#this ended up being more than a thousand words...

[krahanele]

"You don't get it? You really don't get it?"

You sit at the kitchen table, lit only by the dim light from the streetlamp outside, watching the horror as it paces the linoleum floor frantically. The weird static that surrounds its head and doesn't seem to possess any substance but which makes you feel more unmoored from reality the longer you look at it gives the appearance of standing on end in a messy sort of way. You wish that you could fix it, make it look a little neater.

"Well, I mean, there's just a lot going on, you know?" You offer, after an awkward pause. "I mean, okay, you've got this yawning pit of nothingness where your abdomen should be, which is fine, but then there's also writhing intestines like right next to it, which is like 'okay, where am I looking?', you know? It's just a bit busy. And…and the bird feet, what's with the bird feet?"

It looks down at the offending feet. "They're supposed to look like whatever your greatest fear is."

"Oh. Well, okay, I don't like birds, sure. But I feel like the feet aren't the part that-"

"Look, I know it's dumb having it be on the feet, but I didn't have room anywhere else!" It snarls, before deflating. It leans against a counter in apparent defeat.

"I put so much work into this, you know. I dropped out of college to do this. I had a full-ride scholarship at a nice state school and everything, and my parents were really excited for me. But I gave it up. I told them it was all gonna be okay, I could pay off my student loans with all the souls I would reap and then I could even help them with their mortgage. But you're like the fifth person tonight whose mind I've tried to eviscerate beyond recognition and just look at you! You've got a glass of water! The last guy just went back to bed, he didn't even acknowledge I was there! He just assumed he was sleep-walking!"

You wince in sympathy. "Aw, that sucks."

"Don't 'aw' at me!" The horror lifts itself from the counter to tower over you menacingly. You watch out of the corner of your eye as the shadows in the dark kitchen begin to shift and jerk. The voice that emanates from the horror has multiple layers of different pitches, as though a tortured chorus spoke from somewhere within its sick form.

"I am beyond your pathetic mortal comprehension! I am a being which possesses more power than you could even begin to understand, you whelp! Give up, give in, let your mind be dismantled from the- what is that face you're making, what are you doing."

"What face?" You relax your features and look at the horror innocently.

"That face, you looked like…you looked like you were about to yawn," it accused.

"No I wasn't!"

"Yes you were, I saw it, you were going to bring your hand up to your face to yawn!"

"Well it's just…" You look down at the glass of water between your hands. You feel bad.

"Just what?"

"Like, when you're saying the words it doesn't feel like you mean them, you know?"

"What?"

"Like, it doesn't feel authentic. It feels like you're saying them because you think you're supposed to be saying them because it's what horrors beyond human comprehension say, but it doesn't feel like you."

The horror just stands there. If it had eyes, you imagine they would be staring off into space.

"What do I do?" It says, just above a whisper. "What in Cthulhu's name do I do? I don't know what to do. I've given up everything to do this and it's just become this huge, stupid mess."

"Hey." You get up and take a step toward it. As you do, a cacophony of wild, incomprehensible screams begins to fill your ears, so you quickly take a step back until the sound fades. You stand at an awkward distance from the horror.

"It's part of the journey, messing up," you say. "You can't be expected to get it right the first time, or even the second or third time. Making mistakes is how you learn. You think Cthulhu just popped into existence and knew how to completely upend the cosmos as we know it on day one? Or do you think it took a few thousand years for it to get a good routine going?"

The horror looks at you. You think. Again, no eyes.

"Look," you continue, "I'm in my late twenties, and I have no idea what I'm doing. I keep trying out these different careers and nothing seems to fit. I'm getting my masters online, and I don't even know what I'm going to do with it. I think I thought it would solve all my problems, but I don't think it will. I'm just stumbling around trying to figure it out, but I'll get there one day. I just have to trust the process, and trust myself. And when I mess up, instead of freaking out or calling it quits like I want to, I just make a note of how I can do better in the future, and I move on. I don't know where I'm headed, but I'm just trusting myself to do my best, one day at a time."

"…you think so?" The horror's voice is quiet, hesitating.

"Yeah I think so! That's life! And I'm just a human with a human life span. You've got, what, millennia to go or something?"

The horror nods its head.

"There, you see? You'll get there. Don't give up just because five people's minds didn't melt immediately. Just get back out there and keep adjusting your strategy until you find something that works."

The horror brings a twisting dark appendage to its face(?), as though it were wiping away a tear.

"Thank you. I really needed to hear that," it says. It takes what seems like a deep breath and draws itself up to full height. Its form begins to go liquid at the edges.

"Okay, I'm gonna go back to the drawing board now. But I will return for you and your insignificant soul. Your face will melt from your skull when you next behold me, so great will be your terror!"

"I sure hope so," you say with a smile, as the horror bubbles and stretches and morphs until it becomes a great, twisting orb of black, dripping limbs and screaming mouths, which swiftly flies out of the open window through which it had initially entered.

You stand there for a moment before downing the rest of your glass of water.

"Okay, cool," you say aloud to the empty room, and then you head back to bed.

You bear witness to a horror beyond your comprehension. However, because you don't comprehend it, you....just don't get it. The horror in question is terrified by this.

[gothicfied]

Could u maybe write something about how the squid game characters would be with a reader who's insecure? 💛

Squid Game (S2/S3) Characters with an insecure reader

Featuring: Thanos / Player 230, Se-mi / Player 380, Cho Hyun-ju / Player 120, Nam-gyu / Player 124, Kang Dae-ho / Player 388, Park Min-su / Player 125, Kim Jun-hee / Player 222, Lee Myung-gi / Player 333

Warnings: Mentions of drugs and overdosing in Nam-gyu's part, reader is insecure about their body in most of the headcanons, gender neutral language for the reader so I'm sorry if I slipped up and it suggests otherwise at any point, other than that it's just comfort/fluff, not proof read (English isn't my first language)

A/N: ASK IS A THOUSAND YEARS OLD but dude, I miss Season 2 so much, it was genuinely so whimsical compared to Season 3 ): Anyway, I feel like this got really weak towards the end. This took me like three days to write, sorry lolololol

Thanos / Player 230

જ⁀➴ Being in a relationship with Thanos, as he wants you to call him and always insists on it, isn't for the weak. He's outgoing, expressive, famous and you are.. well, you are you. Sometimes you think you're too boring for him and that he deserves someone much cooler than you, but you'd never voice your problems like that too him.

જ⁀➴ Thanos is, at first at least, very oblivious to your insecurities. To him, you are the most perfect person in the world, obviously, or else he wouldn't be in a relationship with you. He understands that, fundamentally, you are a very different type of person than him, so he chalks off your behavior as 'just being shy'.

જ⁀➴ The thought of not being enough for him keeps you up at night sometimes. You'd wander around in your shared apartment and maybe make yourself cereal in the middle of the night to at least be doing something. Occasionally, your boyfriend would wake up to sounds in the kitchen and hug you from behind when finding you there.

જ⁀➴ After a couple of weeks, even Thanos starts to get a bit concerned. You don't want to go out that much anymore and seem much more aloof than usual — What's up with that? He had to ask now.

જ⁀➴ After finding out what bothered you, since you couldn't keep your feelings bottled up anymore, he started to feel guilty (yes, he can actually feel bad for someone). Thanos hugged you very tightly that evening and tried to reassure you the best he could. Maybe he wasn't someone who was good with words, but he'd always shoe you his love through actions.

જ⁀➴ Random little gifts, songs or raps written just for you and obviously only about you, more compliments and co. were his way of expressing it. And, after a while, you started to feel better about your relationship, too.

Se-mi / Player 380

જ⁀➴ Se-mi is basically the cool girl every teenage girl always wanted to be. And you were the lucky person to call her your girlfriend. Her piercings, her hair, her style and especially her attitude were all so perfect — It was impossible to not fall in love with her. In return, she also thinks the world of you. "You're my reason to live." Se-mi would tell you sometimes.

જ⁀➴ But, seeing her with other people that seemed to match her vibe perfectly made you realize you might not be everything you thought you were. To her, at least. It seemed like she smiled more around her people, laughed more, talked more. Was it you? Were you the one that didn't fit in?

જ⁀➴ You tried finding solutions for your complicated feelings, because no one wants to have an insecure, jealous partner, right? But, you just couldn't force yourself to be more like her.. because that was just not you. It would be unnatural, unauthentic and pretty weird. You sulked more and more about it, making Se-mi notice aswell.

જ⁀➴ She'd beg you to talk to her about it, but you felt too embarrassed and shut her out. Genuinely, Se-mi chose you for a reason and you knew that very well, but you still couldn't shake the feeling that she would be better off dating someone with common interests or a common style.

જ⁀➴ One day, Se-mi basically forced you to tell her what the hell was wrong, since it was also kind of taking a toll on her, so you had to spit it out. She seemed rather suprised to hear about your insecurities, but didn't shame you for them, of course.

જ⁀➴ Se-mi decided to meet you in the middle and also try out some of the things you liked without acting so nonchalantly about it. Quickly, things turned back to normal, as the two of you communicated better with each other and Se-mi was more open about your relationship. She reassured you that you were the best partner she's ever had, that you were someone that healed her from past trauma and that she loved you the way you are.

Cho Hyun-ju / Player 120

જ⁀➴ In the beginning, Hyun-ju was definitely the more insecure between the two of you. She's a trans woman after all — It wouldn't be accepted everywhere and she understood that completely. But, when she met you and you made her feel loved and validated, she was definitely way more confident than before. Hyun-ju is a strong person, in more ways than one and you were proud of her every step along the way.

જ⁀➴ That didn't mean you weren't insecure yourself, though. All your life you've been dealing with self-image issues you just can't seem to get rid of. The beauty standards are high and you were convinced that everyone around you was lying when they said you were actually really pretty.

જ⁀➴ Hyun-ju, as empathetic as she is, immediately picked up on the problem as soon as you guys moved in together. She didn't know what to do at first: Should she ask you about it? Should she actively do something? Or should she just passively reasure you more by giving you more compliments and showing her love through actions? Or— Or maybe, she was just overthinking it.

જ⁀➴ The easiest thing was: Asking. So she did. And at first you responded with "No, no, it's nothing." But after a few more interrogating questions by her, you cracked. Admittedly, Hyun-ju was shocked about how you talked about yourself, because she couldn't fathom anyone ever thinking like that about you. You're beautiful, funny and smart... she didn't expect you to struggle with your self-image.

જ⁀➴ You didn't plan on crying that night, but you didn anyway when hearing you girlfriend talk so sweetly about you. After a hug and a kiss, you immediately felt better and promised her to voice your insecurities more, so she could prove them wrong everytime.

Nam-gyu / Player 124

જ⁀➴ Nam-gyu is definitely the most unhinged boyfriend you've ever had. You met him one night in the nightclub he worked at after you went there to celebrate your friend's birthday and fell in love with him instantly. You learned to live with his flaws, but you didn't tolerate his drug use — To this day Nam-gyu keeps calling you 'his savior' because he's convinced he would've died to an accidental overdose if you hadn't come into his life.

જ⁀➴ Your relationship was near perfect, the only thing that bothered you was that he still worked at that hell they called The Pentagon. Not only because he was surrounded by potential relapse opportunities, but also because.. well, because of the girls there. You saw what kind of people went in and out of there the night you were at your friend's birthday and you also knew how young men liked to talk about women. Doesn't matter if they're taken or not.

જ⁀➴ You tried making yourself feel better by ignoring it, because you knew Nam-gyu wasn't a cheater... right? You did bring up his job multiple times and told him to quit, because the circumstances in a nightclub were not great anyway. Your boyfriend undertstood your concerns, but couldn't help feeling like there was an underlying reason.. but, he wasn't good at reading people, so he didn't persuade you or anything.

જ⁀➴ One evening, just before he was leaving for work, he overheard you on your phone with your sister as you complained about exactly what you felt insecure about. And then it clicked in him. Nam-gyu thought it was so sweet that you cared so much about his well being, but his heart did crack a bit when hearing you talk about the possibility of him cheating.

જ⁀➴ After you hung up, he carefully knocked on your door frame and asked if you could talk. Oh no, he overheard everything, didn't he? But, it turned out to not be so bad talking about your feelings after all. Nam-gyu agreed with you and basically quit his job the next day, because he couldn't bear to see his love be insecure about anything.

Kang Dae-ho / Player 388

જ⁀➴ Dae-ho is the definition of the best boyfriend ever. He's probably the most caring and sweet person you've ever met and you were convinced you were going to marry him. And he gave you the same love right back: Cuddling with you even though you have to get up for work, buying you flowers randomly every week, calling you beautiful every time he saw you... that wasn't princess treatment for him, that was the bare minimum.

જ⁀➴ Even though you heard all this things about yourself from him, you couldn't help but always find something wrong with your appearance. Beauty standards everywhere werr tough, especially on women and you couldn't quite seem to catch up with them. Every day you'd open instagram to find a new insecurity taking over the platform, filled with people trying to give ridiculous tips on how to get rid of them.

જ⁀➴ Dae-ho, being the good boyfriend he was, always dragged you away from the mirror whenever you said something like "My nose is way to big" or "Do you think I should get lip filler?" because no. No, he didn't think that. The only thing he thought about all day was your (natural) beauty and he couldn't stand seeing you pick at yourself almost every day.

જ⁀➴ "Social media is ruining you, honey." Was the phrase you heard more often than not. In a way, he meant it lightheartedly, since he didn't want to invalidate your feelings just because your complaints were objectively wrong. You knew Dae-ho only wanted the best for you and you appreciated him being so supportive of you.

જ⁀➴ No, but seriously. There was nothing wrong with you. Whenever you said you were insecure about a part of your body, Dae-ho would kiss that exact spot a million times while telling you the exact opposite: There's nothing wrong with you, because you are perfect the way you are and he loves you for that.

Park Min-su / Player 125

જ⁀➴ Even though Min-su can come off as vulnerable and delicate because of his shyness and his habit of avoiding confrontation, he is most certainly the opposite in yout relationship. He's kind, calm and collected (like always), but he's also very mature about things you didn't expect. At first you thought he was just navigating through life cluelessly, but Min-su soon proved that he was a better afult than you were.

જ⁀➴ That also ties into your relationship: He dates to marry, so you can be sure that he takes any hardships quite seriously. And that also applies to any struggles you may have with yourself. It doesn't matter what you're insecure about, he'd never think of it a stupid or silly and he'd always try his best to make you feel more comfortable.

જ⁀➴ Whatever it takes, Min-su would do it: Talk it out, find solutions together, try making you feel more loved throughout the day. At first he thought maybe it was something that he was doing, maybe because he wasn't putting enough effort into the relationship, but you clarified it right away.

જ⁀➴ Past relationships of yours ended badly, so he learned, and now you were just so used to being treated badly and walking around eggshells around your partners. It was maybe a bit strange and foreign to have someone like Min-su by your side and you just had to get used to it.

જ⁀➴ Min-su loves you dearly and will definitely show that everyday. A simple "I love you" doesn't always cut it for him, so be prepared to be showered in gifts or random acts of service. Very quickly, you notice you aren't overly insecure about yourself anymore and you finally realize what a healthy relationship looks like.

Kim Jun-hee / Player 222

જ⁀➴ If there's one thing Jun-hee hates in this world, it's definitely seeing you being insecure about yourself. You'd often complain about your looks in a more jokingly way and the two of you have a laugh about it later when she convinces you that nothing's wrong with you, but she always feels that there's an underlying truth about what you're saying.

જ⁀➴ Jun-hee wouldn't directly ask, mostly because she wouldn't really know how to comfort you or anything, but she was still good at making you feel loved. More often than not you'd find little notes on the fridge or on your bedside table saying things like "Love you, can't wait to see you later" among other things. She'd leave them before going to work, since she had to wake up earlier than you.

જ⁀➴ At some point you started writing those little notes back, putting one in her bag or sticking them to the bathroom mirror. It became like a ritual for the two of you, which always cheered you up, especially if one of you had a bad day. Neither Jun-hee nor you would actually mention the notes, but it was an unspoken rule to write one back if you got one.

જ⁀➴ Little things like this definitely helped you feel more confident about yourself, since it was really nice knowing you had someone that loved you unconditionally. You woke up looking forward to finding a little yellow sticky note (sometimes even stuck onto your forehead) and Jun-hee's words always defeated any insecurities you carried around with you.

Lee Myung-gi / Player 333

જ⁀➴ Dating a famous youtuber has more downsides than upsides is what you learned very quickly. You weren't familiar with Myung-gi's online persona "MG Coin" at first and you had just gotten to know him at a random coffee shop. When things between the two of you started to get serious, though, he had to explain to you how he makes money... Yeah, advertising crypto currency.

જ⁀➴ At first you didn't care much, because at the end of the day you loved your boyfriend. He's caring and sweet, ready to sacrifice anything when it comes to you — That apparently also applied to his, weirdly high amount, of fangirls. They'd literally die for Myung-gi and were not very fond to find out he had a partner now.

જ⁀➴ The fact that people online started commenting on you, your clothes, hair, likes and dislikes, interests, the way you talk... it all made you feel very insecure, very fast. It was like you couldn't exist without being watched everywhere, like you couldn't post anything couple related without being torn to shreds by people you didn't even know.

જ⁀➴ Myung-gi wasn't blind and immediately caught on what was happening. Whatever he did to try and combat it, some idiots would still continue and that's just how the world was — But, he was ready to accept a break up if it was too much for you, even if it wasn't easy. Myung-gi sat you down one evening and poured his whole heart out, telling you how much he loves you and how he'd do anything for you, but that he couldn't bear seeing you get hurt.

જ⁀➴ Obviously you stayed with him. And eventually you learned how to ignore opinions of people you didn't care about. Myung-gi was never afraid to show you off and you shouldn't be afraid being shown off, because, at the end, you were his partner. Not anyone else.

[elysixns]

Chrysos Heirs as Romance Tropes !

Content: GN!Reader, (mostly) fluff

🌹 Note: I am not well versed in romance as a genre, so forgive me if some sections are a bit wonky! I ended up watching several romcoms for inspiration, lol

Aglaea

Meet-Cute & Strangers to Lovers

I think that Aglaea is someone who struggles to get closer to others because of her reputation. The other Chrysos Heirs know that she's a loving person, often to the point of being meddlesome, but to those who do not walk the path of fated sacrifice? To them, Aglaea is both as beautiful as she is inhuman.

Because of this, I believe that the most fitting romance trope for her would be the kind of trope in which the other person 1.) realizes that Lady Goldweaver is in fact not as scary as rumors make her out to be, and 2.) decides that they want to spend as much time as they can learning more about her.

A meet cute at the marmoreal market is the perfect place for Aglaea to stumble into her future spouse by complete accident. Perhaps they're short on cash for a gift they want to buy for a loved one, so she decides to buy it for them; maybe they fumble a sentence and trip over their words in front of her, and Aglaea finds herself endeared enough to tease them a little more.

Whatever the case, they catch her eye (or she catches theirs!), and she decides to get to know them better after that. :3

Phainon

Friends to Lovers & Mutual pining

Phainon isn't stupid, but he also isn't very bright when it comes to others feelings– Or maybe it's more accurate to say that he chooses not to read too much into what others do or say, because he doesn't want to psychoanalyze them or misinterpret their intentions.

The kind of love that can potentially blossom between dear friends is the perfect romance for Phai, because he's someone who takes quite a bit to put 100% of his trust into someone, and because he feels more confident in being able to accurately guess what his friends are thinking.

It doesn't matter one way or the other if Phainon's potential love interest is more soft spoken or outgoing, or if they show their love via kindness or competition; once Phainon's decided to trust them implicitly, it's as if he can read their very thoughts through their eyes alone.

After that happens, it's only a matter of time before Phainon prepares to confess either through a sparring competition or through a stupidly over-the-top romantic picnic on one of the many rooftops in Okhema.

Castorice

First Love & Opposites Attract

Cas has spent most of her life in shadows; not out of fear of the light, but out of fear that she'd somehow manage to extinguish it just by existing. Because of this, she's never really entertained the idea of romance to begin with; Cas could barely allow herself to daydream about friendship as a young girl, she couldn't bear to taint romantic love with her fantasies as well.

For this reason, I believe that first love + opposites attract are definitely the tropes for her. Meeting someone more boisterous and passionate than her would give Cas the courage she needs to actively seek joy in others and in herself (something that she never thought she could do to begin with).

If her love interest could manage to break down the walls that Cas has built over the course of a thousand years, then she will absolutely take her chance and confess to them (looming prophecy and eternal loneliness be damned).

Falling in love is almost always terrifying (doubly so for Castorice), but realizing that someone in the world actually feels that way about her would do wonders for her self-esteem and confidence.

Mydeimos

Power Couple & Star-Crossed Lovers

Mydei is someone who gives as much of himself as possible for others safety, so I believe he'd benefit from a relationship in which his partner were his equal on that front; someone who, like him, is willing to (and has proven to) risk their life for the things they want to protect; someone who sticks to their ideals and doesn't back down (especially when those ideals are challenged), is the kind of person that Mydei would end up being drawn to the most.

