#this movie is so beautiful i keep just wanting to do frame studies

[krscblw-2]

st. gawain, patron of the fearful

[kaijuparfait]

long ramble of me going through the venom trailer because i am insane totally normal about it

this isn't anything professional, just me spouting out random words as i run around in circles like an excited dog-

OK LET'S GO:

firstly... king please change your clothes its been years, why are you still wearing that exact same outfit???

BUT i am a sucker for the light going over and past Eddie as he walks, i just think it's so cool hehe,,

E: "You should probably know that I have a really dark and unpredictable side to me."

hmmm... i'll believe you. at first, it sounds like he's telling this to Venom, but I wouldn't be surprised if Eddie is telling this to someone else and this "dark and unpredictable side" is Venom.... Or he is telling this to Venom and Eddie just really wants to kill now which. I am ok with that, love that for them, they should be allowed to do what they want

cleanly punching off the lock via the ~ Power of Friendship ~ (or something like that)

not the dogs :( i'm assuming this is a place to hold dogs for like. dog fighting?? i think? which is terrible and those guys deserved to get their heads eaten!

E: "I'm giving you a chance, sweetie."

LET. EDDIE. KILL. everyone say thank you Tom Hardy for being Eddie cause WOAH i am. normal.

V: "Just say "when"." E: "...when."

WE'RE SO BACK its just like the "Mask!" "Copy." bit from the first movie omg we're so back, these two make me ill i love them sm

also Eddie not even flinching at the knife, most likely Venom turning off the pain (or something) but I like to think Eddie's just cool like that (these close ups of Eddie's face makes me wanna do a study on him, just draw him a million times for the fun of it, and i will! Tom Hardy is a beautiful man!)

either venom is fully acting as shoes or Eddie is wear the most busted up pair of crocs i have ever seen and both options are so great. either way- KICK! that guy is GONE you even see him slouched against the wall, surrounded by bricks in a later scene, Venom and Eddie are not messing around this movie!

I- hhhhh. ok. I'm ok. Yeah these two are NOT messing around, Eddie could not care less about these dudes, there is no hesitating, no guilt, no fear in this man's expression AND I LOVE IT <333 GET ANGRY! GET SCARY!!!

AND WE HAVE THE BOI. THERE HE IS!!! the roar sounds different too i think, it's very cool tho, feels like a shrill, higher pitch than i expected but i don't dislike it

let the dogs be free! they immediately start attacking those guys and i love it <3 doggy :3

AND EDDIE IS FIGHTING TOO WOOOOO i need to redraw all of these frame cause WHEW! making me blush with these shot compositions, so good. so much trust, Eddie knows Venom will keep him safe and jumps in! literally! i adore how Venom's head is following him too, it's so creepy, the way it just slithers through the air, I wish to send all my love to the teams who work on Venom, there are so many points from the trailer and the first 2 movies that I wanna dissect, just to point out all his little movements, very fun

speaking of his little movements- squinty eyes :3 and the half venom, half eddie face again! always a win, forever iconic <3

tearing apart this venom scene OK! the little tendrils by Eddie's face, the way they move around is so UGH its so weird and i adore it! This "pose" is also fun because we really get to see the inside of Venom's mouth, most importantly his teeeeeth, in a long, pretty still shot that isn't when his mouth is wide open, the artist in me is loving it

also the team always does an amazing job on just making Venom look alien- the thick veins, the shiny black skin, and the tendrils that are holding up the bad guy split apart, instead of being just one tentacle, very gross, but in a good way

E: "We.. are..-" V: "WE ARE VENOM!" E: "We.. are..-" V: "VENOM!!" E: "No.."

They share one braincell, holy fudge, I love symbrock fjdkslfjsdk

and Eddie just keeps trying! same tone, same level, and Venom is so excited

V: "Oh!"

(I also love these shots because we get a nice close up of how Venom's mouth moves when pronouncing words)

E: "Yeah.. We.." V: "We.." E + V: "are... Venom." E: "...We really need to work on that."

and they get there eventually lmao, the way they say it is so in sync, even the eye movements are the same, how they open wider, and THE VOICES hhhh the voices.,,.. Tom Hardy is such a good. voice actor? in this sense ig.. i am on the ground, pure joy with how Eddie and Venom's voices overlap here

and Venom goes to town! lovely meal <3 getting a meal with the bf <3

I am LOOKING oh my goodness his mouth can open WIDE... normal feelings rn, yup, mhm!

doggy :D dog friends :D also Eddie no shot you stole that guy's shoes lmao??? nice boots tho (as someone who wears cowboy boots often, i would love to see Eddie in a full outfit.. putting that in the drawing idea list...)

V: "DELICIOUS! You take me to all the finest places!"

see! dinner date! :3 I can just hear the smile on Venom, i love when he's happy

and the world's most pathetic wet cat of a man (I say with the upmost affection) is back!

more proof that Eddie is never NOT sweating and that Tom Hardy's Eddie voice has the most confusing accent- i think he's saying

E: "Honey, I don't know."

but he could very well just be stuttering, or maybe he stopped midway and instead said "I need- I don't know." but i'm hoping they're at the point of pet names, go full comic, let Eddie call Venom "love" and "dear" and "my darling"

[Edit- thank you @.bridoesotherjunk for pointing out that he says "I need a Tylenol." i need better listening comprehension i guess??? lol?]

i don't know 100% of the Venom lore, still have tons of comics to read, so i won't talk much about the potential storyline here but- 4 SYMBIOTES!! maybe maybe maybe the Life Foundation Symbiotes... these babies got some funky colors.. they already used the name Riot but these 4 could be Lasher, Phage, Scream and Agony if i pray hard enough, the colors don't match but i can dream!

totally not emotional over this little bit of Venom that was left behind from that one after credits scene trying to bond with a host gently. yup yeah my heart isn't hurting at all!

LET MY BOY GO, HE DID NO WRONG!!!

my favorite local cryptid, what a creature

and he changed! finally! nice shirt tho, buttoned up only part way? the HAIR??? good stuff

fire seems to be a known weakness now, looking at the background, and i can't guess what they're looking up at, Eddie does speed up for it tho. I'm gonna say either a helicopter or something else they're gonna try and jump up to? Venom does go-

V: "OH SHIT"

during this scene so maybe it's one of those Symbiotes from before? Who knows, I could guess a hundred things but idk

THE WATER SCENE!! FROM THAT ONE BEHIND THE SCENES PHOTO TOM HARDY POSTED!!!

Venom in the last bit and Eddie being just himself if the first portion of these clips show that these guys 100% know what they're doing and have some sort of device (shown in the right image) that is capable of doing some crazy damage to Venom! Which! Oh no!!! I enjoy fight scenes underwater tho (Looks at Godzilla), very hyped for this one, I really wanna see how Venom swims. Yeah that sounds a bit weird but like. no way he's swimming like a human, c'mon now

E: "We are living the dream, my friend V: "You mean it?!" E: "NO."

Can't get over Venom's delivery here, he sounds so genuinely, it made me laugh, especially to how exhausted Eddie sounds lmao

LAS VEGAS??? y'all guessed right, they really are gonna get married in vegas,,

Eddie in a suit, HELLO??? my guy is looking snazzy! really tho, he looks so nice a suit, the BLACK AND WHITE suit? perfect. I saw people saying that they hope that Venom is the suit and just. me too..

MRS. CHEN RETURNS omg this cast are all so <333 she is GORGEOUS that dress is beautiful on her AND HER HAIR Mrs. Chen my beloved

Mrs. Chen sounds so happy to see Eddie, and Venom also very excitedly say hi, my heart is going to burst, it is overflowing, this part of the trailer makes me smile so much AND THEN THEY DANCE WITH EACH OTHER!!! I know it's called The Last Dance but I was not expecting a dance with Mrs. Chen??? I am more than ok with this tho, Venom and Mrs. Chen, dancing on the stairs, they look so happy, they're having such a good time i can't, my heart can't take this <3

AND LOOK HOW THEY HOLD HER HANDS.. they... they care about each other so much i'm going to cry in the theaters- no i'm gonna cry NOW.

is that a xenophage i see??? that thing is HUGE HUH??? i fully understand Venom in this (side note, i ADORE how Venom goes "JESUS CHRIST" upon seeing this thing, the line delivery get's better every film, that was so genuine) this design is insane tho, i might spend some time doing a study on it

Toxin is here! YIPPEE!!! love the voice, thought it was Venom for a second the first time i watch this but its pretty good

I have no clue who the people are that are in this tower thing, I've seen a few theories but i ain't embarrassing myself by guessing wrong here lmao

(running out of image spaces sorry!)

in the clip of Venom walking into this lab (?) and then getting violently shot at, is it just me or does Venom seem small? I'm guessing the door is just really big but like. idk maybe i'm just mixing up my Venoms and thinking that he's not as big as I remember

really quick cut of what may be 2 more Symbiotes like the 4 from earlier? maybe they're the same and are just changing colors, maybe they're new, who knows! I love their colors tho, the one on the right (in the clip) looks like it's blue and pink and i think that's cute

Xenophage breaks into this lab, love that for her, she is still terrifying!

E: "We may not make it out of this alive, buddy."

haha what do you mean by that king?

V: "Eddie... the time has come..."

HAHA PAUSE. uhm. he said the same thing last time at the end of Let There Be Carnage and Eddie didn't let him go but, istg, IF THEY DIE AT THE END OF THIS MOVIE. i know its the last of the trilogy BUT THEY DON'T NEED TO DIE, SONY, MARVEL, DON'T DO THIS TO ME. i am going cry violently at the writers... i don't think i will ever stop crying if they die at the end

they're in this busted up helicopter, already intriguing, but when it zooms in on Eddie's face, he's tearing up??? this movie is checking off every emotion, i need to remember to stay hydrated before i go see it, i will cry so much

I don't even think i'll be able to handle just one of them dying, the end of the first movie made me tear up the first time i saw it, and that was before i was as insane about them as i am now, i will be UNWELL in the theater

And last but certainly not least. HORSE VENOM WOOOOOO

the design for this things is insane, i didn't think i'd ever wanna draw a horse in my life but like.. kinda changing my mind ngl (weird detail, Venom horse has hands and feet and not hooves!)

E: "Be honest with me, how fast do you think you can make that thing go, without killing it?" V: "..ONLY ONE WAY TO FIND OUT!"

Venom sounds a bit muffled in this clip which makes it a bit more funny to me, i won't lie. Eddie is hanging on FOR HIS LIFE THOUGH, geez i know he said "how fast" but Eddie gets LAUNCHED OFF VENOM when they go over that cliff. fun reference to the first movie, how Venom grabs onto Eddie as he flies up, like on the motorcycle <3

this horse scene has to be earlier on because Eddie is in The Outfit and is also not wearing shoes??? i refuse to believe he'd put it back on, and in the helicopter-"it is time" clip, Eddie is wearing that white shirt, which looks like the undershirt to the suit (maybe) so the Las Vegas scene happens before them running from the explosion/fire.

oh right, the song that's playing? Space Oddity by David Bowie? yeah it's about an astronaut dying along in space.... which... is not very comforting...

god this trailer makes me so hyped, October cannot come faster i need this movie NOW. please.

man the trailer is kinda confusing, i'm already making guesses on where things happen and what the context could be, but literally anything could happen in this film. there are so many things that just don't make sense yet and it's hurting my brain I JUST WANNA KNOW! are those new Symbiotes or not? What even is the plot? Will Eddie and Venom profess their love to each other? Will Sleeper be real? How many times will this movie make me cry? Only time will tell

...and it's only the first trailer! head so full of thoughts, heart so full of emotions!

[desceros]

tries to sleep, fails, gets melancholy, copes by writing purple turtle fic donatello/reader, gn!reader, rated t, 1.6k. insomnia, friends to.... friends, (were you ever just friends? are you something more? what is love if not friendship shifted an inch to the left?), yearning, yearning, yearning, yearning—

Donatello is sleeping.

Hefting a fatigued sigh, you hover in the doorway to his bedroom for a moment. Staring at his face, taking it in. He’s gotten unfairly handsome as the years have gone by. Beautiful, even. Pretty angles, sharp defined lines, dark seductive eyes. Like this, unmasked, slack in sleep, it’s free for you to look as much as you want. More than you can during the day. A little secret thing just for your own heart’s keeping.

…Best friends shouldn’t want to stare at each other like this, you think with an ache.

It’s late. You can’t sleep. Lying down has provided nothing but racing thoughts you can’t quiet. Things to do tomorrow. Things to say when you see someone. Things to write down if you can hold them until the morning. Things, things, things. So many things in your head, ten thousand little voices like little snowflakes in your skull. Each small, powerless; but together, a force too mighty to outrun.

And Donnie is sleeping. Normally he’s awake. Fiddling, poking, prodding, studying, twisting, cracking, bending. Available to draw you into sleep. Always soothing, petting your hair, cooing at you until you drift off at last to the dulcet sounds of his low rumbles.

But not tonight. Tonight he sleeps, pretty in his sheets even as he’s all sprawled out and drooling. Cute. He’s cute. He’s cute and close enough to touch but so, so far away that you know you never will. Not like that. Not like that. 

It’s late. You can’t sleep. 

Slowly, not wanting to wake him, infuriated with yourself just at the thought that you’d risked it by lingering as long as you have, you peel away from his door frame and sneak into the living room. The couch greets you again. Inviting, soft. It smells like turtle ass. Popcorn. Movie night. It smells like family, like home. Scratchy beneath your cheek. You’ve been meaning to get them some new pillows. The way Mikey had laughed so hard he’d snorted his drink. Leo’s squawk when it got all over him. The weight of Donnie’s arm on your shoulder when he’d leaned on you while laughing until he got the hiccups. His cologne, new, smells nice. You should tell him tomorrow.

(You can’t tell him. There’s no way for a best friend to look at the other with pupils shaped like hearts and be the same. You can’t tell him.)

Heavily, you sigh. It’s late. You can’t sleep.

You sit up. Get up off the couch. Stretch a little before exhaling and walking around a bit to try and work off some of this excess energy. The darkness of the living room isn’t so much, anymore, what with how your eyes have adjusted. You can see the pieces of the evening strewn about. A pizza box that Splinter’s going to find in the morning and yell at the lot of you for not throwing out. Raph’s teddy bear, leaning against the other couch where he’d been pretending he hadn’t been using it to hide his face in the scary parts. Mikey’s cup, half-full, forgotten in Leo’s panic to find paper towels. And—

—Donnie, standing in the doorway, bleary-eyed, arms folded. 

“Why are you awake?” he asks, voice tumbling over your ears like rocks on a riverbed. Guilt strikes you like a blow. He’s exhausted. You’ve woken him up.

“I’m sorry,” you say as an answer, tangling your fingers in the shirt you’d borrowed out of his closet. The shirt you always borrow. The shirt that’s half yours, now. 

Donnie’s quiet. You sink your teeth into your lower lip and hope he’ll shrug and go back to bed. Maybe, if he’s lucky, he’s got enough sleep juice in him that he’ll drift right back off and forget this happened. 

He doesn’t. “…Can’t sleep?”

The guilt burns your skin like sand in the wind. You smile and pretend. “I’ll be okay. Go back to bed, Don. You need it more than I do.”

He doesn’t. 

“…Please?” you try again. 

You’re met, instead, with a sigh. He rubs the back of his head where his mask would tie if he were wearing it. Lets his arm fall to his side—ah, except no. He’s holding out his hand, palm outstretched, inviting you to come close. When you don’t, his beak wrinkles. “Come here.” 

You take a few steps closer, but don’t take his hand just yet. “What are you doing?”

“Just come here,” he says again, curling his fingers a few times in an imperious grabby command. You come closer. He opens his tired eyes in a squint, mouth dipped into a frown, and his gesture gets more demanding. “Come here.” 

Stepping closer, closer, closer, finally you get within range. You realize he wants your hand the moment he loses patience with you, watching as he rolls his eyes and reaches out to encircle your wrist with strong fingers. They eclipse the bones there easily, tugging as he turns, pulling you out of the living room. 

“Don—” you start to protest, but he stops you with a breath.

“Stubborn,” he accuses, though there’s no heat to the word. The scoff is thick on the back of your tongue—Donnie of all people calling you stubborn—but you don’t let it out, knowing it’ll be too-loud in the pitch night. 

He pulls you into his room, the very room that had been such a sweet siren song to you earlier. He pulls you towards his bed. He pulls you in behind him when he settles in. He pulls you beneath his blanket. He pulls, pulls, pulls, until your chest is flush to his plastron and his arm is around your waist and his breath is in your face and your heart is in your throat.

It’s late. You’re not going to be able to sleep.

“…Go to sleep,” he says after a few seconds, doubtless able to feel the way your pulse is like a hummingbird against his skin. 

“Sorry,” you say in lieu of—anything else. You don’t dare try to say another word, unsure of what exactly would tumble out instead. Perhaps a sweet poem about the texture of his skin against yours. Maybe a lament that he feels the need to tuck his thigh between yours so so so close to where you wake in a pool of sweat dreaming of his touch. Or possibly a whispered confession that tastes like lightning and blood and sugar all at the same time; that you want this but not this, you want this but more. 

Gently, a forehead bonks against yours. Dark eyes open and meet yours, centimeters away. He studies you, and you watch the gears turn. More slowly than usual, lethargic even, because of his slumber. 

“You’re thinking too much,” he murmurs. Dumbly, you nod. “Need to talk about it?”

“…Yeah,” you admit, then, “…but I won’t.”

He doesn’t like that. A frown mars his beautiful, beautiful face. 

“Why?”

You swallow the incredulous laugh, the kaleidoscope of responses. They’re all irrelevant, impossible to share, save for one. “You should sleep.”

Donnie’s hand tightens, fingers curling in his—your—shirt in the small of your back. “So should you.”

“Yeah.”

“…”

“…”

“…I don’t understand.” The confession, rare, makes you sigh. 

“…I don’t either,” you tell him. And you don’t. Why did you have to feel this way for him? Why couldn’t it be someone easier that stole your heart? Why does it have to be the one person you can’t stand to lose? Why does he have to be so comfortable touching you like this and making it hurt even worse? Why can’t you stop feeling this way?

Why can’t you sleep? Why can’t you sleep? 

His fingers unfurl from your shirt. His hand dips beneath the hem, finding the skin of your back. Slow shivers spread like little earthquakes as he strokes along your spine, tectonic caresses that ripple and destroy. It's familiar enough a touch that you don't stop him; unfamiliar enough that it rends you inside out.

Donnie leans in. Ghosts his lips along your jaw. It’s not a kiss; you’re just friends, after all. But it’s a sweet caress that feels good, all the way to where he lingers at your ear, whispering there, quivering at the touch that's too close to something else to be fair. “Close your eyes.”

You have one rule: listen to Donatello. So you do; you close your eyes, let his nails drag down your back, let his mouth press warm into your pulse, let his chest rumble with churrs that fill the night air with something akin to a lullaby. His legs curl around yours, mixing, confusing, making the separation of you disappear. 

It’s… maddening. You hate this. You love him. You love him so much. You hate that he can do this so easily. 

“Shhh,” comes the gentle coo against your skin, like he can tell you’re pulling away from his intent. You obey that, too. Donnie says to be quiet, so you quiet. Thoughts, movements, words; all of them fall away at his beckoning. “Just like that. Good.”

Good, you think, feeling a little fuzzy. It feels good to be good for him. God. You’d be so good for him—but no. None of that, now. Not when you can pretend that these little presses of his lips are kisses. That the thickness of his thigh pressed to your shorts means something. That his hand scratching lines in your skin is something meant to claim as much as it is to calm.

“Making me work for it tonight,” you hear him mumble, half-conscious of the words, not sure if they’re real or part of a dream he’s built for you. “Good job, sweetheart. Just like that.” 

More brushes of his mouth. A slow glide of tongue. A lovely dream, you think, finally letting your muscles go slack. A dream of a Donatello who would hold you like this, talk to you like this. A Donatello who is more than just your best friend.

It’s late. Finally, warm and held and pulled into a sweet dream, finally, you sleep.

[mychoombatheroomba]

Covert Operations

Between the Bones (Leon x GN! Reader) - Chapter 38

Your bed rest has proven more difficult than you thought, and you get support from a person you didn't quite expect, even if maybe you should have.

(Cross-posted from Ao3)

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Chapter Index

You’d never thought you’d have to watch your life play out through a pane of glass. 

That was what you were reduced to, that first week. Bed rest. Doc’s orders. A week of it, wherein you wanted to do as Krauser suggested and study the less physical parts of the training. Trouble was, you’d not been given any of that training. No one had come to tell you what the hell they were learning over there, not even Krauser. 

So you’d stayed in bed dutifully for those first few days, but before long you’d pushed one of the uncomfortable chairs in the room towards that window. There you often sat, feeling your muscles crying out to be used and your eyes ever drifting towards that window. The orientation of the infirmary was cruel, giving you a good view of the base. A view of what you were missing, framed nice and pretty. 

It was like a movie. The kind that made you feel empty inside, but you couldn’t help watching. And watch was all you could do for those first few days. 

You watched Krauser and the other instructors greet a fresh batch of recruits. 

You watched lines of trainees running and heading to the shooting range, some you knew, some you didn’t. 

You watched Leon pushing himself, just as you knew he would. You watched him, beautiful and strong and sad, working through the shaking of his arms and legs. When he sparred with Valeria and the others, even when he did as you asked and faced down Krauser. You watched Leon lose to the Major over and over again, but he kept going. Kept getting up, every time. He was doing so well . . . and you knew you shouldn’t focus on him right now. It was poison to you, but you couldn’t help but drink it down. All of it. Everything you were supposed to be doing. 

A movie of should-have-beens . 

One with a soundtrack. 

“And if you go chasing rabbits-”

“And you know you’re going to fall-” 

The radio was a smartass. Or the DJ on the other end was without knowing it. Whatever the case, it always seemed to have something to say about you and your predicament. 

“Tell them a hookah smoking caterpillar-”

“Has given you a call-”

You knew that the radio had been a well-intended gift. And most of the time it was. It had kept you from delving into your own thoughts too much. It had been there when you woke in the middle of the night to the memories of friends turned monsters, or the resounding shock of a gunshot going off in the icy wilderness. You would reach for the radio in those moments, keeping it on because there was no one else you had to worry about waking. 

Sometimes, it would be that stupid, happy music. Songs that would keep your mind free. 

Sometimes, though . . .

You knew you shouldn’t have let it play those other songs. Just as you knew that you shouldn’t watch everyone else training. 

But you’d heard the news. 

Eight weeks. 

You weren’t going to graduate with Leon. That was the truth you had to grapple with. It wouldn’t have been the end of the world a few years ago. If you were two idiots having an affair in basic training. There would still be risks, but now? Leon would be thrown to the dogs and you wouldn’t be there to help him. 

So, over those days, you let those songs play, and let your thoughts play with them. 

Song after song after song. 

