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godmadeaterribleerror · 6 days ago

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Chapter 29 - All My Bets On You

Series Masterlist

Author's Note: Think of reading things I write like a scavenger hunt where only I know what you're looking for. <3

Chapter Title from Nothing Matters by The Last Dinner Party.

Word Count: 26.8k

Chapter Summary/Warnings: You and Ben return home, and it's time to work. Usual warnings.

Tags: Soldier Boy/Supe!Female Reader, canon divergence, enemies to friends to lovers, canon divergence, fluff, angst, established relationship

Read on A03!

Chapter 28 - Chapter 30

Ben didn’t like having to hide Her.

He didn’t like keeping Her fucking secret. She shouldn’t be secret. Ben should be able to hold Her high to the sun, so she can be in a warm, clear, unwavering light that didn’t flicker or wash out a single feature of her perfect face. The lights of the airplane cabin and airport were too fucking blue, flickering and making everything have a sense of being artificial. None of this shit should be artificial, because this was the realest thing in Ben’s life, and he wanted to tell the sky and stars and every space between about it.

Ben should be able to stand up and fucking roar that She wanted him. That they were going to get married, and there wasn’t a single goddamn thing any pussy fucker could do about it, because She’d chosen him. She was wearing the ring Ben had bought her, and holding his hand, and sleeping against his chest. There was a little drool falling out of her perfect mouth and staining Ben’s shirt, and her arms were wrapped around his torso, and her completely relaxed face was pressed into his body. Because She’d fucking chosen Ben. He kept her safe, and happy, and made her feel loved like she deserved to be, so She’d chosen Ben.

And he wanted to fucking scream that. That the most perfect, beautiful woman to ever grace this stupid fucking planet wanted him. That every fucking way, She wanted Ben. And now Her beauty was everyone’s to see, but only Ben’s to hold. To care for and adore. Only Ben got to see Her wild, glossy eyes and her parted, swollen lips when he fucked her. Only Ben got to touch the softest, most vulnerable and delicate pieces of her heart and mind, because she trusted him to tend to them and sooth them over. And only She got to see the parts of Ben nobody had been ever meant to witness. The storm that she’d coaxed out of him, that would sweep over his body and make him momentarily so fucking weak, and that she’d wait out with him until it passed. She’d let Ben rest his head near Her heart—where he could be a little more certain she was real—and sing to him until there wasn’t a swell in his throat and the world wasn’t blurred around him. Until he stopped making wrathful, pathetic fucking sounds he muffled in Her skin, and then could stay there a long while after.

Forever. She was going to be able to hold Ben like that for fucking ever. She’d have likely done that anyway—Ben was never going to let that piece of Her, alive inside him, wither and crack and shatter—but now he’d be able to walk into a stupid, disgusting gas station and know that everyone could see She’d chosen him. Ben could pick her a million flowers, plant Her a goddamn garden—have MM plant Her a garden, Ben didn’t actually know how to do that—and if people tried so say something he could shout that it was for his wife. He was allowed to do whatever the fuck he wanted for his wife. Whatever She asked of him, Ben would do.

Because She’d still give all Her beauty away to whoever asked for it—She’d cut herself open and offer kindness to assholes who didn’t deserve it and motherfucking pussies who wasted it, wasted Her—but Ben would throw it right back into her. He’d give Her all the good things he had to offer, because he still didn’t really deserve her, but he did fucking love her, and Christ, he had to make that worth something. Make it worth what She was, which was everything. She was fucking perfect, and she was Ben’s, just as he was Her’s. Ben had Her, he’d always have her, and he would never have to be alone and hated again, because She’d looked at him and decided that he was worth loving a little more than she loved everything else.

A lot more. Ben was pretty fucking certain She loved him a lot more than everything else. That when She’d cling to his arm like he might drift away, or kissing over his beard with soft lips and mumbled words of affection that made Ben’s whole fucking body even more of a tool for her to use, it was because she loved him a lot more than anything else.

And now Ben had a hacked and carved out path ahead of them where he could keep loving Her until the world burned out. And everyone should fucking know. Everyone should understand that Ben loved Her, and She loved him, and that was that.

But he had to hide Her. Ben had to keep himself angled to block her from view, keep his own baseball cap tilted down to hide his face from view. To hide from every television in the Airport, all playing the same fucking lie, all with Sage’s eyes seeming to track them through the screens.

The news had broken while they were still in the air. They weren’t even halfway over the Atlantic when She froze at Ben’s side, and he started to feel cold and sick. He’d turned to press for what the fuck was wrong—why her heart was set to a pace that kicked his own up and made blood pound in his ears—and she’d passed him the phone without a word.

On the screen was a photo of Sage standing at a news podium—her expression grim and dramatically pained—and a headline that made Ben’s teeth almost crack.

Sister Sage Accuses the Anomaly of Treason.

The article itself was long and pointlessly detailed. Half of it was just a useless and incorrect timeline of everything about Her, and it took Ben almost two fucking minutes to find what Sage had actually goddamn said.

She was a terrorist. She had been behind the Believe Expo attack, and Tek Knight massacre, and deaths of Black Noir and A-Train. She was responsible for destruction of numerous properties—Vought, Government, and private owned alike—was a Deep state leader, and had been the mastermind behind the assassinations of Victoria Neuman and Grace Mallory in order to clear the path to the White House. She’d been intending to help her stepfather, Secretary Todd Muller—Sage had implied some truly fucking disgusting things about their relationship that made Ben see red—gain the VP slot, and Her next victim would likely have been President Robert Singer himself if Sage hadn’t outsmarted her and blocked Her plan.

But now Secretary Muller was out of the running—and under federal investigation for co-conspiracy—so Homelander was in contention for the position. And the only way to keep America safe was to appoint him to the White House, because She was evil and powerful, and wanted to take away American liberties.

Sage had apologized for keeping this information secret, but claimed that she’d been trying to prevent public distress or panic. That Vought had been working on a private operation to apprehend Her and bring her to justice following her betrayal of America and Homelander, but had decided She was too dangerous to be allowed to roam freely and without fear of consequence.

Ben was mentioned. She’d run away with Soldier Boy, and turned America’s Son and former greatest patriot into a socialist with the same manipulation tactics she’d used on Homelander. Gotten Soldier Boy to fall in love with her when She’d decided Homelander wasn’t enough for her, and was now trying to use him to fuel her fascist overtaking of the government. She’d gotten Soldier Boy to kidnap Ryan, and he was willing to work with the very people who’d betrayed him in the first place because She’d just sunken her claws that deep.

That last part wasn’t entirely a fucking lie. Ben was working with Butcher and MM and Annie, but Christ, he’d accepted that was his life a long fucking time ago. They weren’t going to put him back in the box, they didn’t even really seem to hate him anymore, and Ben didn’t really hate them anymore. They made Her happy, and that was what fucking mattered.

So She did, in a way, have Her claws in him. Ben would fucking burn the world for Her—he’d do anything for her—so he might have spared Sage’s words a moment of thought if they weren’t fucking stupid. Of course Ben would do anything for Her. She’d do anything for Ben. It wasn’t like she’d just smiled at him once and he’d become a pathetic fucking lapdog.

She’d been something angry and wrapped in fire and smoke, all of it turning Her hollowed and scarred and broken inside, and Ben had been atomic and vigilant and wrapped in blood and wrath, serving him like a shield that kept every pussy who’d try to use him out.

And She’d seen the rotten, furious and bitter parts of him, and not walked away. And Ben had touched Her fire and not flinched. Ben wasn’t worried that he’d ever start to burn without Her there, because he was more fucking worried She’d try to burn without him.

Sage hadn’t put that in her fucking speech. Sage hadn’t mentioned that She was kind, and hilarious, and perfect. That She was self-sacrificial and intelligent, and didn’t manipulate people because She loved people. Sage didn’t mention that She hadn’t stolen Ryan so much as offered the kid some fucking care and affection, or that She hadn’t gotten Ben to fall in love with Her so much as existed near Ben, and been too fucking perfect to not fall in love with.

But Sage hadn’t mention most of the truth. Truth didn’t seem to be something Sage was at all fucking concerned with. Sage alleged that She demanded Homelander give her the V, and only grown more power-hungry after. Sage still didn’t fucking admit that She was stronger than Homelander—who hadn’t been seen since Boston—only saying that She was “dangerous, unstable, and if seen in public should not be approached.”

All of which meant Ben couldn’t fucking tell everyone he was marrying Her. They were wanted terrorists—fucking again—so it wouldn’t be the smartest move to tell everyone in this parking lot that Ben loved with Her and was going to make sure everyone knew that forever.

The team would hear about it, when they got home. They’d probably want to talk about the current, pressing disaster, but they’d have to also hear about how She and Ben were getting married. It would take two goddamn seconds, and if Ben didn’t tell someone by the end of the day, he’d explode.

He’d grumbled that to Her in the car, somewhere on the tree-lined highway, and She’d giggled.

“You know we’ll still be engaged after we deal with this? It’s not something that��s going to expire.”

“When we’re finished with this,” Ben had grunted, squeezing Her thigh under his hand. “We’re getting married. Immediately. And I don’t want to deal with Hughie’s fucking bitching about not getting to be a bridesmaid with Annie on the day.”

“Huh,” She’d still been grinning, and titled her head in mock thought. “I thought you were going to take Annie. She looks good in a suit, and I think her best man speech would be really funny. But if you’d prefer Butcher-“

“Butcher is not my best man.” He’d muttered, shooting Her a glare. “I’ll eat a fucking bomb first-“

“Well he has to go somewhere. My personal vote is flower girl, but I think he’d be a little bitch about it-“

Ben had snorted, and tried not to get too fucking lost in this. How She was talking about it like it was real, and they’d actually have to figure out what to do about Butcher at their wedding, because they would. Ben got to live in a world where he’d have to have William fucking Butcher at his wedding, but he’d be getting married to Her, so it was still goddamn worth it.

And when they parked at Edgar’s farm, he’d kept his hold on Her firm, waiting for her to meet his eyes before he spoke.

“I’m going to tell them.”

She sighed. “I mean, I’m not going to stop you, but I promise you’ll still be able to do that when there isn’t a possible government coup to prevent.“

“I don’t care.” He grunted. “We’re getting married, and they should fucking know that.”

“They will know that, Ben, but it’s not the most pressing issue right now-“

“Yes, it is.” Ben scowled, leaning down to hold Her gaze with his, trying to fucking show her how serious this was to him. “I love you, and I’m going to make it everyone’s problem, Sunshine. Right goddamn now.”

She flushed, mouth falling slightly open, and nodded. “Oh. Okay.”

Ben hummed in triumph, pressing a small, soft kiss to her lips. “Good. Now let’s-“

He had to cut himself off with a groan, because Her hands shot into his hair as she began to try and climb onto him, deepening the kiss. Ben reacted immediately—grabbing her waist and hauling her onto his lap—and let her grind onto him as he matching every roll of her hips with a grunt and thrust until they were dry humping like teenagers.

And he didn’t fucking care. Every breathless sound and gasp of his name was more fucking proof that they belonged to each other. This could be sloppy and uncoordinated and made of pure fucking need and want, because it felt fucking good, and every touch of Her skin—in any fucking form—got Ben high and fueled his love into a roar in his chest he never wanted to silence.

Then Ben heard something crunch on the grass outside, and pulled Her tight into his chest. Sat up with her caged safely in his arms, his body blocking fucking anything that might try to hurt them. Ben might not have a gun, but he had himself. He had this strange new feeling of fucking harmony is his body, where the nuke didn’t feel like a parasite, and the drums didn’t pound and invade his head, but it was just a hum and rush of power. White-hot, blinding fucking power that was hanging off his ribs and alight in his veins.

She’d been instant they should train more, back here in Maine. Where if Ben blew something up, it would just be a tree and not a fucking house or city. And he was ready to get started right fucking now, if whatever was coming dared to even look at Her wrong.

There was a rapping sound on the window, Ben’s fury and instinct of care for Her. Protect Her and love Her and keep her safe prepared itself to shatter the glass and grab the threat by the throat, then immediately faded into the background as he saw Kimiko and Frenchie staring down at them. Kimiko waved and Frenchie tried to hide his rocket launcher behind his back, and Ben sighed.

Ben, who-

Kimiko and Frenchie.

She pushed off Ben’s chest with a whack of his arm, and twisted in his hold to sign at Kimiko with an apologetic expression. Kimiko signed back, pausing halfway through a gesture with an open mouth, and began to sign in fast, frantic movements.

Ben heard Her heartbeat pick up as she and Kimono continued their silent conversation—Frenchie mostly just looking between them and Ben—and frowned.

What the fuck is going on.

She didn’t look away from Kimiko’s movements as She responded in Ben’s head. Frenchie set some silent alarms around the property, we set one off and-

No, Ben grunted Her name in the silence, and Her flush deepened. Why the fuck does Kimiko look like she’s just been hit by a damn car.

She might have seen the ring.

The smug, wide grin that crossed Ben’s face—born from how fucking beautiful she was, and how stupidly goddamn alight his whole body was—could’ve powered a fucking country. It was all energy, all fucking love and visceral goddamn joy. It must have been contagious or something as well, because it made Her whole body relax in Ben’s arms, even as her heart picked up and she made a small, airy, needy sound that only Ben got to hear.

He started to stand, keeping Her carefully against his body and pushing the door open slowly enough for Kimiko and Frenchie to step backward, Kimiko’s gestures coming to a halt and her attention turning to Ben.

“Where the fuck is everyone else.” He grunted, stepping out onto the dirt road. “We’ve got news.”

She rolled Her eyes, Kimiko gave Ben an almost dry look, and Frenchie was very fucking obviously trying not to look at Her hand.

“Ah, we are up there by quite a bit.” Frenchie pointed further down the road, frowning at the tree line. “It is a little bit of a walk-“

“We’ve been sitting for like, fourteen hours,” She squirmed out of Ben’s hold, but still pulled his arm over her shoulder, holding him against Her. “I could go for a walk.”

“Bien, and the car, Madame-“

“We’ve got bags in it,” She frowned at their stolen Honda, Her fingers tapping over Ben’s. “And they have some, uh, important stuff. So we probably shouldn’t just leave it-“

Kimiko’s hand shot up, and she made a quick gesture with a bright smile.

Frenchie shook his head, his voice tense and apologetic. “Mon Coeur, you cannot drive-“

“It’s not like there’s anyone else on the road.” She gave Kimiko grin and shrug, reaching into Ben’s pocket to pull out the keys. “She can go five miles per hour for all I care. As long as she doesn’t drive into the river, she’ll be fine.”

Kimiko nodded eagerly, gave Frenchie a smug look, and moved into the driver’s seat.

“I’ve got my fucking clothing in there-“

She cut Ben off with a wrinkle of her nose. “So have I, Benjamin. It’ll be fine, and you can either be a baby about it here, or come with me and tell everyone that we’re engaged.”

Ben scowled down at Her, and all She did was smile up at him, making his mouth twitch and that radiant feeling grow nuclear in his chest. It was golden, and simple, and so raw and natural Ben couldn’t remember what it was like to have it not living in his body. It was like a star that flared a little brighter under Her attention and love, and it was older and more powerful than any pussy fucking star could dream of.

“Brat,” he muttered, and even his voice sounded like it was crafted from pure goddamn adoration. Like Ben had taken every furious and rough part of himself and turned it into something better. Fury that wasn’t born of hatred, but love and a resolve to keep that love. Of a jagged, stone-like feeling in his mouth and throat that had existed from the start, but had been eroded and found an exception. Ben was wrathful and immovable, but he couldn’t be mad at Her. She giggled, leaning into his side, and Ben moved for Her. He took careful, measured steps that She could always keep up with, and never once let her think she needed to be anywhere but here. With Ben, going to tell their friends that they were going to get fucking married.

Ben had been ready for it to be the first words out of his mouth. To push open the screen door to Edgar’s rickety old farmhouse and yell we’re married, you asshole pussies, so come and tell Her you’re happy for her—They weren’t married yet, but that was just fucking semantics—but he hadn’t accounted for Ryan. The kid was bouncing on the stone stairs, his whole face lighting up when She and Ben came into view, and running at a slightly alarming speed to greet them.

“You’re back!” Ryan slammed into Her first, wrapping her in a hug that had to be a little fucking painful, but only made her smile and squeeze Ryan tighter.

This was very fucking dangerous to Ben. Watching Her smile at Ryan—running her hands through the kid’s hair and hum a soft song that made the whole world seem like it was glowing—made it feel like a real option to drop off the V, tell Butcher to get his shit together, grow some fucking balls, and kill Homelander himself so She, Ben, and Ryan could catch the next flight back to Rome. They could fix up the house more, Ryan could get first choice of a bedroom, and Ben could use retirement to fill up the rest of the house with happy kids that She could sing to.

But Butcher had also been trying to kill Homelander for more than a decade, and hadn’t gotten goddamn close until She and Ben came along. Mostly Her, but Ben had gotten pretty fucking close himself. Butcher, really fucking annoyingly, needed them to help, and the pussy wouldn’t even thank them, but Ben didn’t need his thanks. He needed Butcher to do his goddamn job, so Ben’s whole life could be watching Her and Ryan be happy, and giving them more reasons to be happy.

The rest of the team was starting to walk down the old road to join them, with varying levels of welcoming expressions on their faces. Ryan moved to hug Ben—the radiant feeling in Ben’s body flashing and making his skin feel clean and his chest feel prideful—as She moved a few steps forward to meet Annie’s hug, Hughie waiting sheepishly off to the side until She gestured for him to join them.

“How was Rome? MM said the villa wasn’t a trap, but was it, you know,” Annie pulled out of the hug with a tight expression. “Livable?”

“It should have been. Stan kept all his properties in condition, even the one’s he never visited.”

Ben head shot up at the even, cool voice of Victoria Neuman, and felt his arms tense around Ryan as he leaned forward in an attempt to get just a little fucking closer to Her. Neuman wasn’t a real threat anymore, but he still didn’t fucking trust her, and didn’t want her anywhere goddamn near his family. Ben could certainly fucking feel the wired, taut feeling in Her body as she took Neuman in, and hear the stumble of Her heart in her chest.

“Um, hi.” She pried Herself away from Annie, taking a small step back. Closer to Ben. “What are you doing here?”

“They did an evac operation.” Neuman shrugged. “While you were off in Rome getting engaged, we had to deal with the Mallory fallout. You guys never think about the wider consequences of all your various murders, so now everything is compromised, and the safe house isn’t an exception.”

“Meant to tell you before you got back, but shit got-“ MM cut his tired words off, turning to frown at Neuman. “What did you just say?”

“You idiots don’t have the foresight to be in the business of meddling with politics-“

“Nah, Head-Popper.” Butcher snapped, eyes narrowed and back stiff. “I heard that shit too. The bloody fuckin hell did you say about America’s horniest twats.”

Neuman let out a long, labored sigh. “I’ve told you not to call me head-popper, Butcher, it’s not even true anymore-“

“Right then, Vicky. The fuck you mean gettin engaged-“

“I mean that they got engaged. Does engaged have a different meaning in Britain that I’m not aware of? I mean,” Neuman looked around the group with a surprised expression, attention landing on Her. “You’re wearing a ring. You don’t wear jewelry, and that looks expensive, but you’re wearing it anyway.”

It had been expensive. It had cost a small goddamn fortune, and while there was a flash of satisfied, bright pride that Neuman had noticed, Ben was also going to fucking kill her. Neuman was not meant to be the one that told everyone about this. It was either supposed to be Ben or Her, and because Ben knew his wife—more importantly, because he knew that the only place words seemed to ever fail Her was in relation to Ben—it was supposed to be him. Now everyone fucking knew, and they were gaping like idiots, and Neuman was going to fucking die.

“I, um,” She took another step back as she spoke, directly blocking Ben’s warpath and keeping Her attention on Neuman. “I don’t wear jewelry because it will probably melt. And actually,” She looked to Frenchie, and Ben saw the flash of the metal as she pulled the ring off. “Can you work your magic and make this fireproof? I really don’t want to lose it and we might have already had a,” She cleared her throat, and Ben smirked at her pretty flush. “Close call.”

Her voice had been soft, when Frenchie nodded Her heartbeat slowed, and it made something in Ben yield his wrath. He couldn’t kill Neuman. He probably hadn’t actually been going to kill Neuman—mauling or terrifying had still been on the table—but now She seemed mostly just happy, and that’s all that Ben fucking wanted.

Annie’s eyes moved to the ring—now in Frenchie’s hands—and she nodded slowly. “Wow. I mean congratulations, but also-“

“Wow.” Hughie echoed, offering Her a close-lipped, anxious smile. “Good job? Is that something I should say good job to? I don’t, uh, I’m not really sure.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” She said, kicking Ben’s shin as he opened his mouth to say it was a damn good job. Not the time, Benjamin.

They should be saying shit. Why the fuck do they all just look like dumb fucking pussies who’ve never heard of marriage before-

They’re probably just surprised-

Why the hell would they be surprised. Ben glared around the group, speaking with low, gruff words before She had a chance to stop him. “Are any of you fuckers surprised.”

A resounding, annoyed no echoed through the woods and fields around them, and Ben shot the back of Her head a smug grin that She must have felt, because he got flipped off a second later.

Not a word, Benjamin, unless you want to lose my favorite part of you.

Ben chuckled, his grin spreading. I fucking knew it was your favorite-

I was talking about your tongue, Pretty Boy. She took another backwards step, stopping at Ben side and looking up at him with a fake-sweet smile. What were you talking about?

Brat.

Cunt. Her gaze turned back to their friends, and there was a small, pretty frown tugging on her lips. “You guys aren’t surprised at all?”

“Nah, Love,” Butcher shrugged, shooting Her a wink. “I was in the hotel room next to you twats in DC. I’m mostly just fuckin shocked you came back from your sex vacation.”

“It was not a sex vacation, Butcher-“

Frenchie nodded in agreement, cutting Her off with a bright tone. “Oui, Madame, you do not need a vacation for sex. Sex can happen anywhere-“

“Like in my fucking gun range.” MM muttered, and Her face flushed.

“How did you, um, how did you know about that?”

“I told him,” Hughie mumbled, scratching the back of his neck as he gave Her an apologetic look. “I mean, not that you had sex, but that you were in the gun range and being kind of weird.”

“We were not being weird-“

MM scoffed. “I saw the security footage,” he said Her name with a pointed expression, She looked down at the floor, and Ben thought it looked a little like a father scolding his daughter for sneaking out of the house. “You motherfuckers were being incredibly weird. I almost threw up before you even started blowing him, and I had to clean my eyes with goddamn bleach after. And I only saw the first three seconds.”

“That’s,” She sighed, tapping her fingers against her palm. “Fair. Sorry.”

“Well, let’s fuckin hope you got it all fucked and out of your bloody systems,” Butcher’s grin becomes a little colder, more set and tight on his face. “Cause this place ain’t soundproof, and if you wake me up with your disgustin fuckin sex, someone’s gettin shot.”

“It’ll probably be you, Butcher.” She said, voice dry and bored. “I don’t think interrupting my husband while he’s balls deep in me is going to end well for anyone.”

Ben tried not to get lost in how fucking good everything felt. How the radiance in his body felt atomic, and might actually fucking be atomic. It felt in time with the nuke, like everything had a goddamn glow that Ben could reach out and grab and use to serve Her. Shield Her and fight for Her and bleed for Her. Protect his wife with, because at this point it was just a fucking formality that they weren’t married. If She was going to call Ben her fucking husband, he’d call Her his wife and never goddamn apologize for it. He’d fucking glow and burn and explode for Her, and then kiss her stupid and moaning after. Make her burst into flames below him and never flinch because the glow in him was for Her, and couldn’t be deterred by stupid shit like fire-

“Are you,” Ryan was looking between Her and Ben with wide eyes, and Ben almost missed his quiet, nervous tone. “Are you already married?”

“No, but husband is easier than fiancé.” She offered Ryan a smile, the kid’s whole expression relaxed, and Ben was going to fucking die. “Don’t worry, Ry,” Her voice dropped to a mock whisper, and suddenly nobody else was in the world but Her, Ben, and Ryan. “Ben isn’t going to let it be a secret wedding. Expect something very stupid and dramatic.”

Shut the fuck up, Sunshine-

No. She stuck her tongue out at him, Ben felt fucking high on how beautiful She was in front of him, and how bright she was inside him, and if Annie hadn’t started talking right then, he probably would’ve started fucking Her on the grass.

“Do you have plans?” Annie looked between them, her voice a little fucking weak, but still genuine. “For the wedding?“

“It’ll be after all this,” She gave a vague gesture to the air, Her beautiful face falling slightly. “Is done. I don’t want to get in the way of the mission-“

“Are we going to talk about the mission?” Neuman cut in with a dry, flat voice. “Or just keep standing here and talking about sex and weddings?”

MM let out a low, tired huff, and looked at Her with a weary expression. “Neuman’s right, we’ll have time for all the damn marriage talk after. Right now, we’ve got some heavy shit to go over. Let’s,” MM paused, looking around the sprawling farm grounds with a frown. “Where the fuck is your stuff.”

She sighed, looking down the road with a hesitant expression. “In the car, with Kimiko.”