Despite fate dictating that Mydei and his love interest won't be together for much longer, he deigns to be selfish just this once, if only to find a moment of security and companionship in someone that truly loves him.

In the end, even if it's only a temporary safe haven, it's one that I think Mydei would manage to bask in nonetheless. Is it cruel on his part to indulge in romance after fate has penned such a tragic finale for him? Maybe, but it's not like his love interest is ignorant to the risk either. Whatever happens, the two of them have already made peace with the fact that they'll both burn for their choices.

Anaxagoras

Miscommunication & One-Sided Pining

OKAY!! Hear me out, I just think this one would be really funny. Imagine for a moment a scholar who decided to sit in on one of Anaxa's lectures out of sheer curiosity. His prosing speeches are almost indecipherable to them, so whenever he addresses these rambles directly to them, they simply stay silent and listen to him speak (just like me fr).

Anaxa, ever the egoist, initially takes this silence as a lack of interest, and point blank tells this scholar to stop coming to his lectures. It isn't until after Anaxa saves them during the attack on the Grove that the scholar finally confesses: they do care about Anaxa's research (because they care about HIM), they're just fucking stupid!!! And they need him to dumb down what he's talking about!

I believe that since Anaxa is such a benevolent and patient teacher, he would end up giving the scholar a second chance at proving themself to him. If anyone were to ask why he did that, Anaxa would be silent for several moments whilst coming up with some kind of excuse because he doesn't actually have an answer.

(It's the way their eyes light up when he finally gets through to them and the way they look at him when they think he doesn't notice. How interesting it is to see them smile like that.)

Cipher

Rivals to Lovers & Forced Proximity

Thievery comes easy to the Chrysos Heir whom has the blessing of Zagreus, and in all her years (of which there are many), she has never had competition in being the absolute best at deceiving others. Until one day, word reaches Okhema of a mortal who has managed to swindle almost every noble family still standing out of over half their coin!

In any other context, Cipher would've looked the other way and shrugged off such a blatant challenge for her crown (and she really did try to at first). Until one day, a certain gift that sweet Castorice was making gets swiped, and it isn't Cipher's doing this time!

The little game of cat and mouse (hah) that ensues after comes to a head when Cipher and her love interest RIVAL end up trapped in a half collapsed ruin near the outskirts of Castrum Kremnos, where, rather than fighting (or perhaps in the midst of it), the two end up getting to know more about each other whilst awaiting rescue.

Cipher ends up realizing that her love interest is way too fun to kill or best, and since she so loves to play games, she deigns to allow them to keep thieving alongside her.

[girly-girlk]

Can you write rafe cameron x reader where she has a bad home life and she goes to rafe for comfort after something happens with her parents. Sending my love pookie ❤️

come here

rafe cameron x reader

summary: you go to rafe’s house after a bad fight with your parents

a/n: this one was so fun to write and (in my opinion) super cute! enjoy!!💕

you didn’t plan on ending up at his place. not tonight.

you were just supposed to come home from work, grab dinner, and avoid your parents like usual. but for once, they didn’t let you slip by. instead, your dad was waiting in the kitchen — the scowl already painted across his face, disappointment practically dripping from his words before he even opened his mouth.

and then it started again.

the yelling.

the blame.

everything being your fault — the bills, the mess, their misery.

by the time you slammed the door behind you and took off down the street barefoot, you didn’t even realize your cheeks were soaked. or that your breathing was shaking. or that you only had one place in mind.

rafe cameron.

the boy everyone warned you about. but the one who, in quiet, unguarded moments, had only ever treated you gently. and right now, you needed gentle more than anything.

⸻

you don’t knock. just pound once on the front door of tannyhill and pray someone’s awake. it’s past midnight, but the porch light flicks on fast, and within seconds, the door swings open.

rafe stands there, shirtless, sleep-heavy eyes blinking in confusion — until he sees your face.

“shit, baby…”

he doesn’t ask. doesn’t even hesitate.

arms around you. instantly. like instinct. like he’s done it a thousand times. one hand presses to the back of your head, the other wraps tightly around your waist, pulling you in until your whole body melts against his chest.

you break. fully. no holding back. sobs wrack your frame and his hold only tightens.

“i—i didn’t know where else to go,” you manage between gasps.

“you don’t need anywhere else,” rafe murmurs against your hair. “you come to me, always.”

you feel him pull you inside and close the door behind you, guiding you wordlessly to his room. his touch never leaves — not when you sit on the edge of his bed, not when he grabs a blanket and wraps it around your shoulders, not even when he kneels in front of you like he’s trying to anchor you back to earth.

“what happened?” he finally asks, voice low, calm — but there’s something dangerous burning under it. he’s trying not to lose it.

you stare at him, lip trembling. “they… said i was ruining everything. that i’m worthless. that if i left, no one would even care.”

rafe goes completely still.

his jaw clenches. eyes narrow. and for a terrifying second, you think he might explode.

but instead, he stands. he doesn’t yell. doesn’t punch a wall. he just sits beside you and pulls you into his lap like you weigh nothing.

“you listen to me right now,” he says, voice husky but firm. “they don’t get to treat you like that. ever. that’s not love. that’s not family.”

you lean into him, soaking in his warmth, his scent — safety.

“i care,” he whispers against your forehead. “i fucking care, okay? i’d lose my mind if you disappeared.”

you nod into his chest, words escaping you.

“i’m not letting them hurt you again,” he continues. “you stay here tonight. stay as long as you need. forever, if that’s what it takes.”

a pause. then quieter, more vulnerable:

“i want you here. with me.”

you look up into his eyes, raw and sincere.

“i feel safe with you,” you whisper.

rafe softens — visibly — and cups your cheek with both hands.

“you are. always.”

and for the first time in what feels like forever, your heartbeat starts to steady.

because maybe everything’s falling apart —

but in his arms, you finally feel like you’re home.

[peterm4rker]

CAN I MAKE IT ANY MORE OBVIOUS? ── a maeda riku smau

fourteen. oh no (written)

☘︎˖˚ ⋆𐙚 wc. 2.3k w. curse words, that's all ! ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁 .ᐟ

ever since his birthday, riku had a daunting feeling that he was incredibly and utterly fucked.

you see, everything was fine throughout the day. the post you made gained a giggle or two, but he remembered immediately that it was public and most importantly, fake. still, he was more than happy to get a chance to see you when sakuya needed to go get his wallet before dinner, because outside of everything, you had become pretty good friends.

but then you lead him to your yard, where you had strung fairy lights and prepared a dinner worthy of a king and something inside of him switched. he was fucked.

because he wasn’t supposed to want to kiss you when you smiled at him, nor hold you every time he watched you talk to his friends. but it was okay, because he was just confused; he heard that faking being in a relationship with someone would do that to you. according to jaehee, anyway.

so he didn’t think much of it when you went to the skatepark the next day and he came up with a million ideas to hold your hand just for a little longer. he just liked spending time with you as your friend, and that was it. his heart wasn’t skipping beats every two seconds, nor was he getting lost in the way your eyes twinkled every time you laughed. definitely not.

still, the thoughts were freaking him out just a tiny bit, so he decided that he needed a break from  being next to you. if he spent the next three days on a camping trip with his favorite cousin, you would leave his mind. but you hadn’t, and now he missed you.

he was so so royally screwed.

he wanted to see you so badly, it was like he craved to see your pretty face smiling at him. so when his mother told him his family wanted to have yours over for dinner the day after he got back, he cheered internally and texted you immediately.

opposedly to riku’s enthusiasm, you were nothing short of petrified. it wasn’t like you had never met them; they had been your neighbors for years, you had gotten dinner at their house a million times. but never as riku’s (fake) girlfriend.

it was easy to act when he wasn’t around, when it was just you and his mother cooking a meal she had done a thousand times. it was easy to pretend when he wasn’t present and you could forget it was fake for a second. but it wouldn’t be as simple to sit at a table with his parents and sisters as well as your own family, all looking at you while you lie to their faces and pretend to be in love with your friend.

so to say you were scared was the biggest understatement in the century.

but still, you had missed riku during the few days he was gone for, and you couldn’t say no when he seemed to be so excited. so thats how you ended up in front of your closet; every single piece of clothing you owned sprawled around your bed while ryunjin laughed at your face.

“dude, it’s riku, you’ll be fine,” she chuckled, looking at your face with amusement. there was something more there, as if she knew something you didn’t.

“i’m not worried about riku, i just want to look presentable for his family,” you muttered as you rummaged through the mess you had made in your room.

“when his mom came over the other day you were wearing sumin’s shorts and a “lactose intolerant” t-shirt,” she deadpanned, judging your cynicism.

and of course she was right, but this was different.

“shut up and help me find a pretty dress, please,” you said and threw a shirt at her face, making her roll her eyes and dive into your mess.

you found a good option after a couple minutes, a cute summer dress junmin had gifted you for your birthday, and finally went down to make sure that everyone was ready to go. you were clearly overdressed compared to the rest of them, but that wasn’t important at the moment.

“ohhh, you dressed up to go see your boyfriend?” sakuya asked from the couch after glancing away from the screen of his nintendo for a second.

“shut up,” you said, walking past him in complete annoyance. “why are you not dressed?”

next to him, ryo snorted without looking away from his own screen. “i am dressed!” the boy exclaimed, a pout evident on his lips.

“that’s what you’re wearing?” you asked judgingly, furrowing your eyebrows.

“yeah, and i think you’re the overdressed one here.” he said, furrowing his eyebrows right back and looking you up and down with a sassy look that only you could’ve taught him. “it’s riku’s house, we’ve gone there since we were like four.”

“yeah, but she’s the girlfriend,” ryo teased as he wiggled his eyebrows, having given up on the game the moment sakuya had put it down.

“oh, you’re right,” sakuya smirked, copying his friend’s movements. “so, shouldn’t you be practicing how to kiss him in front of the fam?”

he couldn’t say much else after your slipper hit his head.

hours later, your entire family — along with ryo and ryuinjin of course — stood in front of the maeda household, your mother holding the dessert she had made for the occasion as you waited for them to open the door. when it opened, they all barrelled in, too accustomed to being in their company to care much about polite greetings.

however, you stayed put and took a deep breath, almost about to open your eyes when you heard riku’s voice for the first time in three days. “nervous?”

you opened your eyes, your face immediately softening when you found his gaze. “yeah, a little,” you admitted sheepishly.

“don’t be, they love you,” he smiled reassuringly and moved out of the way to close the door behind him and walk closer to you. “hey.”

you took a step closer to him and wrapped your arms around his torso in a greeting hug, “hey,” you muttered, relishing the heat of his body as he hugged you back, “how was your trip?”

“it was fun, missed home though,” he shrugged, squeezing you one last time before letting go enough to look at you. he took a few seconds to admire your pretty face, taking in the sight with a soft smile. it had only been three days since he had last seen you, and yet he still felt like he had been having withdrawals. he couldn’t allow you to see the way his heart melted at the sight though, so he cleared his throat and spoke out. “now, let’s go in?”

“yeah,” you nodded, taking one last big breath as if bracing yourself for what was coming. you didn’t want to break away from him, the familiarity and comfort of being alone calming your nerves for the upcoming night.

“you’ve known them forever, yn,” he giggled, amused and all too endeared at your nervousness. “you used to come over to see my sisters all the time.”

“yeah, when i was thirteen and thought i could be friends with sixteen year olds,” you sighed, already being embarrassed from your past idolization of his sisters without having even seen them. in retrospect, maybe knowing them since you were little was not the saving grace you thought it was.

“come on, they love you,” he repeated, opening the door for you and throwing an arm over your shoulder as he walked you inside, pressing a kiss to your head when you came into your families’ view before letting you go to pull out a chair for you. 

he took a seat next to you and dinner finally began, with a naturality that completely eased your worries. at the end, everyone was right. his family had always been friends with yours, so why would it ever change now?

“when i got to her house she had already been prepping things for like three hours, she worked so hard,” his mom said with a smile, looking at you with an endeared expression.

your cheeks burnt bright with embarrassment, trying to avoid riku’s eyes as his mother spoke. one thing was making him his birthday dinner, and another one was having to listen as his mom raved about how much effort you had put into it. however, riku seemed to be enjoying the conversation more than ever. 

“did she?” he tilted his head, moving his gaze to you when his mom nodded. if you didn’t know any better, you would think there was affection in his eyes.

“it wasn’t a big deal,” you shrugged, looking down at your plate sheepishly.

“she’s playing coy now, but you should’ve seen the messages she was sending me the entire time,” sakuya spoke, a menacing smile on his lips. “an idiot in love if you will.” you rolled your eyes at his words, shrinking into your seat. it wasn’t like you wanted to let your little brother get into your head, but having ten eight pairs of eyes on you wasn’t the best for your lack of people skills. 

“anyways, i always knew you two would end up together,” one of his sisters said, trying to get the attention off of you and sending you a reassuring smile. you smiled back, warmth filling your chest from the kind gesture.

“same, i remember when riku would follow us around because yn was with us,” the other sister spoke, making him embarrassed instead. you couldn’t help but innerly coo at the revelation, having been completely unaware of that ever happening.

“i remember when yn would open her blinds so riku could see her putting her make up on,” sakuya chimed in again, and you swore you would end his entire bloodline before he could even get his first girlfriend. riku couldn’t help the smile that took place on his lips at the revelation, though.

“shut up please,” you asked with an exaggerated smile, widening your eyes as if to send him a message.

“i’m okay, thanks,” he spoke, pouring more juice into the wine glass in front of him and swirling it as if he was drinking wine before speaking again. “so, you guys plan on getting married now or?”

you let out a big sigh of defeat, feeling far too flustered as you melted onto your seat. “how about sakuya stops talking?” riku spoke up with that polite smile he always wore. you suddenly felt his fingers graze yours before he interlaced them together before giving you a reassuring squeeze.

at his warning smile, sakuya seemed to accept defeat, throwing his hands up in and mumbling a small “my bad” as he leaned back onto his chair.

“so, ryunjin here is an actress,” riku spoke again, making the attention travel to your smiley best friend. his family immediately took interest and moved on to interrogate her, giving you a moment to breathe. 

you squeezed his hand gently before looking up at him and mumbling a small “thank you” to him, which he answered by taking your intertwined hands to his lips and kissing your knuckles gently without wavering his look from your eyes.

it was only a while later that you could find yourself alone with the boy again, as you dried the plates in pace of him handing them to you in comfortable silence. your family had left some time ago, but you had decided to stay with the promise that your boyfriend would walk you back to your doorstep.

“so, what did you do for sakuya to be like that tonight?” he asked, breaking the silence.

“it was either the fact that i insulted his fashion sense or that i threw my shoe at him, god knows,” you shrugged, an amused smile on your lips as you dried out the plate.

“you threw your shoe at him?” he asked, an amused and impressed giggle falling from his lips.

“my slipper, and it was his fault,” you chuckled, setting the last plate down on the counter and handing him the rag so he could dry his hands.

“i believe you,” he smiled, drying his hands before putting down the rag and walking towards you. “come on, i’ll walk you home.”

“you don’t need to walk me, i live next door,” you smiled up at him, completely soft for the way he was looking at you.

“i promised your parents i would, so i am,” he smiled, grabbing your hand and interlacing your fingers before he lead you out of the kitchen. “i’m walking yn back, i’ll be right back.” he announced, and you said your quick goodbyes before you left the house.

you walked the few meters that separated your houses in comfortable silence, only stopping once you were at your doorstep. “thank you for tonight, you didn’t have to entertain my parents.”

“of course i do, don’t worry about it,” you smiled and moved to lean in and leave a kiss on his cheek. “good night, riku.”

his breath got caught in his throat at the contact, and he could do nothing but smile and nod at you. “goodnight, ynnie.”

just before you left, he leaned in and kissed your cheek as well, seeming far more flustered than you had when you broke away. you gave him one last smile before walking into your house, leaning your back on the door and letting yourself slide down. was it normal for your heart to beat that fast around him?

oh no.

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[windupaidoneus]

and liek stormblood was just meh to me so this genuinely hit me like a thousand hammers in the face. the tsukuyomi fight. the possible implication she could've had traumatic amnesia and was so eager to please gosetsu to get on his good side as a passive defensive/avoidant behavior because she didn't want to let him down and re-experience all the abuse and mistreatment in that condition. the fact despite of him being her enemy, she saw him as a safe person during the tsukuyomi trial. idk if anything i say makes sense but

NO LITERALLY BECAUSE. because. okay. (gets on my soapbox) yotsuyu was never given a choice in anything in her life. she was handed over to family members who hated her. she had to live in an abusive household until she was sold off to marry at a young age. the man dies & she's sold into a brothel instead. her entire life she has been dragged around & forced to comply with abuser after abuser after abuser. & then zenos comes around. offers her a way out. it's not freedom but it's more than she's ever had. she clearly fears zenos but she now has an opportunity to get back at the people who have tormented her her entire life, and she's given pretty much free reign on how to do it so long as she does it. of course it grows into an uncontrollable hatred toward her own people! they have been her enemy her whole life!

& then she "dies". zenos, who had saved her, left her behind, because she was disposable like everyone else. she loses her memory, probably both because of the physical trauma & psychological trauma that's built up all these years. she's amnesiac, she's regressed too - to me it feels similar to did right, with tsuyu splitting from that & there being amnesia barriers to protect her. & she has a rough start but gosetsu defends her, eventually hien softens to her as well (even if his writing in that whole section is... not good... imo... & sometimes fully out of character...). she gets a chance at healing even if she does not remember what she's healing from. then asahi comes up & actively retraumatises her.

in all of this she has had no real choice at all no matter how positive or negative her interactions with others have been. so she remembers, her parents are there, and here her first choice lies - she kills them! good on her! it is the first time she has agency over what she does.

by that point i think another thing starts factoring in. she notes on gosetsu & hien's kindness contrasting with the domans she's known in her youth. i think at that point she feels that because there is no redemption for her her only way forward is to keep being evil, because even when she's taken out of that path she gets dragged right back in. so she's going to be evil On Purpose, if it has to be like this.

asahi 'recruits' her. she chooses to go along with him but it's not because she hates the domans necessarily anymore. of course she can't let go of that anger so easily but it's a way for her to have control over her fate, to decide how she's gonna go. & to be able to put asahi into the ground.

BUT LIKE AAAAH GOSETSU. GOSETSU BEING HER SHIELD AGAINST ZENOS. THEYRE ON OPPOSING SIDES & YET GOSETSUS LOVE FOR HER IS WHAT KEEPS HER GOING AT THAT POINT. GRAH. being evil is all she has in her mind but even then!!! even then she holds onto gosetsu!! because he cared!! she hates doma but she loves him!! in the end the thing she fears the most was zenos... the one who gave her the first 'freedom' she got to experience because it was no freedom at all... ahg... im jsut saying words at this point but i love her so so much truly if you dont like yotsuyu im going to rob you blind idgaf!!!!!

[janicekao]

Hunted

Pairing: Kraven x reader Summary: You reminisce on the day you met Kraven and became his, unsure if the memory is sweet or as insane as you remember. Warnings: #PrimalPlay #NonCon #R0ughs3x #Cr3ampie #Br33dingK1nk #Possessive #DarkRomance #Oblivious!reader #Fem!reader #FanFiction #MostlySmut #Soulmates #18+ #etc. 3.5k words Wattpad link Enjoy my babies <3 -------------------------

Sometimes it bothers you that you aren't able to share your 'meet cute' story like other girls. Some meet the love of their lives by touching hands when reaching for the same book in the library, accidentally swapping orders at the coffee shop, hell even swiping right on each other through a dating app is better than your story! Because you—

Well, you were hunted.

The day it happened you felt uncomfortable in your own skin. You felt eyes on you all day long but brushed it off knowing that living in a city with thousands of people could always mean someone is staring at you. But you weren't only being stared at you, you were being stalked. Prey to a predator that you had no idea would show up in perfect blue eyes and a kind smile.

It was at the street corner flower-cart where he had stopped you.

He paused for a moment, ending his phone call as he took in your beauty from a distance once more. He inhaled deeply an entire street away— he could smell you. His senses were out of this world for reasons unknown to you and although surrounded by twenty different types of bouquets, the sweetest scent to his nose was yours.

He soon approached you and introduced himself as 'Kraven'. You knew it couldn't possibly be his full legal name but something about mysterious men always struck you. Unsure of his intentions, you still ended up accepting a dinner invitation from him at his house. Usually you would prefer first dates to be somewhere public, but you recognized the address he gave you being that you passed by it for work everyday. His home was impressive, a mansion even, and you had always been curious to see inside of it.

You also felt the mutual attraction between you two as you both continued to size each other up. He wore a T-shirt that fit his biceps snugly— muscles so large that it nearly bursted out of the fabric, a lion's tooth on his necklace, and a thick beard that was just as full and handsome as his locs of brown curls. And you— well, you knew how to carry yourself, there was never a day that you didn't appear to the world as a gorgeous woman because you just were. But what truly excited him was your innocence. It reminded him of the painting 'Agnus' by Konstantin Korobov. You were the precious sheep and as his mouth watered for a taste of you, he tried his hardest to restrain himself from becoming one of the wolves.