“In my shoes-”

“Walking sleep-”

“In my youth I pray to keep-”

What would happen, when you could finally move the way you needed to again? How much would your body allow you to do, after so long in bed? You knew the answer to that. You could remember how difficult it had been to regain your strength after . . . after the first time. You’d felt so weak, and you knew you’d feel weak again. You already did. 

That was if you even healed. 

You switched the station. 

“I could possibly be fading-” 

“Or have something more to gain-”

“I could feel myself growing colder-”

Some wounds didn’t heal right. You remembered a kid back in basic who fractured his arm in two places, falling from the obstacle course. They deemed him unable to serve when it didn’t heal right. 

If your ribs healed improperly . . . 

Another new station. 

“Distant eyes-”

“Promises we made were in vain-”

Whether you healed, Leon would be out there, fighting the fight without you. He was doing well. Better than the others, he’d pushed himself from being behind everyone to surpassing them all, but being the best didn’t matter out there. All it took was one moment of not paying attention. One second of carelessness. You knew that better than anyone. 

One moment and Leon could be gone, and you wouldn’t be able to do anything to protect him.

“If you must go, I wish you love-”

“You’ll never walk alone-” 

“You should be resting.” Doc’s voice had a way of being both caring and sobering all at once. He pulled you from your thoughts, and you turned to see him enter the room holding a sandwich. Fresh-cut tomatoes, soft white bread - nothing from the mess hall, you knew that for sure. Lucky bastard. He took a bite out of his dinner and gestured to the bed you should have been lying down in. 

“Didn’t think it mattered where I was resting, so long as I was resting,” you murmured, not wanting to climb back into that damn bed. 

The Doc just gave you a look. “Come on. Don’t be a little shit, kid.” 

Not much point fighting him on it. When it came to your health, he outranked everyone. Even Krauser. 

So, you frowned and carefully pushed yourself up from the chair, taking the radio with you. Letting it play as you reluctantly and slowly lowered yourself onto the bed once more. 

The Doc nodded, seemingly appeased. “Now try to sleep, yeah? Bed rest can be over tomorrow.”

Tomorrow. 

You’d be able to join in non-physically demanding lessons. The ones led by Reed and Hellman, then. That was something. That would at least keep your brain from becoming your worst enemy. 

Any more than it already was, anyway. 

You’d get to see Leon again, and that was something. 

Tomorrow seemed so far away as the Doc left you alone, as you tried to do what he ordered and sleep. 

You tried. You tried to sleep. 

It went about as well as it always did, so you lay there in that bed, letting the radio sing. You lay there as the thoughts ate away at you. The worries and what-ifs. The memories that always plagued you, and the fear that you wouldn’t be able to fight them. All because of some bullshit inflicted on you. More bullshit. Broken again. Fingers bunching up in the sheets of the bed, you shook your head and got up again in the darkness. Angry. Furious. 

Terrified. 

The radio played on and on and on and you paced the length of the room you were in. Your well-meaning prison. 

You would heal. You would get there eventually. 

Hopefully.

Maybe-

Your heart was beating, pounding against bones hard enough that it hurt. Breathing was just as painful, as it always was, and you felt like the walls were closing in on you. You felt like you were getting lost in the blur of it all, unsure what was wrong with you.

What was wrong with you? 

How could you be a soldier, how could you fight if you couldn’t even defeat the thoughts in your skull? 

How could you protect anyone-

There was a knock on the door, and you froze. 

Your assumption that it was the Doc come to check in on you was quickly done away with as, after a moment, another knock sounded and a gravelly voice called out from behind the door. “You fall asleep with the music that loud, or are you just ignoring your commanding officer?” 

. . . What the hell was Krauser doing here?

You hadn’t spoken to the Major in almost a week. Since he warned you not to continue on with Leon. Since you’d taken his advice but hadn’t, not ending things but not seeing the man of your affections beyond looking through that damn window. Honestly, you’d been thankful that Krauser hadn’t sought you out either, because there was a sickness to your stomach that you felt every time you thought of how Krauser had found out about your affair. 

Still, as much as you wanted to, you knew that pretending to be asleep wouldn’t get you out of whatever conversation was about to be had. 

As soon as the door was open, you found the Major standing there, his arms crossed over his chest. You expected him to be scowling at you. That he would tell you to shut the damn radio off and go to bed. 

Instead, there was an ever-so-slight curve to his mouth. A tiny smile. 

Who would be in for pain now, you wondered? 

“Get your boots on,” he ordered, not giving you time to ask what he was doing here. 

Not that you weren’t going to ask anyway. “Sir?” 

“Told you,” Krauser went on, sounding almost impatient, “I don’t want you moping around all the time. So you’re gonna make yourself useful.” 

Blinking was all you could manage, for a moment. It was the same way he’d told you that you’d be helping him with combat drills. The same way he’d told you that you’d be sparring with the lower-level cadets to sharpen their skills, the day before you’d met Leon. You wouldn’t be bruising any new recruits any time soon, so what was Krauser hoping you’d help him with? Whatever it was, it had to be better than being stuck in this room, right? So you nodded. “Yes, sir.” 

Lacing up your boots was difficult - something you hadn’t had to do in a few days. You sat on the edge of your bed, trying to hold in a grimace as you bent over awkwardly, fumbling with tying the knots. 

Krauser watched you struggle for just a moment before you heard his voice again. “Can you manage?” he asked curtly. There was another moment before he added, “Cause if you can’t lace up your boots, you can’t report for lessons tomorrow.” 

Get your shit together, in other words. 

“I’m fine.” You gritted your teeth, remembering how you’d managed this last year. When you finally managed it without hurting yourself further, you stood. You could recognize the ghost of pride on Krauser’s face. “So . . .” you looked up at him, taking as deep a breath as you could manage. “What’s the plan?” 

“Been a while since you helped me teach a lesson,” Krauser grinned. “And these CIA bastards aren’t the only ones who know about covert tactics. So you’re gonna have to leave the radio.”

⧫⧫⧫

It was quiet work, the two of you moving about the base. The first stop was your barracks. Where you would be sleeping right now, were it not for the broken bones in your side. Where Leon and the others were sleeping inside. Well, likely not. Leon was likely tossing and turning, as he always did. Or staring up at the ceiling . . . focus . Getting this wrong would fuck you over when you were doing it for real. So, you watched Krauser demonstrate, before he handed the bundle of wires and parts to you. 

He held the flashlight, watching as you worked, imitating what he’d shown you how to do. No words were exchanged, out of a need for silence as much, you were sure, as a hesitancy to speak. Your work was imperfect several times, and he would simply shake his head, moving his scarred hands in to show you where you’d made a mistake. When it was done, when you carefully tested the tension of the wire, he just nodded and cocked his head. 

Time to move on, then. Your squad would be in for a rude wake-up call. Still, compared to what you’d gone through in that prison, this would be nothing. 

You followed the Major as he went through the base. There weren’t many places to set the lines up - not that wouldn’t interfere with the flow of work for the day, anyway. Still, you followed Krauser’s near-silent direction, all the way until you reached the forested area of the base. The same path that you and the others traveled down hundreds of times on the rucks Krauser had led you on. The same path where you’d ambushed Leon’s old squad mate, back during their assessment. 

That all seemed like a lifetime ago as you laid a new kind of trap there - a tense and thin line stretched between two trees on either side of the path. 

It was there, as you and Krauser worked in the dark, that the Major spoke up at last. “The rookie give you that radio?” 

Do we really have to have this conversation? That was what you wanted to say. Or just not answer, period. 

Still, you nodded, your lips pursed. “Yep. Him and the others.” Not a lie, but Krauser didn’t look very pleased by the answer all the same. It was hard to tell. 

It seemed he didn’t hear the bit about the others. “I take it you talked to him? About what I said?” he asked, and again you felt that shame rise up in you. Shame and frustration and all manner of other things. Whatever alloy of emotions you felt, you could see just as much weight in Krauser’s eyes. 

“I did,” you answered honestly. “It’s handled.” Another not-lie. Not entirely one, at least.

Krauser, in the light of the flashlight, still didn't look convinced. “If you’re going to be doing all this spy shit, you should at least learn how to lie.” 

Fuck. What the hell kind of mess had you landed yourself in? One where your C.O. knew about your affair, and was, what, offering you advice on how to keep it hidden? Or was this him trying to talk you out of it altogether? You couldn’t tell. You weren’t even sure what this situation was supposed to be. So, you decided not to answer him further, and he didn’t press. The two of you moved on, setting up another trip line down the road. 

“What have they gone over so far in training?” you asked, because you didn’t like the heavy silence that settled between the two of you. “Reed and Hellman?” 

“Agent shit,” was the dry answer you got. “They’ll debrief you tomorrow.”

Your mouth pressed into a thin line as you tied off the wire, and you shook your head. “No. You told me to get ahead of the curb, then you let me sit in bed for a week.”

“On the Doctor’s orders-” 

“And I couldn’t have been debriefed from bed?” 

“I don’t control what those two do.” 

“But you control what you do,” you pointed out, frustrations from a week of relative nothingness coming to the surface. “If you want me to do well then I need to know what’s going on.” 

“You missed a week,” Krauser said, his eyes sharpening. “You’ll catch up.” 

“I’m missing a lot more than a week,” you snapped, and as soon as the anger was voiced, it left you with nothing but dread. No fire in the dark woods, only the chill of uncertainty. Of dread. You hated that your voice wavered. That you sounded exactly how you felt: afraid. 

The Major watched you for a moment, neither of you speaking over the sound of crickets in the night air. 

When he finally spoke over that chorus, his words were almost soft. As soft as Jack Krauser’s voice could be, anyway. “You’re not gonna be out of the fight forever.” Should have figured he’d see through that attempt at indifference. 

“I might be.” You weren’t sure where the self-pity was coming from. 

A week in bed, you supposed. 

“The hell you talking about?” Krauser sounded so genuinely confused, but he had to know what worried you. He had to be aware of the thought that plagued you. 

“I’ve had this injury before,” you said, detaching yourself because you feared what emotion would come spilling out of you if you didn’t. “If it doesn’t heal right this time-”

“You knock it off with that bullshit.” It was an order that stunned you into silence. Krauser’s stare was no less intense than his voice. He’d yelled at you before - that was his job, after all. This was different, though. He wasn’t pushing you to improve, he was telling you that you were going to listen to him. That there was no other choice. “Self-pity isn’t going to help you heal, and neither will worrying. You’re gonna be fine. You’ve lived through worse and come back stronger, right? You still want to take the fight to those assholes at Umbrella?”

The answer to that last bit was obvious. Incontrovertible. “Yes.” 

With a nod of his beret-covered head, Krauser gave you one final order. “So pull yourself together.” 

It’s harsh and not at all the comforting reassurance that others had given you in the past. Still, it’s enough of a reality check that it flips a switch in you. There was little room for argument, and all you could do after several moments of surprised silence was nod. “Okay. Yeah. Sorry, sir.” 

Krauser, after a moment, shook his head. “Don’t be. It’s . . .” he swallowed, like he was weighing the words. “It’s bullshit. What happened.” 

Your injury, you knew that was what he was talking about. You could hear it in the regret in his voice. 

“Yeah,” you agreed. “Well, bullshit happens. Have to learn to deal with it.” 

 Krauser smiled at that. Not the kind that meant harm for others. This one you recognized as something else. One you were familiar with, however rare it was - pride. “That’s what we train you for. Dealing with bullshit.” 

“And how to disable tripwires?” you offered, feeling a little better, even if your ribs still ached. 

Krauser just rolled his eyes. “Smartass.” That still-present smile told you that he wasn’t annoyed, though. Not really. He looked at you for a moment longer, like he was thinking. That same expression took his face, then. The one you didn’t really recognize. Whatever it was, he turned away before you could really puzzle it out. “Come on. A few more. Then you can get back to moping.” 

You laughed a little at that. 

⧫⧫⧫

Leon hadn’t slept well. 

Not that he ever did, really. 

He’d become an expert at willing himself to rise, though, and so when it was time, he sat up from bed and got ready with the others. He threw his fatigues on, rolling his shoulders back, sore from the sparring with Krauser he’d done the night before. All of him was sore, but it always was, wasn’t it? 

He was used to it, now. 

Just as he was used to not sleeping well, or the strain of the training, or . . . well, he was getting used to looking over to your bunk and not seeing you there, too. However much it pained him. 

So many things in life that he’d never thought he’d be used to, as he made his way towards the barracks door, the first one of the squad to make it there.  

What he wasn’t used to was the slight bit of tension he hit when he twisted the handle and pushed the door open. The tiniest bit of resistance . . . and then the sound of some faint, mechanical click. He didn’t see the little bundle of wires by the door until it was too late. Even as he moved to throw himself backwards, there was a pop and a flash of light. 

Adrenaline brought about a full-body flinch as he threw himself back. As the rest of the squad did the same, trying to get away from the door, from whatever harm was promised to them. 

Only to find that adrenaline fading when no harm came to them. 

“Okay,” Williams exclaimed in utter annoyance, “what the fuck?” 

About as done with the morning already as Williams was, Leon approached the door slowly, pushing it the rest of the way open. Looking for the source of what had caused the tiny burst. 

He got his answer in the form of a firecracker. A fucking firecracker. One hooked up to a makeshift detonator, with a now-loose wire hanging from it. 

And leaning against that very wall, with an exhausted but amused look, was the only person Leon had wanted to see all week. 

He knew full well that his face lit up as he took the sight of you in, glad that his back was to his squad mates so they couldn’t see. 

“Hey.” 

It was the first thing that escaped his lips, and he wanted to smack himself because really? Was that the best he could do?  

Still, he found himself smiling a little when you gave him that half-formed, half-lived smile. It was small, but it was enough. “Hey.” You looked between Leon and the trip-wire - one that you had no doubt laid yourself. “Gonna have to pay closer attention next time, Kennedy,” you shrugged, and then began walking away, throwing one last phrase over your shoulder with a smile. “See you in class.” 

That promise set Leon’s heart racing, just as sure as that tripwire had. 

⧫⧫⧫

“What the hell happened?” Doc sounded absolutely concerned as you returned to the infirmary that morning, enough that you stopped in your tracks, not sure why he was so worried. You blinked, looking over your shoulder. Had he heard the bang of the firework? Did he not expect you to be out of bed?

“What-”

“You? Smiling?” he asked, and you realized you’d walked in with that little grin still on your face. “Hell must have frozen over.” 

Everyone on base is a fucking comedian.  

You just deadpanned a grimace, and carried on to your room - still to be your home for a while, even if you were allowed to escape it for lessons. And setting up traps around base, apparently. 

Doc filled in the laughter for you, following you into the room. 

“Got breakfast ready for you there.” He pointed to the table by your bedside, the one where your radio was currently housed. A tray from the mess hall, with the usual slop that was served there waiting for you. 

You frowned. “Not gonna give me any of your homemade stuff?” you asked, looking over your shoulder. 

Doc just gave you a look. “Nope. Now eat up.” 

That was all he said before he left the room, closing the door behind him. 

If it weren’t for the fact that you needed to keep your strength up, you probably wouldn’t have touched the stuff. It tasted like sawdust half the time, so you weren’t exactly thrilled to be eating it. 

At least, you weren’t, until you went to move the tray and a manila folder fell out from underneath it, spilling onto the floor. 

“What the fuck . . .” you cursed as you knelt down, struggling with your ribs to scoop up all the papers. 

No, not papers. 

Reports. 

Grouped together with paperclips, though some had come loose. You quickly scrambled to gather them, your eyes widening as you skimmed the papers with sections of blacked out text - though not as many as you would expect, given the title of the report you picked up first. 

𝚁𝙰𝙲𝙲𝙾𝙾𝙽 𝙲𝙸𝚃𝚈 𝚁𝙴𝙿𝙾𝚁𝚃 - 𝚂𝙴𝙿𝚃𝙴𝙼𝙱𝙴𝚁 𝟸𝟽𝚝𝚑, 𝟷𝟿𝟿𝟾

Your blood went cold as you read the words, and then read them again. 

Eyes flashing, looking through the others. 

𝙺𝙽𝙾𝚆𝙽 𝙱𝙸𝙾𝚆𝙴𝙰𝙿𝙾𝙽𝚂 𝚁𝙴𝙿𝙾𝚁𝚃 

𝚁𝙴𝚀𝚄𝙴𝚂𝚃 𝙵𝙾𝚁 𝙵𝙴𝙳𝙴𝚁𝙰𝙻 𝙸𝙽𝚅𝙴𝚂𝚃𝙸𝙶𝙰𝚃𝙸𝙾𝙽 - 𝙰𝚁𝙺𝙻𝙰𝚈 𝙼𝙾𝚄𝙽𝚃��𝙸𝙽𝚂

𝙸𝙽𝙲𝙸𝙳𝙴𝙽𝚃 𝚁𝙴𝙿𝙾𝚁𝚃 - 𝙳𝙾𝚁𝙽𝙴 𝙱𝙰𝚂𝙴, 𝙵𝙸𝙽𝙻𝙰𝙽𝙳 - 𝙹𝙰𝙽𝚄𝙰𝚁𝚈 𝟸𝟿𝚝𝚑, 𝟷𝟿𝟿𝟾

You stopped as you read that title. Those words. Your name and rank. Your report, your words printed just underneath the heading. 

It wasn’t only those reports. There were more of them, most just a few pages by the looks of things, but still . . . 

This. All of these, they were . . . it was all here. You knew it, even without having to read through the pages individually. All of it was about Umbrella. Bioweapons. The very things you’d sworn to stop. To fight. It was all here.

A name caught your eye, then, as you sifted through the pages. One that gave you pause even more than all the other information you’d glimpsed. 

𝙸𝙽𝚃𝙴𝚁𝚁𝙾𝙶𝙰𝚃𝙸𝙾𝙽 𝚃𝚁𝙰𝙽𝚂𝙲𝚁𝙸𝙿𝚃: 𝙻𝙴𝙾𝙽 𝚂. 𝙺𝙴𝙽𝙽𝙴𝙳𝚈 - 𝚁𝙰𝙲𝙲𝙾𝙾𝙽 𝙲𝙸𝚃𝚈 𝙸𝙽𝙲𝙸𝙳𝙴𝙽𝚃

Your fingertips brushed the name, printed in bold. 

It was his story. Everything about what he’d survived and what he’d endured. The details he’d told you and the ones he hadn’t were all right there. Just as your story was. Two documents. A few sheets of paper that contained so much pain. Accounts of the nights that had changed both of your lives forever, and you’d been left both of them. You could know what he’d gone through at last . . . 

But you found yourself shifting that report to the back of the stack, hiding it beneath the others instead. Closing the folder . . . and then snorting a little as you saw the note paperclipped to the front of it all. 

Read up, smartass. 

You didn’t have to recognize the handwriting to know who it was from. 

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Chapter Index

A/N: Krauser is slowly going on his "fuck the government" arc, we stan. Unfortunate that said arc ends with him infecting himself with a parasite and kidnapping someone, but for a while here, it's gonna be great!

Songs that Sarge was angsting to are "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane, "Black Hole Sun" by Soundgarden, "Into Dust" by Mazzy Star and "Separate Ways" by Journey, all of which are bangers that I would recommend!

[whereianonymouslypostfics]

Recon

Pairing: Wanda Maximoff x reader

Word count: ~4.5k

Summary: You and Wanda meet.

A/N: I’ve been wanting to write this for so long. Did I say I was going to wait until tomorrow to post this? Whoops. Enjoy!

Warnings: Fluff. 

When you leave the lecture hall, your mind is on the class you just finished, and when you’re going to have the chance to study for the exam that’s next week. You’re less than a year away from being done with university, and you’ve already submitted your application for veterinary school. However, as you continue to gain experience by working at a vet clinic a few times a week, and study your ass off to keep getting good grades, you realize that you are running yourself into the ground.

You’re exhausted and despite enjoying what you’re learning for the most part, physics being the exception, you need another outlet. You need something to do that’s not school or vet-related so you don’t burn yourself out. You sleep, wake up, and go to class, study between classes, and then go home and study some more. If you’re lucky, you have time to eat three meals a day and get time to decompress before going to bed. If you’re unlucky and it’s exam week, you don’t even leave the library for days except to shower and sleep.

Since you live alone and have no pets, other than a fish that you don’t pay enough attention to, you don’t have anyone to force you to relax. You promise yourself you’ll do better once this next anatomy exam is done, but all thoughts of planning a movie marathon soon leave your mind when you spot her.

You’re still moving along with the crowd of people fleeing the lecture hall when you see a beautiful brunette waiting in the lobby. You look away quickly because you don’t want to be caught staring, but you’re only about to resist for a few steps before you are looking at her again.

You’re certain that you haven’t seen her before because despite being in your own world sometimes, you tend to notice the important things. Especially, ridiculously attractive women. The first thing you notice beyond her hair because that’s always the first thing you notice, are her eyes. As she looks around for someone, probably one of your classmates, you see her bright green eyes that you’d love to get lost in. You’ve always had a weakness for them in the past. Her dark makeup only accentuates her natural beauty, and you hope as you see her gaze pass over you, that you’re not drooling.

You don’t have time to look away again before you feel someone push past you as they walk through a doorway. You; however, don’t make it and you slam into the door frame with an undignified grunt and cringe at the fact that you probably just drew a lot of attention to yourself for being so distracted.

“Fuck.”

Wanda had been on campus for over an hour already and she was getting bored. She hadn’t been around so many people close to her age before and it felt foreign to her. She’d never gone to university. After finishing high school and graduating valedictorian, she’d decided to help her parents and brother with the family business. Then they’d died and she hadn’t been given a choice about whether she wanted to keep things running. It had been a difficult time, and that was barely a year ago that she and Pietro had been orphaned. Their losses still seemed fresh on some days, but as Wanda wanders around campus looking for her target, she’s reminded of the life she could have had if her parents hadn’t chosen the paths they had.

Wanda had always loved history in school, and through tutoring a lot of her classmates, she’d realized that she loved teaching. She’d humored becoming a history teacher for a few months before her future with the mob became less of a possibility and more of an indisputable fact after her parents lost their lives in an attack. She remembers receiving the news of her parents’ deaths on her darkest nights that usually involved copious amounts of alcohol. She hadn’t been there. Ironically, she’d just been leaving her graduation party when her brother called her to tell her to come home now. She’d been confused by how frantic he was, and annoyed by the lack of information he’d offered.

 It wasn’t until she’d arrived home and seen it swarming with her parents’ employees, she’d called them minions, she’d been enlightened by her brother about what happened.

Revenge had immediately become her priority. Despite being devastated by her loss, she’d thrown herself into a role that she could barely comprehend and tried to keep the business afloat while finding those responsible. Wanda looks back on these early days of chaos and is glad to have them behind her. Well, her days are still chaotic sometimes, but in the months since she’s taken over, she’s learned to be efficient. She spends her days delegating and overseeing an empire that brings in millions of dollars a year.