“Kimiko ain’t able to drive, Love-“

“It’ll be fine,” She dismissed Butcher with a wave of Her hand, but Ben could still sense the anxiety around Her throat, constricting over his own lungs. “I can talk without props. Ryan,” Her gaze turned down, growing warm and soft as she reached out, holding Ryan��s face with a gentle hand. “Ben and I will find you after, but you can’t be in the meeting with us.”

Ryan’s eyes fell to the ground as he nodded, and She sighed.

“We trust you,” She whispered, offering Ryan a small smile. “But this isn’t something for you to worry about. If you have questions, I’ll answer them, but after. Okay?”

“Okay.” Ryan mumbled, glancing back to Ben—he gave a firm nod, that always seemed to help the kid’s anxiety—and sighed. “We can talk after.”

“After.” She said, and that was the voice She used when she made promises she intended on keeping. “You can ask whatever you want, and we have some stuff to give you-“

“Some stuff?” Ryan frowned, looking back to Ben with an uncertain gaze. “I don’t need anything-“

“They’re gifts.” Ben grunted, the radiance in him growing at how fucking adoring Her smile was, and how open and bright Ryan’s eyes were. “Go with Frenchie, kid. We’ll find you when we’re done.”

Frenchie nodded at Ben’s implied order, gesturing for Ryan to join him. As they both walked away—Frenchie rambling to a wide-eyed Ryan about fireproof alloy infusion—Ben wrapped his arm around Her waist and pulled her fully against him, kissing the top of her head as he glared around the group.

“Are we going to go the fuck inside, or just stand out here like idiots.”

Butcher snorted. “We been waitin on you, Soldier Boy, and your fucking emotional shit-“

“Inside.” MM cut Butcher off with a glare as Ben’s eyes narrowed, his hand clenching over Her stomach. “Let’s not murder each other before we even get to Homelander.”

Ben could agree with that. He would kill Butcher later—Ben was allowed to be fucking careful and gentle with his family, and Butcher should be real fucking grateful he was even allowed to witness their goddamn happiness, the bitter fucking pussy—but right now, killing Homelander was more important. Killing Homelander meant She and Ryan would be safe and She and Ben could get married without any fucking secrecy, so nothing was more important than killing Homelander.

Ben guided Her into Edgar’s rickety, piece of shit farmhouse, sitting tall at Her side around the well-worn, wooden table, and kept his hand on Her thigh as everyone settled down and the briefing began.

“The villa wasn’t lived in, and it didn’t look touched,” She started, tapping her fingers on the table as she spoke. “But it was clean. You said Edgar kept all his properties clean?”

Neuman nodded. “He might have had a crew come in just to make sure it didn’t fall to ruin.”

“That’s what we saw. A lot of things looked like they’d been dusted, but hadn’t been moved in, well, my lifetime. Most of our lifetimes.”

“Not Soldier Boy’s,” Butcher muttered, and She shot him a glare.

“Or yours, dickfuck.”

“I ain’t the one marryin you-“

“Watch it.” Ben hissed, and the radiant feeling becoming hot. Vigilant and loud, waiting for a reason to launch out of Ben with a boom and spread over the world.

MM sighed, running his hand over his face. “Can you motherfuckers try to keep it civil and not antagonize each other?”

She hummed in agreement, continuing before Butcher had a chance to make another jab or Ben could split Butcher’s head open on the table. “Butcher, I’m a big girl. I’m well aware of the age thing, and it’s probably the least fucked up thing about our relationship. Also, I think it’s hot, so you can shove it up your ass.”

Ben smirked, sitting up a little straighter, and squeezed his hand against her. I fucking knew it-

I already admitted that, Pretty Boy. And I’m mostly trying to shut Butcher up, so don’t get too smug.

Ben didn’t care what She’d been trying to do, because not only was everyone’s reaction more than he could’ve hoped for—red faces, surprised coughs, and picked up heart rates—but her words set off sparks in his gut and made something bloom around his heart. It was his usual, completely fucking unbreakable and wrathfully attentive love for Her, but also a raw and strange glow that was getting harder and harder to ignore. It was hidden under the radiance, and Ben didn’t want to glow—he wasn’t a pathetic fucking pussy who did things like glowing—but it was almost painful to pretend he couldn’t feel it at this point. That it wasn’t created and fed by how She was just as biting and avenging when someone stood against Ben as he was for Her, and She was fucking marrying him, and She adored him, and nothing could take that away from him. No one would ever be able to call Ben worthless again, because She’d kill them. Just like he’d kill people who called Her weak.

She looked like she was about to start talking again, but the door banged open and everyone started in their seats, guns clicking and raising, bodies bracing to fight whoever the fuck had just interrupted their meeting-

“You assholes are paranoid as shit, huh.” A-Train muttered, walking over to the table with a fearful Ashely a few paces behind him. “And thanks for telling us we were having a meeting.”

Annie scoffed at A-Train’s obvious, dripping contempt, crossing her arms as he and Ashley sat down. “We didn’t know where you were, and this is time sensitive. We didn’t have time to look.”

A-Train rolled his eyes, and Hughie cleared his throat with a shaky cough.

“Where, uh,” he swallowed, words sounding forced out of his mouth. “Where were you guys?”

“On a walk.”

Hughie blinked at A-Train’s flat answer. “Oh. Why?”

“None of your business, Hughie-“

“Can we please focus.” Neuman leaned back in her chair with a dramatic sigh, throwing her hands in the air. “We can all do group therapy after Homelander is dead.”

A-Train didn’t stop glaring at Hughie, but nobody pushed anything, so She took the cue to keep talking.

“Right, um,” She shook Her head, the tapping on the table picking up tempo. “The villa was in good shape, and we found Dr. Vought’s old study. Like I told MM, there was a large stash of compound V, which we brought about twenty vials of back-“

Hughie frowned. “How did you get V through security-“

“We didn’t go through security.” She said, looking around the table with a vaguely bored expression. “I mean, there was no world where we’d get through legally, V or no V. We’re walking weapons who don’t have passports. Sneaking onto a plane isn’t even in the top ten crimes we’ve committed, I think it will be fine.”

“But you’ve got it?” Annie asked, leaning forward on the table. “You’ve got the V here?”

“It’s in our bags.”

“Shit.” Annie turned to MM. “Has Frenchie told you when the drill will be ready?”

“What drill-“

“Frenchie’s been working on a needle drill or some shit,” MM told Her, and she nodded slowly. “Get the V into Homelander in one shot. He said a week, but I don’t think we’ve got a whole fucking week-“

“We don’t.” She muttered, and there was a faraway, set on Her face Ben recognized to be an idea. The final moment of Her clever fucking brain turning and clicking things into a pattern Ben never understood, but—usually—fucking worked in their favor. “If Homelander really is being tapped by Singer for the VP spot, from congressional pressure or not, we can’t wait for him to even get a confirmation hearing. But,” She swallowed, and whatever fucking insane thing she was planning settled in Her head, and all Ben could do was wait for Her to say it. “We need that drill. All we have to do is delay Homelander, and buy Frenchie enough time to get it right.”

Ben knew where this was going. Her breathing was falling into a mechanical rhythm, and the tapping of her fingers had started to leave marks on the table as curling smoke rose from her hands, Ben knew where the fuck this was headed.

You don’t fucking have to do that-

I do, my love. She gave him a small, sad smile, dropping Her searing hand over Ben’s. It didn’t fucking hurt at all—even when it might have before—so when She realized what she’d done and tried to pull away, Ben caught Her wrist with a scowl. Ben-

Doesn’t hurt. He searched Her beautiful, impossibly perfect and exhausted face for whatever words he could use to talk Her out of this, and couldn’t find a single goddamn one. Sunshine-

I’ll be okay. And it’s long overdue. She looked back to their slightly watching team, all wearing similar expression of blank confusion. “I need to come out of hiding. For good.”

There was a beat of silence as everyone stared at Her, and before they had a chance to erupt with stupid fucking opinions, She continued.

“I can do it here. We can find a blank, unidentifiable wall to film in front of, and I’ll say all of it. What Annie said, a little more, and what’s happened since. It will be a clear, obvious accusation of assault, abuse, and torture, and it will at least slow everything down.” She took a long, deep breath, her voice dropping to a whisper only Ben could hear. “It has to slow things down.”

MM was frowning, but he seemed mostly concerned. “It’s not a guarantee,” he muttered Her name, scanning over Her face with a firm, slow gaze. “And there will be a massive fallout. Fuck, Annie had a fallout, and that wasn’t a formal story. And Sage literarily just said her shit, people might call bullshit just on that-“

“People were always going to call bullshit.” Everything in Her—in Ben—felt exhausted and sick. Twisting and rotting in Ben’s chest as Her words became slightly choked and he had to just wait. He couldn’t kick everyone out to hold Her and remind Her she was safe, he had to fucking wait. “There was never a time or place I could say my piece, and have a perfect success rate. If there was, none of this would be a problem to begin with. And I can acknowledge Sage. I can admit that I am related to Muller, but also point out that he kicked me out and we hadn’t spoken for thirteen years. I can talk about everything. I don’t have careful moves to make like Sage does, I don’t have anyone I need to lie about or steer public attention away from. But,” She paused, a flash of panic shooting through Ben’s veins and up his spine as Her heartbeat sped up. “I want to get my siblings out. If I’m saying everything, standing in direct opposition of Vought and Singer, they’ll need to hide. Fuck, they probably should’ve already been hidden-“

“We can take care of that.” MM cut off Her spiraling, and Ben shot him a curt, appreciative nod, pulling Her a little close against him and rubbing patterns on her leg as MM continued. “Butcher and I got some contacts we trust with that shit, we can hide them. And Frenchie-“

“Oui?” Frenchie pushed open the door like he’d been fucking summoned, Kimiko right behind him. “What about moi are we discussing?”

“Frenchie,” She said carefully, eyes narrowed. “Where’s Ryan-“

“With the little Neuman.” Frenchie reassured Her, Kimiko nodding behind him with a kind smile. “They get on quite well, do not worry. What news have we missed?”

Butcher said to Her name, his smirk more tense than cruel. “Found a way to buy you time, Mate. Got the V, just need that fuckin drill.”

Frenchie gave Her a grateful nod before turning back to MM. “Is that all?”

“We’re gonna need to get her family out first,” MM grunted, and Frenchie seemed to understand in an immediate fucking second.

“Ah, operation Harrison Ford. Easy as a cakewalk, Madame,” Frenchie said Her name with a grin, and she blinked.

“We have an operation Harrison Ford?” Hughie looked around the table with an almost indignant expression. “Why didn’t anyone tell me we had an operation Harrison Ford?”

“You ain’t ever been a fugitive, Mate. Didn’t need it.”

Hughie gaped at Butcher. “I have definitely been a fugitive! Like, five fucking times! I’m a fugitive right now!“

“It’s for when we haven’t got anyone but each other.” MM explained, his tone slightly apologetic. “Last time we got people into hiding before we were wanted. Operation Harrison Ford is for when there’s no CIA to fall back on.”

Hughie looked almost crestfallen—Annie giving him a pat on the shoulder that was severely fucking undercut by her amused expression—and She cleared Her throat, pushing on.

“Do I need to do anything for operation Harrison Ford?”

MM nodded. “Get them all together and pass them on to me. We want this done sooner rather than later, though, so if you can round them all up-“

“They’ll be at my mom’s.” She muttered. “It’s just past the 4th, they always stay with her in July. We can go tonight-“

“Tomorrow.” Ben snapped, making his words stern and final, because She needed fucking rest. “We’ll go tomorrow.”

She sighed. Ben-

We promised Ryan, he grunted Her name between their heads, and Her tight expression faltered. It’s less than 24 fucking hours, we’ll be fine.

She nodded slowly—for once just letting Ben be right—and returned Her attention to MM. “We’ll go tomorrow afternoon. Anything else we need to deal with?”

MM frowned, his voice slow. “Maybe. You told me there might be the V formula there as well, you manage to confirm it?”

“No,” A brief glint of red appeared and dried on Her lips as she chewed them with her words. “But it would explain what Sage is after. If all she knows is the Cornucopia as an idea, she wouldn’t think it has multiple things. She’s after the formula.”

“Wouldn’t Sage know the formula?” Hughie asked, sounding doubtful his own question. “Her whole thing is smart, she could probably replicate it-“

Frenchie shook his head. “It is not that simple, Petite Hughie. Compound V is remarkably complex. There is a reason it took Vought so long, with so much money and testing, to perfect. My attempt was weak itself, and I am still not sure what I did wrong.”

“Well, no offense Mate, but you ain’t Sage-“

“Non, I am not.” Frenchie shrugged, seemingly unbothered by Butcher’s words. “But Sage is lacking the unethical testing Vought was granted by the Holocaust. And his first batch was, ah, famously unstable.” He shot Her and Ben apologetic expressions, words slowing. “It is not outside the realm of possibility that even Sage can be stumped. She may have hit a wall, or Vought may have done something odd enough to drive her cuckoo-“

“Sage doesn’t go cuckoo.” A-Train muttered. “She’s a vindictive fucking robot-“

“I’ve confused her.” Everyone’s attention turned to Her, and Ben’s could feel the sick feeling returning as she spoke. “She doesn’t follow things that aren’t in logical line. She doesn’t understand, um, love all that well, because it’s irrational.”

Butcher scoffed. “That’s bloody sad for the ice bitch, what’s that got to do with the fuckin V.“

“I’m not sure.” She sighed. “My point is more if there are things Sage doesn’t understand, things she can’t predict, and it’s usually things related to emotions. So,” She paused, frowning into the air, and turned to Ashley. “Who made the V at Vought? I’d imagine they had an NDA, but Sage and Homelander would be able to make them talk-“

“Nobody knew the whole recipe.” Ashely’s voice was unsteady, watching Her like the wrong word might end in blood. “When I got the CEO job they explained that it was manufactured in random patterns and parts, specifically so nobody could duplicate it. I think they even had fake factories and steps, just to throw people off.”

She nodded, fingers sitting suddenly as she turned to Frenchie. “I need the suppressant back. Soon.”

“Of course Madame, but I cannot recommend you, ah,” Frenchie glanced at Ben’s violent glare. “Continue with it-“

“It’s still not for me.” She squeezed Ben’s hand on Her leg in silent reassurance, and he felt his grip on her loosen. “Trust me. Please.”

Those words were mostly for Ben. They were Her asking him not to push back on her with this, pair with an implicit promise that she wouldn’t hurt herself like that again. So Ben slightly pressed his knee against Hers, holding Frenchie’s anxious expression, and gave a curt nod.

Frenchie nodded slowly, looking back to Her. “Oui. I will put it in the room.”

“The room? What room-“

“We’re stuck here indefinitely, Love.” Butcher drawled. “Lucky us, Edgar was a rich prick with a huge fuckin house, but we still gotta fit thirteen cunts in five bedrooms. You twats are bunkin with Ryan and I.”

Ben scowled. “Sleep on the fucking couch, you cockhead-“

“Nah, Gov. But if I wake up to you two humpin near my virgin ears-“

“We’re not going to hump in a shared space. With a child in the room.” She hissed at Butcher, and he shrugged.

“Caught you fuckin the bathroom before, shared bedroom ain’t a stretch-“

“Yes, it fucking is-“

“Hey!” MM hit the table, and her mouth closed with one last glower at Butcher. “Time limit, motherfuckers. You,” MM grunted Her name, glaring between her and Ben. “And your asshole get the day, then we’re driving to go get your family tomorrow morning. Frenchie, work on the drill, and the rest of you.” MM’s jaw tensed, his face somehow growing more fucking grim. “Get ready to fight. Once we’ve got it all out in the open, Homelander’s not going to take it down easy. And if Sage is after the formula, we don’t know why, and we certainly don’t have a goddamn clue how she’ll retaliate. So look alive, we’re going to have some work to do.”

They did. In the fucking morning—and not a moment sooner—She and Ben would have a lot of work to do. But until then they could spend the night however they fucking wanted.

“If we do want to fuck,” Ben lowered down to whisper in Her ear, well aware he could just use their brain connection, but enjoying the slight shiver of her spine and flutter of her heart too much to bother. “I’m sure we could find a spot in all these damn trees to do it.”

“Forests aren’t for sex.” She muttered, giving him a flat glare, and he winked right back.

“I’d fuck you anywhere, beautiful. I’d fuck you in a parking lot, or a shitfuck subway, or in the middle of a goddamn earthquake.”

She hummed, giving it fake thought with a tilt of her head. “I feel like the earthquake would actually help. With the tremors.”

Ben snorted. “How about a dumpster.”

“That’s disgusting, Benjamin.”

“And that’s my damn point.” He kissed the top of Her head, smirking against her hair. “I love you enough to fuck you in a dumpster.”

“Romantic.” She guided them up the stairs, looking up and down the halls with a frown. “As much as I’d love to have forest sex, we do need to find Ryan-“

Ben nodded—he’d find a place for them to fuck later, when everyone else was distracted and Butcher couldn’t be a massive fucking ass about Ben having sex with his goddamn wife—and latched onto the distant sounds of everyone’s moving about the house. It didn’t take long to find Ryan’s—another floor up and a little down the hall—and when Ben started to walk, She let him guide their path without a single step of hesitation. Just watching Ben with wide-eyes and clinging to his arm around Her shoulders, every feature on her perfect face relaxed and fucking adoring. Ben had a feeling they could be walking to goddamn hell and not just a bedroom, and she’d still let him lead the way.

And he had to keep fucking earning that. It wasn’t a task or trial that would ever be done, because Ben had created so many fucking messes that he could throw himself at her feet to be used as weapon and he still wouldn’t have fully earned Her. Worse, She wouldn’t accept that offer. She’d frown at him and ask what the fuck he was doing. Tell him that She didn’t want him to be a weapon, just to be hers.

He already was. There was nothing fucking better than it, than being hers. All She asked of Ben was to stay and listen, and those were the easiest things to do in the goddamn universe. All She wanted from his wasn’t glory or blood, but love and effort. Two things that should have been horrible and trying to give, but weren’t. It wasn’t work, to love Her—it was fucking natural and impossible to remember what anything had been before he’d loved her—and all his effort was poured into figuring out a way to fucking deserve this. Deserve the most beautiful, perfect woman being alive with him, choosing to be near him, choosing to love him, choosing to fucking marry him.

It could come in blood. There would be times where it needed to be blood on Ben’s hands and skin under his nails, brutally clawing and beating and bruising to keep Her safe. But it would more likely be things like this. Like hugging Ryan when the kid jumped up to great them—it was also easy to hug Ryan, it made Ben’s whole goddamn body feel prideful and his heart feel right in his chest—and meeting Her soft, happy gaze with a grin of his own. Listening to Her and Ryan talk about all the history shit in Rome as he sorted through their bags—trying to hide all Her soon to be destroyed lingerie from Ryan, and the semi all his ideas were giving him from both of them—and pulled out their gifts. Stuffed fucking animals, so simple and goddamn stupid, and entirely goddamn worth it from the surprised look of pure goddamn happiest on Ryan’s face as She passed him the lobster and lion. Happiness that somehow grew stronger when She made Ben show him the other lion and Her tiger. It leaked into the air of the room like helium, making everything higher and nothing in danger of coming down.

“Do you,” Ryan looked between them with a nervous expression, his words quiet and uncertain. “Do you think I could come visit you? When you go?”

She froze—her face sad and gentle and soft, full of something that looked like grief and felt like a warm ache in Ben’s body—and Ben answered for Her.

“We’re not going, kid. And if we do, you’re coming with us.”

Ryan’s mouth parted, and he still looked so goddamn nervous. As if Ben would ever fucking lie to him. “I am?”

“If you want.” She offered Ryan a sweet, loving smile, and Ben was in fucking danger again. “And if not, we’ll stay here.”

“With,” Ryan swallowed. “With me?”

“We’re not sticking around for fucking Butcher-“

She threw a pillow at Ben’s head, her attention held on Ryan. “Of course with you. We’re not leaving you.”

“Would I, um, why?” Ryan looked almost confused, like this was a trick. Like She and Ben were measuring his reaction, and this was some sort of fucking test. “You don’t have to, if you want to go to Rome, just for me-“

“We don’t have to. But we want to.”

“You want to.” Ryan repeated Her words slowly, still looking fucking lost and nervous. “That’s it?”

She looked over at Ben, and he nodded. He wasn’t even really fucking certain what he was agreeing with—he was too fucking lost in how beautiful She was and how good this was, how everything in him felt peaceful and content and nothing wanted to explode out of his chest—but She was easy around his head and always fucking right, so Ben trusted her to say what he didn’t have words for. That he wouldn’t say properly, say in a way that really helped Ryan. Ben didn’t know how to explain that this radiance in his body was about not feeling like he had to go. That it wanted—Ben wanted—to stay right here, and keep watching the two people who were goddamn worth anything be happy. Wanted to keep them happy. Wanted to let their happiness crawl into him and keep making him a weak fucking pussy who had a stuffed lion because his wife insisted he should get it for their son.

So when She started talking again, Ben knew she’d understand all that shit, and get Ryan to understand it as well.

“That’s it.” She echoed without any caution or reservations in her voice. “You’re a cool kid, Ry. I like you and so does Ben.” She dropped her voice to a mock whisper, leaning forward to Ryan like her words were a secret. “The lobster was his idea, but don’t tell him I told you.” She gave Ben a sharp, bright and sweet expression, and he rolled his eyes as her voice raised. “We’re staying with you, because we want to, and we like being around you. Simple as that.”

“Around me?” Ryan stared down at the floor even as he leaned a little further forward. Closer to Her. “But I mess up-“

“We all fucking mess up, kid.” Ben grunted. “There’s not a single damn person in this house that hasn’t fucked something up. You never tried to hurt people, Homelander was just a weak fucking pussy who didn’t know how to teach you shit.”

“But I messed up in Boston too-“

“Boston as well,” She gave Ryan a gentle smile with the correction, and somehow it made him look more comfortable. Ben didn’t get that, but it did. “And none of us were perfect that day. You wanted to help, and you couldn’t have been expected to know Homelander would follow you. At least you didn’t take a dangerous, volatile drug, unlike certain people.”

Ben got a pointed glare with no real anger behind it, and rolled his eyes. This wasn’t a real argument, it was meant to distract Ryan, and Ben could play along easily.

“Don’t act like I didn’t save your fucking ass with that, Sunshine. And now I’m fireproof, I should be getting twice the goddamn thanks.”

She gave him a teasing smile. “Why is that, Pretty Boy?”

Ben opened his mouth to snap because now when I fuck you, I can get you to burst into flames and nobody gets hurt but the pussy fucking mattress, realized he couldn’t say that in front of Ryan, and scowled. “Shut the fuck up.”

“You’re fireproof?” Ryan looked at Ben with fucking awe, and Ben felt his body grow a little easier to exisit in. “Is that your new power?”

Ben looked to Her for explanation, and she wrinkled Her nose at him.

Really, Ben-

You’re the brains, he grinned, saying Her name between their heads. Use them.

Cunt. She turned to Ryan, her expression immediately becoming sweet and gentle as she met his curious gaze. “It seems to be one of them. Or at least a higher resistance to the heat and flame. We mostly think it’s the nuke, in here,” She tapped Ben’s chest. “Fusing fully into his body.”

Ryan nodded slowly, looking over to Ben. “Does it hurt?”

“No.” Ben grunted. “Taking the V felt like shit, but I lived. Now it just feels normal.”

He’d probably have to give more detailed answers to MM and Annie later, for stupid fucking team purposes, but that was enough for Ryan, whose expression became eager.

“Are we going to train together? Can I help you with practicing stuff? If you want help, obviously, I just think I could throw targets, and be a target-“

“I’m not making you a fucking target, Ryan.” Ben made his voice stern, because this was the same fucking nuke that wiped out V and Ryan shouldn’t be anywhere goddamn near it. “But we’ll keep training.”

Any crestfallen defeat at the first half of Ben’s words were wiped off Ryan’s face by the second half, and the kids face lit up again. “Really? Even after my dad is gone?”

“As long as you fucking need and want it. Like she said, kid, we’re sticking around.”

Ryan got it. A small, nervous smile crossed his face, the conversation moved on, and Ben knew that—even if they were liars, which they weren’t—they’d keep this promise. Ryan would always have Her and Ben, and that wasn’t any fucking labor either. None of the things Ben had to do for Her or Ryan ever felt like labor. Doing things for them didn’t require thought or work, because it was simple and fucking right. Acts of retribution that were so small and fucking worthless alone, but build up and up and up until Ben was closer to their easy warmth. Never being afraid they’d toss him out or sneer at his offerings, because they weren’t like that. That was what the callous, greedy people Ben had surrounded himself with had done. Had never let it be enough, had made it obvious that acts of care were for the weak, and worth was won from spat words and traded blows.

But this worth—good worth, that was glowing and alight and content along Ben’s ribcage—was born from these small acts of service. From going to the strange, odd dinner with the team and sitting with his hand on Her thigh and his food offered silently to Ryan when they didn’t have enough for seconds. From playing the stupid fucking card game Hughie suggesting, and helping Her cheat because he’d help Her do anything. Taking Her and Ryan’s dishes to the sink and trying not to lose his fucking mind when She followed him without question, just to stay at his side.

