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sodasback · 4 years ago

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Ex BF - Part 2

Drew Starkey x Reader

Part 1

You guys, I changed my mind, this one just works so much better as a Drew Starkey fic ...so fuck it, I’m just gonna post what I had on my deactivated blog.

It had been months since you ran into Josh on set at Drew’s work. Luckily, Drew was only in a couple scenes for that project and he only worked on that show one more day without running into Josh. Now, you, Drew and a lot of the Outer Banks crew were all in LA again and going out to a bar.

Unfortunately for you, and everyone that night, Josh and his friends were at the same bar.

“Oh hey, it’s y/n and her movie star boyfriend, Andrew.” Josh said as he appeared next to you and drunkenly leaned an arm on your shoulder. If looks could kill, the look on Drew’s face would have for sure been the death of Josh. It was a mixture of shock and rage at the audacity of this guy. Drew was so taken aback, he didn’t know how to react.

You uncomfortably chuckled and squirmed out from under Josh’s arm to stand in front of Drew quickly, not knowing if Drew’s truly calm nature could be tested any further. “Mhmm, great to see you Josh.” You stated dismissively.

Your effort to separate them was lost as Drew instantly and easily maneuvered you behind him protectively. You turned for the bar as quickly as possible, hoping to end the situation there, so you grabbed Drew’s hand to pull him along with you.

“Aww, y/n/n, you’re not gonna stay and let me get to know your little boyfriend?”

You felt dead weight behind you as you tried to pull Drew away.

“Bro, I’m telling you right now, back the fuck off.” Drew stated. You whirled around to get in front of him, as Josh took a step forward and titled his chin up, “Or what?”

You put your hands on Drew’s chest. He easily looked over your head to continue glaring at Josh.

“Drew” you said sternly. He glanced down at you for a second, before looking back up at Josh. Josh smirked and waited to see what Drew was gonna do. “He’s not worth it. Trust me.” You said. Drew looked down at you and softened.

He wrapped an arm around your shoulder an you wrapped both arms around his waist to walk to the bar.

“You know, as hot as you are when you get all scary like that. I really really don’t want you getting in a fight because I have an absolutely horrible ex boyfriend.”

You emphasized the first part of this sentence, but Drew just gave you a deadpan stare. He knew you were trying to flirt with him to get him to relax. And you knew it was too late at this point. As evolved and emotionally intelligent as Drew was, he had now entered caveman mode. Josh challenging him because of you triggered instincts deep within him to meet that challenge aka defending your honor. ...1 point toxic masculinity, 0 points non-violent female empowerment.

At this point in your life, you were happy. You had everything you wanted in your career. You had a beautiful apartment. Your family was healthy. You had the best friends you could ask for. And of course, you had Drew. Drew was the one. He was your soulmate. Your best friend. And you knew it. You didn’t feel the need to put Josh in his place any more. You just wanted to keep enjoying your life. You had time to make peace with what Josh did to you and you felt like you moved past it and him. Yeah, you felt like you were past it, you tried to convince yourself. It had been years since the incident happened and you and Josh broke up...

Flashback

You and Josh were 20 and had been on and off for a couple years. One night, you had both been out, when you started fighting, something that wasn’t new to your relationship. Josh had been flirting with another girl a lot of the night and gaslighting you to make you feel like you were imagining it. As you brought up the flirting again, he was reaching for his car keys. You were pissed that he was using this tactic again. He would leave until you calmed down and started to worry about him so much that you would just finally give in and forget the fight, instead of holding him accountable. You were so mad at him for making you feel like you were crazy and for always manipulating you by leaving. You couldn’t stop the words from coming out of your mouth, “Sure, just leave again. Fucking typical, Josh. Like father, like son, I guess.”

And before you could even process what happened, the whole right side of your face was stinging, a cut near eye was bleeding from his ring and your ears were ringing. Josh had just backhanded you hard. Time stood still for a moment as your hand went to cradle your cheek. You were absolutely shocked.

“Oh fuck. You okay?”

You finally looked up at him with an unreadable expression on your face. “..don’t make this a big deal, okay? That was a really shitty thing to say and you just made me so mad, I couldn’t help i-” At that point, you stormed into the bedroom and locked the door. He now was faced with you being upset and maybe even losing you; he started knocking on the door and apologizing profusely after realizing your reaction. You were completely blocking out all the noise coming from the other side of the door as you tried to gather your thoughts.

Okay, that was a really low blow. Yeah, but he HIT you.

I definitely shouldn’t have said that. But he HIT you.

Maybe I deserved it. No, he HIT you. You continued to argue with yourself.

What would you tell your y/bff’s/n if this happened to her?

What would your mom or dad tell you right now?

If he did it once, he could do it again.

...this isn’t the first time you’ve been scared of him.

...but he seems genuinely really sorry.

You opened the door to find Josh sitting on the ground leaning against the wall. He looked at you scared and hopeful, tears rolling down his cheeks.

“I’m sorry for what I said. It was really unfair and hurtful of me.” You stated genuinely.

Relief washed over his face for a second, “I’m so sorry baby. I swear that will never happen again.” He said, as he got up and he started to make his way to hug you.

“Yeah, I know it will never happen again...” you held your hand out to stop him from touching you, confusion now evident in his expression, “because we’re done.”

His face dropped, expression now being somewhere between confused, angry and disappointed. Josh wasn’t used to you putting up boundaries and not letting him get away with all the shit he pulled. “Y/N-” he started.

“No.” You said adamantly, “Frankly, I don’t care how sorry you are. I don’t care how much I pissed you off. I don’t care how much you promise that will never happen again. Our relationship was toxic before what just happened. I know I’m not perfect and I have a lot of things to work on. But I 1000% know in my bones, that I WILL NEVER let you hit me again. I deserve better. We’re done. I’m going to my parents’ house. I’m coming back tomorrow between 10 and 2 to get my stuff. Don’t be here.”

A couple months later, you had a text from an unknown number. It was Josh borrowing a friend’s phone to text you, since you blocked any way he had to contact you. He apologized. He held himself accountable. There was no deflecting or manipulating in the message and he promised he would never contact you again. You replied: “Thank you for your apology. Yes, I’d appreciate it if you don’t contact me again.”

And that was it. You ran into him briefly at the grocery store once and you had been in a really good mood. Your interaction was light and almost flirty. You felt so ashamed about it later, but you hadn’t seen or heard from Josh again until years later, with Drew on set. And little did you know, seeing you with Drew set something off in Josh that he just couldn’t let go.

As you stood at the bar, waiting for the bartender’s attention, you turned to see the caveman version of your gorgeous boyfriend still glaring, his fists clenching and unclenching.

“Babe.” You said and he looked at you.

“He’s got fuckin nerve.” He said shaking his head and you took a deep breath ready for the rant, “First off, called me a movie star. I am a serious actor, Y/N.”

You couldn’t help but laugh at Drew being offended anything this asshole said and Drew’s eyes widened at you and you stifled a giggle while you laced your hands around his neck to appease him, “Mhmm” you encouraged.

“And then he called me ‘Andrew’“ Drew went on. And you nodded and gave him a sympathetic pout, “I know, I heard.”

“And THEN, he has the AUDACITY to put his fucking arm around you?! Bro, I’m heateddddd-” He continued, barely paying attention to you as you leaned your body against his. You ignored the fact that he just called you bro and tried a different tact.

“Drew, stop. You can’t get into a bar fight. Think about your job.”

“I don’t care about my job. I care about you.”

“That’s not true. You do care about your job. And I know you care about me. But if you get into a fight right now, it’s not gonna change what he did to me. It was a long time ago. We’re not together anymore. I’m over it. Punching him is not gonna do anything except jeopardize your future.”

Drew still had his fight face on, “Well, knocking that smirk off his fucking face would sure make me feel better.” He said and you scowled at him. “And for the record, I don’t think you’re over it. And you don’t have to be. You never have to be over it. And that doesn’t mean you aren’t fucking strong and badass.”

You were quiet as you contemplated what Drew said. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, before looking at you. “Okay” he said softly.

“Thank you” you said softly before you pulled him down to kiss him. After a minute of you successfully distracting him with a pretty passionate slow kiss, you felt Drew melt a little.

“Hey, I’m sorry. Do you want to leave? Like do you not feel like being out anymore?” He asked sweetly.

“No, I’m okay. He’s just being a drunk asshole.” You turned away to grab the drinks the bartender poured for you and Drew, “We probably won’t even see him for the rest of the night.”

You turned back and realized caveman Drew was now glaring at Josh again as you spoke, “..or not.” You rolled your eyes.

Despite the bad beginning, you and your friends ended up having fun as the night went on. And you and Drew proceeded to drink. Which was probably not the smartest decision. You were both feistier when you drank and you knew Drew’s natural state of calmness was only going to wear off as the night went on.

Eventually, you had to go to the bathroom. But you didn’t trust Josh to not instigate something with Drew while you were gone and you didn’t trust Drew to not try and avenge your honor while you were gone either. So you found Austin, Chase and JD. Chase and JD were only half-listening as they watched whatever game was on the tvs at the semi-crowded bar.

“Guys, I need you to watch Drew while I go pee.” You said. Drew rolled his eyes and hung his head back with a groan.

“What’s the rig?” Austin asked, ironically using his favorite word as he put one arm on your shoulder and the other on Drew’s.

“Drew is trying to fight my ex-boyfriend and you need to stop him from ruining his career and/or going to jail for assault.” You looked at Drew as you finished your sentence remind him that he could get in serious trouble for getting in a fight. Drew scoffed as Austin looked to him for confirmation of what you were saying.

“He called me a movie star dude” Drew said.

“Oooff” Austin agreed that this was a major dig.

“And then he called me ‘Andrew’“

“Ahhh man” Austin commiserated, “This kid deserves to get hit for sure.”

“Austin!” You scolded, “You are not helping!”

“Bro, that’s not even half of it. Like what he did to Y/N; he deserves to get the absolute shit beat out of him, I promise you-”

“Okay, stop! We’re not discussing this. Chase, JD, you are in charge of Drew. Keep him occupied while I go pee and don’t let him ruin his entire life by getting in a stupid bar fight. And Austin, stop encouraging him and keep your mouth shut til I get back please!” You commanded, as you pushed Drew and Austin toward Chase and JD. JD gave you a salute while he put his arm around Drew’s shoulders.

While you were gone, Drew was drunk and spilling all your business, trying to get all 3, also drunk, boys on his side. “Guys, you don’t even know. This guy is the biggest asshole.”

“Wait, is he really? Or do you just not like him because he’s y/n’s ex?” JD asked.

“No dude. First of all, he like cheated on her a bunch of times; he was super manipulative and .. he fucking hit her once dude.”

The all looked at each other, “What the fuck?!”

“Like hit her?”

“Yeahhhhhh, like physically hit her face.”

“Well you are completely justified, brother.”

“Yeah, we have your back man, whatever happens.” They all nodded and broke out of their little huddle.

“Look! No fighting!” Chase said proudly when you got back, opening up his arms.

“Good job Chase. Gold star” You said returning his quick side hug.

The group decided it was time to go to one more bar, so you all walked out the back ext into a big alley. Where, of course, Josh and his friends were smoking and noticed your crew before you noticed them.

“You think her movie star boyfriend knows what an uptight little prude she used to be?” Josh said to his friend loud enough for you to hear. You honestly didn’t even care about what Josh said, you knew he was trying to get Drew to react. And you knew even your sweet, soft Drew was not immune to anger getting the best of him. Drew stopped walking, still slightly turned away from Josh and just shook his head, not believing Josh’s audacity.

Even though the guys had been supportive when they were talking to Drew about fighting Josh, no one actually wanted that to happen. So Austin was quickly by Drew’s side, “Don’t do it bro. It’s not worth it.”

“Drew.” You said trying, to get him to focus on you. Unfortunately, you were with a group of boys full of testosterone and Chase was also feeling feisty and protective.

“Hey, why don’t you shut the fuck up bro” Chase said, taking a step toward Josh, but luckily a level-headed JD was immediately pushing Chase softly backward.

“Ooh maybe, she’s not such a prude anymore. Maybe she’s sleeping with the whole cast; they’re all so protective of her.” Josh laughed.

“Josh stop! What the fuck is wrong with you?” You yelled at him. And Drew was instantly moving in front of you, “You need to stop talking right now man.” Drew said in a tone that made the hair on your arms stand up. You could feel the tension rolling off Drew.

“Drew calm down. Please.” You pleaded as he looked down at you.

“Y/n, I can’t let him talk about you that way.”

“He’s trying to get under your skin. That’s what he wants.”

“Yeah, well it’s fucking working.”

“Drew, come on. Let’s just go home.” He began to give in as you pulled his arm.

Josh was obviously determined for a fight, because the next thing that came out of his mouth made it impossible for anyone to stop Drew.

“Hey good luck with y/n, man. I treated her like trash for years and she still came running back to me, bitch has got issu-” And before he could utter another word, Drew’s fist connected with his jaw.

“Fuck.” You cursed as your hands went through your hair and you backed up between Austin, Chase and JD.

Josh recovered and hit Drew in the eye.

You gasped. Turning into JD’s chest and he protectively wrapped his arms around you. Drew hit Josh again and he fell to the ground. Drew bent over him and punched him again. “Don’t you ever fucking talk about her again!” He yelled through gritted teeth, “Don’t look at her again. And if you EVER touch her again, I swear to God-” he spat in between a few more punches.

“Drew! Please!” You yelled and finally Austin pulled him back. “That’s enough, bro.”

“Come on” JD still had his arms around you, walking you away from everything.

Drew was breathing heavy and trying to overcome his adrenaline. You and JD were already around the corner with most of the group.

“Come on, let’s go” Chase ushered Drew away with Austin. And they followed in the same direction. Drew saw you walking ahead of him.

“Y/N” he called after you softly. You stopped and turned around. He was already right there enveloping you in his arms.

“Fuck y/n. I’m so sorry.” He muttered kissing the top of your head. You just kept holding each other while the group called Ubers.

You pulled away from him a little, “Are you okay?” You asked trying to get a look at the bruise forming on his face. “Yeah, baby. I’m fine. I’m so sorry I did that. I’m sorry I put you in this situation.” He said, hugging you again. After a long pause, you pulled up and looked up at him:

“Thank you.” You stated genuinely and Drew looked at you surprised. But while you continued to look at each other, you both understood without saying anything more. You both knew it wasn’t okay that Drew just got in a fight. And you both knew you didn’t need your boyfriend to defend you honor, but you were thankful someone finally had.

Taglist: @moniamaybank @abbyj1822 @october-cameron @hernameisnoell @railmerafe @stupidpendeja @lemur46 @phantompogues

#Drew Starkey #drew starkey x reader #Drew starkey x Y/n #drew starkey imagine #outer banks #outer banks fan fiction #obx imagine #obx

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fractoluminescence · 2 years ago

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For the AO3 wrapped meme! :)

3. What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)? 12. How many WIP’s do you have in your docs for next year? 20. Which work of yours have you reread the most?

Oh! Tbh I reblogged this so as to not lose it and come back to it when I'd have more stuff posted (which is why it's got the fract resources tag instead of the featured tag) and was kinda expecting nobody to notice lol. The ask is welcomed tho <3

(Note: This got a lot longer than I meant it to be. Whoops)

3: Most of my works are currently unpublished - in the sense that I've been ambitious right off the bat, and have been working on the same WIP for roughly 7 years now. I like 'Blood Bank' (which is posted on AO3 and is an unrequited love AiShin Vampire AU I wrote in a rush for AiShin week this year - I'll need to copyedit it properly sometime lol), but otherwise the work I'm working on (currently nicknamed 'You Only Die Twice', but I'll likely change that name because it doesn't make as much sense now as it did when I named it that) is the one I'm the proudest of.

The whole thing started out as one big story called 'Isolated', but then I learned to plot about 2 years ago or smth and realized I was trying to write at least 6 different novel-length stories within one fic... So I've untangled them and now I'm working on them one at a time lmfao (at least now I know why I was struggling to write that massive thing so much ahahah, what a mess. At any rate, I've decided to only publish each of them once they are finished, so while the old Isolated from high school is still online I haven't posted anything of this fic series since).

I'm very proud of my characters (my main character in particular. She's the first OC I managed to develop correctly and actually like. That's a whole story though so not going into it here), but even more so of the structure I'm able to give the whole thing - it feels so good to actually know what I'm doing and have so many elements of the story just click into place like well-oiled cogs.

Also the story involves the SRDI so I get to write sci-fi-ish mad-scientist-sounding stuff hehehe.

---

12: So, I have YODT, as mentioned above. I also have a fic I wrote the first chapter of during AiShin week called 'Feed Me Love' to finish (it's a sort of mirror version of a friend's fic). And I have my other long project, an either novel or novella-long demon-summoning AU fic called 'The Summoner' (also AiShin) that is in the works, but I've set as a rule for myself to only work on it during periods during which I need space from YODT (which I currently don't, because I'm barely working on the latter, and this is the fault of my master's schedule because I only have very few hours of class a week and thus completely lost the habit I had of writing at the same hour every day after class that allowed me to make tons of progress last year. I can currently barely step out of my house and my sleep schedule is worse than it has ever been, including during periods when I was a lot more depressed than this).

I have a song I started revolving around Momo that's been going very well but that I haven't taken the time to work on since this summer, and a couple of poems that I'm waiting to be fully confident of before I post them anywhere that I might wrap up sometime.

I also intend to rewrite and finish the translation of one French fic I had started in high school sometime. Knowing me I'll likely start working on it again at the drop of a hat one of these days.

---

20: YODT, probably, since I fix plot-consistency issues as I go. Other than that, likely a poem of mine somewhere wins that one.

#whipplefilter #featured #bleach #fract personal

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ficrecsbybu · 3 years ago

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WinterIron fic rec 2021: Part I

Note: this fic rec consists only of Bucky Barnes/Tony Stark fics. the only Stucky & Stony you might see is as past relationships but that’s it. it’s also complete works ONLY. also - no underage stuff 🔪. if you have any requests for Winteriron fic recs (for e.g non-superpower au, only one shots, series, hardcore smut, post-tws, college au, not team cap friendly fics, bodyguard au etc.) you can send me requests ^^. anyway... enjoy 😉

✨ The Guiding of Death by RayShippouUchiha

“That whole Merchant of Death thing,” someone off to the side faux whispers, “makes a lot more sense now.”

It echoes across the bridge like a gunshot.

Rated M, Hades & Persephone AU, Canon Divergence, always female Tony Stark, not Team Cap friendly. word count: 41391

(note: listen... I know het pairings and/or gender bend is not popular and I never really read those in general BUT this is straight up one of the best fics I have ever read so I NEEDED to share this with y’all...✌️)

✨ Forms of Love by bear_bell

Tony's the bad guy, after all. He's used to it. He's fine with it. He's good at it.

Only now, there's something far worse loitering around the tower - The Winter Soldier. No one notices the guy at first, but when they do, Tony figures that he should have the soldier's back.

Birds of a feather should flock together, and the bad guys should start a book club.

Rated E, Post-CW, Bucky Barnes & Winter Soldier are Different Personalities, Team Iron Man. word count: 33591

✨ Looking at You by NotEvenCloseToStraight

Bucky looks for so long that now all he wants to do is touch and hold and fix everything. But Tony can barely be in the same room as Bucky, cant even look him in the eye. So Bucky doesn't know what to do about Tony, but he is determined to do something. Because all he wants is to look at Tony, and see Tony looking back with a smile.

Rated E, Post-CW, PTSD, team heals, mental healing, forgiveness, angst with a happy ending. word count: 28,168

✨ I'll Be Your Bodyguard (If You'll Be My Security Blanket) by NarutoRox

When one of Loki's pranks gone wrong leaves the team with a young Winter Soldier in their care, they know they're going to have their hands full. Especially since this newer, tinier version of Bucky seems to have a bodyguard complex - and a particular attachment to Tony.