Today, she’s looking for a replacement computer scientist to help run her convoluted security network. She’d just promoted the man who’s previously held the position, but he’d recommended someone that Wanda was hard-pressed to believe would be a good replacement. She had expected someone with comparable experience which in this case was nearly a decade, but here she was at a university where most people here were in elementary school that long ago.

She has everything she needs to know about this kid, he’s a year younger than she is, but she gets a little sidetracked before she can find him. He’s supposedly in the building she’s standing outside of now, but she’s not sure what the best way to approach him would be. She could say who she was, but that usually freaked people out pretty quickly, so maybe she’d just mention Frank first.

Wanda checks her watch to see that the class that he’s in should have just gotten out and she sighs before heading toward the doors. She still feels out of her element as she walks into the building with her old high school backpack slung over her shoulder. She just needs to find who she came for, and then she can get back to familiar territory.

The class lets out a few minutes late, and Wanda can see on the faces of several students that this is a common occurrence. She scans the sudden swarm of students that start to flow through the sets of double doors leading out of the lecture hall and into the lobby where she waits. She figures she could have been slightly less conspicuous if she’d sat down at one of the available tables and pretended to study, but she didn’t have the patience to do much to keep up her ruse. She’d had an exhausting week and was mostly doing this as a favor to her brother. She’d asked him to do this, but he’d gotten home late from a deal last night and was still hungover.

Wanda’s thinking of how to get her brother to repay her when she sees you walk out with a distracted look. You’re not who she’s looking for at all, but you’ve caught her attention immediately, and she briefly forgets what she’s here for when she catches your gaze. You’re beautiful and clearly stressed as you probably mull over the lecture you just left. You’re frowning and as you walk closer, Wanda can see you show characteristic signs of an overworked student. There are dark circles under your eyes that aren’t as bright as Wanda expects they usually are, from hours of studying or listening to lecturers drone on and on.

She watches as you stifle a yawn before running a hand through your slightly unkempt hair. She’ll learn later that this is a nervous tick of yours, something you tend to do as you stress about anything and everything. Wanda only has a couple of seconds to wonder what your name is when someone bumps into you and sends you falling into the door. She cringes at the loud sound and the clearly pained look on your face as you smash your arm against the metal door frame not two feet from her.

“Fuck.”

Wanda frowns despite wanting to smile at the sound of your voice. It’s rough from pain or fatigue but Wanda can’t help but imagine other scenarios in which it might sound lower than usual as she speaks without her brain’s permission.

“Are you okay?”

You’re a little thrown off by a ridiculously attractive, total stranger talking to you, but you offer her a smile before nodding in answer. You’re fine honestly, just a little miffed and embarrassed by your inattentiveness. You take a moment to admire the brunette in front of you now that you’re actually allowed to look at her, and you have to remind yourself not to be weird.

You haven’t dated in a long time. If you can count going on two first dates as ‘dating’. You’ve used being busy with school and work as an excuse to not doing a better job of trying to meet women. You know that if you really wanted to, you would put in a little more effort, but you are too worried about being distracted from school to give it much of a shot.

“Yeah, I’m fine, thanks. Just distracted.”

You offer a smile and Wanda just smiles back before glancing over your shoulder briefly for someone. You don’t get a chance to ask before she speaks up and you almost groan in response. Fucking physics.

“Class was that boring?”

You start to drift toward Wanda mostly to get out of the way of traffic, but as you find yourself standing across from her you realize you should have just risked getting sideswiped again. She’s even prettier up close and you try to ignore how good she smells as you blush slightly.

“Oh physics is my least favorite, but it’s a necessary evil unfortunately.”

Wanda has given up looking for Frank’s protégé at this point, and she leans against the wall behind her. She’d rather talk to you than try to persuade someone who she doesn’t quite need yet to work for her. She has a feeling you’re much more interesting than a conversation about firewalls and VPNs.

“Necessary for…?”

Wanda can’t help but smile a little wider as she watches you fidget nervously with your backpack straps with a nervous chuckle. You’re always reluctant to tell people about your plans to go to vet school because given the school you’re at, and the state you’re in, it’s almost as if everyone’s trying to do it. You’re just one of hundreds who have the same goal.

“Vet school applications.”

Wanda smiles at the thought of this before she considers what type of vet you want to be. She figures the best way to find out is to ask, but she can’t help but imagine you wrangling pigs or cows in addition to the cats or dogs she figures most people are more interested in.

"That’s impressive.”

Wanda revels in the darker blush she sees on your cheeks as you shake your head in disagreement. She is quickly realizing that you don’t accept praise or compliments well, you’re too modest or perhaps something else to just smile and let yourself bask in them. She wonders which it is as she watches you practically wave her off with a vaguely uncomfortable look.

“Maybe once I get in, but right now I feel like I’m just doing the same as everyone else.”

Wanda’s not sure how to respond to this immediately, but you don’t give her a chance as you turn the attention on her. You can’t help but wonder what she studies. More specifically why this is the first time you’ve seen her here.

“What about you?”

Wanda freezes and you notice her stiffen imperceptibly as she considers her answer. You take the prolonged moment of silence to study the brunette a little more carefully. You can’t really guess what she studies just by looking at her. If not for the fact that she’s in a building where multiple disciplines are taught, you don’t see much of anything in or on her backpack. You at least have a dog and cat button on yours.

“Um, history. World history.”

You take a second to think about this and realize that it doesn’t make a lot of sense. History is not taught in this building, but then again, she could just be visiting for another reason. You don’t say this or even ask because it’s not your business. Instead, you smile and nod in understanding as you think about your lack of luck in all of your history classes.

“That is impressive. I could never follow anything in history class.”

Wanda’s still reeling from her Freudian slip when your phone starts vibrating in your pocket. She frowns slightly when she watches you take it out and look at it with a sigh. She has a feeling that you’re going to leave soon, and she can’t help but want to keep talking to you.

She honestly hasn’t had a conversation with someone her age, about normal things like school in a very long time. She realizes this might be the true reason for why she feels her mood drop precipitously as you leave a few seconds later, but she doesn’t allow herself to think about it for long.

“Ugh, I need to go to my next class. It was nice meeting you…”

You trail off purposely and Wanda smiles as she tells you her name that you can’t help but smile at.

“Wanda.”

You nod before offering your own name as you silence your phone for a second time.

“Wanda. I’m Y/n. Maybe I’ll see you around.”

It’s not a question but Wanda nods without thinking. She doesn’t think she will see you again, but she can’t bring herself to say that. You wonder if you will as you leave to your next class that you’re going to have to run to in order to be on time. You can’t bring yourself to care though as you smile stupidly all the way there.

Maybe you will see her again.

Two weeks later

Pietro Maximoff was at a loss. He couldn’t figure out what was going on with his sister. She was never home, which honestly in itself wasn’t odd, but she had been going MIA more these past two weeks than she had since taking over things here. Wanda always did a good job of keeping in touch with him during the day, at the very least once a day to check in. Since their parents had died, they’d realized how important it was to stay in touch and watch each other’s backs.

This was for both of their safety, and despite the bodyguard that he was still trying to get his sister to allow follow her around, it never hurt to let someone know where she were. Steve had been running around a lot trying to follow Wanda who seemed to disappear early in the morning and not return until late at night.

He has no idea where she’s going and despite her saying that she was just busy with work, he was suspicious. His twin instincts were telling him something was wrong, and he planned to track her down today and try to figure out what was going on.

He had a few things to wrap up first, but as soon as he was done, he was going to find Wanda.

World History.

Wanda was still beating herself up over her stupid answer two weeks later. She couldn’t have managed to narrow it down at all in the moment, but she couldn’t do anything about it now. As soon as she’d managed to recruit her technician, she left campus and immediately started looking into you. She figured out your full name, where you’d grown up and a little about your family, but she hadn’t wanted to look any further. Sure, she could have easily figured out where you lived, but she’d already crossed a line by being too curious for her own good.

The next day she’d tried to focus back on work and forget about her run in with you. It had worked for about 48 hours before she’d cracked and found herself back at the university. Wanda had ignored her usual routine for a day and camped out for a chance to spot you again. She’d worked outside the building where she’d met you since it was a nice day and she only had to make phone calls and check in on people.

As she laid out in the grass, she ignored her brother’s texts asking where she was, but she had a feeling she could only do this for so long. She’d managed to go back every day and still not see you for the rest of the week, and she was frustrated. She returned to the compound around 8pm and was on her way to the kitchen to get something to eat when someone practically shouts at her.

“Wanda! Long time no see.”

Wanda turns around to see her brother rounding the corner and hurrying over to her. She offers him a sheepish look before she just nods and continues on her way, just a bit slower so her brother can follow.

“Hey, Piet. How’s it going?”

Wanda is thinking about what to eat for dinner when her brother shoots her a look that she misses. He frowns before deciding to just get right to it. He’d taken a lot of time to figure out how to approach his sister about her uncharacteristic behavior. Steve had told him that he’d finally been able to follow her today, and she’d just gone to the nearby university to sit outside and supposedly work all day. He was still very confused and hoped that Wanda could offer an explanation.

“The usual mostly, just without you. Where’ve you been recently?”

Because she knew her brother well, she had prepared an answer to this question that he’d hopefully buy. That said, she hadn’t counted on him sending anyone to follow her. She’d be annoyed about that once she got over the embarrassment at being found out.

“I’ve been trying to get out of the compound during the day. Needed a change of scenery.”

Wanda notices as she opens the fridge that her brother is shooting her a look that she doesn’t like at all. She grabs some leftovers from a dinner she’d made a couple of nights ago, and pretends to be too focused on it to notice her brother’s suspicion. She almost drops the dish in response to his question, and she curses under her breath before shaking her head vehemently.

“Steve says you’ve been going to the same place on campus this week.”

This was a lie, but he mostly wanted to see how Wanda reacted, and she didn’t disappoint. She disagrees unconvincingly before glaring at him for his next question.

“I’m just trying to get out, Pietro. You don’t need to send Steve to stalk me.”

She realizes that she sounds a little hypocritical calling someone else a stalker, but she disregards this quickly at her brother’s accusation.

“Are you seeing someone there? Is that why you’ve been MIA?”

Wanda shakes her head with a frown because she honestly wishes she could say she’d seen you since. She was going to give it one more day, but she couldn’t keep hanging around campus with nothing to show for it. She also had to get back to work at some point. She hoped to see you again, but if she didn’t catch sight of you on Monday, she was just going to have to let this go.

 “No, Piet. I’m just getting out some, okay?”

He isn’t convinced, but Wanda is fine with this for now given that she doesn’t have anything to hide. Nothing’s happened, and despite secretly hoping that this will change, she isn’t going to get him worked up over nothing.

Although Wanda is very different from her brother, they are both known for their paranoia. It’s hard not to be paranoid given their experiences and their lifestyle, but the twins are always overly cautious and when making any potentially risky decisions, they typically consult each other.

This included trusting anyone who wasn’t directly involved with their work, and given how her last short-lived relationship ended, she didn’t want to have a similar conversation with Pietro anytime soon.

So she decided to visit one last time Monday to see if she caught sight of you. If not, things would go back to the way they were, and Wanda would stick to one night stands that scratched that itch, but did very little else for her at this point.

Once she leaves her brother after they’ve finished eating and catching up, Wanda returns to her room to sleep. It’s been a long week despite not being as busy as usual. She knows she has some things to catch up on this weekend, but she’ll worry about that later. She lies down before turning on a show that she ends up ignoring. She falls asleep by the middle of the episode, and she can’t help as her mind wanders to your beautiful smile and adorable blush.

You’re almost certain that you failed that exam just now. You’d spent the last week, and especially this weekend, studying for your physics exam during any free moment. Physics was not your strong suit, and you honestly were just trying to pass this class with a C or higher at this point. Given that you’d failed the first test spectacularly, you needed to do much better on this and the last one to pass the class.

Leaving the lecture hall though, you’re not convinced that you will accomplish this. You scowl on your way out of the building and can’t help but be annoyed with yourself. You just don’t know how to study for this class, and the damn assignments don’t seem to help you. You’re frustrated, but unfortunately there’s nothing you can do about it now. You just need to forget it and just do better next time.

You’re hurrying down the stairs when you spot her again. You’d thought about your run-in with Wanda for a couple of days until you got too distracted by your test. You’d concluded that Wanda was probably not a student, but you’d never been able to figure out why she was on campus that day. You figured that it was useless to overthink it because you weren’t going to see her again.

That said, as she looks up just as you’re walking down the stairs you hope that she happens to remember you too. She’s sitting on a brick wall not directly in your path to your next class, but you have no qualms against making a detour. Hell, you’ll be late for you next class, something that’s never happened, if it meant being able to talk to Wanda again.

“Hey.”

Wanda’s standing up as you walk closer to her and she smiles at your poorly concealed glee. She doesn’t dare let herself be too hopeful and consider that you actually wanted to see her again too.

“Hey…”

You slow to a stop beside her, not minding the people walking by you as you focus solely on Wanda. She’s not carrying a backpack today and you briefly wonder if she’s here just for you before disregarding that unlikelihood.

“Wanda.”

You smile wider at her before offering her a nod. You decide that it wouldn’t hurt to be upfront with the brunette, and you laugh as you nod in the direction of your next class.

“Wanda, I know. I was just surprised to see you here again. Walk with me?”

Wanda nods before following your lead with a smile. She’s grateful that she finally caught sight of you, and she was determined to not let this opportunity go to waste. She’s not sure where they’re headed, but she doesn’t worry about this as she responds.

“Surprised? Why’s that?”

Wanda has a feeling that she wasn’t as subtle as she’d wanted to be last time you met. She just isn’t sure if you’d picked up on it, and if so, how much you’d been able to gleam from your short interaction. When she sees you smile widely and shoot her a knowing look out of the corner of her eye, she realizes you were smarter than she expected. You also weren’t afraid to speak your mind which she admired given how most of the company she kept on a daily basis held back out of fear of angering her.

“Well, you’re clearly not a student here, and I can’t imagine why anyone would come spend time here of their own free will. Unless of course she has ulterior motive.”

Wanda can’t help but blush slightly at the fact that she’s caught. She’s honestly surprised that she’d spent the past 2 weeks hanging out on campus just for a chance to see you again. She doesn’t say this because that would undoubtedly sound creepy, so she settles on asking another question.

“What ulterior motive is that?”

You don’t respond immediately as you walk up the steps towards the lecture hall that you have to spend the next 75 minutes in. You stop short of walking in and you turn to Wanda with a pensive look. You’re not sure what she wants from you so you just say this in hopes of her clarifying her intentions.

“I’m not really sure, but either way I’m glad to see you again.”

Wanda can’t stop herself from smiling at this and she nods to herself before taking a moment to find her courage. It’s now or never, or rather, now or just at a later, more awkward time. Wanda leans back against the railing behind her with a sigh before meeting your curious gaze.

“You too, Y/n. I actually wanted to see if you’d be interested in going out sometime? We could go out for  drinks.”

You beam in response and Wanda feels her heart start to race in anticipation. Then you shake your head.

“I’m not much of a drinker.”

Wanda’s face falls and she silently berates herself for a few seconds before you speak up again.

“But I love food, if that’s something you’d be interested in?”

Wanda smiles again as she immediately nods in response. You take this as your cue to grab your phone and you fiddle with it for a few seconds before handing it to her.

“Great. Well, I need to go to class now, but if you put your number in there, we can figure out the details soon.”

Wanda’s already thinking about the places she could take you for dinner as she takes your phone from you. She texts herself before handing it back to you with a relieved smile. She feels like the weight she’s been carrying around since she met you has been lifted from her shoulders.

“Can’t wait.”

Masterlist

[imagitory]

Review: The Little Mermaid (2023) [SPOILERS]

Hey, everyone! So I’ve finally seen the much-anticipated live action remake of Disney’s The Little Mermaid, featuring Halle Bailey as our finned leading lady! (For my review of the original Little Mermaid I wrote a while back, you can click here!)

For those of you who wish to avoid spoilers, I will admit -- for someone who has never been a huge fan of these Disney LA remakes, this film is definitely one of the strongest I’ve seen thus far. There’s a lot I could see someone enjoying in this, and there were honestly changes made to the original film’s storyline and characters that I really, really liked. Even with those changes, though, there are a lot of things I don’t like about the finished product, which prevent me from calling this a great movie, most of which involve the characters surrounding our two romantic leads. I would definitely encourage you all to see this movie, because there obviously was a lot of hard work put into it and the two leads in particular deserve your support -- but if you are fans of the original Little Mermaid, it’s very possible that you will have very strong opinions about certain choices made, not all of them positive.

Without further ado...let’s dive right in!

The Good!

+Halle Bailey as Ariel. Although I would’ve preferred if she’d had a hotter temper the way Ariel in the original is depicted, she still has all of the curiosity, wonder, recklessness, courage, and conviction that our favorite little mermaid is supposed to have. You truly feel how much Ariel loves the human world and wants to be part of it, just like in the original. Any of those racists who crowed about Halle Bailey only being picked as part of some “woke” corporate decision are truly eating their words -- unlike Emma Watson, who was clearly cast as Belle for very surface-related reasons rather than for any vocal talent, Halle shines every time she’s on screen, and ESPECIALLY when she sings. Good friggin’ JESUS, does this girl have some amazing pipes!!

+ERIC!! OH MY GOD, ERIC!! As sad as I am to admit it, I’ve always found Eric to be rather bland, as Disney heroes go. Sure, he’s a nice enough guy who isn’t full of himself and likes dogs, but he’s still rather “genEric,” if you’ll excuse the pun. But here? Here, the story truly accents that he and Ariel are kindred spirits -- soulmates, in the truest sense! Eric feels just as trapped by his mother’s narrow world view as Ariel does by Triton’s -- he longs to explore new worlds and get to know new cultures just as much as she does -- he loves learning and discovering and breaking rules just as much as she does...he even has his own “grotto” where he keeps his treasures!! (I actually gasped out loud in delight when I saw that panning shot of Eric’s study! It’s just like the one of Ariel’s grotto, right down to the skylight!!) 

+Partially because of the heightened focus on Eric’s character, Eric and Ariel’s relationship was infinitely more interesting to me! I loved them connecting over learning new things in Eric’s study, even before going into town together -- it really highlights one of the best things about Ariel and Eric’s relationship in the original film, which is that even without her voice, Ariel is strong, passionate, charming, and likable enough that Eric can see her heart clearly and falls in love with her regardless. Even without her voice, Ariel’s agency shines through, and so do her feelings for Eric and the human world overall. Halle and Jonah’s interactions were overflowing with chemistry, and you got to really see Eric and Ariel falling in love in a convincing way, even despite the limited time frame. 

+Ariel clutching statue!Eric’s broken hand! Oh gosh, the symbolism of that, how I love it!! Like Belle from Beauty and the Beast, all Ariel really wants is “someone to understand” -- that, excuse me, human connection is a longing she can hardly put into words, and it’s just heart-wrenching. 

+Ariel and Eric stargazing and Ariel using the constellation Aries to tell Eric her name was such clever writing, as well as absolutely precious. It’s choices like this that really prove to me how much Eric and Ariel’s relationship really meant to the screenwriters and how sincere they wanted it to feel. 

+The colors were great! I was really worried from what I saw in the trailers that this film was going to be bland and unsaturated in its visuals, but I’m so glad they fixed them in time for the premiere, because they look so much better. The mermaids’ coloring in particular was really very pretty. 

+The costumes by Colleen Atwood were pretty good too, even though far more understated than a lot of her other work. I even enjoyed the cool “fishy” cape that King Triton wore in his first appearance, though he never used it again, which was kind of disappointing. 

+I’m honestly glad the film cut Les Poissons. The whole scene from the original was kind of uncomfortable and unnecessary, and its exclusion was a welcome change, even if it did result in Sebastian sounding much brattier when he complained to Ariel that she should appreciate “all that he’s done” for her. 

+Every time Halle sang was amazing, period, full stop. Even Jonah, Daveed, and Melissa did pretty well with their songs, though I’ll talk about issues I had with them later. 

+The effects for the merpeople and environments overall were quite well done! The storm scene was super suspenseful, even with prior knowledge of what was going to happen, and I really enjoyed the camera work that created this feeling of floating and weightlessness in the merpeople when they were underwater. 

+I thought the ending where Triton and the other merpeople came up in a show of solidarity for Ariel before her and Eric’s sea voyage was sweet. I liked it in the original when they came for Ariel and Eric’s wedding too, but I kind of liked Triton expressing vocal support for his youngest daughter and the rest of mer-kind appearing too, so that both worlds -- on land and under the sea -- came together as one to support their two royals as they embarked on this new adventure together to hopefully improve the lives of all of their subjects. 

+Max is a good dog. But hey, he’s always been a good dog. I especially love how he and Ariel are kind of buddies from the get-go. 

The Not-So-Good...

+Scuttle. Oh my GOD, was she insufferable. I was worried when I first heard Scuttle was going to be played by Awkwafina, who -- I’ll just be honest -- I don’t really care for as an actor and don’t find very funny or likable...but I had no idea they were actually going to make her SING, maybe aside from that one little bit Scuttle had in Kiss the Girl. But not only did Scuttle make a really uncomfortable pop culture reference when trying to serenade Eric and at one point obnoxiously go off-key in Kiss the Girl when I was actually somewhat enjoying the harmonies, but she then goes on to get her OWN number. Yeah, a WHOLE SONG where she can be completely obnoxious. I never thought I would detest a song the great Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote, but Awkwafina sure managed to make The Scuttlebutt impossible to sit through. Not even Daveed Diggs could make it better for me when he jumped in halfway through. Couple this with a “realistic” design that can’t emote anything except “singing bass mounted on your wall” and it’s little wonder I feel nothing but revulsion toward this character. 

+Flounder! Not only did his “realistic” design make him much less colorful and cute, but his lack of expression completely counteracted Jacob Tremblay’s sadly only mediocre acting performance, making the entire character dull and lacking in pathos. This is supposed to be Ariel’s BEST FRIEND -- the one character who she trusts enough to confide in, even if he doesn’t understand her obsession with human things and is a total scaredy-cat, all because he loves her just the way she is -- and yet you feel nothing for either Flounder or his relationship with Ariel in this movie. Yes, perhaps it makes more sense for Ariel to find Eric’s statue and bring it back to her grotto herself than Flounder somehow smuggling into her grotto for her with no explanation...but the action showcased how much Flounder supports Ariel, even when he’s scared of humans himself and wishes Ariel wouldn’t break the rules all the time. Here, Flounder doesn’t show even half that amount of caring for Ariel’s feelings -- partly because his animation won’t let him, and partly because the screenwriters never let him express it.