Moving to the living room with most everyone else—Ashley and A-Train leaving to go do whatever the fuck they did, and Neuman muttering about getting a headache, but telling Zoe to just be in bed before midnight—and sitting in watchful, easy silence as She and Kimiko had a conversation made of giggles and smiles, and She moved herself into Ben’s lap, holding his arm over her stomach and sighing happily when he kissed Her neck. Listening to Ryan and Zoe tell them about how Neuman had lined up their curriculums, and now Ryan could learn to play the piano.

“I played the piano,” Ben grunted, and was met with shocked gapes he did not fucking appreciate.

“You did?” She leaned back on his chest, looking up at Ben with a sharp amusement dancing in Her pretty eyes . “Did you also play the trumpet?”

Ben rolled his eyes. “Shut the fuck up-“

“Make me-“

Ben’s own grin grew to something that felt a little feral, and Butcher scowled.

“Don’t you fuckin dare make her, or you horny dumbasses are sleepin outside.”

She stuck Her tongue out, wiggling further into Ben’s hold and not fucking helping him at all. “You’re just bitter you can’t play the piano, Butcher. You can’t even keep a beat.”

“Fuck off, Love, you ain’t better than me-“

“On this I am,” She shrugged, a smug smile on Her face that made Ben’s own body start to flood with pride. “I can’t play the piano, but I can sing.”

“Singin from the V don’t count-“

“I could sing before the V, asshole.”

“You can sing?” Ryan’s face was covered in wonder, and Ben understood that. His face whenever he looked at her likely looked wide and a fucking dumbstruck as well, but also probably a lot less innocent.

She nodded with a soft, slightly tense hum. “Yeah. I don’t a lot, because things will, um, happen. If I do.”

Ben didn’t have to look around at the team to know that they were either flushed or grimacing at the memory of the illusion of Ben, dancing on the stage with Her in a way that friends or coworkers certainly weren’t supposed to. Ben was fond of that memory, because it was the first time he’d been fucking certain that if he tore through the crowd, picked Her up, and slammed his mouth to Her’s in a brutal and demanding kiss, She’d match every single touch and moan until they were fucking on the floor of that stupid club. He could also get that their friends might not have the same almost liberating light painted across their thoughts of it, just because nobody ever seemed to appreciate that She was a lot more of a horny fucking brat than they gave her credit for. Any jabs at Ben’s constant innuendos and hard-ons when She would so much as smiled at him would never really land the way anyone wanted them to, because She was worse.

Even right fucking now, as the conversation continued, She was squirming in Ben’s lap. Her heartbeat had picked up as he kissed a gentle, careful pattern over her jaw and kneaded at the skin of Her thigh, and Ben got a weak slap on his knee as Ryan pressed on with his questions.

“Like what?”

“Illusions, essentially.” She shrugged. “As far as I’ve understood it, I can let off a pheromone that warps everyone’s senses within its radius. It happens when I sing, and, um,” She flushed, fingers starting to tap on Ben’s forearm. “Get excited.”

Fortunately for fucking everyone, Ryan didn’t press about what excited meant. He just swallowed, watching Her with a hesitant, hopeful expression. “Could you sing for us? If you, um, if you want-“

“I could.” She looked around the room, her heart picking up to a nervous, stumbling pattern. “If that’s okay with everyone-“

“Long as nothing happens like last time,” MM mutters. “I don’t give a shit.”

There was a low chorus of agreements, and she cleared Her throat, leaning further into Ben as she began.

It was a slow, sweet song that filled the room with golden light and an overwhelming smell of pine and vanilla and coffee. Her voice was just as beautiful as every other time She’d let Ben hear it—if anything it only grew stronger, steadier and more certain as she eased into the music—and Ben didn’t ever want to fucking leave this place. Didn’t want to stop feeling the perfect warmth she was creating around and inside him, or move from this place where the world was made of illusions, but She was still fucking real. Where Ben could hear Her voice echo and fill the room—sounding like everything good he’d ever known—and feel Her heart fall into a controlled but natural pattern with every breath and note. Where he could bury his face in Her hair and still manage to smell flowers and smoke and apples.

They had to move eventually. When the song finished, Ben could grin at Her and bask in how her own, cautious smile grew full and toothy as everyone offered her the praise and admiration she goddamn deserved. But then he had to carry Her to bed—She let him, resting her head on his shoulder and falling asleep before they’d reached the top of the goddamn stairs—and spend a restless night carefully covering her body like a shield. Keep Her safe from the creaking of the summer breeze and buzz of the night, kissing her brow when she rolled to face him and carefully wrapping his arms around her to hold Her in the dark. Ben knew every threat to Her was nothing but eyes blinking open and lost sleep before a long day, but it still felt right to be here. To keep Her peaceful, relaxed and content body from Butcher’s view, even if the pussy didn’t look at them as he shuffled into the room. To know that when She woke up, the first thing She’d know was that Ben was here, with Her.

At some point the sound of Her heart must have lulled Ben into rest, because when he dragged his eyes open after what felt like only a second there was cool, morning light past the blinds and climbing into the room, and She was watching him with an open, adoring expression.

Hi, Sunshine.

A small smile crept over Her face, and Her voice in Ben’s head was so full of love it was going to goddamn knock him out. Hi, Benjamin, my love.

He leaned down to kiss to space between Her eyes, letting his lips linger against her skin. What time is it.

Early.

What time do we have to go.

I don’t know. She chewed on Her lips, and Ben watched to run his tongue over them to soothe and slow her movements. MM didn’t actually tell us, he just said ‘in the morning’.

What the fuck are we supposed to do, then.

Can you hear him? Is he awake?

Ben paused, moving his attention to the sounds of the house. Slow heartbeats and low breathes, soft shifting sounds as people tossed and turned, and-

Someone’s awake, he looked back to her, raising his brows. Don’t know who.

She sighed, giving Ben almost a pout. We should probably get up, then.

Ben grunted an agreement, and neither of them moved. It was like that for a long while, Her and Ben the only two people in the universe, sitting in each other and not really caring to do much else. Only when Ben heard a second heartbeat pick up to a waking pace, closely followed by a second pair of footsteps beginning to move around the house, did he kiss Her on her brow and guide her out bed. They grabbed their clothing and moved to the bathroom, getting ready in silence and slow, deliberate movement so as to not wake Ryan or Butcher.

When they were dressed and—mostly—awake, Ben reached out his hand and She took it with a smile. Kept it in hers down the stairs and into the paint-peeling, gas oven kitchen, smiling when Ben kissed Her knuckles before rising up to kiss his cheek.

MM re-entered the kitchen, seemed to immediately understand their silent ritual, and gave them both short nods. There were four thermoses on the counter that MM filled with coffee—She frowned at them, then at Ben, and all he could do was shrug—and Ben grabbed two for them each, following Her out to the driveway.

The likely owner of the fourth thermos was waiting for them next to Butcher’s car, greeting Her with a bright smile and wave, and Ben with a nod that didn’t look like an effort.

She signed to Kimiko with a smile of her own, translating their conversation into Ben’s head.

Kimiko’s coming for operation Harrison Ford, as MM’s muscle. Once we get my siblings on board you and I will have to come back here to get the ball rolling against Sage, and she and MM will go through with the operation.

Got it. Ben frowned. What the fuck is the operation.

She gestured to Kimiko, who gestured back with what seemed to be careful, thought-out movements, and She nodded.

She says it’s mostly just hiding them in a really complex way. They’re going to take one of my families cars, swap it halfway, take the bus, change directions in a stolen car, and get them to some people MM trusts. She sighed, leaning Her head onto Ben’s arm. Overall, just get them somewhere safe so I can do my speech.

Ben grunted, looping his arm around Her waist to keep her steady. I’m driving back.

The fuck you are-

I’m driving. Ben smirked down at Her, tracing pattens on her hips. Or I’m not talking to you the whole ride so you can goddamn focus and not get us into a fucking crash.

She snorted. That’s a worse threat than withholding sex, you talk more than I do.

That’s fucking bullshit-

To me. She corrected herself with smile, leaning back to bump her nose against his jaw. You always talk to me. You wouldn’t last two hours without talking to me, or trying to get me to talk to you.

You willing to bet on that, Sunshine?

Feels like a pretty boring bet-

Whoever talks first gets head from the loser.

She gave him a flat look. Where. Because I am not fucking in the house-

Winner gets to choose where. He winked, kissing the corner of Her mouth. Get ready to give a blowjob in the forest, beautiful, I’m going to knock this shit out of the fucking park.

Ben knew that would do it. Her eyes narrowed, determination flashed—wild and sharp—over her pretty face, and she was on board.

Rules. She scanned over Ben’s face with an almost frightening focus, fingers tapping on his arm. Mission stuff doesn’t count. If we’re in a group we can talk, but it has to be relevant. No inside jokes or innuendos, and no nicknames. Nothing we wouldn’t say to each other as co-workers.

He nodded, dropping his mouth to Her neck. Touching?

She shrugged, even as her hand moved to grip at his bicep and Her voice in his head became breath. Long as you don’t talk about it.

What about this. Ben pressed his brow to the side of Her head, and she smirked at him, her voice becoming mock innocence.

What about what? Is there a name for what you’re referring to, Benjamin?

He rolled his eyes. Shut the fuck up-

That’s the idea.

Brat.

Cunt. Say it.

Ben scowled, and grumbled the word between their heads, doing his best to make it sound painful. Ben’o’phone.

She hummed, eyes dancing with a joy Ben could feel behind his eyes and along his spine. No talking on the Ben’o’phone.

Any other shit?

Nope. You’ve got a deal, Pretty Boy. She twisted out of his hold, extending her hand for Ben to shake. Get ready to never speak to me again.

He laughed, because there wasn’t a goddamn chance he’d let that happen. And Ben knew his wife. He knew that as stubborn as he was himself, She was worse, and was more than capable be a spiteful pain in his ass. If they got back to the farm from Boston and She still hadn’t said a word, Ben knew he’d end it. There were damn well worse fates than eating out a perfect woman who he loved, and one of them was never hearing Her voice again.

But this made the four hours stuck in the car with MM and Kimiko a fuck ton more interesting. MM had given the mission orders before they took off—this is a delicate motherfucking operation, so no murder, don’t be idiots, and listen when I tell you shit—and Ben had felt Her start to tug away from him, making a play to grab shotgun and keep herself physically detached from Ben.

Physical shit was Ben’s one fucking advantage. She could outwit and outlast Ben all she damn pleased, but She’d crumble if he touched her right. Turned Her into a soft, hazy-eyed mess in his arms, played with Her perfect fucking body until she caved and started begging him to just plain fuck Her.

So he’d kept Her body firm in his hold, and chuckled when she shoved his chest and stomped to the backseat as Kimiko dropped into shotgun. When Ben followed Her—scooting along the bench until their bodies were pressed together—she plain refused to look at him, and he started to run his hand up and down Her thigh. Rubbing Her skin until her breathing became ragged, but neither of them caved.

Most of the car ride was like that. Ben teasing Her in silence, Her pretending he simply didn’t fucking exist, and both of them pretending they weren’t constant goddamn seconds from caving. Ben knew for a fact that every smile he caught on Her lips and every flutter of her heart sent him barreling closer to asking what the fuck she and Kimiko were talking about and why she’d pointed at him. He wanted to know what the hell She was planning on telling her siblings, what She was planning on telling the fucking world, to drawl to Her about all the ways he wanted to fuck her with his new powers, because he’d been brainstorming, and he has some pretty goddamn amazing ideas.

And he was sure she’d want to hear them. Given that he could almost fucking feel Her own will bending and dissolving—warm in his gut and soft in his head as he teased and squeezed Her skin, moved his hand to just rest at the apex of her thighs—and her heart had reached a rhythm he usually heard during sex, Ben would call it a safe fucking bet that she was just as close to giving in as he was.

But neither of them did. And when MM cleared his throat, they’d made it three whole hours without saying a word.

MM grunted Her name, and she looked over to him with a frown.

“Yeah?’

“I still had Violet’s number from March, and I gave her a call last night.” MM glanced up to Her in the rearview mirror. “Gave her a quick brief, she sounded a little pissed you faked dead again, but understood. She’s bringing one of your brothers, but says the other one and your sister aren’t in Boston with your mom.”

“Where are we meeting them?”

“Coffee shop. Had croissants, and God knows I could use something like that right now.”

“Did she say which brother she’s bringing?”

“Got a name, don’t remember-“

“Henry or Sterling.”

MM paused. “Sterling.”

“Okay.” She sighed, slumping down into Her seat, into Ben. “What did you tell her, exactly?”

“We got you back around late May. Had you since, but couldn’t let anyone outside of our immediate team and contacts know for security. You’ve made a complete physical recovery, and are mentally stable enough for fieldwork. We’ve seen Sage’s propaganda, none of it is true, and we’re making a play against her and Homelander soon, so we’re putting them in hiding until this is done.”

She nodded with a small frown and slow words. “What about, um,” Her eyes flicked to Ben—just enough to make him really fucking regret this bet, because she hadn’t looked at him in hours and Christ, she was beautiful—and she swallowed. “Ben and I? I know Sage has said some stuff-“

“Violet asked. I told her you were together but I didn’t mention the engagement. That shit’s not my place.”

“And um, what did she say about that?”

Ben wanted to grab Her perfect face between his hands and tell her that there wasn’t a goddamn chance this was going to be an issue. If Violet had some sort of fucking opinion about it, Ben would do everything in his power to prove that he was serious about this shit. About Her. There was nothing bitter in him about it—he didn’t deserve Her, and he knew that Violet’s acceptance of this probably meant something to Her—but it still made Ben’s whole body strain. Scratch and twist to give up on this stupid bet and just pull every part of Her back to the ground so he could take care of them. Take care of Her.

It was real fucking lucky MM answered Her quickly, or Ben would’ve lost.

“She just asked when it had been official, I said a few weeks after we got you back, and that was it.”

She blinked. “Really?”

“Mentioned that she was surprised it wasn’t before all the shit in April, but that’s it.”

“Surprised-“

MM said Her name in a flat voice, eyes fixed on the road. “I still don’t think you fucking idiots understand that you were the last people to know you were dating. I’d bet Mallory’s agents knew before you did.”

“Oh.” She flushed, her hand wandering to hold Ben’s, and he wasn’t even damn certain she knew she was moving it. “Sorry.”

Ben’s jaw clenched, and MM did his work for him.

“Stupid thing to be sorry for. We’re all adults, we knew how to handle your lovesick bullshit without killing you.”

“I don’t,” She frowned, almost fucking pouting. “I don’t think it was that bad.“

MM scoffed. “You were oblivious. We had to pretend we couldn’t see you eye fucking each other over dinner.”

“But-“

“No but,” MM shook his head, and Ben saw his frown flash in the mirror. “What’s important is that you did figure your shit out, and that no matter what the fuck Violet thinks now or thought before, she’ll come around on it.” He let out a labored, slow breath, his voice dropping to a hushed, pushed-through-teeth tone. “I did.”

Her mouth fell open a little, her hand squeezing tight over Ben’s, and her words became soft as she whispered, “you did? Really?”

“He’s still a fucking dick man-baby, but his old ass heart seems to be beating. You’re not a shell of a person with him,” MM muttered Her name, looking between Her and the road. “It’s good to see. Even when it makes me want to throw up, which is all the goddamn time.”

Her body relaxed with her pretty features, she made a small, happy noise of content, and Ben couldn’t even be mad MM had called him a dick man-baby or old, because She was happy.

Ben tangled Her fingers between his, and—still in complete silence—she fully curled into him as he kissed the top of Her head. Ben didn’t bother with taunting, riling touched for the remainder of the car ride, because She looked so goddamn peaceful at his side and this silence didn’t feel like part of their bet. It felt like sitting half inside of each other, easily and comfortably fused against each other without the need for a single other goddamn thing. It was one of the moments where Ben could really fucking feel Her within him out of just an instinct. Feel Her—just so fucking clearly Her—inside his body. Alive and bright, lining Ben’s skull and burrowed so deeply into his whole goddamn world that She flickered in perfect harmony with everything Ben could see or hear or touch. She hummed inside his blood when Ben trailed patterns on Her skin, settling over his bones when he dropped his head to rest against hers, and grew sharp and colorful behind his eyes when she looked up at him a soft smile.

It wasn’t a smile that said anything expect I love you, but not in their old silent words. It told Ben She loved him because it made every piece of Her in his body sing. Ring like church bells announcing something that didn’t need to be announced, reaching further and further into Ben’s body that he didn’t know where his own joy stopped and Her own—built of a million things jammed and melded together that reflected around Ben’s mind like stained glass—began.

And Ben realized that She may feel him like this all the time. That there might never be a moment where Ben—and however the fuck he felt to Her—wasn’t tangible and natural in Her body.

He hoped She did. As almost fucking mind-numbingly consuming as She was inside of him—making it hard to concentrate on the trees blurring past into brick buildings and sidewalks—Ben hoped She felt him all the goddamn time. It would mean that She really, fully understood that Ben started and stopped with Her. That there wasn’t a single fucking moment where he wasn’t tracking the sound of Her heartbeat, or studying her face to try and figure out her insane, maddening, perfect mind. That he was never angry he couldn’t figure Her out, because it was simply another excuse to keep looking at Her beautiful face.

She knew that Ben loved Her—because apparently fucking everyone did—but he still needed Her to know it more. To understand that when he moved to help Her out of the car it was because he’d dedicated himself to knowing how She moved and paced and shifted so as to best leave small offerings of actions and service for his worth.

That learning Her had been the only thing that had ever come easy. The only thing he’d ever learned and never wanted to stop learning. That Ben picked up every strange, seemingly useless piece of information and trivia that fell from Her pretty mouth and used them to keep building his alter to Her. A large, careful place to worship Her that kept this piece of Her inside him safe, made it feel loved.

And Ben really fucking hoped She could feel that, for Ben, she lived every reflection of sunlight on the puddles, gathered on the pavement near the gutter. That She felt how Ben looked at Her—tucked at his side and tapping on his arm—and knew that his love could never be pried or ripped from him, because it was more important to keep than his own fucking hands.

His hands were already Her’s anyway. Brushing hair from Her face and lingering on her cheek. Holding Her own as they walked after MM, along the street to the coffee shop. Opening the door and guiding her inside. Ben needed Her to fucking feel that too.

Needed Her to feel how something in Ben grew wrathful and bloody when she froze at his side barely a step through the door—Her face washing in fear and her nails digging into his skin—and how everything in him narrowed to Her. What’s making Her cave in with hollow eyes and shallow breaths, and what did he need to do for Her to smile again.

The area was mostly empty. A barista with some of the pinkest hair Ben had ever goddamn seen, an old woman with a dog that was too fucking tiny to be useful, and Violet, near the back with two other people Ben didn’t recognize.

One had to be Her brother. Sitting next to Violet, with Violet’s softer features, a slightly different nose from them both, and Her sharp, infinitely amused eyes. They even widened the same way Her’s did, when she was in true, genuine shock, making their whole faces open and animated, lips parted with a gleam that said they didn’t fully trust what they saw.

But Ben didn’t have a fucking clue who the woman was. There was gray in Her hair—so probably fucking old—and her back to the door was rigid and straight, giving off a feeling that she thought she was better. That whoever the fuck this lady was, she was above everything around her, above everyone. That even the damn chair wasn’t worthy of her sitting on it. The whole fucking air of it reminded Ben of his father. Made him taste cocktails that were still sour because he’d been so young, and hear nothing but a ticking clock in a long, empty hall this father didn’t care to grace with his presence.

The person Ben had ever met who deserved to look down at everything was Her, and She was never fucking like that. Ben had called Her art before—beautiful in a way that extended beyond just what Ben could see, sinking into his skin and stirring his whole body with things only She knew how to pry out—but art wasn’t supposed to be touched. And Ben really fucking loved touching Her, the same way She loved touching everything. Settling in wherever she sat, tapping and running her hands over every surface available to Her, holding Ryan in Her arms and letting Ben hold Her in his. Letting Ben touch Her everywhere, and touching him right back. Fingers in his hair, and brows pressed together, a hand holding his arm over Her shoulder’s and legs tangled together under sheets.

Everything Ben had seen his father touch had been with movements of vague disgust, as if the lesser object or person would infect him. It was the same way this woman was keeping her fingers light and raised off the table, only moving in a rhythm Ben recognized. A rhythm that he’d learned to recognize anywhere, just one off-beat from the pattern being tapped on his hand on Her hips.

The woman turned in her chair as it clicked in Ben’s head, and fucking hell, She looked just like her mother. It was the almost same face Ben loved and could look at for a million years without ever feeling the need to stray his gaze or move, but with something inverted. Something so imperceivable that was altered between them, that made Ben feel like there was bile filling up his lungs and something churning in his gut.

Because the longer Ben looked—the whole room heavy and wired, time seeming to slow as they all stared at each other—the more he realized there was nothing alike about them at all. It might be the same face—a goddamn duplicate, everything from skin to eyes to lips to hair right where it was supposed to be—but there was something fucking off about Her mother’s. It wasn’t something obvious, like the fact that Her’s was trapped in youth and Her mother’s was lined with age. It was deeper. Something fundamental on Her that Ben adored and devoted himself to caring for, that was just wasn’t fucking there on Her mother. Not missing, not a hole or hollow Her mother had never filled. Just not there, something wrong where it was supposed to be.

It lived in their eyes. Ben knew Her face better than he’d ever known fucking anything, and her eyes were sharp but filled with light. When She was being herself and not falling or breaking, there was always something magnetic in them that spread over her every other feature, and made Ben want to get as close to her as he possibly fucking could. Reach out to hold Her, to sit in any warmth and life she offered him, to just fucking love her and love her and hope that, though she shined on everything, in the end she was really just alight for Ben. That for all the love She held, her love for Ben was different, because the light in Her eyes burst and flared and turned to pure flame for him and only him. That she’d never deprive the rest of the world of this kind beauty, but She’d also allow Ben to touch her and serve her, in a way no other pussy fucker got it.

Her mother shouldn’t be touched or cared for. There wasn’t anything in Her mother’s eyes that called Ben forward, because they were like a wasteland. They weren’t sharp, but they were still cutting. Invasive and so fucking horrible to look into. And where She was something strange and sacred, Her mother felt like a statue. Something that had been designed to be elegant, to be perfect and idolized, but hadn’t fucking earned it. It was only cold, too clean stone that had never crawled through mud or remained beautiful through trial and torture. Everything about Her mother seemed to demand everything bend for her will, but Ben had no fucking desire to do anything for this bitch.

The only goddamn thing she’d get from Ben was hatred. Cold, furious loathing while every warm thing he had to offer was pushed into Her. His hand held Her steady, his whole body tensed and half-wrapped over Her’s, fucking ready for whatever the hell came next.

They’d all silently agreed not to make the first move. She seemed frozen in place, Ben wouldn’t fucking leave Her side, and MM had muttered a low shit that told Ben he’d realized what was going on. Violet just looked sad and fucking guilty— eyes locked onto Her’s with shifting expression’s Ben couldn’t understand—and their brother looked just as frozen as She was, everyone seeming to just be fucking waiting for what Her mother would do.

Ben was only seconds from just fucking stomping over the room—keeping his body a pace before Her’s—and getting everything moving so this could be done, but then Her mother said Her name, and it was the worst way Ben had ever heard it. This had a scolding familiarity to it that felt practiced and deliberate. The Bitch said Her name like she was a fucking dog. Even fucking Homelander had mostly said it like She was a person. The wrong person—a hateful and fake idea of Her that held her face but nothing that made Her her—but a person all the same. Her mother said Her name as if She was a doll, and worse, it fucking worked. She folded back into Ben, Her heart racing and her nails digging into his skin, and Ben had to just hold Her.

Until he got the clear to start breaking spines and shedding blood over the tiled floors, Ben had to just hold Her.

The Bitch said Her name again, and Ben was going to rip out the bitch’s tongue and feed it to her. “Come sit down. I’m sure,” The Bitch’s gaze drifted to Ben, MM, and Kimiko, all silent and rigid behind Her. “We have a lot to catch up on.”

Ben squeezed Her hand, and it seemed to spark her into action. She nodded and moved to the table, tugging Ben after Her.

What the fuck is your mother doing here. Ben muttered between their heads, and if She was surprised he’d made the connection himself, she didn’t show it.

Violet says she got tricked. They said they were going out to get lunch, but Mom told them she wanted to come. They agreed with the plan to just drop her off and run, knowing she’d be fine, but then when they all got out Mom moved to the driver’s seat and said she knew they were going to see me. They had to bring her, or they wouldn’t get here themselves. No murder, let me do the talking.

Fine. Ben kept his eyes narrowed on the Bitch as they dropped at the table. But if she fucking tries anything-

I’m serious, Ben. No murder-

They were snapped out of their silent words by the Bitch, clearing her throat as MM and Kimiko joined them.

“It’s good to see you. You look quite healthy for being dead.”

She shook Her head slowly, taking a long breath before speaking soft words that didn’t sound right from her mouth. “What are you doing here, Mom? Why did you make Vi and Sterling bring you.”

“You’re my daughter, of course I wanted to see you-“

“We both know that’s not true.” She muttered, her voice rising slightly. “Please just tell me what I’m supposed to do, so I can get it over with.”