———

That evening you arrived at his home in a black dress that fit your body just right. You wore heels that made your legs seem a mile long, and your curls up with a hairpin to show off your elongated neck and dangly earrings. You were freshly shaven, perfumed at your pulse points, and you wore your favorite lingerie beneath your outfit— hoping that if all went well, you'd be letting your handsome date take you on a tour of the master bedroom.

Up close, the house was even more beautiful than you could have imagined... But you couldn't help but notice the sound of crickets around you. It was no longer the city— no sounds of car horns, people on the sidewalk, or even bright city lights. You were on the outskirts of town, surrounded by only woods, and it was finally starting to set in...

Before your mind could boggle with worried thoughts any longer, Kraven welcomed you inside. You felt a bit overdressed when you noticed his choice in style that evening. His necklace had changed, instead of one animal tooth, it dangled three. While you dressed in 'black tie' attire, he wore worn boots, leather pants, and a vest made out of the fur and hide of a lion. It was strange... and maybe you would've complained if you weren't totally enjoying the glimpses of his six-pack when the vest would slightly open.

As he welcomed you inside, Kraven hugged you and even brought goosebumps up your flesh as he planted a gentle kiss on your neck— right behind your ear.

The gentleman pulled out a chair for you at the dinner table and the layout was extremely impressive and well thought out, you were noticeably flattered. For dinner he had prepared steak cooked far too rare for your liking— the sight of blood pooling in your plate made you queasy, but you ate it anyway from fear of seeming impolite. During the meal his conversation was a bit standoffish. Instead, he was more interested in hearing about you, but you didn't mind doing most of the talking. You thought it was charming that a man could be so interested in you— but really Kraven's mind was too busy imagining your life together being that he had already made up his mind about you.

What you thought was a first date, to him was the first night of your future with him.

As the evening grew darker, he began a tour of his home. You enjoyed the many art pieces and his expensive taste as you slowly walked his marble flooring. You even got more out of him as he began to open up about his love for animals and nature. You found out that the vest he wore was made out of the hide of a lion that attacked him as a child, and although the animal almost killed him, he still managed to find love in all things wild and untamed— a love that he deemed to be far too difficult to explain.

He continued to size you with more questions. Wanting to know what you sought out in your future life and if you were the type of girl that liked to be chased. You spoke of your wishes for a big family, to be a housewife, and wanting to find a true soulmate within your future husband... You even giggled about his question about wanting to be chased, you figured that every girl wants to be chased! Thinking that he meant wined, dined, spoiled, and sought after as in 'chased', you immediately agreed. It sounded good, 'chased' as in a man having to prove his worth to you. But soon you were to realize that Kraven meant it literally...

You answered everything he had asked in just the way he had hoped... He waited a long time for a woman who was just as animalistic as he was. But not in his same way of strength and dominance— like a bull, a bear, or a lion. Softer, closer to Earth, something that would cool the fire that burns within him. Whether it had been your doe eyes or bunny like beauty, all he knew was that you were exactly what he craved.

...

Kraven soon approached you. He cupped the nape of your hair and gently tugged you closer to him. His freehand found your hip and pressed you against his body while his lips hovered closely over yours. From the press of his erection against your thigh, you were sure it was time for him to take you up to his bed. Your eyelashes fluttered and your breath gently quaked as you awaited a kiss— that never came.

"Run."His threatening whisper trembled above your lips and your eyes darted open. Kraven took the pin out of your hair until your curls dropped effortlessly onto your shoulders. He deeply inhaled the air around you, knowing that as you ran through the forest tonight with your hair loose and free— your scent would call for him, no matter where you hid.

You chuckled, hand finding the warmth of the skin on his chest. "Now why would I want to run from you, baby?" Your voice was lustful and tipsy from wine, but not what he wanted.

He began to strip, finger pointing to a door in between the two bookshelves of his common room. "You have a five minute head start."

Not once did you take him seriously— more infatuated with the sight of his taut body coming out of his clothes than the seriousness in his tone.

You bit your fist in flirty temptation, giggling as you watched as if you were enjoying a Magic Mike show.

But Kraven had soon grown tired of being laughed at when he did not tell a joke not once. "Three minutes." He counted down.

You began to sober up as he approached you... Your date stared at you as if it were time for dessert and you were on the menu. You gulped and your heels clicked as you stepped backwards once, then twice, closer to the exit he had pointed to.

But fear never truly set in until you saw him for what he truly was. The soft blue eyes that distracted you today while shopping for flowers, quickly sharpened into golden orbs that nearly drew heat as he aimed his gaze at you.

He wasn't human... Or maybe he was, but had become far more animalistic as he snarled in your direction.

His hand rang like a hammer hitting the wall as it smacked the light switch off and let darkness consume you both. Kraven's eyes continued to glow and his lips parted— ready to inform you again about how much time is left for you to run.

But before he could get another word out, you were long gone. Out of the door that he had pointed to, you soon found yourself in his backyard engulfed by trees and the same quietness that spooked you before the date even began.

The sound of your heartbeat reverberated from your chest cavity like a drum and enough tears flooded down your cheeks to drown you. Not a clue where you were headed, all you hoped was running through the forest would soon get you to the road or to the neighbors. Your ankle twisted with what sounded to be a snap in your tendon and you came tumbling down. A shout from your lips pierced through the night and you quieted your pain with the palm of your hand. You instantly kicked your heels off and noticed the immediate swelling in your ankle that ended up staying black and blue for many weeks to come. But you let not even your pain stop you. Back onto your feet you quietly sobbed as you limped and dragged yourself further across the forest floor, but even as far as you had brought yourself was simply not far enough.

So heavily on his mind, Kraven could still smell you from the inside of his home. He grinned the fainter your scent got, all it did was heighten his need for the hunt. The back door again sprung open and the chase began. He started on foot, running and leaping over fallen logs in ways that were inhuman. He felt free and more himself than ever as he tracked you— barefoot on sharp rocks and skin being whipped by passing twigs, yet nothing ached him more than the wind that swept past his cock that had become engorged from the excitement to pummel you. He couldn't take being apart from you any longer, his palms met the cold ground of the Earth and the man hunted you on all fours.

Through small fleeting glances you noticed him behind you and wept even harder. It seemed that the woods were never ending, and Kraven had you just where he wanted you.

He tackled you into a bed of moss, pinning your arms above your head as he sat his full weight on you. Squirming did nothing but make him tighten his grasp as his warm breath kissed your skin with each tight-lipped pant.

You screamed, cussed, begged— all music to his ears.

His nose pressed against your neck as he couldn't contain the need to inhale you. Your scent was so different now. He could smell the fear, the pain, and the confusion on you. Something feral about having your life in his hands made him leak from the tip of his heat. It stained your dress— so you no longer needed to wear it.

Kraven took a fistful of your clothes and tore them from your body, tearing your favorite bra and panties like wrapping around a Christmas gift.

His eyes dilated on you, pupils nearly bursted at the sight of your soft curves.

"Don't you feel beautiful?" He whispered against your lips as your trapped wrists continued to ache more.

"Should being hunted by you make me feel fucking beautiful?" Your cursing was emphasized, so angry that each word came out like an unrestrained bite.

"No." He spoke. "You should feel beautiful for being worth the hunt."

...

In that instant something cracked within you. You became less angry and prayed that his lips would soon crash over yours. He smelled the lust on you. Kraven released your wrists and sniffed you, swooned by the scent of your wet pussy— it embarrassed you.

"Don't hide from me." He nearly salivated from the prominent trace of your ovulation. Your head was turned from him. With the clothes torn from your body it made it impossible for you to hide, everything was just out in the open and you quaked being skin to skin with a man that seemed far past insanity. Yet somehow he still caused butterflies and heat pooling in your abdomen as his fingers gripped your chin and brought you back to the eyes that continued to flicker from blue to gold each time arousal engulfed him.

You hissed from slight movement in your ankle. Kraven sensed your pain coming from your ankle and lifted it in his palm softly as if he were holding porcelain. Swollen and needing ice, he'd be there to fix you up and bring you comfort, but for the moment the injury made you even more intoxicatingly delicious. You were truly prey, not putting up a fight anymore, injured, and under his authority. You were perfect— he wanted to eat you up and baby you at the same time. "I can take your mind off of that."

You hesitated before nodding. Kraven's head dipped below and pressed a kiss to your ankle, he wrapped it in the shreds of the clothing around you and soon distracted you as he had promised. He parted your thighs as his tongue flicked out and held firm in its muscle as it swiped through you, starting from your perineum to the throb of your clit. Your passion gathered at the tip of his tongue and he swallowed you down as if it were the finest delicacy. Your taste had his eyes rolled backwards as a growl heated his chest, he could've spent all night there between your legs, climaxing from your taste alone— but he had plans. Intentions to claim you, to mark you as only his.

Kraven's mouth found your skin once more as it left kisses across your belly. You squirmed on the bed of moss as his tongue reached your breasts and swirled against your peaks nipping the left one gently. You yelped, back arching off of the moss enough to cuff his arm beneath you and hold onto you for what was to come.

He fisted his erection and whimpered from how sensitive he had become. Kraven split the lips of your cunt apart as he lubed his tip to find your core. Only glimpses of moonlight showed the thick inches that were soon to drive into you, and it frightened you to imagine the stretch it will take to accommodate him. But as his lips finally reached yours, you became ready to take on the world. His kiss was testimony to how he felt about you and it stole your breath away. This kiss had haunted you with need all night long, and as Kraven's tongue finally explored your mouth and his whimpers and moans became closer than you ever imagined, your body began to flower-open for him... Your hands suddenly rested on his thick shoulders and your thighs wrapped around his hips without hassle.

His gentle teasing became an Earth-splitting stroke and you gasped in air, breath shattering against his lips as you finally exhaled. Choked by your undeniable tightness, he felt relief as your nectar continued to slick your walls and your passionate longing released the clamping hold you had on him. His hips welcomed sped up thrust as he continued to mold you into his favorite fuck. Your nails dug into his skin when the tempo he chose had you spewing senseless pleads. "Kraven! S'ahh— please!"

What you expected from this date was a quickie beneath silk sheets, but what you were getting was a fuck you'd never forget. Taken against the cold ground, rutted into by an animal who craved you all day, and worshipped with praises you didn't even know you needed to hear. "Call for me, you'll never go ignored моё сокровище (my treasure)." His Russian spoke to your soul as if you understood it, your mouth fell open with a silenced moan and soon you saw stars as your pussy quaked and orgasmed.

"сделай меня здоровым, позволь мне жаждать этой любви, пока мы не состаримся и не поседеем, ибо с этого момента никто другой не будет обладать тобой. (Make me whole, let me lust after this love until we are old and gray, for no other shall have you from this moment on.)" Kraven groaned as your climax made you clench around his shaft, his tongue darted out and licked the shell of your ear and his whispering came like scripture or a prayer. Kraven wasn't just 'Kraven', he was Sergei Kravinoff a Russian immigrant who is a master hunter, tracker, and strategist— a man who gained beastly powers after a potion that saved his life, and began it. A man who will never let you see a boring day ever again.

Like putty in his arms your body gyrated beneath him until you were fucked breathless and numb, you panicked when he sped up with precision, angling his strokes against your cervix as he sought after his finish. You knew you weren't on the pill and that you were ovulating— and he knew this too. "S-Slow down." You begged. "You're close baby, I just don't want you to forget to—" The man in him wanted to slow... He couldn't wait to have you on his arm, show you off to the world, spoil you, and enjoy time together before the thought of marriage and a family... But the beast in him festered something primal inside, something unrestrained as the lewd wet slapping between your thighs heightened and soon the trees around you begin to split from the force. Sure he would do all of the charming boyfriend work, but that night he was to claim you. You would take him in this forest and he'd breed you. Mated for life, and it wouldn't be the last time you conceived either.

His muscles tightened as he gave a last merciless plow that convinced you that you had felt it in your bellybutton, your mound grew feverishly hot from the beating and even hotter as cum oozed from over-filling you and leaked around his shaft. Your jaw dropped, he had pumped you with all he had, sought to impregnate you, to keep you, to breed you.

"Mine."

... Your eyes widened. It was the way that he trembled as he spoke that singular word. There wasn't a point to argue, because he said what he said and he had meant it. You were no longer your own, you didn't know whether to be flattered or terrified, thinking of a life never to be solo again. You then realized that you may as well had sold yourself to him the moment you accepted his dinner invitation. The Earth will never know you to walk as just Y/N again, for it will never be you without Sergei Kravinoff, or Kraven without you.

[cloudkohv]

This is already fantastic, so if there's one thing I may add (a penny for your thoughts, if you will). It's just something I was turning around in my head as I read this:

One of the privileges that Jasnah enjoys in spite of her disbelief in Vorinism is the power she gets from being a lighteyed woman. And so, when combining that power with the belief that she is to do whatever yields the greatest good, we may find that she ends up behaving not much different than another devout Vorin, who also has similar beliefs (being "stewards" of the people).

Like the case with Amaram, where it made more sense to "harm one darkeyed spearman when thousands could be saved by his decision" (however the wording was, it was close to this). Amaram is a classic Vorin leader.

Lighteyes in power operate no differently than any other sort of group in power that received it through "unfair" means. So they'll behave as if they're the ones to decide what's greatest for the nation, or greatest for a certain group of people. This decision is based on either the divine right to rule (classic Vorin) or because they're already in power and thus know what's best (Jasnah).

I'm really left wondering what her stance on the eye color rift was, because as far as I can remember, there was little to nothing on it at all. I just remember the alley scene from TWOK.

the most similar character to kaladin in the stormlight archive is lirin. the second most similar character to kaladin is jasnah, and the main thing that puts him in conflict with both of them, despite how much they have in common, is their wildly differing ideologies and approaches to morality and violence. in this essay i will

[vampiric-fangirl]

okay i want to take a minute to talk about the exact way in which i think lute hates herself because i don't think i really have yet.

(this one ended up pretty long so i'm going to put it under a cut.)

the blueprint (and part of it) is her exact flavor of internalized misogyny. she's a pick-me girl - any woman with even just an amicable relationship with adam is some level of that by default and lute goes the extra mile. and, according to my understanding of the subject, the pick-me girl is characterized by her hatred of women despite being a woman herself and, as a result, desperately trying to distance herself from her idea of shameful femininity and mocking women who don't, often for the purpose (whether conscious or not) of being accepted or given attention by misogynistic men. the pick-me girl forces herself to be a certain way, perhaps a way she didn't really want to be in the first place, because she wants to be able to love herself and be loved in a patriarchal system and doesn't have the awareness or the willpower to fight it. she hates what she is, hates herself, but warps herself and her view of herself and others to escape it.

now i'd like to argue an extension of this principle when it comes to heaven vs. hell.

the storybook opening, regardless of how biased its author may have been as so many people in this fandom like to argue (and they do have a point but some of them take it too far and use it as an excuse to ignore - not the point), presents a clear theme: heaven represents order and obedience while hell represents chaos and freedom. lucifer and lilith are "rebellious dreamers". however, with the way the conflict between adam and lilith is presented, gender is woven into this dichotomy as well. heaven is the patriarchy; hell is the feminist rebellion against it.

(queerness could probably also be incorporated into this model as well, but. this is already an entire fucking essay and it's not extremely relevant to the topic at hand. but it does mean a homophobic homosexual lute would track.)

with this added context, adam and lute hating hell as vehemently as they do - especially with the subtle differences in the way they each do - can be read as, at least to a certain extent, a symbolic + abstract representation of their misogyny.

(something important to note here and maybe something that i just want to talk about, also, is the way vaggie embraces femininity after falling. after falling, she can finally be feminine in the way she want to, not the objectifying and restrictive way that was forced upon her as an exorcist. after what may have been years of healing and encouragement from charlie, she wears a giant puffy bow and does not give a damn. and it's beautiful and i love her for it and i love her so much and - oops got sidetracked there. basically: hell allowed vaggie to express her gender freely. heaven did not. patriarchy. freedom. big bow. pretty woman. i bow and walk off stage.)

and you can kind of see something similar to her internalized misogyny in her hatred of hell. i mean, it is, of course, not a 1:1 comparison given she actually IS an angel, but some elements persist. there is still that desperation to distance herself, even at the cost of basic reasoning ("Angels don't make mistakes"). there is still that forcing herself to be a certain way. there is still that warping of her view of herself and others to escape her self-hatred - or maybe, in this case, a more accurate way to put it would be: to escape her self-hatred-inflicting-guilt and the doubt threatening her unfathomably thick defenses against that guilt. there is still that apparent fight for male - or, in this version of the conflict, angelic - attention, specifically from adam.

(side note 2. a lot of the comparisons i drew here also are/related to stuff characteristic of many cults, which the exorcists - at least as far as the mental and emotional effect on the members goes - functionally are. maybe there is something to be learned there, about the intersection of cults and misogyny/sexism. maybe not. i don't know actually sometimes i straight up have no idea what i'm taking about.)

although, this method of analyzing lute only REALLY gets interesting when you look at her hatred of vaggie with it. vaggie, who was an angel - just like lute is! - once, but is now fallen (for daring to step outside the violent orders that police them, another thing that's mere possibility terrifies lute) - just like lute could be! vaggie, who is happy in hell. who is happy being all of the things lute hates, from perhaps both a heaven vs. hell perspective AND a gender perspective. (and possibly a sexuality perspective too.) and if it is not only possible for an angel to be like this - hellish, and perhaps more importantly FREE - but also for an angel to be HAPPY like this, then. that's fucking horrifying! so she of course doubles down on her hatred and tries to maim/kill vaggie. so that she never has to face this - the reality that the hatred she is consumed by could so easily include herself. that maybe it already does.

and THAT'S why she begs to be killed when she loses the fight in ep. 8, i think. it's a combination of two things: 1. she does not want to face reality and 2. she hates herself. (also she has self-worth issues. did i mention she has self-worth issues? yeah she has self-worth issues. at least when it comes to her compared to adam. natural consequence of being a loyal follower and dedicated lieutenant of someone like him. her self-hatred and self-worth issues are thoroughly intertwined, though, just like vaggie's are.)

that's also why she just fucking. tears off her arm as soon as vaggie leaves, too. she does not care about physical pain or keeping all of her limbs attached, she is far too wrapped up in a. trying to preserve her intensely unhealthy mental state by Not Thinking About Things b. wanting to sacrifice herself in some way, even if it's just losing a limb, because of said mental state c. trying to get to vaggie so she can kill her and be rid of this plague on her conscience d. trying to get to adam too so she can fulfill her desperate (after?)lifelong mission to be of service to him to fill the void inside her caused by her deeply repressed doubt and inner conflict. probably? but then again i'm just a fallenwings girl at heart so idk honestly.

tl;dr: lute hates herself. she makes herself perfect in the way she understands perfection to avoid this. after that, she shoves her hate onto others to distract herself from her own internal conflict and, in some cases (vaggie), she hates others (vaggie) because they (vaggie) exhibit the traits she hates that she has driven out from herself. (although, despite my fixation on fallenwings, this probably extends to other exorcists showing weakness/making mistakes in general.) finally, she works feverishly for approval to reassure her of her place in the grand scheme of things from the man whom she, for reasons brought about by her blind, unquestioning efforts to cling to the version of right and wrong forced upon her and that she has also forced upon herself, views as the paragon of everything she strives for: adam.

she does not fight the system. she breaks herself apart to fit into and work for it.

[sheliesshattered]

sometimes fanfic is just a cute little idea that you can put into words and get out into the world fairly quickly

and sometimes fanfic is 9157 words* of dialogue before you can get to the fucking point

*actual word count, not an estimate

[dancedance-resolution]

i started a supercorp portrait of a lady on fire au like three years ago. i'm never going to finish it, but the writing style is pretty cool, so i want to share it. so um enjoy the prologue and a bit of chapter one?

---

Prologue. Bonnelles, France. 1786.

“First, my contours,” Kara said, her voice soft and level. She looked out upon the dozen or so young women, their eyes darting back and forth from their papers to Kara herself. “The outline,” she continued. The increasingly swift sound of scratching charcoal prompted Kara to further instruct, “Not too fast. Take time to look at me.” She paused. “See how my arms are placed.”

At that moment, Kara saw the painting.

She swallowed and took in a breath; she schooled her expression before letting out the air with a pathetically soft “My hands.” Her students’ gaze followed her verbal direction, now observing as Kara’s fingers curled with remembrance. Their own hands now began to sketch the slope of hers—the slope that had once coaxed breathy moans from a lover, the slope that had once created that very painting in all of its hollow longing.

Kara felt her heart rate accelerating, and her attempts at calming deep breaths only made her shoulders shake unsteadily. “Who brought that painting out?” Her eyes darted around, landing on each possible offender, as she tensed her core and adopted a stern countenance.

Every student dutifully turned to look at the work.

It was an especially young girl who finally lifted her hand. “I brought it. From the stock room. Should I have not?”

Kara’s “no” felt like a brick, its weight threatening to pry tears from her reddening eyes. So Kara took another swallow, a handful of blinks, a few more steadying breaths.