+Sebastian. Now I’ll be fair -- Daveed Diggs does have a few good moments in this movie as Sebastian, mostly in the singing sphere, but he still has none of the dynamic personality the original Sebastian does. Part of this is because -- like Flounder and Scuttle -- his design doesn’t let him emote enough, but it’s also because the writers almost never let him express anything besides cynicism or dry humor. They even take away Sebastian’s love and passion for music by just making him Triton’s Major Domo, rather than the lead conductor of the royal orchestra! So yeah, Sebastian in this movie is pretty much just “under-the-sea Zazu.” The few times Sebastian tries to express sincere emotion in this movie, it falls flat, because of the poor direction Daveed’s been given. There’s a lovely exchange from the original that they try to recreate in this movie where Sebastian finally stops doing what Triton would want and agrees to help Ariel, but Daveed’s delivery is so stilted that it doesn’t have any of the impact it should. Another time, when Ariel is on the rocks despairing about Eric choosing Vanessa, Sebastian starts to show some sympathy, saying that he’s seen Ariel and Eric together and he’s convinced they’re supposed to be together...only for the monologue to get crashed into by Scuttle trying to move the plot along before we can let any emotion in the scene congeal! Sebastian is one of the characters that goes through the biggest evolution in this movie, and that arc falls completely flat in this film, thanks to a bad combination of unemotive CGI animation and poor writing and acting choices. 

+Triton. If Sebastian’s arc fell flat, Triton’s really didn’t work for me. Half of what makes Triton’s storyline and by extension Ariel’s so meaningful is that Triton starts off as an objectively pretty poor father to his youngest daughter, but he ends up learning the error of his ways and becomes a better man and a better father by accepting his daughter was right and learning to let her go. At the beginning of the story, Triton is furious because his youngest daughter misses a concert where all of his children were set to sing a song heralding him (“Oh, we are the daughters of Triton, great father who loves us and named us well”). Later he consistently shouts Ariel down when she tries to explain that humans aren’t all bad. He interrupts her more than once, actively refusing to listen, and his temper is violent enough that Ariel finally just has to swim off choking back tears, running to her treasures for some semblance of comfort. In this version, though? Triton never gets violent or aggressive in the beginning -- he acts a bit pompous, perhaps, when greeting his daughters, and he’s cross when Ariel’s not there...but when she arrives, he never yells at her. He never rages at her. He never even interrupts her! And yet he still acts all guilty when she leaves (”was I too hard on her?”) and Ariel acts like he’s being so unfair to her. And then, at the drop of a hat and while expressing nothing but raw hurt rather than volatile rage, Triton destroys Ariel’s treasures “for her own good.” Worse, unlike Triton in the original, he doesn’t even spare the slightest look back at Ariel or look the least bit sorry about seeing how much he’s hurt his daughter. That’s somehow even MORE cruel than the original version, even though earlier he’s depicted as so much more reasonable! Ariel expresses disappointment that Triton just “won’t listen,” a sentiment echoed later by Eric about his own mother -- but honestly, in both Triton’s and the Queen’s cases, they weren’t aggressive enough for the parallel to work or for Triton’s arc in accepting his daughter’s choices to have much of an impact. 

+Ursula. It wasn’t really that Melissa McCarthy was bad, persay -- she’s certainly better than most of the other LA remakes’ villains in overall presence and performance...but I’m sorry, she’s still just way less fun to hate than the original! For one, her constantly talking about her plan to herself and making it super obvious what she’s doing the entire time got old really fast -- Ursula in the original was perfectly willing to keep some of it under wraps until the end where it was necessary to make everything clear, and I think it made her come across as much more intelligent and crafty. There’s also a part toward the end where she just goes completely nuts looking for a potion ingredient for about thirty seconds that was utterly pointless. But the thing that saddens me most is what they cut out of Ursula’s character. The part of Poor Unfortunate Souls when Ursula tries to gaslight Ariel into thinking appearances are all that matter and “it’s she who holds her tongue who gets her man” may have been deleted in a misguided attempt to not promote that message (seriously, was anyone actually taking romantic advice from Ursula the Sea Witch??), but in truth, it showcased so much about Ursula’s character -- how, truthfully, she’s all about appearances, more than anything internal like one’s heart, morals, soul, or intelligence...and so she can’t fathom Ariel and Eric connecting over anything that isn’t superficial. Ursula being Triton’s sister is also, quite frankly, an idea I wish that was left discarded on the development floor. I don’t like the idea either here or in the musical, and here I dislike it even more, because at first it seemed like the filmmakers were going to reveal that the reason Ursula got exiled was related to what happened to Ariel’s mother or maybe even why Eric was found washed up on the shore by the King and Queen (since it’s said Ursula liked causing “trouble” between humans and merpeople), only to not deliver on it at all. Ariel also claims Ursula’s “nothing like how Triton described her” -- girl, HOW did he describe her, then, because she’s shady AF??

+Ariel using the sunken ship’s bow to kill Ursula instead of Eric. Look, Disney, I’m all for a strong female lead, but you already HAVE one, in Ariel. There’s nothing wrong with Ariel needing to be rescued too, now and again. In the original, Ariel and Eric trade saving each other’s lives, and it’s honestly kind of adorable -- in this film where they’re even more like peers, it would’ve been a great choice. And honestly, Eric saving Ariel would’ve meant so much more even in this film, and it all comes back to Triton’s arc again. After Triton is resurrected (I’m sorry, the film really did NOT make clear that that was even possible, so that felt like a major deus ex machina), Ariel tells her father than she “had help” in saving his life. How much more would that have been true if ERIC had been the one who stabbed Ursula, or that Eric and Ariel steered the ship together? Hell, how much more would it have proven that Triton’s world view was wrong? The whole reason he supposedly hates humans -- to the point that he’s made the seas so turbulent that Eric’s kingdom is pretty much isolated from the rest of the world -- is because a human killed his wife. Imagine how much the Sea King’s narrow world view would open, if a human killed his wife, and yet a different human saved his daughter as well as him. It would prove what Ariel told Triton earlier on -- merpeople aren’t all the same, so why would humans be? It would also foster good feelings between Eric and Ariel’s father, the way Eric’s mother accepted Ariel at the end! in the original, we see Eric bow to Triton and Triton inclining his head respectfully in return, but in the new version, Eric looks nervous when Triton appears. 

+The new music...and you know, it breaks my heart to say this. I love Lin-Manuel Miranda’s work, but none of the new songs he wrote for this movie were that memorable, to me. Even Eric’s new song, which is pretty much Evermore fused with Her Voice from the Little Mermaid musical, left me kind of cold, even with how happy I was to hear a Disney prince sing in a LA remake WITHOUT autotune for a change! Goddamn it, Mena Massoud and Dan Stevens!!. Even if you do end up liking them, though, I feel that -- like Speechless in the Aladdin remake -- these new songs don’t blend well with the rest of the songs from the original movie, nor does the score do a good job blending the two disparate styles together. Even though I like the opening scene for what it is, something was really lost in not using the score to communicate time period and location the way the original Little Mermaid score does. Fathoms Below does a better job introducing the sailing ship Eric is on and the culture of the humans on it than the opening scene does on its own -- even though the song is used later when Ariel goes up to the surface, the impact of it being used to set the stage is lost. It’s like having Vuelie first pop up in Frozen during Elsa’s coronation, or like having The Circle of Life first play in The Lion King when Mufasa is teaching Simba about kingship -- the song might be good wherever you first hear it, but its placement setting the stage for the story we’re about to hear is important in both leaving an emotional impact on your audience and in helping tell the story. And considering how much Lin-Manuel obviously loves The Little Mermaid, I’m a little surprised he or Alan Menken didn’t emphasize to the other filmmakers just how much power a strong opening number can have. 

+For all of the songs added, there were quite a few places I wish there’d be more! Even if you didn’t want to use Daughters of Triton, couldn’t we at least have some new song where Ariel’s sisters could shine? What about Triton himself? If Only is a beautiful quartet from the musical featuring Sebastian, Triton, Eric, and Ariel -- why not use that, or write something new in that vein? Why couldn’t we have that fun little reprise Vanessa sings in the original about Ursula’s plans, or maybe a variation, since she already crowed out her plan to the audience so early on? Why not have a reprise of that mediocre song of Eric’s when he decides to stop seeking out his mystery girl and tell Ariel how he feels? Where’s our grand musical finale where Ariel and Eric finally get their happily-ever-after?! The very last song in this movie, excluding Under the Sea being reprised in the credits, is Ariel’s second sad reprise after Eric chooses Vanessa!!

+There was also a shocking lack of ensemble singing, in this. Under the Sea and Kiss the Girl are supposed to be dynamic group numbers, largely because Sebastian’s showmanship bleeds out of his every pore and makes other sea creatures flock around him with little effort -- but in this, only Ariel sings along with Sebastian in the first one, while only Flounder and Scuttle sing along with Sebastian in the second. It makes both songs way less exciting than they should be. Add to this that in Under the Sea, the filmmakers almost never bother to show any of the fish discussed in the song on screen, and you’re left with a much smaller and less dynamic performance. 

+I wish Ariel’s sisters could’ve played more of a role! It seemed at several points the filmmakers wanted them to be more involved in the family dynamic, such as when they remind Ariel she was too young to remember their mother’s death, but they honestly don’t do very much or leave much of an impact personality-wise. 

+The Hans Christian Andersen quote at the beginning sadly ended up completely meaningless in the film, since Triton cries upon saying goodbye to Ariel at the end. You can’t even act like the film was trying to “prove the quote wrong” either, because Triton’s character arc was given so little focus in the story and was so lacking in power compared to the original. 

+Ursula’s little secret proviso about Ariel not remembering that she has to kiss Eric...honestly, I don’t think it added a damn thing! Ariel already knows just kissing Eric isn’t enough -- it has to be a Kiss of True Love. The filmmakers went out of their way with the changes to the lyrics of Kiss the Girl to make it clear that Eric should only kiss Ariel when it’d be consensual -- why can’t it be the same way here? Ariel doesn’t want to kiss Eric when he wouldn’t want it either! Even better, why not have Ariel overhear Eric talking about his mystery girl to Grimsley, to the point that Ariel is left wondering if Ursula was right, that the only reason he’s even obsessed with her is her voice, and he didn’t even get the core of what she was singing to him? Not her wanting to connect with him, not her longing to be part of his world? It would give her all the more reason to worry when Vanessa shows up that Eric never truly cared at all and NOT suspect that something’s amiss!

+On the note of Ariel’s voice, there’s special focus put on Ariel supposedly “saving Eric with her song,” but...how?? She saved him by helping him choke up that water and then sang to him as he was waking up! If her voice is supposed to be magical, good, but the filmmakers really should’ve explained that better, because it would definitely give further justification for why Ursula wanted Ariel’s voice and for why she thought Ariel couldn’t charm Eric without it. Perhaps Triton could’ve blown up at Ariel about it, if Sebastian told him everything -- maybe he’d rage that humans never forget a siren’s song, that they’re too simple-minded to fight against them -- that Eric would hunt her down like an animal obsessively or some nonsense? Maybe we could even then have Eric resisting Vanessa’s influence the entire time too, so as to prove this idea wrong -- however strong and magical Ariel’s voice is, Eric’s heart is pure, and his connection with Ariel is strong enough that learning she’s disappeared wakes him up enough to try to fight back against Vanessa’s spell. Maybe even Scuttle could’ve realized that Eric was under a spell by seeing it first-hand -- seeing Eric resist Vanessa’s stolen voice, only to get overpowered temporarily with enough singing! All Vanessa needs is a few hours, after all -- if she can stay right by Eric until the sun sets, she wins. 

Overall, the film was kind of a rollercoaster for me. There were parts I was cheering and smiling at, and others I was cringing and frowning at. There were some real high notes, especially regarding our two main leads -- but there were also quite a few sour ones as well. Ariel’s relationship with Eric was developed beautifully, to the point I ship them even more than in the original film...but as a consequence, all of Ariel’s other relationships seemed to suffer. Her friendships with Flounder and Scuttle -- her relationship with Sebastian -- her strained relationship with her father -- even her hero-villain dynamic with Ursula -- all of them are considerably weaker and less engaging and emotional than in the original film, both from a writing and performance standpoint. And yeah, I’m not going to lie, that really hurts the finished product for me. I understand wanting to make likable heroes and romantic couples, but without just as likable of a supporting cast framing them, a movie, show, or even story is just not going to be as likable. I definitely think this live-action adaptation is better than a lot of other ones I’ve seen, and as I said, I strongly recommend seeing this and making your own conclusions...but personally, I can only really celebrate certain aspects of this film, and the original Little Mermaid will always remain my personal preference. I wish Halle Bailey and Jonah Hauer-King the best in everything they do and I can’t wait to see how their careers progress...but sorry, I don’t think the seaweed is greener in this movie’s lake. However fun some of this film’s twists were, I’m happier swimming in more animated waters. 

Overall Grade: C+

[who-canceled-roger-rabbit]

Come to think of it, has anyone properly adapted The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen to the screen? If not, here are some ideas (tagging @dagny-hashtaggart and @thatonemushroom here):

First, make Villiers and Clarke female! On one hand I love me an evil woman like Helen Vaughan, and I particularly appreciate her character as an example of a sexually predatory woman who's played for horror (as opposed to either for titillation, or for mean jokes about how "ugly" she is). But on the other hand I would appreciate some more unambiguously heroic female representation to balance the evil out.

Make Villiers and Clarke sexually forward but in a positive way, to clarify that Helen is evil not because she's a slut but because she's a predator. Could sum this up in an exchange during the confrontation at the end, with Helen trying to act friendly toward the heroes like "I've been told you two know how to have fun; that makes three of us" and the heroes retorting "Where's the fun in any of what you've wrought?"

I'm on the fence about whether to keep the Victorian setting. But if not, I'd like to establish that Dr. Raymond is on the CIA's payroll as part of MKULTRA. This would most likely place Helen's birth sometime in the 1950s or '60s, meaning the main story would have to take place no earlier than the '70s.

Updating the setting would also present an opportunity to make the cast more ethnically diverse—though I figure even in the original Victorian setting, it wouldn't feel too out of place for one or both of the heroes to be Romani, or Jewish, or a STEM major visiting Britain from elsewhere in the empire (perhaps the Caribbean, going by the European-sounding names Villiers and Clarke) to study. Of course, considering what I said earlier about giving the heroines a sex life, one would have to be careful not to veer into stereotypes about hypersexual women of color—ideally their sexuality would be framed the same way that a white male character's would be.

I'm also on the fence about how much influence Raymond had on Vaughan when she was growing up. On one hand I don't like the trope of "behind every bitch is a bastard who made her that way"; women are fully capable of committing evil of their own volition. On the other, I do want to avoid the potentially ableist angle of a freakish baby that's born evil, so chalking it up to her upbringing by Raymond could mitigate that. It'd also be thematically appropriate to highlight the parallels between Dr. Raymond violating Mary's consent and Helen Vaughan violating all those men's consent, and it'd illustrate how patriarchy facilitates sexual abuse against both men and women.

How to capture Helen's beautiful but undefinably monstrous appearance? Use Zemeckis-style CGI to place the character firmly in the Uncanny Valley, but leave the other characters normal while Helen is walking around looking like she stepped right out of the 2004 Polar Express movie.

On the other hand, her transformation at the end should use some gory practical effects. Maybe tap the FX department behind the 2016 Canadian horror film The Void to do this scene.

Speaking of The Void, Evan Stern's delivery during the police interrogation at the 45:20 mark (warning: finger torture) is how I imagine Charles Herbert recounting his story to Villiers. Okay, the context is different because Herbert is willingly divulging all this to an old friend without any police brutality necessary. But Stern's panicked tone in this scene (coming at least as much from his previous encounter with an eldritch cult as from the present threat of torture) sounds just right to convey Herbert's trauma. Hell, we could even cast Stern himself (whom Letterkenny fans may recognize as Roald) as Herbert!

[jgroffdaily]

Excerpts from a review at them.us:

It’s the sort of premise that works well in literary form, where we have more direct access to the characters’ interiority — and indeed, Shyamalan and his collaborators have adapted this film from Paul Tremblay’s The Cabin at the End of the World, albeit with some major plot revisions. But Shyamalan draws tremendously affecting performances out of everyone involved, especially Groff and Aldridge, to the point that the novel’s close third-person narration is barely missed. In so doing, the horror director produces his finest work since The Sixth Sense and delivers one of the more moving queer-themed genre films in recent history.

At its core, and beneath its high-concept trappings, Knock is a family story: Eric is uptight, Andrew has a temper, but they love each other and would do anything to protect their “miracle,” Wen. The movie’s LGBTQ+ representation hits the exact (and often elusive) sweet spot between being casual and pronounced. The homophobia that Eric and Andrew have endured over the course of their relationship is real, shown in painful flashbacks, but there is nothing didactic about that acknowledgement. Those scenes from the past serve a purpose, for both plot and characterization, and avoid coming across like Very Special Episodes.

I never would have expected Shyamalan, who — speaking of sacrifice — often offers up his own characters on the altar of abstraction, to nail this balance. But in Knock, Shyamalan seems to have matured enough as a filmmaker to stay put, confining himself largely to a single location, keeping his lens focused on Eric and Andrew’s pained faces. He avoids big twists in favor of tight close-ups and the occasional monologue. Shyamalan wants you to believe this family’s love for each other, and thanks in large part to Groff and Aldridge, he succeeds.

This family is just like any other family, but it also isn’t. Love is love, but also — as Billy Eichner’s character memorably puts it in Bros — love is not love; queer love is different. For some reason, it seems impossible for many filmmakers to hold those two ideas together. The temptation is strong to either homogenize or tokenize — to make LGBTQ+ characters either the same as everyone else or markedly other. Shyamalan avoids that temptation here, letting the family be messy, imperfect, and all the more likable for it. That surprising human touch only accentuates the director’s long-established talents for crafting suspense and framing shots. For all his past foibles, the man knows how to construct an image.

Knock is many things: a parable about the end of the world, a study in belief, a thriller perfectly poised for our misinformation era. But in addition to those layers of meaning and metaphor, it is also a film about the beauty and fragility of building a queer family. Eric and Andrew have overcome so much to create something that’s at risk of being capriciously destroyed. The movie understands something that queer people know on a gut level: we are strong, but we are outnumbered and we are, after all, only human.

I won’t say how Knock ends, suffice it to say that a certain 1975 disco hit becomes a genuinely gutting musical cue. But I will say that it made me do two things I never expected to do while watching an M. Night Shyamalan film: cry and feel proud to be queer.

[crocodile-in-your-house]

I will be 20 soon and this year I will create more and listen to more music and watch more good movies (and bad movies) and finally be fluent in the language I've been studying since eighth grade. I will play more guitar and learn chords on the piano and maybe get back into the trumpet after putting it away a decade ago. I will find magazines and cut out pictures I like and glue them into a notebook to make collages, not for any reason, just because I like how it looks, and my hobbies will be because I enjoy them, and not for anything else, not for money, not for content creation, not for another person. I'll keep writing the novel I've been writing and editing since I was a senior in high school and I'll read more books (a lot more) and read the Bible and read magazines and anything I can get my hands on because I want to be full of good information (and transformation!) and if anything I want to be more feral like a 10-year-old girl is feral; I want to go barefoot outside, dig around, go looking for rocks, flowers, leaves. I'll pick flowers that are pretty and press them into a glass frame and hang it above my bed. I'll paint with watercolors. I'll make things and go places and I don't have to spend a lot of money to do it. I'll study and learn because it's not a chore to study, it's a privilege, learning and growing, and I'll go on walks, and runs, too. I'll do lots of stretching. Maybe yoga. And I'll cook for fun, healthy stuff and unhealthy stuff, just because it looks good and tastes good and it's new, and if I get my clothes dirty so what, they don't need to be sterile, or perfect, and in the summer when I am a camp counselor I will have more new adventures with more new friends in a new state with beautiful scenery. In the fall I'll jump in piles of leaves and go on more walks in the crispiness of the changing season. This year will not be easy but it will be cool and new, lots of surprises and lots of adventures, and I will be 20, and I will be content.

[in-my-feels-probably]

Hi! Congrats on 900!! May I have a romantic grishaverse match up please? I go by she/her and I’m straight :)

I have dark brown hair, hazel eyes and I love getting French nails done although I don’t get them done that often.

I’m currently studying theatre but I love poetry, photography and doing anything arts and craft related. My main love language is touch but I also do love quality time. I have anxiety so I like to be in a place I feel safe or around people I feel safe with watching movies, painting, reading or learning how to bake something new. Spring is my favorite time of year. My favorite song right now is if he wanted to he would by Johnny Orlando and my favorite movie is Who Framed Rodger Rabbit. I’m fairly athletic as well.

🤍🤍🤍🤍

hi!

thanks for participating :)

i ship you with jesper!

jesper definitely gives off theater kid vibes for sure, so he’d definitely like you. id consider him a pretty artsy person too, so he would enjoy doing artsy shit with you. although i don’t think he really cares what he’s doing with you, as long as he’s with you. one of his main love languages is quality time, and he just enjoys being around you. he’d appreciate any time you take out of your day to be with him.

i also think he enjoys alone time with you, away from the group. while he’s a very extroverted and outgoing person, he’d understand that you have anxiety and don’t want to be in large crowds in the barrel all the time. you’re close with the crows, but being around them all the time in places like the crow club can really take a toll on you. he’d know that, and do what he could to make you comfortable.

although, kaz would still have you go on jobs with the group. he’d take it easy on you, but still have you do things. mostly, youd be there to keep an eye on jesper and babysit him, making sure he doesn’t do anything stupid. which was a job all on its own, but youd do just fine with it, and everyone could relax when you got back home that night.

sometimes, kaz would let jesper off for a bit. not all jobs required a sharpshooter. if there was small matters he could handle on his own, or send inej, he’d do that. so jesper could spend an afternoon with you, and do whatever you two decided on doing to relax.

i think jesper would really enjoy spring too. it reminded him of his home, and he’d love when the seasons changed. plus, he’d hate the cold, so he’d welcome the warmer weather. there’s not really any nature in ketterdam to see, but sometimes you’d venture further into the kerch countryside.

you’d walk along a path together, hand in hand. jesper would smile at the peaceful scenery, breathing in the fresh air.

��look at the colors in this tree,” he’d smile, pulling down a blossom. “reminds me of home.”

he’d tuck the flower behind your ear, making you flush.

“you’ll have to take me to novyi zem, one day. id like to see it.”

he’d smirk. “it’s beautiful over there, like you, darling. you’d love it.”

you’d smile, wrapping your arms around his waist as you continued to walk.

“i love you, jes.”

“i love you too, darling. so much so, that i’ll forget about you not calling me beautiful back.”

you’d chuckle, playfully slapping his arm. “i don’t need to tell you that, jesper. you remind me of it every day.”