“There’s no need to be rude.” The Bitch sighed Her name like a wounded fucking animal. “We’re in no rush, and you haven’t even introduced us to your, ah, companions.”

“MM, Kimiko,” She pointed to them as she spoke—MM giving a cold, curt nod Ben appreciated, and Kimiko offering a nervous wave—before looking up at Ben with a slightly softer expression, made of something calm. “And Ben. Now can we-“

“Ben.” The Bitch repeated, and Her heart picked up pace. “How exactly did you meet Ben?”

“I kidnapped him. Mom, this is really important-“

“You kidnapped him?” The Bitch laughed, like She was some sort of fucking child. “You can’t kidnap Soldier Boy, sweetie.”

“She did,” Violet mumbled, still shooting them apologetic, anxious looks. “She’s a supe now, Mom. She’s strong.”

“I am well aware of that, Violet, but all she can do is party tricks. That isn’t enough to kidnap the world’s strongest man-“

MM snorted at that. “It’s not just party tricks.”

“Excuse me-“

“Sorry, ma’am.” MM shrugged, not flinching under the Bitch’s glare. “But I’ve seen her blow up buildings and make a whole building of agents collapse. Your daughter can do a hell of a lot more damage than party tricks. And she’s certainly stronger than this asshole.”

The Bitch followed MM’s gesture to Ben, and made another disbelieving sound. “I know my daughter, and it is incredibly unlikely she’d be stronger than Soldier Boy-“

“She is.” Ben snapped, barely thinking about the words as they left his mouth. “She’s stronger than fucking Homelander. So watch it.”

“Watch it.” The Bitch smiled, looking Ben up and down, and he didn’t bother to hide the disgust on his face. “You seem to be quite close with her, Ben-“

“Don’t call him that.” She leaned forward over the table, Her voice finally regaining to hot venom Ben fucking loved, and knew to mean she wouldn’t pull punches or dance around words. “Don’t talk to him, Mom. Just tell me what the fuck you want.”

Something shifted in the Bitch, and any formal, fake fucking niceties vanished. “I am here for answers. I am here for the reason you have put your father and I-“

“He’s not my father-“

“He is your family. And you have put him, put us, through hell these last few months. Media harassment, airing out all our misunderstandings like dirty laundry, painting yourself to be a victim when all you have done is behave like a child. You’ve hurt us,” The Bitch said Her name mock, cold disappointment. “You’ve been incredibly selfish, and I want to know why you’re now trying to take my children away from me.”

She gaped slightly, shaking her head. “I’m not trying to take anything from you, they’re in real danger-“

“Danger you created. There would be nothing to worry about if you could just bite your tongue and keep a good, strong head on your shoulders. But no, you have to turn this into some sort of spectacle-“

“I didn’t fucking do anything-“

“You most certainly did.” The Bitch sneered. “Just in the past month you’ve peddled manipulative lies, murdered that poor woman in cold blood, embarrassed Todd at work, and threatened him with, your loyal little guard dog. You’ve ruined everything, and have seen yourself fit to drag this strong, powerful man down your level. If you had just listened to me, none of this would’ve happened you know. You’d be taken care of, even if you were still just a weak little girl-“

The wooden table splintered as Ben hit it, shutting the Bitch up with a bloodless face.

“Last fucking warning,” he hissed, leaning forward so the Bitch could hopefully fucking feel the wrath and hate starting to bang around Ben’s chest in an even rhythm, trying to get out and protect Her. “I couldn’t give a goddamn fly pig’s ballsack that you’re her mother, if you say another word about my wife, I’ll fucking kill you.”

There was a long moment of silence, and Ben only realized his exact words after he’d said them. When MM muttered fuck, and She stared at him a wide, half adoring and amused, half pissed off expression.

Wife?

What.

Don’t play dumb, Pretty Boy, you’re bad at it-

I’m not going to fucking take it back-

I’m not going to tell you to take it back, but now I have to answer questions-

Almost on perfect fucking cue, Violet coughed.

“Are you, um, did you get married-“

“No. But someone,” She shot Ben a pointed glare, and he winked back. “Is a huge fucking dumb dumb with a big mouth.”

A big mouth you love-

A big mouth that’s going to get punched later-

“So you’re,” Sterling finally fucking spoke, and his voice sounded more like Her’s than Violet’s. With an accent that wasn’t placeable, but just them. Impossibly distinct, with every goddamn word they said sounding smart. “You’re not married to Soldier Boy.”

“Yet.” Ben grunted, and the looks on Her family’s faces were more than worth the heated slap to his leg.

“What exactly,” the Bitch said, her voice weighted and low. “Do you mean by yet.”

She gave Ben one last daggered glare before meeting the Bitch’s eyes, Her perfect face turning into something almost fucking prideful. “He means we’re engaged.”

Something flashed across the Bitch’s face that Ben didn’t understand. “To be wed.”

“That’s what engaged usually does mean, Mom-“

“Hell.” The Bitch shook her head, but she didn’t sound or look angry. She mostly just seemed inconvenienced. “I knew I shouldn’t have listened to that woman.”

She, MM, Ben, and Kimiko exchanged similar what the fuck is she talking about looks, and Her words were careful and slow.

“What woman.”

“That haughty, annoying one with Vought. Sister Sage.” The Bitch waved her hand, frowning into the air. “I didn’t think you’d manage to surprise me and pull this off yourself, but you did, and if I wasn’t going to give her a piece of my mind before-“

“Mom,” She said, leaning across the table with a sharp, silent wrath in her eyes. “What the fuck did you do.”

“It’s what she did, dear. Breaching on our deal, turning against me just because of Homelander gaining what she called sense, but I call temporary cold feet-“

“Deal?” There wasn’t anything fucking hollow or nervous in Her voice. It was urgent, dangerous, and would be fucking hot if Ben wasn’t putting together all the pieces to reach a conclusion She already seemed to have. “What deal did you make with Sage.”

“Well, there’s no need to take that tone. And I didn’t think you’d be able to do this yourself-“

“Mom-“

“And it was a deal. We made a promise, a commitment, and there’s never a valid reason to go back on that. And especially not to throw us under the bus for their mistakes-“

“Ma’am.” MM jumped in, his face holding an equal anger Ben could feel in his body. “It is incredibly important you tell us exactly what Sage promised you, and what you promised her.”

The Bitch rolled her eyes, but huffed, “It was a handshake deal. I’d use Todd to make sure she got what she needed from the defense department and government, provide some chemicals she said were annoying to make or whatever, and she’d ensure your marriage to Homelander, which is all I’ve ever wanted for you! There’s no higher status than Homelander’s wife, but then they backed out, and Todd lost the VP slot! I never wouldn’t made it if I’d known she’d betray us like that, if I’d known your relationship with Solider Boy was real!”

Ben’s vision was lined with red, and he might break his own fists. That golden feeling over his ribs—atomic and wrathful and dedicated to fucking protecting Her all the goddamn time—was beating against him, trying to burst out and reduce the Bitch to just a fucking imprint on the wall.

But Her hand squeezed on Ben’s knee, and Her voice in his head was cold and steady I’ve got this. No murder.

Ben grunted an affirmation—not caring if it was aloud or between their heads—and She took a labored breath Ben could feel the fury of before speaking.

“Are you insane.” She hissed. “You sold your soul to the fucking devil, and all you can think is that, if you’d known I was going to get married anyway, you might not have?”

The Bitch’s eyes narrowed. “I was doing what’s best for you. Even when you’ve been cruel to me, I’ve only wanted what’s best for you-“

“And you think that’s what’s best for me is marrying the man who kidnapped, raped, and experimented on me? And selling out the whole fucking country in the process?”

“Don’t be dramatic-“

“I am not being fucking dramatic. Because of what you did, stopping us from getting the federal supply of V, we had to get creative. Getting creative killed Grace Mallory, which lost Todd the VP slot, and now Singer might give it to fucking Homelander. Who is, in case we’re not clear, a fucking monster.”

“Please,” the Bitch gave Her a pointed look, and Ben wondered why he hadn’t already pulled out her tongue. “It’s not like Soldier Boy is an angel either, I’ve read the official Starlight reports-“

“Do not speak about him like that.” She leaned forward, her words almost spitting out of her mouth. “He makes me happy. He loves me, and takes good care of me, and doesn’t fucking try to lock me up and control me. He likes my temperament, he thinks it’s hot because he’s fucking insane, and I love him, and after I kill Homelander I’m going to marry him, and you’re never going to be part of our lives. You’re going to go with Violet and Sterling, and let MM hide you so the very people you sold your fucking daughter to don’t kill you, and then I’m never going to see your fucking face again. Violet-“

“We’ll go with him,” Violet said quickly, glancing at the Bitch—who looked like a gaping and cruel idiot—before looking back to Her. “But Mom-“

“She agrees to go with you, or she sticks around and dies.” She stood up, and Ben followed without a fucking thought as she continued, looking between her siblings. “I love you, and you’re going to be okay. I promise you’re going to be okay. I’m so, so sorry-“

Her voice cracked slightly, and Violet shot up, rounding the table and pulling Her into a tight hug. Sterling was close behind, and Ben kept a close fucking eye on the Bitch, in case she tried to interrupt this. But she just looked at her children, still in shock, and they pulled apart on their own time.

“You’ll be safe,” She whispered again, and when she took a shaking step back, Ben caught her and held her up. “I swear you’ll be safe. And when this is over, I’ll explain everything. But right now-“

“You have to go,” Sterling nodded, and he didn’t sound angry. “Violet told me what she knows, and we get it. You have to go.”

She nodded, giving them a soft, sad smile, and let Ben guide Her onto the street. MM and Kimiko didn’t need goodbyes—they’d see them again by fucking tomorrow anyway—and the Bitch looked like she wanted to say something, but was smart enough not to.

The Bitch should count herself lucky, that Ben cared about how he was beginning to feel sick and empty and cold—which meant that She was in pain, and needed him—a fuck ton more than he cared about wasting time on vengeance.

Right now, nothing mattered more than Her. Then getting Her into the car, and far, far away from what Ben couldn’t even fully fucking comprehend. Keeping his hand against Her thigh, trying to tide over the cracks he could feel beginning to lines his vision and the horrible sense of dread and wrong living in his blood.

Then, when She made a small, choked sound, pulling Butcher’s car off the highway and helping her climb into his lap. Letting Her bury her head in his chest and shatter there, where she’d be safe. Where Ben could hold Her in silence as she fell apart, then do whatever needed to be done for this to become fucking bearable.

Ben, I- Her words were almost fucking inaudible between their minds, Her gasps and strangled tears muffled against Ben’s body. I don’t know what to do. What do I do.

He didn’t know. Ben didn’t have a goddamn clue what to do with what they’d just learned. But he’d be damned if he just let Her break further than she needed to.

Whatever you have to. Tell Butcher, include it in your address, keep it a secret for the rest of goddamn time. Whatever makes this shit livable.

She sold me, Her sob wracked her whole body, and Ben almost broke his fucking teeth. She fucking sold me to Homelander, and I’m not even sure when she did it. It could’ve been months ago. It could’ve been when I first resurfaced, or right before the tower, or when I first fucking met Sage-

I know. Ben grunted in the silence, drawing circles on Her back. I know, Sunshine. I know.

She nodded against him, and Her breathing, slowly, began to ease. Her heartbeat became what it was supposed to be, and they stayed there until this she let out a soft, breathy laugh, turning the fabric of Ben’s shirt between her fingers.

“I’m not,” She shook Her head in Ben’s chest. “I’m not sure who lost. The bet.”

He let out a dry chuckle. “We could call it even and just fucking start over-“

“No.” Her answer was frantic but hushed, her face shooting up to look at Ben with wide eyes. “I don’t want to not talk to you. Not now. Please.”

He nodded, leaning down to kiss the space between Her eyes. “Okay, Sunshine. It’s off.”

She hummed, her hands moving to hold Ben’s face. “I could, maybe I could still give you a blowjob?”

“Do you want to give me a fucking blowjob?”

“Um.” She swallowed, flushing slightly. “Yes.”

“Do I get to eat you out?”

“Yes, please.”

Ben snorted, muttering an agreement, and he still wasn’t fucking sure how he’d gotten here. Having to pull his perfect fucking wife off his lap—but keeping their hands tangled together and resting on his thigh—so he could drive her home. Bring Her somewhere safer than here, so he could hold her right and clear her head while he still had the time. Whisper promises in Her ear that he’d die to keep, about how he’d give her better than that. About how, whatever came after, Ben would keep holding her and loving her, in a way that felt almost fucking pure.

Twisted and scarred and forged somewhere dark and burning, but still pure. Incapable of ruin, incapable of being tainted or broken, just fucking love. Just a future that was brighter than what was behind them, and a life where She’d always feel safe enough to break, and always be able to get back up after.

A future Ben really damn wanted, where Her and Ryan’s smiles were never in danger of being wiped from their faces.

Where Ben just kept loving them, and they felt it, and that was the whole fucking world.

—————————

There’s only one light, flashing from Hughie’s hand as he begins the recording, but it’s still blinding and cold.

You take five deep breaths, one for every good thing that you want to do this for. Everything you want to hold onto when after comes.

Ryan. Music. Stuffed Lions. Gardens. Ben.

Hughie gives you a thumbs up—a signal to begin—and you look to Ben. A step behind Hughie, watching you carefully with a grim, set expression. Everything between your bodies is straining to make you stand and move to fall against him, but you have to do this alone. Not fully alone, never fully alone again, but standing alone. With Ben inside you—rolling around the top of your chest and rumbling in a rhythm that feels like your name—but still too far to touch. To seek the comfort of him warmth and solid certainty.

But you can still feel his love and devotion. You’re wearing the ring again—twisting it on your finger as you take one last, long, steadying breath—and it’s just another way in millions to know Ben is her, and loves you, and will burn with you. No matter how this goes, Ben will burn with you.

So you can fucking do this. You have the slightly crumpled paper in your hands with everything you need to say, and now all you have to do is talk.

You start with your name, just for clarity and the fuck of it, and begin. “You know me as the Anomaly. And I am, but not by choice. I am the Anomaly because Homelander decided I should be. Because, four years ago, he kidnapped me, faked my death, and held me hostage on, likely, Vought property. I spent first two years in complete isolation, only seeing Homelander when he visited me to rape me.” Something starts to taste vile in the back of your mouth, but you have to keep talking. If you stop now, you won’t get through this, and you’ve barely even started. “I was kept locked up for the intention of breeding, like fucking cattle. Then, after Soldier Boy returned to America, Homelander became obsessed with immortality and I was moved to a Vought lab, and experimented on by Vought scientists in order to recreate the original formula of compound V, which slowed the aging process.

“It was a successful experiment. I was given my super name, the Anomaly, because I was injected with V four times, and developed four completely isolated powers. The pyrokenesis I am known for, which I used to escape captivity, a healing factor that has made me unkillable, empathy, and sensory manipulation. I am stronger than Solider Boy. I am stronger than Homelander. For the past year since my escape, I have been fighting Vought alongside Starlight and William Butcher, but have not stood in direct opposition to Homelander due to the former volatility of my powers. I was afraid of the man who spent four years sexually, emotionally, and medically abusing me. I am not afraid anymore, and I am ready to corroborate every accusation Starlight has made against Homelander, Sage, and Vought, and talk. These are my words. I wrote them, I am saying them, and nobody is making me. So, please, listen.

“I have been working with Butcher, Starlight, and their former CIA funded team, the Boys, since June of last year. In November, after we failed to locate a possible bio-weapon against Homelander, I pitched to then President elect Robert Singer and former Deputy Director of the CIA, Grace Mallory, that Soldier Boy be woken up and used as a weapon. My plan was approved, and he was woken up in early December. Per the plan, was to I live with him in a CIA safe-house and keep him in line until Ryan Butcher was removed from Vought Tower and we had a direct, clean shot at Homelander. Soldier Boy would remove his powers with the V-wiping bomb in his chest, and then be pardoned and sent off American soil to live in exile. Nothing went…” you trail off, glancing at the continually formal speech in your hands, and give up on it. It matters that this sounds real, and none of these words sound real.

Ben is real. You’re real. This pain is real, and so is your love.

So you crumple the paper up, and look back directly into the camera.

“Nothing went as we intended it to. I fell in love with Soldier Boy. He fell in love with me. My original plan to extract Ryan Butcher went to shit, and I had to make another. That one worked, but I ended up back in Homelander’s captivity. My team found a way to safely kill Homleander, but Sage destroyed it all at the Believe Expo, which, for the record, was not a terrorist attack. It might have technically been a robbery, but it became a play to fake A-Train’s death, and help him escape. I remained with Vought to find an alternative location of our weapon, but failed to, and escaped. Once I was safe, I didn’t want to be in the public eye. I was broken, and weak, and too fucking tired to face this myself. I helped Starlight plan and write her address in June, and it was my idea to remain away from the public eye.

But more things kept going wrong. When we found another avenue to get our hands on the weapon, we were blocked by Singer and Secretary Muller, who, As Sage has said, is my step-father. I had not spoken to him in thirteen fucking years, and he has been in direct collaboration with Sage. She has tried to paint him as a villain, and he is a terrible man, but he’s also an idiot. I would never want him in a position as powerful as Vice President of the United States, and neither would Sage, which is why she has turned on him and paved the way for Homelander to take federal office.

“Homelander cannot be allowed to take federal office. He cannot be allowed within a hundred fucking miles of the White House. He is a monster. Since both my and Ryan Butcher’s escapes, he has not stopped trying to take us back, and has been willing to kill everyone we care about to do it. And I have not been fucking innocent in this. I destroyed the rec center at Victoria Neuman’s rally. I killed Firecracker. I did not commit the Tek Night massacre in New Jersey, and I did not kill Black Noir or Grace Mallory, but I was in immediate proximity to both events. Because of Homelander. Because I have been trying to save people from him, but I have cared, and he has not. He wants to control me, control you, and kill everyone who stands in his way. But we can stop him. We found our weapon. So, Vought workers, around the world, this is for you. Get out. Jump shipwhile you still can. If you have anyone you love, anything you care about, run. Now. If you take anything away from my speech, make it this.

“Almost every plan we made got fucked. Almost everything I said I’d never do, I did. And we’ve kept going. It didn’t matter what our public image was, or has been, or will be after this. The world will not be safe until Homelander is dead. And there will be work to do after, but right now, that’s all that matters. That’s what’s coming. And Homelander,” you narrow your eyes at the camera, leaning forward. “Ben and I are ready for you. None of us are martyrs or heroes, but this is it. I’m stronger. Ben’s stronger. And we both have something to live for, and something to die for. You don’t have either. You’re the worst thing that ever happened to me, and this is it.” You raise your chin high, staring Homelander down without seeing him. “You turned me into the Anomaly. You drove Ben and I together. If you weren’t such a narcissistic sociopath, I’d probably be halfway across the world, writing academic papers and dating some foreign, normal guy. But now I’m going to kill you, and you’ll have no one to blame but yourself.” Your face curls into a twisted smirk, born from something like liberation. Like a million pieces falling into place as you turn your attention to Ben—pounding and rioting in your body—and see your expression mirrored on his face. “I’ll see you soon, Homelander.” You look back to the camera. “We both will.”

The light of the camera turns off, the video finishes, and that’s it. You’d done what you could, said what you needed to, and now all that was to finish it. To actually, really, kill Homelander.

Hughie’s talking about how he’s going to watch the video over and upload it. Butcher’s muttering that it wasn’t half bad, and Annie’s giving you a tentative thumbs up and saying words that are probably reassuring praise.

You can’t hear any of them. All you can hear is an off-key ringing in your ears, and the pounding of your own heart as your eyes start to blur and your head starts to turn faster than you can follow. You’d missed things. You don’t really remember anything you said, but there’s so way you got everything. The speech was too short, because you’d missed things that you probably couldn’t afford to miss. No, it was too long, because you’d spent time on semantics and details that didn’t matter. It was okay to mention A-Train was alive, you’d cleared it with him first, but you hadn’t mentioned Neuman. But Neuman wasn’t a supe, and she couldn’t defend herself. And she has a kid, A-Train doesn’t have a kid. But you also hadn’t mentioned Ashley, but she’s not that importance really, but she could be. She could provide key testimony when this is done, and you need that testimony, but you’ll also need A-Train’s testimony.

You didn’t think long term. None of this had been thought in the long term. You just accused Singer of something, by saying he’d blocked the V, and he’s still going to be president after this. You should’ve mentioned the Boys more, try to exonerate them of some of their crimes, so Singer wouldn’t turn on them as well. On you. You’d just confessed to murder. Multiple murders. There’s blood on your hands and there’s a crack that’s reaching down your spine and now there’s nothing left to stop Homelander from hurting people you love.

You’d confessed to loving Ben. You’d told the world you loved Ben. And you did. And you wouldn’t take it back. Everything is cold and you can’t really breathe, but you won’t take it back. You can fight Homelander now, but it still comes in waves, and you’re still afraid. You’d said you weren’t afraid.

It was a lie. You’re so cold and tired and afraid, and you strong but not strong enough for this, and you’d just said everything and now you can’t control what happens. You’d just strung up your guts and organs and skin for all the world to see, and they may not be as careful with them as Ben is. As you need right now.

Nothing is in focus, and everything feels like it’s being knocked out of and away from you, and there’s no more light here. There’s something good that’s touching you—rubbing circles on your cheeks, holding your face between big, warm hands—and something that sounds right saying your name, but you still can’t hear anything but the blood.

Blood. So much blood on your hands and this ringing is get a key off from something that’s haunting you, and you don’t feel broken but you’re still weak. Weak and covered in blood-

You hear your name in your own head, like a thought that you didn’t create, and things start to come down as it’s repeated. Over and over like a prayer until you begin to down to earth and you’re staring at a green that you know belongs to Ben.

Ben-

You’re going to be fine. You’re going to be fucking fine. It’s an order. He’s telling you that you’re not fine right now, but you will be. That, eventually, you will be fine, because there’s not another option. Ben won’t let there be another option. I’m here. I am right goddamn here, Sunshine, and you’re going fucking fine.

You nod, and drop your brow to Ben’s because it’s the only thing you know how to do. You’re still figuring out how to breathe—it helps to listen to Ben do it, because he does everything in such a firm and certain manner it has to be correct—and you can’t remember how to stand, so all you can do is fall into Ben. Stay here until your chest is falling into a pattern with his, and fold against him as he moves your head to his shoulder—pressing a soft, reverent kiss on your brow as he does—and pulls you into his arms. Let him stand up, cling to him like a lifeline, and listen to the grumbled exchanges around you.

“Is she-“

“She needs a minute.” Ben grumbles, his voice rolling through your body as he cuts Annie off. “You pussies do the plan, and we can hear it after.”

Your hands curl on Ben’s neck as you shake your head, finding to will and strength to move your head and meet his gaze.

I’m okay. You aren’t convinced by your own words, but you push on all the same. I’m really okay. We need to do this.

Ben scowls, and you can feel his ardor concentrate into something that’s coating over his ribs and trying to wrap over your skin. You are not fucking okay. You went fucking catatonic, that’s not goddamn okay-

I was not catatonic, you dramatic cunt. And I can make it through a meeting.

You can. You’re pulling yourself together. Wrinkling your nose at Ben—trading sharp words that have no edge with him—is something that you’ll always know how to do. That, somehow, grounds you just as well as Ben’s own stone resolve. You think it’s because it’s certain. You will always tease and mock each other, and Ben will always roll his eyes and glower, and you will always stick out your tongue and pout at him. And no matter what, he won’t go, and neither will you. There won’t be any lines for what you can and can’t say, because you both know it would probably kill you to hurt each other.

So you’re coming back to yourself, and it’s because Ben is scowling, and alive and loud in your chest.

I could fucking feel you, he growls your name in the heavy silence of the room, his hold on your body tightens. You need to rest-

I’ll rest after the meeting-

Or you could rest right fucking now-

Or I could rest after the meeting. Your hands move to hold his face, running his beard between your fingers as you offer him a sad but easy smile. We’re so close, Ben. We’re really, really close, and I need to do this. You can carry me upstairs and pin me to the bed to make me rest, after, but it has to be after. Please.

Swear it. Swear you’ll rest.

I’ll rest. I promise.

Ben’s jaw is clenched so tightly you’re worried he’ll break it, but you get a stiff nod as he sits down. Keeping you in his lap as he looks up, glaring at something over your head.

“Go get the rest of the fucking dumbass pussies. You get ten minutes before we fucking leave.”

“Ain’t you gonna say please, Gov-“

“No.”

You hear Butcher’s huff, and twist in Ben’s arms just in time to see him stomping away.

It doesn’t take long to gather everyone. Annie, Hughie, and Frenchie are already here, Neuman, Ashley, and A-Train had just been waiting in the kitchen, and MM and Kimiko are still with your family, so within three minutes you’re all settled the living room, watching each other in a weary silence.

You do really want to just go rest with Ben, for all of this to be done, so you speak first.

“I have a plan-“

“Ain’t that a surprise-“

“Shove it up your ass, Butcher.” You flip him off without looking, and continue. “I’ve had a plan. It’s, it has kind of adapted to the cards we have, but it will work all the same. You guys,” your attention turns to Ashley, A-Train, and Neuman. “Need to make me a promise first, though.”