“Did you paint it?” the girl asked innocently. Nia, her name was? She stared at Kara, oblivious to the flood of sound overwhelming Kara’s mind and echoing in the cavern of her heart.

“Yes,” Kara uttered softly, the word barely audible as they fell from her lips. “A long time ago.”

Nia’s head snapped back to examine the painting once more. It stood on an old but sturdy easel, tattooed and scarred but still standing. The artwork itself was brooding, with a white sun bleeding into a dark vignette. Heavy clumps of clouds occupied the sky and caged some of the sun’s rays, so the fire burning behind the woman was bright enough in comparison to create a dragging shadow of her figure. The flames crawled up the back of her windswept dress, bringing sharp tension to an otherwise lulling, melancholy landscape.

“What’s the title?”

The sound of the sea began to swell in Kara’s head. Her lips trembled. Her body unwittingly swayed slightly. “Portrait of a Lady on Fire.”

---

Chapter I. The island of Brittany, France, and the surrounding sea. 1779.

Kara squinted into the distance, her face scrunching up a bit as she desperately tried to shield her eyes from the harsh glare of the sun on the water. For all its gorgeous teals and sparkling peaks, it certainly did make her wish for one of those brimmed hats the rowers were all wearing. With every one of their paced paddles, the cork-like little canoe bobbed haphazardly. Kara rather felt as if she were in the wine glass of a thoroughly drunken Marie Antoinette.

At least she wasn’t prone to seasickness.

She still felt quite unsteady, though, being thrown about and forced to pathetically grab onto the boat’s low walls. She leaned forward, trying to regain her balance and ground herself despite the absence of ground.

The wooden pallet holding her canvas was, apparently, as unstable as she was, and the next thing Kara knew, it had been lurched off of the boat like vomit from a drunkard. Kara watched helplessly as it thrashed among the choppy waves, the sea carrying it a few feet from the boat.

The chief rower met her desperate look with exhausted resignation; he ceased his paddling as Kara shed her overcoat and placed a precarious foot on the edge of the canoe.

With a strained creak from the boat’s wood, she jumped into the water, dress billowing behind her. Her first gasp for air upon emerging from the water was audible; she could feel the effort in her throat. Her arms moved in laborious little arcs as she slowly made her way towards the floating pallet and finally made a desperate reach for it. Kara’s fingers grasped onto a wooden board, and she pulled herself up onto it with a grunt.

---

The incessant wind upon the sea was certainly not helping Kara. Dripping wet, she wrapped herself up in her overcoat in a pitiful plea for warmth. She held the edges of the garment up to her lips, the sensation of the dry fabric bringing her some comfort as she closed her eyes and left herself to the mercy of the mighty sea.

But the interminable rocking of the feeble boat wouldn’t allow her any rest.

Kara wasn’t very religious, not anymore. Yet, the sight of the cliffs and coast of Brittany moved her to relieved prayer.

---

The sun had already begun to set as Kara trekked up the sandy coast. Her legs ached with every stumbling, unsure step—maybe she was a bit seasick after all—and her hands were tired of having to grip her full skirt to keep it out of her way.

She paused on the rocks, taking a moment to manually wring some of the water out of her skirt. She filled her lungs with an arduous breath before slinging the rope holding the pallet over her shoulder. Next came the fabric sling, which housed her trunk of personal items—she positioned it on her back with careful poise.

The journey up the cliffs and towards the trees was exhausting. Kara’s skirt required repositioning every few seconds, the rope was digging into her shoulder, and the pallet and trunk slammed into her back with each wobbling step. By the time she reached the straight path up to the residence, her breaths were heavy and pained, and the sun was nearly fully hidden beneath the horizon.

A soft light emanated from the windows above the mansion’s door, helping Kara feel a bit more secure as she knocked. A short blonde woman answered her summon and introduced herself with a flat “I’m Eve.” She opened the door a bit wider and gestured with her body for Kara to come in.

Eve held a small candle as she guided Kara up the stairs, the sounds of their shoes echoing through the grand yet starkly undecorated hallway. The walls of the stairwell were cement bricks, and the wrought iron bannister was rather plain and geometric.

They came to a stop in front of a similarly void room, bare save a few heavy curtains and a daybed. The raised panels along these walls matched the white-painted wood of the window frames, and they gave the chamber some elegant character.

While Eve entered the comparatively less intimidating room, Kara stayed back a moment, taking in the shafts of muted blue light from the windows and the contrasting warm glow of leaping flames from the central fireplace.

Eve crouched down to poke at the fire as Kara set down her belongings. “It was a reception room,” Eve explained. “Though I’ve never seen it used.”

The fire crackled pleasantly. “Have you been here long?” Kara inquired.

“Three years,” Eve answered, directing her attention back to the fire.

Kara peeled off her overcoat and draped it along the wainscoting. “Do you like it here?”

“Yes,” Eve said simply as she stood up. She turned to Kara, meeting her eyes now as her hands smoothed over her skirt. “I’ll let you get dry.” And with a nod, she was on her way.

Kara watched her every step.

Once the door closed, she hastily began removing her overskirt. It fell to the dark herringbone floor with an unglamorous thud.

---

There was no method or grace to the way Kara wrapped her hand around the rusting crowbar, but with a few jerks, she’d managed to successfully pry the top off of the pallet.

After setting down the wood cover, Kara extended her hand, letting it fall clumsily onto the slick canvas in front of her. It was still wet, and her hand’s small circular movement caused moisture to pool at her fingertips, as if her touch had beckoned the water. So her hand withdrew, and Kara slid the canvas out from its container. Her eyes danced over the surface as she considered how to dry it, holding it in front of herself like the Communion host of an evening Mass.

---

Kara decided to accompany her drying canvas, which was now positioned next to the fireplace. Stripped naked, she sat in front of the fire and pulled her legs towards herself—she was vulnerable, sitting there bare and in a new environment, and the action made her feel a bit more small, compact, and safe.

Kara set down her candle so she could light her tobacco pipe with the flames. Her large, smoky exhales grounded her, in a way, with the familiar sight and smell acting as a sort of sedative. And she stared forward, expression blank but unmistakably worn.

---

Kara walked barefoot along the cement floor, making her way through the hall and to the pantry room wrapped in nothing but her robe-like smock.

[soliusss]

Back from work it is 11:30pm at night but driving head first through a hunongous scary thunderstorm where I couldn’t see anything and I mini hydroplaned twice put so much adrenaline into my body I think I actually have the energy to write. I typed up several hundred words on my phone on my break but I will try my damnest to speedrun the skeleton to completion. I dreadfully fear the whole fic will be veering dangerously into short novel 50k length by the time I’m actually writing it

[vivanightcity]

there being a single moment where Kasper has pause about Varric feeling... not right...

cause Varric and his entire life of not existing anywhere until a few years earlier when he showed up in Tevinter and the shadow dragons helped put together a story and a surname, did a damned good job hiding who he was

so when definitely real Varric says his advice for befriending abominations is 'don't'.... well.

Like I see it as Kasper being aware Varric did not approve of what happened, and wasn't Anders biggest fan at all, but he respected and cared for Hawke enough, who did approve and maybe even had a hand in it, that he'd never be vocally shitty around Kasper.

But. Solas not knowing this. Not knowing who Kasper actually is, just knowing him as Rook, as Kasper Mercar, doesn't fully understand how much was missing in his imitation, and that the only reason it really worked as well was because Kasper was so fucking desperate to hold onto anyone in his life cause of the constant loss that he would already overlook these inconsistencies, helping along that blood magic manipulation of reality and perception nicely.

So in the end, Kasper dismisses that as Varric is recovering, he's sometimes saying stuff he wouldn't with a clearer mind.

[marvelstoriesepic]

A Thousand Times Before

Pairing: Avenger!Bucky x Avenger!Reader

Summary: Bucky travels to an alternate universe for the sake of a mission. But he doesn’t expect to come face to face with a version of you that loves him, completely and openly. Back in his own world, he is left with a truth he can’t keep to himself anymore.

Word Count: 16.5k

Warnings: alternate universe; multiverse; so much yearning; identity confusion; emotional distress; guilt; self-worth struggles; unintentional non-consensual kiss (non-violent, due to mistaken identity); angst; heartbreak themes; slight mentions of Bucky’s past; self-preservation; self-doubt; Bucky is a man in love

Author’s Note: This ended up being longer than I intended. Anyway, I’d love to hear what you think! Also, I’ve been toying with the idea of writing an alternate version where the roles are flipped. This time the reader travels to another universe where Bucky and your counterpart are already a couple. Let me know if that’s something you’d be interested in reading too! I hope you enjoy ♡

Divider by @cafekitsune ♡

Masterlist

The air smells of memory.

As though someone took the world he knew, put it through a sieve, and rebuilt it with hands that were almost - but not quite - shaking.

Bucky walks slow, even though his boots echo down a corridor that used to be silent. Used to be. In his world, the east wing of the Avenger’s compound is always cold, sterile, mostly unused. Here, the lights are warmer. Someone’s installed those vintage bulbs. They buzz faintly and flicker around.

There is a plant in the hallway. A real one. He steps past it. Looks down. A ceramic pot painted with little sunflowers. A tiny sticker peeling off the side.

This version of the compound is lived-in.

It’s unnerving.

He hates how it makes him breathe more deeply as though he is listening for something it shouldn’t. How everything is just off. The couch in the lounge is turned at a different angle. The vending machine is missing. There is a lavender-scented candle burning on the coffee table.

He doesn’t trust this. He doesn’t trust any of it.

Not the way the ceiling seems too low or how the hallways echo the wrong sound the longer he walks. The floor beneath his boots is almost the same. But almost is what gets people killed. And he’s not in the business of dying again. Not even here. Not even in a world that’s supposed to be some mirror image of his own.

It smells of lemon disinfectant and something faintly floral as though someone sprayed a bottle of room freshener and hoped no one would notice the rot underneath.

He runs his metal fingers along the wall as he walks, lets the vibranium whir quietly against the plaster. Feels the microscopic grooves in the paint.

In his universe, there is a crack near the main stairwell. Sam swears he didn’t do it. Clint insists he did. Here, it’s perfectly smooth. That bothers him more than it should.

He takes in this slightly different world as though maybe this is all some trick of the multiverse, some clever illusion designed to fool the worn-down man with the metal arm and the hundred-year-old ghosts. But the walls are still painted in the same color - off-white, barely warmed by the overheads. The hallway lights flicker golden. As though someone decided the compound shouldn’t feel like a facility. As though someone decided it should feel like home. His breath still fogs faintly in the colder patches of the corridor.

This could still be his universe somehow.

Even though it isn’t.

And even though he doesn’t want it to be.

He never wanted to be part of the mission.

He said no. Loudly. Repeatedly. With many adjectives and lots of glares. It didn’t matter. Fury said he was the only one who could go. That this universe had some piece of tech - some half-mythical Howard Stark prototype that their Stark never got the chance to build.

Something with the potential to rewrite temporal coordinates with precision. To fix anomalies. Maybe even to bring back the ones they lost.

He sat through the debrief like a man sitting on a bomb. Not moving. Not breathing more than he needed to.

And Bucky noticed, the way he always did, that you never ask quite so many questions during debriefing - unless the mission involves him. And this time, it’s only him. So that meant more questions from you. More concern you didn’t even try to mask.

And it made his heart clench.

You asked how they knew this tech even existed in that timeline.

You asked why Tony couldn’t just build it himself to which the man gave you a look.

You asked what would happen if Bucky saw someone he knew. If he saw himself.

You asked what exactly Bucky was going to walk into and what was expected of him.

You asked how much they even knew about this universe.

Steve had exhaled, hands braced against the briefing room table, blue eyes clouded. “We don’t know much,” he admitted. “This universe is close to ours in structure, but details are limited. No major historical deviations. No sign of HYDRA still in power. No active wars. Just small shifts. Choices made differently.”

Bucky had watched your face tighten as if the lack of data itself was a warning.

“SHIELD had a file on it, but nothing concrete,” Steve went on. “Stark’s readings say it’s stable - no time fractures, no reality collapses. Just another version of what we know.”

Bucky had listened, fingers flexing against his metal wrist. Close to theirs, but not the same. And he wonders, not for the first or last time, what choices this other world made for him.

The mission is simple. Locate the prototype. Extract it. Avoid unnecessary contact with variants. And get the hell back before anything breaks - him, the people, the timeline.

Bucky stopped listening entirely after receiving all the information he needed.

He only registered you shifting beside him, and it was the tiniest movement, but he noticed. You always get fidgety when something bothers you. He wanted to say something, reassure you, but he didn’t truly know if he even got this.

He knew you were worried. Knew you were angry. The kind that made your eyes too quiet and your hands too still. The kind that made Bucky feel like he was walking through a house where all the lights had been turned off, but every door was open.

When Dr. Steven Strange opened that portal, you stood in the corner of the room, watching him and giving him that guarded look that said you better come back whole. He couldn’t meet your eyes for too long.

And when the world rippled and bent, and the air shimmered as though it might break, and he stepped forward like a man walking into the sun with his eyes closed, he thought of you.

The stairs groan beneath his boots, familiar but not.

Same wood. Same color. But smoother. As though someone took the time to sand down the scars.

In his universe, the fifth step has a chip where Steve dropped a dumbbell. Everyone tripped on it at least once. Here, it is whole. Perfect. No history at all.

That’s what gets him. The lack of damage. As though this place hasn’t lived the same kind of life.

He reaches the second floor and hesitates.

The hallway is dim. Only the lights overhead are on, flickering just slightly. He hates the buzzing. It’s like something alive and trapped.

He turns left.

Your room is down this hall.

Or - your room in his universe is down this hall. He shouldn’t assume anything. Things are wrong here. Tilted just a few degrees off center. The kind of wrong you don’t see until it’s already unmade you.

But his feet are already moving.

It’s not like he’s planning to go in.

He just wants to look. Maybe see how different this version of you really is. Maybe see how different he is, through your eyes.

He reaches your door at the end of the corridor. It’s cracked open. That’s weird. You usually always have it shut.

Your voice isn’t behind it. You’re not laughing, humming, ranting about something. There is only quiet.

He steps closer.

The doorframe is covered in tiny indentations. Not scratches - these are deliberate. Someone’s been marking height on the trim. Two sets of lines. One lower than the other. Two sets of initials scrawled in black ink. Yours. And his.

He knows it’s yours. Because he knows your height. Like a number carved into his bones.

He’s memorized the space you take up in a room. Not just how tall you are, but the way your presence fills the air.

He knows where your head would rest if you stood beside him. Knows it would reach just beneath his chin. Knows the sound your footsteps make when you enter a room, and how the air shifts when you’re near.

He has painted you in his mind a thousand times before.

Eyes open, eyes closed.

In dreams, in silence.

In the echo of a laugh you left behind on a Tuesday.

He’s mapped you in the kitchen. Measured, in his mind, which cabinets you can stand beneath without hitting your head. Which shelves you can’t reach so he can be there, quietly, to help. So he can hand you that mug you always squint up at, the one you pretend you don’t need.

He knows how your arm swings when you walk.

Knows the rhythm of your stride. Knows your pace.

And sometimes, not often enough to be suspicious, he lets his hand brush yours.

Lets his fingers catch a hint of your warmth.

It’s not an accident.

It never is.

He carries you like a story he hasn’t told yet.

And he is aching, aching, aching to write you down.

Bucky stares at the markings like they might reach out and touch him.

He brushes his fingers against one. The ink smudges slightly under the metal pad of his thumb. Fresh.

He doesn’t understand.

Why would he-?

No. It has to be a coincidence. Just a prank. A weird joke. Someone else with your handwriting, maybe. Another version of him. One who doesn’t carry his past like a loaded gun. Or it’s just some odd inside joke he never got to know about in his own universe.

Bucky moves to step back, but his eyes catch on something else.

To the right of the door, hanging crookedly, is a small, square canvas. Acrylic. Textured.

It’s a painting. He knows it immediately. Your style.

He’s seen you paint a thousand times in silence, your jaw clenched, music too loud in your headphones. You always say you paint when you can’t say something out loud. When the words get stuck in your chest and rot.

This painting is familiar. A half-sky. A steel arm. Fingers open, reaching toward a red string that trails off the edge of the frame.

He knows what it means. He knows you.

But the painting doesn’t belong here. Not like this. It’s intimate. Meant for someone who understands the weight in your throat when you speak through colors.

Someone like him.

His stomach twists.

Maybe it is him.

He doesn’t like that thought. Doesn’t like how it makes his heart trip over itself.

He takes a step into the room because his brain told him to and his body didn’t want to argue. And he stops breathing.

Because you're not there.

But the room is.

The room is here.

And that’s almost worse.

It’s too familiar.

Not identical, not exact, but similar enough to tear him wide open.

The walls are a different color. Now necessarily lights. But just not how he remembers it. The books on the shelf are in new places, different spines, rearranged lives.

But the couch is the same shape, the same worn-out comfort.

The window still drinks in the light the same way - slanted, soft, forgiving.

And there’s a sweater messily folded on your dresser.

A book, face-down on the cushion like someone meant to come back to it.

Like you were just here.

Like maybe, if he stays long enough, you’ll walk back into the frame of this almost-life.

He doesn’t touch anything.

He’s afraid to.

Because this version of the world remembers you.

The shape of your existence lives here - in shadows and coffee rings, in the faint scent of something sweet and floral and you.

He walks the room like an intruder in someone else’s dream, eyes cataloguing the differences, chasing the sameness.

He notices that the cabinet doors hang slightly crooked in the same way.

And for just a moment he swears he hears your voice in the next room.

But it’s only silence, mocking him.

He wants to sit.

He wants to stay.

Wants to believe that if he closes his eyes, you’ll be beside him again.

He knows it isn’t true.

This isn’t his world.

This isn’t his home.

And this isn’t his you.

But the ache doesn’t care about reality.

The ache believes in the melodic sound of your laughter and the empty seat beside him.

There’s a coat draped over the back of a chair.

His coat.

Not one like it.

His.

The leather’s too worn in the same places. The collar stretched where he grips it with his right hand. There’s even the tear near the cuff that you stitched together with dark red thread, muttering that you weren’t a tailor but you’d seen enough war movies to fake it.

He steps inside without meaning to.

The room smells like you.

It’s your scent - soft, unassuming, threaded through with something sweet. Like worn pages and old tea and maybe vanilla.

It’s the same smell that clings to your hoodie when you get closer to each other on cold stakeouts to warm the other. The same one that lingers on your gloves when you pass him something, and he holds them a moment too long just to feel the warmth you left behind.

There’s a mug on the nightstand with faded text that reads I make bad decisions and coffee.

He bought that for you. In his world. As a joke.

You still used it until the handle cracked, and then you glued it back together and kept using it anyway.

He reaches out for it.

Stops.

His hand is shaking.

Bucky turns slowly. And sees the photo.

It’s not framed. Just pinned to a corkboard on the far wall, beneath torn paper scraps and to-do lists written in your handwriting.

It’s the two of you.

He recognizes the background - Coney Island. A bench by the boardwalk. Sunlight in your hair. His arm around your shoulder. His face not looking at the camera, but at you.

You’re laughing. And he looks-

He looks in love.

Like he has everything he ever wanted.

His breath hitches.

He steps back.

Back again.

Like distance might undo the gravity of what he just saw.

His ears are ringing.

None of this makes sense. Not fully.

He is stepping into a space he should not recognize but does.

The walls are a little brighter than in his world. Pale blue. Like the sky on cold days. There’s a candle on the windowsill—burned low and forgotten. Its wax has dripped onto a saucer, hardened into a small, messy sculpture. The bed is half-made. A throw blanket in a tangled heap at the foot of it. He recognizes that blanket. You two fought over it last movie night and then ended up sharing it.

There’s another book lying face-down, this time on the mattress. A knife on the nightstand. A half-written grocery list in your handwriting with his name scrawled at the bottom next to coffee and razor blades and more apples.

He stares at the list too long. At his own name like it sits in the wrong place. Like it’s foreign and familiar all at once.

His heart makes a quiet, traitorous sound in his chest.

He shouldn’t be here.

This isn’t his room. It’s not his place. Not his world. He’s just a shadow slipping through someone else’s life.

The longer he stays, the more it feels like the walls are leaning in.

He has a job.

A mission.

A very, very clear objective and a limited window to complete it in. That’s the only reason he’s here. The only reason he agreed to this whole ridiculous plan.

He doesn’t belong to this life.

He doesn’t belong to you.

Not like this.

Especially not like this.

He steps back. Slow. Controlled. As if the room might lurch and pull him in again, keep him held tight inside the heat of it. The scent of lavender on your pillow. A half-drunk mug of something still faintly warm on the desk. A soft blanket, folded neatly over the back of the couch by the window. Woven wool, pale grey, fraying just at the corners. In his world, that blanket lives in the rec room. He draped it over your slumbering body a few times already after you fell asleep somewhere between the second and third act.

The room creaks as though it knows he’s not supposed to be here.

So he leaves.

Each footfall measured like a soldier retreating from a line of fire. Not because of danger.

Because of what it could mean.

He closes the door behind him. Doesn’t let it latch.