Rated T, kid fic, age regression/de-aging, de-aged Bucky, tiny bodyguard Bucky. word count: 4,993.

(note: finally something CUTE. Im so sorry for being such a slut for angst and heavy stuff 😅)

✨ Fate Strings Not Required by Akira_of_the_Twilight

Tony took the hint.

Tony wrapped his hand around the new guy’s elbow. He kept his touch light and breakable in case he’d misread the cue.

“Just some guy claiming to be my soul mate, babe.”

The new guy’s eyebrows rose to his hairline in surprise. He chuckled and gave the first guy a smirk. “Strange. Last time I checked we were soul mates.”

Rated T, AU - no superpowers, AU - soulmates, Bodyguard Bucky Barnes, age difference. word count: 7,032.

✨ Shameless by Finely Honed (jaqen_hgar)

Tony isn’t actually sure which of them starts it—he’d like to take credit, but if he’s learned anything it’s that Barnes is by no means a wilting flower. Besides, the start doesn’t matter as much as figuring out who’s going to actually finish it.

rated M, flirting, dirty talk, sexual tension. word count: 2,560

✨ Winter Wooer by salytierra

Winter may not be the most pleasant guy to live or share your body with, but he isn't nearly as destructive as everybody expected him to be either. He likes to brood in the corners, watch British TV, and freak people out. And Tony. He really, really likes Tony Stark. There's just one problem – Bucky's pretty sure he doesn't feel the same way about the guy.

Rated M, Bucky Barnes & Winter Soldier are Different Personalities, team as family. word count: 8,726

✨ Even Darkness Must Pass by Finely Honed (jaqen_hgar)

“Fake it till you make it,” Bucky whispered to himself, swallowing around his panic. Sam had drilled the idea into him, and it had become a mantra of sorts, something to hold onto when all he wanted to do was blend into the shadows and disappear.

“You’ll be fine.”

Steve placed a warm, strong hand on Bucky’s shoulder and squeezed, his super soldier ears having picked up Bucky uttering the now familiar saying.

Bucky nodded, tried to believe his own words, and followed Steve onto the common floor, a wall of sound hitting them as they entered.

rated M (but mild sexual content), parent Tony Stark, Bucky Barnes recovering, team as family, of love and hobbits 🧝🏻‍♂️. word count: 15,289

✨ Paths Are Made by Walking by Potrix

The road to recovery is long, winding and a different one for every person walking it. Bucky chooses to help himself the only way he knows how; by doing what he does best.

Or, alternatively; the one in which Tony is a mess and accidentally kick-starts Bucky’s protective mother hen instincts.

rated T, post-TWS, fluff, humour, getting together, idiots in love. word count: 4,744.

✨ Rise In Perfect Light (Be Not Fearful Of The Night) by RayShippouUchiha

At first, the new element singing in his chest, Tony doesn’t understand what he’s done.

Doesn’t understand the full consequences of his actions.

But, to be fair, there’s no way he really could have.

Not even a futurist like him could have ever seen this coming.

rated G, post-CW, past Stony, angst with a happy ending. word count: 3,589.

(note: this fic is SO BEAUTIFUL. lemme just asjkdjnsjkdm)

✨ and amidst the ruins, there was you by TheKitteh

With everything resolved - post the Berlin conflict, Siberia and the rogue Avengers' return - Tony relishes in the clarity of what the team is now. He can finally see the well-defined lines, he can rely on solid rules and the chain of command. He's settled into his life like never before.

That is, until one day, an unhinged sorcerer with no grasp on his magic shatters that new-found balance.

As a result, half of Tony's soul is now gone, but he's willing to do anything to get it back.

rated T, post-CW, canon divergence, au - Dystopia, Dimension Travel, magical accidents, slow burn, getting together. word count: 36,976

✨ and so we unfold by TheKitteh

Senbazuru. Thousand Cranes.

An ancient Japanese legend that promises anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by the gods. Some stories believe you are granted happiness and eternal good luck, instead of just one wish, such as long life or recovery from illness or injury.

Bucky’s not big on believing in any legends, not after all that has happened. He just wants to create something for a change, not destroy.

He needs to prove himself that he can be trusted to handle something delicate. He doesn’t need a promise of a wish come true. He just,- needs to do this for himself.

He doesn’t need noticing how sad, tired Stark looks. Doesn’t need to want to do something for the man, when he can barely do anything for himself.

rated T, CACW canon divergence, getting together, reconciliation, POV alternating, Bucky Barnes recovering. word count: 14,449

✨ Spilt on the Ground like Water by tisfan

Tony has been black-bagged and illegally held at the Raft. Steve has no intentions of going to rescue him.

But the Winter Soldier isn't going to leave him behind.

rated E, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, implied/referenced torture, frottage, dub-con, mention of part non-con (HYDRA trash party), not Steve friendly, suicidal thoughts, touch-starved. word count: 10,853

✨ Norns, Save Us (From Ourselves) by phlintandsteel

It’s been ten years since half the universe was dusted.

rated E, post-IW au, A/B/O verse, Omega Tony, Alpha Bucky, Soulmates, Peter & Harley playing matchmaker, still recovering Bucky Barnes, not Steve Rogers Friendly, angst with a happy ending. word count: 37,324.

✨ Change You Like A Remix by ficlicious

No one ever said Avenging would be easy, but Bucky could have really used a memo about the weeks where the hits just didn’t stop coming. He’d probably still have signed his soul away to the gods of spandex and paperwork, but a heads up woulda been nice before he nodded and smiled and took up residence in the house sanity fled when the Avengers moved in.

---- Soulmates, misunderstandings, snark, genderswap and sleep-deprived Avengers abound. Tony's a woman. Must be Friday.

rated E, AU - soulmates, established relationship, temporary gender swap, jealous Bucky Barnes, misunderstanding, miscommunication. word count: 10,494.

✨ Getting to Know You by orbingarrow

It had been an adventure, navigating the sweetly apologetic Bucky Barnes, who haunted the tower most days, and the the Winter Soldier, who occasionally inhabited Barnes’s body. The Winter Soldier was not apologetic; he was scary. And he was currently chilling out, uninvited, in Tony's lab.

“Leave,” Tony said, because Tony was either a dead man or not, and there wasn’t much he could do about it before coffee.

“Or you could give me permission to be here,” the Winter Soldier suggested.

“I don’t let strangers poke around my stuff,” Tony grumbled, as he walked past the Soldier to take a seat at his workbench.

“Easily solved,” the Soldier deflected. “Get to know me.”

-This is what happens when Tony does.

rated G, Bucky Barnes & Winter Soldier are different personalities, fluff, Clint Barton is a good bro. word count: 9,470

✨ Safe House by ali_aliska

For years, Tony had successfully kept his secret. Neither the world nor his team knew he was Iron Man and as far as he was concerned, everyone was better off that way. On his best days, Tony Stark was not someone people liked and trusted, so the last thing Tony wanted was to tarnish Iron Man’s good reputation by revealing the truth.

But then SHIELD falls, the Avengers face disarray, and a stray Hydra assassin forces Tony to go into hiding—and where better than the safe house he had just crafted for the Avengers and their own ex-assassin ready to come in from the cold?

Tony plans to hide away from everyone in his makeshift workshop until the coast is clear and he’s safe to go home. No one would care to spend any time with the reclusive, arrogant billionaire anyways, right? Iron Man is the one everyone wants around.

Bucky Barnes, on his own journey to reclaim his life and identity, seems to disagree with that sentiment.

rated T, post TWS, canon divergence, au - Secret Identity, mutual pining, team as family, slow burn, misunderstandings. word count: 89,533

✨ Versace on the floor by withered

The modern man’s armor is his clothing, and Bucky wants Tony out of his.

rated T, post CW, Bucky Barnes & Winter Soldier are Separate Personalities, Barnes & Soldier & their hard-on for Tony, not team cap friendly. word count: 2,127

#winteriron #tony stark #bucky barnes #iron man #winter soldier #avengers #winteriron fic rec #fic rec #mcu #marvel #otp #steve rogers #past stony #past stucky

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all1e23 · 4 years ago

Text

Between the Stars [Pt.11]

Pairings: Bucky x Reader

Series warnings: CHARACTER DEATH. Grief. Overall sadness. Depression. It’s pretty angsty if I’m being honest. Things mellow out as the series goes on. TW: Military/Spouse death. **Smut.** 18+ please and thanks.

A/N: It’s here! Just a reminder this is a Bucky chapter. I really struggled with this one so who knows what this is. As always my beautiful beta @moonbeambucky made sure this wasn’t trash. If you like it write me a book report, sing me a song or come scream at me.

***My fics are not to be saved or posted on any other sites without my written permission. Reblogs are my jam, though! Thanks!****

Morning came too fast. The sun rose against Bucky’s wishes for it to stay hidden and keep reality from tearing away the small bit of heaven they created last night. Once it did, Bucky wasn’t sure how he would fare. He hoped well. There’s history, though. He’s watched her love another, and Bucky had loved him too. It made all of this more complicated. There were rules and lines that if crossed, relationships and hearts would never be the same. It wasn’t as simple as a confession of love whispered in the dark, regardless of past promises exchanged and the ones broke with only the stars to bear witness.

One stumble. One misstep and everything would crumble around them.

Was it even safe to say what was on his heart? Was ‘I love you’ too risky, too sudden? It wasn't something Bucky was willing to gamble yet. Maybe once they’ve talked and he’s held her through the fears he knows are there. No admissions this morning, just the quiet they fell into.

Thankfully, that silence was there to say what the heart couldn’t.

The room was already growing warm from the rays spilling in and heating the heap of tangled sheets and limbs. Something was off. Bucky turned to find the source and he couldn’t help the quiet laugh rumbled from his chest. The break in the thick soft coral fabric that usually kept the sun out smiled back at him. It was still parted from the lamp that fell the night before. He had forgotten. The brushed silver stand caught the curtain in the midst of shedding clothes and desperate kissing and falling. The cream colored shade still sat on the floor where it fell and Bucky couldn’t find it himself to be bothered. Bucky ran a hand down his face, but the grin pinching his cheek stayed put regardless. It’s been fifteen years -- Fifteen years! It was hard to believe they were here after everything that happened.

After all the mistakes he made, Bucky never thought he would end up here. He thought for a long time, it was one-sided. A silly crush he convinced himself he would get over if he found enough distractions. Nothing was ever enough because nothing could ever mean more than her. There was a fleeting moment when his chance came into view, and it was snatched away from him before he realized he wouldn’t get another. Last night everything changed. It was… there were no words that could do it justice in Bucky's eyes. It was incredible. Amazing. Perfect. A glimpse of Heaven he never deserved to have and long overdue. It was everything Bucky thought it would be and so much more.

Bucky’s spent most of his life dreaming about a morning just like this. A morning where he woke to a dream, an angel sleeping soundly next to him and wrapped around his heart, invading every inch of his soul. He’s pictured their first time more than he could ever hope to count and no matter how the fantasy started, it never played out like that. It was never that soft and bright and wistful. Dreamlike but unlike any dream Bucky could invent. In the versions that played out in his head, there was always a dramatic confession of love that led to this frantic, consuming moment where they landed tangled around each other and ready to run away together as soon as the sun rose.

This was far better.

Mornings after have never been something Bucky was particularly fond of. He usually woke with a twinge in his soul and a burning in his heart. Burning so badly he couldn’t wait to get away from the faceless woman next to him and he did. As fast as he could, he ran straight for her every time. Looking for absolution or temporary amnesia perhaps. A few hours to forget that it would never be her laying next to him, she would never be his because they weren’t made for each other like he once believed. The feeling he wakes with on those days is reminiscent of an ache he knows he can never mend. It doesn’t feel anything like this. Nothing in his life has ever felt like this, not a single moment in his life has he ever felt this solid. No one but Y/n could make him feel so utterly lost and devastatingly found all in one breath.

There was a nudge to his ankle. A soft foot gently grazing against the tiny hairs resting there and pulling him out of his head and back to her. Bucky rolled onto his side and grinned when he found her hiding behind the blanket, only her eyes peeking out over the fluff that was covering her nose. Her mouth was hidden but he knew by the twinkle in her eye she was smiling. Over the last year, Bucky has become accustomed to seeing her wake with a tearful gleam and ghosts pinning her down. There’s only a smile this morning and somewhere in that stubborn head of his, he knows it’s his doing. He hoped it was his doing.

All he’s ever wanted in this life is to make her happy and, while Bucky knows he will never truly deserve her, it won’t stop him trying to be worthy of her.

Y/n slowly slid the blanket down uncovering that pretty smile, the one Bucky lives and dies by. Seeing it first thing in the morning, when she’s still glowing and he’s still searching for the breath she stole does something to him. Something he couldn’t explain if he was forced to. It’s a good thing, Bucky knows that. He knows that because his hands were still trembling and his heart was pounding like it’s found a new reason to keep beating. It started last night when she asked him to fall and he went tumbling down, Bucky found something more to live for. His second chance at life came from loving her and he wasn’t going to screw it up again.

The quiver in his fingers settled when they brushed her skin and she smiled because of his touch. He placed a soft kiss to her shoulder when his fingers left a shiver in their place. Another kiss to her chest followed the path his hands created as they explored, and another one to her neck. Okay, several to her neck and that spot under her ear that makes her whimper. He really liked that one. Her fingers played with the chain around his neck, slowly wrapping the cold metal around her hand and tugging him forward until his lips to meet her mouth. Bucky slowly crawled over her using his knee to push her legs apart and slipped down between her legs, never once breaking their kiss-- he wasn’t ready to lose their softness.

Bucky draped himself over her, neither bothered getting dressed last night and he was grateful for their laziness this morning. His forearms rested on the bed next to her head and fingers playing with the fallen strands of her hair. She smiled up at him and mumbled a quiet good morning which Bucky returned with a languid kiss, one that only added to the heat filling the room. He didn’t have a real plan for how this would go. The only thing he wanted to do this morning (and for every morning for the rest of forever) is show her how much he loves her. She sighed helplessly when he broke their kiss, staring up at him waiting for him to tell her which path they should follow-- their head or their heart. Yeah. Okay. That was the plan for today. She needed to know that it all means something more. Every touch, every kiss, and every last whisper means more; it did back then and does now. He’s waited so long to have her like this, how could it not mean everything?

It was everything. He would show her. It didn’t matter how they got here or how it happened. None of this happened the way Bucky wanted it to, and he knows exactly what this second chance cost them both, but he just wants to love her the way she deserves to be loved—how he should have been loving her all these years.

Pausing he asked, “Fall with me?”

He bumped their noses together and she smiled up at him.

“Yeah, Buck.”

He returned her grin and checked one more time to be sure, “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

She leaned up and caught his lips, tumbling into unknown depths once more with only Bucky there to catch her. It felt the same and different. A familiar nuance. Last night was slow and Bucky couldn’t see anything past her. It’s the same this morning; she’s the only thing his heart recognizes but his thoughts are clearer, more focused. It feels less like a dream and more like it could be his future; like it was real, tangible enough he could reach out to take a hold of her, and never let go.

Or so Bucky hoped.

Bucky took his time loving her, the sun was barely up and he wanted to see how far they could fall. However far she was willing to take him, Bucky will follow her wherever. He may be the one making her come undone this time around, but she’s always the one leading the way. So he let her lead, followed every move of her hips and every shiver. God, he loved the way she sounded under him. Those sweet sighs and desperate gasps. His name on her lips.

“Bucky. Bu- Bucky.”

He doesn’t think he will ever tire of hearing his name fall from her lips with such need. It was beyond the heat and want of the moment and while she’s needed him in the past she’s never needed him in this way.

Letting go of her felt like a sin. Something he shouldn’t attempt again and he won’t if he can’t help it. Bucky made the quick trip to the bathroom after her, peeking out the door to watch her curl around his pillow, wearing nothing but the smile Bucky gave her. The sight made him move a little bit faster. He climbed back into bed rubbing his beard against her stomach and chest until she giggled. Bucky whispered against her bare skin, “Ain’t that a pretty sound.”

She smiled and told him his laugh was prettier. Bucky playfully nipped at the sensitive skin under her breast making her yelp and shook his head in disagreement. If she wasn’t still floating in the glimmer of what they had just shared she would argue some more. Bucky urged his head into her hands and she obliged, running her fingers through his hair once he settled down on top of her with his head on her chest and arms wrapped tightly around her waist. He really was like a cat sometimes. Bucky’s eyes felt heavy and her hand slowed, sleep was calling them both and they’ve spent enough time denying their wants.

They could talk later. There was time.

--------

By the time Bucky woke again, the sun was no longer glaring at the window and the room had cooled, despite the fever Bucky created before falling asleep. It took him only a second to realize he was alone this time, the sheets crumbled at the end of the bed leaving his naked skin exposed to the cold air the fan was blowing. There was a note resting on the pillow next to him, smiling less kindly than the curtains had the first time he opened his eyes. He called out for Y/n but there was no answer and without reading he knew what that paper laying next to him said. He rolled into his back and held the note up over his head, reading the words several times over.

There’s coffee ready for you and I threw your cigarettes in the trash. They better stay there. I have something I need to do, but I’ll be back soon.

I’m not running.

Xoxo,

Your trouble.

Bucky held the note to his chest and took a deep breath. It was nice to hear but it didn’t settle the fear in his chest. He could have walked away from all this before but now that he’s held her he can’t go back to the way things were before. It’s all or nothing this time around. He set the letter on the nightstand next to the half empty glass of water and her well-worn copy of Anna Karenina. Bucky had to remind himself, she was marking their path and all he had to do was follow her. Bucky knows her better than she knows herself some days and he knows what she needs right now, and he needs to respect that.

So he did.

The shower seems smaller today. The water burnt his skin regardless of the temperature and the steam felt like it was choking him. He knows it’s because Y/n wasn’t there with him. Which was ridiculous. There hasn’t been a day in his life that he’s shared a shower with her, but not having her downstairs or in their-- her bed weighs heavy on his chest. God did he need a cigarette.

The air was still dense, suffocatingly so, when Bucky made his descent down the stairs that led into the kitchen. His coffee was waiting for him like she said it would be and there was a bright pink sticky note on the lid to the trash-can that caught his eye right away. Bucky snatched it on his way to the mug sitting in front of the glass carafe, reading as he poured.

And you say I’m trouble. Don’t even think about it, Barnes.

Bucky chuckled and pressed the sticky side of the paper to the cabinet door above the pot, grumbling quietly to himself, “Trouble. Just trouble.”

Guess the cigarette was out.

By mid-afternoon, Bucky was unable to sit still for longer than a few seconds. He tried to watch a little TV, stared at Steve’s letters for a solid hour before hastily tossing them back into the drawer, and heading outside to tinker with his bike. No matter what he did, he couldn’t keep his nerves from rattling with each hour that passed. The sun was low before he realized it was setting and the pit in his stomach grew. He forced himself to get cleaned up for the second time today, though, he was washing away a different kind of filth. He had one more thing he needed to grab before she came home and he found himself wandering out onto the front porch at what seemed to be the perfect time -- his heart must have known.

The sound of her car rolling over the gravel somehow unraveled him while keeping him together. He took a few steps to the top of the stairs and watched as she walked up the walkway, stopping in front of him. She looked more at ease than she felt he imagined. He had a pretty good idea what happened this morning and where she went, but he also knew she would tell him the whole story when she was ready to and not a moment before.

“How’s Wanda?”

She grinned.

“She’s fine. Annoyingly perceptive.”

Bucky hummed and pulled out a pale pink peony from his back and held it out for her. She rolled her eyes despite the grin she was unable to stop and took the flower. It was cheesy. Bucky knew it was the cheesiest thing he’s ever done but he didn’t care. He’s spent more than a decade desperate to love her and now that he can, he’s not holding anything back.