—

hi again! hope you enjoyed this :)

[shuacore]

[ 12:58 ] apple pie

he makes you feel all the things you often joke about missing in college. he makes you stay up late up on the phone, twirling your hair around your finger like a chick in a typical teen romance movie, so much so you sometimes wish you still had a landline. he makes you giggle in a way that only comes out around him and smile so hard your cheeks hurt. 

before seungcheol you didn’t know what it was like to be foolishly in love. to be consumed by the kind of love that you see in the movies, filled with photo booth film strips and surprise coffee dates and grand romantic gestures. he calls you baby, and sweetheart, and even angel in the right moments. 

he makes it impossible not to miss him.

how do you make a home?

truth be told, you had been resistant to moving in with seungcheol. you liked the idea of having your independence and you liked having your own space.

but somehow, over time, you found traces of yourself appearing in his home.

a green toothbrush next to his red one. your favorite blanket of his draped over the sofa because you always fell asleep during movies. your favorite brand of microwave popcorn in the pantry and a spot for your socks in his drawer. 

you remember asking him, “hey, is it okay if i keep some of my stuff in your dresser? it’s not that much, i promise. you don’t have to, if you don’t want…”

and he had just smiled, watching you with those big gorgeous eyes of his. 

“i would eat hot coals for you,” he had replied, and the response caught you so off guard that you let out the ugliest snort of laughter. 

they were just some socks, but seungcheol was always dramatic like that. it didn’t matter that you didn’t live with him. he was your true home, anyway.

i’ve been running round trying to find a place where i can breathe.

your favorite dates were the ones where you’d walk around fancy neighborhoods, pointing out your favorite houses. 

“ooh, cheol, look at that one!” you say, pointing to an A-frame with dark shutters. “oh, it’s so beautiful.”

“we could fill it with that style you like so much—farmhouse?” he adds on, grinning as you gasp enthusiastically. "with a big kitchen and lots of windowboxes."

“and—and we could have a pool in the backyard!” 

“we could get a big dog. like one of those burmese mountain dogs.” 

“mingyu could live next door.”

cheol snorts, shaking his head. “sure, and wonwoo and seokmin and jeonghan and vernon.”

“would you want kids?” you ask, looping your arm through his as you lean your head on his shoulder. the two of you pause to stand outside the house, admiring its romantic frame and cozy exterior. 

“with you?” cheol murmurs, and you’re surprised to hear a crack in his voice. concerned, you look up, only to see him gazing at you with heart-wrenching affection. you giggle as he leans in to press a gentle kiss to your temple.

“so many.” 

i found you under an april sky.

you met seungcheol in new york, in your second year of grad school. you had been studying at the cherry fountain in central park, working on one of your final papers, when a man in a smart wool coat had come up to you. 

he had brown windswept hair, round wire-framed glasses, and a grin that could melt the coldest heart. he looked frazzled, asking if you had seen his friend around (“he’s tall and kind of stupid—oh, i’m gonna fucking kill him—dark hair, Korean?”).

you shook your head no...do you know how big central park is? 

somehow, you ran into him again, just as you were leaving for the evening. the sun has started to set and the lights in the high-rise buildings have started to come on. you bundle yourself in your scarf when he notices you. 

he’s holding a rose, probably one from a street vendor, and he hands it to you sheepishly, like he can’t believe he actually found you again.

later, when you put the flower in a vase, you notice he wrote his phone number on the tag. 

i found mingyu. i hope i can find you again, too. 

seungcheol x

home is wherever you are tonight.

tonight you’re alone, writing something in your diary when your phone dings! the little heart next to his name makes you swoon.

cheol <3: hey, can i tell u something? 

despite knowing it’s probably not a big deal, your mind races through all the worst-possible scenarios it could be. what if his mom died? what if he’s moving back to korea and he doesn’t want you to come with him? what if he's sick? what if he's breaking up with you—

you: yeah ofc

three little dots pop up on the screen, hardly seconds after your response. you watch them with a strange mixture of excitement and despair, despite how much you reassure yourself it’s nothing bad. seungcheol would never tell you something serious over text message.

you hear the ding! again, and you can't fight the silly grin that inches across your face.

cheol <3: i just cant wait to marry u xx

—

ot13 | masterlist

[wkemeup]

Play Pretend

summary: When Bucky is injected with a substance that leaves him desperate for release, you offer your help. pairing: bucky x reader word count: 7.8k warnings: smut (18+), sex pollen (with as much consent as one can have in a dub/con trope)

“What in the—” you slammed an elbow to the nose of the assailant behind you, “holy,” a quick right jab to another coming up on your left, “godforsaken,” a knee plunged straight to your ribs and you kicked to the assailant who managed to get one up on you, “hell, Rogers!”

Another body fell to the ground and settled at the collection at your feet.

Dripping in sweat, heart pounding in your chest, and your body short of giving out completely, you slumped a shoulder against the cold frame of the wall. Down the hall, at least a dozen more Hydra agents were barreling towards you.

There was no response on the coms; not that you expected as much. The Hydra base in Munich you were tasked with rigging to blow was meant to be abandoned. Nothing left but a dozen empty cells and decades of barbaric research no one should ever lay eyes on again.

Seemed Captain Roger’s intel was just slightly off. Tell that to the series of bodies lying in your wake.

“You better send backup, Rogers, or I swear to God I’ll haunt your star-spangled ass for all eternity,” you grumbled to the broken transmission as you attempted to square up. Fists out ahead of you, swaying slightly on weakened legs, a dizziness in your vision making it hard to tell exactly how many men were charging straight at you.

“What? I’m not enough for you?” Bucky suddenly appeared on your right, chuckling to himself as he released the empty magazine from his weapon and quickly replaced it with a new one. Blood was soaked into his hair line, mixing with the sweat beaded on his forehead, and he brushed the back of his hand against his face to smear it back into his hair.

“About time you showed up. Making me do all the hard work myself,” you scoffed, shooting him a teasing smile as you eyed the hallway he came rushing in from.

He insisted you’d be out in time for movie night back home if the two of you split up, divided the C4 amongst you and met back at the quinjet in twenty. Not even his super soldier instincts could have predicted this place would be overrun with stray Hydra agents looking for a rematch.

One of the agents opposing you whipped out a handgun and Bucky jumped forward, using his left arm as a shield. The bullets ricocheted across the room, puncturing into another Hydra agent who collapsed to the ground clutching his knee.

You exhaled a heavy breath, the edges of your lips dipping down into a frown as you watched more agents stepping over the bodies of their colleagues and advancing down the hallway. You glanced up at Bucky, watching as he weighed the rifle in his hands, bouncing it lightly. It was running low on ammo.

“You get anyone on coms yet?”

“Nothing. We’re on our own.” Bucky gritted his teeth, firing a few rounds down at the mass of Hydra agents swarming their way towards you. It knocked a few of them down, at least.

You started to take a few steps in their direction, yanking a knife from the spine of an agent on the ground before you whipped it down at the ones ahead of you, knocking another to the ground. The echo of gunfire tore through the cramped hall again and it left a pile of men at the front lines.

Four left.

“That was my last round,” Bucky grunted, tossing the weapon to the floor as he tugged a small blade from the holster on his thigh. He smirked as he glanced over at you through the corner of his eye. “Who do you want?”

You shrugged, studying the four agents who came to a slow halt at the opposite end of the hallway. The two on the left looked about as you’d expected from Hydra agents; tall, dark haired, with shoulders twice as wide as their hips and a vicious kind of look in their eyes. Then, a blonde-haired woman who couldn’t seem to tear her eyes away from Bucky, a hand resting impatiently on the knife against her hip. Last, a man who towered at least two feet above the others with a long, jagged scar covering most of his face.

“I’ll take the two on the right.”

Bucky narrowed his eyes, glancing between you and your chosen assailants. The taller one cracked his neck to the side and bared his teeth.

“You’re sure?”

You feigned offense; a hand pressed your heart as you took a few steps forward, sliding the batons out from the holsters along your shoulder blades and twirling them between your fingers. “You underestimate me, Barnes. You think I’d let you have all the fun?”

Bucky laughed, shaking his head as he jogged to catch up with you, disregarding the battle cries of the Hydra agents as they advanced as if it was only ever the two of you in the room. “Not a chance in hell, sweetheart.”

The blonde woman stared to advance on Bucky, eyes trailing him up from his boots to the top of his head with a devilish kind of look in her stare. She licked at her lips hungrily, as if she was ready to take a bite into him, though he paid her no mind as he rushed at the two men to her right.

“Hey, Barbie!” you called, waving a baton in the air to grab her attention. “Looks like your stuck with me.”

She glared at you, pausing in her strut for only a minute, but it was all you needed. You sprinted towards her, using the wall as leverage as you jumped up against the frame to propel yourself into her. Baton at ready, you slammed down into her collarbone as she let out a yelp and fell down to the ground. It didn’t take her long to get back on her feet and when she did, her knife was nestled tight into her grip, a new kind of intrigue on her face as she stared you down.

“Need any help over here?” Bucky called out from the end of the hallway as he ducked under the right hook of one of his assailants. He clipped one in the knees, sending them spiraling to the floor with a pained shout, before he smirked over in your direction.

“Mind your business, Barnes!” You rolled your eyes as a smile crept up against your lips.

Barbie took a single glance back at Bucky before her eyes returned to you and there was something darker within her stare you didn’t quite notice, or perhaps you simply mistook it for enemy territory. Either way, when she raised her arm with knife in hand, you whipped around the baton in a backhanded strike, sending the knife flying down the hall. Unarmed, she stared at you with wide, fearful eyes, until you knocked her out with a final hit to the side of her. Nothing fatal, but it would keep her under until backup arrived to hull her in.

Bucky was still fighting off his second attacker as you approached the man leaning against the wall with his arms folded over his chest, patiently waiting. He pushed himself off the wall, cracked his knuckles between his palms with sharp snaps that echoed down into the hallway.

“Think you can take me, little girl?” he taunted, voice low and thick, like it had gone years in disuse. He made a show of the way he settled into his stance; fists held out in front of him, shadow boxing in an attempt to intimidate you. It seemed to catch him off guard when you rolled your eyes.

“It’s been a long day,” you shrugged, “and frankly, I’d like to go home. So, let’s make this quick.”

The arrogant smirk dropped from his face, replaced quickly with a wash of rage that a woman half his size would dare mock him in such a way. But he was clumsy in his stance and in his swings, so you saw each of his moves coming a mile ahead. With every right hook, you slid under his arm and stepped out behind him. In every jab, you side stepped out of reach. He exhausted himself while you made little effort in your defense. Without a single offensive throw, he was panting in a matter of minutes.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” he bellowed, loud enough to make Bucky pause for a moment and you winced as his assailant took advantage of the moment to get in a punch to his jawline. He recovered quickly, giving you the security to face your own attacker head on. The Hydra giant was dripping in sweat, red in the face, teeth bared and near feral. “Fight me!”

“Only because you asked so nicely.”

As he threw his next swing, you met it with the brunt of your baton, stilling him in his stance. He stared at you, wide eyes and jaw slacked, as you winked at him and dove under his legs. Before he could manage to turn around, you flicked at switch at the bottom of the batons which emitted an electrical pulse from the top edge and plunged it into the man's neck.

He convulsed, gargling out a few incoherent words, before he collapsed to the floor at your feet. You grinned, sliding the batons into the holsters at your shoulder blades.

“Alright, I take it all back,” Bucky’s voice chuckled from behind you. “You don’t need me at all.”

You laughed, shaking your head as several strands fell down into your face, lost to the bun at the top of your head in the struggle. As you turned to face Bucky, you found him standing with his hands planted on his hips and the brightest smile on his face, one that took him years to find again since you first met him and damn if it wasn’t one of the most beautiful sights you’d ever seen.

But then, there was a sudden rush of movement on the ground. One of the Hydra agents wrestled back up to his feet behind Bucky, a malice imbedded deep into his glare, a determination as he rushed forward.

There was little time to think as you lunged for the knife you broke free of the blonde agent’s hand and whipped it across the room. It plunged straight into the man’s jugular and he fell backwards, hands sliding out from around Bucky’s neck as blood coated the tile floors.

“Shit,” you panted, hands on your knees. “You okay?”

Bucky didn’t respond.

Slowly, heart pounding in your chest, you glanced up to find him pulling a syringe from his neck. He stared at it for a second, stunned as a few stray droplets dripped from the edge of the needle before he dropped it to the ground, letting it slip out from his fingers limply. The vile was empty as it rolled along the tile and settled against the dead body of its owner.

“Bucky?”

There was a sudden, paralyzing dread that swept over his features, one that seemed to worsen as his eyes fell upon yours. Then, his knees started to buckle, his stance falling unsteady and you rushed forward, darting under his arm to catch him before could lay amongst the bodies of Hydra agents. He was shaking, hands trembling, and you could feel the sharp rise and fall of his breath as you held him steady.

“We have to get you out of here,” you said, trying to push down the panic etching its way up your spine, but Bucky shook his head.

“No time.” It was all he could mutter out.

“Bucky, you've just been injected with God knows what and we need to get to you a medic or—”

“There,” he grunted, pointed to an open room at the end of the hallway. With a thick, metal door and dozen locks lining the outside, it was more of a cell than a room. You started to shake your head, but Bucky gripped tight to your arm. “Y/n, please.”

You watched him carefully, noticed how he couldn’t seem to meet your eye, how sweat was beading at his hairline more profusely than it was in the midst of a battle, how his breaths were broken and trembling on every exhale.

“Okay, okay. Hold on.” You slowly guided him to step over the bodies at your feet, most unconscious, others not as lucky, and swiftly led him into the cell. It seemed to put him at ease as you aided him to sit on one of the metal chairs at the center of the room. As you released your touch from his arm, a rush of what appeared to be pain twisted into his facial features though he tried to hide it.

“So, what do we do now?” you asked. “I could try to find the lab. They could have counteractants to whatever this is. Or I could try to fix the coms... but we all know Parker’s a lot better with that stuff than I am.”

You laughed, trying to ease the tension in the room, but it was so thick you could have cut through it with the blunt edge of your baton. Bucky’s eyes were glued to the floor, his hands curling around the undersides of the chair until the metal warped under his grip.

“You need to leave.”

Your smile dropped. “What? No, are you crazy? I’m not leaving you alone after—”

“Go!” His voice boomed against the walls and you tried not to let the shock startle you.

“Bucky, stop. That’s not happening.” You dug your fingers into your hips as you paced back over the door, stole a quick glance in both directions. It was still empty save for the bodies lying in your wake. It seemed you and Bucky were entirely alone. You pinched the bridge of your nose. “We’ll figure something out, okay? We always do. This can’t be worse than the time we were buried in that old chevy under twelve feet of snow in Alaska last year, can it?”

You shot him a grin, hoping to ease him, though it did little use. His face was red, jaw stoned. He looked like he was barely breathing.

“You’re not hearing me,” Bucky groaned, his voice molding into something darker. “You're not safe here. You need to leave. Now. Before I... Before I can’t control this. Before I hurt you.”

You paused, narrowing your eyes. “What are you talking about? Do you… Do you know what that stuff was?”

Bucky clenched his jaw, turning away from you the best he could. He let out a pained groan and kicked the chair out from under him. It slammed against the wall with a harsh clash and forced a skip in your heartbeat, a hand darting up to your chest. Bucky leaned over the table, trying to find support, but he ended up gripping onto the sides hard enough to dent imprints in the shape of his hands.

You rushed forward, desperate to help because you couldn’t stand to see him in so much pain, and placed a hand on his shoulder. It touched upon the thick straps of Kevlar for only a second, and still, it was enough to elicit a visceral reaction. He whined, something between a moan and cry, and he slumped down out of your reach.

“Don’t touch me,” Bucky warned, though his voice broke in the effort. His breaths were labored and heavy, and still it seemed as though he could barely get one in. “Please. You—You have to get away from me. I’m— I’m begging you.”

Bucky choked back a cry, biting down hard on his lower lip, and it was then you noticed his right hand palming at the hardened outline nestled tight against his thigh. He pressed the heel of his left into his eyes, shame burning hot against his ears and cheeks and trailing down in red patches along his neck. He tried to hide behind his hair, hide from you, but it was enough; you recognized what this was.

It was a serum created by Hydra in the seventies, meant to create inhumans of their own design when the clinical measures were proving unsuccessful. It was created to induce a euphoric state, a primal need beyond personal control, to put its host through hell until Hydra had what it wanted: a viable chance at an inhuman child.

“Bucky,” you called gently, though all you earned was a whimpered grunt in response. Slowly, you crossed the plane of the room to him and laid a hand against his collar. His eyes fluttered shut in response, his whole body keenly alert to every touch.

“You should leave,” he warned again, his gaze slowly drawing up to meet your own; a glossy shine shielded over a stunning ocean blue. “Let me... let me take care of this on my own. I’ll be f-fine.”

“It’ll be agonizing,” you told him, having remembered the speech Tony gave a few months back after the team first encountered the serum in Peru. “It won’t kill you, but it will feel pretty damn close. Nothing you do on your own will relieve it. It doesn't work like that. You need someone to help you through this.”

He shook his head. “No. I won’t-- I won’t ask you to do that.”

“You don’t have to,” you replied gingerly, drawing your hand up along his arm, tracing over swells of muscle as watching the way a shiver followed so tenderly in your wave. You rested your hand along his cheek, brushing your thumb under his eyes. He was scorching hot. You smiled at him, something soft and gentle, something sad. “I’m offering, Bucky.”

“No,” he grunted out. “I—I can’t. I won’t.”

You nodded, letting your hand fall to the side. It was remarkable he was able to hold himself back this long, let alone decline an offer when presented to him. You’d heard the stories of men to devolved to a near primal state, who attempted to jump the first person they saw and fought their way to release. Bucky was determined to spare you, even as you offered, even knowing that turning you down would put him through a world of pain.

“Okay,” you conceded. “Tell me what you need. Tell me something I can do, Buck, because I can’t just watch you in pain like this.”

Bucky stared at you, pupils blown wide, almost as if he could see right through you.

“Need to get this off,” he finally admitted, eyes drifting down to his suit.

“Okay,” you replied steadily. “Do you want help?”

He shook his head, his stare glued to the floor, but you could see the way his hands were reaching out for you, how he had to keep himself in check and hold them firmly at his sides. He tried to unfasten the buckle at his chest himself, but within seconds he let out a hallowed cry, dropping his head in defeat.

“Hurts,” he exhaled, and slowly his eyes came back up to yours. He forced out a halfhearted smile the best he could. “Can you...?”

You returned the nervous smile, as you took a cautious step forward. He followed your every move as your hands extended towards his chest, fingers clipping the buckles easily as they unsnapped down his jacket. Each one left a new breath of relief in its wake, like he was just on the edge of the surface, under only a few inches of water.

Your hands slid under the seams, helping to slip the sleeve down his right arm, and Bucky choked back a moan. His eyes fluttered shut, lips parted just slightly, and you jumped back.

“Sorry,” he muttered. His cheeks were near on fire.

“It’s alright, Buck. It’s not your fault.” You reached out for him again. “Here, let me help with your belt.”

“No, no, I’ve got it.” His hands were shaking as he started to fidget with the buckle. He swayed on his feet, trying to find some relief. As he unfastened the latch and unbuttoned the hem of his pants, his eyes flashed up to you. He exhaled a heavy breath. “Can you... Christ... can you turn around?”

The look on his face, the shame radiating from every ounce of him, shattered you right to your core. You nodded quickly, turning your back to him and making your way to the door. He needed privacy – of course, he did. He didn’t need you around to bear witness to the consequences of Hydra’s newest attempt to leave him powerless and vulnerable.

But just as you approached the door, Bucky called out quietly, “don’t go.”

You stilled in an instant, though you didn’t dare to turn around.

“It, um,” he cleared his throat awkwardly. “I think it helps if you’re here. If that’s alright.”

“Need something to look at, huh?” you laughed, trying to make light of the impossible position he was in, and you were thankful for the short chuckle you heard behind you.

“Don’t flatter yourself, doll. You’re the only one here,” he replied, a teasing back in his tone, and no matter how tense it was or how forced it felt, it made your heart skip a beat.

You smiled, shaking your head. Leave it to the two of you to find the humor in a situation like this. Biting down on your lip, you tried to suppress the grin, though it did little use.

Then, you heard the soft fall of his shirt to the floor. Quickly followed by the pants of his suit, dropping to the ground in a heap. He exhaled a breath that sounded as though he hadn’t done so in years and you found yourself wondering what he looked like standing there behind you, naked and aching, harder than he’d ever been in his life.

“Swear you won’t tell Sam about this.”

You shook your head, chewing on the inside of your cheek to hold back another laugh. “No promises.”

“Y/n.”

“You’ve got to be in crippling pain, Buck. You don’t have time to be embarrassed right now,” you shot back teasingly. “Stop edging.”

“Fine, okay,” he grumbled back, though you could hear the light in his voice, even if it was a little tense. “Just… give me a second.”

The room became impossibly quiet, painfully so, and you waited under bated breath for something to happen. The smile slowly left your lips, fading into a restless frown as you listened intently to his labored breathing, the tight groans of pain, until finally, his hand circled around the base of his cock.

The whine that left his lips was near sinful, and you felt your own breath hitch in your chest as you listened to soft whimpers parting his lips as he stroked himself, covering his length in the precum dropping at his tip. Heavy breaths and wet pumps of his closed hand around his cock, and you clenched your thighs together, wondering how his eyes might travel over your frame.

But God – those sounds he made were beautiful. You could picture him tugging his lower lip between his teeth, his eyes fluttering shut, his shoulders slacking, knees falling a little weak the harder he gripped at himself. Little murmurs of ‘oh god,’ and ‘fuck yes,’ and ‘please’ as he fucked his fist.

You didn’t know how much time had passed by, but your lip was nearly chewed raw, nails indented into the palms of your hands. You could hear how close he was, how his movements picked up in pace, how his breaths labored, how his moans filled the room higher and higher until – it stopped.

Sudden and aching, he lost it before the fall and your heart broke as you heard him cry out in pain.

“Bucky?” you called softly, not daring to turn around to face him after he asked you not to. Your heart was pounding in your chest, hands clenched tight, and you swore your knees would buckle out from under you if you unlocked them for even a second.

“Fuck, I… I can’t...”

“Bucky, are you okay?” you tried again, worried. There was a panic in his voice that wasn’t there before, a desperate longing etched into every syllable, and it scared you.

“I can smell you,” he said simply, achingly.

Your breath hitched and you squeezed your legs together. There was a throbbing there, an emptiness you couldn’t quite shake. “Do you... Do you want me to leave?”

“No,” he replied quickly and you could tell he was contemplating his options. He was growing desperate and that lingering sense of control he maintained was slipping through his fingers. “No, I— You were right. I can’t do it on my own. I need—fuck. I need…”

“Just ask,” you offered again, head tilting just enough to the side that he could see your face but you kept your stare to the wall. “I’m here. I’m saying yes. Just tell me what you need.”

“You.”

It surprised you as he said it; a little lower, a little darker, but certain.

Slowly, you turned to face him.

Sculpted by Michelangelo himself, Bucky carried the most beautiful lines across his body; divots along muscles and carvings of delicate design. You could tell he expected your eyes to fall straight to his shoulder, to the mess of scars and metal he loathed, or to the vulnerability standing hard in his grasp, but instead, you kept your gaze focused on his eyes.