He is leaving your room because he has to.

Because he’s still Bucky Barnes, and he still has something to do with his hands that isn’t letting them hover uselessly over photographs he never shot, or standing in the middle of a space that smells like your skin and wondering how long it would take before he forgot this wasn’t real. Or wasn’t his.

The hallway is still and dim. It breathes around him, too familiar and too wrong all at once. Different lungs, but the same bone structure.

His boots scruff over the same tile. The grooves on the walls are the same, the small imperfections in the paint still visible where someone - Clint, maybe - banged a cart too hard against the corner and then tried to cover it up with exactly the wrong shade of touch-up.

There’s a duffle bag sitting outside the laundry chute with a name tag stitched in crooked red thread: WILSON. Of course. Even this Sam never takes his stuff all the way in.

And there is a vending machine. It stands in the wrong corner, but it too has a post-it note stuck to it - out of order, again, thanks Tony - with a penknife stabbed through it, just like Natasha used to do when the machine ate her protein bar credits.

These things shouldn’t exist here. But they do.

Everything feels so carefully replicated, as though this universe is a reflection cast on rippling water - almost right, except where it wavers.

The picture frames are all straight here. No one’s taped up drawings on the elevator doors. But the dent in the wall by the training room door is still there - Tony left it during a particularly aggressive dodgeball game. And the pillow on the corner of the couch is still upside down. Steve never fixes it.

Someone’s sweatshirt is slung over the railing. Sam’s. Same one he wore for three weeks straight after the Lagos op. It still smells like burned rubber and that weird detergent Sam insists is “eco-friendly but manly.”

The common room has a blanket folded over the arm of the couch.

It’s yours.

You always fold it the same way. Two halves, then thirds, then smoothed flat.

The corners of his mouth twitch. Not a smile. Just muscle memory of one.

He walks slower now. Like he’s afraid he’ll wake something up.

He turns down the south hall, toward the kitchen.

He tells himself it’s for the layout. That he’s retracing steps, building a map in his head, keeping sharp like they trained him to. But really it’s you. It’s always you. He knows you’re here, somewhere, and if he turns the wrong corner too fast he might see you in a way he isn’t ready for. Or worse - see you in a way he’ll never forget.

His hand curls into a fist. Flesh and metal both.

The light changes first.

The kitchen here is bigger. Airier. The windows seem to stretch wider than they should, the frame redone in something softer than steel. Someone left the lights low, warm glimmers buzzing faintly above, full of melancholy chords.

And then he freezes. Everything in him turns to stone.

He stops breathing.

Because there are you.

Standing with your back to him.

You are in fuzzy socks, standing at the counter, shoulders relaxed, a pot simmering on the stove, and a sway in your movements that hit him so hard his throat tightens. You shift your weight slightly, hip against the edge of the counter, your hand rising to tuck your hair behind your ear.

The way the light hits you from behind is exactly the same.

You are moving through a rhythm you don’t know he’s watching.

You’re cooking something - he doesn’t know what, can’t smell it through the barrier of this aching distance - but it all is so heartbreakingly familiar. The tilt of your head as you read the label. The absent little sway in your hips as you stir something in the pan.

It’s domestic.

Effortlessly soft.

The kind of moment he’s never had, but has imagined a thousand times before.

His body goes very still. Maybe if he moves, the moment might shatter.

But it cleaves him open.

Because you move the same.

You move the way you do in his world - as though every room bends slowly toward you. As though you don’t know how much of your soul you leave behind in your trail. As though the air makes space for you because it wants to. Because it has to.

He watches.

Rooted to the floor.

This is doing something brutal to him. Seeing you here like this, in this soft golden kitchen that smells like tomatoes and thyme and something slow-cooked with patience and love, tucked into his shirt as though it doesn’t tear his heart apart.

You’re not just wearing it to steal warmth or tease him, the way you’ve done before in his world - tugging on his hoodie after a long mission, smirking when he raises an eyebrow, pretending it was an accident. You always returned it too quickly. Always laughed too loudly when he was too nonchalant about it. Always looked away too fast.

But here. Here you wear it as though you truly mean to.

Here you stir sauce in his shirt and sway slightly to a song you don’t know you’re humming and taste the spoon as though this is just another Saturday. Here, the shirt is not a stolen thing.

The hem skims your thighs. The collar is stretched slightly. The cotton even moves in your rhythm. His name is ghosted into the shape of you, etched along your silhouette. It’s almost too much. It’s absolutely too much.

Your movements are familiar in the way only time can make a person. And God, you move the same way. The same way. Like the version of you he left behind an hour ago. Fluid. Quiet. Self-contained. You hum under your breath, just barely.

He feels it like a bruise forming under his ribs.

His hand curls at his side. Metal fingers flex.

You don’t see him.

He’s not ready for you to. He knows he shouldn’t let you see him.

Not here. Not like this. Not when you’re standing in a kitchen that looks like the one you always complained was too small, in a shirt that is his - or the other Bucky’s - cooking with your whole body curled in that same subtle tension like you’re thinking about something else entirely.

And for one breathless second, he forgets.

He forgets this isn’t his kitchen.

That this isn’t his world.

That the you standing there isn’t the one who left a hair tie on his wrist last Wednesday.

That you’re not the one who laughed at him for not knowing how to use your espresso machine but then proceeded to teach him with that sweet voice of yours he doesn’t mind drowning in.

But God, he wants to walk across the room. Wants to slide his arms around your waist. Rest his chin on your shoulder. Breathe in your scent and feel your heartbeat under his hands.

Because he’s seen you like this before.

In his own kitchen, in his own universe.

Not often. Just enough to be dangerous.

You, in fuzzy socks. You, humming softly. You, squinting into a pot like it might confess its secrets.
You, looking over your shoulder and catching him staring.

Smirking. Amused. But with a warmth in your eyes.

And now, he just watches.

This version of you doesn’t turn around. Doesn’t feel him standing there, made of want and memory and too much tenderness for a heart that was never meant to carry this much.

He grips the doorframe.

Tries to swallow the pain.

Because this is what he’s always wanted, but it isn’t his.

And it won’t be.

But he can’t stop looking.

He knows he should move. Now.

He’s not supposed to linger.

Not supposed to look.

Not supposed to feel.

He’s a shadow in this world, a breath not meant to be heard. A presence designed to pass unnoticed.

But you-

God.

You are gravity and he is weak against it.

You are the glitch in every rule, the exception in every universe.

And he can’t help it.

He looks.

He stays.

Because there is no version of reality where he walks past you untouched.

You are the only thing in this place that hasn’t changed.

The only thing that feels right.

And that’s the worst part.

Because you feel like home.

And you’re not his.

You might never be.

But he stands there, selfish and still, pretending the silence could make him invisible. Pretending this version of you isn’t real. That your shape, your voice, your hands wouldn’t undo him in ways the war never could.

You reach for the spice rack, standing on your toes just a little, the hem of the oversized shirt lifting slightly. His name is written in the way the fabric hangs off your frame. It’s branded into this whole place.

He watches you like a man watches fire from the other side of glass - warmed, lit, and ruined all at once. You move like morning through him - and he, all dusk and dust, knows he is never meant to touch such light.

You wear that shirt on your shoulders as though it is normal for you. As though you want it to be there.

Bucky watches it stretch across the curves of a body he’s only ever worshiped in dreams.

You still feel like you, he thinks and the thought is so sudden and so violent that he has to step back - just a fraction of an inch, just enough to pretend he didn’t feel it, just enough to pretend it doesn’t mean something.

He doesn’t understand how this version of you still reads like poetry he’s already memorized.

He backs away, so slowly, he wonders if time might forgive him for the moment. For his hesitation to leave.

For the way, he just stands there and watches you as though you are the last good thing in the world.

As though you are the world. His world.

You turn, slow, stirring spoon still in hand. You haven’t seen him yet. You’re focused, brow furrowed just slightly, lower lip caught between your teeth, and he knows he should get the hell away from here.

But he is frozen in place. His muscles aren’t working.

He sees the angle of your cheek, the line of your neck, the quick twitch of your nose as though you’ve caught a scent you know too well.

And then you look up.

You see him.

Bucky’s mind is running on empty cells.

Your whole face changes. Clouds lifting. Sun rising. Your smile is instant. As though seeing him is something your body wants to do.

Everything in you brightens. As though the sun cracked open inside your chest. Your whole body jolts. Just a fraction. In surprise, delight. As though seeing him is something that rearranges the air in your lungs and makes it easier to breathe.

He is not prepared for the way you breathe his name.

“Buck-” your voice is thick with shock and joy and something lighter than either. “You’re back.”

He doesn’t move. Can’t.

The word back rattles in his ears. Echoes. Feels like a lie made of gold. He is not back. He is not yours. Not in this life. Not in this room. Not in the way you somehow seem to think he is.

You don’t give him time to speak. You don’t give him space to even think.

Because you’re already closing the distance between you, fast and sure-footed, and he has just enough sense left in him to realize he should say something, before you launch yourself into his chest, arms flung wide, a soft gasp of excitement still spilling from your mouth.

You collide with him hard and certain and unapologetic, and your arms wind around his neck as though they’ve done this a thousand times. So easy with him. Knowing the shape of him.

He stiffens. Every muscle in his body locks up, heart ricocheting against his ribs. He chokes on his breath.

He’s too overwhelmed with this situation to hug you back. His arms stay frozen at his side. His fingers twitch, trying to reach for you but remembering they shouldn’t.

You’re warm. You’re so warm.

You smell like that candle on your windowsill. Like a version of comfort he hasn’t earned.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were back?” you murmur, voice muffled as you bury yourself into the crook of his neck, full of a joy so honest it makes his entire ribcage squeeze the life out of him. “I thought you were still stuck over there. I was starting to get worried. Were you trying to surprise me? Because you definitely surprised me.”

Bucky can’t speak. He can’t do a single thing and that’s absolutely pathetic. He wants to say something clever or distant or safe, but his mouth is a graveyard and the words are bones. He’s not sure he even remembers how to use them anymore.

Your breath fans across his collarbone, your nose brushing his jaw, and it’s too much.

The feeling of you against him is unbearable. You fit. Of course, you do. His body knows you, even if his brain is screaming that this is wrong, that this is not the life he is living, that this version of you is not his to touch.

But you don’t know that. You don’t hesitate. Your hands slide up his back. One of them tangles in the hair at the nape of his neck. The other rests against the curve of his shoulder. His flesh shoulder.

He feels like glass. Like a single breath could rip him to shreds.

You pull back just enough to look at him.

There is something tender in your eyes. Something known. Something that sees him without flinching. You’re beaming. And he is blinded.

You’re looking at him as though he’s something you loved for years and known down to the marrow.

And then, so quickly, so confidently - you kiss him.

Bucky freezes.

All the air leaves his lungs.

His heart stutters in his chest.

Your lips meet his as though the air between you has gravity, as though you have done this before, soft and sure, knowing how he likes it. You kiss him as though you’ve kissed him a thousand times and a thousand more.

Bucky is a rigid wall, thunderstruck.

But he doesn’t stop you.

He should. He knows he should. The second your hands touched his face, he should have stepped back. Should have told you the truth. Should have warned you that this isn’t him. Not the right one. That the man you think you’re kissing is a ghost wearing someone else’s memories.

But he doesn’t. He lets you. For a heartbreaking moment. Lets his mouth press to yours for the span of a beat and a half. Lets the warmth of you crack the ice he’s been carrying in his chest for too long.

Your lips are warm, soft, sweet, tasting of honey and cinnamon and nostalgia and the imaged version of a dream he’s buried too deep to name, one he’s never dared to reach for but still lingers in his bones. Bucky doesn’t know if he’s breathing or if that became something irrelevant.

He lets you press into him as though the whole world hasn’t changed, as though this you is not a stranger wearing your skin, your voice, your tenderness. And for a second, a small and selfish, shattering second, he melts.

His muscles go slack and his eyes fall closed and the universe falls into place. Your lips on his feel like relief, like the end of war, like something he didn’t earn. He lets himself sink into it, into you.

You kiss him as though you know him. As though you know the hollow places and where they go. As though your body is working off muscle memory forged from love he was never around long enough to deserve.

Your hands are on his face and you’re kissing him as though this means something and he wants to pull away, he does, but not for one split-second. He folds like wax in flames, pliant and helpless under your affection.

His heart stutters - skips, crashes, burns.

Your body is pressing forward as though it’s coming home.

His mouth moves with yours, slow and stunned and melted, like a man learning to breathe in a language he doesn’t speak.

This is what he has imagined. This is what has haunted the spaces behind his eyes when he lets his guard down. He has imagined this. Wondered what your breath would taste like when it caught between your mouths, how your fingers would feel fisted in his hair, how it might feel to be wanted by you - openly, without hesitation, without shame.

But then you whisper against his mouth, soft and breathless and full of joy.

“God, I missed you.”

And everything collapses.

The words strike like ice water down his spine. It’s like being shot. He grows tense again. His eyes snap open. His mind catches up to his heart. The sweetness goes sour in his mouth. The warmth becomes poison under his skin. Because it isn’t real. This isn’t real.

You’re not his.

Not his to kiss. Not his to miss him. Not his to touch him with that bright look in your eyes as though he is part of your story.

You think he’s your Bucky. The one who - as Bucky would imagine - kissed you on every hallway in this place, whenever he could. The one who knows which side of the bed you sleep on. The one who earned your trust, your touch, your history.

And so he breaks the sky.

He pulls away - rips himself out of paradise with shaking hands and a jaw clenched so tight it might snap. The breath that leaves him is ragged, torn.

Every muscle in his body is tight. This is not your kiss. Not yours to give or his to take. Not when you don’t know. Not when you think he’s someone else.

And even though it’s you - your warmth, your voice, your heartbeat fluttering against his chest - it’s not the version of you he’s imagined this with.

And it’s not right.

The guilt punches him all at once, shame and grief and confusion he’s never quite learned to survive. He recoils - not even fully on purpose - but instinct, instinct that tells him he has stolen something you didn’t offer him.

He’s just a stranger behind familiar eyes.

You freeze. Blink at him. Confused. Concerned.

Your smile falters. Disappears.

His chest heaves once, twice, too fast, not able to breathe properly with your taste still caught in his mouth. His hands curl into fists at his side, trying to remember what they are for.

And then he sees it - your worry folding into something smaller, something more ashamed.

And it murders him in slow motion, one heartbeat at a time.

Your hands drop away from his face and flutter against your lips for the smallest second as though maybe you’re the one who crossed a line.

And he watches, helpless, as the light behind your eyes dims.

You take a tiny step back, shoulders inching inwards as though you’re suddenly unsure of yourself.

And then your eyes widen, and the guilt spills out of you now, sharp and immediate.

“Buck, I-” you start, your voice soft and hesitant. “I’m sorry. That was… I shouldn’t have just- I didn’t mean to- God, you probably needed a second to just settle, and I-” you trail off and take another step back as though you think you hurt him.

Your face crumples, not dramatically, not completely. But enough to look a little wounded. Vulnerable in that way you only let him see when no one else is around. Even here. Even in this life that isn’t his.

It’s killing him.

That pain in your eyes. The sheen of doubt and confusion that he put there.

You wrap your arms around yourself, retreating inward, your expression far too close to shame.

His chest caves as though something vital just got torn out, and his body hasn’t caught up yet.

Because even if you are not his - you are you. And hurting you, even by accident, even like this, feels like peeling the skin of his ribs.

He feels it in the hollow beneath his ribs, a wound that won’t stop bleeding.

“No!” he forces out quickly, voice low and rough and all wrong. “Hey- no, no, you didn’t- You weren’t- I’m not-”

But he doesn’t know what to say.

He wants to tell you it’s okay, that you didn’t do anything wrong, that it’s him, it’s all him, it’s always him, it’s never you.

He wants to scream that his bones are made of want, that his blood sings only your name, that he is drowning in everything you don’t know you’ve given him.

But none of this is simple. None of it is clean.

And all he does is stand there.

Breath shaking.

Heart breaking.

Hands curled so tightly to keep from reaching.

Because you didn’t give this kiss to him, not knowing who he was. You gave it to the man you think he is. The man you trust.

And he accepted it anyway. Let it happen. For just a split second, but still, he let himself have it.

He feels sick.

And now you look like you’re folding in on yourself, and all he wants in the world is to pull you close and undo every second of pain.

“I just got excited,” you say timidly, even softer now, eyes dropping to the kitchen counter. “I missed you and I didn’t- I thought you’d- Never mind. I’m sorry.”

You’re already turning away, trying to tuck the moment back into yourself, trying to pretend it didn’t just break the air between you. As though you haven’t just handed him a piece of your heart and watched him flinch from it.

And Bucky feels like the worst kind of monster.

Because it’s not your fault. This version of you, who somehow but clearly loves him, who thought she was greeting the man who has kissed her a thousand times and more. Who thought this was welcome. Who probably counted down the days until he walked through that door.

He knows because he does the same thing although his you and him aren’t even a thing.

Because in his world, you’re his friend. Just that. A friend with soft eyes and sharper wit, someone who argues about popcorn toppings and sings loudly in the kitchen when you know he needs some cheering up. You’ve patched him up after missions. You’ve watched old movies with him in silence, both of you staring too long at the screen and not long enough at each other. You’ve fallen asleep on his shoulder. You’ve tucked his hair behind his ear when it stuck to his cheek after a nightmare. You’ve told him - more than once - that you’re here for him.

But you’ve never kissed him.

You’ve never touched him as though you owned the moment.

You’ve never stood in his clothes and cooked dinner for the version of him who let himself be yours.

And god, he wants to hate this version of himself. This man who found the courage to step forward when he only hovered on the edge. Who earned the right to be held by his dream girl like a homecoming.

And now you are ashamed. Now you are hurt.

Because he couldn’t be the right Bucky.

He steps forward, frantic, needing, desperate to fix it, to say something, anything that would wipe that hurt look off your face.

“No- no, hey,” he rasps, voice frayed. His hands are hovering. He wants to touch you. He wants to hold your face in his palms and make this better. “It’s not your fault. It’s not you. I just… I mean, I didn’t think-” He knows he’s not making this better at all right now.

He sighs, mouth open but language failing him, and he scrubs a hand over his jaw as though he can erase the hesitation you saw there.

You search his face, your eyes too deep.

A trembling nod.

“Okay,” you say. “I just thought- I don’t know what I thought. I was just really happy to see you. But I should’ve given you a moment.”

And there it is.

The softness.

The part of you he has always tried to guard. The one he’d go back to Hydra to protect. The one that makes his chest ache and his hands shake at his sides.

He wants to tell you everything. The truth. The mission. That he’s not the man you think he is.

He almost does.

But his throat is choked up.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper, and that only breaks him in a new way.

Because you think you did something wrong.

“No,” he starts again, firmer this time, softer too. “You don’t need to apologize, sweetheart. I-” he hesitates, and you see it. “I missed you, too.”

He screwed up. Completely.

You bite your lip, unsure. Your eyes flick down to your shirt. His shirt. Not really his shirt. But Bucky’s shirt. You tug at the hem as though it suddenly doesn’t belong to you anymore.

And Bucky knows that this moment will haunt him long after he leaves this world. Long after he goes back to the version of you who wears his hoodies just to tease, who touches him only in passing, who is his friend despite him wishing for you to greet him the same way this you greets her Bucky. For the rest of his life.

You look at him as though he’s a wound.

As though he’s something tender and broken and half-open, and not in the way that frightens you but in the way that makes you reach for the first aid kit. As though you’ve seen the blood already, and you are not afraid to get your hands dirty to make him whole again.

Your voice turns softer now. Maybe trying not to shake the walls around him. Like you’ve already seen him flinch once and you’re afraid of making it happen again. He can hear the thread of caution in your throat, stretched thin with concern.

“Buck,” you say, slow, quiet. “Are you okay?” you ask and it’s not just a question. It’s a doorway. A key turned in a lock he hasn’t let anyone touch. You’re peering through the walls he built up as though you have done it before. Maybe you know all his hiding places. Maybe you’ve kissed every scar on his soul and memorized the way his silences mean different things.

But not this version of him.

Not here. Not now.

And it does something sharp to him.

Because he’s not okay. He is a thousand feet below the surface, lungs full of water and salt and regret. He is standing in a version of his life that is too soft for the callouses on his hands, and you are looking at him as if he means something to you, as if he still matters even after he’s flinched from your kiss, after he’s stood there in a borrowed skin, giving nothing in return.

He wants to say yes. Wants to lie because it would be kinder. Because maybe it would make your forehead smooth out and your mouth curl back up and your shoulders drop from where they’ve crept up near your ears. But the words catch in his throat. He can’t swallow them. He can’t spit them out.

You step closer, slowly now, more careful than before, and the guilt rises more than ever.

“Do you need anything?” you ask, as though you’ve asked him this a thousand times before. “Water? Food? A shower? A-” you falter, “- a second to breathe?”

Your eyes are so gentle he could cry. You’re hurting and you’re still soft with him, still reaching across this invisible crack in the earth, still offering care with both hands like it won’t burn you if he doesn’t take it.

He doesn’t deserve this.