“Dinner?” She asked, holding the flower to her nose to hide the size of her grin. Bucky pushed the flower out of the way with his index finger and pressed a chaste kiss to her lips.

“Yeah, dinner.”

---------

Bucky wanted to press. Ask her what they were and what she was feeling but that wouldn’t be fair of him to do; demand she tell him exactly what this means and where they are going, after everything she’s been through. She probably didn’t know. He couldn’t fault her for that. This entire year was new for her. She’s had to become a different person, with a brand-new dream towards a future she never planned to live. He’s wanted this for years, but for her, this is just something else that’s changed, something else she needed to adjust to and sort out her feelings for.

He owed her that time. She deserved the time to figure out her feelings without pressure.

She needed the stability of something familiar and if Bucky kept himself from being selfish, he could give that to her. It wouldn’t be that hard. Most things between them hadn’t changed all that much. They’ve always teased each other, had this connection that’s been entirely for them, and no one else. Only a few things have changed and he could hold back if she needed that. Since she’s been home the front porch kiss has been the only one, despite how much Bucky wished they could forget dinner and spend the rest of the night kissing. Then again Bucky always wants to kiss her. So that wasn’t really all that new either. There were plenty of times when he had wanted to tonight. It was usually found in the little things. When she was standing at the stove swinging her hips to the low hum of the radio Bucky had to force himself to keep his hands and lips to himself when all he wanted to do was wrap his arms around her and let his lips wander her skin with no real destination in mind. Let them land wherever she would allow and beg permission for the rest. He made no move to do so, just stood beside her and listened to every direction she gave him, letting himself fall for the fifth or sixth time in the last twenty-four hours.

“So you are going to show me the marshmallow thing now?”

Bucky laughed but his cheeks were pink and getting brighter by the second.

“I can, but I like how sweet you taste without it.”

Bucky watched the shift in her seat, tilting her chin up and dropping her gaze to where her fingers were dancing on the clear steam of her wine glass. She was flustered. Bucky couldn't help the smirk that tugged at the corner of his lips, he tossed his napkin on the table and watched her. She briefly glanced at him, challenging him with a quick raise of her brow and gave one right back. There were a lot of ways this could go. He could drop it and they would push it aside like they always do, or he could act on the tension between them. The little bit of sauce on her bottom lip really made Bucky want to do the second thing.

Slowly, Bucky closed the few inches between them, scooting her chair closer to him with a gentle pull from his foot and pressing a delicate kiss to the corner of her mouth and running his tongue along the cream on her lips. He barely pulled away before she turned to capture his lips, and it quickly shifted from sweet to desperate and heated. Bucky’s hands find their way onto her backside and slide her off the chair onto his lap with an easy lift.

It was heady. The kiss. Intoxicating and overwrought. More like the times Bucky dreamed of. Hard and a little rough, with a gentle want. Her hips were moving at a frantic pace, pushing the harsh denim against him and he was quickly losing himself in the feeling. It felt good. To let go and give into her and high that came from wanting her. Bucky’s grip tightened on her waist pushing her down harder with each drag of her hips.

If they were young and foolish he would lay her out on the table, shoving the plates and bottles to the floor because the mess wouldn’t matter. Not when he needed to be inside her this badly. They weren’t kids any longer. There were scars and wounds and broken pieces that needed to be mended with softness. She was more than some quick fuck he found himself buried in to ease the void and as good as this felt, he didn’t want to love her like that. Her movements faltered and Bucky helped steady her, giving her the chance to pull back and catch her breath.

There wasn’t much on his mind beyond her, but he followed her glance to the table and met eyes when they landed back on him.

“We have to clean up?” She asked, panting and clearly a little foggy.

Bucky chuckled. She was asking him?

He glanced back at the plates on the table where several drained beer bottles sat next to an empty wine glass with a line of red floating on the bottom, the bowl of pasta they had yet to finish, and empty plates. It was a mess. The plates would be a nightmare to clean after that cream sauce had dried and that little bit of wine in the glass would leave a ring. He didn’t care. With his arm secured tightly around her, Bucky carefully stood with her in his arms and headed straight for the stairs.

With darkened eyes anchored in hers, he assured her, “It will still be there tomorrow, Trouble.”

They could deal with it together in the morning because he’s not going anywhere any time soon. He will be there as long as she’ll have him and with any luck Bucky has this tomorrow and the next because, without her, Bucky doesn’t have one.

Previous // Next

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x female reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #Bucky x you #bucky x reader #modern au #alternate universe #Past!Steve Rogers x reader #military au #TW: military death #tw: character death #tw: death of a spouse

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sisterspooky1013 · 3 years ago

Text

Only One Choice, Chapter 2

Read it here on AO3 / Tagging @today-in-fic

The Hoover building is still quiet at 8 am, weary agents are sipping their second cup of coffee and wrapping their brains around the task of the day. Studying the minds of murderers, rapists and sadistic torturers is enough to spoil anyone’s breakfast, and yet they approach it clinically, objectively. The reward of knowing that you helped take a monster off the streets is barely enough to keep them going, but they do. Maybe even more than that, they live with the guilt of knowing that if they stopped, it might mean one more murdered child or assaulted woman. One more man found floating in the river. So they get up every day and do it again.

Mulder stops by A.D. Kirkbride’s office to say good morning and finds the man angrily shoving the phone back on its cradle with a plasticky crack.

“Morning, sir. Going great so far I gather?” he quips from his spot in the doorframe.

A.D. Kirkbride scoffs, running a hand through his short cropped sandy-blonde hair. Diminutive in stature, Kirkbride is someone to be taken seriously. His pointed features and gold-rimmed glasses convey the gravity of the work they do here each day in his ever-present frown.

“These goddamn worthless couriers are on my last fucking nerve,” he laments, gathering the papers on his desk into one pile with jerky, frustrated movements. “This is the third goddamn time one of them has no-showed. We need that autopsy report from Quantico today, and because this worthless fucking courier decided to get the flu or something, we have to send an agent down there to get it.” He sighs and sits back in his chair, removing his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Can you send Agent Wilkes in here, please, so I can let him know he has to waste two fucking hours of his day driving down there?”

Mulder shrugs. “I can go get it, I haven’t even started on the Marino file yet. It’s a nice day for a drive.”

Kirkbride eyes him skeptically. “You’re a senior agent, Mulder. You’ve earned the right not to be the bitch-boy.”

Mulder laughs good-naturedly. “I appreciate that, sir, but I really don’t mind. I just got the new Radiohead cassette, it’ll give me a chance to listen to it.”

Kirkbride nods and puts his glasses back on. “I guess it’s Wilkes’ lucky day, then. It’s the autopsy report for the Dugan file, you should be able to get it from the pathologist on duty. And don’t fuck around, we need it ASAP.”

Mulder puts a hand to his chest and makes a mock-wounded face. “Me? Fuck around? I would never, sir.”

Kirkbride shakes his head with a smirk and turns back to his computer. “Get the fuck out of here, Mulder.”

It’s a beautiful late-Spring day and Mulder really does appreciate the opportunity to take a drive to Quantico, even during the morning rush hour. Removing his suit jacket and loosening his tie, he pops in the cassette and merges onto I-395 South as Thom Yorke sings Paranoid Android.

Ninety minutes later, he’s parked near the morgue; having worked out of Quantico for years before securing a spot on the small team of criminal behavioral analysts who operate out of the Hoover building, he knows his way around. He first pokes his head into the office the pathologists share and, finding it empty, he moves on to the autopsy bay. The slabs are all clean and free from corpses, which is a relief. As many crime scene photos as he’s seen, the live version always gives him the creeps. A young woman in blue scrubs is perched on a stool with her back to him, filling out a form by hand. He approaches her, speaking when he’s still several feet away so he doesn’t startle her.

“Excuse me, I’m looking for the pathologist on duty,” he says, and she swivels on her seat, her shoulder length auburn hair swinging gently with the motion.

When she turns to face him, he’s momentarily struck by how pretty she is. Her red hair is complemented by ivory skin, a light dusting of freckles across the bridge of her Grecian nose. Her eyes are a brilliant shade of blue, not unlike the morning sky he’d enjoyed on his drive down.

“I’m the pathologist on duty, how can I help you, Mr.-” she looks at him expectantly.

“Mulder, Agent Mulder,” he replies, stepping forward to offer his hand.

“How can I help you, Agent Mulder?” she asks, taking his hand with a firm, confident grip, though her palm is dwarfed by his own broad paw.

“I’ve been tasked with picking up the Dugan autopsy report. Seems like there was a snafu with the courier,” he offers, stuffing his hands in his pockets in an attempt to act casual.

She stands, and he’s again struck, but this time by how short she is, barely reaching his shoulder in her sneakers. “That’s an odd task for an agent, isn’t it?” she says as she moves to a small filing cabinet and rifles through its contents.

He moves to stand beside her, leaning against the wall. “I suppose so, but I don’t mind. Nice to take a break from profiling sociopaths now and then.” He feels his heart do a little leap at the small smile that quirks at the corner of her mouth in response. “I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name,” he continues.

She turns to him, holding out a file. “I didn’t give it,” she says dryly. “It’s Dana Scully. I did this autopsy myself, actually, and I’d be interested to know what you make of it.”

He opens the file and leafs through its contents as she returns to her post on the stool, picking up her pen. She appears to see this conversation as concluded, but he doesn’t feel ready for it to end just yet.

“Ah, yes, I’ve heard a bit about this case, though it’s not one I’m assigned to. What interests you about it?” he asks as he follows her back to where she’s sat down, taking the stool beside her without invitation. She quirks an eyebrow at him, but doesn’t say anything about it.

“My findings indicate that though there is only one entry point for the stab wound, there were at least 15 distinct entries into that same location, which would suggest that the assailant stabbed him in nearly the exact same location repeatedly. I suppose I’m wondering what would possess someone to do that.”

He watches her speak with rapt attention, transfixed by the soft, sibilant S’s that pour from her pouty mouth.

“Hey Scully, do you know of any good coffee places around here?” he asks hopefully, completely changing the subject.

She gives him a curiously incredulous look. “Scully is my last name, my first name is Dana,” she answers.

He studies her for a moment, then shakes his head slowly. “You don’t look like a Dana,” he finally says.

Her eyebrows lift and he can see that she’s fighting back a smile. “Really? What do I look like then?”

“A Scully,” he says plainly, and his heart fills to bursting at the wry smile he gets in response.

She shakes her head and turns back to the form she was filling out. “There’s a place called Cafe Adamo a few minutes away that’s pretty good,” she answers his question.

“Great, are you free now?” he asks, forcing a calm demeanor even as his palms are becoming clammy.

She snaps her head up from the form to look at him with an open-mouthed expression of surprise, and he sees a bit of panic in her eyes. Not a good sign.

“Oh,” she stammers, “I’m sorry, Agent Mulder, I have a boyfriend.” Her cheeks are reddening in a devastatingly cute way.

He keeps his expression neutral, and can’t resist messing with her a little.

“I just meant as colleagues, Scully, to discuss the file,” he says matter-of-factly.

If she was blushing before, she’s morphing into a tomato now. She closes her eyes briefly and takes a breath. “I-I am so sorry, Agent Mulder, that was very presumptuous.”

He smiles broadly, no longer able to contain how much fun he’s having with this exchange.

“I’m just messing with you, Scully. I was definitely asking you out,” he admits, and her eyes go big before she deflates a little with relief, biting her lip and looking away with a soft smile on her mouth. “Thank you for this,” he says, holding up the file. “I’ll get out of your hair.”

He stands and moves to the door, stopping just before he exits. “Say hi to that boyfriend of yours for me,” he adds, “he’s a lucky guy.”

She blushes again and he takes a moment to soak up the image before he returns to his car. Tossing the file onto the passenger seat, he flips the cassette to side B and hits the road back up to Washington, finding that he can’t seem to get his mouth to stop smiling.

————————————————————————-

She slumps through the door at half-past six, dead on her feet.

“Hey,” Ethan calls from in front of the stove, “dinner will be about twenty minutes, if you want to take a shower.”

He knows that she always likes to shower when she’s performed autopsies, not wanting the stink of the morgue to find its way onto any of their furniture.

“Thank you,” she replies, toeing off her shoes and stopping by to give him a quick kiss before she moves to the bathroom.

The hot spray of the shower is a welcome relief and she emerges feeling much more alert. They sit at the table, sharing the details of their days over shrimp scampi and white wine. They tend to be very thorough in their retelling of their workdays, and Ethan gives a play by play of a meeting with his boss before Dana tells him all about a student who challenged her in front of the class and how she shut him down. She doesn’t intentionally leave out the interaction with Agent Mulder, but it doesn’t come up somehow.

After dinner, they curl up on the couch to watch ER together. Ethan is on his back with his head propped up on the arm of the couch, and Dana fits herself into the vee of his legs, her back resting on his chest. He idly traces his fingers across her collarbone and shoulders while they watch George Clooney and Julianna Margulies grapple with being both coworkers and lovers.

This is their favorite show, and yet her mind continues to wander to those hooded green eyes, and the boyish smile that played across his pouty lower lip. He was very cute, that’s without question, but she interacts with handsome men all the time at work; why is this particular one worming his way into her brain? She shakes her head to clear the thought, then rotates her body so that she’s belly to belly with Ethan, her head resting on his chest. He kisses the crown of her head and she sighs. She’s got a good thing here, that much she knows.

Maybe she should have gotten coffee with him, though, as colleagues. Maybe.

#the x files #txf #dana scully #fox mulder #msr #x files #fanfiction #alternate universe

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terrm9 · 4 years ago

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Father’s Day

Ethan makes sure to celebrate the Father’s Day with his daughter. (Ethan X Chiara X Matilda)

Words count: 4 000

Warnings: two swear words, fluff

Author’s note: I don’t know what happened here guys. I am so sorry, this fic lacks plot and point, depth, quality, this truly is one fluffy piece of shit. I had a good feeling about it when the idea appeared in my brain and then I started to write and nothing seemed right. And I just kept telling myself ‘just keep writing and it will start making sense. It will get better’... and suddenly the fic is finished and it still doesn’t make sense. I was so close to not posting it, but then I thought that sometimes mindless fluff can make my mood better and so maybe it can do some good to you too. Love you all and I promise I won’t be angry or hurt if you hate this:D

Also Ethan is ~47 in this fic, if you thought I wouldn't mention his graying hair, I am sorry but I did

Also also, I didn't find the strength needed for a proof reading this and so I didn't proof read it. If you see a mistake, please pretend you don't see it

The sun was long set at the time Ethan stepped into the apartment and even though he rationally knew that it was late, he couldn’t quite give up on his hope that maybe Matilda was still up. On the days like this, when more patients came in than out of the hospital and there was so much of a paperwork that he has to bring it home with him, there is nothing Ethan loved more than to put his daughter to sleep and then spend a nice quiet evening with Chiara.

But of course, Matilda was fast asleep – judging by the silence filling the whole apartment – and so Ethan was looking forward to skipping to the part of sharing an evening with his wife.

Chiara didn’t notice him as he stepped into the living room, her nose slightly crinkled as she was filling some papers spread on the dining table, white earpods in her ears.

Looks like I am not the only one to bring work home with me today.

Ethan stopped in his tracks for a moment, just inhaling the familiar scent of Chiara and home and absorbing the picture in front of him. Even after alsmot ten years since he met her for the first time, even though she was his wife now, someone he woke up next to every morning, Chiara still – always – managed to knock the air out of his lungs. How her smile only gained more brightness through the years and how she looked almost like a girl with her hair braided on one side.

Had he been an artist, he would call her his muse.

But he was just a man, a doctor with any artistic words stuck in his throat and so he just kept staring at Chiara and thought, inspiration, that’s what she was, because even the most rational of men could get inspired.

„I can feel you standing there,“ Chiara exclaimed suddenly, putting the earpods off and turning to him with that bright smile.

„My apologies,“ he smiled faintly and crossed the distance between them to give her, what Chiara called ‚a proper greeting‘. He kissed her softly and it only took the feeling of Chiara’s warm body under his hands to ease the tension in him almost completely.

„Matilda missed you tonight,“ Chiara murmured into his chest, not willing to break their embrance.

„As I missed her,“ Ethan sighed. „Did you have an eventful afternoon?“

Chiara chuckled at that, parting from him at last to switch her phone off and leave the work on the dining table.

„Just the usual. The teacher asked them to draw themselves in the future and she couldn’t decide which version of that future she should draw because she wants to be everything.“

Ethan could imagine the conversation very well. Matilda, at the age of five, knew exactly what she didn't want to become when she grows up - a doctor. She kept shifting between wishing to be a travel blogger like her aunt Kyra or a photographer like aunt Alicia. After a weekend spent in Providence, she proclaimed that she could also imagine being a cable repairwoman like grandpa, because grandpa has the coolest coworkers that came over and let her eat chocolate cookies and watch football with them. And if by any unfortunate coincidence she should become a doctor after all, she would definitely be a surgeon like uncle Bryce, because he actually cuts people and that's much more interesting than her parents' job. All they do is talk about the patients.

„I promised her you would take her to school tomorrow. You have rounds in the morning but I can taker over,“ which would only be a service for you, she thought to herself. „That would certainly make her feel better.“

„Was she that sad that I didn’t come home earlier?“

"Oh, she was more sad about the Father's Day program at her school – you know, the one where kids and their dads go together - but I explained her why you had to miss it."

Ethan furrowed his brows, confused for a while.

"Why do I have to miss it?" he asked as he picked Matilda's stuffed llama from the floor.

"It's the Wednesday when you are at the conference in Seattle."

Ethan put the toy on the couch next to Til's favourite blanket and sat down before responding, his voice carrying no sign of hesitation.

"If there's a Father's Day program at her school and she wants me to be there, I'll be there."

Ethan knew all too well why he was so persistent on being there.

He wished he didn’t know, but he did.

Because he knew what it felt like to spend so many of his Mother’s Days programms with his teeth gritted, wishing it could all just end.

He could still remember the first Mother’s Day without Luise, how his teacher walked into the class and told them that they would create nice postcards for their moms and how Ethan’s classmate pointed his finger at him and said: „And what is Ramsey going to do? It’s not fair that he doesn’t need to do anything for the whole hour.“

It was the first time Ethan punched someone.

There was no way, no way, that he would allow his daughter to feel any of those feelings.

His thoughts were interrupted by Chiara, now sitting right next to him, a soft concern visible on her features.

„Alan and Naveen would go with her, you know. She wouldn’t be alone.“

„I am her father.“

„And you are also an author of the study this whole conference is going to be about.“

Ethan knew Chiara was right, just as he knew that she was doing this not because she didn’t want him to attend the programm, rather because she respected and supported his career.

But her arguments were of no use. Ethan’s mind was made up and he only wondered if this is what it felt like, all those years ago, when he pushed Chiara away in order to support her career. The idea of putting career first was making him uncomfortable and all he could do was to think, how did Chiara see it all those years ago?

Or rather, how did he not see it back then?

He had no answers, only his gratitude that she stayed and showed him the world through her eyes.

„Aurora is just as much of an author as me. She can handle the conference without me just fine. You can go with her.“

„Me?“ Chiara asked incredulously.

„Sure. They don’t really care which Dr. Ramsey will come.“

Ethan aged well. More wrinkles circled the corners of his eyes and the grey hair on his temples were not an optical illusion anymore (and Chiara has never found him more handsome than now) and his gaze changed too, the cold blue of his eyes almost forgotten, as his eyes were warm and soft almost all the time he was with his family.

Ethan aged and changed and yet there was a thing that didn’t change in the slightest in these last years. His insufferable stubborness.

And so Chiara knew that he won’t change his mind and that there was no point in trying to and while it warmed her heart to see how in love with Matilda Ethan was, the study was important to him.