Bucky stood completely naked before you, his right hand still pumping slowly around his cock as you edged forward. He watched you, biting at his lip as he flicked his thumb over his tip. Eyes trailed down over your frame greedily, hungrily, as if the act of simply looking was enough to draw a twitch from his cock. He tugged his lip between his teeth, tightening his grip around himself.

As you came up beside him, you reached up and sat your hand against his right shoulder, watching how he closed his eyes in response, how his jaw slacked. His lazy thrusts evened out, slowing down, as you traced your hand down his arm, simply lost in your touch. Your hand slid down his bicep, over raised muscle, along his forearm to his wrist, and then, you gently nudged his hand from his cock and replaced it with your own.

His lips fell open, a slight tremble in his breath as you gripped him. His forehead dropped to your shoulder, leaning against you as he caged you to what appeared to be an interrogation table. You felt the warped metal against your thighs from where he’d clutched at it just moments earlier.

Steadily, you began to pump him in your hand, careful to spread the wet of his precum down his shaft. He was hard within your grasp, painfully so, enough that you could feel the crystal outline of a vein running up along the underside. You pressed your thumb against it as you slid your hand up to his tip and brushed it over his slit. The whine he released against your neck was the most beautiful sound you ever heard.

“This okay?”

“S’good.” He nodded meekly against your collar but you could feel the strain in his shoulders, the restraint that left his jaw wired shut and breaths tight.

“It’s not enough, though. Is it?” you asked gently, though you knew the answer. You knew what he needed and your hand, or even your mouth, would not be enough. The Hydra scientists knew what they were doing when they designed this. It had a very specific purpose and it would not yield for anything less.

“You don’t have to, Y/n,” he said, stronger than you’d heard his voice since he was injected. It took nearly all his strength.

You smiled, letting your free hand cup at the side of his face. He leaned into the touch, seeking more, almost instinctively. Bucky was a complicated man; capable of light-hearted jokes in the middle of a warzone and an immeasurable guilt and shame that had not left him in his years since he was freed from Hydra. He was your closest friend, your partner in the field, a man that you trusted above all others, a man you cared for in ways he would never quite understand.

“I’m here, Bucky. I’ve got you,” you whispered sweetly, but you could still feel his hesitance. “Listen to me, I’ll leave if you really want me to. I’ll stop if this isn’t what you want. But please, don’t send me away and leave you suffer through this alone because you think I don’t want you. I do, Buck. I want you. I want to make you feel good. I want to take away your pain. Let me.”

He stared at you for a moment, a strange mixture of disbelief and longing upon his features. Slowly his hands lifted from the table and felt for the clasp at the back of your suit. You nodded at him, and slid the zipper down your spine, exposing perfect, untouched skin. He pealed it down along your shoulders, over your chest and down your waist. You helped him remove it down to your feet and kicked it off to the floor beside his own.

His eyes drifted to your chest, hands itching to reach out, but he held them firm at his sides.

“It’s okay, Buck. You can touch me,” you told him, reaching behind your back and releasing the clasp of your bra. The straps fell down your shoulders and you let the fabric slip from you. Bucky swallowed, his eyes drifting to your exposed chest. A smile started to curve upon your lips the longer he stared at you, like you were something to revere.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured quietly, almost to himself, as if saying it purely for the state of fact.

Your heart skipped a beat, lips parting in a slight shock, and you wondered if this was what it was like for the women he brought home on cold, lonely nights from the bar. You’d seen the content smiles on their faces in the morning as they sauntered out of his room with messy hair and a blissful kind of look in their eyes.

Bucky wasn’t the cold, calculating man the papers made him out to be. He was kind, exceptionally sweet, and a selfless to a fault. You didn’t suspect he was any different in a bedroom.

He shook his head, a ghost of a smile on his lips. “I never thought this would be how—"

But then— his face started to contort and suddenly Bucky was keening over. He clutched at his stomach, digging his nails deep into the muscle and he nearly collapsed to his knees.

“Bucky!”

You grabbed a firm hold of his right arm, just enough to keep him steady, and even the smallest of touches alone seemed to ignite something in him. Goosebumps littered his skin and a sweet kind of whine escaped past his lips as you ran a hand soothingly along his spine.

“Come on, we don’t have a lot of time,” you warned gently. It was a miracle within itself he was still on his feet. This serum had put ordinary men into shock within minutes if they didn’t find release. Never enough to kill them, but just enough to make them wish it would.

Bucky followed you back to the table at the center of the room, his hand clasped tightly in your own. It was the most physical affection you’d shown for one another, a tenderness outside of the rush of foreign chemicals in his veins, and you tried not to think about the fallout you were bound to find after.

He helped to guide you onto the table, resting your back against the cool, metal surface. Then, slowly, he crawled on top of you. His eyes drifted down to your panties and you lifted your hips for him, giving him the permission he needed to pull them down your legs.

His hand slid down along your curves, drawing goosebumps in his wake, until he swiftly slid his fingers between your thighs. Dipping into the wetness at your core, he spread his fingers around, lubricating himself until he slid two easily inside of you.

“Oh, Bucky,” you moaned, back arching as he pumped them against your walls. “God, that feels—so good.”

His left hand was curled tightly into a fist near you head as he propped his body weight up against the arm; gears whirring, the scars at the base of his shoulder red in the strain of it. One quick glance at the tension coating his muscles, the sharp breaths in his chest, the whine as his cock touched your thigh, and you were pulled swiftly from the clouds, a startling reminder why you were doing this in the first place.

“Hey, don’t worry about me,” you told him, a little breathless as he added the third finger. “I’m fine, Buck. You need to come. This isn’t about me.”

He shook his head, determined. “You’re not ready yet.”

You chuckled, a heat of embarrassment washing over you, even as he scissored his fingers, stretching your walls. You had to choke back a moan and the urge to clamp your thighs together around his wrist.

“I’m more than ready,” you said, voice a little higher, hands clenching at the sides of the table as you felt your walls tightening around his fingers. “Trust me, Buck. Just listening to you touch yourself was enough.”

You laughed again but the room was thick in tension, almost unbearably so. Bucky could hardly hear you. His hair had fallen down to shield his face, his gaze focused on where his fingers were lost to the most intimate parts of you; determined.

“It has to be good for you,” he muttered out slowly. You narrowed your eyes on him, growing worried as he seemed to retreat within himself. He was distant, his mind far away from his body. “It has to be good… it has to be good for you otherwise… otherwise I’m… I’m...”

He wouldn’t say it but you knew what he meant.

“Bucky, come back to me.” You reach up and grabbed a firm hold of his cheeks, thumbs at his jawline, and drew his attention to your eyes. It took him a moment to get there, but you found ocean blue again, even if it was clouded in dark, stormy skies. “I’m okay. Don’t worry about how I feel, alright? Just do what you need to, I’ll be fi—”

“I won’t use you like that!” Bucky snapped defiantly, startling you. “I don’t care that it feels like my skin is on fire and there’s knives carving through my body. I don’t care that I feel like I’m going to pass out and everything in me is fighting to force my way onto you and take what I want regardless of what it does to you! I don’t care! You’re my best friend and I… I…” He was panting, red in the face, and he couldn’t seem to find his words. He swallowed, though it looked as though it burned. “It has to be good for you, okay?”

You nodded, running your hands gently along his arms; his left, solid metal, unwavering, and his right trembled deep within the tissue – the gentle movements of his forearm pressed up against your stomach, his fingers searching out a pleasure he so desperately needed you to feel.

“I…” he started before he clenched his jaw. A heavy exhale followed, a drop of his gaze, and he muttered out weakly, “I need to pretend this is real.”

Your lips parted in shock; heart stammering so painful in your chest you wondered if he could hear it. Before you could say anything, before you could ask him what he meant by that, Bucky let his fingers slip out from between your legs, resting slicked against your thigh. The emptiness was startling.

“I think you’re ready for me now.”

Bucky nestled himself between your legs, lined his length your entrance with a gentle sweep of his top through your folds. He shivered, something near violent as it shook through his spine, and you were reminded again that Bucky was suffering, that he had a foreign chemical in his veins that ripped away his control and left him powerless to Hydra.

His skin was flushed red, sweat beading on his forehead and down his neck. There were sharp marks in the palm of his right hand where he dug his own nails into his skin. His breaths were coming in quickly and uneven.

“Look at me,” you ordered, stern enough to draw his attention. “Don’t hold back. You need to get this out, okay? I will tell you if it’s too much.”

It took him a moment, a breath of contemplation, before he nodded; slow and hesitant. You could see the strain in his jawline, the tension in his shoulders from how much he was restraining himself. It must have been agonizing, but Bucky had been through worse in his life. You supposed pain had become a familiar friend, one he learned to tame and control, even when it ripped him apart.

The moment he pressed his tip past your entrance, as he bottomed out in one thrust, as he felt your walls squeeze tightly around him for the first time, Bucky nearly came on the spot. He gasped into your shoulder, sucking marks against your skin as he rolled his hips against you. Slow and steady at first, reveling in the feel of being consumed whole, of being taken so well, of a rush of endorphins and pleasure he’d never felt even in the peak of sex. Everything was heightened, every touch was immaculate; he could feel your heartbeat through the walls squeezing at his cock.

“Oh, f-fuck,” he moaned against your ear, breath hot, voice dangerously low. “Fuck you feel so good, sweetheart. So fucking good. Goddamn perfect.”

You nodded, arms circling up around his shoulders as you rolled your hips to meet his own. You could still feel the stone carved tension in his muscle, how much he was holding back from what he needed. He was trying to be gentle with you, loving in a way the serum was not designed for, but it was testing him. He wouldn’t give into it, not in the way you asked him to, because Bucky had already lost so much to Hydra, already lost pieces of his mind and body, he would not let them take his soul, too.

“Just for you.” The words passed through your lips before you could quite catch onto their meaning. Your hands slipped down his chest as you brushed your thumbs against his nipples. He moaned, hips picking up in pace. He needed the encouragement, you realized. It was the only way he’d allow himself the release he needed to free his body of that serum.

He needed to pretend it was real.

He needed to pretend that you weren’t laying upon a cold, unforgiving table in an old Hydra base, that maybe this was something more than the consequences of a vile he didn’t ask for.

The line between the fantasy and reality was painfully thin.

“F-fuck, you’re so tight,” he mumbled breathily. The table began to squeak with every snap of his hips, with every drag of his cock at your core, the brush of his tip to the sweetest spot. It was easy to lose yourself in him, to forget that you were in an abandoned Hydra cell, that he had a foreign chemical in his veins determined to destroy him. He felt like heaven.

“S’all yours,” you whispered, drawing your hands down along his waist, slipping over his hips and gripping into the soft flesh of his ass. You pulled him deeper into you, daring him to go further. His pupils were blown so wide, you could barely see the blue in his eyes. He was slipping, barely holding into the restraint he so desperately clung to, and you rolled your hips at just the right angle, squeezed him enough to draw a mangled cry from his lips.

You kissed at the dip of his collar, sucking sweetly as he all but purred in response. Your lips mapped a path up his neck, along his jaw line, over cheekbones and at the tip of his nose, until you paused at his mouth. His heart was pounding, thunderous in his chest, and his hips seemed to pick up in pace with every kiss.

It wasn’t until you captured his lips against your own that Bucky lost the last ounce of control he had been clinging onto.

Something like a growl purred against your lips, a sound near feral, and the gentle push of his hips like ocean waves against you turned into quick, harsh snaps. He pulled his lips from you, trailing hot, wet kisses down your neck, until he found the place he was looking for and sunk his teeth to the crook of your shoulder.

“Ah, Bucky!”

All consuming. Feverish. A man untamed and he did not relent, not as your walls tightened around him like the twist of a coil, or as the sound of skin and wetness between your legs echoed high into the room, or when his fingers touched at your clit and rubbed harsh, quick and pressured circles until you were crying out so loudly, it must have carried through the whole base.

“Fuck! Ah, God, Bucky, don’t stop!”

Bucky groaned against you, sucking a mark where his teeth had met your flesh. You could feel the vibration of his voice against your skin, the pulse of his cock in your cunt, the thick vein that ran along his underside as it added so sweetly to the pressure at your entrance. It was wild and unhinged, but God – it was good.

“Y-yeah, baby, right there,” Bucky moaned, his thrusts falling uneven, haphazard, needy. “F-fuck, I’m gonna come. I’m gonna—ah, ah, f-fuck—”

The heat of him, the way he filled you so perfectly, the rush, and it pushed you over the edge. White hot and intoxicating, the wash of it broke open in floodgates and swept through you. His fingers did not let up on your clit as you squirmed and withered below him, his thrusts falling lazy as he chased the end of his release.

Breathless and a little dizzy as you came down from your high, you felt his heartbeat inside of you; quick, but even. The serum had done its work. It released him from its hold.

Bucky was panting, the full of his weight having fallen onto you. His hair was wet with sweat, messy and untamed, and the room smelled distinctly of sex. But more than that, it was unbearably silent.

Slowly, Bucky began to pry himself off of you, allowing his softened cock to slip from between your legs, slick and satisfied. He swallowed, a blush creeping onto his cheek as he pushed his hair behind his ear.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

You chuckled, propping yourself up on your elbows as you watched him quickly tug his pants back on before he bent down and picked up your suit for you, handing it gingerly to you upon the table with a shy sort of smile.

“Alright? I’m great.” You grinned over at him, glowing in the aftermath of your release. “You feel okay now?”

He nodded, a nervous smile tugging on his lips as he watched you jump down from the table and step into your suit. His eyes must have lingered on your thighs where his cum was still slick along the skin from his release because his smile began to fall, his jaw tightly clenched.

“SHEILD has me on birth control, Buck. Don’t worry about that,” you told him softly. You tugged the sleeves back up your arms, though it proved difficult with the lingering sweat on your skin. You flipped your hair over your shoulder and turned your back to him. “Do you mind?”

He cleared his throat awkwardly, shuffling forward to zip up the back of your suit. He brushed a few stray strands of hair over your shoulder, the gentle sweep of cool metal a relief against the hot flush of your skin; impossibly tender for a man capable of the things he was.

“So,” he started, a nervous chuckle in his voice as he grasped hold of the zipper, “should we talk about this or—”

“Bucky? Y/n? You guys read me?”

Steve.

“Seems the coms are back on,” you sighed, stepping to the side after Bucky finished zipping your suit. He was still holding his tactical vest in his hand, along with the one-armed jacket. His hair was untamed, cheeks flushed, and you imagined you looked of the same.

“We got you, Steve,” Bucky replied, though it seemed rather reluctant. “Where you been, man? You dropped us in a warzone.”

“Yeah, I figured that out,” Steve grumbled back. “Get to the jet. We’ll debrief on the way back. Don’t forget to rig the place to blow on your way out.”

“Right,” you rolled your eyes, grinning at Bucky as he slipped his jacket on. “Certainly, can’t forget the one thing you sent us here to do.”

“Unless you’ve got more Hydra agents hiding in the wings?” Bucky added on and you could practically see Steve deadpan from the cockpit.

“Just get out of there before I come get you myself.”

You laughed as you slid the batons back into the holsters at your shoulder blades.

It was strange, how quickly it felt as if nothing had changed at all. Maybe it hadn’t. Maybe it was a quick release and you were simply helping a friend. Maybe it was something neither of you would speak of again and you’d go right back to being partners, friends, as if it never happened.

But as you turned around at the edge of the room, a smile wide upon your face, you found Bucky watching you with a kind of look in his eye you couldn’t quite place. It wasn’t one you recognized, wasn’t one you’d seen in him before. It was something new.

His eyes flickered to your collarbone where a mark upon your skin was growing discolored; bite marks and bruising where his mouth had been. A strange mixture of remorse and longing, affection and need, all rolled into one.

“You ready, Buck?”

He nodded quickly, snapping himself from his gaze with a pressed smile. It didn’t quite reach his eyes, though he tried. He met you at the edge of the room, trailing a few steps behind you, and you turned around to find him staring back into the cell, like he was trying to preserve a memory of some kind.

You realized as you watched Bucky clear his throat awkwardly, turning back to you with a gentle blush of pink in his cheeks, that there was no pretending you hadn’t crossed a line together. There was no going back.

---

part 2

[godlygreta]

teacher’s assistant | j. m. kiszka.

title | teacher's assistant

summary | the teacher's assistant for your class was way too hot to be able to focus in class

warnings | um yes. bitch this is smut. y'all should know me by now. 18+ pls n thx

word count | 5.6k

author’s note | i am such a slut for the idea of teacher's assistant josh. i really just ugh can’t get over it. sorry i posted this so late in the evening!! there will be a part two if everyone wants it. i have some ideas that al and i talked about in the dm's... y'all would not be mentally prepared for that (i also did not edit this in the slightest so whoopsies if u find any mistakes pretend u didn’t)

n e ways, enjoy this my beautiful people. i love you guys sm. i cannot thank you enough for every comment, like, or reblog. y'all make my day everyday :)

via out x

Film and Literature was one of the classes you were most excited for in your second semester schedule. College has been good to you so far, classes passing by with ease. Your grades had never faltered, even throughout high school you were a model student.

Once the class had started, on your first day, you realized that the Professor you had, had a teacher’s assistant. It wasn’t uncommon for teachers to have them, sometimes their students had different perspectives on different subjects within a class. Professor Steger’s TA was cute, to say the least. Every once in a while, you took a long, generous look at him sitting at a desk in the corner of the classroom. You found out on the third day of class, his name was Josh. He was a film major with a minor in English and Literature.

In addition to thriving in college, you also completely lucked out with your roommate. She was incredible, a smart and charismatic person. Her schedule almost matched yours, a class or two here and there were the only times you weren’t right beside her. “Do you want to study in the commons or in the cafe downtown?”

“Cafe downtown,” she spoke, putting her laptop in her backpack. “It’s quieter and I don’t really feel like running into my fucking BioChem professor any time soon.”

“Yeah, he always seems like he’s in a bad mood.” You joked, throwing your backpack over your shoulder. She nodded, looking at you with wide eyes. You watched as Mackenzi slipped on her shoes, following behind her out of your dorm room. You locked the door behind you and caught up to her when you could.

The walk to the coffee shop downtown wasn’t too far. Less than 10 minutes, actually. You both talked about upcoming assignments, any papers they had due. You always reviewed her papers, she always went over yours.

“Who’s that guy that keeps staring at you? The one over there with the super curly hair.” Mackenzi asked, her finger slightly pointing towards the table at the window of the cafe, two people sat there. One of them was a boy with incredibly curly hair, brown eyes and a strong nose. The other sat across from him, his hair framed his face, matching brown eyes.

“Oh, that’s Josh. He’s the TA for my Film and Literature class with Professor Steger,” you looked over at him, noticing him deep in conversation with the boy that sat across from him. “He’s actually the coolest TA I’ve had. Sometimes it seems like he knows more about film than Steger does. And that’s saying a lot. He always looks so… excited when people ask him questions about the movie than when they ask Professor Steger.”

“Damn, seems smart. He keeps staring at you, though. Maybe you should go over there and talk to him.” She brought the cup up to her lips, her fingers being warmed by her coffee.

You scoffed, but it was more of a half laugh than anything. “And say what? ‘Hey, my roommate won’t shut up about you staring at me so I came over here to shut her up’?”

“Y/N, you are so dense sometimes. Ask him something about your next paper, or your final. Don’t you have to do an in-depth analysis about a film? Ask him if he could review your paper a few times so you can really impress the professor or something.” She said matter-of-factly.

“I could,” the thought crossed your mind. Would it really be so bad? What if he wasn’t even looking at you as much as Mack said he was? “Fuck it. Fine.”

You were nervous as you walked over. You were mostly doing it to please Mackenzi, but also part of you had wondered about the possible ‘what if’s’. You stood before the two, one hand tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. “You’re the TA for Professor Steger, Josh right?”

“Yeah, you’re Y/N?” The boy who sat across from him looked between the two of you, sipping his drink while he pretended to check his phone.

“Yeah.” You smiled at him, about to say something when he interrupted you.

“I, uh, I read your last paper on Halloween, it was very well written. I think you really put into words the importance of that movie in the Horror genre.” He spoke, hand moving from pinching the bridge of his nose to the air, circling around attempting to gather the words he was looking for.

“Thank you,” you smiled, looking between the two of them. A small, short window of silence fell between the two of you before you decided to take Mackenzi’s advice, asking about the final. “I was actually wondering if I could have you look over my final paper a few times before I turn it in to Professor Steger? I really want to impress him.”

“Sure! Do you want to email me and set up a time to meet within the next couple weeks or something?”

“Yeah, for sure. Otherwise, I can give you my number, too, if that’s alright with you?” You noticed right away the slight tint of pink that crept up on to his cheeks. He smiled a bit, taking his phone out of his pocket.

“Yeah, here.” He handed you his phone,  a new contact already pulled up. “I’ll make sure to text you so you know it’s me.”

“Alrighty. Thank you.” He nodded to you before you walked away, face slightly hot from nerves, although you didn’t seem nervous to anyone. You sat back down at the table with Mackenzi. “Don’t say a word.”

“Aren’t you glad you did that?” You didn’t give Mackenzi a death glare, per se, but it was something that closely resembled it. There was a long pause before you answered her, a sip of coffee before you spoke up to answer her question.

“Okay, maybe a little bit.”

You did not want her to be right about it, but she was. Josh had always been in the back of your mind, him being a senior and you being a freshman. The stereotypes were there, obviously, the whole “senior and freshman” thing. Josh seemed the opposite though, where the stereotype seemed to only fit towards the athletic department.

The next time you had seen Josh was your class on Wednesday. He sat at the desk in the classroom as Professor Steger taught the class. You watched him intently, the way his pointer finger swiped over his bottom lip as he watched the Professor. Once he had accidentally caught your eye, he looked away blushing. You didn’t stop watching him though.

Your mind was wandering other places that involved Josh. Sure, you had stared at Josh in class before then, but the thought of being alone with him one on one had only recently been playing in your mind. Mackenzi was simply reading your body language yesterday. If she had been in this class with you since the beginning, she’d know that you find yourself looking at Josh a lot.

You loved the way he talked about film. Space Odyssey was one of his favorites. He talked about it and referred to it in class constantly. The fire inside his eyes was organic, he was magnetic every time he spoke. Maybe not the entire class was entranced when he spoke, but you were. You hung on every word, so much so that you decided to finally watch the movie for yourself. You could see why Josh loved it as much as he did, but it wasn’t necessarily your cup of tea.

You were planning on talking to Josh after class to set up something, and you just barely caught him before he left. “Josh!”

“Y/N, hi. I’ve been meaning to text you, classes and my senior project have just been kicking my ass.” He spoke, filing his things into his bookbag.

“You’re fine! I just wanted to set up something while we’re both here, if that’s cool.” 

“Yeah! Of course. Did you want to meet sometime next week? Otherwise we could meet Saturday or Sunday evening around seven-ish. I’m not sure what your weekend looks like.”

