji is sprawled on the big sofa comfortably, already showered and in his sleeping clothes after dinner, the second movie of the night halfway through.

It was a period drama and he tries to pay attention to the main points for your quiz about it the next day, but he was mostly checked out, lulled by the comfy dark of the living room, the buzz of the beers he drank, sleep and your warm body draped over his.

He doesn't really remember when it started, but he knows it was gradually. One day in your Friday movie nights, he notices you were glued on his side, and on the next one you had an arm draped over his torso while both of you were laying on the reclining couch, and since then, you were always over him, arms and thighs and breasts glued to his body, but most of the time cutely laying on his chest.

That night was no different. You are laying on his broad chest, using your arm as leverage to look down and back at the tv in front of the sofa, and for you to not slip he has one big palm over your waist and the other in a secure hook on the slope of your knee, propping your bent leg higher across his stomach. Your breathing matches his, and if not by your little grunts and noises of surprise, the redhead would have thought you had fallen asleep on him. It would not be the first time.

The clothes you are using are small and had hiked up a long time ago, a loose tank top and booty shorts, both of them old and worn out, sleep clothes.

From where he was, he could see all your body over his. From the crown of your head to the slope of your waist as it dipped under his scarred hand. His gaze follows the curve of your thigh draped over his waist to the fat of your ass pointing high. He muses in a daze that he could see the inside of your tank top, the soft swell of a breast making an appearance. He leers.

You move a little, and this time, he can make out the shade of a nipple. It’s pert and small and pretty, and blood rushes to his clothed cock, but is late, and he's tired and buzzed out. It doesn’t connect in his mind.

You move. you are getting yourself higher on his chest. Enji feels small hands wandering under his shirt. Presses of lips on his neck. Wet kisses on the stubble on his jaw.

The soft touches pull him deeper. There's a young and wanton body over his. It’s been so long since he truly touched another, let himself be touched. Smooth lips and an uncertain tongue were kissing him, and he wants to devour them. It’s hot and burns and makes his insides coil, his cock hard and heavy inside his pants. A warm slit humping it.

Could have been the tiredness, the beer, the comfort of the situation, anything really.

Enji kisses you like a man starved. Head moving and ravaging your much smaller mouth with his tongue. His hand yanks your tank top down exposing your breasts, and now he’s pulling and pinching the sweet nipples in a way that makes you moan against his tongue with a voice he couldn't recognize.

His other hand was down at your ass, guiding your movements back and forth on his erection with vigor, the friction against your slit makes you weak, but he keeps you moving, his calloused hand encompassing most of your behind. At each needy thrust his fingers would slide down between the cleft of your ass more and more.

His meaty fingers push the bottons of your shorts aside with a flick of his wrist, and now he's touching directly your puffy lips that are messy and wet all over. Enji growls in your mouth as you moan louder when he starts playing with your pussy, a pitched whine as he flicks your clit up and down, a strong hold on your breast.

A loud bang from the TV is what snaps him back to reality.

It was his daughter.

His daughter was over him. It was his daughter that was humping his cock, that he was sucking her small tongue and tweaking her nipples until he made her squeal.

He jumps to his feet and throws you across the couch.

Different from him, you look wide awake. Flushed face and startled eyes stares up at him, exposed breasts still heaving. Nipples rosy and hard. Between your legs, a glistening trail of where his fingers dragged when he ripped them off of you. Your shorts are drenched.

There's a moment of silence.

Enji snaps. He sprints to his bedroom, leaving you alone in the living room.

He locks his door, drops to the floor, and whips his hard and heavy cock out. in three pumps, thick ropes of cum cover his hand and clothed middle.

Taking big gulps of air trying to calm his breathing, his eyes glancing everywhere in a panic state, he looks down, and spot the wet patch on his clothed thigh. Yours juices that leaked on him. Its still in his other hand, fingers wet.

Enji wants to cry.

He tried to be a good father.

He ruined it again.

[turtle-steverogers]

i was thinking but do you know the unsent project? it is this website where you can write a message to your first love that you never sent to them. now imagine steve writing one (or multiple) to bucky after he came out of the ice after nat told him about it... yeah

hello hi anon this broke me and it was too perfect not to turn into a ficlet klafjldskjfalskf thank you

-

Unsent Letters

To:

Steve’s fingers freeze over the keyboard, the cursor blinking at him. It feels like it’s taunting him-- teasing him with the burden of choking out a name. What should he even say? The sender is anonymous, but how many people are named Bucky out there? Would anyone even care?