Obviously not important enough, however, and Chiara decided not to push him any further. Instead, she asked curiously.

„And what are you going to perform? What if Matilda wants to do something crazy?" Chiara raised an eyebrow.

"Of course she won't want anything crazy. What if it were my father and Naveen taking her?"

Chiara laughed wholeheartedly at his question, because for someone so brilliant, sometimes Ethan was desperately clueless when it came to people around him - and what they were willing to do for their daughter.

"Please, this is Naveen and Alan you are talking about. Matilda could say she wants to sing Hakuna Matata and they would come dressed as Timon and Pumba."

"Ah," Ethan exhaled, obviously only now realizing that Chiara was, indeed, right. And singing - or dancing, for God's sake - was not part of his plan. "Well, she can play some basic compound on the piano, she has learned some already. And I could accompany her on the cello."

Chiara choked on the water she was just drinking, turning to look at Ethan so swiftly, his brows furrowed in a concern for her neck.

"On a what now?"

“A cello. I thought you knew that I used to play the cello as a kid.”

“Of course, but the as a kid part is important. I mean, I played a piano as a kid and now I couldn’t play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star if my life depended on it.”

Ethan laughed, wrapping his arm around Chiara in a half-hug and had to bite his tongue not to tell her that maybe Matilda could teach her, as she already could play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star exceptionally well.

“I might have stopped playing actively when I was ten, but I found a certain sense of serenity in music – and playing – for a long time after that. I-,” Ethan stopped himself, mulling over his next words. It was not like he didn’t want to tell Chiara anything, but talking about his years at med school was not something he did often. “I befriended a music shop’s owner back in Baltimore. He was a nice guy, barely older than me and so very different. He had musical instruments for sale there and as we became closer, he let me borrow the cello and play a little in the back of the shop. It became a thing that helped me clear my head when school became too stressful and it also helped me not to forget how to play. I think Matilda’s level on the piano is very close to what I can remember with the cello.”

Now all he had to do was to find someone who would borrow him the cello.

*** *** ***

Ethan always found it amusing, how his mornings with Matilda differed compared to Matilda’s mornings with Chiara.

He made sure to wake her up earlier than usual, so that they could cook breakfast together and have some time to spare.

Chiara – the person that hated mornings more than eggplants – did all she could to stay in bed for as long as possible. She would rather prepare Matilda’s breakfast in the evening and run to the school than wake up before 6 AM.

And it seemed like Matilda realized this difference quite soon, for all the times Ethan came to wake her up, she knew she could ask him to join her in bed for a few minutes.

"Hey, little Rookie," Ethan whispered, softly stroking Matilda's curls out of her forehead so that he could press a gentle kiss on it. "Time to wake up. We don't want to be late for school."

The little Rookie nickname was first used when Til was perhaps one year old and it made her giggle so hard Ethan kept using it. Chiara found it extremely funny, always pointing out that Matilda was nothing if not Ethan’s exact copy – and she was right. With her big blue eyes and long curly dark hair, there was no doubt that she was Ethan’s daughter. Not that the similarities ended in her physical appearence – she was phenomenally subborn for a five year old (to which Ethan always argued that she could as well inherit that from Chiara) and sarcasm was her second language. She also might have used ‚fuck‘ once or twice and Ethan knew it’s not Chiara she heard that from.

You should call her little Terminator, Chiara always teased and partly, she was right.

But there were many traits and marks of Chiara in their daughter, marks not so visible but unmistakely hers. How Matilda’s smile was always bright and warm and sincere, something only Chiara could pass on. How she came home one day from school and asked Ethan if he could make cupcakes with her, because her classmate loves cupcakes but his parents are too busy to make them for him and so she would love to bring him some to school. How she appreciated the most common of things, like sun shining because it makes her skin warm and also rain falling because she can jump in the puddles. Her genuine curiosity and open heart and just her general need to make people around her feel good.

That was all Chiara’s mark and Ethan loved his two girls so much it sometimes still surprised him. That he was capable of such love.

It also made him want more sometimes. More people to love that much.

„Snuggle time, please?“ Matilda smiled, her eyes still closed and Ethan was prepared, he knew this request would come and so he didn’t even need to check the watch to know that he could lay down next to her, the tiny bed making his position rather awkward.

He snuggled Matilda from behind and between her slow stirs as she began to wake up and his soft kisses put on the back of her head, he whispered how excited he was to attend the Father’s Day program with her.

*** *** ***

Ethan didn’t even need to try hard to persuade Matilda that a piano-cello duet would be better to perform than a dance. She liked the idea from the beginning and after going through her music sheets with Chiara, she happily exclaimed that they could try to learn Hedwig’s Theme together. Her eyes were bright and full of excitement and Ethan knew the decision was already made, because he couldn’t resist that face.

And so they performed and for a girl who was five and her father, who was almost fifty, they did a great job. Seeing Matilda’s pure, unadultered joy and excitement and so much gratitude that her dad could be there with here, was something Ethan would consider one of the best moments of his life forever.

Tillie was almost jumping up and down with the happiness as they watched her classmates and their fathers or grandfathers or mothers in some cases or maybe even uncles perform their numbers. She was clapping hard after every single one and she kept waving at everyone, her smile so wide Ethan thought for a while that she resembled Bryce more than anyone. The thought made him chuckle, because Matilda would love to hear that, as Bryce was her hero and possibly the best person she could spend her sleepovers at.

Ethan could hardly say that he enjoyed being surrounded by so many people, but he sincerely did enjoy spending the day with his kid. He didn’t regret choosing making a fool out of himself in front of bunch of kids instead of the conference. He almost forgot about the conference altogether until Aurora’s call interrupted the bustle full of laughter around them.

She only called him to let him know that all went well and she was off to have a lunch with other diagnosticians that helped with the study.

"Yes, alright. I'll see you on Monday. Good job, Aurora," Ethan put the phone back into his pocket and turned to Matilda.

"I am sorry you missed the conference because of me, dad."

Ethan knelt down so that he could face his daughter, the very same blue eyes he knew from mirrors, looking back at him, wide and curious.

He smiled softly, kissing Matilda's forehead before responding.

"I am not. No conference is that important, and just between the two of us," Ethan lowered his voice and put his best serious face on, causing the mischievous sparks ignite in Tillie's eyes "Conferences are so boring. You saved me from a torture."

She giggled and threw her arms around Ethan's neck, squeezing him as hard as a five years old could.

"Now let's go, I think there's an ice cream that needs to be eaten."

"But daddy you said ice creams are sugar bomb!"

Ethan chuckled at her shocked expression - not sure is it was a genuine one or an act - and took her little hand into his.

"I'll pretend I don't see you eating it."

Matilda squealed and before her ‚no sugar in this house‘ dad could change his mind, she stormed off in the direction of the ice cream truck.

Before she could reach her destination, however, she stopped in her tracks and tugged on Ethan’s sleeve, pointing at the little girl sitting under one of the trees – alone.

„That’s Dorothy! She is my best friend.“

Yes, Ethan remembered Matilda mentioning Dorsey, her best friend, quite often, but he never got a chance to meet her before. The girl was tiny, much smaller than Matilda – which inherited Ethan’s significant height, too – her hair almost white and her eyes similar to Matilda’s, big and blue but not even close to being as bright.

„She doesn’t have a dad,“ Matilda added, her voice much less excited now. „She didn’t want to come here but her mom has to be at work.“

Ethan’s heart tightened at her words, the description of Dorothy’s situation reminding him of his own when he was a kid way too much.

„Why don’t you go and ask her to join us for an ice cream?“ Ethan smiled at Matilda faintly.

Before he could as much as blink, Matilda was gone and in the very next moment, both girls were back, smiling up at him, his own kid widely and Dorothy very shyly.

„Hello, Dorothy,“ Ethan knelt down and smiled at her encouragingly. „I am Ethan. It is my pleasure to meet you, Matilda talks about you a lot.“

„Hello,“ Dorothy muttered, not meeting his eyes and Ethan noticed she was holding Matilda’s hand.

Without any other word, he stood up and led both girls to find an ice cream truck, only half-listening to what they were talking about – enough to recognize that Dorothy was much more open when talking to Matilda, but not enough to register particular words.

Maybe that’s why Matilda’s next question took him off the guard.

„Right, daddy? I was just telling Dorsey that you could be her dad, right? And I would be her sister!“

Ethan’s eyes widened and before he could find the right words – gentle but also firm enough to explain that that’s not exactly how these things work, Matilda spoke again.

„She could come over anytime and we could have sleepovers like the ones I have with uncle Bryce or grandpa and we would play together and I could borrow her my toys, right?“

Ethan nodded and smiled, of course Dorothy is always welcome to stay at our place, and let the topic go, because there was nothing wrong about his daughter having best friend that would come over.

Thirty minutes later, all three of them sat at the grass and ate their ice creams and it was easy to forget the previous converstaions.

*** *** ***

Until he came into his office, a week after the Father’s Day and found Chiara waiting for him, her arms crossed at her chest and her expression unusually stoic.

Before he could ask what was wrong, Chiara spoke.

„Matilda’s teacher just called.“

„What?“ Ethan stepped closer, automatically reaching into his pocket to make sure his phone, wallet and car keys are there and he is ready to leave and pick up Matilda at any moment. „Is something wrong? Is she in trouble? Sick?“

„She is absolutely alright,“ Chiara shook her head sligthly, her face unreadable – something that scared Ethan more than her visible anger. „She just called me to let me know about the rumors going around Matilda’s class these past few days. She thought it would be better if I found out from her rather than from other parents.“

„Rumors?“ Ethan asked, utterly lost and confused.

It took all the willpower Chiara had not to let her facade slip and keep her expression neutral. But teasing Ethan was one of her main hobbies, even after ten years, and so she tried her best.

„Apparently, Matilda and Dorothy Wilkins told everyone that they are in fact sisters. They have different mommies but the same dad – no other than the famous Dr. Ramsey,“ now, it was really hard not to laugh. Ethan’s whole face paled and the confusion was quickly replaced by recognition. „The other kids shared the news with their parents and now those parents talk.“

Ethan didn’t know that Matilda told Chiara about her idea of Ethan becoming Dorothy’s dad the very same evening she shared it with Ethan himself and even though Chiara tried to explain why that idea is not going to work the way the wished it would, Matilda was stubborn. Meaning, Matilda adopted Dorothy as her sister anyway and didn’t mind sharing her dad with her.

„Fuck,“ Ethan whispered, pacing around the office, not really looking up at Chiara.

If he did, he would catch her grinning.

She cleared her throat quickly and added: „Some of the parents came to tell the poor teacher that they appreciate how civil the mothers of Matilda and Dorothy are about the whole thing and that it must’ve taken much strength of our spirits to put out kids into same school.“

She couldn’t anymore. The first chuckle escaped her and when Ethan’s eyes met hers, the mischievous sparks were dancing on full display in her irises, her smile wide and so amused.

Ethan exhaled a sigh full of relief and rolled his eyes and when he looked at Chiara again, she was laughing softly, badly trying to cover her laugh with the hand over her mouth.

The bizarreness of the whole situation and his wife’s reaction made Ethan laugh too and he slumped down on the couch, pulling Chiara with him.

„We should give some kind of explanation, right?“ he whispered when they both calmed down.

„Oh, I don’t know. I am the civil one,“ Chiara smirked smugly. „And with a strong spirit!“

Ethan laughed again at that, thinking about how any kind of rumors about him and Chiara startled him in the beginning of their relationship and how over the years, Chiara managed to teach him to just let people talk.

„She really wants that sibling, huh?“ Chiara broke the silence, poking his side softly.

„Yes, she does,“ Ethan nodded.

„And you would...want that too, right?“ Chiara asked again, this time much more seriousness in her voice.

Both Chiara and Ethan were decided to adopt a child back in the days they believed they would never have their own. After Matilda was born, they didn’t really talk about it anymore – they felt too blessed, too lucky that they’ve gotten her and they were happy.

But the thoughts of adoption never truly left their heads and Chiara knew that especially Ethan considered the option often. She could see him talking to Matilda when she asked for a sister or a brother for her birthday, she saw the dreamy smile as they spoke about little kids.

And it was not like she was against the idea of adopting a child – quite the opposite. She grew up with two siblings and her brother and sister were one of the best parts of her childhood. She wished she could give Matilda the same feeling, the same love she recieved at her age. She just felt like she would be asking for too much, like it would be selfish to want another little human that would make them happy, when they already had one.

Those thoughts were not rational, but they were there and they slowed her decisions down.

„Yes, I would,“ Ethan nodded after a long while, looking straight into Chiara’s eyes.

He would never push her. But he wouldn’t lie either.

Chiara nodded and leaned in to press a soft kiss on Ethan’s mouth, pouring her emotions into it, her excitement with the idea just as strong as her anxiety.

Deep down, she knew that the decision has just been made. That no matter how openly they talked about it or expressed themselves, all three Ramseys wished to share their love and happiness with another soul.

#open heart #open heart choices #open heart fanfiction #ethan ramsey #ethan ramsey x mc #ethan x matilda

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zmediaoutlet · 4 years ago

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fic: there will be better days

I’m so glad about the ending of Supernatural. It found its way, in the end. This fic is me drawing out that sensation as long as I could. I hope y’all like it, but it was written in a small way for a special group in a special discord, because I’m so glad we got to experience this dumb happy thing together. <3

title: there will be better days pairing: Sam/Dean rating: E length: 9500 words tags: Post-Season/Series 15, Spoilers for Episode: s15e20 Carry On, Heaven, First Time, Pining Dean Winchester

summary: Sam and Dean settle into their heaven.

(read on AO3)

They stand on the bridge, in quiet, for…

How long? It doesn't matter. Dean keeps his hand on Sam's back and Sam's shoulder tucks against his side, Sam being kind enough to slump down against the railing so that the position works, at all. The view's beautiful. Some woods, a river. A place Dean doesn't recognize but that hums with steady life. What a miracle, that death can bring them something new.

He's splitting his attention, though. The trees, the flowing water, the late-summer feel where the bright gold of everything burnishes down toward fall, it's a sweet goad toward peace, but. Dean's eyes drag away, every few minutes, and it's just—Sam. His eyes steady on the rush of the receding water, and his hair tucked behind his ear, and his back, steadily rising and falling under Dean's hand. Not pulling away. Not fidgeting, or impatient. Like he'd be content with this, exactly this, as long as eternity stretches out in front of them.

A bird flits by, blue-and-white against the green of the trees. Sam's eyes follow it and he smiles, just barely, a pull of lips that makes Dean's heart thump sorely against the inside of his ribs. His body keeps thrilling, reminding him, over and over: Sam. Sam. He slides his hand up to Sam's shoulder and squeezes, and Sam's eyes slide to his face. "Ready?" he says.

Sam doesn't ask for what. "Yeah," he says, soft and easy, and Dean drops his head, laughs. Something that had been knotted in his chest, for years and years, loose now—everything in him, free.

He steps back, and Sam turns to keep him in sight. Dean spins the keys to the car in his palm, grinning. "You want to drive?" he says, tipping his head at the car.

Sam blinks. Shakes his head, and swallows, and when he speaks his voice is thick. "No," he says, and clears his throat, and shakes his head again. "No, I want you to drive."

On the road Dean gives Sam a version of the same explanation that Bobby gave him. "We can go see him," Dean says, glancing across the seat, and Sam smiles and says, "We will," but he says, "Later," and Dean's—yeah, he's good with that. Later. They have forever, to do anything they want.

It's hard to wrap his head around. He doesn't know how long he waited, for Sam. A lifetime. The length of a drive. It felt—feels—like infinity, like every second is stretched and slow and exactly as long as it needs to be. The roads out here are gorgeous, empty, room for the Impala to stretch her legs, and Dean knows in a strange and centered way that if he wanted he could drive forever, and at the same time if he parks it'll have been ten minutes, as far as his mind's concerned, and he won't have missed a thing.

The radio's playing Zeppelin, quietly. Has been since Sam got into the car. Tangerine, right now—does she still remember times like these?—and Dean looks over to find Sam looking right at him. Dean's not sure Sam's turned his head, the whole time. He could make a crack—it rises to his lips, take a picture or what, got something on my face?—but it feels distant. He gets the impulse. Sam smiles, his back against the passenger door, and Dean smiles back sort of helplessly before he turns it back out on the road, and leans back in his seat, and settles into the drive.

Anything they want. Anything they could need, or dream of. There doesn't seem to be any real requirement to sleep, or to eat, or to do—anything. Time, slipping strange, and a stasis of a kind if they want it. That isn't what Dean wants, but he's not totally sure, about Sam.

The world changes around curves. Massive trees obscure the turns and it feels like a new road with every switchback. A short way past and there's—a house. Not a house Dean's seen, but he rolls slower, and Sam finally looks out the window at something that's not Dean, so—a house. Okay, Dean thinks. He can deal with a house.

Two stories, and a basement, and an attic full of dust. Dean goes into a sneezing fit when he opens up the hatch and Sam sniggers at him. It's not perfect, by any means. There's a sagging porch, and the sink in the first floor bathroom doesn't work, and there's some seriously fugly wallpaper that's peeling, and a stained carpet in the rear bedroom that, yikes, did something die on it? Would that even be possible? But Sam says, "This'll work," with content in his voice, and Dean looks around and tongues the inside of his cheek and thinks, well, yeah. This'll work fine.

There's food in the fridge, when Dean opens it. "I'll fix something," Sam says, and Dean looks at him in total surprise. A lifted shoulder, like Sam's been able to make anything other than eggs and bacon and bad, bad pasta his whole life. "What? I learned."

He did. They have chicken, roasted broccoli that Dean admit doesn't taste entirely like farts, these crispy potatoes that are—well, goddamn. There's not a dining table and so they sit out on the porch, a six pack of cold beer between them, watching the night settle in. It's cool but not cold. The lamp on the porch flickers, and Dean smiles, because he's damn sure that's not a ghost and instead that he's gonna have to rip out the wiring and start fresh.

Sam leaves his empty plate on the step behind them. He leans his elbows on his knees, and looks out at the darkening sky. The treetops are shadows against deep purple and Dean wants, very badly, to put his hand in Sam's hair, to feel his neck, his back. To settle himself against the fact of Sam's spine, his ribs and lungs, all of him here. Breathing, and here. "You learned to cook, huh," he says, instead of doing anything else, and gets to watch Sam turn his head, just a little. He's still wearing the same clothes he showed up in. Strange things, that tug a little at something Dean feels like he used to know. Sam turns his head but he doesn't look at Dean; Dean just gets his three-quarter profile, and the shape of his mouth turned a little solemn, and his eyes as they flick over the view of the dark, surrounding trees.

"Yeah, I did," Sam says, after too long. "I…"

That's all, for a few minutes. Dean puts his plate down, too (mostly clean, other than some broccoli he's not gonna be forced to eat), and shifts down one more step so they're sat right next to each other, and presses his knee against Sam's. Sam looks at their knees instead of at him.

"I wanna hear everything," Dean says. He reaches and gets Sam's hand, and squeezes it, and Sam's eyes close. Shit he wouldn't have done before, but hell—he's dead, he gets to. "Everything. Okay? Every—dumbass repair you screwed up on the car, and if you took Chinese lessons at a community college, and who won the World Series, okay, because I remember, we had a bet, and I need to know if I owe you or you owe me."

Sam swallows. "Jesus," he says, under his breath, and then laughs, a little. "Jesus, we did have a bet. That was—uh, that year it was the Dodgers." He swallows again, and when he opens his eyes they're wet, and a tear rolls down very slowly, against the crease of his nose, and his mouth hitches up at the side in a piled-up dimpling fold, and his chin creases, and Dean squeezes his hand very tightly. "Dodgers. But I can't remember which way you bet."