Neuman frowns, sitting up a little straighter. “What kind of promise could you need from us-“

“Mostly one about honor. Keeping your word.”

“That is so fucking vague-“

“It’s meant to be vague, Ashley.” A-Train mutters, glaring at you in a way that feels more cautious than hateful. “She’s trying to feel out how likely we are to agree.”

Ashley looks to you with wide eyes, and you sigh.

“I am.” Your words gaining a more urgent edge, because this is important. “But forgive me for not fully trusting you-“

“You tell us what sort of promise you need,” A-Train snaps over you, foot bouncing in his seat. “And as long as it’s not something really shitty, we’ll make it.”

You examine him, and he seems genuine. He mostly just looks tired. Done with all of this. You understand that, you can feel it in your bones and muscles, so you keep talking.

“I want your word that, when this is over, you’ll stay on our side. Go on the record and say everything you’ve seen and witnessed, about Vought and the government and Homelander and anything else. All the Red River shit, how you,” you nod to Neuman. “Were the Head Popper, and anything Sage ever told you. Say it again, under oath if necessary.”

Neuman’s eyes narrow. “And why would I possibly want to admit to be the Head Popper. Why would any of us want to admit anything-“

“Because this farm is about to be a war zone.” You keep your words casual and bored, but your gaze sharp. “And if you agree to work with us after, we’ll keep you out of danger and make sure your families,” you look to A-Train. “All your families, aren’t caught in the crossfire. We can negotiate your pardons and deals before we bring you out of hiding, or we can testify about all the crimes we know you committed and you just get locked up.”

“That’s not fair!” Ashley’s words are frantic. Panicked. “You’re trying to fucking blackmail us, that’s a fucking crime-“

“All of this is a crime.” You snap, giving Ashley a daggered glare. “But we’re about to be the people that killed Homelander. You can either work with us, or not. It’s up to you.”

There’s a moment of heavy, painful silence, and you’re not sure if they’re trying to call your bluff, but there isn’t one. You’re past bluffs, here. Now it’s just about survival, and knowing if you can trust them with anything.

Finally A-Train coughs, and something like lead dissipates in your blood.

“Fine. Deal.”

His tired, flat voice spurs Neuman and Ashley into action, and you get two more reluctant agreements. There will be more time for details later. What deals you can cut and what you’ll need them to take the stand on can wait, because now you have to talk about the plan. It’s immediate and so fucking fragile, and you finally have your shot. You can’t waste valuable time before you take it.

“Good.” You look around the room, tapping your fingers on Ben’s arm as you calculate every word, every risk, everything that could go wrong and everything that will go wrong, and still know that this is your best bet. This is what has to be done. “We’ll get them to a safe house with Zoe until this is over, and Homelander will come to us. It’s empty up here, and Edgar won’t miss this place if it gets destroyed in the fight. All his livestock died in November, and he’s not getting out of prison anytime soon, so I’m comfortable making this collateral. We’ll lure him, booby-trap the fuck out of the grounds, and disorient him enough for someone to get the drill into him. Frenchie-“

“It will be ready tomorrow. A projectile, and I can make many.” Frenchie looks around the group with a grim expression. “One shot. A single hit, and it will if my work is correct, wedge in his skin, and the V will be shot into his system by a trigger.”

Butcher frowns. “We got enough of this shit for mass production-“

“Oui.” Frenchie gives one, firm nod. “A small amount, a micro-dose, will be more than effective. Just one,” Frenchie makes a sound, miming a syringe. “And the fucker will go down like it is nap time, and he is having a sugar crash.”

“Awesome,” you chew on your tongue, squeezing your hand on Ben. “Then all that we’ll have to do-“

We. Ben grunts in your head, and you can feel something in him grow powerful and bloody. You’re not getting fucking near that Star-caped pussy-

It was the royal we, Benjamin. You twist in his lap, giving him a pointed glare. And I can fight Homelander. I’m stronger-

I fucking know that. I am not worried about how fucking strong you are, I’m worried about you-

“You twats care to involve us in your little fuckin spat?” Butcher drawls, and you turn to see him looking more annoyed than angry. “Cause if it’s ‘bout the bloody mission we’re all riskin our asses for, we should put it up for vote-“

“None of your goddamn business-“

“You don’t want her near the fight, Gov, ain’t that it?” Butcher smirks, but there’s something hollow behind it. “Worried she may get hurt when Homelander decides he ain’t playin nice? That you might lose ‘er because she’ll make some stupid fuckin sacrifice and you ain’t gonna have nothin left to live for?”

You think Ben is going to murder Butcher. And you might have let him, is you couldn’t feel the powerful and bloody thing start to rot. To twist and cave in on itself, and swing back and forth between a fury that’s pushing around his chest and out of his body, and a molding, aching pain that’s climbing up his spine and into his heart.

Ben. Is Butcher, you pause, waiting for Ben’s violet glare to turn to you and soften slightly. Is he right.

He’s tearing himself apart. There’s something like a tornado or hurricane in Ben’s body, and you can almost hear how it’s hurting him in his grunted, Yes.

I’ll be okay, Ben. I can’t die-

I fucking know that. It’s not- His scowl becomes mostly lines on his face, and his whole body is only made of the aching storm. I am not losing you.

You won’t lose me-

And I fucking know, and I don’t fucking care. He’s not yelling between your heads, but his voice is loud, and almost fucking hopeless in a way that breaks your heart. You’re more than damn stronger enough to fight him, and I don’t fucking want you to. You are goddamn capable and brilliant and strong, and I don’t want you anywhere fucking near this shit. You can’t start fucking breaking again and expect me to just be fine with throwing my wife into a goddamn fight with Homelander. A cowardly fucking pussy psychopath who’s not going pull punches, who’s going to try and take away the only two people I give a fuck about, the only people I’ve ever fucking loved, and if I lose them it will be my own goddamn fault for letting them get hurt when I should’ve fucking kept them safe-

You can’t let him keep doing this to himself, because you understand. You and Ryan are all Ben has, and he’s not going allow himself to put you in harm’s way. You can fight him on this, and probably win, and if something does, somehow, go wrong, Ben won’t ever forgive himself. He still hasn’t forgiven himself for the first time, and the second time would destroy him, the same way your second time had broken you.

And you’d stay with him. When you found your way back to Ben, you’d stay with him until the storm passed, even if it took a hundred years. He’d grow paranoid and wake you up with explosions of golden light from his chest, but he’d still be Ben, the same way you’re still you.

But if you can do anything for him, offer him anything that’s truly vital, it’s sparing him that pain. It’s bending, just for this, because you know Ben will fight with a clear, determined, focused wrath if he knows Ryan is safe with you, and you’re both far away from Homelander.

You don’t really want to see Homelander die anyway. There’s nothing sadistic or bloodthirsty in your body, because you’re so tired of pain and sick of blood on your hands. Hearing the words Homelander’s dead, seeing his small husk of a body, and marrying Ben in a world where Homelander will never hurt anyone again will be all you need.

So you kiss Ben in a soft, gentle way that makes his hands on your body relax and the mold in his body start to fade as the glow grows, and look back to your team. Waiting silently for you and Ben to finish.

“I’ll take Ryan. He and I will go with them,” you nod to Neuman, Ashley, and A-Train. “And hide until the mission is done. You’ll get the V into Homelander, Ben will blast him, and Butcher will shoot him. And that will be it.”

There are small, nervous nods, and Hughie clears his throat, scratching the back of his neck.

“What about, um, what about Sage-“

“I’ll take care of it. I just need a day.” You lean back into Ben’s body, looking around the room with your most firm, immovable expression. You might have copied Ben’s—a set jaw, deep lines on your face, and an unspoken glint in your eyes that says I know what the fuck I’m doing—but it does the trick all the same. Nobody pushes you, and that’s it.

You have a fucking plan.

Everyone shuffles off to eat or talk or pretend that Homelander won’t be here in before the week is over. That everything isn’t either going to have crumbled or begin to grow again, and it all rides on getting this right. On not missing, or fucking up, and having each other’s backs.

It would be easy to spiral again. To drown in what’s coming, and every way I could go wrong. But Ben doesn’t waste any time, and before your brain can invite the doubt or panic knocking against your skull to be explored, he’s moving. Carrying you upstairs to your bedroom, kicking the door closed behind you, locking it without a word, and lowering you both carefully onto the stiff mattressed, itchy blanket bed that’s still comfortable, because Ben is here with you. Warm and strong under your touch, muscles flexing whenever he breathes, and the only thing you might ever really need.

Neither of you look to move, or go further. All that feels necessary right now is to have Ben. To feel to drum of his heart when you rest your head on his chest, and the soft hair of his beard when your fingers drift over his face. To smell pine and coffee and strawberries and know that he’s here. That he’s safe and solid, and nothing is going to take this instinct of Ben away from you.

You think it’s all he wants as well. His hands are moving over your body, but the only heat they leave is made of affection and care. Ben’s touch always makes you feel loved, but this makes you feel needed. Like there’s a direct line from Ben’s fingers tracing up your spine and over your hips into your nerves, and it shoots every single piece of his love right into your brain. Assures you that Ben is as natural as breathing, and he loves you, and every beat of his heart belongs to you because every turn of your head belongs to him. That, no matter what comes, you really will be safe, because there’s no other option when you’re loved like this.

It’s silent for a long while—only the sound of bird-song out the window and Ben’s breath near your ear—and you’re not sure how much time has passed when Ben’s low, rough voice sounds in your head.

You find a way to get yourself fucking killed with this, and I’ll leave you, Sunshine.

You let out a soft laugh, propping your chin on Ben’s chest to meet his attentive, wrathful, painfully in love gaze. No, you won’t.

The fuck I won’t-

You won’t. You’ll get all angry and violent and sad and kill a bunch of people about it, and then get even sadder and angrier because you’ll remember I would’ve been pissed at you for doing that, and then you’ll go cry at my grave for the third time that day. You’ll be the mean, old, handsome graveyard coke-snorter, right up until the inevitable heat death of the universe finally gets your ass.

Ben scowls, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. Everything in his eyes is made of that bitter feeling, but under it you can still feel the glow. Shining out and rushing through your body, making everything inside you soft and restful, but still alive. More alive than you’ve ever really been before Ben, and as alive as you plan to feel for the rest of time.

Nobody’s given me any fucking coke. He grumbles in your head, and you know he’s trying to change the topic. That the bitter feeling is born from the thought of your death, no matter how impossible that is, and you’re more than willing to abandon that conversation. You’d think for a bunch of goddamn criminals, these pussies would’ve found some coke-

I bet Frenchie has some. You smile at him, kissing a gentle line over his jaw. And if you asked very, very nicely, he might share with you.

Ben grunts, and hand moving to your hair to guide your face up, hovering right over his. “When this shit is over, I’ll get that coke, and we’re doing it together.”

“I love you, Benjamin, but I am not doing cocaine-“

He cuts you off with a soft, long, easy kiss, chuckling at how fast you fall onto him. How easy it is for him to touch your right and make you fold without any struggle, and how you have no desire to fight against that.

“It won’t do a damn thing to you, Sunshine, you’ve got a higher tolerance than I do.” He presses another, almost sweet kiss to the corner of your mouth, muttering against your skin. “And if it does, I’ll get to see you all fucked up again.”

You flush, dropping your face into his neck. Can we please forget that happened-

Not a damn chance. You can feel his smile as he kisses the side of your head, hear his amusement in the silence. Fucked up you was very open with me. She told me I was beautiful.

You are beautiful. You mumble into his head, tangling your fingers into his hair. So shut up.

I’m hot as fuck, darling. He chuckles, tracing patterns on your back. But you’re more beautiful. You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever goddamn seen.

Ben-

You are. Don’t get all fucking modest on me-

You rise back up, holding Ben’s face between your hands and studying his face. You already have it memorized, every deep line and rugged feature and bright color, but you’ll never get tired of looking at it. Of looking at him.

I’m not modest. You kiss the tip of his nose, and Ben’s hands on your body still. I get to marry a very grumpy man who’s the most attractive cunt in the universe, and who’s willing to share his cocaine with me. Why would I be modest about that?

A low growl rumbles from Ben’s chest, and he flips you onto your back with a yelp. Caging you between the bed and his body, kissing everywhere he can reach on your face and neck and collarbone, grinning as you let out a high, needy sound and tilts you head back to grant him any access he wants.

Such a fucking brat, beautiful. He moves his knee between your legs, groaning as you start to grind against him. I love you so goddamn much, you drive me fucking insane-

“Ben.” You try to pull his face back to yours, your voice a breathless, pleading gasp. “No sex in the house-“

He crashes back up, his kiss bruising and turning your body into something molten and desperate for more. Singing just for Ben, Ben, Ben, who cares if Butcher walks in because Ben will shield you and you’re unraveling under him and you’ve never felt safer-

“You owe me a blowjob in the forest,” he mutters against you. “And I get to eat you out wherever the fuck you want-“

You gather all your will through your haze of Ben, and shake your head weakly. “Not here. Not now. But later, Ben, please, please fuck me, please-“

He pulls back, grinning down at your likely ruined and lustful expression, his love made of an awe you can see on his face and a devotion you can feel in his chest.

“Christ,” he says your name, and it’s the best thing you’ve ever heard. “You’re confusing your fucking self. You want me to fuck you, yes or no.”

You whine, and his grin grows, even as his tone becomes stern.

“Words-“

“I,” you pause, reaching up to just touch him, and shake your head. “Not now. After.”

He nods, and catches your wrist, moving your hand to his mouth and kissing over your knuckles. Where.

Can I think about it?

Ben laughs, and drops down to kiss you in an easy, slow way that doesn’t need to be more. You’re fucking going to anyway.

You will. Later, you’ll dedicate a whole hour to figuring out where you want to see Ben’s head between your legs, and where you want to scream his name. You already have some ideas, but it will need your full attention, which is something you can’t quite spare today. Because—once Ben decides you’re fully rested, and removes his weight from over your body—you have work to do.

Your speech hadn’t been a bait for Sage, but it would function as a lure. Something for her to latch onto, and want answers for. And sure enough, when MM and Kimiko return, it’s with news that Sage had called and demanded a meeting. Just you and her, on neutral ground, with terms of no Homelander, no Ben.

“There is not a fucking chance-“

You squeeze Ben’s hand, giving him a sharp but gentle glare. “I can handle this, my love.”

“I’m not worries about you handling it,” he hisses. “Sage is a manipulative bitch, and we don’t know what the hell she wants-“

“It won’t matter what she wants.” You shrug, looking back to MM. “Find somewhere quiet, maybe in Vermont, and tell her to meet me there.”

Ben growls your name, and you ignore him.

“I’m not stupid enough to fully go alone, so I’ll drive, drop you and my very grumpy, overprotective husband off somewhere close but not obvious for backup, and pick you up after.”

Everything in Ben stumbles and bursts into a consuming, bloody glow, and you know you’ve won. The moment you called him your husband you’d felt all of Ben’s will and fight dissolve, and you’re going to have to figure out a way to actually marry him by the end of the month, because his face might be the best one you’ve ever seen, this feeling the best one you’ve ever experienced. All you ever want to experience again.

It only takes a day for MM and Sage to make arrangements. Sage keeps insisting to speak with you directly, MM keeps refusing, and eventually Sage relents with the condition that she gets to choose the location.

A little roadside diner in upstate New York, right off of a postcard and shielded from the sky by a green, overgrown forest that makes your breathing a little easier. The air is warm and a little humid from a storm that had left puddles in the parking lot and glittering drops on water on the windows, and when you park the stolen car—Ben and MM waiting at a gas station about ten minutes away and, hopefully, not killing each other—you take a long breath.

You have everything you need. You know everything you need to say. This will be hard, and then it will be over. All you have to do is move.

When you push the door of the diner open, small bell rings and the diner is mostly empty. You didn’t expected Sage to be here, you arrived an hour early in the very hope she wouldn’t be, so you sit at a corner booth that faces the door, and mostly just wait.

When Sage does arrive, she sees you immediately. A cold smile crosses her face as she drops down across from you, examining the table carefully.

“There’s no trap.” You say, keeping your voice bored and neutral. “It’s just a table.”

Sage looks up, her smile becoming snake-like.

“I’d apologize, but both you yourself and the company you keep hasn’t been known to be honorable. I’d have to be stupid to discount you putting a bomb under a public table, and I’m not stupid.”

You let out a dry laugh. “Big talk about honor, when I know the deal you made with my fucking mother.”

“I won’t apologize for taking an open opportunity-“

“Because you’re a fucking bitch.” You shrug, holding her gaze with your own, tired, flat one, tapping your fingers on the sugar shaker. “We both know you’re not sorry about any of this, and we both know that you’re a heartless cartoon supervillain, so what do you want.”

Sage’s lips curl into what might be the only real grin you’ve ever seen on her hateful face. “I really do like you,” she says your name, and you believe her. “I think, if you’d become a supe when you were a baby, we’d have been friends.”

“I like to think I’d still have a soul if that happened-“

“We all like to think things that like. But we’re just animals. Well, they’re just animals. You’re just an animal.”

You tilt your head, flagging down the waitress for two coffees. “And you’re not? You’re a god, like Homelander?”

“No.” Sage’s sounds almost amused. “Gods are still dependent on humans. To be created, maintained, remembered. I don’t care for that. What I care for is perfection. Something far better than humanity, something free of their selfish ignorance-“

“With the V.” You can’t stop your whisper as you put it together, watching Sage with a sharp, careful attention. “That’s why you want the V formula. To make more, and finish Vought’s plan with it.”

“Not Vought’s exact plan. He was caught in the primitive, pointless ideology of race supremacy. But this is about species supremacy. About human’s being ungrateful for what they’ve been given, and needing to be eradicated like the disease to the world that they are. But nobody is meant to know that yet. You…” she trails off, and her face curls into something that chills your bones. “You found the Cornucopia.”

Your silence is her answer, and she lets out a laugh that makes your skin crawl.

“I must say, you’ve managed to surprise me again. Putting that together yourself, and that video.” She shakes her head, looking you up and down. “That was one of the smarter moves you’ve made. I’m impressed.”

You hum, holding her gaze. “But?”

“But it was still reckless. I’d already planned for it, and although you said things I’d counted out, such as admitting to your affair with Soldier Boy, or to killing Firecracker, but I’ll adapt, and you’ll still lose.”

“I wouldn’t call it an affair,” you hum, frowning at the sugar shaker. “I’d call it falling in love.”

Sage makes a sound of amusement. “Love isn’t permanent. As I’ve tried to tell you, Soldier Boy will be a violent, angry man for the rest of his life. You’re the most powerful supe alive. You have the public in the palm of your hand, and you could spend all eternity making something perfect. You could go play house,” she gives the ring on your finger a pointed look. “With Solider Boy and the son of your rapist, or you could see what you can really do. Create a world without pain, create a world with only pain, fix human’s messes for the rest of time or finally give up on them. I could cleanse you of your little pestilence of a team, hiding like roaches in Maine, and you could fight Homelander one on one. Give him the gruesome death we both know he more than deserves. You could even keep Soldier Boy as a pet, and still be-“

“If you say interesting.” You drawl. “I’ll punch you again. And Ben isn’t my pet, and Ryan isn’t just Homelander’s son.” You lean over the table, narrowing your eyes. “They’re my family. All of them. I don’t really want to see what I can do, Sage. I think I just want this to be done.”

“You truly do believe your love for Soldier Boy is an exception, don’t you. That it’s not just a temporary chemical reaction, that can be manufactured just as easily as a spoon, or diaper?”

You sit a little taller in your seat, staring down the obvious disgust on Sage’s face. “I think that you were right. That by all logical sense, I shouldn’t have ever loved Ben. But I do. And I will, long after this over. So speak very carefully when you talk about him, because I’m very forgiving of things you say about me,” you drop your voice to a hiss, letting a little bit of fire light up in your eyes. “But I will not be forgiving of things you say about him.”

“And that’s the thing, isn’t it.” Sage looks you up and down, and her voice almost sounds disappointed. “In the end you’re still too human. Too emotional. A worthy opponent, but still just a little too weak.”

Love hasn’t made you weak. If anything, love might be the only thing you’re certain makes you strong. Pulls you apart before putting you back together, just a little better and sturdier than you’d been before.

So you don’t break. You take your coffee from the waitress, and look back to Sage with your best, innocently curious expression.

“Can I ask you a question?”

If Sage is surprised by your pivot, she doesn’t show it, only nodding for you to continue.

“How smart do you think you’d have been?” You watch her carefully, leaning back as you add sugar to your mug. “If they hadn’t given you the V?”

Sage only shrugs, taking the sugar as you set it back onto the table. “That doesn’t matter, because we can trade hypotheticals all day, but in the end, I am smarter. Better. In the end, I’ll win. I’ll work out how to get rid of you when you become more of an annoyance than interesting, and you be dirt in the ground with your precious Soldier Boy. Just as love says you should be.”

“Or,” you watch as Sage pours the sugar into her cup, and look up at her with a wide smile. “I could marry him. And like an impossibly long, incredibly interesting life with someone who I love. I’d never be bored, but I would be happy.” You pause, looking Sage over with your best gentle concern. “Are you happy?”

Sage almost scoffs. “I am not concerned about happiness-“

“You should be.” You shrug, stirring a small spoon in your mug. “I’m happy. There are long, horrible moments where I’m afraid and in pain, but then I’m happy again. And I wasn’t ever sure I’d get that. A life where I get love someone like this, and they love me back, and, I mean, have you seen the Princess Bride?”

Sage’s mouth tics, and you know she’s noticed you’re running the conversation. “I don’t watch many movies. They’re pointless, and I have more important issues-“

“It’s a great movie. It was put into failed production several times before 1987, but the key was you couldn’t take it too seriously. It’s a love story, but it’s also an outright ridiculous drama-“

You’re cut off as Sage sneers your name, but you don’t drop your easy, blissful smile. “I know we both enjoy speaking, but I do have a company to get back to. Work to do. So if we could move on to discussing your video-“

“Just one second.” You keep your voice sweet and dreamy as you continue to ramble. “I got Ben to watch the Princess Bride. I think he might have already seen it, because he wasn’t paying attention, but he never pays attention. He mostly just stares at me and tries to pretend he doesn’t have a boner. I love him so much.”

Sage snaps your name, you ignore her, and she dumps half the canister of sugar into her mug.

“See, he thinks the whole pirate thing is cool. He told me that he’d make the best fucking pirate, and come right back to me. There wasn’t a damn reason to stay away for five fucking years.And I’ve told him that I agree. He’s fast and skilled enough to win the duel, and strong enough to beat the giant, and he already has the drug tolerance for iocane powder. He has the drug tolerance for most anything. There are actually only two things he can’t tolerate. Your gas, and my empathy suppressant. Nobody can tolerate my empathy suppressant except for me. Frenchie said it makes brains leak out of ears.”

Sage hums, looking vaguely interested. “An empathy suppressant? Does it severe the limbic system-“

“Bombs it. Entirely.”

“Which you would obviously survive.” She muses, taking a long, slow sip of her coffee. “But I would likely survive as well, given my targeted healing factor.”

“Maybe.” You prop your elbows on the table, your bright smile dropping to a crude grin. “Let’s find out.”

You see the moment it hits her. Just a second after the words leave your mouth, her eyes widen and she starts to cough. To try and push the coffee out of her system, her entire face covered in hatred and angry and fear—real, primal fear like a deer in headlights or a child who’s had a nightmare—and then nothing at all.

Frenchie had been right. It was instant, and something red was leaking out of Sage’s ears as she slumped forward, onto the table.

It hadn’t been fool-proof, your plan. You’d made Ben crushed up the suppressant with a knife—he was good at that, and you liked watching his arms flex as he worked—and filled up one of Edgar’s saltshakers. Swapped it onto the table, and prayed that Sage wouldn’t think you were that stupid. That if she thought you were going to kill her, that’s you’d be more calculated and careful about it. That she didn’t believe you’d do something so obvious and blatant, that you’d want more information out of her, that this whole thing was a genuine meeting and not an assassination.

Her brain shouldn’t regenerate, there’s none of it left, but you’re not going to take any risks. You drag Sage out of the booth—ignoring the silent, petrified attention of every other person in the diner and taking the sugar dispenser with you—and into the parking lot, finding a spot with no cars, no grass, and no wood before dropped her onto the pavement. You spare the sugar dispenser, and the suppressant inside it, only one look before they’re tossed onto Sage’s body, and you send both up into flames.

You can still feel Ben. You won’t be able to soon, you’d drank the suppressant as well, but you can know. He’s silently furious and made of a zealous, focused care that’s been bouncing around your chest since you’d separated.

I’m done. You mutter down your line, letting the flames move to your feet, letting people crowd at the windows and only focusing on how there is one less thing to be afraid of, and how Ben flashes through your blood as you speak. I’ll be there soon.

Did you-

She’s dead.

Good. Ben’s voice grunts in your head, and you can almost feel him. Over the smoke you can smell pine, and feel something warm that isn’t born from you, but still a part of you. Fucking bitch.

You let out a small, easy laugh. She was, wasn’t she.

Damn right she was. There’s a pause, and then, I love you. I really fucking love you, and I am ready for this to be fucking over. We’re going to kill Homelander, and never hear the word Vought again. Deal?