He doesn’t deserve you.

Not when he’s not the man who earned the right to walk through that door and be met with your affection like sunlight. Not when you looked at him like a miracle and he gave you nothing back but a statue.

His hands remain in fists. His chest is too tight. Too small. His own skin is too loud.

“I’m fine,” he answers. Too fast. Too clipped. He regrets it instantly.

Your face drops a little, enough for him to feel it all over again. Another weight, another reminder that he is ruining something delicate, something not meant for him.

“Oh,” you murmur, nodding too quickly, stepping back as though your warmth was a mistake. “Okay.”

And there it is.

That thing he can’t stand.

That thing you do - both of you, all versions of you - when you feel shut out. That pull inward, that retreat behind your own ribs, as though maybe you’d overstepped, and now you need to fold yourself small enough not to take up space.

It crushes him.

Because he made you feel that way.

He made you feel as though you’re making it worse by caring.

He swallows hard, sorrow burning down his throat.

He doesn’t deserve your tenderness. He doesn’t deserve your care. He doesn’t deserve the way you’re moving again, back to the counter, shoulders tense. You’re trying to give him space and comfort in the same breath and it hurts to watch.

You stir something in the pan. Wipe your hands off a towel that looks as though it’s been used too many times. Domestic. Familiar. This life is familiar, too much so, and he is standing in the middle of it like a trespasser.

“I’m almost done here,” you note sweetly, glancing back at him with that look - gentle and worried and wounded. “If you do want something.”

You say it as though you’ve fed him before. As though he likes your cooking. As though this is something you fall into easily, the kitchen your common ground, your voice echoing off the same cabinets.

Bucky can feel his heart cave in.

You’re still looking at him like that. As though he’s someone you’d give your last spoonful of soup to. As though he isn’t just standing there like a coward with your kiss still on his mouth and your concern sitting in the hollow of his chest.

Even when he pulled away, even when he didn’t say a damn word, you didn’t get angry. You didn’t accuse him of anything. You just worried. And you’re still here. Still cooking. Still offering pieces of yourself like they’re nothing when they mean everything.

It makes him feel like a thief.

Because he’s not your Bucky. And he doesn’t know what yours did to earn you, but he can’t possibly live up to it.

His guilt is a creature now - gnawing and breathing heavy in his chest, pacing in circles behind his ribs. He feels it crawling through him, scraping at the back of his throat, making it hard to speak, hard to swallow. You are being careful with him, and all he can think about is how he should have stopped the kiss the second you leaned in.

You wouldn’t have kissed him if you knew who he really was.

And still, he wants to say yes.

Wants to sit at the kitchen table as though he belongs. Wants to take the plate you’d hand him and eat every last bite and listen to your stories and pretend just for a moment that this is his.

But it’s not.

It’s yours.

And it’s his job to leave it untouched.

“I’m good,” he lies, voice a gravel-dragged croak.

You pause, spoon in hand, frowning softly.

He hates that look.

That little line between your brows. The tilt of your head. Maybe you know he’s not telling the truth but don’t want to press. Maybe you’d rather hold the silence in your hands than make him bleed more words than he has.

“Okay,” you say again, quiet but still open, still gentle. “Just let me know if that changes.”

And you turn back to your pan, shoulders remaining to stay curled in. Like a window closing just enough to keep the cold out.

And Bucky just stands there.

Mouth dry. Hands shaking. Jaw tight. Chest full of something that feels like grief and guilt and anguish all tangled up in barbed wire.

And you’re cooking for a man who doesn’t exist in your world.

And the worst part - the part that scrapes down the back of his throat - is that he wishes he could deserve you.

He wishes this was real.

He wishes it were him.

He wishes it more than he’s wished for anything in his life since he lost it.

Since he became something else, since he forgot his own name, since his hands were turned against the world, against himself. Since all he’s done is survive.

He watches you like a man starving for sunlight. Terrified it might disappear if he blinks too long.

The way your shoulders move as you stir. The curl of your fingers around the wooden spoon. The tuck of hair behind your ear. The shift of your weight from one foot to the other.

He watches you move like he’s memorizing. As though this is the last time he’ll see you in motion. Like your movements are things he can bottle and carry with him, tucked deep into some pocket where the world can’t steal it. Where time can’t take it. Where even regret has no reach.

Your fingers fuss over something inconsequential now. Adjusting the position of a mug that didn’t need to be moved, opening a drawer, and then closing it again. You’re pretending not to look at him but he sees the way your eyes keep falling over, the way you keep folding and unfolding yourself. You’re waiting. Giving him the space he didn’t ask for and that he doesn’t actually want but knows he should take. Giving him something kinder than he’s ever learned to give himself.

And you are so familiar. You’re the same here. Even in this place that’s slightly sideways and tinted in colors, he doesn’t recognize. You move the same. You speak the same. You care the same way.

Even if your kindness isn’t meant for him.

Even if your kiss was meant for a version of him he doesn’t even understand.

Because this Bucky - the one you seem to love here - he must have done something right. He must have looked at you one day and not looked away. He must have let himself have you. He must have been brave enough to reach for you with both hands and hold on.

Bucky doesn’t know how to be that man.

He wants to be.

But he doesn’t know how.

Not in his own world. Not where he loves you from afar and pretends that’s protection. Where he swallows the way you laugh like it’s medicine and doesn’t let it show on his face. Where he listens to your questions in briefings - always you, always asking the most, as though you know people better than they know themselves - and he lets the sound of your voice guide him through the fog in his head like a rope he can follow back home.

But he never says anything. Never answers unless he has to. Never tells you how often he thinks about you, about your hands and your hair and your smell and the way your eyes find his in a crowd like a lighthouse built just for him.

Because what would he even say?

Hey, I can’t sleep unless I replay the way you laughed when Sam dropped popcorn all over the floor last month. I still have the napkin you folded into a crane at that terrible diner. I know the shape of your handwriting better than my own.

And what would you say to that?

Would you smile?

Would you run?

He doesn’t know. He’ll never know. Because he never asked. Because he never tried.

But this Bucky did.

And now this is the price.

Standing in the compound’s kitchen that smells of roasted garlic and too many things he’s never had. Watching you move around as though this is all so very familiar to you.

He wonders if you’d greet him like this every day if he were yours. If you were his.

If you’d light up like that every time like he was coming come and not just showing up, arms open, voice warm, like there was no place he could be safer than here with you.

If you’d wear his shirts as though they are yours because of what he means to you, not because they are soft or convenient or too clean not to steal.

He aches with the idea of it.

He wants this.

He wants you.

And not just in the sharp pain that lives under his ribs. Not just in the sleepless nights and the imagined conversations. Not just in the way he stares too long when you’re laughing or how he makes excuses to sit beside you on the couch.

He wants this.

You, warm and open and lit up from the inside. You, the way you could be if you saw him like this. If you let yourself. If he ever earned the right for you to let yourself.

But he hasn’t. He knows that.

He’s just your friend. The one you trust with your coffee order and your spare key and the heavy things you don’t want to talk about until 2 am. The one you steal clothes from, but always give them back because they don’t actually belong to you. The one you fall asleep beside during late movies without worrying about what it means because it doesn’t mean anything. Not to you.

Not like it means to him.

And still, he always watches. From doorways. From shadowed corners of rooms that dim the moment you leave them. Not to possess you - but because to look away would be a small death he cannot bear.

You laugh, and he holds the sound like contraband. You glance past him, and he lets it wound him sweetly. He’ll love you like that forever - at a distance, in silence, in awe. A man carved hollow by devotion, wearing his yearning like a prayer no god will answer.

And this version of you belongs to someone.

Even if it’s just a different version of him, it’s not him. Not this one. Not the one still lost in the burden of everything he’s done. The one who still wonders if the blood on his hands will ever wash off. The one who doesn’t know how to be soft.

He doesn’t know what the other Bucky did to deserve this version of you. Doesn’t know how he got so lucky. Doesn’t know what he offered you, what words he spoke when you were doubting yourself, afraid of being too much.

He’s not sure if he even knows this Bucky. It sounds weird as fuck. But maybe he doesn’t. Because it seems impossible to Bucky that this guy actually managed to get his girl. To get you.

Though he sure as hell would start a fight if the other him ever took this for granted. If he ever walked through this kitchen distracted or tired or in a bad mood and missed the way you smile when you think he’s not looking. If he ever left you waiting too long.

Bucky thinks he’d kill to have what that punk has.

And he hates himself for that.

But he can’t help but watch you, and it feels like the axis of something turning. Like time folding in on itself to offer him one brief, borrowed breath of what could have been.

It feels like being kissed by a future he lost, and forgiven by a present he never dared to ask for.

Because he knows that if you knew his thoughts, if you knew what he is feeling right now, you’d feel betrayed. You’d feel wronged. Because this wasn’t yours to give and it wasn’t his to want and now you’re both tangled in something made of shadows and parallel paths that should never have crossed.

But you’re here. And he’s here. And the moment still smells of cinnamon and citrus and something sweet, like safety, like you.

And he can’t stop wanting.

He wants it so badly he feels like a child in his chest. Like a boy in Brooklyn again, heart too big, hands too empty. Wanting something too beautiful for his fingers. Afraid to touch it in case he ruins it.

He wants this kitchen, this quiet, this life. He wants to be the Bucky who you wrap your arms around without thinking. Without hesitation. The one you miss. The one you think about. The one you care about so deeply. The one you kiss without asking because of course he wants you to.

He wants to be the one you light up for.

He wants it so bad it hurts.

But you are too soft for the ruin of his hands. Too bright for the rooms he lives in. You drink from fountains he was never invited to approach, speak in tones that his rusted soul cannot mimic.

And this is gutting him. To know the shape of your intimate kindness, the tilt of your adoring smile, the poetry of your presence - yet remain nothing more than a silent apostle to your orbit.

And maybe that’s why he finally moves. Why he tears himself away, footfalls too loud in the silence, heart thudding wildly in his chest.

He can’t stay here, not with you standing in the soft yellow light looking like everything he’s ever tried not to need.

He clears his throat, tries to make his voice sound normal, even though nothing about him feels human right now.

Your eyes lift to his. Wary. Still warm. Still worried. Still too much.

“I should, uh,” he mutters, nodding toward the hallway. “I’ve gotta take a shower.”

He bites his lip in frustration at himself.

Your lip twitches. Tugs down ever so slightly. It splits him open.

“Okay,” you say, quiet. There is disappointment in your tone, you weren’t able to overshadow. “You’ll tell me if you need anything?”

He nods too fast. Too tight. “Yeah.”

And then he leaves.

Because if he doesn’t, he’s going to do something worse than kiss you back.

He’s going to beg.

And he knows he has already taken too much.

And he needs to turn away.

Because he has something to do.

Because this world isn’t his. And he wasn’t sent here to collect the storyline he’s too afraid to build on his own.

He’s here for a mission.

He wasn’t sent here to linger in your doorway and let his bones dissolve into longing.

He walks away with you still behind him. He feels your gaze on his skin and with every step, it’s like he’s leaving something behind he’ll never quite be able to touch again.

He almost turns around.

Almost says your name.

Almost asks what this Bucky did - how he said it first, how he reached for you, what it took.

But he doesn’t.

Because he doesn’t get to ask.

So he keeps walking, heart in his throat, your taste still on his lips, and the echo of your smile carved into his spine like something sacred he was never meant to keep.

****

“Did you run into anyone while you were there?”

Steve’s question comes as casually as a bomb dropped from the sky.

Voices rise and fall in the conference room - wooden chairs squeaking under shifting weight, pens clicking, someone’s fingers drumming absently on the table.

The room is too bright. The lights overhead white and clinical, burning a little too harshly through his eyes and down into the back of his skull.

The air smells like ozone and burnt coffee. The kind that’s been sitting in the pot too long, scorched at the edges.

Bucky sits at the far end. Back against the chair but not relaxed, never relaxed, spine too straight, jaw too tight, metal fingers tapping once against the glass of his water before he clenches his hand and stills it.

And he knew this was coming.

Knew from the moment Strange opened that cursed slit in the fabric of the universe and Bucky stepped through like he was boarding a train to nowhere. Knew the second he saw your face - your face, but not yours - that this would catch up with him. That this would unravel under fluorescent lights and scrutiny.

Every muscle in his body coiled tighter. A reflex. A learned thing. His mouth is already dry.

The table is crowded with Avengers, coffee cups clinking, files half-open and untouched because no one is really looking at the paper.

The prototype sits in the center of the table, carefully sealed inside one of Tony’s vacuum-shielded cases. A long-forgotten Howard Stark fever dream, something meant to bend energy fields into weaponized gravity. Or something. It doesn’t matter.

They have it. He got it.

But that’s not what anyone is talking about right now.

Not when Sam is already side-eyeing him. Not when Doctor Strange is seated in his dark robes like the warning label on a grenade, fingertips tented, waiting. Not when you’re sitting two chairs down - his version of you - and you’re watching him with that same knitted expression you always wear when something doesn’t sit right.

“Bucky,” Strange says, voice low and still too loud. “I need to know. Did you encounter anyone significant while you were there? Interacting with alternate selves is risky. Prolonged exposure can ripple. If you spoke to someone who knows you-”

“I know the damn rules,” Bucky mutters, sharper than he meant to, and instantly hates the way your brows lift at the sound of it.

He rubs a hand across the back of his neck. Tries to breathe. His body is still holding something that didn’t belong to him. Your smile. Your voice. The feel of your lips, pressed to his like they had every right to be there. Like you knew him.

He can’t stop thinking about you.

He doesn’t want to talk about it.

He dreads talking about it.

“There was someone,” he says, and the room quiets.

You sit a little straighter. Sam leans forward. Even Clint lowers his cup.

He can feel you watching him.

You, his version of you, sitting across the table with your arms crossed and your head tilted just enough to catch the shadows under his eyes. The real you. The only important you. And it’s so difficult to just look at you because he swears there’s a phantom echo still lingering in his chest. Of another you. Of another kitchen full of light.

“Who?” Strange asks.

Bucky exhales slowly, eyes fixed on the table. The grain of it. The scratch just under his knuckle. He imagines digging his fingers into it, splinters biting through skin, anything to ground himself.

“You,” He meets your eyes when he finally says it, and it feels like swallowing gravel. “I saw her.”

You blink.

“You ran into Y/n?” Sam asks, something like a smirk in his voice.

Bucky nods once. It feels like rust grinding his neck.

He can’t look up anymore. Can’t look at you.

He doesn’t need to look to know your breath has caught. He can feel it in the air. The absence of it. Like the moment before thunder.

He pushes through.

“She was there. She saw me.” His jaw clenches, his fists curl under the table.

Bruce exhales, pushing up his glasses. “That’s not ideal.”

Tony makes a sharp noise in his throat.

“Did you talk to her?” Strange inquiries, voice tighter now, more urgent. And Bucky has to refrain himself from wincing.

He sees you shifting in your seat in his peripheral vision.

“Yeah,” he sighs, quieter now. “We, uh- we talked.”

Silence.

Strange’s eyes are boring through him. “How close did you get?”

Sam leans forward. Bucky doesn’t look at him.

You’re staring at him now. Open. Quiet. You haven’t said a word. Your silence feels worse than anything else.

“I don’t think that matters-” Bucky starts, but Strange interrupts.

“It matters exactly. If she saw you, if you talked, if you touched, if anything that could destabilize your emotional tether occurred-”

Bucky laughs, but it’s hollow, breathless. Rotten. “What the hell is an emotional tether?”

“It’s you,” Strange answers simply. “And her. On a metaphysical level. The same person in different timelines can act as anchors. Or explosives.”

“Jesus,” Bucky mumbles, dragging a hand down his face.

His palms won’t stop sweating.

He hasn’t felt this kind of sick since HYDRA used to strap wires to his temples and ask him how many fingers they’d need to break before he forgot his own name.

The conference room is too still. Too sharp. His chair feels wrong under him, too stiff, too narrow. The soft, predictable sound of conversation from earlier has dropped into something tighter. Focused. Hunting.

He doesn’t want to lie. Not about you. Not when you touched him like that. Not when you said his name like that. Not when it almost felt like it could be true.

So he swallows hard and pushes words through his locked jaw.

“She hugged me.”

A pause.

He doesn’t look at anyone. Just the table. That one dent from Steve’s shield. The scratch Clint made with a fork because he talks with his hands. A small, folded paper crane tucked under your fingers. He doesn’t know where you’ve got that from but your fingers are bending the wings back and forth. He doesn’t think you even realize you’re doing it.

“She hugged you?” Sam repeats, brow raised. “Like… greeted you?”

Bucky nods slowly, heart thudding in his ears. “Something like that.” He can feel your gaze like heat pressed against the side of his face and it almost burns to meet it, so he doesn’t.

“What happened before that?” Steve wants to know, eyes narrowing.

“I-” Bucky starts, and then stops, scrubs a hand over his mouth. “I walked into the kitchen. She was cooking something. Then she saw me. She thought I- he- was back. From something. A mission. I don’t know the details.”

“And she hugged you,” Steve adds.

“Yeah,” Bucky sighs.

He doesn’t mean to look at you, but he does. For a second.

And you’re watching him with something unreadable in your eyes. Something still. As though you are trying to understand.

“And you just let her?” Sam presses, not unkind, but relentless in the way only Sam can be. “You didn’t say anything?”

“What do you think I should have said?”

“Well, I don’t know, man-“

“Did I say anything? Or… she?”

It’s your voice.

And it makes his stomach flip.

His eyes snap to you. But you’re not looking at him directly. You look at the edge of his shoulder. The hinge of his jaw. The tension written across his face.

He shifts in his chair. “You- She asked why I hadn’t told her I was coming back. Thought I was surprising her.” His hands are pressed flat against his thighs as though he can keep himself from shaking if he stays grounded.

“And?” Steve asks, too gently.

“She kissed me,” Bucky manages finally, and the room stiffens around him like a held breath. His voice is almost flat now. Hollowed-out. Maybe he’s trying to bleed the memory dry so it stops spreading in his chest.

There is a momentary lapse of silence that feels like someone dropped something delicate and no one wants to be the first to point it out.

Clint exhales slowly, muttering something under it. Sam leans back in his chair, maybe trying to decide if this is funny or devastating. Steve just blinks.

And you go completely still. Not a twitch of movement. Not even your fingers on the paper crane.

“She kissed you?” Natasha says, brows high.

Bucky exhales. Nods.

“What kind of kiss?” Sam blurts, leaning forward again. “A welcome-home kiss? Or a- like a real kiss?”

Steve sighs exasperated.

“No, I mean- we gotta know. This matters.”

His hand is aching. Flesh thumb pressing hard against the knuckle. “It was- not friendly.”

And the room really freezes. Stunned.

Until Sam lets out this sharp, incredulous sort of whistle, and Clint groans, dragging a hand down his face.

You glance down at your lap, jaw clenched, breath held so still it barely moves your chest. And it twists something in Bucky’s stomach, the way you sit there trying to disappear. He’s not sure who it hurts more - you, hearing this, or him, saying it. There is shame curling behind his ears. Shame and something like grief. And it’s all turned inward.

Sam’s eyes narrow. “So she kissed you thinking you were the other Bucky.”

Bucky doesn’t answer. He’s trying to keep still. Trying not to flinch. Trying not to look left. Trying not to look right. Trying not to look at you.

Because he feels the air around you shift like the press of a coming storm. It’s not anger. He knows that heat, and this isn’t it. It’s just quiet and tight and uncomfortable. A subtle withdrawal as though you’ve stepped behind some invisible wall only he can see.

And he hates it.

Bruce clears his throat carefully. “That implies a romantic connection. At least in her mind. Probably in his, too.”

Tony makes a face. “So we’re saying that Barnes and our girl are a thing in that universe.”

“Looks like it,” Natasha muses, eyes sliding toward you.

“Holy shit,” Clint remarks unhelpfully.

They say it so easily. As though this is nothing. As though this doesn’t wreck something fundamental in Bucky’s ribcage.

And suddenly everyone is quiet. Even the noise of the lights seem muted. It’s hot and awkward and strangely intimate.

Bucky stares down at his hands. They look like someone else’s. He can still feel your touch on them. Still feel the heat of your mouth against his. The softness. The way your lips pressed with such intention.

He says nothing.

He feels terrible.

Because a part of him still wants it.

Still aches with it.

Not the kiss. Not the accident.

The life.

That version of himself who gets to love you out loud. Who gets to be yours in daylight, in kitchens, in the moments that don’t demand heroism but just presence. That version of him that doesn’t have to swallow the way your voice makes something flutter in his chest like a broken-winged butterfly. The one who can kiss you because you already know him. Trust him. Want him. Miss him.

He wants that version to exist so badly.

And it makes him feel like a monster.

You’re sitting just far enough to be untouchable, just close enough that he can feel the space between you aching like a wound.

You are you. You are right there. And you don’t even know that in another universe, you loved him so much you ran into his arms without hesitation.

The light from the high windows drips in thin streaks across the long table, catching on Bucky’s knuckles, the tightness of his body.

There’s a long pause.

Then Tony exhales. “Well, that confirms it. Barnes is getting some in another universe.”