God, Sam. Dean knocks their shoulders together and lies: "Damn, I bet they were gonna lose. How's that figure, huh? I go down and my team does all in the same year? Shitty luck." Sam shudders out another laugh, wet, and nods, looking down at their clasped hands. "Guess I owe you, Sammy. Whatever you want, okay? Figure, we got time up here. I can figure it out."

Sam's chin is still shaking. A tear falls onto the back of Dean's hand, shockingly hot. Sam takes a deep breath. "I'll think of something," he says, when he can get his teeth out of his lip. Their knees grind together, close enough that Dean might get a bruise, if there's still such a thing as bruising. Sam sniffs, hard. He always was a sloppy crier. He looks at Dean a little sidelong, and smiles kind of embarrassed. Like Dean isn't an inch from losing it himself. "I kinda—I watched a lot of soccer."

Dean rolls his eyes, theatrical, and releases Sam's hand. "Of course you did," he says, layering on the disgust, and it's enough that Sam snorts and dashes his hand over his face, and when Dean gathers up their plates Sam's enough together that he can repeat his old dumb argument that there's a lot of strategy to find interesting in soccer, and anyway over the years the U.S. got better so it wasn't even really like rooting for foreign teams. Dean brushes it off, like he always did, and the argument's dumb but it feels—right. Something locking in, something solid. He washes the plates by hand in the sink and Sam dries them, and stacks them in the rickety cupboard Dean's definitely going to build a replacement for, and then he braces his hands on the countertop and closes his eyes again and breathes, slow. Calm, now, but still something built up inside that Dean doesn't know.

It doesn't bug him, like it might have, before. Dean chews his lip, and drains the sink, and tosses the dishrag over the faucet to dry, and says, neutral, "Hey." Sam makes a small noise, so he's not in some other universe. "Just—one thing. How long?" Sam turns his head, looks at Dean, and Dean lifts a shoulder. "It's—with how the time works, up here, I got no idea. How long was it, for you?"

He looks the same, is the thing. The same as he did when Dean was standing there, in the dark, with that strange numbness everywhere south of his spine and a stillness creeping up in his heart. The terror of that moment has already faded but the rest of the feeling is right there—looking at Sam and loving every single part of him. Pinning him into memory, exactly as he was, with his goddamn stupid haircut and his wide mouth. A few greys, at his temples. His body, lean-but-muscled, trim from running. His eyes, beautiful, even as panicked as they were, even as he told Dean that it was okay.

It wasn't. Dean knows that, now. Sam's cheek sucks in, on one side. "I was 68," he says. Dean feels the air go out of himself, a little. That's—jesus. Sam doesn't look sad about it. Not exactly. He slides his hands into his jacket pockets, tipping his head. "I was—I was in bed. It wasn't bad."

Dean bites the corner of his mouth. "Guess that makes you the older brother, then, huh?"

Sam smiles, just a little. "No," he says, and doesn't elaborate more than that.

There are two bedrooms, upstairs. That first night they sleep in the living room, watching old movies on an old TV, Dean in a recliner that's ridiculously comfortable when he kicks the footrest out and Sam on the couch. He wakes up at dawn to Sam still sleeping, his arms folded around a pillow like he always used to do, still in that old jacket, that hooded sweater bunched up and twisted around his waist. Dean recognizes it, now. He dreamed it. His heart feels like it can hardly take knowing, but there it is, anyway. His face is soft, sleeping, and Dean gets up with his back aching just a little—turns out that there are still aches—and he crouches down, and he settles his hand on Sam's jaw, and runs his thumb over the sharp-angled turn of his cheekbone. Sam opens his eyes, slow but not like he was even really asleep, and he looks at Dean looking at him, and Dean just—it's enough. If it was just this, for eternity and past it, that would be—that'd be good.

There's a library, in the house. A small office kind of room, off the kitchen, but Sam says the books change, when he goes in and out, so it stays fresh. The fridge always seems to have something in it. There's always gas, in the car, although sometimes little things need fixing, and in the garage there are things that Dean can use to fix it, so he gets to spend afternoons contented under the big black bulk, while Sam hands him things from the toolbox, and is distracted half the time from reading so that he hands Dean the 3/8s wrench instead of the 5/8s wrench, but that gives Dean an opportunity rag on him so it works out, either way.

"Mom and Dad are here," Dean says, one day. He's doing the wiring, on the porch. As good a place to start as any. Sam's helping, kind of—actual electric work apparently wasn't one of the things he learned, over the years. "They've got a house, Bobby said."

"That's great," Sam says, and when Dean looks down he looks like he means it, soft smile and all, but Sam doesn't suggest they visit, and Dean thinks—well, later's still always on the table. They haven't gone anywhere, really, except for drives sometimes through the mountain roads, and Sam's gone for his runs in the early dawn before Dean wakes up, and Dean's found on a path through the trees a good creek, where he's fished with Sam mostly ignoring him, reading again in a lawnchair with his bare feet kicked out into the soft grass, but still paying just enough attention to smirk behind his book when Dean doesn't catch anything.

They don't really stay apart for more than the time it takes to leave a room and come back. Even with those runs, Dean only knows they happened because as he's waking up Sam comes back with sweat in his hair, and Dean gets to make fun of him for stinking up the place before Sam rolls his eyes and clatters into the bathroom to turn on the creaking ancient shower, and he leaves the door open when he does so Dean can hear the water running, and the splashing, and how Sam's apparently started to hum. He doesn't sing, but Dean recognizes the tunes anyway. When Sam comes out Dean has breakfast ready—they take turns on dinner, but for some reason Sam doesn't like to make breakfast, anymore—and they eat, and then there's some project to do or a movie to watch or a book to finish, and—Sam's right there, solidly content. Like he's making up for lost time, and taking his sweet time in doing so.

Whisky, one night. In the cupboard. It's good—some Scottish blend Crowley had left in the bunker, once, sharp and sweet and rolling smoke down the throat—and they're out on the porch again, on the new bench this time, watching the sunset come down. Sam's mostly holding his glass, rather than drinking, but he looks okay. Head leaned back against the wall, and his shoulders relaxed, broad and strong. He doesn't seem to mind that Dean watches him as much as he does the sky, but he's looking thoughtful, and finally Dean says, "Tell me." Sam rolls his head against the wall, and meets Dean's eyes. "It's been on your mind, all day. Spit it out, man."

The corner of Sam's mouth lifts. "You would've made a good therapist, you know that?" he says. Dean raises his eyebrows. "I've been… I had a son."

Dean's jaw drops. "That's—" he starts, and his brain doesn't supply anything else. Shock—bewilderment—joy, and it's the joy that wins out, and he punches Sam in the shoulder and says, "Frickin' mazel tov, dude! That's—what was his name?"

"Ow," Sam says, half-laughing, clutching his arm. "What do you think? I named him after you."

"Great choice, pick the handsome brother," Dean says, nearly automatic, and Sam rolls his eyes like he's supposed to, but Dean's still spinning through it, taking it in. Sam—with a little boy—and Dean wants to know everything, everything, but Sam's gone from content to content-but-pensive, and Dean makes fun of him for going emo a lot, but this is… "He a good kid? Doing the name proud?"

"Yeah, he is," Sam says. He huffs, after a second, like he's remembering something—some memory that Dean doesn't share. There's been a lot of that, really, although Dean's not sure Sam notices when it happens. "You'd hate his taste in music, though. And he drives an electric car."

"Heathen," Dean says, and Sam raises his hands in surrender, and then leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. Dean looks at his back, broad in the grey t-shirt. He sips at his scotch. "We could—probably see him. I'd like to meet him. And you must…" Miss him, is what he wants to say, except that his heart seems to catch up to what it means, what Sam's saying. That he had a boy, a kid, and he was old enough to drive and have shitty taste in music, and it was a whole life—that the kid had a mother, and Sam had a world separate to this one, and of course Dean knew that and Dean always wanted that for him, and that was true, that wasn't ever a lie no matter what else Dean felt, deep inside where he never, ever intended for it to matter, but. Dean misses Jack, sometimes, in a soft sore way—misses Ben, even, when that pain's far-distant and not even truly his to feel—but what Sam's going through, that's different, and Dean doesn't know how to touch it.

Sam shakes his head, though. "I do," he says, answering what Dean couldn't say out loud. "But I—no, I don't want to see him. Not yet. He's living, and I think—I hope he's doing the best he can. I was kind of an old dad. Old-fashioned maybe, too, but I taught him right, I think, and he'll be okay. I want to just—let him live. In my head. You know? And later, when he's finally—god, he'd better be really old—then. I'd want to see him then."

Dean gets it, and doesn't. He's not sure he could've waited another minute for Sam, if he'd been forced to. He picks up Sam's glass, abandoned on the bench between them, and holds it forward. Sam takes it, and accepts Dean's clink when it's offered. "To Dean," he says, and Sam huffs and gives him a slanted look back over his shoulder, but he nods, and repeats it, and they finish the bottle between them that night.

Funny, that they ended up in the mountains. Kansas was all flat prairie and farmland and endless horizons, and Dad used to joke sometimes when they'd drive across the country's flat middle that you could roll a marble all the way from Abilene to Lincoln and the only way it'd stop is if someone picked it up. Up here it feels—different. With the hills, and the trees. Like they could be hemmed in, if they were feeling bad about it, but instead it just feels like shelter. A place of their own. A place to make their own.

Sam left the bunker, he says, one day. A fishing day, when Dean's got his cooler full of cheap beer and Sam's working on yet another friggin' book, though this time he's at least enjoying the cool air, watching the birds and the river more than he's got his nose in some old dude's ancient wisdom. "Couldn't stay," he says, and Dean—yeah. That makes sense.

Little revelations, now and then. Sam doesn't seem to be in a hurry to tell them, but he doesn't seem to feel bad about them, either. Like they're sorrows mostly dealt with, or details that don't matter in the grand scheme. Dean never had a place, when Sam was gone from him, but even the car—he couldn't drive it, when Sam wasn't there in the passenger seat beside him. He gets how the bunker could've been less a shelter than a prison, when the halls were empty, and the silence got too thick. "I left it to him," Sam says, after a little while. He tucks his bookmark into his spot, tucks the book under his arms. Dean's just holding onto the fishing pole at this point, barely paying attention to the line, but Sam's watching it for the both of them. "I didn't—take him there, ever, but I told him about hunting, about the job, and I left a letter. Explaining it all, with the key and everything. It's there if he wants it."

"Good," Dean says. Sam glances at him. "Someone should use it. He's a legacy, too."

"Yeah, he is," Sam says, and it's quiet for some reason, and then he nods down at the creek. "You're getting a bite, dude—" and oh damn it, see, this is why Sam's a distraction on fishing trips, and Dean fumbles the rod and cusses at his brother and Sam just laughs, and the afternoon's easy, and Dean finally does get a damn fish and brings it home and considers leaving the guts under Sam's pillow, but instead he fries it up with dill and cornmeal and Sam makes nearly orgasmic noises, eating out on the porch because Dean still hasn't built them a table, and Dean says, "Jeez, dude, get a room," and his ears are pink but—he's happy. Sam's happy. That's been the only goal, this whole damn time. A falling-down house in the mountains, with the two of them totally alone, turns out to be as good a place to be happy as any. Go figure, Dean thinks, watching Sam suck his fingers and then turn his eyes hopefully toward the kitchen for more.

A drive. There's a road that snakes up high, ending in an empty lookout point, and Sam convinces Dean to come further—a hike, up to the very top of the mountain, where the trees start to thin and there's a view like—

"Holy shit," Dean says, when he heaves himself up over that last friggin' boulder, and Sam says, "Right?"

A vastness. The forest is thick and the sky's this clear, depthless blue, and the valleys and hills spread out in front of them untouched. Like they're really the only people in all of heaven, nothing but them and the trees and the house. Sam stands with his hands on his hips, looking out, looking like a damn model for that weird orange hiking jacket he's wearing, and Dean sits down on a handy flat rock and feels the sun on his back, takes it in. "You know, I thought the memory thing would've been okay, honestly," Dean says. Sam glances back at him. Instantly knows what Dean means, from the way he's furrowing his massive forehead in disbelief. "I mean, maybe it would've gotten boring, I don't know. Stuck on our hamster wheels forever. But there was good stuff, in there, and we—I mean. We would've been together. Right?"

It had been brutally painful, at the time, but in later years Dean had thought about it. Approached it cautious, like something that would break if he touched it. Soulmates, he thinks, now, deliberate inside his own head, and Sam smiles, like somehow he heard it. "Yeah, I guess so," he says. He tips his head. "Could've watched that memory of you turfing it into the pasture on that wraith hunt about a hundred times, I think."

Dean raises his eyebrows, says, "Ha," while Sam grins at him, but then Sam looks back out at the view. "Would've been some choice ones of you, too, you know," he says, but then shakes his head, even if Sam's not looking anymore. "This is—better, though. Glad Jack did it like this."

"And Cas," Sam says, and, yeah. Cas.

Dean takes a deep breath. He hasn't gone there, in his head, really. Castiel, free of the death he'd cursed himself to, free of darkness. Dean drags his hand over his stubble, remembering. The dark, reaching out. He looks out at the clear, bright day. "He was in love with me," he says.

Sam turns his head, but Dean's focused on the trees—past them—through to that day. All the time after, Dean never said anything about it, out loud or even in his head. They hadn't had a body to burn, and Sam hadn't asked questions, careful and kind in that way Sam had learned to be once he was older, and it had been an old bruise, unhealed, that Dean didn't like to press on because what was the point? It doesn't hurt now, but it's…

"He told you?" Sam says, and Dean nods. A pause, again, and Sam comes and sits down on the rock, too. His hands are clasped between his knees and Dean looks at them instead of the trees. Broad and tan, and big, and calm like everything in Sam is calm, now. "And you didn't know?"

Dean looks up, sharply. "Did you?"

Sam's mouth tilts. "I wondered," he says, and Dean huffs, leans back on his hands, looks up at the clear sky. A breeze, just chilly enough that he's glad of his jacket. Sam shifts, beside him. "Did you want to see him?"

It's asked—a little careful. Like Sam doesn't want to influence him either way. Dean imagines it—praying, and saying—what? He doesn't answer, and Sam doesn't press him, and they sit there for a while, in quiet, with the breeze bringing the smell of the trees.

"I didn't marry her," Sam says, after a while. Dean lifts his head—another revelation. Sam's slowly rubbing his thumbs back and forth, a dry chafing, looking out at something Dean can't see. "She was a really good person. Good mother. I wore a ring so people wouldn't ask questions, but I—I think she would've said yes, if I'd asked, but I didn't ask. She moved across town, when Dean was ten. We got along fine—hooked up a few times, even, after we split, but it just…"

"Never came together?" Dean offers, when the pause has gone too long, and Sam lifts a shoulder, his mouth curling wry as he looks at Dean. "I know the feeling."

Maybe it was some cruelty of Chuck's. To make it impossible for anything else to feel true. Dean tips his leg out so it touches Sam's, and Sam huffs, and touches Dean's knee, and the heat of him sinks right through the denim before he pushes to his feet, and offers a hand to help Dean up, too. They walk back down the trail, back to where Dean parked the car, and they drive down the winding roads with sunset spilling through the valleys behind them, and when Dean parks in front of the house the porch light's on like they left it, and Sam's getting out and saying something about maybe burgers, for dinner, and he'll make potato salad if Dean'll take care of the cooking, and Dean has to pause, with his heart suddenly thick and full in his chest, and thinks—well, if it was intended to be a punishment, then shit if Chuck didn't get it wrong.

They have burgers, and potato salad. Sam doesn't put in enough mayo and Dean tells him so. They watch The Right Stuff, and Sam listens mostly patiently to Dean filling in all the extra details about the astronauts before he tells Dean that he's a nerd, and Dean says, "Oh, if anyone's the nerd—" and they bicker, and wash the dishes, and Sam's beautiful, is the thing. Beautiful. Whole and healthy and content, in the lamplight in the house they're building. Beautiful his whole life, from when he was a little kid and Dean was wiping his snot-nose with the edge of his t-shirt to when he was a bitchy asshole of a teenager to when he was a high-handed and distant adult to when he was just—Dean's brother, paying him half-attention in the mornings, getting all his jokes, being bossy and being kind and being himself, and himself is all Dean ever wanted him to be.

Sam picks up one of the endless books that he's left on the kitchen counter. "You going to keep watching old nerd movies?" he says, a dimple tucked into his cheek.

Dean's chest feels somehow tight and full of molten gold, all at once. "Sammy," he says, and Sam hears the change in his voice, and blinks at him. Dean knows what Cas had meant, those years ago. How it could feel so entirely perfect, just to hold it like this, under your heart. To acknowledge it and know it for true. "You're it, for me. You know that, right?"

A slight tightening, around his eyes. He searches Dean's face but Dean—he doesn't know what expression he's wearing. It hardly matters.

"Our whole lives. I never—there wasn't ever really an option, for something else, but I don't think I ever even really wanted something else. Ever since I was little. It was you and me in my head, no matter how I thought about the future. I wanted you to have more but I never pictured anything else for me, not really. Even when I got the chance. Never came together, you know? But I don't think I wanted it to. All I wanted was you." Sam's lips have parted. Confusion there, but concern too, and Dean smiles at him. "I guess this sounds—this isn't like a goodbye or anything, or a… I don't know. I just… wanted you to know. In case you hadn't guessed."

Sam lays his hand on the counter, like he's looking for something steady. "Dean," he says, and then doesn't seem to know how to follow it up.

Dean shakes his head. "Didn't mean to drop a bomb on you," he says, and it's that loose knot again, an untangled free thing. Easy, when this had never, ever been easy. When he'd died for it, and lived through way worse than dying. Here, looking at Sam's expression—shock but also not quite shock—his other hand still clutched around his book—it feels like nothing but right. He smiles, looking at Sam's eyes. "After the life we had, man, this is the cherry on top. I don't need anything more than this."

He goes to bed. Sam's still standing there, in the kitchen, when he does.

Time moves more because they expect it to than because of any rules. Sam's been studying it, sort of, out of curiosity more than anything else, and he says he thinks that if they wanted it to be it could be about two pm in a warm July forever. Dean's noticed, even if he doesn't much care. How long have they been here, and still it's those last days of summer creeping into autumn, where it's cool in the shade and the sun's warm, and it doesn't snow, and if it rains it's just for long enough to make the house feel cozy and right, and then when the sun comes out again the world's washed-new, and he doesn't have to dig his car out of the mud.

It's raining the next morning, and Dean lays in bed with the covers pulled up around his shoulders and enjoys it, knowing there's nowhere to go. His room is his room only because it's the bed he picked, with the north-facing window and the view of the car, if he wants to glance down and see it; they leave their doors open, almost all the time, and they hardly have possessions that need keeping anywhere. He lifts up on an elbow after a while, and looks over the foot of the bed down the hall, and on the opposite end by the stairs Sam's door is open and he's a solid lump, in his bed, still snoozing through the rain, and Dean's heart folds up in his chest, looking. It tends to do that.

He goes through some morning things. Making the coffee, and sipping at a cup while he eats a slice of toast. He goes into the library and picks something off the shelf, and carries it back upstairs, and then it's the solitary, strange contentment of a morning crap (the door closes for that at least, and he'd wondered why that was something that stuck around in heaven until he experienced the weird peace of an unhurried morning), and then a coffee refill, and then it's still raining and he thinks—yeah, back to bed, crawling in with his coffee and his book, his back to the headboard, the house warm, the sifting rain outside nothing but soothing.

"Hey," he hears, and looks up.

Sam—oh. In his flannel pants and one of those v-neck sleeping shirts, black this time, his hair rumpled, leaning in his doorway. He closes his book and lets it fall down by his leg. Sam's eyes follow it, with a small frown.