To: Bu

Steve huffs and backspaces, his hands trembling as he curls them into fists. He isn’t sure what provoked Natasha to tell him about this website. It’s a cruel tease to everything he wishes he could say-- wished he could say before Bucky slipped through his fingers. And now his only option is yelling into an abyss. The text box is black and daunting. He turns it yellow. No, too happy. Green. Yes, that’s fine. Bucky’s favorite color was always green.

His gaze wanders away from the screen of his hefty Dell laptop and out the window of his apartment. DC’s low rising buildings span out in front of him. His gut aches; he misses New York already. But he knows being there would only mangle his soul further, seeing his already alien home torn to shreds by literal space whales. He huffs, thinking of Bucky’s comics. His stories came to life after all. Bucky would have probably vibrated out of his skin if he knew there was other life out there.

To: My astronaut

How’s space treating you? It’s treating me pretty badly, if I’m being honest. If only you could see what it’s done to Brooklyn. I think you’d be pretty mad at it if you knew…

Steve hesitates, reading back over what he’s typed. It’s stupid as hell, and he cringes, but he doesn’t backspace. His fingers find the keys again.

I miss you something awful. I don’t think that even encompasses how much I’m hurting without you. I feel so lost right now-- space is much bigger and scarier than you’d think. I know you’d love it. I wish you could see bits of it, but god, I just want to go home. I want you to come home.

Steve freezes again and finds the screen blurry where tears have welled in his eyes. His jaw clenches as he pictures the way Bucky would laugh at him-- teasing him for his dramatics and ruffling his hair. He wishes he could be there now, rolling his eyes and nudging Steve’s shoulder.

“What’re you upsetting yourself for?” He’d say, gently closing the laptop and coaxing Steve into his arms. “I’m right here, pal.”

And if Steve closes his eyes, he can almost feel Bucky’s warmth enveloping him. But he’s not there. He’s dead, and Steve’s a goddamn ghost, drifting through a future that doesn’t know him.

He opens his eyes and stares at the text box, then clicks submit.

The screen loads, and his message is gone, his pain forever documented in the abyss.

-

For someone who fought aliens two weeks after waking up from his impromptu seventy year sleep, Steve’s life is pretty monotonous. He contemplates this unfortunate fact as he stands in front of his toaster, hair sticking up on the back of his head as he nurses a mug of coffee and waits for his toast to pop.

It’s 5:45 in the morning and he tries to remember a time when he didn’t rise this early. Before the war, perhaps. Though, he’s always been a bit of an early bird. His home life was sporadic to put it lightly and he’d learned from an early age that the sooner he was awake, the better it was for everyone. Vigilance is not a new concept for Steve.

He hasn’t always stayed up late, though. That’s certainly new, and he feels this fact viscerally as he catches sight of his reflection in the microwave. There are bags under his eyes that will be gone by mid-morning thanks to the serum. Dermatologists hate him, Natasha says. Steve thinks he’s pretty lucky that the serum more or less equipped him with a built-in anti-aging agent. His father had started balding by thirty.

His toast pops and he starts a little, blinking blearily at the slightly burnt bread as he pulls it out of the toaster with his thumb and forefinger. He spreads on the same raspberry jam and butter that he uses every morning and tries not to think of how bland it tastes in his mouth as he eats it standing at the counter. Another routine.

He tries not to look at last night’s dishes in the sink as he stacks his plate and silverware on top and doesn’t bother sorting out his hair before pulling on his sneakers and slipping out of his apartment. The sun hasn’t quite risen yet, only the beginning tendrils of light sneaking over the low tops of the DC buildings, and Steve vaguely regrets not grabbing a sweatshirt before he left. It’s not quite Summer yet and the mornings could still get pretty cool.

He’s about to take off down the street when he freezes. Natasha is sitting on the steps of his complex, wearing a pair of pink tinted sunglasses and tossing up and down the keys to her car. Steve blinks, rubs his eyes, then blinks again. Nope. She’s still there.

“Nat?”

Natasha looks up at him and smiles. “Hello.”

Steve shifts, uncomfortable. “Hi. You need something? Is there a mission?”

“No,” Natasha says lightly, standing. “You’re not running this morning, though. Come on, I’m taking you to Starbucks.”

“What?”

“Starbucks. You’re going to try it.”

“I don’t want--”

“Steve, you do the same thing every day. Step out of your comfort zone a little.”

Steve frowns, but Natasha’s right-- he really doesn’t ever stray from his routine.

“Fine,” he says, and twenty minutes later, they’re strolling into the nearest Starbucks.