You probably look insane. You’re standing over Sage’s twisted and brunt corpse and letting the flames climb back over your body, sink back into your skin, and turn your clothing to scorched ash as you smile. A wide smile that covers your whole face as you live only inside your body, with Ben. In all his love, and how certain he sounds that, by next week, Homelander will only be a body with empty, cold eyes and you will live a long, happy, perfect life with Ben.

Deal.

End Note: Sage your funeral will be the most pathetic one in history mark my words. Also someone let Ben yell about getting married he's gonna lose it.

Thank you for reading!! If you like this story, please reblog, share, or leave a comment! <3

If you want to be tagged, just ask!

Taglist

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@fghj18 @n-o-p-e-never @deanspinsterwitchs-readinglist @marisha-3 @stvrniolo

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thisapplepielife · 4 months ago

Text

Written for @corrodedcoffinfest.

Eddeth

Day #30 - Fame & Fortune | Word Count: 1000 | Rating: T | CW: Language | POV: Eddie | Pairing: Fake!Eddeth, Steddie | Tags: Modern AU, Stop Trying to Make Eddeth Happen, It's Not Gonna Happen, Eddie & Gareth Are Best Friends, They Are Also: Idiot², Paparazzi, Social Media, Luddite Eddie, Steve Harrington Has To Clean Up All Their Messes, But What Else Is New?

"Did you know they're shipping us?"

"Shipping us where? I hope they poke holes first," Eddie says, looking over at Gareth as he's scrolling on his phone. Gareth isn't listening to him, doesn't even laugh, which Eddie thinks is rude. That was a great dad joke.

He's picked up dad jokes from Steve, because Steve's corny as fuck.

"Not like that," Gareth says, "like, shipping us together. We have a name and everything."

"Speak English," Eddie demands.

"You know, like Bennifer? But we're Eddeth," Gareth says.

"Who's Bennifer?"

"Which version?" Gareth asks, "Nevermind. You don't care. It's the ship name for Ben and Jennifer together. Do you never read the tabloids?"

"No. And I don't like that," Eddie says.

"Well, I knew you wouldn't. But now they're thinking about us. Together. Romantically. Enough that we have a mash-up of our names together."

Eddie barks out a laugh, "Well, alright. Whatever floats their boat."

Gareth sits there quietly for a bit, then says, "Maybe we can use this. Drum up some attention for the band. Get our name out there. Be a trending hashtag."

"I don't know what that means," Eddie says.

"I know you don't. But we could, like, get in the zeitgeist."

"I hate everything you're choosing to be right now," Eddie says.

"Eddie. This could blow us up."

"Well, sure, in that case I'll tell Steve to just step aside."

"Not for real, dummy. Just for the paparazzi. Get our names talked about more. If they see more of the band, they may like the band more."

Eddie says he'll think about it, but he has no intention of doing any of that. They are exactly the right amount of famous. He can walk down the street without being harassed, but they live comfortably. He isn't about to upset that apple cart.

But it persists. There's buzz, apparently. At least according to Gareth, anyway.

So, at the next show, Eddie hops up on the drum riser and covers Bang Dem Sticks, while flirting with Gareth. It is possible to flirt platonically, and he does it very well.

The next day, Gareth shows him all the chatter. The tiktoks. The commentary. And, well, maybe they could use this to their advantage. Just for a minute.

So, they walk down a dozen different sidewalks, and no paparazzi cameras pop out to snap pictures. Which is normal. He isn't sure why Gareth suddenly thought they'd make TMZ.

But Gareth persists, and they even go to the Ivy, and still nothing.

Even LAX is a fucking bust.

That night, Eddie crawls into bed next to Steve, and sighs.

"What's the matter with you?" Steve asks, tipping down his iPad to look at Eddie.

"Nobody will take my picture with Gareth."

Steve laughs, "What the hell are you talking about?"

So, Eddie tells him their grand plan, and Steve is laughing his fucking ass off before Eddie can even finish.

"Eddie. You have to call the paps if you want to do a pap walk. They aren't mind-readers. They don't just show up. Do you think all those pictures of celebs you see are actually candid? They definitely aren't."

Well, Eddie never looks at pap pictures. He has no fucking clue. He likes to fly under the radar.

"Really?" Eddie eventually asks.

"Really. Do you want me to organize a pap walk for you?" Steve asks, his eyes sparkling with mirth.

"Well. Kinda," he says, "we're Eddeth."

"I know, honey. I've seen all the videos of you flirting with him on stage."

Eddie laughs, "You know that's not real, right?"

"Uh, yeah. I'm not new here," Steve says, "I'll call it in tomorrow. You can be photographed to your heart's content."

And they are. As if it were magic, a handful of photogs are suddenly very aware of where they'll be on various outings. Eddie holds the door for Gareth. Hugs him on the street corner. They get an inordinate amount of coffees that Eddie doesn't even like.

The pictures run, and not a lot of people care, but they are being discussed in some circles.

So, they keep doing it. Dinners and movies and trips through the airport where they're not really going anywhere. Only going through security, as if they were.

That's a brand new kind of torture. Who goes through TSA when they don't actually have to?

More coffee. Coffee, coffee, coffee. Eddie's never bought this many drinks in his life.

And then the bottom falls out.

Someone makes a video that goes extremely viral, explaining everyone in their Corroded Coffin circle.

Including Steve.

In fact, it's almost mourning the breakup of them. Steddie. They're Steddie, apparently, and now the fans, the real fans, those that actually have followed them, are upset. Pointing fingers, assigning blame. Some to Eddie, some to Gareth.

Fuck.

"Uh, we've got a problem," Eddie tells Steve, and Steve just shakes his head, already aware of the situation.

"Do we have to do a pap walk now?" Eddie asks, worrying his hands together.

He never did anything romantic with Gareth. It can all be explained away, swept under the rug.

He thinks.

He hopes.

"I really don't want to," Steve says, and that's that. They won't.

Now, Eddie's either a cheater in the eyes of their actual fans, or they think Steve's gone.

Instead, Gareth does a couple pap walks with his girlfriend, and she's branded a beard, immediately. They really fucked this up, big time.

"We'll go to dinner. The four of us," Steve says, "I'll call it in."

And Eddie kisses his cheek, over and over.

Just to be safe, Steve has their publicist send TMZ a copy of their marriage certificate, and some boilerplate that Eddie and Gareth are just best friends, and always have been.

As they settle into the booth at the restaurant, pictures still being taken, Steve asks, "Are we done trying to be tabloid fodder? Have we learned our lesson?"

"Yes, Steve," Eddie and Gareth both say in unison.

If you want to write your own, or see more entries for this challenge, pop on over to @corrodedcoffinfest and follow along with the fun! 🦇

#corrodedcoffinfest #prompt thirty: fame and fortune #eddie munson #gareth stranger things #steve harrington #corroded coffin fic #ccf day thirty: fame and fortune #thisapplepielife: corrodedcoffinfest #thisapplepielife: short fic #steddie #steddie fic #eddie and gareth are best friends

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impishjesters · 1 year ago

Text

Mafia Boss Jax x Reader

warning(s): gun mentioned, stalking mentioned, domestic/soft Jax, marriage mentioned note(s): Honestly couldn't really see much worth tagging, it's all just stuff you'd expect to see mentioned in a mafia/gang headcanon... A/N: So I saw a fanart thingie (and I've had it on the brain anyway) and it made me thirsty for some mafia boss Jax and I just... I might have to write up a one-shot (or series) at some point but this was enough to quench my thirst...temporarily. I can definitely see myself building a universe around this idea though. I'm excited as you can tell because I just kept fuckin' going in writing this out... Also feast upon domestic Jax in the latter half, I got mushy...

Jax is a tricky boss, it’s hard to get a solid read on him, as an enemy or an ally. He’s almost always sporting a grin, making it difficult to gauge unless you can tell those smiles apart. If he’s frowning? Ha.

He’s that fine middle ground of laid-back yet strict. His word is law, get shit done and do it right and he doesn’t particularly care about the rest.

This person needs to be killed, but before that, they need to be tortured for information. How you torture or kill them doesn’t matter, you get that information or else.

Rabbits are his motif design, not originally by choice but it stuck. Purple rabbit head, his signature grin, it’s childish—which is why it’s perfect, only idiots see that childish design and think “Oh this will be easy” and then it’s fuckin not.

Working for him means nobody is an exception to his little pranks and fuckery. Nothin’ too bad—not intentionally anyways. Bunch of wackos with guns, who thought they’d get trigger-happy when startled?

If you work for him, chances are he finds you a fun target for his mischief.

He might seem buddy buddy with you, but remember he’s your boss. Chances are you are acquaintances at best, not friends. At least for now—who knows?

If you’re dating him, well howdy hey aren’t you a pretty little thing on his arm?

Just kidding, regardless of whether you work under him or not you are given standard gun training as protection for yourself and him, but mainly yourself.

He does like it when you are his date for any events, though he’ll never say it. Jax is the type to bring up an event and do the whole shtick of “guess I’ll need to find a date” sorta guy.

Back on the topic of dating him and gun training—on the off chance you are dating and don’t know about his little crew and lifestyle… What the fuck’s wrong with you? Are you that blind? His position isn’t some well-kept secret, well not to anyone who knows anything.

Jax is pretty straightforward about it, except with his track record of joking there’s like a 97% chance you thought he was kidding when he said he’s a mafia boss. Ha, surprise.

Now if the two of you are dating, and you aren’t part of his little world then he does do his best to keep you out of it. This means that there are periods when you won’t see him, whether it’s because he’s busy or for safety reasons.

You aren’t safe from spam texts, calls, and video chats though. Nah, that’s all fair game to him baby.

Oh, you got work in the morning? Tough, he’ll stay on the phone/video with you until you pass out—he might go a step further and stay on the call for hours even if you are unconscious.

He does it for one of three reasons…

One, it gives him fuel to use whatever shit you say or do in your sleep to tease you with later.

Two, your company, albeit silent and unaware that you’re keeping him company, makes him feel less alone. Moments like this are often when he’s not working and at home, alone. Hearing you breathe, babble, and shuffle around on speaker has him feeling less alone in that big home of his.

Three, it gives him some piece of mind that you are okay, he can see and hear you, and no guns or glass are breaking to be heard. You’re safe. Moments like this are usually after stressful events, whether it’s a job gone wrong, someone injured, etc.

Those calls usually last through the night into the morning and you wake up and see the call still on or see him on the screen. He’s never told you about why some calls continue into the morning, or rather why he’s still awake when he should’ve been sleeping. Though it doesn’t take a genius to figure out it’s not just him being a stalker, but something more serious—if the oddly sweet tone he uses when telling you good morning and asking how you slept is anything to go by.

That said, Jax is not a morning person—even to you. Though if he’s awake before you or has yet to sleep, he’s oddly tender and domestic when it’s just the two of you.

“How’d ya sleep, angel? Dream of me? Nah, don’t answer that, I know ya did.”

“Hey sleepyhead, got ya coffee and breakfast ready. No, I didn’t put anything suspicious in it. I’m wounded doll, ya think I’d put in all that effort to make you breakfast just to ruin it?”

Okay so he’s still a little shit, but he’s got an unspoken soft spot for you.

Speaking of soft spots, if he’s truly down bad for you then that means you are his weakness. He can’t have those—no he’s not gonna kill ya Christ calm down—that means you’re at risk of getting hurt if word gets out.

So if the two of you aren’t at that level yet and are still living apart, he tries hard to keep his distance to keep the attention off you.

But if you are living together? You’re still at risk but he’s got his security measures, and bodyguards galore—even if you don’t live together he always has someone watching you—sure it’s a little creepy but just don’t think about it alright?

I said don’t think about it.

Jax does yet doesn’t understand the line of stalking. To him he’s keeping you safe, to you it’s likely an invasion of your privacy—but if you are anything like me then as long as there’s no malicious intent he can do his own thing. I dunno bout you but I’d rather him have eyes on me than something bad happen to me.

While living together it doesn’t take a genius to tell you that Jax visibly relaxes in your presence, especially when he comes home and gets into bed with you. He’s such a domestic sucker deep down, but you don’t need words to see that.

Overall, I feel like Jax wouldn’t date you if he didn’t have serious feelings for you. His lifestyle isn’t for everyone and he doesn’t open up to just anyone, it could take years before he finally allows himself to even ask you out on a date before considering more. But once the two of you are together he sees the two of you in for the long run, he’ll probably be upfront about it and say if you aren’t in this for the long run and potential marriage then he can’t do it.

Your Jax’s ride or die, please allow him to be yours too.

#tadc #the amazing digital circus #the amazing digital circus x reader #jax #jax x reader #tadc jax

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astraariel · 1 month ago

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flores amarillas (a devotion of love)

pairing: fili x mexican!reader (kinda?)

summary: after being thrown into Middle Earth randomly, Fili surprises you with an act of love, reminding you of your life back home.

september 21st - when someone gives someone else yellow flowers on this day, it means you have undying loyalty and love for that person and can be used as a symbol wishing to spend the rest of your days with that person.

word count: 2.4K

warnings: none

tags: tooth-rotting fluff; nobody dies/everyone lives!au; modern character in middle earth!au

author’s note: I am so sorry for being gone for a whole year, oops. here is a fic I wrote in a couple of hours bc I randomly got the urge to write again… my hyperfixation of lotr/the hobbit has made it’s return so I hope you guys love Fili as much as I do <3

so when I daydream, obviously I do it by how it pertains to myself and my culture so this technically is a mexican!reader insert since it's a holiday from my culture BUT it’s a cute holiday nonetheless so I wanted to write about it. this will probably be the only specific reader fic I write because I don’t want to narrow my broadness bc I try to write for any READER! (ig I also write just fem!reader but I digress)

am I posting this a month after the date? yes, yes I am. but who cares! I still wanted to write this and I think it will help me get out of my slump and make me try to write more…

for the sake of the fic (and my mind) the dwarves have the same calendar system as us... I can not mentally try to convert when September 21st would be for them lol. anyways, enjoy and ignore any grammar mistakes♡

˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

The sound of your footsteps echoed around the grand halls of Erebor, the quiet murmurs and shuffling of all the dwarves doing their jobs filled the air as you walked toward the gates.

Thorin had dismissed Fili of his duties for the day as crown prince, allowing him to skip all his meetings he normally would be in attendance to.

As soon as Fili had gotten the news, he ran to find you so he could make sure to steal you away for the day.

So here you currently were, making your way to where Fili was so he could surprise you with whatever he had planned for your date.

Looking back on your life now to what it was back in your world, was bizarre to say the least. You’ve grown accustomed to your new life here in Middle Earth, but it had taken you a bit to adjust to it. Having been fond of the books made you excited to live and breathe the words you had read as a kid in real life.

Finding yourself stumbling around the Shire at the same time when the company had been instructed to meet at Bilbo’s house, changed your life for the better.

Once Thorin had begrudgingly allowed your presence into the company, you quickly learned how the quest had been a long and exhausting one. Hours and hours of the dwarves grilling you on where you came from, what your world was like, and what you were doing there had your head spinning. Eventually, it turned from weariness to genuine curiosity so you had found yourself on quiet nights around the fire, surrounded by thirteen dwarves, a hobbit, and a wizard telling them about random facts from your world.

The company slowly began warming up to you in their own ways, but you grew exceptionally close to the two younger brothers.

Many nights with Fili and Kili had you going on and on about your life back home. Kili’s incessant questions and curiosity allowed you to run your mouth over and over about random aspects of your life and made you grow fond of him immediately. Fili, on the other hand, was a bit quieter, shaking his head at his brother’s antics and having more thoughtful questions that had you reminiscing on old memories.

Nonetheless, you began to care for them even with the many nights that had you dreading the end of the quest and the final battle that the dwarves found themselves in before reclaiming their homeland.

You originally didn’t want to get close to any of them, the fact that you already knew their fate and they didn't, ate at you everyday. You kept your distance at first, the anticipatory grief already settling in once you had made eye contact with the brothers that very first day was already too much. And yet, you still found yourself laughing and opening up to them throughout the quest.

Especially Fili.

His blue eyes captivated your mind, they beckoned you to get closer to him, to ask him questions about his life back home in the Blue Mountains. About his childhood, his hobbies, his likes and dislikes; he made you fall in love with him after your very first conversation.

Of course, you couldn’t voice that. He was the crown prince, who was currently on a quest to reclaim his motherland.

And of course also because…the ending.

You weren’t sure how your presence in Middle Earth and on the quest would affect the outcome, but if you couldn’t change what happened, you wanted to save yourself that grief.

And yet, when Fili presented the courting bead he had been creating late at night during the journey, you accepted it wholeheartedly.

You were a selfish creature.

Thankfully, you did everything in your power to keep everyone alive, after long and anxious nights of sitting by all of the Durin’s beds they all healed from the battle and began their new lives in Erebor.

You began your new life in Erebor as well, with Fili.

A voice shouting your name shook you from your thoughts.

“Amrâlimê, you look beautiful as ever.” Fili came into view as you processed his comment.

Smiling, you leaned over to kiss him. “Thank you, you look wonderful as well.”

Grinning, he took your hand. “Come, I have an amazing day planned for us, ghivashel.”

♡‧₊˚

Your fingers traced the lines on Fili’s hand as the two of you laid in the grass, still recuperating from the spontaneous race up the hill where you currently both laid atop of.

After a bit of silence, Fili’s voice rang in your ear. “Did you have fun, my love?”

Sitting up on your arm, you look over at him. “Of course I did, I always enjoy myself when I’m with you.”

Fili looks over at you, “Flattery,” he grabs your hand and kisses it, “careful fair maiden, you may just create an admirer out of me with your words.”

Giggling at your mushy banter, you smile over at him. His golden waves framed his face perfectly in the fading daylight. His eyes crinkling in happiness as he looked over at you made you swoon inside.

Fili stands abruptly, extending his hand out to you. “Come, follow me, I figured we could have a picnic under the stars like old times.”

Fili leads you off to the side into a fenced off area where you knew the few botanist dwarves cultivated their flowers.

Once the two of you entered, your eyes were met with a blanket in the middle of the garden with an area of food and desserts displayed along with blankets that the two of you could use for the coming night chill.

“When did you do this? You were with me all day?” Your confused face followed Fili’s figure that was walking toward the sitting area.

Fili sends you a cheeky grin. “I may or may not have bribed Kili to do this for me with the guarantee that I’d cover for him with Uncle so he can sneak off with Tauriel next week.”

Scoffing, you shake your head. “Kili will do anything but confront Thorin about being with Tauriel, he needs to just suck it up and tell your Uncle he’s in love with an elf.”

Fili hums in agreement as he guides you further toward the blanket. You situate yourself as you look over the treats that Fili (Kili) had laid out for you.

The two of you quietly begin snacking as you gaze at the sky when Fili breaks the silence. “I’m very lucky to have you, amrâlimê, I thank whatever power that put you in my world because I was able to meet and love you.”

Rolling your eyes, you turn away from Fili, “you're so sappy.” Glancing at him again you smile, you never will get used to his random confessions of love he does. You don't think the butterflies will ever go away, he constantly makes your heart want to burst out of your chest with how fast it always beats around him.

The amount of love you have for Fili has never been like anything you’ve experienced. Whenever you think or look at him your heart swells, just being in his presence sends a calming effect through you and yet simultaneously, a tsunami of intense emotion. You've never had any love like it before.

You agreed with what he said, you truly thank whatever power placed you in the Shire when it did.

“I know we don’t really see each other often since I'm so busy-” Fili begins.

“Fee, I know you have responsibilities, I understand.”

Fili just stares and smiles at you for a second. “I know you do, Mahal, I love you so much.” After a split second he says, “I’ll be right back.”

The random shift of tone catches you by surprise eliciting a laugh from you, “What?”

“I’ll be right back!” He gives no other explanation before running off in a direction leaving you.

“Ok?” You’re left confused, but amused at your lover’s antics.

A few minutes pass by before you hear footsteps returning, your head turns in the direction of the sound and you find Fili’s figure holding something behind his back.

“What are you hiding,” you giggle, “What’s behind your back, Fee?” Leaning over you try to get a glimpse at the mystery behind him.

He doesn't say anything as he bends down to get on his knee so he can be closer at your eye level to your figure reclining on the ground.

You look at him expectantly waiting for him to start.

“I wanted to make this a grand gesture, but I was panicking and Kili’s fed up with me constantly going on and on about this day but…”

Titling your head, you question, “This day?”

Fili seems to stop his rambling and pulls his arms from behind. “It’s the 21st of September.”

You let out a surprise gasp before sitting up. You had noted on the calendar in your room that it was the 21st but expected nothing from it since you weren't in your own world.

And yet here was Fili, kneeling with yellow flowers held out in front you.

Your eyes scan over the array of yellow flowers that were held carefully with white paper in Fili’s hands.

“How did you-?”

Fili smiles, “During the quest, remember?”

Your mind combed through your memories, attempting to recall the conversation.

The company had been unknowingly making the journey to Rivendell (under Gandalf’s expense) which had evoked Kili’s curious side from the exhausting trek. You and the two brothers were walking side by side toward the back, when Kili had posed you with a new question from your life back in your world.

“Tells us more about your culture,” Kili nudges you, “not just your world but you specifically.”

Catching you by surprise, you think quickly for an answer. “Hmm…well from where I’m from, there's a specific day that a person may use to confess how they feel about you.” You're not really sure what compelled you to mention this specific custom, but your mouth opened before your mind could keep up with it.

Kili’s eyes brightened with your response, so you knew you’d have to unfortunately continue with the train of thought.

“Well, on the 21st of September, if someone gives you yellow flowers, it has meaning. A lot of people from my culture see receiving yellow flowers on this day as being a very important and caring act. It’s to some, very intimate, because not many express their emotions like this so when a person does, the significance is extraordinary.” Your eyes flick back to the brothers.

Clearing your throat, you looked forward in embarrassment.

Great. You’ve just opened that can of worms out to the two brothers who you’ve barely met, as well as whoever else was currently eavesdropping in your conversation.

Not having felt the change in air with you, Kili continued to ask, “Have you been gifted yellow flowers before?”

Still not making eye contact with either of the brothers, you sighed. “No, I have not.” Clicking your tongue you continued, “I think perhaps it’s because the people who I have dated didn’t know about the meaning. I mean, even if they did, I don’t think the flowers would mean much because the relationships never worked out.” You shrugged lamely.

It’s not like you’re admitting all your past relationships were a bust, it just wasn't the type of love that was true. If any of your exes had gifted you yellow flowers, you're not sure if it would’ve had the type of impact you’ve always imagined. All your relationships had their highs, but they also had their lows, hence why they all ended and why none of them had gifted you your yellow flowers.

You still had the hopeless romantic thought that The One would come into your life and you’d know if they were The One if they gifted you your flores amarillas like you've dreamed of.

“Ah, well that’s interesting!” You looked over as Kili smiled at you, apparently losing interest in the conversation. Glancing at Fili, you noted that he seemingly wasn't paying attention to your entire spiel; thankfully in his own thoughts.

Your mind reels back from the memory. You knew exactly why you didn't remember that because you were embarrassed for the rest of the day because you had gotten emotional during the conversation. While you were already getting close to the brothers, you still were embarrassed that so early on you had opened up about your pathetic love life so much that you blocked it from your mind.

“I thought you weren’t listening when I was talking about that to Kili?” You questioned.

“Of course I was listening, every time you spoke I was captivated.” Fili’s smile softens.

Biting your lip in an attempt to stop yourself from grinning, you let him continue.

“When you had answered Kili's question with that, it took me by surprise but I found myself enamored by the way you spoke about the custom. So when I heard you speak about your culture, I knew it meant a lot to you not only due to the meaning but because it reminded you of your world.” He reaches a hand toward you, “While I am thankful you're here with me, I know that you also were pulled from the world you knew, so by talking about your culture it comforted you.”

Your eyes began to water, God, you truly loved him.

“I knew I wanted to incorporate this day in our lives so I thought what better yet than to propose to you with something that reminded you of your culture back home.”

Your eyes widen, “I knew you were my One the moment I set eyes on you. So, will you marry me, amrâlimê? Will you grant me the privilege of spending the rest of your life in your new home with me?”

“Of course I’ll marry you, Fili.” Leaping over you toppled both of your bodies to the ground with your hug.

Landing on your sides, Fili pulls away quickly, “Don’t crush your flowers!”

“Oh, oops, sorry.” You laugh before grabbing and smelling the bouquet, “Where’d you get these?”

“Oh, I got them in Dale this morning,”

“Oh my gosh.”

He laughs, “Yeah I’ve been writing to a botanist who has a flower shop in town, because I was wanting real yellow flowers for you.”

“Flores amarillas.”

“What?” Fili looks at you.

“Flores amarillas, it means yellow flowers in Spanish.”

He smiles at you and slowly repeats, “flores amarillas.”

Giggling, you nodded.

Grinning at Fili, you made a mental note to teach him Spanish.

#astraariel♡#the hobbit #fili x reader #fili x you #fili durin #fili #fili x yn #fili x y/n

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zeeohoh · 2 months ago

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OBX RAFE SMUT | MINORS DNI !