“Saturday sounds alright. We could meet at seven-thirty if you’re okay with that?” You asked, fidgeting with your hands.

“I’m alright with that, we can meet outside the building. After five on the weekends only staff is allowed to get into the building, so your card won’t work.” He spoke, writing it down quickly in his planner.

“Okay, so I’ll see you Saturday night outside?” You asked, watching him sling his backpack over his shoulder. He nodded, escorting you out of the classroom. “Alright. It’s a date.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He nodded before walking off towards the south entrance of the building. You walked out, finding Mackenzi waiting for you with a hot cocoa.

“Class run late?” She asked, handing it to you. You hummed while taking a drink.

“No, I talked to Josh and we’re gonna meet here Saturday night at seven-thirty.”

“Girl,” she spoke, slapping your arm lightly, a big smile on her face. The look she gave you was enough to create a blush on your face, smiling a little too widely. You didn’t sweat it though, Mackenzi always gave you shit whenever you found someone new to obsess over for the next couple weeks.

That’s always how it went with you. The crushes - whatever you wanted to call them - never lasted too long; a week was the longest period of time. Her name was Cal, she was tall, brunette and played soccer for the team. You had her in your Western Civilizations class, she sat two rows ahead of you and seemingly always looked so good. It died out after she finally spoke in class, her views on the culture of the time ruining it all for you in one single sentence.

While you never formally admitted it to yourself that you had a crush on Josh, it had always been there in the back of your mind. Here and there you’d entertain the idea of what it would be like, but the fabrication of Josh in your mind had the potential to be the complete opposite. You didn’t think much more about it, the thought of Josh made your mind spiral into a million other things. Some of those things were not just about what a date with him might be like, but the aftermath.

❂ ❂ ❂

Friday’s class was a bore. Josh was nowhere to be found, fifteen minutes in. He was never usually late. This was his favorite class, not only to assist in, but also to learn from. He had been in this class before, his sophomore year. Professor Steger loved his contribution to the class. When Josh had been given the opportunity to TA for him, he took it.

You looked at the clock seemingly every five minutes to see if he was coming. You tried your best to focus on the Professor speaking instead of the thoughts of Josh that loomed around, but it was no use. Josh wasn’t coming today. It slightly made you sad, only because you had hoped his absence wouldn’t affect his attendance of your plans tomorrow evening.

The weekend came a little too slow for your liking. Thursday dragged on and then Friday came. You didn’t do anything Friday night except make up some bullshit for the paper you were asking Josh to help you with. You hadn’t even picked out what movie you were going to do an analysis on. You had had a few ideas in your mind, but nothing that seemed like it would make something spectacular. A few Timothee Chalamet movies, but what good is it if your main argument as to why someone should watch the movie is simply just that he’s in it.

As you walked up to the building, your nerves began to wrack up inside of you. You kept checking your phone, making sure it was seven-thirty. Maybe Josh had gotten there at seven and meant to meet at seven, when you didn’t show he left. Maybe he was running late. Maybe all the terrible things your anxiety made you think were just simply that - your anxiety. “Y/N!”

You turned around to see where the voice was coming from as well as who it belonged to. Josh was half jogging towards you, bookbag jumping slightly due to his pace. He stood in front of you, catching his breath, holding out his pointer finger to give him a second to breathe. “I was a little nervous you weren’t gonna show.”

“My roommate, who just so happens to be my twin, was talking on and on about an issue in the music department. I kept trying to get out of it, but he just never stops talking. Neither do I, but that’s not the point.” You laughed as Josh pulled out his keys, unlocking the door to the building.

You followed in after him, noticing how easy it was for him to navigate the building. While it was your second semester, you still had no idea what half of the building was. You had no idea where any of the classrooms were, especially from the front entrance. You barely paid attention, most of the time your brain was on autopilot walking to class. “Alright, Professor Steger doesn’t mind me using his office, I always find myself in here. He’s got a pretty extensive library in here for such a small space. He’s got a lot of older books, first editions and shit like that. They’re pretty cool if you’re a lover of books and other literature.”

“My mom used to read all the classics with me when I was a kid, my dad used to as well too. Although, I admit, they used to read Frankenstein with me and I always hated the beginning. It started too slow, as most books usually do.”

“They do, don’t they? I’m sure he’s got Frankenstein in here if you’d like to read it again. Maybe this time around you’ll enjoy the build up right before the climax.” He sat down in the Professor’s chair at his desk, legs spread as you pulled your laptop out of your bag. You tried your hardest to log into your computer and pull up the document you had started. All you could focus on was the way he was sitting, how fucking sexy he looked just sitting there. You gave the laptop back to him, letting him attempt to soak in the first few bits of your paper, “So--”

“I’m gonna be honest with you,” You interrupted him, Josh looked up from your computer, eyes locking with yours. Your eyes scanned up and down his figure in the chair. “I didn’t… I don’t… I’m good with my paper. I just wanted an excuse to get you alone.”

You couldn’t read his expression, mostly because your eyes were focused on the ground. You were nervous that this was a terrible idea and that Josh was about to reject you. Granted, if he did, it would be in the most respectful way possible, and you knew that. Josh wasn’t like every other dude that you knew, he was kind. 

“You could’ve just asked.” He started, standing from the chair. “I think you’re breathtaking. To be honest, I guess I always kinda had a little bit of a crush on you. I didn’t want to say anything to you in case you didn’t feel the same.”

“I guess we both should’ve said something then.” He was close enough to you that you could feel his breath on you. You could even taste the mintyness of his breath, eyes moving from his to his lips. He did the same, once he made eye contact with yours, though, his hand went to your arm, fingertips ghosting over the skin. “Will you kiss me?”

He nodded lightly, hand brushing past your cheek to pull your lips to his. His lips tasted like mint as well, soft and supple - just as you imagined. He licked his lips so much during class, you weren’t at all shocked when he kissed you. He licked his lips while he spoke, while he listened to Professor Steger teach, anytime you looked over at him he was licking his lips.

The way his hands felt as they pulled you closer to his body by your waist was electric. Every time the pads of his fingers brushed against any inch of bare skin, your mind filled with an entirety of different colors and shapes. Your mind painted pictures you could only describe as heaven. Here, kissing Josh, that was your own idea of personal heaven.

Your hands tangled into his hair, slightly tugging at the roots when his teeth lightly sank into your bottom lip, pulling it gently towards him. Your eyes barely opened, but the look on Josh’s face as he studied yours was ungodly sexy. His eyes pooled with lust, lips barely open, but one side twisted up into a smirk. You brought your right hand out from his hand, taking your thumb and swiping it across his bottom lip, pulling it down with your thumb before looking back up into Josh’s eyes.

The hunger that licked flames inside your belly were wicked, hot to the touch and needed to be put out. Your fingers tugged at the shirt Josh wore, pulling it and him closer to you. You let your hands roam underneath his shirt, fingers splayed out over his chest. He separated the two of you, pulling his shirt over his head. While doing so, all you could do was watch him.

Your eyes paid close attention to every detail of his skin that made itself known to you. He drove you absolutely crazy, eyes scanning you up and down as you trailed your finger through the happy trail he had that dipped below his jeans. Your eyes flicked from the button on his jeans back up to his eyes, noticing the way Josh stared at you. A subtle nod led to a smirk rising to your face, popping the button on his jeans.

You leaned against the desk as Josh shimmied out of his pants, leaving them on the floor as he went to lock the door. He picked up your thighs, setting you down on the desk behind you. His lips regained their rightful place against your neck, your arms wrapped around his. You were thankful you wore a skirt to meet with Josh, his hand trailing up your thigh. His fingers slipped your panties to the side, his middle finger diving into your folds. “Hmm. This all for me, princess?”

“Yes sir,” his eyes got darker, if that was even possible in how shitty Professor Steger’s room was lit. He got down to his knees, eyes never leaving yours once. He pressed kisses from the inside of your knees to the insides of your thighs, gently biting at the skin. Your legs were both over his shoulders, his hands wrapped around your thighs as his tongue began to tease you. “Mhm, more.”

“More what?” He asked, you whined, your hands grabbing fistfulls of his hair. “Gotta use your words, pretty girl.”

“Fuck,” you whispered, Josh’s tongue flicking over your clit. “Need your hands, need both. Mhm. Please.”

His mind, in that moment, had filled with so many instances of you begging, both on your knees, and while his mouth is wrapped around your clit. God, you had such a hold on him without even realizing it. The way you looked while moaning, his middle and ring fingers inside of you, tongue paying special attention to your clit. He loved watching your face contort in pleasure as he did so, his pride swelling. He needed more though. He needed to hear how much you were loving face-fucking him. “How good do you feel, princess? That feel good?”

“Mhm,” you nodded fiercely, your tongue running over your bottom lip. “So good. So fucking good, fuck. Love your mouth and your fingers.”

“Yeah, I bet you do,” he spoke into your pussy, going back to relentlessly finger you again. Your orgasm was right there, two more strokes of his finger and tongue and you would be coming undone in his mouth. When your release finally came, your vision went black, body shook throughout the whole thing. Josh held you steady against his tongue and fingers, letting you use him to ride out the rest of your orgasm.

“Holy fuck.” You breathed out, letting your body go slack, leaning into Josh who had gotten up from his knees.

“Good?” He asked, although he knew the answer.

“Mhm. Very good.” You spoke, arms lazily wrapped around his neck. “Your turn now.”

“I don’t need anything. Just wanna be inside of you, princess.” He spoke against your temple, hands rubbing over your thighs. You nodded, pulling the fabric of his boxers down his slim legs as best you could. He pulled your hands away, bringing his boxers back up over his erection. You pouted, “One second.”

He went through Professor Steger’s drawers, finding a box of condoms in the bottom drawer of his desk. He grabbed a single foil packet from the box, ripping it open and walking back over to you. “Can I put it on you?”

“‘Course, baby.” He handed it over to you. You made eye contact while you rolled the condom on. He hummed and closed his eyes lightly when you began to jerk him off a little before lining him up with your entrance.

He let out a low moan until he was deep inside of you. Your arms wrapped around his neck, pulling him as close to you as possible. His hands were across your back, driving into you slow to start. It was annoying you - while you appreciated him taking his time, enjoying being inside of you, you needed something more. You needed to be fucked rough, and hard.

Almost as if Josh was reading your thoughts, his pace began to quicken, arms wrapping around your torso tightly, using your body as leverage. His hips snapped up, rolling into yours. You had to cover your mouth because you were being so loud. “Here, let me.”

Josh’s hand replaced your own, your nails digging crescent shaped marks into the tops of his shoulders. His other hand left from where it was wrapped around you to roll your nipple between his fingers, feeling you moan against his hand made him smile wide. A beautiful, blissed out smile. His smile was one of the seven wonders of the world, maybe even the universe.

His orgasm face? Even fucking better.

The pleasure you got simply from watching him get off was unbelievable. The way his face scrunched up, eyebrows furrowed and his teeth keeping his bottom lip hostage - it was the most beautiful thing you had ever seen in your life. You swore the heavens truly blessed you with the pure sight of his face. You whispered as he continued to pile drive you through the last of his orgasm. “Hmm, so pretty.”

He returned to his knees, spreading your legs apart, using his mouth to guide you through your second orgasm, your hand violently tugging at his hair this time -- this orgasm more intense than the one before, if that was even possible.

You and Josh continued to fool around more since then. In your dorm, in his, in Professor Steger’s office again and again. Anywhere you could have him, you would. It was everything about him that you absolutely needed. You loved the way he was so attentive to your body and what it wanted. His efforts seemed effortless, the way he began to become so acquainted with your body only made you want him more.

Ever since that first night in Steger’s office, though, you could really only wear a skirt. It was all you ever wore anymore. A skirt - easy enough access for Josh to fuck you anywhere, any time. Sometimes, you’d end up wearing a skirt that was shorter than the ones you would normally wear. You did it on purpose to drive Josh absolutely wild. You knew that your thighs were his weakness.

You’d wear it to class, especially on a day you knew Professor Steger was going to be gone. Josh would be teaching, standing in front of the classroom. He’d catch a glimpse of your skirt, noticing how high it rose on your thighs. He’d trip up on whatever he was talking about, stuttering before he’d go to take a drink out of his tin water bottle. Class would end and your phone would light up from a text message from Josh, telling you to meet him in the stacks. The ‘asap’ at the end would be in all caps.

This was one of those times.

Your back was against a stack of books, legs wrapped around his waist, his hands steady on your ass to help himself hold you up. His kisses created poetry on your skin, lips leaving entire sentence fragments of gratitude against your neck. Your hands were in his hair, raking through the curls, occasionally tugging when Josh kissed over that one spot on your neck that drove you wild. “Shhh,” he put his lips against yours as you moaned, grinding your hips against his. “We don’t want anyone to find us now, do we?”

You shook your head no, his mouth replaced by his hand as the other hand was used to swirl his middle finger over your clit in circles. You moaned into his hand, rutting your hips anyway you could to be able to feel more, feel anything more. You grabbed his hand, pulling it away, “Josh, I really don’t have time for foreplay today. Either you’re fucking me, or I’m going back to working on my Midterm paper for Hann’s class.”

“Fucking you it is, my love.” He unbuckled his pants with haste, forcing them and his boxers down. You were already dripping, his dick slid right in with no issue. The loud moan that fell from your lips was quickly silenced by Josh’s hand.

God, you could do this all fucking day. You could wake up, fuck Josh. Go to class, come back, fuck Josh. Go to dinner, come back, fuck Josh. And that’s the way that it was for the entire first semester. Once break came, you and Josh had to find other means of pleasure. He went back to Michigan, you living only a few hours from campus - the two of you resorted to phone sex. 

You lived for the nights you were able to hear him a mess on the phone, whimpering and groaning to the pure thought of you alone. And sure, he had pictures of you on his phone, but that wasn’t as good as being able to hear you himself.

When spring semester came around, the two of you resumed things as usual. Fucking each other anywhere and everywhere you could. You even broadened your horizons, fucking at your house, on the road to his, a beach you had stopped at along the way -- again, anywhere and everywhere. You couldn’t get enough of him, and neither could he. He swallowed up every inch of you that he could every time he was around you.

Being with Josh was truly like living a fairytale.

What you weren’t prepared for was having to spend the rest of your college years away from him. He was graduating next month and the life you had come so accustomed to living would be ripped away from you in mere weeks. It broke your heart, so much so that you didn’t even want to attend the Senior Project Event nights. Josh was up on Friday night and his project was a movie. He didn’t tell you any other details about it, all he told you was to dress nicely.

And so you did. The deep red wine color of your dress contrasted nicely with your skin tone, making your eyes pop as well. Yours really heels made you slightly taller than Josh, but not enough to create looks from the other students and faculty.

You sat next to Josh’s seat, nervous as to why you couldn’t have gone with him. You didn’t know many of the other seniors, besides his twin, Jake. Sam, his other brother, sat across from you, his best friend Danny next to him. You watched intently as Josh crossed the stage, walking up to the podium. 

“Hello everyone. Thank you for coming to our Senior Project night for the Arts department. My name is Josh Kiszka, I’m graduating with a major in Film and Acting. My senior project was about the raw versions of life everyone goes through, or at least, the raw, unfiltered version of my time spent as a college student. The film you are about to watch does have some mature content, all of which has been consented to have been in this film. This piece means the world to me, especially due to an important character we meet in the latter half of the movie. Sit back, and enjoy.”

The music in the background was instantly recognizable. Sam was playing the piano, a light and pillowy tone to set the mood. You had been there when Josh was recording Sam’s piece, the way certain parts held more emotions than anything, the rush of emotions you had felt.

Josh’s voice could be heard throughout the auditorium, his voiceover going behind his first three years of college, how blurry they were and how youthful he thought he had felt. The color scheme changed once senior year came around. All of the tones were warmer, yellow and orange hues playing in the scenes. You noticed bits and pieces of trips you had taken with Josh in there, videos of you driving, you at the beach, his and your houses.

Tears began to well in your eyes.

“During those beginning years, I felt as though time was never going to slow. The world was forever going to turn and I was just going to be the way I was then, forever. Time had stilled the moment I laid eyes on her. Embers and ashes began to ignite, flames erupted and my soul finally lit up. It was her. I never thought soulmates were a thing. It seemed too perfect of a thought. And then, the universe laughed at me. They threw me a curveball; the most beautiful woman I had ever laid my eyes on was right in front of me, asking me to be hers.”

The moment was clear in your mind. 

You sat in front of the television in Josh’s living room inside of his shared apartment with Jake. Your legs wrapped around his waist, curling the strands of hair around your finger, his eyes never leaving yours. It slipped out - you had no intention of telling him that you loved him before you were even a couple. “My heart has become very fond of you, Joshua Michael.”

His eyes filled with even more happiness than before, his hands grabbing your cheeks. “Mine has always yearned for you. It always will.”

Josh’s movie continued showing clips, videos of you, Jake and Sam hurling snowballs at each other, a glimpse of a movie night you and Josh had, a view from his bedroom door of you and Jake looking at baby pictures of the two of them together. A few of the clips that had made it into the movie were videos of the two of you kissing, one of them was a sneaky view of you getting off to the thought of Josh (which made your cheeks burn, but the video was edited so beautifully, it didn’t seem as dirty as most porn was -- it was almost ethereal, the way you looked from Josh’s lens).

The last and final shot of the film was from the day Josh told you about his movie. 

He had made dinner, a simple and easy pasta recipe (he had Jake help him cook so he could take you on a walk in the park first). He borrowed a record player from Sam’s dorm room, playing all of your and his favorite vinyls to slow dance to.

“This was so nice, Josh. Thank you. For everything.” You kissed him softly, hands steady on his cheeks.

“You deserve the universe and more. Everyday with you feels like I’m walking through Heaven. The stars don’t even begin to compare to how beautiful you are. You’re truly a beacon of light and love, mama.”

“You are the epitome of eternal sunshine, Joshua Kiszka.”

The movie got a standing ovation which came as no surprise to any of those seated at the Kiszka table. Karen gave you a hug, noticing the tears that fell from your face. You clapped your hands as loud as you could, making eye contact with Josh as he walked across the stage and bowed. You were completely in awe of the man on that stage. He was truly the most amazing human being you had ever come to know. Josh said his thank you’s, walked off stage and came running over to you.

In an instant you were picked up and spun around, the entire auditorium still clapping. The amount of serotonin rushing through you was intoxicating, life truly couldn’t get much better than this moment. You kissed him deeply, eyes screwed shut, cheeks still slightly wet with tears. Your arms were wrapped around his neck, his around your waist. “Did you like it, mama?”

“Did I like it? I have no words on how amazing that film was, Josh. It was so beautiful. You’re so beautiful.”

The amount of kisses you gave him after that was nothing compared to what was waiting for him at home.

[rafescoke]

Maybank ; Rafe Cameron (Part 2)

Part #2

Read part #1 here

masterlist

Pairing: Rafe Cameron x reader

Summary: Sometimes both sides are in the wrong.

Warnings: More angst, mentions of substance, gaslighting!

A/N: you know the drill. . . send requests!

(Y/N) isn’t one to feel jealous easily.

When she dated a certain boy from her school a few years ago, she wasn’t even phased when she had found him kissing another girl at a party.

She simply didn’t care.

But the aching feeling in her when she saw her current boyfriend sniffing a line on the back of a random girl with the perfect house and the perfect clothes and the-

“(Y/N), do you want to come down to the beach with us?”

(Y/N) finally looks up from her novel in which she wasn’t even reading in the first place. Her mind was somewhere else, and her thoughts weren’t put in the context of the book.

“No. I’m not feeling well.”

JJ sighs, fixing his cap backwards and placing himself beside her. He looks over her lap, reading the first few lines of the book his sister’s reading and sighs. 

“I never read, so I do not understand how this whole novel thing works. But I’m pretty sure reading about getting over a breakup won’t do you any good.”

(Y/N) rolls her eyes, snapping her book with a shut. The last thing she ever wants is for JJ to lecture her. She had enough bawling her eyes the past 2 weeks. 

“What time are you supposed to go again? Go.”

She’s grateful, of course, for JJ. He was there for her the whole 2 weeks when she didn’t feel like eating or taking a shower or anything that involved getting out of the bed.

But she feels better now, her hair perfectly up in a hairdo and the red color of her cheeks returning.

She’s not sad anymore.

The feeling evolves into anger.

Of course, (Y/N).

You’re nothing but a pogue.

If there’s one thing Obx is famous for, that will be the annual bonfire. It’s an excuse for every teenager on the island to let loose and to free themselves after a year of studying.

For (Y/N), it’s just another party for Rafe to ignore her.

But she’s not coming down to the beach with him a few distance away, hell, she doesn’t even know if he’s coming.

“What the fuck! You told me you’re not coming,” JJ laughs, giving his sister a side hug. “You look good. You don’t look pale anymore.”

“I’m gonna be sick if you keep saying nice things to me,” (Y/N) rolls her eyes, though her insides are beaming. JJ has always been her number one supporter, and she loves her brother with all her heart.

“Just don’t go to the other side of the beach, okay? All your friends are here.”

And we’re back to him protecting her.

She gets it, really, but she doesn’t feel like a night full of JJ and his friends becoming some sort of bodyguards to her.

The last thing she ever wants is for Rafe to think she’s still weak.

“J, I know.”

He holds both of his hands up, “I’m just saying. I’m by the fire if you ever need me, okay?”

It’s funny how the boy who cried to her over his scraped knee is the same boy who’s trying his best to protect her. Growing up in a dysfunctional family, all (Y/N) and JJ has is each other. 

(Y/N) walks to the music booth, getting so tired over the same artist being played over and over again. She doesn’t feel like listening to Drake all while trying to forget a certain brunette boy from the back of her head.

“Hey, can I get something different? Play the Euphoria soundtrack if you must. Anything other than the songs you’re playing.”

The DJ looks up to her and gives out the widest grin. (Y/N) tries to look away from the charming smile, but her eyes are glued to a pair of blue ones.

“Not a fan of Drake?”

“Nah.”

“Why? Trying to move on from an ex?”

She gulps, “No. Just have a good taste in music.”

The guy licks his teeth, “Touche. The name’s Nate.”

(Y/N) gives him a small grin, “Hm. Can we change the song now?”

Nate raises a brow because god; no one has ever disregard him. 

There’s something about the girl.

“Is Party In The USA good enough for you, princess?”

Her breath hitches. The last time someone has ever called her princess was probably a few weeks ago. 

This is not helping her to get over him.

“Whatever. You’re the DJ, right?” she answers, turning on her heels. “Oh wait, Nate?”

He smiles at her again, and (Y/N) has the urge to slap the smug look off his face.

“Don’t call me princess. You’re not my boyfriend.”

For the past 40 minutes, no Drake song has been playing. The crowd begins filling the empty space in the middle to dance with each other, and (Y/N) has to look away from the couple getting close and leaving kisses down each other’s necks.