He’s only been in one before, and that was to use the restroom while on a run. He’d bought a water bottle in an attempt to not be rude and use their facilities without giving them any business, but he hadn’t even considered the expansive menu. All the fancy names were too daunting.

They’re just as daunting now as he stares up at the board, heart hammering out of his chest as he’s faced with indecision. Natasha takes one look at his face, and reaches out to squeeze his arm.

“I’ll order something for you,” she says. “What kind of coffee do you like?”

Steve gives her a pained look. “Um… just coffee?”

Natasha quirks a smile and orders him something called a caramel macchiato. He’ll take it, he guesses.

The drink is too damn sweet and sugary and he almost gags. Still, he was always told to finish what he was given, so he drinks the whole thing.

-

To: Mr. Sweet Tooth

You’d fucking love it here. Everything is packed with sugar and sweetness-- enough to make even my teeth rot. I had something called a caramel macchiato today and it tasted like someone took your ma’s caramels and condensed them into a cup. I couldn’t stand it, but I know if you were here, you’d want at least twelve. I hope you’re enjoying all the sweets you can up in space.

Love, Mr. Boring

-

Steve’s fingers are stiff and frozen as he works at the straps of his stealth suit. The tangy taste of saltwater still sits heavy on his tongue, and he clenches his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering too harshly as he finally peels off his suit. It’s not much better, being naked, but at least the wet fabric isn’t clinging to him anymore.

The mission had been pretty straightforward until some alien tech managed to blast the quinjet to kingdom come, and they all free-fell straight into the freezing Atlantic.

Steve had managed to keep it together as they took down the goddamn mad scientist that fucked them over, but now that he’s home and alone, he can feel the adrenaline crashing.

He’s shaking from more than just the cold as he draws himself a warm bath, and he pulls his knees up to his chest, trying to breathe through the panic that wants to engulf his entire being.

He loses time for a bit, and comes back to himself lying in his bed, burrowed under several thick layers. He feels so cold, down to his very soul-- a chill that he can never seem to truly shake, even when he’s warm.

Not for the first time, he wishes Bucky were there to hold him. He slips off to sleep thinking old, comforting thoughts of Bucky rubbing his hands between his own, coaxing his head under his chin to engulf him in that natural warmth of his. He always was a fucking furnace.

But when Steve wakes an hour later, shaking hard enough to move the bed with the force of the nightmare he’d dropped into, Bucky is not there to soothe away the ice.

-

To: JB

im so cold and i cant breathe ever and nothing feels right. I dont know what to do, u were always the problem solver between us and i cant think straight right now and i just want you here please. I cant do this anymore, im so tired please come back. I need you please

-

The Winter Soldier file sits in front of Steve-- a horrifying nightmare wrapped up in a neat brown folder. Residual nausea swirls around in his gut as he comes down from the horrible high of reading through the contents. His hands shake where they grasp the thick paper. His heart clenches hard in his chest.

Bucky is alive. Bucky is alive, and he’s been unmade.

Steve doesn’t know where he is-- if he’s escaped, or if Hydra found him again. It’s been three weeks now since the helicarriers, and he’s only just gotten the courage to sit down and wade through the shit that is Bucky’s reality.

He just hopes he’s safe. God, he hopes.

Sam says he’ll help him look, and Steve needs to know he’s at least out of danger, but he barely knows where to start.

And he’s sorry. He’s so fucking sorry.

Blinking out of his reverie, Steve looks at his laptop. He feels strange and detached as he reaches for it and logs in.

To: Bucky

And yes, that feels right. He should use his name, since he suspects no one has for a long, long time.

I’m so sorry for what happened to you. I’m sorry that you’ve been hurting so quietly for so long. I understand if you’re not ready to come home-- I understand if you never are. I just hope that you know that there will always be a place with me that is safe. I love you so much and I’m here, forever and always.

Love, Steve.

He’s not naive. He knows it would be dangerous to submit that particular message, so he doesn’t. But that’s okay. That one’s just for him-- for them.

-

“Steve? What is the… Unsent Project?”

Steve frowns and pokes his head out of the kitchen. Bucky is sitting on the couch in the living room, using his laptop, because his own is having storage issues.

Bucky looks at him. “It’s one of your saved tabs. What is it?”

And oh, fuck. Steve had forgotten to remove that from his homepage-- it really wasn’t needed anymore. He blushes all the way to his ears.

“Oh, it’s-- nothing. Not anything important--”

But Bucky has already clicked on the tab.