Tags : arguing, toxic!rafe, reader has female anatomy, oral, oral smut, slight fluff at the end(?).

A/N : NOT PROOF READ.

Rafe had been avoiding you for weeks now, his work, his dad, his friends, he has a million excuses to not see you, and you've finally had enough.

You were sat on your bed, watching Notting Hill, you had seen this movie a million times but hey, it's your favourite, you can never have enough.

It's a 21:00 on a Saturday, you were *supposed* to see Rafe, or at least, you had hoped you would, he's been blowing you off for weeks now, you guys had been going out for a few weeks but not everyone knew, and it would've been hard for anyone to believe it either because of how he treated you when you were around people you knew, it was like the better and comfortable you felt with him, the terrible he made you feel in public, in simple terms, he treated you like shit, Absolute. Pure. Shit. As if you're some fuck toy or something to help distract him and you only meant something to him when his body was on yours. You didn't entirely feel this way, he seemed to genuinely have feelings for you but his actions said otherwise, so you stopped, or you would've just been delusional. Tired of wanting him to treat you like an actual human being and tired of wrecking your brain over being torn because you felt he had feelings for you but he acted like you mean nothing, and treating you like a nobody, you grab your phone and block him, his number, his instagram, anywhere you have him on your phone, you block him, throw your phone on your pillow and continue playing the movie.

02:19 *ring* *ring*

Your eyes flutter open as you realize you fell asleep watching the movie, you're broken out of yours thoughts as you realize what woke you up in the first place, your front door bell ringing.

Who the fuck is at my door at 2 in the damn morning?

You get off your bed, quickly grab your robe and a baseball bat you kept by the shoe rack and peek through the keyhole, it was hard to make out who it was because of the rain, but you recognised the familiar silhouette of a certain Cameron. You sigh and open the door.

"What the fuck Rafe? Look at the time"

"I couldn't reach you anywhere, you wouldn't answer my calls, my texts wouldn't send, what else was I supposed to fucking do? You cut me off everywhere Y/N"

"Just..get inside, you're gonna catch a cold"

"I don't care Y/N"

You take a step aside to let him in , you barely turn around before he grabs your wrists in his hands and pins you to the wall,

"RAFE"

He's so close that you can feel him breathing on you

"Why'd you do it Y/N? Do you really want me out of your life? Is that what you want?"

"It's not like I mean shit to you anyways, Rafe"

"That's not true"

"Like fuck it is, you treat me like absolute shit, you purposely go out of your way to make me feel terrible, you want my attention but you'd rather ask for it by belittling me infront of everyone, by talking down to me or treating me like I'm just someone you use to distract yourself from whatever the fuck you need to be distracted from, sometimes the shit you say isn't even funny, it's straight up childish and immature and rude, I shouldn't even have let you in after the shit you've said and the shit you've done, I deserve better than how you treat me. "

You could barely finish your sentences without feeling the need to choke up.

"Y/N I-"

"You used to make me feel so good, so safe but now I'm scared to even talk to you because I know nothing nice is gonna come up and I'm gonna get hurt again, I know we're supposed to be just casual but I just didn't think you'll treat me like I'm a nobody to you"

Rafe's gaze softened, and his hands went from your wrists to your shoulders.

"I'm sorry, I know I don't deserve your forgiveness because of the things I've said and how I've treated you, but I can't lose you, I don't want to do this without you Y/N, I can't justify why I've said what I've said, what can I do to make it up to you? I'll do anything, I never realized how much it could've affected you, I was being a dick, I'm so, so sorry"

"I know I shouldn't even be talking to you rn, John B would kill me"

Rafe took your hands in his and placed a kiss on the back of both hands. He peppered kisses all over your hands, working his way up to your wrists, your arms, your shoulders, and eventually, your neck, he whispered sweet nothings into your ear and nibbled on the sensitive skin right next to your jaw, which he knew makes you go crazy.

You shuddered under his touch and, out of habit, leaned into him, your head resting on his chest, kissing it, you turned up to look at him, your faces barely inches apart, and close the distance. You plant a kiss on his lips, it was soft, gentle, loving. His hands wander from your neck to your back, you guide his hands to your waist, he gives you a gentle nudge and following his cue, you lift yourself and he picks you up, wrapping your legs around him, his focus goes to your neck and you shudder, he takes that opportunity and slips his tongue in, his movements grow more eager as he softly grinds himself against you, grabbing everywhere you'd let him, at this point, you're both breathing each other, he's kissing you like he's gonna lose you tomorrow, like it's the last time he'll ever have you, your tongues move in a rhythm and your bodies are connected.

"Let's go inside" you say and he takes you to your room, he gently lays you down on your bed, not breaking the kiss once, not letting go of you even. once.

"May I?" He asks you as he nudges your top

You get up and help him remove the tshirt you slept in, he immediately went back to kissing your neck, your collarbone, and slowly made his way down to your chest. He took one of your nipples in his mouth, swirling his tongue around, gently sucking on it, you let out a soft sigh as he bit it gently while his other hand gave attention to your other one, toying with it, kneading it then he switched to the other one, doing the same as he did for the previous one.

"Let me make you feel good ma"

He made his way further down, leaving a trail of open-mouthed kisses.

"Tell me if you want me to stop ,okay?"

You just hummed in agreement

"No, I want to hear you say it, tell me if I'm going too far, and I'll stop."

"I don't want you to stop"

He tugged at the waistband of your shorts, and you lifted yourself up, helping him take them off.

"Turn the lights off,Rafe, I don't want you to look at it"

"You're beautiful, every part of you Y/N" he says as he gets up and turns the lights off, finding his way back to you, he plants gentle kisses on your inner thighs, softly massaging them. He slowly made his way to your core, planting a gentle kiss over your clothed core.

You squirmed in the bed, edging your body closer to his mouth, growing more impatient by the second.

"Easy now, I'm getting there" he said as he took your underwear off, folding it up and keeping it next to your bed, he licked a long stripe eliciting a soft moan from you, he latched himself onto your clit, lightly sucking on it, focusing on how you react to it, once he's satisfied, he pushes his tongue inside you, he speeds up exponentially, he's going down on you like a man starved, like you're the last meal he'll ever have, he doesn't slow down, he doesn't stop, he barely comes up for air, he only has one thing on his mind, making you come. Your hands find their way to his hair, grabbing them and tugging at them.He violently thrusts his tongue in and out of you, practically abusing your clit while you're a moaning mess, he hooks your legs over his arms to grip you and hold you down as you squirm and push yourself onto his face, his nose is lightly bumping against your clit, your moans turn him on and he started grinding against the bed, he suddenly inserts a finger in you which make you arch your back, pumping in and out of you, hitting your g spot as his thumb makes it way to your clit and rubs circles on it, while his other hand grabs your breast and plays with it, the sudden increase in stimulation drive you closer to your edge, your eyes are shut, you can't say anything, you can't think of anything other than how good his mouth feels, how good he's making you feel, you feel the burning sensation, signalling you're not that far

"Rafe I'm gonna-"

He doesn't even let you finish that sentence before he speeds up, you didn't think it was possible for him to go faster, but he was, the room is silent except for the moaning mess he's made of you and the unholy sounds he's making as he eats you out, he can feel how close you are, he hums in satisfaction.

"It's okay, come for me" You can feel the smirk he has on his face as he says it

Right as he finishes his sentence, you came. hard, harder than you've probably ever come. You're a panting mess, he slows down his movements but he doesn't stop, helping you ride out your high, once he's sure, he gets up and grabs a towel, cleaning you up, he kisses your thighs and helps you up on the bed, and lays down next to you. He holds you close and whispers in your ear

"I'm so sorry for ever making you feel like you mean less than to me than you actually do, I won't do it again"

"It's easier said than done, Cameron, don't make me regret giving you another chance"

you turn to face him and bury your face in his chest, slowly drifting away into a peaceful sleep as he plants a kiss on your forehead and holds you close. He'll spend as long as it is needed to make up for how he treated you, taking care of you and cherishing you for as long as you'd have him.

#rafe obx #rafe cameron #rafe outer banks #outerbanks rafe #rafe x reader #rafe smut #rafe cameron smut #rafe cameron fluff #obx smut #outer banks smut #obx fluff #outer banks fluff #rafe cameron x kook!reader #rafe cameron x you #rafe cameron x y/n #rafe cameron x female reader

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d10nsaint · 2 years ago

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DAPHINE

secretive plotter, kim dokja, yoo junghyuk, yoo sangah x gn!reader [separate]

another request from @rouecentric 😦⁉️🤯 so surprised rn. Anyways i love od but he’s not here because i don't wanna make them all have a romantic setting then have od be the only platonic one bcs he’s like 12.also tagging @elychee bcs they're AMAZING and wrote abt the lcf trio with a plus sized reader and you should really check it out [wink wink] i really tried to make this gn pls tell if it isn't THIS IS ALSO JUST ME SAYING NONSENSE BTW IT MIGHT NOT MAKE SENSE

ʚɞ Kim Dokja;

DOKJA is just happy he has a lover.

Really.

He also loves hugging you after a warm day—you’re just so soft and sweet to him (like anybody would be. hes so

He loves touching you. Hes just such a sucker for affection because he had none when he was younger, and he'd be elated to have someone who could handle his touch and affirm him throughout the day that its okay and they dont mind.

When it comes to your body,he really likes your chest.He lays on it when you both are lying down on the couch or even in bed. But once, one thing led to another on the couch and his head ended up on your thighs. he was literally shaking. His mind was going a million miles per hour and his face went beet red, and it was to the point where you had to make sure he was okay.

ʚɞ Yoo Sangah;

SANGAH is so naturally sweet and was raised in a way that everyone is the same—and thats how she sees people! Of course, not until she finds an s/o whos plus sized. She finally realizes the beauty of plus sized bodies !!

after a long day of work getting harassed, she just wants to go home and settle down in her lovers arms with a book and some detox tea !!

once, she was laying atop you reading a book with your back against the armrest of the couch and her back against yours, and then she realized something—you were very soft. Well, to her, atleast. Ever since, you’ve always been the big spoon!!

Shes never really had impure thoughts about you or your body….in fact, you’d have to bring stuff like that up to her in a conversation because of how little she thinks of it, so i cant really do the thigh thing

ʚɞ Yoo Junghyuk/Joonhyuk;

JUNGHYUK would just be happy that you’d survive a situation where he can't get you both food. ( Idk why i wrote that,i can't go 5 hours without getting hungry)

He’d usually carry you around as a form of training—and never admit it. He also does it just to be able to hold you, but whatever.

He'd be very fond of you (in his head) and try to be very subtle with it-he'd throw you a high grade item and say,'here,you're weak' and if you call him out, he'd glare at you and do nothing else.

By the time that you both are dating, he'd have opened up and really cherished you,hoping to make you happy and give you a life like him of the past would have.

If theres a point where youre dating and not fighting for your lives, he'd love to [secretly] just hold you in his arms and cherish you. It doesnt matter if he's standing up or laying down.He's just so happy to have you in his empty regressor life.

ʚɞ Secretive Plotter;

PLOTTER really doesnt care about body types, even when they come to his s/o UNLESS its very unhealthy.

As i’d suppose that you and plotter would be in a nice,loving and healthy relationship, he’s seen your body—no matter how insecure you are. He loves you no matter what, and nobody should ever dare to talk bad about your body and your habits or else he’d (as I said in a previous post) reign hell upon that person.

Putting the reassurance aside, hes very glad to have a thicker/ plus sized partner, due to how much his body is developed. He wouldnt have to see you as a doll and try to hold back his natural strength with all his might (i mean he still has to hold back) but its better than nothing!

he LOVES to put his hand on your thighs. He can't go a DAY without putting his hands on them, if its meant to be a reassuring caress or a more intimate touch. Male? Female? Something in between? He doesn’t care.

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baejax-the-great · 1 year ago

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ao3 exists, plus it doesnt even matter what terms i search for on tumblr 100% of the time theres fanfiction. literally you can search any words on this website and some kpop guy/ reader fanfics flood the results every single fucking time. plus some of us are not here for fandoms??? your circus/clown analogy is stupid

So I'm incredibly allergic to shrimp-- to the point where if I ate a single shrimp I would die, to the point where I don't really consider shrimp food anymore--and it's the weirdest thing, yesterday i went to Target to buy hair conditioner, and they were selling shrimp. Don't they know it wasn't what I was looking for and I can't eat it anyway? Why would they do this? Totally fucked up of those shrimp catchers to try to poison me like that.

But analogies clearly aren't your thing, so let me break this down for you.

AO3 does indeed exist, but your suggestion that fanfic live there and ONLY there is akin to saying that imgur exists, so nobody should be posting images, whether they be photos or art, on any other website. Twitter exists (sort of), so really nobody should be posting shit posts or hot takes that are fewer than 140 characters or whatever.

Not everyone uses AO3. There is no law saying that if you write fanfic, you must post it on AO3 and nowhere else. There will never be a law that says that, because that's not how the internet works. Tumblr, one of the few social media sites that allows longform blogging, is in fact a great alternative to AO3 for one-shots. It's a little trickier for multi-chapter posts, but I've seen people make it work.

AO3 is not social media. People can't DM there, send asks, make friends, bump their post to the top of the feed (unless they are an asshole who is about to get blocked by half of fandom for pulling that move). Do you like social media? I mean you're here, on tumblr, bothering a total stranger, so you must see some value to it. Guess what--fanfic authors also enjoy being on social media and sharing what they've been up to, including their WIPs.

Things you aren't looking for being part of your searches is literally just life on the internet at all times forever. Earlier this month I was looking for a reference of draped fabric for drawing purposes. I googled 'chiton drawing' (chitons like the ancient Greeks used to wear), and all I got were drawings of molluscs of the genus 'chiton.' Alright, I did a google search for "toga drawing" and learned that there is an anime girl named Toga and people very much enjoy drawing her. Were the artists of the molluscs or the anime girl to blame for me having to slog through a bunch of irrelevant pictures to find one that could help me with my drawing? No. They correctly labeled what they were doing. That's just life.

Seeing fanfic in the tag doesn't harm you. At all. It doesn't matter if you find it cringe, or it's a ship you don't like, or it's xReader. For like ten seconds you looked at words you didn't particularly like, and then you moved on. How is that different from literally any other post on tumblr? I see bad takes and essays I don't care about on this site all the time. It's called scrolling. Again, this will be the case for every website on the internet forever. Are you telling me you read every tweet in your feed? Every reddit post? Sometimes you see irrelevant stuff. I guarantee some of my mutuals have already deemed this long ass post irrelevant and are scrolling on by. What makes fiction that much more abhorrent to you than the rest of the nonsense?

If you really hate seeing fanfic, tumblr has content blocking and tag blocking. You can block the phrase "x Reader." You can block the tag "fanfic." You can block all sorts of things, and if that doesn't work, you can just block the writers whose existence annoys you.

Sorry man, you personally not liking fandom and not using tumblr for it has really no bearing on what everyone else is doing. Like it or not, tumblr is a hub of fandom, and fanfic authors are going to be a part of every fandom on this green earth. Just because you came to the circus in order to admire the pretty fabric used on the tents doesn't mean the performers are in the wrong for doing their thing.

#ao3 #get a load of this clown #tumblr #surprised it took me this long to get a braindead take in my inbox about this #this really feels like genZ bullshit where they see one thing they don't like online and become karens of the internet #honey other people exist doing things that have nothing to do with you #and occasionally you will see them and the only correct response is to move on with your life #by all means anon call up tumblr and explain to them that people are posting fanfic on their website and you just don't care for that

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lorwolf-salt · 1 year ago

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Okay, Coop7011 here, SaltyLoria staff, ignore my first post. Weird vore person here (she for those who don't know), not sure if I should be doing this but I figured it's better that people hear from me instead of talking about me and making things up, plus whatever the frick happened in that thread. Keep in mind all of this (besides the thread issue yesterday) happened months ago. And it started in that thread yesterday because I merely said something along the lines of 'I am not in the official Lorwolf Discord for private reasons, and never will be' and random curseword guy got butthurt about that for some reason, even though it's against the rules to discuss moderator actions. I don't know who he is, but I can only assume it was just a guy who really hates vore. And I suspect a lot of people here also hate vore, and that's fine. I just hope some of you can see past that hate and see the truth of what really happened.

Yes, I was banned from the discord, but not because I 'wanted to show little kids NSFW'. Keep in mind that while I was ON the server, my username was not Wholesome Vore Writer, it was Coop7011, the same as it was on the website. You would only see Wholesome Vore Writer if you DMed me. At the time, I did not have Nitro, so when the staff asked me to remove the link to my Ao3 (that nobody has to click, nobody is forced to read, and has warnings and tags everywhere about the content of the stories) then I'd be changing it for every single discord server I was in. They were also forcing me to change my base username, and not just my nickname on the discord server (which was Coop7011 anyway). I felt this was unreasonable, but changed it for a time so I could conclude some trade deals on the discord server. Then, after some time, I admit that I got salty about the staff of one discord server (LW) forcing me to change so much on an account that I use for so many other things. So I changed it back. Things were fine for awhile (because that's how unnoticeable it is, unless someone snoops through my profile or DMs me) but then eventually I was banned without word. I don't agree with this choice, but I've long since accepted it as a fact that I didn't heed to their requests/went back on it and thus they had their right to get rid of me. I didn't care that much as long as I was able to play on Lorwolf itself. Keep in mind that no word of my writing is on the server or the website, all of this is about my base Discord username (hidden since I set my nickname on server to be my Lorwolf username) and a link to my stories on my discord profile. Personally, I also don't agree with calling my work NSFW, as they are not sexual and I don't write them with sexual intent. They are emotional comfort stories to cope with trauma, where no one is harmed (yes vore is people being swallowed, but they're safe in my work). I won't get into too much detail about this, because frankly, I don't think it should matter what I write about off-website. It's not using Lorwolf characters and it's not being posted directly on Lorwolf anything. This is the most I've ever talked about it in a semi public space about this pet sim game. So there you go, that's what happened. And I am deeply sorry to VNX for what happened to the thread, I purposely didn't take part in discussing back and forth because I knew it would go nowhere and would just result in countless removed posts, but I guess someone else did argue about it.

#lw forums #long post #lw discord

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starkstruck27 · 5 months ago

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My third fill for @harringrovesummerbingo!! Prompt + Space: Free Space, B2 Title: Reaching New Heights Major Tags: None Rating: Teen Word Count: 3492 words Additional Tags: Amusement parks, Roller coasters, Acrophobia Summary: Steve and Billy take the kids to an amusement park for a day, and Billy is acting grumpy the whole time. Steve calls him on it and Billy says he'll stop complaining, and to make it up to Steve, he'll do whatever he wants to do next with no complaints. But that thing is the tallest and fastest roller coaster in the park, and Billy can't back out on his promise now. Also on: Ao3

“C’mon, Steve! There’s, like, no wait time! We have to get on the Dragon’s Flight before the line gets long again!” Dustin yelled as he and the rest of the kids started running towards the entrance to the roller coaster.

“Ugh, another roller coaster?” Billy grumbled, walking slowly behind Steve as they made their way towards the kids. “That’s all they’ve wanted to do all day. They don’t eat, they don’t sit on their asses and rest, they don’t go to the arcade, they only want to ride coasters, and guess who has to sit and wait and hold all their shit?”

“Billy, you’re the one who’s been sitting out this whole time. They could put their stuff in the cubbies at the end of the line before they get on the coaster, but since you sit out anyway, it’s better if we leave it with you so that nothing gets lost or stolen,” Steve sighed, tired of his boyfriend’s complaining. “And what’s your problem today, anyway? I know it’s hot, but it’s not like we forced you to come. I said I was going to bring the kids here for a day and you said you wanted to tag along, nobody forced you to come.”

And Billy had to admit, he had a point. Steve had mentioned in passing a few weeks ago that he was planning a little trip to the Land Fantastica amusement park for the kids, since they’d been begging to go ever since it opened and their parents were all too busy to take them. It was a fantasy themed park with different ‘lands’ you could visit, and of course it had a lot of roller coasters that you could ride corresponding to each land. Right now, they were in the ‘Dragon Mountain’ area, and this coaster was of course modeled to be like you were riding on the back of a flying dragon.

But Billy didn’t particularly care for coasters, and even though Steve was right, he had asked to come along and spend the day with them, he didn’t realize that Steve would feel the need to get on every single coaster along with the kids. He thought they’d let the kids go off on their own and they could walk around the park together, go into shops and eat at little restaurants and maybe ride some of the more tame rides, but no. The kids refused to leave Steve’s side and dragged him with them wherever they wanted to go. And Billy was stuck waiting on benches all alone and weighed down with bags and sweatshirts that the kids had brought along. Still, he had chosen to come, and now he was being bitchy about it, and it made him feel a little bad.

“I guess you’re right,” he sighed, “I’m sorry, I’ll try to stop complaining.”

“That’s all I ask. And I promise, we’ll do something other than roller coasters in a little while, that way you can do it, too.” Steve smiled.

“Thanks, pretty boy.” Billy said, then went and found a shady bench to sit on while Steve ran to catch up with the kids.

Dustin was right, the line for the coaster wasn’t that long, and they were on and off in a half hour. Lucas and Mike were talking excitedly with Max and El about their favorite parts of the coaster, while Dustin and Will read over their park map, plotting out the best route so that they could hit every coaster in the park.

“Okay, so,” Will said as the rest of the kids gathered around him. “There are ten coasters in the eight different lands in the park. We’ve been to Wizard Square, Elven Village, Pirate Bay, Mermaid Lagoon and Dragon Mountain, and we rode Spell Tower, Gaylia’s Hunt, Escape the Kraken, Seascape Falls, and Dragon’s Flight. I say we go to Fairy Forest next and do the Banshee and Brownie’s Adventure, then head to Enchanted Meadow and do Rainbow Run, then head to the Royal Castle and end the day with Knight’s Quest and Dark Dungeon.”

“That’s a good plan,” Mike said, and Will blushed a little.

“Yeah man, I can’t wait for the Banshee,” Lucas chimed in, “It’s supposed to be scary.”

“I’m just waiting until Rainbow Run,” Max said, “That’s the highest and fastest coaster in the whole park! It’s gonna be awesome!”

“That does sound like a good plan, guys, but remember, we have to take breaks to eat and stuff, too. Plus we have to make sure everyone gets to do what they want to do, and there’s still games and stuff we haven’t hit up yet,” Steve said as the kids continued to plan.

“Yeah, but we have to make sure we hit them all! And besides, if we wait, the wait times will just get longer and longer! If we do them all now, we can get them out of the way and then spend the rest of the day doing other stuff. Plus we don’t want to get on roller coasters with full stomachs! That’s a recipe for disaster, Steve,” Dustin said, and he and the kids started walking towards the next area of the park.

“I’m sorry,” Steve said as he and Billy walked a little behind the kids. “I can sit the next one out if you want to do something else.”

“That’s okay,” Billy shrugged, “You like the rides and the kids like going on them with you. I’ll be fine on the bench. Like Dustin said, the faster you do them all, the faster we get to do other things.”

“Thanks for being a good sport about it,” Steve smiled, and Billy made himself smile back, even if he was getting a little tired of all of this. Especially the way the kids were trying to control the day. Steve kind of let them, but still, he was their babysitter, he should’ve been the one in charge, not the one getting his suggestions shot down in favor of what the kids wanted to do. It was grating on his nerves, and by the time they’d ridden the next two coasters and started running off towards the next, he was starting to forget the promise he’d made to Steve earlier on.

“Hey, assholes!” He called as they took off running to the next land before Billy could even get off the bench. “Get back here right now or I swear to God I’m gonna chuck all your stuff over the damn bridge!”

The kids all stopped in their tracks and made their way back over to where Billy and Steve were, looking just the smallest bit sheepish as he started handing them back their stuff.

“I’m sick of this! From now on, you’re all carrying your own stuff, I’m not a fucking pack mule! And if you run off again and get lost in the crowd, don’t expect us to come looking for you! If you get left here, that’s your problem! You’re being ungrateful little brats and Steve might put up with that, but I don’t, so clean up your acts before we take you home!”

“But we didn’t even do anything!” Dustin whined, looking at Billy in exasperation.

“You ran off, you’re not being considerate of what everyone else wants to do, you’re not thanking me or Steve for bringing you here, buying you things or holding your stuff, and you’re not listening to Steve when he tells you it’s time for a break,” he said, counting the offenses on his fingers. “You’re just being brats!”

“And you’re being a jerk!” Max said, crossing her arms and giving him a look.

“Guys, look, we’re getting nowhere with this arguing and we’re starting to cause a scene. Let’s all just calm down and get something to eat, maybe we’ll all be less cranky once we get something in our bellies. You guys go and get whatever you’d like from that little restaurant over there,” Steve said, pointing to it, “We’ll be right behind you.”

As soon as the kids were out of earshot, Steve turned and leveled Billy with a glare, crossing his arms as Billy asked, “What did I do?!”

“You yelled at the kids and caused a scene for no reason!” Steve hissed. “It’s not their fault it’s hot and you’ve been sitting out the whole time!”

“Maybe not, but it is their fault that I’m hungry and tired and bored! I’m sorry I yelled at them, but I don’t like the way they’ve been ignoring us all day so that they can have a good time while you and I aren’t!”