“Tony,” Natasha warns lowly.

Tony holds his hands up in mock innocence, but Strange interrupts them, turning to Bucky with a roll of his eyes. His cloak rustles.

“Did you tell her anything?” His voice is edged. “Did she suspect something?”

Bucky doesn’t answer immediately. He shifts in his seat. His back is too straight, and still, and his hands are bracing for something.

“No,” he relents. His voice is raw and rough like gravel pulled from the bottom of a riverbed. “I didn’t tell her anything.”

Strange’s eyes narrow. “Nothing?”

Bucky shakes his head. “Nothing.”

Strange tilts his head slightly. His expression is unreadable. Calculating. “Her behavior. Did she seem disoriented? Odd? Suspicious? I assume you know Y/n well enough to tell if she’s acting off.”

The lump in his throat settles as though it lives there.

“She was hurt,” he admits, and the words punch out of him. “I froze up. She thought she’d done something wrong. But she didn’t suspect anything.”

Across from him, you shift. A small movement. But he feels it in his bones. He looks up. Meets your eyes.

You’re watching him as though you’re trying to learn something about yourself from inside of him.

He swallows hard.

“I didn’t tell her anything,” he says again, and it’s not for Strange this time. It’s for you. “I didn’t compromise anything. I was careful.”

“You were compromised,” Strange says, not unkindly, but without sympathy. “Emotionally. Whether you said something or not.”

Bucky doesn’t argue.

Because yes. He was. He is. He doesn’t even know how to be anything else anymore. His chest still echoes with the memory of your laugh - not your laugh, but close enough to trick him. His arms still remember the shape of your body, the way you buried yourself into him. As though you’d been there a thousand times before and would be a thousand times again.

He wonders what that other you is doing now. If you are still standing in the kitchen, perhaps waiting for him. Still hurt. Still confused. Still so worried.

He wonders what that Bucky is doing now. If he’s back. If he’s home. If you’re in his arms, asking what took him so long. If he knows what he has. If he’s grateful. If he deserves you.

And he wonders too, if you - the you here, right across from him now, quiet and tense and real - will ever look at him that way.

Your eyes are on his and it seems as though you want to say something, as though maybe you’ve been wanting to say something for a while now.

He doesn’t hear the others anymore.

They’re voices in a room, sounds in space, language and logic pressing against the outside of a window he’s no longer looking through.

Because your eyes are on him and they are too open, too careful.

And, unfortunately for him, this is where the hope begins.

Small. Thin. Stupid.

Because there is a version out there who loved him already. Who ran to him as though he was safety and home and joy all wrapped in one reckless heart and it had been so easy for her. Natural, even. Like a reflex. Like a need.

And he has to think that if she could, then maybe you could too.

Maybe - if he just keeps showing up, if he keeps giving you pieces of himself even when it’s terrifying, even when he thinks he has nothing worth offering - maybe you’ll see something in him that you’ll want to keep.

Maybe he’s not beyond that.

Maybe he’s not on the edge of the world after all.

His heart stumbles inside him, a sharp jolt under his ribs, and he realizes too late that his breathing has gone shallow. His palm is sweating. His chest is aching in a way that is not just pain, but hunger, longing, desperate weightless wonder.

Strange is talking. Something about dimensional instability and neural resonance and all that science talk - but Bucky is no longer a soldier at a briefing.

He’s a man staring across a room at the person who has made his worst days survivable, and he’s remembering how it felt to see you in his shirt in a different kitchen, how you stood there with your back to him waiting for him to wrap his arms around you, how your lips tasted like things he should never know but can’t ever forget.

You shift again. Your knee knocks lightly against the leg of the table as you tuck your foot beneath you. And your hair falls forward, soft and a little tangled from the wind that always sneaks through the compound’s side doors. Your lips part, as though maybe you’re going to say something in front of everyone, and he braces for it, all of him going still like a wolf spotting something too delicate to touch.

But you don’t.

You break eye contact and tuck your hair behind your ear as though you caught yourself doing something you shouldn’t.

But Bucky doesn’t stop hoping.

Because he watched you do exactly that in a very different universe. Such a small gesture but it means so much to him.

Because yes, maybe he is not the Bucky she thought she kissed.

He’s not the Bucky who wakes up with you tangled in his sheets.

He’s not the Bucky who lets himself believe he could be loved without earning it first.

But maybe he could become that man.

Maybe if he tries hard enough, he too can get the girl.

Maybe if he works at this more than anything else that matters, you’ll love him too. Not just in some alternate world, but here.

In this one.

In your voice, when you say his name.

In your laugh, when he says something without meaning too.

In your eyes, when you don’t look away.

And he knows he would do anything to earn that.

He would do anything to be enough for you in the only universe that matters.

His fingers twitch. His shoulders square slowly, almost unconsciously, as though some decision has clicked into place without needing permission.

The room is still full. Voices layered over voices like shadows that haven’t realized the sun moved. Chairs creak beneath shifting bodies, Sam’s laughter breaking loose and grating on Bucky’s nerves.

The idiot is grinning, leaning back in his chair as though this whole situation is the best thing to happen this week. “Alternate-universe you is in a relationship, Barnes. What do we think about that, huh?”

“Sounds like he’s living the dream,” Clint mutters, giving Bucky a jab to the arm. “You finally got the girl, Barnes. Took a whole damn reality shift but you got there.”

Someone chuckles. Tony, maybe. Or even Steve. He can’t tell anymore. He can’t hear much over the buzz in his ears, over the sound of his own heart pounding behind his ribs.

“Hell, maybe all our multiverse selves are having better luck,” Sam remarks, amused.

Clint chuckles. “Ah, Barnes just grew a pair.”

“Well, that’s kind of a big deal, isn’t it?” Natasha, calm as ever, lifts one elegant eyebrow.

“Alternate-universe Barnes has game,” Sam says delighted.

“Lucky bastard,” Clint mutters under his breath.

They mean well. They always mean well. This is how they show they care. With ribbing and teeth-bared grins, with shoulders nudged, and things they don’t say louder than the ones they do. It’s how they keep their own wounds in check. How they keep from bleeding all over the carpet.

But Bucky isn’t laughing. He isn’t smiling. His lip twitches but only with frustration at his teammates.

He notices your stillness. The lines around your mouth have gone soft and tight all at once. Your hands are folded too carefully in your lap and your gaze is pinned to the table.

With every mention - every offhand comment, every teasing jab - he can see it.

The way your shoulders stuck in closer to themselves. The way your breath grows quiet and shallow. The way you can’t seem to look at him anymore.

He swallows around it, the sharpness in his throat, but it doesn’t go down.

Everyone else seems to think this is a strange, mildly awkward, maybe slightly endearing detail in a weird mission story.

But Bucky feels sick.

Because he’s seen it on your face. The way the information about the kiss struck you like a misfired bullet. A shadow in your eyes, the small breath that caught in your throat, the way you shifted your legs like you needed to move, to run, to put distance between yourself and what you heard.

God.

He’s such a fool.

A lovesick idiot.

Because he let that brightness curl in his chest. The hope that even though you have every right to feel nothing at all, even though he’s spent so long training himself not to want this, not to wish for things he can’t have - he truly thought that if there was a version of you that looked at him that way, that reached for him without fear, then maybe this version, this you - maybe there was something possible here too.

But now he is watching it close again. Watching you feeling uncomfortable, retreating into yourself, folding inward like the paper crane you left behind. And he knows the fault lines are his. That even his silence can crack things apart.

When the meeting finally breaks - Strange dismissing everyone with a calm nod and a list of inter-dimensional protocols Bucky doesn’t hear - you stand before anyone else. Quiet. Not hurried. Just deliberate.

As though you’ve made a decision.

You don’t look at him. Not once. Just gather your notes and your coffee and the sweater you left draped over the back of the chair.

And you leave.

No goodbye. No glance back. Not even that half-smile you offer when the day has left you tired and the silence between you feels soft instead of loud.

Bucky is on his feet before he realizes it. He ignores Sam calling after him, something about needing to finish signing off the tech. Doesn’t respond to Steve’s “Buck?” Doesn’t glance at Strange, who’s looking at him as though he already knows where this is headed.

All Bucky sees is the hallway.

You, disappearing around the corner, just a whisper of your hair and the sound of your boots against the polished floor. And all he can think is no.

Not like this.

He walks fast, with his pulse in his mouth and panic blooming in his chest.

You’re so graceful even when you’re upset, even when your body is stiff with tension. You carry yourself with that strength that’s always pulled him in, and he hates that he knows it. Hates that he can read you this well, because it means he knows you’re hurting.

He walks fast enough to catch up, to not give himself time to think about it too much. His hands are cold again. The way they get when he’s unsure. When something matters more than he knows how to handle.

“Hey,” he calls out, and his voice comes out too soft. Almost hoarse. “Wait- can you- can we talk?”

You stop. Slow, reluctant. As if the last thing you want to do is this but some piece of you can’t help it.

You don’t turn around at first. You’re breathing hard. He can see your shoulders rise and fall too quickly, your jaw tight, your arms folded across your chest as though you are trying to keep yourself together.

You turn.

And it’s worse than he thought.

Because your eyes are shiny and your expression is made of glass and restraint and you’re biting the inside of your cheek in that way you do when you want to pretend something didn’t bother you.

He hates this. Hates that he did this to you, even accidentally.

But god, you still are beautiful in a way that feels like gravity. Like the ache in his chest could drag the stars down to meet you.

You watch him as though trying not to give too much away.

“Can we talk?” He repeats, breath catching somewhere between hope and despair.

You shrug, not cold, not angry. Just tired. “If you want.”

He steps closer. Not too close. Careful. Always careful with you.

“I know it probably sounded bad in there,” he says, voice rough. “I didn’t want it to come out like that. Like I was… caught up in something.”

“You don’t have to explain yourself, Bucky,” you say quickly, voice too neutral. “You didn’t know. I get it.”

But he wants to explain. Wants to lay it out, piece by bloody piece. Wants you to understand that for a minute there, he forgot how to breathe because of how you looked at him. That he hasn’t stopped thinking about it since.

“I didn’t tell you- I mean, tell her,” he blurts, breathless. “I didn’t tell her who I was. Or where I came from. I didn’t say anything.”

You blink at him. “Okay.”

“She thought I was him. I- I didn’t say anything because I- I wasn’t supposed to engage and I wasn’t planning to. I swear I wasn’t planning to.”

You say nothing. Just stare at him with that sweetly confused expression.

Bucky steps closer. He’s aching, head to toe, something brittle in his chest like cracked glass.

“You kissed me,” he continues, and you bite your lip, looking away, “but I didn’t- I froze. It felt wrong. And when you said you missed me, I panicked. It felt like I was stealing something. From you. From you both.”

He stops. Swallows.

And there it is again. That dangerous spark. That sharp, flickering thing that’s lived inside him ever since he saw that other version of you, ever since your arms wrapped around his neck and your mouth pressed to his and your voice filled his chest with something whole.

He wishes for a version of that hope here, too.

But not if it means breaking you to find it.

You’re watching him with something unreadable in your eyes. He can’t tell if it’s pain or disappointment or confusion or all of it. He just knows it’s tearing him apart.

“I know it wasn’t me she kissed,” he goes on, quiet, every word dragging out of him as if it doesn’t want to be spoken. “And I know it wasn’t you, either. But it made me think that maybe-” He breaks off, exhales. “I know it’s not fair to say it, but-”

“Then don’t.” Your voice is soft when it comes.

And he flinches as though you touched a nerve.

But your face isn’t cruel. It’s sad. Honest. Tired in the way people get when they’re holding too many emotions all at once.

“I’m not her,” you clarify, but there is something fractured in the way you say it, like the words are paper-thin and barely holding shape. “I’m not whatever version of me you saw, whoever she is to you, that’s not me.”

“I know,” he croaks out. Bucky steps closer, just once. Not touching. Not yet. He doesn’t dare.

“No, I don’t think you do.” Your arms unfold slowly, but not in surrender. You gesture at yourself, the smallest movement, but there is steel in it. “She looks like me,” you go on. Your voice is tight. Bitter. It’s not like you. Not how he knows you - the warmth, the patience, the fire and calm and kindness all mixed together. “She sounds like me. But she’s not. She’s not me, Buck.”

And then you turn as if you’re about to go. As though you can’t stand another second of standing still in front of him.

“No- don’t,” he pleads, and before he can stop himself, he reaches. His hand finds your wrist, not tight, not rough, just enough to stop you. “Please.”

You pause again, with an exhale that is sharp and hurt and too loud in the hallway.

He is closer now. Close enough to see how tight you press your mouth together to keep it from trembling. The twitch of pain in your brow, the soft crease between your eyes he knows only shows up when you’re trying really hard not to cry.

Guilt and desperation roll through him, thorough, like a tide pulling everything warm away. It unspools him from the inside.

“What?” There is no weight behind your words. Your voice is worn. Defeated.

Bucks swallows. His voice feels like rust trying to be rain.

“She hugged me. Said she missed me. She kissed me like she’d done it a thousand times before.” His voice is shaking, even if he’s trying not to let it.

“And I didn’t stop her. Not for a second,” he goes on, quiet. “I should’ve. I should’ve pulled away sooner, but I-”

You pull your arm back, but he doesn’t let go.

“Why are you telling me this?” you question him, voice breaking in the middle. “What am I supposed to do with that, Bucky? Be happy for some other version of me?”

There is so much pain in your eyes, so much confusion and hurt and jealousy and heartbreak and it cuts him right through the heart. He feels it bleeding into his organs.

He closes his eyes, forgets how to breathe for a moment.

“I didn’t stop her,” he says lowly, slowly, “because, for a second, it felt like you.”

The silence between you is thick enough to drown in.

Your lips part, but no sound comes out.

“For a second, it felt like something I’ll never have,” he confesses, barely audible now. “And I was selfish. I let it happen. Because it wasn’t just a kiss to me.”

You don’t speak. You don’t move. Your chin trembles.

You look at him as though you want to say something but can’t trust yourself to do it.

“I’ve been trying to bury it,” he admits, voice strained. “This thing in my chest. This want. It’s been there for a long time. And I kept thinking- if I just waited long enough, maybe it would go away. Maybe you’d never have to know. But I saw what it looked like when I had it. When I had you. Even if it wasn’t really you. And I- I didn’t want to come back here and pretend I didn’t feel it anymore.”

You don’t move. Just stand there. Staring at him as if you don’t know what to do with the version of the world he is handing you.

“I’m not asking for anything,” he adds quickly, voice thick and gravelly. “Not expecting anything. I just- I couldn’t let you walk away thinking it didn’t mean anything. Because it did. But not because of that other you.”

Bucky loosens his hold on your wrist the way someone lays a weapon down.

Slowly. Gently. Like an offering. Giving you a choice. A chance to run. A way out, if that’s what you need.

His fingers brush fabric as he lets go, every inch of skin unthreading from yours just another stitch in the fabric holding him together.

He steps back. Not far, but enough. Giving you the room to run if you want to. Because he would never cage you. Not you. Not the girl he’s tried so hard not to need and failed so spectacularly at not loving.

The cold creeps in like a punishment.

He swallows, breath shallow, heart trying to climb out of his chest. He doesn’t look away.

“It meant something,” he breathes, and the words are low but steady, dragged out of some buried part of him where he’s kept the truth folded up too long. “It meant something because I love you.”

The words hang there. Open. Unarmored. His voice doesn’t shake but he feels the quake underneath it. He is already bracing for the ruin of it, for the way your silence might cut him down. It’s too much. He’s too much. Too much and too late and he’s saying it anyway, because what else can he do now, what else is left to do but burn with it.

“I love you. You. Only you,” he repeats, and this time it’s quieter, as if speaking it softer might hurt less if you break him.

He is bracing for your silence. For the recoil. For the slow turning of your back and the slam of a door, he won’t ever be allowed to knock on again.

But you don’t run.

You just stare at him.

Wide glassy eyes, lips parted, your whole face carved out of disbelief. Your chest rises with shallow, trembling breaths, and for a second, it’s like the hallway has no oxygen at all. Just the two of you standing in a vacuum made of shattered timing and aching things laid bare.

You look like someone trying to decide if the ground beneath you is real. If you are dreaming.

And Bucky is not breathing.

Doesn’t know how he will ever take in a breath again.

Then you move.

Fast. Sharp. Certain.

You close the distance between you with a speed that knocks his soul out of him, and before he can even process the intention behind the storm in your eyes, your hands are in his collar and your mouth is on his.

It’s not gentle.

It’s not careful.

You crash into him as though gravity has finally won. As though your body has been held back for too long and now it’s surging forward with years of restraint snapped at the root.

It hits him like an impact. Like a whole damn earthquake disguised as your mouth on his.

He makes a noise - somewhere between shock and surrender - and for the barest second, he is frozen.

He’s still.

Because this is you.

You.

One breathless, startled second he forgets everything - his name, the room, the hallway, the mission, the multiverse - and then he’s moving.

He melts.

His arms are around you in a heartbeat, tight, desperate, finding your waist, your back, the edge of your jaw, greedy and trembling and too careful all at once. He pulls you in, tighter, tighter, one hand threading into your hair, the other locking around your waist.

And then he is kissing you back with everything he has, with everything he’s been holding back, with every version of himself that ever wanted to belong.

He is kissing you back as though he’ll never get the chance again.

His whole body folds into yours, heart slamming into his ribs, mouth pressing against yours, like a question he’s been dying to ask. He kisses you like an apology, like a promise, like he’s been holding his breath for a century and only just remembered how to exhale.

It’s not a careful kiss.

It’s years of aching packed into the space between your lips. It’s soft lips and a metal palm and your nails digging in his jacket and his thumb shaking against your jaw. It’s a kiss that tastes of every unsaid word, every sleepless night, every time he looked at you and wondered what it would feel like to have you.

The second your tongue touches his lower lip, a low and tortured sound rips from somewhere deep in his chest. He answers you with open-mouthed hunger, tilts his head just enough to draw you in deeper, slants his mouth over yours as though he’s living out every dream in which he’s imagined this before.

He feels the warmth of your lips and the way you lean into him, the way you give yourself over completely, and he pulls you even closer, as though he’s trying to kiss every version of you that exists in every universe just to get back to this one. You. Here. Now.

His tongue brushes yours and everything goes tight inside him - his stomach flips, his spine arches ever so slightly, his body not knowing whether to hold steady or fall apart entirely.

Your lips are sweet and urgent and you make a sound - quiet, somewhere between a sigh and a gasp - and it knocks the air in his lungs every which way.

His mouth moves faster when your fingers curl into him tighter and tug him closer, dragging him under. His metal fingers are splayed over the small of your back, and his flesh fingers are tangling at the nape of your neck, holding you still as his tongue licks into your mouth, gentle but full of everything he’s feeling.

He moans softly into you, doesn’t even realize it’s happening until he feels the sound buzz against your lips. His pulse is pounding in his ears. His knees feel untrustworthy. There is heat spreading through his chest, through his limbs, and he wants to live in this moment forever, suspended in the place where you chose him.

When you finally pull back, your lips are swollen, flushed. He presses his forehead to yours just enough to breathe, but not enough to let you go. Never that.

His hands are on your face. His thumbs brush under your eyes. His breath shudders out against your lips.

When he opens his eyes, slowly, he is met with yours. Glistening and wide and so full of feeling it almost floors him.

He stares at you as though he’s seeing the sun rise for the first time.

“I love you too,” you breathe against him.

Bucky shivers.

It lands like a heartbeat he forgot to hope for.

Pleasure surges through his veins, straight to his heart. His eyes fall shut, lost in it.

And something in him tells him he will hear this at least a thousand times, maybe even more, if he’s lucky.

“I loved her not for the way she danced with my angels, but for the way the sound of her name could silence my demons.”

- Christopher Poindexter

[ranoutofficssoiwritemyown]

You decide to sleep on the couch after an argument

love and deepspace

characters: Zayne, Sylus (pt2 here pt3 here)

note: they might be a little mischaracterized so bear with me.

Zayne

Usually, arguments with Zayne don’t get this heated. There was no yelling, not on his part at least, but he could be really cold with his words when he wanted to be. Not that you were any better. Some things you said hurt him to no end. So you came up with a decision - to sleep on a couch tonight. To be honest, it was more because to be petty, than not wanting to spend a night beside him. You gathered your pillow and blanket and got comfortable on the couch, which made Zayne sigh out loud when he entered the room.

“What is this?”

You turned your back to him as an answer. Another sigh comes out of his mouth. He’s exhausted, physically and emotionally, and you acting like a brat doesn’t ease anything at all.

“I know you’re mad, dear but is this necessary?”

No answer.

“Alright”

He left the room and before you could convince yourself that you didn’t care he was back with a blanket of his own and took a seat in an armchair. You turn your head towards him in confusion.

“What are you doing?”

“I guess we’re not sleeping in bed tonight”

“I’m not. You can go”

“I believe I didn’t stutter”

You scoffed and turned around again.

“suit yourself”

Minutes pass and sleep doesn’t come to you. Whether it’s because of an uncomfortable couch or an absence of his arms around you is hard to say, but after turning around thousands of times and still not being able to sleep is frustrating.