"You really went for the beauty sleep, huh?" Dean says, as though the clock means anything. Even in heaven, he feels weird when Sam catches him reading. In that time in the bunker—after Jack disappeared—he'd started again, like he used to when he was in his twenties. Dumb stuff, nothing like what Sam would pick, but he liked the stories. Sam's never made fun of him for it, but he still—well, still.

Sam's still looking at the book but the silence has stretched, with the patter of the rain filling the space between. "I stayed awake for a long time, last night," he says, finally. "Thinking about stuff. What you said. Other things, too."

He seems okay. Not bitter, or angry, or even particularly stressed about it. Still, "Sorry," Dean says.

Sam shakes his head, and looks up at Dean's face. "Don't be sorry." He pushes a hand through his hair, sort-of smiles. "Figures, you wouldn't say anything until you knew I was a sure thing."

Dean snorts. He moves the book over to his bedside table, leaves it with his empty coffee mug. He pulls his knees up under the blanket, making room, and Sam comes and sits at the foot of the bed, one knee pulled up onto the mattress, looking at Dean steady and—and okay. They're okay.

"I had a dream last night," Sam says, finally. Dean nods—the dreams come pretty steadily, up here. Never nightmares, just invention, and memory recontextualized. "It was about… when Azazel had Dad. You remember that? Forever ago. All I wanted was to kill him. All you wanted was for us to be together. Remember?"

Of course, Dean remembers. The way he'd dragged Sam away from another fire. Sam looking at him with almost-pity, when he'd finally admitted what he wanted.

There's not a trace of pity in him, now. He pulls his knee up against his chest, comfortable. "You know, I thought about it," Sam says. "After you were gone. How everything felt—incomplete. Half-a-loaf. Even…" He shakes his head, and Dean wonders what goes there. He'll find out someday. "We were always breaking the world for each other. Normal siblings don't really do that. I don't know if you realized."

"I bet Mary-Kate and Ashley would give it a shot," Dean says, and Sam smiles at him, but rolls his eyes, too. "Sam—"

"I wondered," Sam interrupts. He lifts his eyebrows, a little, and Dean hears it as the echo it's meant to be. Despite everything he can feel his cheeks going pink. "If it wasn't just that we couldn't find something that was better, but that we never would. If you'd…"

He trails off. Dean picks at the blue yarn-ties on his blanket, watching Sam's face. Turned now, toward the rain outside, lit beautiful with morning. "I wouldn't have said anything," he says. Sure, somehow. "Even if we'd had—hell. Another decade, just you and me. When I said this was enough, I meant it."

"I know you did," Sam says. "And I know you wouldn't have. Because you wouldn't have wanted to ruin anything for me, right? If I had some outside shot—some kind of normal I might've dug up?" Dean nods. Sam nods, too, and then reaches out and flicks his knee through the blanket, hard it enough that it nearly stings. Dean claps his hand over the spot and smacks Sam's hand away, but Sam's already retreating, hands up, smiling. "Truce, truce. Just saying. I wouldn't have tried for anything, if you'd been there. It would've just been me and you and the dog."

The dog. "Did he—" Dean says, distracted, and Sam says, "Old and kinda fat, and happy as he could be."

Sam's just looking at him, along the length of the bed. "Sammy," Dean says, and chews his cheek for a minute. Sam's patient. "I know it wasn't easy, that I was gone. But I'm still glad you got that shot. Glad I didn't ruin it."

"You didn't—" Sam starts, and then closes his mouth. He smiles at Dean with his lips closed, and then breathes out slow through his nose. "I'm glad you're glad," he says, instead, and maybe that's all the compromise they'll ever get, on the subject. Dean's not sure Sam gets it, smart as he is. That Dean would've always wondered. That there would've been some horizon, distant and gold, that Sam might've always looked to, and imagined something different.

The rain's slacking, outside. Sam looks out the window again, at how the sun's drawing out, the light changing. "Do you want to try to figure out the cabinets today?" he says.

God, Dean loves him. "You can work the band saw," Dean promises, and Sam rolls his eyes again, and stands up, and says, "Let me shower first, before all the excitement," and Dean watches him step into the hall and then into the bathroom and hears the shower come on, through the open door, and he thinks it'll be a good day. Inevitable argument over what color to stain the cabinet doors notwithstanding.

It sits between them. Dean didn't feel tense about it but saying it aloud nevertheless makes him feel almost weightless. He knows that Sam's thinking about the conversation—going over past conversations, and things they've done, and choices they've made, over and over, because Sam's an egghead who had to puzzle things out forever before he can come to some kind of peace with them—but that's okay. They're still together and nothing's ruined, and the house comes along. They work on the kitchen for a while, Sam pulling down the horrible wallpaper while Dean does the woodwork, and there's a week nearly where they build a fire outside every night and dinner's what they can rig up over the flames—hotdogs, and kebabs, and mac and cheese even that gets a weird smoky flavor to it, and honestly it's about the best version Dean's ever had.

When Sam starts talking he comes at it obliquely. They're watching a movie—Moonraker, just as dumb and wonderful as Dean remembered it—and right over the top of the scene where Jaws is whaling on the guards, Sam says, "I didn't sleep with anyone for almost fifteen years."

"Makes sense, your game is terrible," Dean says, and grins when Sam sighs. "What do you mean? After the breakup with—"

Sam still hasn't said her name. "It just didn't…" Sam shrugs. "It wasn't important somehow."

"Plus you would've thrown your back out," Dean says.

"Yeah," Sam says, dry. "Plus that." A pause, while they both watch the end of the fight. Roger Moore was a way better Bond than people gave him credit for, Dean's always thought. "How long for you?" Dean makes a sound. "Before… You used to brag about it, you know? But you didn't come home bragging for a long time."

"You trying to get me to say just looking at your goofy mug every morning was enough?" Dean tips his head on the couch to find Sam raising his eyebrows, actually surprised. "Hah. Well, it was."

"Seriously?" Sam says.

Dean shrugs, not sure why it's coming as a shock. He doesn't actually remember himself, even though it's closer in memory for him, when he last had that urge—to just go for a hookup, to let off nervous energy. On the screen, Bond's punching someone, and Holly Goodhead's in trouble. "No need to try to fix what ain't broke, as they say," Dean says, and he can tell Sam watches his face for a while before Sam turns his attention back to the movie.

Later: Dean's peeled back the scary carpet and it turns out there's good wood flooring underneath. Go figure. He's trying to decide whether he wants to cut it out in pieces or roll the whole thing up and see if he can get Sam to carry it. Sam brings him a cup of coffee, while he's standing in the doorway to the bedroom and frowning, and then says, "I never thought about being with a guy."

Dean slops the coffee, a little. Good thing he's tearing out the carpet either way. "Uh, okay."

The corner of Sam's mouth tugs up. "It just never occurred to me," he says. "Not really."

Dean takes a sip from his mug. Even in heaven Sam manages to screw it up, somehow—this time, way too strong like he used three times the amount of grounds needed—but it's Sam's coffee, and Dean's so damn gone for him that he's fond of the sludge, too.

Apparently he's been silent too long. Sam tips his head, leaning against the doorframe, opens his mouth and closes it again.

"Do you really want to know?" Dean says, after a minute. He'd answer, he thinks. If Sam asked. What would be the point of keeping it secret, after all, with what they both already know?

"I think you just told me," Sam says, quiet, but shakes his head, and then jerks his chin at the carpet. "If you think I'm carrying that whole thing downstairs you're insane."

"Worth a shot," Dean says, and they put it away, for another day.

Later: they're painting, in the hall between the kitchen and the living room, and it was a long bickering session to come up with the color but Dean thinks that Sam was really arguing just to argue and not because he cared, at all. It smells like paint, which in theory is unpleasant but which really Dean's always kind of enjoyed—because it means there's a project being done, and progress being made, and that always settles something, in his bones—and Sam's got a full on handprint of slate blue on his ass that Dean thinks somehow he still hasn't noticed, and which should cause some entertainment when he does—and Sam says, standing back and squinting at his edging work, "How did you know?" Dean grunts, not following for once. His brush needs to be cleaned. Sam reaches up and fixes a line, carefully swiping blue away from the ceiling, and says, "About us. When did you know?"

Dean pauses, fingers all tangled with the brush in the murky water. Sam's frowning up at the ceiling, patiently doing his part. That's a question he never really asked himself, and he doesn't know the answer. Too easy to say always, even if sometimes that feels like the truth. November 1983 is another answer, but of course that's wrong, too. From the first time Sam smiled at him. From the first time he guided Sam's hands around a gun and helped him pull the trigger, and they nailed that empty Coke can like it was a vamp, at thirty paces. From the day Sam left, at that shitty house in Utah, and Dean stood in the dark street with his heart bleeding out 'til it was empty. From the night Sam died, and Dean knelt in the dirt with him and understood how it felt to die, too, and yet still be forced to stand up and keep living, and to have his whole body reject it, everything in him knowing: no.

Sam crouches down by him, and nudges Dean out of the way, so he can clean his own brush. "I didn't get it, I don't think," Sam says, when Dean hasn't responded. He riffles his fingers through the bristles, blue blooming up so that Dean can't see his skin. "Not for… Man, I don't know. It might've been when I thought we were going to lose you to Amara. Maybe earlier." He draws his brush out of the water and squeezes the wet out, and Dean watches his hands, like he does so much of the time. Capable and square-palmed and long-fingered. Blue paint stuck under his fingernails. He rests his brush on the side of their paint tray and his hands lace loosely between his knees, where he's still right there, inches from Dean. "Wish it hadn't took me so long."

Dean looks at him. Sam's looking back, not really smiling but with his face soft. He stands up, after a few seconds, and from Dean's crouching vantage Sam looks impossibly tall. "C'mon," he says, easy. "Let's finish this up. I want to watch you fail at fishing at some point today."

Later—

There's no real time, and therefore it's no particular day. Days have passed and yet the days are still gold, and beautiful. Sam goes for a run, and comes back, and they have breakfast, and they shower, and it rains briefly midday and so Sam reads in the armchair while Dean watches a movie—Godfather II, and he tells Sam he's a barbarian for reading through it, but Sam calmly ignores him like he always does—and then the rain stops, and Dean thinks, maybe a drive, and so they go for a drive, with the late afternoon sun pouring down. They park, in front of the house, and Dean gets out, and he's thinking about dinner—Sam's turn to cook, but Dean wants steak and Sam's never actually gotten the hang of steak—and Sam says, "Hey," and so Dean turns, and there with the driver door still open on the car, Sam steps up close to him, and takes Dean's face in his hands.

Dean's heart thuds slow, in the base of his throat. Sam's been this close before but he hasn't had quite that look in his eye. He stands still, waiting, and Sam's mouth twitches into a quick smile, like he's had some funny thought that he'll share with Dean, later—and Sam leans down, and when their mouths press together it's...

Sam pulls back, after not long enough. "Is that okay?" he says.

Really asking. Dean's holding Sam's forearms, his lips warm. "You're supposed to be the smart one," he says, and his voice comes out raw. "You figure it out."

His eyes are closed. Sam laughs, softly, and Dean takes a breath, and then there's Sam's mouth, again, soft but insistent, just the right amount of pressure. Sam's very good at this. Who knew. Dean's hand slides to Sam's chest and he parts his lips, and Sam takes the invitation as it's given, licking just barely inside. They're both unshaven but the scratch of Sam's chin feels good. Sam's nose brushes his. Dean pulls back, and tilts so their foreheads are touching, and there's an infinite universe of time around them and he could just stay—here. Right here, with Sam's breath mingling with his, and Sam's hand on his face.

Once they've started, though, Sam doesn't seem to feel the need to stop. "Bed?" he says, quiet, and Dean nods, and then—Sam's room, with the sun coming in the window and the thick blue blanket soft under Dean's hand. Sam sits beside him and leans in and they kiss—again—for ages, Dean's arm around Sam's neck and no sound but their lips meeting and parting, and the breeze soughing against the house.

Sam's—happy. That's the only thing Dean can think, over and over, his heart thrilling for it. "Is it weird?" Dean says, at one point, and Sam touches his cheek with two fingers, and drags them soft along Dean's stubble to his jaw, to his chin, and shakes his head and then laughs and says, "Yeah, but who cares about weird," and Dean says, fervently, "Not me," and Sam laughs again and presses him down to the bed and kisses him, again, and again.

Clothes go away, slowly. Boots, and jackets, and Dean pushes Sam a little upright and unbuttons his shirt, careful, while Sam watches his face. "Do you know what you want?" Dean says, not pushing either way. When the shirt's open he spreads his hands on Sam's chest—god, even through the undershirt, it's—but Sam's shaking his head, and Dean tries to focus, even if focus seems a billion miles from here. "And you never…"

But no, because Sam told him. Sam lays his palm on Dean's stomach, warm. "What did you want?" Sam says. Gentle almost. "The first time you—when you thought about it. What did you picture?"

"Who says I pictured anything?" Dean says, and Sam just smiles at him, and, yeah, okay. So Sam knows him better than anyone. So what.

Naked, Sam is… It's not like Dean never saw it before, but he never let himself look, like he's looking now. Never with the sense of right, that he feels now. Sam's looking right back, which somehow comes a surprise. Dean lets Sam tug off his jeans, his boxers, and he's left on his back on the bed, and Sam stands there and his eyes go all over—from Dean's chest to his dick to his feet, for some reason—and Dean feels himself flushing, but it's more because—

"I didn't think it'd be like this," Sam says, and yeah. Yeah, that's it. Sam's flushed, too, a little red come into the hollows of his cheeks. His dick's half-hard, swinging heavy against his thigh, and Dean wants it. Wants Sam. It should be complicated but it isn't. He spreads his legs, and Sam kneels on the bed and then fits himself there, so Dean's thighs can slide against Sam's, and there's the warm glance of his belly, and his chest against Dean's, and how his nose brushes Dean's cheek and how his hair falls forward, and the dense familiar physicality of him. How he's Dean's brother and how he's—everything, everything else that ever mattered.

They rub together, kissing. Sam's fingers find his nipple and play with it, slow and insistent. Sam's hard, thick, pressing into the crease of Dean's thigh, and Dean nudges under Sam's jaw, kisses his throat, drags his thumb down between Sam's pecs. "Do you want to," he says, against Sam's skin, and Sam's hand cups over the back of his head and he doesn't have to say anything for Dean to know.

There's lube, in Sam's bedside table. Dean laughs, while Sam blinks surprise at it. This perfect house. He pulls Sam in close again, and he doesn't think it'll take much—hell, they might not even have to bother—but he wants it, like this is a first time they might have had, some perfect day that never existed on earth. He drizzles the lube over Sam's fingers and Sam knows what to do, reaching below, and Dean spreads his legs wide and sinks into the pillow, into how it feels. "Do you like it?" Sam says, curious and a little pleased, and Dean hooks his arm around Sam's neck and drags him down for a kiss so Sam won't ask such dumb friggin questions. The slow drag and stretch of Sam's knuckles inside—and he's not going far enough or deep enough, because he's done this to women maybe but never to a guy, but it feels good, anyway.

They don't move from that position. Dean reaches down and tugs at Sam's wrist, and gets a slick dragging hand on his hip, instead. Sam kisses his cheekbone, shifts his weight, and the press inside—ah—thick, and just that first bright sting that makes it count for something, but it doesn't hurt beyond that, and it's just the slow parting drag of Sam, inside him, until he's as far as he can go and stops with his hips pressed right up close. Dean holds him there, feeling. Sam's breath against his cheek, and his weight held tense on one elbow, and their chests rising and falling together. Dean's dick presses against Sam's belly but it doesn't feel important, right now—it's more that they're—finally, they're—

"Please say I can move," Sam says, breathless, and Dean gasps in and then laughs, dizzy, says, "Jesus, you've been waiting on me? Get the lead out, come on—go—"

It lasts—

For the time it takes Dean to curl his hips up and feel how Sam jolts, hard inside. For the time it takes Sam to lift up higher, getting enough space between them that he can see Dean's face, and for him to fit his hand around Dean's jaw and press his thumb against Dean's lower lip and look him in the eyes, startled, like even after everything he's learned something new. For the time it takes Dean to wrap his thighs around Sam's waist and arch, and for Sam to bury his head down into the curve of Dean's throat, and for Dean to hold Sam's shoulders, and for it to be…

Perfect, Dean thinks, after.

They're on their sides. Dean's leg is still caught around Sam's hip. Their heads are on the same pillow and Dean's got his hand on Sam's chest, and Sam keeps tracing some nonsense shape into the skin over Dean's ribs, and the sun's still out, and the breeze is still gentle, and it feels in a way like no time has passed, at all. Like this is still their first day in heaven. That first moment, when Sam appeared on the bridge, and Dean's heart thumped into place, like it was beating again, at last.

Sam's hand settles flat on Dean's side. Dean looks up from Sam's chest, and Sam's waiting there, to meet his eyes. A smile, small. "Good job, tiger," Dean says, and Sam's smile goes deeper, and Dean rolls his eyes, and tugs Sam's chest hair in retaliation. Sam mimes pain but all he does is pull Dean an inch closer, and sigh.

"Do you think we could've made it work?" he says, eventually. Dean hmms, asking. "Before, I mean. When we were alive. It feels like…" He shakes his head, a small movement against the pillow. "I don't know. Like we wasted time."

"Maybe," Dean says. He shifts, stretching out his legs, and lifts up on one elbow. Sam tips his head back to keep looking at Dean's face. Dean looks back, unhurried. The straight line of his eyebrows, and his tip-tilted eyes. His mouth, relaxed in contentment, and the slope of his nose, and that mole that Dean feels the weirdest fondness for. He touches it, and Sam blinks, and Dean smiles at him. "It worked out, though. Don't you think?"

Sam's mouth tips, a dimple peeking up in his cheek. He looks as glad as Dean's ever seen him. "Yeah," he says, finding Dean's hand. Their fingers tangle together, caught warm against Sam's chest. "Yeah, it worked out okay."

#wincest #carry on spoilers #my writing

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scullydubois · 4 years ago

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baby, in your kingdom (for valentine’s <3)

read on ao3 tagging: @today-in-fic @iusedtoknowwhatawishwasfor @scullllaaaaayyyy

Mulder proposes to Scully during the Requiem bed scene.

So you may have seen the text post I wrote imagining a version of Requiem where Mulder proposed and didn’t go off to Oregon at the end...I couldn’t stop thinking about that, so it turned into this. This is my favorite prose that I’ve written for a fic, and it might turn into a series someday because this concept is just so rich and worth diving into. Happy Valentine’s Day, and enjoy a treat on me to numb the pain hehe.

T, 1.7k, more angst than fluff (oops) but the tenderness is there too

----------------------------

He needs to tell her one thing and ask her another. Should be simple enough, except it never is when it comes to words passing between them. It's in both their natures to leave the sweetest sentiments unsaid lest they lose their luster when voice meets air. And what he has in mind is not exactly the easiest of utterances, neither the former nor the latter. One is the kind of admittance we fear when the phone rings unexpectedly, the other a declaration the unluckiest people go to their graves without getting. Delivering both at the same time is a sin if he’s ever committed one. And for once, he cares what count God has against him. What if he isn’t able to see her again, even in the afterlife?

He’s been weighing one decision for awhile, looking for the balance between his conviction and her virtue. He could have done it when she came back to him with her baby-faced blush, accepting the cross he clung to in lieu of her. Or when she showed him the x-rays, and they spelled out no hope. When he cried by her bedside and she didn’t stir--he could have done it then, she wouldn’t have known. But it means nothing unless it means everything to both of them, and she wouldn’t have--no, couldn’t have--given him the answer he wants back then. He holds this as the sacred truth that governed him then and will govern him now. He has no room for regrets.