She makes her way down to the drinks counter to get herself a beer because she really doesn’t feel like watching another friend of hers kissing their partners while sober. She decides that if she has to stay for another hour of people making out with each other, it’s better if she’s intoxicated.

“Hey.”

(Y/N) turns her back, expecting to see a drunk friend of hers, but the sight of the same DJ from before greets her.

She rolls her eyes, “I’m not asking you to change the music.”

“I know, I guess I started off wrong just now. Let me reintroduce myself. You deserve to know the real me.”

(Y/N) laughs, because this whole thing sounds like something out of a corny Netflix movie. He’s cute, sure, but she’s just not interested.

He removes the beanie he’s been wearing all night, revealing a blonde buzz cut underneath. (Y/N) tries not to stare.

Okay. Screw cute. He’s handsome. 

“Hi, I’m Nate. I’m from New York, and I just moved here.”

She smiles, finally, because he fits the exact image she has of every male teenager in New York. Blonde buzz cut, an unbuttoned blue shirt with a peak of his toned body underneath, and a pair of red shorts. 

A new kook.

“Nate, your kind and I don’t match. You’re a kook.”

He scrunches his face, “They’ve been telling me that shit since the first week I’ve been here-” he steps closer, and (Y/N) can smell his expensive cologne. It’s not the same one she favors on Rafe, but it’s close. “-don’t tell me you believe that stuff.”

Oh.

She grins, “I’m not rich, Nate.”

“So?”

Oh.

“The name’s (Y/N),” she smiles, extending her hand. Nate beams, because finally, after a whole night of watching her from his booth, she finally expresses the most beautiful smile there is. 

“(Y/N), I feel like we’re going to get closer soon.”

“Yeah? Why’s that?”

“I’m not a Drake’s fan either.”

. . .

(Y/N)’s hesitant. 

She doesn’t believe him in one bit, not even when he flashes her the most charming smile ever. 

But he’s not afraid to show her off. She went on a date with him a few nights ago, and she distanced herself from him upon the entrance of the restaurant.

“What the fuck are you doing? C’mere.”

(Y/N) looked up to him, “You don’t have to stay near with me.”

Nate turned to her with a confused expression. “Why? I’m buying you dinner, remember?”

He held her hands in his, and she let him.

Nate pokes her side and suppresses a giggle when she yelps from the sudden touch. He fails, however, when she falls from his bed onto the floor. 

“You’re too ticklish,” he says and helps her up to her feet. Her eyes wander to the band posters on his wall again, being so amazed and surprised by this boy’s taste in music and movies.

“I don’t even listen to half of the bands you listen to,” she says finally, pulling herself down to the empty space beside him. “Do you know who’s Ariana Grande?”

Nate rolls his eyes, “Ha-ha. No. I don’t. Is she the one who sang Despacito or something?”

(Y/N) laughs and her heart suddenly soars. She feels at ease, and there’s lightness in the air, even when they’re in public.

(Y/N) stands up, taking the full room into view again, and walks to the shelf full of pictures of Nate and his family. There’s a picture of him in a soccer jersey, a picture of him playing the drums and then an electric guitar, and-

“Oh my god, is this your girlfriend?” (Y/N) exclaims, picking up a photo frame with a beautiful brunette girl smiling back at her. “She’s so pretty.”

“(Y/N), put it back,” Nate rolls his eyes, standing up from the comfort of his bed and walking towards her. (Y/N) laughs, liking the way his eyebrows scrunch in distress and hides the photo frame behind her.

“(Y/N). . . I’m not playing.”

“No one is playing, Nate,” she laughs, taking a few steps back as he motions forward. “I can’t believe you have a sweetheart back in NYC, Nate.”

“(Y/N), put it back.”

(Y/N) pulls a confused expression, “Put what back?” she brings the frame forward, and expressed a fake sigh. “Oh, this? I was just checking this out-” Nate charges for her and she squeals, running towards the end of his room and watching as he runs in her direction. She panics, looking around for a place to hide, and as her eyes meet his bed, Nate has the same idea in his head.

He pushes her over his bed so she topples over, the frame still in her hands. She yelps, leaving the frame alone and using both of her hands to push his chest away. 

Nate hovers over her, being so close he can smell her sweet scent now, and she looks so good under his yellow lights and in his bed and that goddamn smirk on her face-

“Is she your girlfriend, Nate?”

“None of your concern, princess,” he answers. Her eyes snap down to the cross dangling from his neck, and he can’t do this anymore; not when she looks so pretty under his gaze.

(Y/N) can feel the sudden change in the air now, and the chasing game they’ve been playing suddenly doesn’t look like a chasing game.

He’s like a predator waiting to attack. 

(Y/N)’s eyes look up to him again. “Is she your girlfriend?”

And he connects his lips with her. She gasps from the sudden touch, but after a few seconds, he can feel her kissing him back. 

And for once, she feels okay again. She wraps her arms around him, pulling him close to her and letting his warmth engulfing her.

She feels at peace.

“Rafe,” she whispers, letting the blonde boy trails down to her neck.

Nate pulls away, his lips sore and red after their brief makeout session.

Chest heaving, he steps away. “Rafe?”

(Y/N) sits up, groaning and fixing her hair. “God, I’m so stupid. I don’t mean that, Nate, I’m sorry. Please, don’t go.”

Nate pulls a disgusted face, and it’s the same look Rafe had put in the party a few weeks ago to her and she can feel herself losing again. 

“I’m going out. You can stay here if you want.”

“Nate-”

The door closes behind him, and (Y/N) groans. 

Way to go, (Y/N).

. . .

She hates how bad she feels for Nate.

He has been nothing but a total sweetheart to her, and there she was; moaning another guy’s name and letting him walked out of his own home.

So that’s the core reason as to why she’s standing outside of his house at 10 p.m. on a Friday, letting the heavy rain soaks her whole outfit because of course she would forget to bring an umbrella.

She knocks again, with her fists this time, because she’s certain he hadn’t heard her. For a moment, she’s afraid his father or mother would open the door but after remembering how they’re going to be away for a business trip, she sighs in relief. 

The door opens midway of her banging on the door, revealing a shirtless Nate with nothing but green sweatpants complimenting his legs.

“(Y/N)? What are you doing here?” he groans, tugging her arms in and closing the door after her. (Y/N) attacks him in a tight hug, slightly shivering from the cold rain outside, and after a few seconds, Nate hugs her back.

“You’re okay?”

“Can we talk in your room?”

“Uh, I don’t-”

(Y/N) doesn’t let him give any excuse and she pulls him into the living room, but before she can reach the space, he pulls her to a halt.

“Hey, we can’t go there, I’m kinda, um, doing something. What’s wrong?”

She sighs, “Nate, I’m so sorry, okay? I didn’t mean it when I called you someone else’s name and that’s the stupidest thing I ever did but please don’t go, okay? You’re all I have.”

Nate laughs, “God, you’re really worried about that? I get it, it’s okay.”

“No, it’s not.”

“It is, really. But tell me one thing, though-” he pulls her arms, and pins her against the wall. (Y/N) smiles, staring into his blue orbs. “Is this Rafe more handsome than me?”

“Hey man, we really can’t wait-” a voice starts from the direction of the living room, and before (Y/N) can move away, the voice rings again. “Ah. Of course.”

Oh my god.

She misses him too much. His hair is messier than ever, his eyes bloodshot and his nose red. (Y/N) wonders how many lines he did, but judging from the distant look in his eyes, she’s guessing a lot.

“Rafe,” she whispers, getting closer to the boy she missed and letting his smell engulf her. 

“Rafe?” Nate quirks a brow because this isn’t making any sense. Why would she called his friend the name-

Of course.

Rafael is Rafe.

So this is the guy.

His childhood friend is ‘the Rafe’ of the girl he’s starting to fall for.

After so many hours of trying to find the Rafe she accidentally called him, he hadn’t thought of his own childhood friend to be the guy all along.

Growing up, he have been told to call him Rafael up until the day he moved to New York. 

He can’t believe it.

“Rafe,” she calls again, this time following Rafe out to the living room. “Rafe, listen to me.”

“You moved on too fast.”

“I haven’t moved on, Rafe, fuck, I swear I haven’t,” she expresses. “Please. Listen to me.”

“You were mad at me for doing a line from some bitch’s back and you’re, you’re o-out here, under my own fucking friend’s arms and- did y’all fucked?”

“What?” she gasps, “God, Rafe, no. No. I will never fuck anyone other than you.”

“Yeah?” Rafe raises a brow and lets out a shrill laugh. “God, I don’t even know if I can trust you.”

“You can, Rafe,” she steps forward, trying to reach his face with her cold fingers. The anger she felt before suddenly dissipates into the thin air because god, she did not realize how much she has been missing this boy more than anything in the world.

Her everything.

Rafe flinches away, “Stop. Do you know how miserable I am the past few weeks without you?”

“Don’t turn this on me now, Rafe.” “And you’re out here with fucking Nate Hamilton. Jesus fucking Christ.”

“Rafe, it’s not like that,” Nate suddenly steps in, and (Y/N) gives him a warning look not to say anything more. He ignores her, “Are we not going to talk about how you disregard her just because of her status on this fucking island?”

“God, always with your equality shit,” Rafe groans. “You guys deserve each other. I can’t believe you will ever do this to me, Nate.”

What hurt Rafe more isn’t the fact that she was all pinned under his arms, but it was because Nate knew about their relationship. Rafe had told him everything about her ever since they first started dating, and he hadn’t just lost her tonight.

He lost his childhood friend too.

“I’m leaving,” he says, rubbing his nose and sniffing. Rafe isn’t sure how many lines he has done, but his mind is getting lighter and lighter and the lights are turning blurry. 

He can’t stand being in the same room as them. He will fucking drive if he has to.

(Y/N) bites her lips, trying to stop herself from bursting into tears. So they know each other? Why won’t Rafe ever tell her about him? Is this still her fault? She wasn’t even cheating on him. They’re not together.

Right?

Are they together?

“Hey, you’re okay?”

(Y/N) pulls her hands away, stepping away from the blonde boy and walking towards the exit. She has to leave this house as soon as possible. The once comforting bright color of the wall seems so dull and suffocating now, and she longs for the familiar blue paint of Rafe’s room.

She wants Rafe. 

No one else.

Just him.

“Just me?” Rafe smiled. “Hey, hey, I got a surprise for you.”

“Rafe, I hate surprises,” (Y/N) groaned, throwing her head back against the headrest. “You bought me a dress before!”

“Look-” he smiled, showing her a gold ring in a small velvet box. “It’s a ring.”

“Oh my god, it looks like yours!” (Y/N) exclaimed, clutching his hand with the ring and comparing the color. 

“Of course it’s the same ring. You’re my wife, I’m not going to buy you a different kind.”

“Wife?”

“What? Am I not your husband?”

(Y/N) wishes for nothing but Rafe. 

She presses on his contact again, turning her phone downside and moving the speaker nearer to her lips.

“Rafe, please call me back. I miss you, and we can fix this, okay? I didn’t know about Nate and I was so, so stupid. I can never replace you, Rafe. You’re mine, remember? Please. Call me back. I miss you.”

She sighs, setting her phone down on her lap and watches as the rain patters down her front windscreen heavily.

Love is a hell of a drug.

-

@okayshoto @joselyn001 @onceuponateenagetrash @dyingsleeping @iwannabeapogue @meaganjm @rafesobxs @flossy2929 @unfortunatekiwitrash @scottybitch @asimpwriter @amaya124 @tommy-tommo @thatshithurted8 @fallincindy @marvelwhor3 @rafeswh0ree @kookap @supernaturallydc-blog @blank-velvet @alaniskauany @kiiim8 @witchywrter @kaitlyn2907 @heyimflo @overcookedpastasause @tsukkiswifeey @spidey-d00d @anonymousobxfan @gotmeinloveagain @chicagoblackhawkslover96 @lexi-writes @classydragonthingknight @belongtoyou-u @badbussylol @savannah-elliott @angelreyesgirl100 @haterpenny @beehappyyy @alwaysclassyeagle @maybankslut @kayleea122 @clearbolts @lovelyxtom @christianaevans @jemimah-b99 @opierdalacz @dangerdolns @wildflowerliv @classygirlything21 @pogueslandia @alwaysclassyeagle @rottenstyx @wxn-drlst

[rimoistyping]

Sugawara x reader | More important than notes

Summary: 8pm, the two of you hangout together. Wonder what will happen 👀

Warnings: none. ( F L U F F )

Word count: 1.1k

Ship: (Cheesy) Sugawara x GN reader

(I DO NOT OWN ANY OF THE PICTURES I USE NOR THE CHARACTERS. CREDIT TO THE ANIME AND ARTISTS! Requests in comments)

It was a typical day, when you and Sugawara spent the afternoon at his place. He was your best friend, soulmate, lover and everything you needed. He was there for you whenever you needed him, you comfort him as well at times. He swore he'd keep you safe, no matter what he had to do. No matter, if he had to force you to eat with him, pull you out of the bed, buy expensive train tickets, to comfort you in the middle of the night, or stop you from doing anything stupid. He was there for you, all the time, but you felt like you couldn't do the same. He wouldn't let you do it, no matter how hard you tried. All he asked for is a few hugs, and quality time to spend together.

Just like that, the two of you were hanging out at his place, doing different things. You studied, read manga together, watched movies, and played video games. The time went by pretty fast, leaving the two of you in a room filled with giggles and the sun's last sparks. The purple and red sky gave a beautiful hue to the room, due to his huge windows. He laid on the bed, his back pushed against his pillows, as you were sitting on his lap, eyes fixed on the boy. You were talking about your dreams, what you want to achieve in your lives, and how you could help out each other.

Out of nowhere he gently cupped your cheeks, making you look into his eyes. "Promise me you'll stay with me. Promise me, you'll tell me everything I need to know, and tell me, when you need help. I know you don't like asking for help, but I'm your boyfriend. I want to make your life easier. Y/N, I love you so damn much.." His words made your heart melt, cheeks glowing red from the sunset and blushing. You gave him a soft nod, "I love you much more, and I promise to try, and rely on you more" Y/N whispered, your voice music to the grey haired male's ears.

You leaned closer to his face, as he pulled you in, planting a small peck onto your lips. Although you were dating for a while now, he was still very careful with his words and actions, trying his best not to trigger you with anything, but when you kissed his lips again, with more passion, he knew he had to make a move, and be a man.

His hands wandered down to your neck, then your waist, softly gripping it. He pulled your body closer, as he sat up, you remained sitting on his lap. That way, he could press you up against his larger frame, the pressure coming off as pure comfort. Your lips brushed against Sugawara's, making him hungry for your taste. Without hesitation, or second thoughts, he took your lips, his tongue licking your lower lip for permission. You gave it to him, slowly parting you lips, for him to enter your mouth.

Although, he wanted to be the one to explore your mouth, you fought back, picking his tongue for a dance battle between the two of you. In the end you were defeated by him, his arms tightly wrapped around your waist, his tongue exploring every part of your mouth. That stupid little study session just turned into a making out session real fast.

He didn't mind it at all, the Friday evening serving for your cuddle and make out session. He was pretty used it by now, but since he wanted to take things slow, all you ever did is a little teasing through these long kisses. Y/N was startled by his phone's ringtone, as he reached for his phone, eyes half lidded, tongue pleasing the other one's, not breaking the kiss. Once his hand held the device, he glanced at the caller's name and number, slowly pulling away, once his mind processed it all. His captain, Daichi was calling him. Your hands were caressing his sides, as he picked up, saying a quick "hello" into the microphone. "Hey, Sugawara, I think I forgot to give you back your notes, when can I give it to y-" Daichi was cut off, as Sugawara put his phone down, deciding that pleasing you was a lot more important, than his notes. Daichi was left confused and pissed about his friend's behavior, finding it oddly unusual. He shrugged it off, and went on with his evening, doing his own things.

Sugawara wrapped his arms back around your waist, before you could say anything. "Sugar, your notes are important" You mumbled, as he gave you an innocent smile. "But you are more important Y/N" he kissed your cheek, biting into your soft mochi skin. You yelped by the new feeling, the bite feeling oddly nice. "Sugar" you whined out his name, as his teeth kept nibbling your skin, making him look like, he wanted to eat you for real.

He smiled at you again, before he whispered a cheesy line into your ear, keep mumbling about the way he sees you. "You know I'd take notes of you instead. How your eyes shine so bright whenever I look at you, how your skin is so smooth, even if you say it's not. How your eyes smile at me when you lay your eyes on me. How your voice sounds more positive when you talk to me. How you are just so sweet" he kept whispering, until you pulled away from the embarrassment, hiding your glowing cheeks into his muscular chest. Laughter left the grey haired one's throat, as he ruffled your hair, kissing the top of your head. "Y-You're too cheesy Sugar!" You responded, your hands softly gripping his white shirt. "Because I know you like it when I'm honest, /and/ sweet at the same time" he kept patting your head, rubbing circles on your back after that.

By the time you calmed down, it was pretty dark in his room, around 9 pm. You were cuddled up against him, head resting on his chest. He loved spending time with you like that, as the two of you drifted off. He didn't miss making you embarrassed with his honesty. Not once. Hopefully, he won't ever.

[watchmegetobsessed]

Prompt/Request Idea!! I don’t really have a vision for the beginning or how it should end but I thought it was a cute idea. Harry sees the reader in one of his T-shirts for the first time. And maybe she doesn’t realize it’s a big deal like she just wanted to get out of her uncomfy clothes and grabbed the first shirt she saw and threw it on. But like Harry turns around and sees her and his world stops for a sec. lol can you tell I’m a hopeless romantic?? Also I got this idea listening to a country song (T-Shirt by Thomas Rhett) so yea that’s it!! This just popped into my head and you are one of my fave Harry writers so I figured why not.

BORROWED

a/n: hii! im sorry it took me so long to get around and write this but i was finally in the mood to write something extra fluffy so here it is! hope you'll like it!

pairing: Boyfriend!Harry X Reader

word count: 1180

masterlist

(gif is not mine)

“We can start in a bit, I just have to make a quick call to Jeff, is that alright?”

Harry keys the two of you into his house, heavy paper bags in both your hands and his as you just came back from grocery shopping. Tonight is date night, but after the long week you both had, you chose to just cook something together and then get lazy on the couch cuddled up with a good movie. It’s exactly what you need right now.

“Sure, take your time,” you smile back at him as the two of you walk into the kitchen, putting the bags to the counter. “I’ll unpack these in the meantime,” you offer, digging into the bags of goodies.

“Thank you, love,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to the top of your head before making his way into his study to get over with anything work related as soon as possible so he can spend his time with you.

While he is on the phone in there, you softly hum to yourself, unpacking everything you bought, leaving what you’ll need for dinner on the counter and putting away the rest. You already know your way around Harry’s kitchen, you’ve spent a fair amount of time in his home since you’ve started dating just a few months ago. At first you felt hesitant whether the timing for the two of you to give it a shot is good, both of you driving a quite busy life lately, but at last you’re glad you listened to your heart. You’ve grown to love him more and faster than you ever thought and now you can’t even imagine your everydays without him.

When you’re done with the unpacking, Harry is still on the phone so you decide to start peeling the potatoes since there’s a good amount of that, Harry has been craving fries all day so you’re making that as a side. But before you could start working, you decide to make yourself comfier. Still wearing your dress from work today, you make your way into Harry’s closet, roaming through his simple t-shirts, grabbing one for yourself as well as one of his workout shorts before you strip yourself out of the tight dress and put on his clothes, allowing you to feel so much more comfortable and relaxed.

When you’re back in the kitchen you connect your phone to the Bluetooth speakers he keeps there, putting on some soft music as you start peeling the potatoes, taking your time, not wanting to get much ahead on your own, since the whole point of the evening is to cook together, something you’ve been doing a lot since you’ve started dating. In fact, on your very first date, instead of taking you out to some expensive restaurant he chose to make home-made tacos together and it was the most perfect first date you’ve ever been on.

On the other end of the house, Harry finally finishes up his call and puts his phone on do not disturb, not wanting anyone or anything to interrupt his time with his girlfriend before he makes his way out to the kitchen. He hears the music before he sees you moving around and a smile tugs on his pink lips how you’re listening to a country song again. You’ve shared with him your recent obsession with country music lately and how you always find yourself gravitating towards this genre whenever you’re listening to music.

As Harry approaches the kitchen you finally come into his view, standing with your back facing him as you gently sway your hips to the rhythm, humming to yourself while peeling the potatoes near the sink. Stopping in his tracks, he allows himself to adorn the sight of you, especially because he can feel his heart pitter-pattering in his chest when he realizes that you’ve changed out of your dress and put on some of his clothes.

The blue shirt hands loose around your frame, the hem reaching down to your mid-thigh, the seams on your shoulders falling way past where they usually do on his body. The workout shorts are baggy on you and though the shirt is covering your hips, he can tell you rolled down the waist of the shorts so they fit you just a tad bit better.

He is in love with this sight, his beautiful girlfriend in the peace of his home, wearing his clothes, ready to spend the rest of the evening together, talking it away about anything and everything, because that’s what usually happens. He loves hearing you tell him your opinion about anything, loves to know your thoughts and feelings, loves listening to your rambling about the things that interest you lately.

He just loves you and everything about you.

It’s not the first time he is seeing you wearing his clothes, it had happened several times when you were spending the night over at his place and after some mind-blowing sex you felt more comfortable in his clothes than your own, but every time it happened before you always asked, as if you didn’t have a right to just take whatever you want from him. In his book, everything he owns is already yours as well, nothing is borrowed anymore, but you haven’t gotten past the point where you don’t ask, but now it finally happened and Harry couldn’t be happier about it. It means that you’ve settled into the thought of the two of you being a full item, equals in a happy relationship.

Harry walks up behind you, his hands sliding around your waist and under the shirt so his palm is touching your bare stomach, his fingers playfully dancing on your naked skin. You smile to yourself, melting against his chest instantly, your bodies fitting together perfectly, like two puzzle pieces.

“Hey handsome, done with everything?” you ask, turning your head to the side so your lips could meet his in a short peck.

“Yeah. I’m all yours.”

“Mmm, finally,” you chuckle playfully, a giggle escaping your lips as he tickles you a little before his arms fall from around you.

Standing next to you he leans against the counter, taking another few moments to just watch and adorn you, his arms crossed on his chest as a small, content smirk tugs on his lips. You catch his gaze, but you have no idea why he is staring at you like that and you can’t help the nervous little giggle that falls from your lips.

“What is it?” you ask, bumping your hip against his playfully.

“Nothing, I just… I really love you, that’s it,” he shrugs and you feel the warmth hugging your chest at his words.

“And I love you too.” Dropping the peeled potato from your hands you lean closer and steal a kiss, leaning against him gently as his hands find your hips. “Do you mind taking care of the veggies?” you ask, smiling against his lips.

“Sure thing,” he nods, pecking you one last time before he gets down to work as well.

Thank you for reading, please like and reblog if you enjoyed it!