Finally, Zayne had enough of watching your struggle.

“How about we go to bed?”

“No” came your response after a second of hesitation. With a small amused smile on his face, he hovered over the couch.

“What do you say… I take you to bed and you can curse me out for it tomorrow?”

You shifted a little but didn’t answer, which made his smile widen. He gathered you in his arms and your lack of objection was all he needed to take you to your room and tucking you in bed. Even though you seemed to warm up he didn’t know how far he could push you, so kneeling beside the bed to be on your eye level he started:

“If you still need space I can-”

“Stay”

He smiled at you tucking your hair behind your ear.

“Okay”

He got up and kissed your forehead before slipping in beside you and pulling you closer.

"I'm sorry..." you mutter

"Shh, we'll talk about it tomorrow... but I'm sorry too"

You smile a little. You two will sort this out tomorrow.

Sylus

What Sylus says, goes around. His word is the law. This is what he’s used to. That's how it's always been.

Then you came into his life and even though he’s still in charge of how things go in the N109 zone, you just need to say the word and everything will be how you like it. No questions, no hesitation. He would give you the world if you so much as whispered the need. Whatever you want, whatever you need, he will make it happen.

Unless, when it comes to your safety. Now don’t get me wrong. Sylus knows you can defend yourself and then some. But when it comes to the N109 zone, there are things Sylus knows better than you. Additionally, The fact that you can be reckless in your battles does nothing to help ease his worries.

That was the reason for the heated argument tonight. Sylus with his harsh words and snarky remarks always finds a way to infuriate you. So you two go on and on for half an hour now and none of you seems to back down. You storm off to your room and take your things to get comfortable on the couch. However, on your way out Sylus blocks your way. He raises an eyebrow at the blanket and pillow in your arms.

“Now, what exactly do you think you are doing, sweetie?”

“move”

“I asked you a question”

“I’m not sleeping beside you- Sylus” you exclaim as he hoists you over his shoulder. you punch and scratch his back but to no avail.

“Careful with your claws, kitten”

He drops you on the bed climbing over you.

“Now listen, this is what will happen. You will stop acting like a wild kitten and sleep beside me. I am sorry for hurting you but we will discuss it tomorrow, when we are both a lot calmer. Understood?”

You don’t want to give in so easily. You also don’t want to sleep without him tonight. So you nod avoiding eye contact. He, however, doesn’t accept it and raises your chin with his finger to make you look at him.

“Use your words, sweetie”

“Yes”

“Splendid” He removed himself from you so you could get under the blanket. He laid beside you and pulled you closer so your head was resting on his chest.

"Sy... I'm sorry too"

"So I'm Sy now?"

This man.

"Nevermind, you're still a prick"

You try to remove his arm but he holds you tighter as he laughs.

"Alright, alright. I'm sorry, sweetie"

You felt him kiss the crown of your head as he caressed your shoulder with his thumb. you return to your previous position and listening to his heartbeat, sleep lured you in soon enough.

[littleapplle]

Dearest writer, I would like to submit an order into your respected bakery! 🍞🥯🥖🥐

May I kindly get a NSFW A to Z Headcannon for Rafayel or Caleb? (or both if you don’t mind :3) I’m a huge fan of your writing and given that you are open for orders I figured I could try my luck in ordering something special 🙂‍↕️🥹

But ofc if this is too much of a hassle you may kindly ignore my order and move on 🤭🥹🥺 I shall kindly await for your response and I look forward to your masterpiece (even if it’s not my request) 💖

nsfw alphabet ⊹ ࣪ ˖ rafayel and caleb

cw.: nsfw. real porn links!! must be logged in twt to watch.

note: oh anon you'll make my heart melt:( thank you for your sweet words, my luv. i'm so sorry for the wait, i wish i had finished this much sooner >< hope this is good enough tho bc i lwk feel like i did a terrible job <//3

rafayel

a = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex): Really good! Rafayel can’t stand being dirty after sex and won’t really rest until you and him are cleaned up so you two always end up snuggling in his bathtub while he massages your scalp and scrubs your body lovingly. If you're not too tired, talk to him. He wants to hear your voice. How was it? Did you enjoy it? Tell him everything, he'll listen. Rafayel holds you so close you think he’s actually trying to get under your skin, literally.

b = body part (their favorite of theirs and their partner): If you asked, he’d say he loves every part of you and he absolutely cannot choose. If he really had to answer… your boobs. They’re the perfect size, feel good on his palms, your nipples don’t have a single moment of peace. You have to physically pull him away before they’re sore and puffy. ❤︎...¹ ❤︎...² ❤︎...³

on his body though… his hands, of course! It is with them that he creates his beautiful pieces and makes you come undone as his slender fingers press down on that spongy spot inside you.

c = cum (anything to do with cum): Will come anywhere you want if you ask him to but he really likes to see his cum dripping on your skin. Be it your stomach, your tits, doesn’t matter, he’ll go feral. As for the taste, it barely tastes like anything. It’s a bit salty and very watery but that’s it. ❤︎...

d = dirty secret (a dirty secret of theirs): Really wants to photograph you. Be it during sex, just you touching yourself, anything. Definitely has a secret journal about you and wants to decorate it with your beautiful body and face. 100% has a polaroid of your tits on his wallet and has no shame at all.

e = experience (how experienced are they): Barely any. Listen, he has read erotica, studied human anatomy a thousand times and knows the human body like no one else but he never had sex with anyone but you so please guide him the first few times. Be vocal, he’s a quick learner, he’ll learn his way around your body in a second.

f = favorite position: Rafayel likes a position based on how easy he can 1. kiss you and 2. look at your face. Missionary lover, basic but nothing with Rafayel is boring. Sex with Rafayel tends to be SO romantic, he’s THE lover boy. He kisses you so sweetly, sucking hickies on your neck while his cock drags inside you slowly. Also looooves when you ride him! it’s a combo of everything he likes, you frowning in pleasure, your boobs bouncing AND you on top of him!! ❤︎...¹ ❤︎...² ❤︎...³

g = goofy (are they more serious in the moment, or are they humorous, etc): Oh sex with Rafayel is never serious! He’s always trying to get a reaction out of you, be it trying to make you laugh by pressing a kiss to that ticklish spot on your neck or by making the stupidest joke ever. Your laughter gets him going more than he’d like to admit.

h = hair (how well groomed are they, does the carpet match the drapes, etc.): First of all,  yes, it is purple and second, he shaves very frequently. As a lemurian, he never had any issues with body hair since he didn’t have any. Nowadays, he’s grown used to shaving since his pubes sensory bother him.

i = intimacy (how are they during the moment, romantic aspect…): Puh-lease, we are talking about Rafayel. The artist, the lemurian that lives and breathes for love, your one and only soulmate. Rafayel is obsessed with you, always has been, always will be. To have skin to skin contact with you, letting him see you bare and vulnerable and yet still trust him, it’s everything he’d ever wish for. Rafayel lives for romance, love and pure intimacy and he will show it to you in every touch, kiss and praise.

j = jack off (masturbation headcanon): Before getting together with you, if he was ever really pent up and stressed, maybe once or twice a week. After you two got together officially, he doesn’t see the point in masturbating when he’s always glued to your side. If you’re away for whatever reason though? I believe he can get pretty needy and maybe, just maybe, rub one off.

k = kink (one or more of their kinks): Does body worship even count as a kink? Well, doesn’t matter. How many times do I have to say that Rafayel is OBSESSED with you??? There’s nothing that makes him hornier than being allowed to kiss your body. Praising you in every single language he knows is not enough, he needs your soul to be tied with his so you can read his mind and deepest thoughts about how lovely you are. Also, voyeurism, Rafayel is a closeted perv. He likes to watch, to take his time eyeing his food before actually diving in. Seeing you touch yourself without his intervention makes the knot in his lower stomach grow tighter and his skin hotter.

l = location (favorite places to do the do): Rafayel is too possessive to have actual sex in public so that’s a no. Anywhere in his studio is fine if you’re comfortable! Buuut if you trust him enough, please let him drag you to the ocean. There are no interruptions, no important phone calls, no Thomas to accidentally walk in, it’s just you and him where he’s most comfortable. It doesn’t tire him to be in his human form but giving his body a break and finally being in his real, lemurian form, feels like a relief from time to time. 

m = motivation (what turns them on, gets them going): When you’re more petty than him and talk back. FUCK he could bust a nut right there. Or the fact that as a hunter, you can manhandle him just as easy as he can manhandle you. OR the fact that you’re not scared of him in the slightest. He would never hurt you, but if he wanted, a single song would be enough to make you go crazy and drown in the ocean. You’re aware of that, you just don’t care. That’s what makes him go insane.

n = no (something they wouldn’t do, turn-offs): Share you with someone. Although he doesn’t show it, Rafayel is extremely protective and can be very possessive depending on the situation. Letting someone else touch you turns him off completely.

o = oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc): #01 pussy eater. Rafayel loves your pussy ok, leave him alone… Can totally cum untouched from just eating you out and is not embarrassed in the slightest. Actually really good at it too, like, 100% a muncher. Def tries to make you squirt on his tongue. As for receiving? Sure! It’s never unwelcomed. Just know that he will return the favor 10x better. ❤︎...¹ ❤︎...² ❤︎...³

p = pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.): Rafayel can be both. There is no red and blue with him, there’s purple. Rafayel can’t stick to a single thing forever. During his heat, he’s rougher, manhandling you around and bending you in whatever position he judges comfortable in the moment. When he’s feeling needy and clingy, he’s gentle. Rolls his hips against yours slowly, kissing your neck sensually while praising you in lemurian.

q = quickie (their opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc.): Not a big fan but he isn’t totally opposed to them. For Rafayel, sex is something intimate and he wants to take his time with you. He wants both of you to enjoy the moment with no rush. 

r = risk (are they game to experiment, do they take risks, etc.): That depends on how far you two are going. Fingering you under the table at a banquet? Sure, why not. Getting a bit handsy and making out? Lovely. Actual sex? No. Not happening at all. Rafayel, even if he hides it, is a possessive creature. Your sounds and body are for his ears and eyes only. You’re his and he’s not up for sharing.

s = stamina (how many rounds can they go for, how long do they last…): Normally, he can go for two rounds before falling on top of you tiredly. In heat though? He is not stopping. His mind breaks but his body still wants and needs more. Doesn’t matter how many times he’s come already, his hips do not stop against yours until he thinks you’re full of his eggs.

t = toy (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?): Doesn’t own any but is not opposed to them. If you’re interested in trying it out and using them during sex, sure! He can work with that. Extra stimulation on your clit while his fingers are shoved on your cunt isn’t unwanted.

u = unfair (how much they like to tease): Now, is it really Rafayel if there’s no teasing? He is insufferable. He likes to see you work for it even though he knows damn well it’s him that will fold first in the end.

v = volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make): Sorry, he’s not holding back. He needs you to know how good you make him feel. His range is insane, he’d be grunting in your ear and suddenly his moans turn high pitched and beautiful. Rafayel can get whiny, he complains, he’s petty, he mewls and in the next second he groans and curses in his mother language in pleasure.

w = wild card (get a random headcanon for the character of your choice): I need to spread the virgin Rafayel agenda… He is a lemurian, he’s bound to you in a level that no human would ever understand. There are no “friends with benefits”, “situationship”, “hookup”, Rafayel has been waiting for you and only you. He doesn’t need it to be magical or perfect, he just needs it to be you.

x = x-ray (let’s see what’s going on in those pants, picture or words): The prettiest cock you’ll see in your short human life. It’s genuinely nice to look at. Rafayel’s cock is pale, with the prettiest pink tip and cutest mole on the length that if you kiss, his knees buckle weakly and his head spins. It isn’t thick but it’s curved up and it drags deliciously inside you. I’d say #c7b2ab for the length and #d9a3a3 for the tip. In his human form, solid 6,7 inches (17 cm).

y = yearning (how high is their sex drive?): Lemurians are creatures with many cycles. Rafayel has a high libido naturally, but during ebb day and his heat? He is trying to crawl under your skin. Ebb day makes him needy, sensitive and whiny, he just wants an effective way of cooling off. His heat quite literally makes him feral, he wants you and if you consent, you’re not leaving the water at all. At least not until it is over.

z = zzz (… how quickly they fall asleep afterward): Pretty quick. After he’s sure you two are clean, comfortable and satisfied, he’s hugging you close and burying his face in your neck sleepily. If you feel like it, you two can chat. Rafayel loves pillow talk. If you’re tired and wish to be quiet, then it’s time to nap.

caleb

a = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex): THE BEST. King of aftercare. Knows everything you want and attends to every one of your needs. You want water? There’s already a glass on your bedside table. You’re hungry? You want him to cook or do you want to order takeout? He’ll do it. You feel dirty? Let him run a bath for you- you get the idea.

b = body part (their favorite of theirs and their partner): In your body, definitely your ass. Always has been. Doesn’t matter what you are wearing, be it those old pj’s from your childhood, a new pair of undies, nothing at all, it all makes him feel like he’s gonna bust a nut on his pants.

He really likes his arms. Caleb has always worked out a lot since highschool and he’s really proud of how far he’s come. He likes how big they’re compared to yours, how he can manhandle you during sex and roughhousing, and how comfortable you look in his arms when you two hug.

c = cum (anything to do with cum): If you allow him to cum inside you, that’s all he’ll ever want to do. Caleb has a huge breeding kink, and the fact that you trust him enough to let him fill you up drives him mad. If you go down on him, he never lets you swallow it, he feels too bad to do so. Makes you spit on his hand and honestly thank god. It’s thick and slightly bitter but he cums so much you WILL choke. ❤︎...

d = dirty secret (a dirty secret of theirs): Sigh, is it really a dirty secret if you already caught him at least twice? Caleb’s interest in your underwear is pathetic. At this point he’s not even trying to hide it anymore, he’s just shamelessly going through your drawers to find that old and stained pair you forgot to throw away. Bonus point if you catch him sniffing them and complain about it. Secretly likes when you scream at him and say “Gross, Caleb!”. Also wishes you let him keep your undies on during sex, it really turns him on.

e = experience (how experienced are they): None. Caleb has never felt any attraction to anyone but you his whole life. For years he has been waiting for the right moment for both of you so, you’re his first and last.

f = favorite position: Backshots. He loves your ass. There’s nothing better than taking you from behind, a hand wrapped around your waist while the other smooths the skin of your back. Also really enjoys being inhumanely close to you, doesn’t matter the position. As long as you two are close, you, safely in his arms, he’s happy. ❤︎...¹  ❤︎...² ❤︎...³ ❤︎...⁴

g = goofy (are they more serious in the moment, or are they humorous, etc): Caleb wishes that you only see his outgoing and playful persona, created just for you and the sexual aspect is not different. He likes to make you laugh at any and every moment. If you whine in pain because his cock is too big, he’ll blow a raspberry on your neck to distract you and make you giggle. He’ll tickle your waist if you talk back. Anything to make you smile.

h = hair (how well groomed are they, does the carpet match the drapes, etc.): It’s trimmed. Not all shaved and smooth but it isn’t unruly. Has the sliiiiightest happy trail peeking up his boxers. If it bothers you though, he’ll shave it in a minute.

i = intimacy (how are they during the moment, romantic aspect…): Very romantic. At least he tries. Caleb wanted to be your prince charming, your knight in shining armor his whole life. Sex is one of the many ways he wants to prove he’s the best for you, that around him, you’re safe and can be yourself with no fear. He kisses you gently, whispering the sweetest words ever in your ear, massaging every sore spot in your body while wishing he’s worthy of your praise too.

j = jack off (masturbation headcanon): Yeah… During his teenage years, he jerked off a lot. Caleb had a high libido but could not have the only person he wanted so all he had was his fist. Nowadays, before and after you two got together, i still believe he jerks off alot since you two are still very far apart, you living in Linkon and him in Skyhaven, though he prefers coming to you rather than fucking his fist by himself.

k = kink (one or more of their kinks): As I mentioned previously, Caleb has a huge breeding kink. Part of it is because he genuinely wishes to start a family with you in the future but also because he feels so close to you this way. Loves to keep his cock plugged inside you for a while before actually pulling out. ❤︎...¹ ❤︎...²

His praise kink goes both ways. He’s always praising you for all of your achievements, not only sexually. Please praise him back, he’s trying his best for you, always. Tell him he is making you feel good, tell him you love him, that what he’s doing feels right. He might come on the spot.

Do I even have to mention his size kink… He is bigger than you. Caleb goes weak at the thought of being able to manhandle you into whatever position he wants you to be. And if he can press down on your tummy and feel his cock abusing your cunt? Ohhh yeah, yes he came. Don’t judge him. ❤︎...

l = location (favorite places to do the do): Caleb can only actually relax when he’s alone with you at your apartment or his. Preferably yours back in Linkon. He feels tense in Skyhaven and is always on alert. In Linkon though, he can let himself relax better knowing that you’re safer. Not a fan of kitchen sex specifically. That aside, anywhere is fine.

m = motivation (what turns them on, gets them going): You’re horny? So is he! Caleb has been waiting for you for years, saying he’s pent up is an understatement. Just say the words and he’s already looking at you with puppy dog eyes, waiting for an order.

n = no (something they wouldn’t do, turn-offs): Anything related to impact play. No. He hates the thought of hurting you and finds no pleasure in such things.

o = oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc): Zero skill, no experience, but he has a dream. Show him how you like it, ride his face, pull his hair, order him around, hell, sit on his face. He’s a quick learner once he sets his mind onto something. 100% a giver and doesn’t want you to go down on him because it’s too “degrading” and he feels bad. Please go down on him. He’ll complain and try to pull away but he comes SO quickly, cock twitching, grunting, knees buckling and all. ❤︎...

p = pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.): … Rough. Listen, he doesn’t mean to be rough but he can’t help it. Your cunt makes Caleb malfunction, overheat and shut down. He’s dumbed down at the slightest clench around his cock and his hips have a mind of their own, snapping against yours harshly as he drools and kisses your shoulder in apology. 

q = quickie (their opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc.): Actually likes them! You two are always very busy with your jobs and being distant from each other most of the time isn’t easy. To him, quickies are more about you than him. He wants to get you off so you feel at peace. He can rub one off later and you don’t have to concern your pretty head over it.

r = risk (are they game to experiment, do they take risks, etc.): No. Caleb hates, hates, hates the thought of taking risks with you. He’d rather die than having you be seen in such an intimate way. As for experimenting, yes of course! Be open with him, tell him what you’re into, what you want to try… Your wish is his command.

s = stamina (how many rounds can they go for, how long do they last…): From the lack of experience, Caleb can last two rounds max before you tire him out. That does not mean he’ll leave you unsatisfied though. He still has his mouth and fingers ready to satiate you. ❤︎...¹ ❤︎...²

t = toy (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?): Absolutely not. Are you trying to get him killed? Caleb is jealous of anything that breathes the same air as you and you want him to accept the idea of having something else making you cum? Just shoot him already.

u = unfair (how much they like to tease): If anyone is being teased, it’s him. Although you two play fight a lot, Caleb isn’t one to be a tease during sex. He has been waiting, planning for this moment for years. Everything needs to be perfect. He can wait to get under your skin later.

v = volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make): He tries so hard to be quiet… he wants to focus on your moans, your moans are the pretty ones, not his. Caleb holds back, bites his lip, hides his face on your nape but nothing can make him shut up. The moment he enters you, he’s moaning, huffing and grunting like an animal.

w = wild card (get a random headcanon for the character of your choice): Caleb really enjoys all the attention you give him when he’s looking all scary and dominant in his colonel uniform. He knows you eye him hungrily when gets home, he won’t take the uniform off on purpose, he just waits to see how long it’ll take for you to fold and come sit on his lap, grinding your cunt on his clothed thigh. Won’t admit it but likes when you call him colonel, sir, mr. xia, etc.

x = x-ray (let’s see what’s going on in those pants, picture or words): Alright mr. fat cock pack it up. It’s thick alright. I can totally picture him saying “biiiig stretch, pips” while shushing your whines. Thick base, thick and veiny length, fat tip. That’s what he's hiding in his boxers. 6,6 inches (~16,5cm) that stretch you out SO good, the veins drag inside you soooo nicely it feels like heaven. #a88479 for the length and #a66d5b for the tip.

y = yearning (how high is their sex drive?): Oh boy, do I even need to say this? We are talking about THE yearner. Caleb’s super pent up and dare I say he has a pretty high libido. He is always stressed because of work and he has been waiting for you for years. The moment you consent, he’s fumbling with both his and your clothes. 

z = zzz (… how quickly they fall asleep afterward): He usually doesn't sleep after you two have sex. He’s too busy watching you sleep to do so. Caleb is only at peace if he is sure you’re safe and comfortable. Poor boy barely has time to catch his breath as he’s running around the apartment getting everything you might need and want so you don’t have to leave the bed. Tell him to relax, ask him to lie down with you, bury your face on his beefy chest and make sure he doesn’t leave the bed, he needs it.

⊹ ࣪reblogs are very much appreciated. thank you for reading!(*´▽`*)