The scuff of their shoes against the baseball diamond was the first time he realized that maybe, maybe this manic impulse of his had some basis in reality. Not a solid one, nothing they could cross a canyon with, but in time…

And then he was inside her brain, privy to her thoughts, and what was an unsound bridge had become a stairway to Heaven only they could climb. Fuck a safety net, he wouldn’t be needing that anymore.

Then he got the call from Billy Miles, and he thought of her ouroboros, and isn’t that what they’ve been doing this whole time? Circling some greater truth that they’ve always known?

Every circle ends where it begins and begins where it ended. This is what he’s thinking when he spots Billy’s badge, and they glide over the X he painted when they didn’t yet trust each other (but so badly wanted to), and when he lays eyes on Teresa Nemmans and she is not Nemmans but Hoese, and there is a child in her arms.

Seven years. And what do they have to show for it? What they mean to each other has changed, but it’s not like anyone can tell. He called Scully his partner then, and he calls her his partner now. Oh, the time they have wasted.

But it will be wasted no more. Seeing her with the Hoese baby, cooing a lullaby into its precious ear…seven years ago, he told her of the government’s conspiracy and how nothing else mattered to him. That is no longer the truth.

There is a truth they both know that is stronger than anything. When she appears at his door, flushed and shivering like a puppy left out in the cold, his head and his heart finally hit the same wavelength. He will shy away from fate no longer.

She doesn’t wait to be invited in, she knows his bed is hers for the taking. He lifts her shoes off her feet like he’s kneeling at an altar, wraps his arms around her as if it’s what he was put on this Earth to do. Contrary to popular belief, he has quite a reverence for domestic bliss. He’s been searching for it since his own reflection of it was shattered at twelve years old, and it has finally come to him.

He is scared to death that he’ll fuck it up, but not so scared that he’ll back away. In other words, his approach to everything in his life. It occurs to him then, with his lips on her temple, that he would set his own flame to the office and every X-File in it if she asked him to. If that’s what she wanted. He wouldn’t even have stepped foot back in that haunted place after its first burning if she’d given him an indication that it was not her desire.

“Scully,” he starts, nuzzling her neck, “I was thinking about when you asked me if I ever wanted to stop...if I ever wanted to get out of the car.”

“Uh-huh,” she breathes so faintly that he wouldn’t have known if he hadn’t felt it in her lungs.

“Well, I do want that. I’ve always wanted that. Remember when we were in Home and I said I’d like to settle someplace like that?”

Scully chuckles against him.

“Obviously not in Home, but you know, some place with the small-town sentiment without the, uh, familial connection.”

“Mm-hm,” Scully murmurs, sensing a larger point that he has strayed from.

“I just never knew how to get to it--I never thought that I could get to it, because I grew up thinking my parents had that, and then I saw they never did at all.”

Scully tucks his open palm under her chin, listening contentedly.

“So I spent my time chasing apparitions,” he continues, “things I couldn’t see, because I stopped believing in the things that I could. It’s like…the invisible things could surpass my expectations easily, but the visible ones could only disappoint.”

Scully feels cocooned, protected, and warm. She latches her attention to Mulder’s voice to keep from drifting off, kissing his knuckle to show that she’s listening.

“And I’ve realized, Scully,” he says, an edge in his voice, “that it’s a fucking waste of time to live like that. Like doing laps on a lazy susan and wondering why you’re never getting anywhere.”

“I know,” Scully says, her voice quiet but certain.

Mulder laughs lightly. “I know you do, that’s what you’ve been saying all this time...I just didn’t see it before.” He kisses her shoulder, lingering in the final moments before doing what cannot be undone. “And so I have something to ask you, but there’s something I have to tell you first.” Rawness permeates his voice.

At the sound of this, Scully cranes her neck, her gaze falling upon his face for the first time since they laid down. She can barely see his hazel irises through the reflecting pool in his eyes.

“What is it, Mulder?” she asks, concern pressing up against her urgent need to know.

He closes his eyes, the sight of her too much for him in this moment. What he wouldn’t give to feel like he could live with himself if he kept this a secret.

“I’ve seen a neurologist, I’ve had MRIs, it’s all conclusive. My brain is diseased from whatever Cigarette Smoking Man did to me. Fatal, my neurologist says.”

“Mulder…” Scully sits up, her whole being gravitating toward him. She runs her fingers along the space where she knows he bears his scar.

“Who told you this? And when? Have you had symptoms…?”

Clearly, she does not want to believe him, and he understands.

“I’ve been going back and forth to appointments for a few weeks. It was just confirmed the other day, I didn’t want to worry you until I knew more.”

“And your symptoms?”

He recognizes the darkness in her eyes and pucker in her forehead that forewarns tears. “Disorientation, dizziness, memory loss...sometimes I feel like I sleepwalked right through my day. “

‘Why didn’t you tell me?” her voice crackles.

He kisses her hand. “I thought you might go to some dark places if you tried to diagnose me.”

“Well, you’ve just turned the lights out on me with no warning!”

“Shit. I’m sorry, I’m sorry...I didn’t know how best to approach it, I just knew I wanted to cause you the least pain possible.”

“You wanted it to be nothing so you wouldn’t have to tell me,” she notes, not accusing, just speaking plainly.

“Well, yes. That would have been ideal.”

She swallows back tears, wrapping her arms around his neck with grave sincerity. “But now I’m here to fight right alongside you.”

This is what they do--have done, for years. Make his pain her pain and vice versa. Hurt hurts less when shared.

Mulder pulls away first, and it feels like peeling off a layer of his skin. Still, this is as necessary as anything he has ever known.

“That’s why I was wondering--and listening to it now, I realize this is probably the most selfish thing I’ve ever done, but I don’t know, I thought you might understand...will you marry me, Scully?”

Her breath catches and before she can think of anything else, she is careening toward his t-shirt to cover her tears. She clutches at the material, pulling it from his midsection to her face.

As far as Mulder’s concerned, there’s an elephant stuck in his throat. “I really don’t know what that means,” he stammers.

Scully lets him see her, tear-stained skin and all. “Yes, Mulder, my god yes! Do you honestly think I’d say no to you?”

“I would, especially in this situation.”

It’s a classic Mulder comment, but Scully’s not laughing. She pulls him in again, just wanting to feel his skin against hers. Their breaths slow in time with each other’s, their heartbeats matching pace. Scully’s lips brush his mole.

She speaks into his skin. “You saved me when it was impossible. I will do the same for you.”

Mulder thought he might hold it together until those words slipped from her lips. The elephant in his throat turns to stifled sobs.

With silent tears still streaking down her cheeks, Scully runs her thumbs along his lips. Just as she did when they thought his brain was getting better. The love in her eyes is equal to then too.

“My constant, my touchstone, remember?” she professes. “Then, now, and always.” She presses her lips to his forehead, and he thinks she must be healing him.

#yes it's valentine's but it's a pandemic valentine's #so have some angst with that fluff #the x-files #txf fic #txf fanfic #fox mulder #dana scully #mine #requiem

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lunapwrites · 3 years ago

Note

ask game: 13, 14, 21!

sooooo tempted to ask 18 but I shan’t be rude LOL

6 if you can be bothered to look it up (just so i can go give it some love)

Hiya!! I'm still gonna answer, I am pretty reasonable about it haha.

SO.

13: favorite writing song/artist/album of this year

Well if you listen to my Spotify Wrapped, it's Cocteau Twins' album Garlands, specifically "Shallow Than Halo." I apparently drilled that song into my head a whopping 129 times while I was writing a particular, erm... scene. In LTL. It also slaps so I'm not mad about it lol. If we're talking about what has most inspired my work, Pearl Jam's Ten has been THE work. literally spawned the entire series. But if we're talking about which album decided to just yank my heart out and stomp on it and say THIS IS THE MOOD YOU'RE WRITING IN NOW PEASANT then that honor goes to Ruin by The Amazing Devil, which has only been out for a month. Specifically the song "The Old Witch Sleep and the Good Man Grace." It came out while I was writing Chapter 16 of LTL and how very dare they. Seriously though I recommend it.

14: a fic you didn't expect to write

That honor goes SOLELY to three knocks upon the door. I... kicked open the door on a whole new ship and genre for myself and I legitimately feel like I knocked that one out of the park. If you had asked me at the beginning of the year if I was going to write something like that I'd have been like "hmm, intriguing idea, but no." And yet here we bloody well are lmao.

18: (because I will answer this) current number of WIPs

A non-extreme number! At present, I have Louder Than Love which is my main fic, and I could sort of wrap the sequels/prequel up into that bubble as well. But it's part of what I am aiming to make into a tetralogy. We'll see how it pans out! As far as things I'm actively writing now, I've got my academic war AU, Applied Theory, which I'm working on another chapter for. I've got a deaged Remus fic that I've been poking at when I can spare braincells (the working title for which is put that thing back where it came from or so help me) and then I just signed up for a prompt from the Remus Lupin Fest which is I think going to nest in very nicely with LTL and be a fun(?) companion piece, or alternate-reality version or something. Idk, most everything I write takes place in that universe lol. So yeah, just those 4, and one of them isn't even properly started. :P

21 I answered in another ask, so refer to that one XD

6: Least Popular Fic This Year

So, I am going to immediately disqualify anything in my Out of Orbit series, since that's effectively my trash bin -- please don't perceive them. Otherwise, I am unsure how to parse this exactly, BUT I can say that probably my least popular fics seem to be the drabble sets, with very few exceptions. But the saddest one is Song of the Shepherd's Dog - grand total of 13 kudos since I finished posting it on 2/19. :deadinside: It's 5 horror drabbles about Remus Lupin, pretty much all surrounding his Lycanthropy in one way or another. There's some Dean and Peter POV in there too. It was a cool writing exercise.

Satellites (series) and Lost Dogs also haven't gotten as much play as I'd have liked to have seen -- especially Lost Dogs, which has barely seen any movement since I posted it a year ago. It won the competition, and then no one touched it again (which is where I feel three knocks upon the door is headed, sadly.)

Anyway, that's it! Thanks so much for the ask!! <3

#ask game #answers #my writing #hp #fanfiction

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xjoonchildx · 5 years ago

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airplane, pt. 2 | jjk x reader chapter five: home

pairing: jungkook/reader

word count: 2.9K rating: 18+

genre: smut | silly smut | nonsensical smut

warnings: criminal!jungkook, koreanamerican!jungkook, reality has left the chat, plausibility has left the chat

A/N: i've never had so much anxiety posting an update. next time i decide to fly by the seat of my pants and turn a one-shot into a full chaptered fic, just punch me in the face, okay?

all kidding aside, standard smut warnings apply to this chapter and i really hope you guys like it.

xoxo

Chapter 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06

artwork by the shmexy @ppersonna who’s smut is even better than her art

*****************************

“You broke into my house.”

It takes you a solid minute to find the breath to power that shaky sentence.

Your legs are already like noodles from your run and at this point they are threatening to come right out from underneath you. You reach a hand out to the wall to stop yourself from hitting the deck.

Jungkook stands slowly from where he’s seated on the couch, a careful smile on his lips.

“You gonna call the cops?”

You stare at him.

Jungkook is in the country. In Los Angeles. In your living room .

He’s wearing a leather jacket over a t-shirt and jeans and his hair is cut short again. He is alive and in one piece and looks somehow even more handsome than he did the last time you saw him. How does he do that?

You’re so distracted by Jungkook -- in your fucking house -- that you miss the look of concern that comes over him the longer you stand there without saying something. It’s like your brain is hung up -- glitching -- trying to process the scene in front of you.

“You okay?”

“You broke into my house ,” you say again, as though that should answer his question.

“That is a matter of semantics,” Jungkook argues. “I would say that I let myself in because I knew you wouldn’t want me just standing around outside. Aren’t you the one always telling me to keep a low profile?”

A disbelieving laugh bubbles up your chest.

His sarcasm is comforting, even right now, when your heart is still racing and you can’t seem to stop sweating and you’ve just realized that you’re pretty fucking pissed that he dropped off the radar and didn’t contact you for weeks.

“So we should probably talk, huh?”

“You think?”

Now it’s his turn to laugh. He sinks back down onto the couch and gestures for you to join him.

You don’t.

“How the hell did you get here?” you demand.

“Same way I got out, pretty much,” he shrugs. “Mexico. Hitched a ride to San Diego and Yoongi was able to pick me up there. Good thing I’m not from Iowa or some shit, huh?”

He aims a hopeful smile at you like he’s searching for a way to connect but you don’t return it.

A flash of disappointment crosses his face.

“Yeah,” you say quietly. “Good thing.”

You look down to his lap. His hands haven’t stopped moving, fingers winding together and unwinding over and over. He’s nervous.

Well, good.

“I’m gonna turn myself in tomorrow,” he says after a long moment.

He knocks the wind out of you with that.

“Holy shit,” you breathe.

“Yeah. Turns out, I’m being represented by some incredibly-connected, high-dollar attorney.” He looks up and fixes you with those dark, hypnotic eyes. “Any idea where I could have gotten one of those?”

Seokjin, you fucking angel.

“Maybe,” you murmur. “What did he say?”

“Well, he told me to get my happy ass back to the States. Said the Marshals would appreciate me walking in on my own as opposed to having to drag me back. Said I’m going to have to eat some crow if I expect them to listen to anything I have to say.”

He rubs a hand across the back of his neck, against the grain of the now short hairs at his nape.

“Told me to get a haircut, too.”

That makes you smile. Jin is nothing if not thorough.

“So what does -- “ you clear your throat, “ -- your attorney say about what happens after that?”

“No way to know for sure,” Jungkook admits. “They could lock me up and throw away the key or they could decide on something else. Kind of a roll of the dice at this point.”

Your chest squeezes at the thought of Jungkook walking into that Federal Building and leaving in a transport van. You shut your eyes like that will somehow stop the mental image.

“And you’re turning yourself in anyway.”

He fidgets with his ear like an anxious kid.

“Yeah.”

“Alright,” you say on a shaky exhale. “Okay. Wow.”

A tense silence falls between you.

“I need you to talk to me,” Jungkook says after a moment. “I need to know where your head is at right now.”

Do you know how hard I went to bat for you? you want to scream, which is unfair, really. He’s never asked you for your help. Everything you’ve done, you’ve done on your own. But now he’s here and in front of you and you are practically buzzing with the urge to vent your frustration at him.

“Why didn’t I hear from you?”

You hope like hell you’re the only one who can hear the thread of insecurity in your voice. “You had the burner number and I just -- never heard from you again. And now you’re in my house.”

“I know,” he admits. His fingers keep lacing together, unlacing. “I know it’s really fucked up to just ambush you like this. It’s just that shit got really hairy for me in Nicaragua. These guys stole my phone.”

“But you managed to call Yoongi,” you snap.

“Well yeah,” he fires back. “We’ve known each other since we were kids. I’ve had his number for years. I got in touch with him as soon as I could get my hands on a new burner.”

You tell yourself to relax.

You tell yourself that it’s a totally plausible explanation and put a hand to your forehead as though you expect to be able to feel your temperature coming down. As though you’ll be able to feel the anger draining out of you until all that’s left is the relief that he’s here, that he’s okay.

You take a deep breath, release the tension that’s had you wound so tight.

“I left the bureau.”

Jungkook’s eyes widen.

“Holy shit,” he breathes, “Did they -- Did I -- “

“Don’t give yourself too much credit,” you cut in, rolling your eyes. “It wasn’t really about you. Not all of it, anyway.”

He opens his mouth to say something, but thinks better of it. There is a melancholy in his eyes that unnerves you.

You’ve seen him cocky and arrogant and unrepentant and flirtatious. But this — this hat-in-hand version of him, devoid of his trademark bravado is so disconcerting.

He looks away from you, back down to his hands. You wrap your arms around yourself and take a moment to just look at him, to appreciate his striking face. You think back to the first time you saw that face, how dumbfounded you’d been by his physical appearance.

Then he opened his mouth and your fate was sealed.

One way or another this debacle ends in just a few short hours.

The rational part of you craves a conclusion to this insanity, an end to the near-constant anxiety you’ve felt for months now. But there’s the other part of you that worries this will end with Jungkook behind bars for the rest of his life. You don’t know if you’re ready to accept that just yet.

“Can you um --“ Jungkook wets his lips, “-- can you come sit with me?”

“Yeah,” you agree quietly.

You cross the room and slide next to him on the couch.

He reaches for your hands, but does not meet your eyes. His fingers stroke over your wrists and not for the first time you wonder how he manages to make the most simple touches feel so good.

“You asked me one time,” he starts quietly, “about why I quit school. And I -- “

“Don’t -- ” you interrupt, “-- you don’t owe me an explanation.”

He shakes his head.

“Uh yeah,” he chuckles cynically. “Yeah, I do. I owe you pretty much any explanation you want at this point.”

You look down at where your hands are joined, down to where Jungkook is rubbing the calloused pad of one thumb against your palm.

“My mom got sick. And it didn’t feel right to stay in school when I could be working and helping to bring in some money.”

You remember the dig you made at him -- the way his face had shuttered -- and you feel an acute pang of guilt.

“I’m so s --”

“No, listen to me please,” he says adamantly. “She’s doing a lot better now and I don’t want you to feel sorry for me. But I need you to know that for every good thing I’ve ever done, I have done something equally as fucked up. And I just want -- “

He exhales heavily, scrubs one hand along his jaw.

“ -- I just want you to know that this shit with the money and the running is just some of me. I’ve done some really stupid shit but that’s not all I am.” He leans closer to you, pins you with that bottomless gaze. “I need you to understand that. Am I making any sense?”

You swear you can feel your heart squeeze in response.

“Yeah, you are,” you say softly. He reaches one hand out to cup your cheek.

“So can I kiss you now or are you still mad at me?”

You’re tempted to tease him but he looks so unsure of himself in this moment that you resist. You look down at yourself, remember you are still in sweaty running gear and cringe imagining what you must look like at this moment.

“I’m gross,” you protest in a whisper.

He leans closer, mouth hovering just over yours.

“Ask me if I care.”

******************************

Jungkook at least has the decency to let you shower before taking to you bed.

But just barely.

The second you are clean and dry he’s on you, mouth and hands everywhere at once. Your skin -- already warm from the hot water -- heats even more under his touch.

He’s different tonight you think, as you lie back on your bed and his lips work up the column of your throat. There’s a determination to the way he’s holding you, an urgency to the way he’s pressing his body against yours.

You stroke your hands down his back, feel the answering ripple of muscle underneath your fingertips. His body is leaner than it was in Puerto Rico and the realization sparks a sad throb in your chest.

Nicaragua must have been a lot tougher than he’s letting on.

But then his lips skate across your collarbone and you force yourself to push the thought from your mind. Whatever happened to him there is over. He’s here and he’s okay and he is literally on top of you and that’s the only thing you want to think about right now.

“I missed you,” he whispers and a shudder runs up your spine in response.

You rake your nails against his nape, fingers teasing his freshly cut hairline and he makes a satisfied groan against your mouth, pressing his hips firmly into yours.

It’s impossible at this point to ignore the nudge of his hard cock against your stomach. You snake a hand between your bodies to wrap warm fingers around his pulsing length and he pulls back to suck in a pained breath.

“Jungkook, I -- “ you start to speak, but an uncomfortable tickle in the back of your throat stops you. He opens his eyes to look down at you.

“You okay?”

Hell no, you’re not okay.

It feels like if you open your mouth to answer him, you’ll cry and you are not a crier and he’s looking at you expectantly, waiting for you to say something -- anything.

“Yeah, I just…um,” you stumble over your words and it takes a moment for that uncomfortable feeling to subside long enough for you to speak. You have to wait until your voice comes out even and controlled before you can finish.

“I missed you, too,” you say, finally.

His lips curve into a small smile.

“I know you did.”

He drops his mouth down to pull at one soft nipple with his lips and teeth. You sigh, arching into his touch.