“The Unsent Project,” he reads aloud. “A collection of unsent text messages to… first… loves…”

He trails off as he processes what he’s looking at, and Steve can’t quite read his expression when he looks at him again. His eyebrows are furrowed, and he’s looking at Steve like he’s some sort of kicked puppy. Steve shifts, uncomfortable.

“Were you sending me… messages? While I was dead?”

Steve swallows. “Um…” and now that Bucky says it out loud, it really does sound quite sad. He shrugs. “It’s Natasha’s fault?”

Bucky shakes his head, clicking on the search bar. He starts to type his name, but Steve shakes his head.

“I didn’t use your name.”

“Oh,” Bucky says, then frowns at him again. “What did you use?”

Steve blushes harder, sitting next to Bucky and taking the laptop from him.

“Um…” he hesitates, then types what he was sure he used as his first alias.

My astronaut

The screen buffers and loads, then fifty or so messages pop up. Steve scrolls down-- it doesn’t take long to find his.

They’re both quiet as they read, and Steve cringes. Jeez, he really had been pretty dramatic. Next to him, Bucky makes a hurt noise.

“Oh, honey,” he murmurs, taking the laptop back from Steve. He reads the message again, then once more, and reaches out for Steve. “Aw, I’m here now.”

Steve huffs, embarrassed. “I know,” he says. “That was way back, like, three weeks after I woke up.”

Bucky stills. “You fought aliens three weeks after you woke up?”

“... More like two.”

Bucky hums. “Are there others?”

“Yeah,” Steve says, reaching out to type on Bucky’s lap, because Bucky is holding him now and he’s quite reluctant to move. He thinks for a moment, then types in the next one he remembers.

Mr. Sweet Tooth

Bucky laughs, and Steve finds himself smiling.

“I find this funny,” Bucky says. “Because caramel macchiatos are definitely one of my favorites now.”

Steve laughs, too, and butts his head against Bucky’s shoulder.

“If only I could tell that to myself back then-- he’d be thrilled.”

“I’m sure,” Bucky says. “Any more?”

Steve hesitates, thinking of the one he’d sent after that nightmare-- when he was low and hurting. Incoherent. He isn’t sure he wants Bucky to see that particular side of his soul, but Bucky has been more than generous in letting him in on his pains nowaday, and it’s not like Bucky hasn’t witnessed Steve’s own current nightmares.

He bites his lip and types in JB. That seems to yield a lot more results, and it takes a while for Steve to find the message.

He hides his face in Bucky’s neck as he reads. Bucky’s arms gradually tighten around him, and a moment later, he feels him kiss the top of his head.

“Honey, I hate that you were hurting so bad,” Bucky mutters against his hair.

Steve shrugs. “We both were,” he says, and it’s true. There’s something to be said about the guilt they both feel for not being able to save the other person at their lowest, but life hasn’t been kind to them. The vitriol, Steve thinks, should be directed at the goddamn universe for keeping them apart, not themselves for fucking dying. They’re working on it.

Bucky’s quiet for a long time. “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he says. “Is that it?”

Steve shakes his head. “But I never sent the last one.”

“Why not?”

“I wrote it after DC.”

He feels Bucky squeeze him again, and he squeezes back.

“Oh.”

“I just-- I wanted you to know that you didn’t have to come home. That I just wanted you to be safe; needed to know you were safe, but it was up to you. I just needed you to know I was here, if you needed me.”

Bucky pulls back then and cups his face, kissing him soundly. Steve’s surprised for only a moment before he’s kissing back.

“I did know that,” Bucky says against his lips. “I needed time-- I was lost-- but the first thing I knew when I remembered who you were was that you were a safe person, because you’d never force me anywhere.”

Steve kisses him again, then pulls him into a hug. “I’m glad you knew that.” It’s warm, where their chests meet, and Bucky is solid beneath him. Real. He isn’t speaking into an abyss anymore.

-

There’s a sticky note on Bucky’s pillow next to his head when he wakes up the next morning. Steve’s side of the bed is already vacant, and he can’t hear him downstairs. He must have already left for a run.

Propping himself on an elbow, Bucky plucks up the sticky note.

To: My Bucky

Thank you for choosing me to be your home, and thank you forever, for being mine.

I love you with everything I have.

Love, your Steve

Bucky smiles, heart light as he folds the notes. He’ll keep that one with him, he thinks. A little bit of home to bring wherever he goes.

-

anyway yeah fslkjflaskjfls i-- ouch. anything to do with letters w these two hurts me immensely