The soft exhalation seems to set Jungkook off, makes the steady grind of his hips pick up in speed. He tongues at your nipples until they are aching and hard then slips a finger into your channel to test your wetness.

He brings his mouth close to your ear, breath warm against the shell.

“I can feel just how much you missed me,” he teases in a low voice.

Arrogant bastard. He’s right, though.

You huff a laugh as his fingers work in and out of you slowly, drawing out your wetness. He covers your mouth with his as his thumb rubs slow circles against your clit and you moan into his kiss.

“Fuck me,” you say quietly and you feel the tremors that run down his back at your words. “Please,” you beg, “I don’t want to wait anymore.”

Jungkook kisses you again -- long and hard -- before pulling away to grab a condom from his jeans.

You take the moment to appreciate how handsome he is, chest covered in a sheen of sweat, lean body tense with the need for release. You watch the corded bands of his arms move as he crawls back onto the bed, sheathed and ready. He leans his weight on his forearms and the muscles in his shoulders become even more prominent as he lines his body up with yours.

You lift your head to suck at the hollow of his neck just as you feel the blunt tip of his cock nudge your entrance.

“Do it, Jungkook,” you moan, rolling your hips against him. “ Now.”

He groans as he obliges you, pushing slowly inside and you brace your hands around the tight muscles of his arms until you can feel him anchored deep.

“Fuck,” he whispers. “Every time it’s like I forget how good you feel.”

Strange how you were just thinking the same thing -- thinking about how no one else has ever pulled these responses out of you. It’s like your body knows this man -- like it knew him way before your brain ever did.

He rocks into you slowly, deeply, pelvis flush with yours each time he strokes to the hilt. His pace is languorous and it makes your entire body feel heavy with pleasure. You wrap your legs around him tight, willing him deeper even though you know that’s not possible.

The painfully unhurried rhythm is so, so good , but it’s not enough.

Not when you can feel the threat of your release building between your legs and you need more to get you there. You angle your hips up, trying to capture more of the friction.

Jungkook takes the hint, moving one hand to cup your ass. He pulls you into each snap of his hips, forces you to take every inch on every thrust.

“Come for me,” he pants. “I can’t hold out much longer.”

You can only whine your response, too fucked out at this point to form sentences. It takes just a few more deep, desperate thrusts to make you start to unravel. Jungkook lets go the instant he feels you start to quiver around him and he doesn’t back off, lacing his fingers into yours and pinning you down into the mattress with the full force of his body.

Once the loud moaning and desperate movements slow to a stop, he drops his forehead down on yours.

The two of you breathe each other’s air for a while until your chests stop heaving and your hearts stop pounding.

***********************

“When does this all go down?” you whisper, cheek pressed to Jungkook’s chest.

You’ve spent the last five minutes enjoying a warm, comfortable silence.

But that hasn’t stopped your mind from wandering back into worry.

Jungkook presses the length of your body into his side with one firm hand. You feel him tense when you ask the question.

“10 AM.”

“10 AM,” you echo numbly.

“Yeah,” he whispers, stroking lazy patterns with his fingers down your back.

“So,” he clears his throat. “Are you...ready to talk about what’s going on here?”

You’re glad that from this angle he can’t see your reaction, can’t see the flush that spreads over your face.

“No,” you mumble childishly.

“You’re such a brat,” he teases, dropping a kiss on your hair. “So fine. I’ll do the talking then. I met someone.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. She’s got her head on straight, and…” he trails off for a moment. “...she’s got me thinking about how I can get my head on straight, too.”

You smile into his skin.

“What’s she like?”

“Well, she’s a lot of different things at once. Kinda feisty, super smart, very cool,” he murmurs. “Unemployed, but hey — no one’s perfect.”

Your shoulders shake with laughter.

“Is she hot?”

“Nah,” he teases, and he jumps when you pinch his stomach. “Way better than hot. She’s beautiful. And she’s into me. Really, really into me.”

Your cheeks heat but you keep the tone light.

“How do you know she’s not just using you for sex?”

“Well in the beginning she was,” he chuckles. “But then she showed up for me in a big way. A really big way. So even though it’s really hard for her to come out and say how much she likes me, I already know. She’s already shown me.”

That uncomfortable itch in your throat returns when he says that. It’s so weird to be understood so thoroughly by someone you barely know.

“She sounds pretty amazing,” you say after the sensation subsides long enough for you to speak.

“Yeah, she is,” he whispers. “So I’m gonna go to this meeting tomorrow morning and try to fix the mess I’ve made. Cause maybe now I have a reason to stop being such a reckless asshole.”

You screw your eyes shut and will the unexpected tears that spring to your eyes not to fall.

“10 AM, right?”

He drops another kiss into your hair and pulls your body in closer.

“Yeah. 10 AM.”

**********************

#jungkook x reader #jungkook smut #ksmutclub #btswriterscollective #bangtanarmynet

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arch-venus25 · 4 years ago

Text

The Head and the Heart, Part 1

Hello everyone,

I am submitting this for @just-the-hiddles‘s The Damnit Jim, I’m A Vampire, Not A Landlord Fic Frenzy. I chose prompt “1....You can pay your rent in money or in blood.” I was inspired by all the prompts and will probably use them throughout the series. Basically I use the prompts as guide-lines.

This is the first time I have written and shared a fic online-- or ever really! It’s also the first time I’ve written anything modern so please let me know what you think! I hope I’m posting this correctly--I created the title art--LOL I’ve never done this before. I’m aiming to update the series each Tuesday. So here we go...

Series Masterlist: The Head and The Heart

Summary: The twins are taking a night off from their graduate studies-- or at least Tessa is; her twin sister, Antha, is just trying to keep her out of trouble. What starts as a night of good old-fashioned fun and flirting quickly changes as they find themselves at the doorstep of the Hollow House Bed and Breakfast.

Characters: OFCs Antha and Tessa King, original characters/vampires

WARNINGS: 18+ for suggestive themes and violence, cursing, implied drug use, implied rape, stressful/scary situations, vampires, and characters with incredible hair-- you’ve been warned. Read at your own discretion.

Word Count: 2770

Part One: Faced with Foolishness

“Well, you know Tessa, she’s being Tessa,” Antha murmured into her phone as she watched her twin sister cozy up to her flavor of the month; Tessa flipped her box braids off her shoulder, the beaded ends flirtatiously tinkling against every surface they met. As if watching a photo negative version of herself, Antha mourned her nonexistent reputation. Had she not spent years hiding in her books she may have been able to rival her uninhibited doppelganger in white hot-pants.

“Why do you let her do this to you? It never goes as planned, and next thing you know I’ll be cleaning you two up and feeding you McDonald’s at two thirty in the morning!” She didn’t need facetime to picture Doug wincing through the phone, pushing his Buddy Holly styled Ray-Bans up the bridge of his nose.

“So what you’re saying is how could I let Tessa do this to you?” She laughed, rolling her Havana twists through her fingers to fight off the June humidity. Talking to her best friend helped her forget just how long she had been holding it in line to the bathroom.

“Ant, look I don’t like that bar—you want me to come get you?”

“And leave her? I can’t do that—listen, if we don’t call you for a ride home by midnight just come get us. I’m exhausted and I don’t think she will party that long. Besides, you-know-who just showed up.” She watched as Franco the Flake appeared, wasting no time to linger over her sister—Tessa’s flavor of the month, forgotten within an instant. Antha’s eyes rolled like marbles as she turned away to better hear her friend on the phone; some fraternity boys nearby began fist-pumping into the air as the bartender served up a line of shots for them.

“Ugh, the Flake… well I can hear things are getting started on your end—I’ll keep my phone on me, just don’t drive. Leave her car and I’ll get you two—there’s maniacs out there especially on Friday night.” He warned.

“I owe you,” she groaned and hung up. Antha finally arrived in the ladies’ room, only two women away from her sweet release. She watched as the women cornered the mirror like crazed wanton things, bending and zhuzhing, adjusting their “girls” to their perkiest potential through scantily low apparel.

“Heeeyy…” She quietly greeted the woman that exited the nearest stall. The stranger gave her a haughty elevator eye from head to toe making her feel severely underdressed for a Friday night out. When she threw on a sun dress today, she never anticipated her sister would abduct her after class and have them gallivanting across town. Tessa’s exact words were “Godamnit Ant, tonight we’re gonna have fun if it kills us!” A Cheshire Cat grin spread across her face as she floored the accelerator of her Neon, then cranked up the bass as the radio station started their basement remixes. Fun if it kills us.

Antha stared at her white sandals, her nail polish was chipped and at least three weeks old. Then she looked to her messenger bag hanging on the back of the door. It was covered in Community College film badges and club stickers, per her friend’s preferences. Antha liked her graffitied messenger bag. Like a billboard, it made her appear she had a life outside of her graduate studies.

She should have been at home, text books spread on her lap, feet up. She could hear Doug’s old Buick coughing its way up Momma’s drive, then fumbling outside the door, trying to knock with a third of Popov, case of Dogfish Head, and pizza in his arms. Then he would throw everything on the coffee table and announce “I brought Casablanca!” to which she would say “Oh, more white people movies?” and unphased, he would reply “Good god woman, it’s not Birth of a Nation!” Antha smiled, thinking of their weekly ritual of pretending to do research while gossiping long into the night until Zoey and Tessa would drunkenly Uber home. The distinct shamble, like the walking dead, would scrape up the gravel drive signaling their arrival.

“Hey, you almost done in there?” An annoyed voice yelled over the door, cutting through her reminiscing. Antha could see the reds of the stranger’s eyes between the door crack.

Instead of lounging on the couch surrounded by good beer and even better friends, Antha found herself being hustled by some Fireball-turned-up twat—all under the guise of having fun. “Yeah, sorry about that.” She replied and flushed. She tightened the belt holding in the billowy fabric of her flowy, mid-thigh, sunflower-printed sundress. It was passed down from her grandmother to her mother and so on. Looking like she walked off the set of a 90’s music video, she admitted that at least she was cooler than the other girls sweating in their skin-tight jeans and heels.

Some pretty young thing burst through the door past the line and vomited into the trash bin next to Antha while she washed her hands. It was only nine o’clock. That was a bad omen. When she caught her reflection in the mirror, she realized she pouted just like Momma in those sorts of situations. She dampened a paper towel for the poor thing and could hear her mother’s words repeating in her head: “When you’re faced with foolishness—you take care of it.” Her mantra: Take care of it. Antha’s mantra: Do what Momma says. Tessa’s mantra: If it ain’t fun don’t do it.

Antha applied her vanilla lip gloss as she thought on her mother. She made a promise as Momma was lowered in the ground that they would graduate. It was her dying wish that the twins became modern women with college degrees and to have options; to escape the laboring of farming and perhaps even the rinse and repeat of corporate Delaware. That’s all there was in their state: Farming or banking.

She tucked her shoulder-length braids behind her ears; she truly missed her dreadlocks, but ever since the time Tessa’s boyfriend mistook her for his girlfriend, she cut them off. She was always the one to compromise. Not tonight she decided. Tonight was going to go her way. They would wrap up this foolishness by midnight.

Antha sighed and knew it was time to face the havoc of the bar when a chatty patron pawed at her sundress asking if it was “vintage”. She replied, “Well it’s old as hell if that’s what you mean,” and hurried out the ladies’ room into the sweltering cacophony of nightlife.

Fighting across sticky tile and sweaty rednecks she made a beeline for the bartender. “Mar, can I get two?” She bounced on her tip-toes to cut through the crowd huddled around the length of the tacky wooden bar. Maria motioned to the other side because she couldn’t reach through. Antha continued to fight her way through the herd. She could barely hear over the din of the 2016 campaign commercials and sportscasting when Maria slid two cocktails toward her. The southern comfort and coke cocktails reeked with vanilla syrup, Tessa’s favorite. Antha stared into the melting rail drinks and realized she didn’t know what to order herself because she was always the water-boy for her twin.

“Hey, did you see what’s-his-face is in town?” Maria interrupted her thoughts.

“Sure did.” She groused and tilted her head in the general direction of where she saw Tessa and Franco last. Through the bodies, for a moment, the crowd parted and the two stared.

Stepping back from her esteemed role as the older sister, by barely two minutes, Antha admitted to herself that Tessa always looked good. Her off-the-shoulder top exposed a flawless ebony collarbone, shoulder blades, and arms. As if she was the Queen of Sheba incarnate, her tiny wrists were decorated with gold bangles. Her earrings matched the beads in her hair, reflecting light in her hazel eyes. A waterfall of thick box braids fell down her back and over her shoulders, past the tops of her thighs. Her years of dance complimented the country-chic white cut-offs that revealed just a hint of under cheek when she bent across the billiard table.

“If I were a man, I’d pray for her to bite my head off quick and painless.” Maria laughed, her ponytail frizzing from the heat of her work; her hands rapidly dipping then shining high ball glasses.

“But that’s not her style.” Antha replied wryly.

“You’re both good girls. Now you keep her out of as much trouble as you can—I’ll send Kyle ‘round to your table with beers, just let me catch up here!”

Maria was right: they were good girls. All of Tessa’s shenanigans aside, she never forgot cake for a birthday and with everyone’s break-ups she always had a bottle of Jack stashed with a shoulder to cry on. Tessa was the one that painted Antha’s nails and always lent her the best outfits when the event called for it. On occasion she was even known to deliver soup when her sister ran a fever.

Tessa was the heart of the operation and Antha couldn’t begrudge her just because she was the head.

For better or worse, they were sisters.

Antha reluctantly clutched the chilled drinks and felt a pang of relief in the sweltering bar. She couldn’t see her sister at the billiard table with the onslaught of shuffling patrons, so she decided to move toward her booth. She narrowly missed being covered in appletini as the DJ scratched in one more summer top ten into his rotation. Before she could move forward a voice pinned her in place.

“Your sister’s the worst, you know that?” A nice-looking guy glared at her. His teeth gleamed pink in the red bar lights. Antha bet he had a handsome smile on account of those white teeth, but he was not smiling now. She squinted through the hazy dance floor and recognized him as the guy Tessa arrived with before Franco appeared.

“Hey John, don’t fret, Tessa’s just catching up with an old friend—he comes into town every so often, don’t get upset.” She yelled back at his face as kindly as she could manage over the blare of the oncoming band tuning their instruments. For some reason he didn’t seem to believe her and his chest instinctively puffed up.

“John? I’m José!” He replied. Antha felt embarrassed for both her sister and herself. She grimaced unintentionally, realizing she had said it all with very few words.

She tried to defend their position with a weak excuse. “José, I’m bad with names and faces—” but he stormed off before she could piecemeal a string of bullshit. There goes another Mr. Last Month.

This was having fun. Antha doing damage control on last month’s flame, while Tessa stoked a new one. All of the nice memories of her sister evaporated in the heat of the interaction. She grumbled to herself, as she had grown tired of babysitting, not just Tessa but the men-children she dated. When she finally confirmed her party’s booth, she parted the shadowy sea of basic bitches.

Tessa was giggling like a school girl when her sister dropped the sweaty glasses onto the ratty old table. Franco at her neck like a leech. I hate this guy, Antha thought to herself. He turned his hot gaze on her, “Hi Antha, didn’t see you there.” His drawl was thick like humidity. She thought about giving her drink to Tessa’s date, but now that she could see he was it, she plopped down and selfishly sipped one of the nasty cocktails without offering the second.

“Oh hey Brian,” she said playfully, “where’s your camera?”

“Ant, now you know this is Franco, stop playin’!” Tessa tore her eyes away from him for a split second, but after she threw her daggers she was back ogling him like a dog does a bone.

“Sorry, it’s hard to keep all these blue-eyed, blond, gentlemen straight.” Antha marginally resisted saying yokel under her breath.

Tessa had a type. Beyond all logic, light eyes were the buckle in her knee, the hitch in her breath; and Franco was at the top of her list. Antha assumed he was the Porsche in her garage amongst a long list of Ford’s, but she honestly didn’t know the whole story. All she knew was that Franco showed his face sparingly and only after dark. He would disappear for weeks at a time, which earned him the endearment The Flake.

Now, Antha hadn’t dated enough men in her young life to sort them by color and size, but Tessa had. To her credit, her tastes were diverse, she did her research and knew what she liked. No one blamed her either. With that hair and those legs, Tessa could have anyone she wanted. The great appeal of Franco didn’t add up to Antha though. She found him suspicious. She thought his truck was too loud, his jeans too torn, and his eyes much too heavy.

Franco made idle conversation, inquiring after the twins’ classes as if he cared. His blond, three-quarter parted hair was glossy under the dim lights. When he pulled his tooth pick from the back of his ear and chewed on it, it made him look like an old-fashioned mobster—well until that Delmar twang spilled out of his hillbilly mouth. There was an allure about him; all of his parts matched, but his smile unglued those pieces. A smile that never quite reached his eyes.

Antha found herself sizing him up, drinking the disgusting cocktail faster than she wanted. I bet he has plastic zip ties and rope in his truck bed, she thought. She didn’t truly know why the image popped into her mind, it was just a feeling she got when his eyes were on her; made her feel like a snack, as if he would eat her alive right where she sat. No more Unsolved Mysteries for me this week, she insisted to herself.

“Mmmm-hmmm.” Was the best response she could offer when he spoke to her directly. Tessa continued chatted about her business management courses as he deeply stared at her. Antha figured there was no real room for her in the conversation so she took out her world cultures text and flipped to her last page. She liked hanging out, however her final thesis was demanding all of her energy. The page fell open to vampires in the section of Egyptian mythology. She thought how ironic as her eyes shot up at the man sitting across from her.

“So, there’s this bonfire by Slaughter Bay, I thought you ladies could come with.” Franco suggested lazily like it was too exclusive to be excited about. “You can shotgun babe and we can put Antha and her friends in back.” He eyed the textbooks growing damp on the table. Antha finished the first SoCo and started the second just to cope with him. “You could call up the girls.”

“Zoey… Zoey... Zoey!” Tessa dramatically said into her drink and then laughed. Antha couldn’t help but smirk as Tessa explained to him her girlfriend was like Candyman and could be summoned via a pint of beer. The joke was partially lost on Franco.

Before Tessa could agree to go Antha piped up, a little less shy now that her liquid courage had kicked in. “Sounds awfully romantic, but we can’t.” Before she could continue she was interrupted.

“Hey girl haaayyyy!” Zoey appeared as if out of thin air and snatched one of the beers sent over by the bartender. “You goin’ nowhere without me—not after I Ubered across town!” Her two rando friends hollering and sloshing their drinks.

“How the hell do you do that?” Antha insisted, amazed that their friend appeared.

“Uhhhh, never you mind—we can make bonfire plans later—its ten o’clock, I’m here and Bieber is playing! GET UP!” Zoey declared, the glitter from her eyes dusting every surface.

“Keep an eye on my friends.” Antha told Franco as she abandoned her books to be dragged to the floor. This was the moment she decided she was getting them all out of there; she didn’t like the sound of a bonfire with him and she certainly wasn’t allowing Tessa to go on her own either. She sent a pre-written text message to Doug: “Get here.” Which was their code for its really going down, I need back up.

Twinning Taglist: If you want to be added or removed just let me know; please share with anyone that might be interested. I would love any and all feedback so I can learn and become a better writer. Thank you! I tagged some people that I thought would be interested in this. @myoxisbroken @just-the-hiddles @vodka-and-some-sass @nildespirandum @yespolkadotkitty @latent-thoughts @emeraldrosequartz @villainousshakespeare @hopelessromanticspoonie @caffiend-queen @poetic-fiasco @lokimostly @dianamolloy @marvelgirlonamarvelworld @brightsunanddarkmidnight2-0 @cateyes315 @mooncat163 @nuggsmum @plastic-heart @myraiswack @wolfpawn

#landlord vampire fic frenzy #twinning vs vamps #arch-venus25 writes

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