“I’m having a good time with them, it’s you that’s getting on my nerves!” Steve said, “You said you’d try to stop complaining about everything, but you’re not. And yeah, the kids are a little overzealous, but they’re kids at an amusement park, what the hell did you expect?”

“I expected them to be mature enough to realize that it’s not just all about them!” Billy said, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms.

“You wanna talk about immaturity? Look at you! You’re pouting and throwing a tantrum because you’re hungry and tired! That’s what toddlers do, Billy!” Steve said, and Billy once again had to admit he had a point. “Look, I’m not trying to make you out to be the bad guy, here. I’m just saying don’t act all high and mighty when you’re acting just as badly as they are. They want today to be all about them, and you feel left out, so now you’re trying to turn the tables and make it all about you, and neither is right. But we’re not going to get anywhere when they think you’re the bad guy and you think they’re the bad guys.”

“You’re right,” Billy sighed, dropping his arms, “I don’t want anyone to have a bad day, but I don’t want to just cave to them, either, so how do I fix this?”

“Well I think the first step is to get you cooled down and get some food in your stomach, and then I think you should apologize to the kids and explain your side of it a little bit more nicely. If you do that, they should come around.”

“And what can I do to get back in your good graces?”

“Just make it up to the kids and I’ll be happy,” Steve said.

“No, that’s not enough. I fucked up and I want to make it up to you, so what can I do?”

“Seriously, it’s okay. You don’t have to-”

“Yes, I do!” Billy insisted, then said, “Here, how bout this, whatever it is that you want to do next, I’ll do it with no complaints. I promise I’ll keep a lid on it this time. Pinky promise with a cherry on top!”

“Okay, okay,” Steve said, trying and failing to hide a smile, “It’s a deal. I think that’ll be nice. But first you have to apologize to the kids.”

So that’s what Billy did. He said he was sorry for yelling at them and explained himself, and the kids apologized, too. They all ate their food and their spirits were lifted as they relaxed for a while in the air conditioning. Everyone was in a better mood when they left, and they took their time walking through the park to the next land, keeping an eye out for any cool looking shops or games. They didn’t see very many, and before they knew it, they’d made it to the Rainbow Run coaster.

“Steve, can we please go on Rainbow Run? We’ve been waiting all day to get to it!” Max asked as they came up to the entrance, and Billy managed to hide his sigh as Steve said they could ride it. He started looking around for a shady bench to sit on, but before he could spot one, Steve grabbed his arm and started pulling him along with him.

“You coming?” He asked, nodding his head towards the line.

“What?” Billy asked, confused.

“You said you’d do whatever I wanted to do next without complaint, and I know you’re not the biggest fan of coasters, but I want to go on at least one thing with you today, so are you coming or not?”

“Oh, uh,” Billy said, panicking internally. He knew he shouldn’t have made that promise so general. “Yeah, I’m right behind you.”

Billy didn’t have much time to panic, though, as the hot afternoon ensured that most people were either inside somewhere or at the water park, so the line was fairly short, and it didn’t take long before they were getting close to the loading dock. Billy was starting to fidget as they got closer and closer, and it got more intense as they started getting to the point of separating into lines for the seat rows. There were five seats to a row, and Max, Lucas and Dustin all hopped in line for the first row of seats, Dustin dragging Steve along with him and in turn, Billy. Mike, Will and El would be in the second row right behind them, along with a pair of teenage girls that had gotten there just before them.

Billy couldn’t believe how many kids he saw waiting in line for this ride. How in the world they managed to gather up the courage to ride it, especially those riding by themselves, he’d never know. It made him antsy as he passed by the little wooden cutouts of leprechauns and unicorns that lined the walls of the loading area, each cutout coming with a speech bubble explaining the rules and regulations of the ride. He tried not to read them for his own sanity, but found that he couldn’t help it, and as he read about all the things that could possibly go wrong on the ride, he started to feel kinda queasy. He must’ve looked it, too, because just before they were set to get on the ride, Steve leaned over and whispered, “Hey, you okay?”

“Y-Yeah, I’m fine, just fine,” Billy said, starting to feel a cold sweat break out over his whole body.

“Are you sure? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

“I’ll be fine, I promise,” Billy said, starting to play with his necklace. He swallowed thickly and Steve was going to ask another question, but then the gates opened, and it was their turn to climb onto the ride. Max, Lucas and Dustin hurried into their seats, and Steve followed, but Billy hesitated. He really didn’t want to do this. But he’d promised Steve, and that fact alone is what made him take the next few shaky steps off the platform and into the seat of the car.

“Hey, are you sure you’re alright? You don’t have to ride with us if you don’t want to,” Steve said, looking over after tightening his lap bar.

“No, no, it’s fine, I said I’d do whatever you wanted next with no complaining, and that’s what I’m doing,” Billy said, pulling his lap bar as snugly against him as he could and white-knuckling the handles.

“Yeah, but you look like you’re gonna be sick, and I don’t want you to do something if it’s gonna make you sick, that would just make me feel bad,” Steve said, “I’m sure they’ll let you off if you ask.”

“No, I’ll be fine. Besides, I don’t really get sick on rides, just, um, nervous,” Billy said, lifting his hands for only a second so the attendant could check his restraints. Then they were back to the handles, his knuckles turning white again as soon as he did.

“Well, here, if you’re nervous, hold my hand,” Steve offered, holding it out to Billy as the attendant returned to her post on the side of the loading platform.

“Oka- Oh shit!” Billy almost yelled as the coaster lurched into motion, taking them out of the loading dock and up to the first hill. He grabbed onto Steve’s hand so tight that he could’ve broken it, but Steve didn’t say anything about it.

“Fuck, how high does this thing go?!” Billy asked as they slowly made their way to the top of the first hill.

“I think, like, 200 feet? It’s the tallest one in the park,” Steve said, and Billy’s grip on his hand only got tighter.

“Holy fucking shit, how did I let you talk me into this?! This is fucking insane, I don’t wanna do this, I wanna get off!” Billy rambled, his breathing getting heavier and heavier.

“It’s kinda too late for that, Bill,” Steve said, just as they got about three quarters of the way up.

“I know, I know and I fucking hate it! Fuck, I hate heights! Why the fuck did I let you talk me into this?! Especially the front fucking seat!!” Billy shrieked, and now, they were at the top. “Ffffuuuuccckkk!!!” He shouted on the way down, holding onto Steve for dear life as they went through the ride, Billy shouting profanities the whole time and screaming in terror as everyone else screamed in amusement. He could hear the kids laughing, and he wanted to kill each and every one of them as they finally made it through the last loop of the coaster and the train they were in finally made it back to the loading dock.

Steve looked over at him and started laughing a little bit, too, but Billy was too scared out of his wits to care for longer than a second. He felt like he couldn’t catch his breath, and he could feel his hair had been shaken completely out of place, falling over his face in what must’ve been the most ridiculous hairstyle ever from the way everyone was laughing at him. His face was somehow both white and red at the same time, and he felt like he’d been hit over the head with something, but not hard enough to knock him out. He was still clinging onto Steve’s hand as the attendants let the lap bars up so that they could get off, and despite his legs feeling like they were no longer attached to his body, Billy shot up as soon as he could, practically pushing everyone else out of the train so that he could get out himself and back onto solid ground.

“I fucking hate all of you,” he wheezed as he got his things from the cubbies and started down the ramp to the exit. The kids were continuing to laugh at him as he attempted to fix his hair and catch his breath, and Steve was still smiling, too, but he let Billy go as he waited for the kids to get their things and head for the ramp themselves. Halfway down, though, they stopped, looking among the screens at the photo booth to try and find their pictures, and bursting into a whole new fit of laughter as they found the one for their train. Steve hadn’t stuffed his wallet back into his pocket yet, and even though he didn’t want to encourage the kids, he also did not want to pass up the opportunity of owning a copy of that photo.

By the time they caught up with Billy, he had gotten his color back and had managed to fix his hair enough so that it wasn’t all over the place, and he was breathing normally again. He didn’t look as dazed as he had when the ride had just ended, and the kids managed to keep their laughter to a minimum as they started walking away from the coaster and closer to the next and final land in the park.

“Are you okay?” Steve asked as he and Billy trailed a little behind the kids.

“I will be,” Billy said, rubbing a hand over his face.

“I’m really sorry, by the way,” Steve said, a sympathetic smile on his face. “I had no idea you were afraid of heights, I thought coasters just made you sick or something and that’s why you didn’t like them. I never would’ve made you get on if I had known.”

“Eh, it’s okay. I should’ve known that’s what we were gonna do next, and I could’ve gotten off if I really needed to. Besides, now I can at least say that I’ve done it,” Billy shrugged, “Sorry if I hurt your hand, though.”

“Nah, you didn’t. And even if you did, I would’ve deserved it for making you get on,” Steve said.

“You really didn’t make me,” Billy said, “But if you really want to make it up to me, buy me a lemonade and some cotton candy the next time we see some, and we’ll call it even.”

“You’ve got a deal,” Steve said. He probably would’ve agreed to anything Billy asked of him after that, though. After all, he needed to get him in a good mood before he could tell him about that picture he bought.

#billy hargrove #steve harrington #harringrove #stranger things #fanfic #max mayfield #dustin henderson #will byers #mike wheeler #eleven #lucas sinclair #the party #hsb2024

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sarahowritesostucky · 11 months ago

Text

📖"The Carter Academy for Omega Excellence"

Rated: Explicit

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Bucky Barnes

Tags: age gap, boarding school au, a/b/o, dub-con/non-con, spanking, feminization, dumbification, sexism, misogyny, subjugation, prostate milking, discipline, D/s elements, societal issues, hurt/comfort, mentions of past self-harm, onlyfans, predatory behavior, gender politics

Summary: Bucky is not pleased when he finds out that his parents tricked him and he's being forced to stay at the school.

Author's Note: *reformatted with a few age and plot changes to adhere to Tumblr's ToS*

(Wait! I haven't read Part 1 Part 2 yet!)

Part 3 - A Pedagogy Steeped in Tradition, cont'd

Previously: “How long until you whip him into shape?” Ransom asks as they return back to Steve’s office. They’ve just walked in the room, and James is turning around to look at them as they come through the door.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Steve hems, catching the boy’s gaze and giving him a warm look. “I bet you he’ll be a new James by spring break.”

James’ eyes narrow. “Bucky,” he says.

“Excuse me?”

“My name is Bucky,” he repeats peevishly. “Nobody calls me James except my grandparents.”

Steve nods, ignoring the boy’s tone. “Nice to meet you then, Bucky. I take it Sharon had to leave?” Bucky shrugs in lieu of an answer, and Steve allows the attitude to go unchecked only because the boy’s parents are still present. “Sharon is a wonderful Handler,” he tells him instead. “I’m sure the two of you will get along famously.”

Bucky glowers at him.

Steve catches the eye of the security officer. “Mr. Rollins, you can take up your post in the hall. Thank you for waiting with him.”

“Sir.” Jack nods and heads out.

“Oh, Bucky, just wait until you see this place, it’s so neat! It’s got such history.” Winnifred gushes about it to her son, trying to get him excited, telling him about all the different things they saw on their tour of Cragside. She calls it a “castle,” which draws a bit of a laugh from Steve.

“Hardly, Mrs. Barnes,” he chuckles.

“Oh, it’s Drysdale,” she corrects. “My name.”

Steve looks over to Bucky. “Oh. But I thought—”

“I’m remarried,” she explains. “Bucky is from my first marriage. He chooses to use his father’s surname.”

“Ah. I see. My apologies, Mrs. Drysdale.” Steve doesn’t miss the sour expression that flits over Bucky’s face. Steve clears his throat and gestures towards the couches. “I’m just having the paperwork drawn up. It should arrive soon. Would you care to take a seat while we wait? Afternoon tea’s an entire thing over here, and it is about that time.”

“Paperwork?” Bucky says, attention sharpening on them. “What paperwork?”

“Nothing to concern yourself with, little one,” Steve says, very aware of the displeasure that flits across Bucky’s face at being addressed that way.

“Whatever,” he mutters. “I’ve already decided I don’t want to go here anyway. It’s an all omegas school. Did you guys know that?” He’s asking his mother and stepfather, and Winnifred sighs while Ransom scoffs.

“It’s exactly the sort of environment you need, you little punk. Can’t be a skank here. All you can do is study. That’s what school’s for.”

“Ransom,” Winnie scolds.

“That’s the sort of thing pompous losers who can’t get laid say,” Bucky tosses back, and Steve makes a quick assumption that there is no love lost between these two.

“I’ll call for the tea,” he says, trying to stop their bickering. It works, somewhat, and the Drysdales sit across from Steve on the room’s conversation couches when the service has been delivered and set out on the coffee table between them. Steve catches Rollins’ questioning look through the doorway as the servants are leaving, but shakes his head smally, confident that he can handle an unruly pup like Bucky all by himself, if things get testy.

Predictably, Bucky stays standing while the real adults have tea. He ignores his mother when she suggests that he have a seat, and he keeps making aggressive eye contact with Steve each time he comes over to grab another petit four off the tiered stand to eat.

“Oh Bucky, honestly,” Winnifred scolds after the fifth one. “They’re not all just for you.”

Bucky doesn’t respond to her, just shoves most of the scone in his mouth while he confronts Steve with a blunt, “I’m not even gonna apply to this place.” Steve stares him down, but Bucky doesn’t break eye contact, the little shit.

“Well,” Steve says calmly, “We’re not a university. We’re a boarding school. Our students are enrolled by their guardians. It’s more a transfer of custody than it is your traditional college application.” He watches as Bucky’s face screws up in confusion.

“What?” he says. “What are you talking about?” He turns to the couch where Winnifred and Ransom are sitting. “What’s he talking about?”

WInnifred leans forward anxiously. “Well, honey, we didn’t think you’d agree to come if we told you.”

“Told me what?” Bucky expression is rapidly darkening. He turns on Ransom with a scowl. “What is this place?”

“It’s a reform school. And you’re attending,” Ransom says.

“No. … You’re joking me right now … right? Are you shitting me?”

He shrugs. “I’ve already paid your tuition. You should be thanking me.”

“Thanking you?! I only agreed to this stupid trip because you promised we could go see Stonehenge and some castles and shit! Not so you could imprison me at some fucking oldworld boarding school in the middle of fucking nowhere! Fuck you!”

Winnifred nearly chokes on her tea. “Bucky!”

“This is a very prestigious, traditional, very expensive school, you little shit,” Ransom grits, pointing at Bucky. “Maybe they’ll actually be able to drum some manners into you, teach you how to be a proper omega. You need some good old fashioned discipline. ”

“I really don’t care what you think I need, Rancid,” Bucky snaps. “God. I should’ve known the second I saw that one guy on a leash.” He looks over at Steve with a nasty expression. “You’re one of those red pill Alphas, aren’t you? One of those incels who can’t get laid and blames all your problems on the omegas of the world and modern society and feminism and shit, right?”

“What’s with the obsession with getting laid, Mr. Barnes?” Steve drawls, completely unaffected by Bucky’s tantrum. “This is The Carter Academy for Omega Excellence. We’re a finishing school and reform facility aimed at older teens and young adults; exclusive, secure, and very well-equipped to handle whatever hissy fit you might decide to throw at us. This is a school for the rich and overindulged, but not in the ways you’re probably used to. We tame some of the most spoilt brats in Europe here. So I’d advise you to behave. Things will go much harder for you if you don’t.” Steve knows immediately from watching Bucky’s face fall that this is the first time the kid is hearing the full name of the school said out loud. He resists the urge to laugh about how clueless that makes him. The school’s emblem is printed clear as day all over the place, but Bucky has clearly missed every single sign that litters the campus. “Kids these days,” Steve simpers, staring down the boy’s rapidly darkening expression. “Noses always buried in your phones, huh?”

Bucky’s fingers grip tighter around the cellphone in his hand, glaring, and then he whips around to scowl at Ransom instead. “You,” he growls. “You tricked me!”

Ransom looks like his mind is already elsewhere—perhaps on the rest of the vacation he’s already unashamedly told Steve he plans to take without his pesky stepson in tow. “What can I say? You’re pretty easy to trick.”

“You can’t just leave me here!” Bucky squawks from around another mouthful of food, crumbs scattering to the carpet as he flings the hand that’s holding his scone. “I didn’t even know places like this were a real thing anymore! Like a fucking convent? Like some sort of fucked up juvie-meets-Hogwarts?!”

“Bucky, really,” his mother scolds, lips pursed. “You’re making a mess on Principal Rogers’ floor.”

Steve waves her off. “That’s alright, Mrs. Drysdale.” He looks at Bucky. “You’ll be surprised just how well it works, Cupcake. You’ll have no distractions from your education here.” The ‘Cupcake’ obviously goes over like a lead balloon with Bucky, if his continuing glower is anything to go by. Steve ignores the kid’s petulance and turns back to converse with the parents. “The girls’ school still operates down in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, at our original campus. A generous benefactor donated this estate, so now all of our male students attend here at Cragside.”

“Finishing school,” Bucky grumbles over to the side, still displeased. “This is bullshit.”

“Language, Mr. Barnes,” Steve corrects blithely, and keeps on with Winnifred, “My business partner, Ms. Carter, she’s to act as Headmistress there moving forward. ‘Carter Girls’ Academy’ is now its own entity and will operate independent of this institution.” He looks back to Bucky and locks eyes with him. “Sorry to disappoint you, but out here it’s just us boys, I’m afraid.”

It’s laughably obvious how Steve does not fit into any category with Bucky, let alone that of “boy,” and Steve is pleased to note a light dusting of color on the kid’s cheeks after that. Bucky goes tight-lipped once again, and Steve leaves him to his teenaged sulking as he finishes entertaining the parents and assuring them that their son will be well looked after during his time at school. The paperwork for Bucky’s admission arrives and is reviewed, and soon Mr. and Mrs. Drysdale have signed their son over to Steve’s care and are saying their goodbyes.

Winnifred pulls him into a long hug, which Bucky tolerates with limp arms. “Be good,” Steve hears her say. “And remember how generous your stepfather’s being.”

“Forty grand a semester,” Ransom mutters on the way out, reminding Steve that money can’t buy class.

One of the school prefects is waiting out in the hall to act as escort, Rollins standing directly against the opposite side of the hallway in his security guard gear. Steve catches Bucky looking at the man like he’s gauging his chances of making a run for it, but luckily the boy relents and turns away from the door with a huff. Steve sees the parents out and then finally pushes the heavy office door closed.

The room is suddenly twenty times more silent than it was before, though not much has changed other than who’s occupying it.

Without turning to look at Bucky, Steve walks leisurely over to the office’s wall of windows. He waits there for a moment, until the Drysdales appear in the courtyard below. He watches placidly as they walk to their car and get in, heading off down the drive within the next few moments. Cragside is abutted by forest on every side but one, and soon the trees block the car from view, and there’s nothing more to see. Still, Steve remains standing there, looking out the windows at the grounds and letting the silence stretch out, the tension build, as the boy behind him stares his fill. (Steve is not unaware of what he looks like from the back in a tailored suit.)

Finally, he turns around. Bucky is still standing there in the middle of the room, looking rooted to the spot. He seems apprehensive now that it’s just the two of them, some of his earlier bravado leached away. But after a moment he seems to collect himself, and he winds up jutting his jaw out again.

Steve’s mouth quirks at that lingering bit of defiance. He always has enjoyed the process of breaking in a new student. “Alright, Honey,” he says softly. “That was fun back there. But now it’s time for the two of us to get properly acquainted, don’t you think?” He beckons him closer with a finger. “Come over here and let me have a look at you.”

Bucky doesn’t move, so Steve sighs and goes to him, fitting one hand to the front of his neck when he gets there. He holds him right underneath his jaw, pushing up to make Bucky look at him. Steve’s hand looks massive against the boy’s delicate throat, and he digs in with his thumb against the glands. Bucky lets out a sweet little gasp of sensitivity that Steve absolutely relishes. “You’re nervous,” he observes. He watches the fluttering of Bucky’s eyelids at his firm touch, his deep tone. Something between fondness and yearning flares in Steve’s belly, pleasurable and aching, like pressing on an old bruise. He ignores it, instead murmuring, “You’ve never had an Alpha, have you?”

Bucky’s eyes flick up to him. “I’m not a virgin,” he sneers. “I’ve fucked alphas before.”

Steve scoffs. “That’s not what I said.” He sees Bucky’s brow furrowing, so he cuts him off with a little scruff. “I said: you’ve never had an Alpha before.” He pulls against his jaw a little harder, watching the reaction it elicits in those angry blue eyes. “Don’t play coy with me, boy. Answer the question. You haven’t, have you?”

“No,” Bucky answers tightly. “I haven’t.”

Steve nods. He relaxes his hand some. “Then that means most of this is all going to be new to you. You’ve had a liberal education, a lax upbringing. A lot’s going to be asked of you while you’re here. There’ll be a lot you don’t know. You’ll make mistakes, you’ll struggle sometimes. And that’s okay. Rome wasn’t built in a day, now was it?” He strokes softly over the boy’s fluttering pulsepoint and Voices, “I do, however, expect you to be respectful and obedient. Do you understand?”

Bucky whimpers, though Steve isn’t being unkind. In fact he’s Voiced very softly to him just now, letting the dominant tone of it creep into the words he’s saying, letting it enrich them without hardening them, so that Bucky can really start to get a taste for it. The boy’s eyelids visibly flutter and his lips part as he starts to breathe open-mouthed. Then his tongue darts out to lick his lips as he tries to get a handle on himself. It’s cute.

Steve circles the pad of his thumb over his bonding gland. “Has anyone ever Voiced to you before, baby?”

Bucky nods. “Uh huh.”

“Yes, Alpha,” Steve gently corrects. “Who?”

“Who ... huh?”

Steve chuckles. “Aw, don’t go stupid on me yet, honey. I asked you: who’s Voiced to you before?”

“Oh. Just, um, just some … some guys … n’ a girl, from school. Hey,” he frowns, “M’not stupid.”

“Hush. You get worked up too easy. Just try and stay calm for me, yeah?” A thrill travels through Steve’s body as he watches Bucky’s lips part and his face slacken. He’s so easy for it. In his slacks, Steve’s cock pulses with interest. “Oh Sweetie,” he coos. “You don’t know what Voicing is, if you think one of your little classmates did it to you.”

Under his hand, Bucky shivers. “What?” he croaks.

It’s no wonder. If all he’s ever experienced are the best attempts of a few pubertal teenagers, then a grown ass man like Steve is bound to feel like a lot. It’s like giving a shot of hard liquor to a kid who’s never drank before. The poor thing has no tolerance. Steve guides him over to the couch, where he sits and encourages Bucky to kneel with a guiding hand pressing down on his shoulder. “There you go,” he praises as Bucky’s knees hit the floor, not missing how the boy’s brow furrows adorably at the change in positioning.

“I … I don’t …” He looks insulted and confused about how he arrived there, staring down at his knees on the carpet as if they’ve just betrayed him by folding so easily.

“It’s okay,” Steve soothes. “That’s normal. I know it can be a little unsettling at first, that won’t last. You’ll learn to enjoy it, embrace it, even. And it’s certainly nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Ashamed of … what?” Bucky asks, swallowing thickly when Steve touches his neck again. He jerks back, the Alpha’s hand left hovering in the air between them.

Steve sighs sadly and lets his hand drop. “Submission, Sweetheart. That urge to bare your neck? Going to your knees for me just now? It’s what made that feel right.” He watches the realization bloom on Bucky’s face and the fear leak into his eyes, the way he glances back down to his own body like he’s never seen it before. Steve makes sure to be gentle with him as he says, “It’s not a bad thing to give in when you get the urge. Your body craves it. Your brain thrives on it.”

“On what?” Bucky growls nastily. “Getting into blowjob position for my principal?”

Steve forces himself not to laugh and instead raises an eyebrow that he hopes looks threatening. “Thrives on submission,” he corrects. “It’s already in you, an innate reflex, but for whatever reason you’ve trained yourself out of it. You’ll have to relearn those behaviors.”

“What behaviors,” Bucky asks, “grovelling?”

Steve rolls his eyes. “Hardly. Things like humility, and subservience, thinking before you speak. Don’t worry, most of our matriculating students are out of practice at best, we know you need a lot of help. That’s why you get the staff, your teachers, me. And of course your Handler, who’s in charge of you completely.” He sees Bucky’s expression sour and sternly adds, “Completely, Bucky. When your Handler asks you to do something, it isn’t a request. If they tell you to kneel, or to sit on their lap, or even strip naked in front of them in a public space, then that’s what you do. That’s how it works here. And if you resist, you can count on punishment.” He watches as Bucky’s visage darkens, a storm of contempt gathering behind his eyes.

“Naked?” he says, scowling. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Shh,” Steve chides, trying to calm him with a pet to the head. Bucky hisses in rejection though, trying to jerk away, so Steve acts decisively. He grabs the back of his neck, scruffing him and forcing him in close. “Don’t fight, Bucky. Just calm down, rest your head down here.” Bucky grunts and pulls, but that only lasts a second before the Hold and Steve’s Voice make him go limp with a confused whimper. Steve hushes him and strokes his hair. “You’re okay … Take a deep breath ... There you go, good girl.” He waits. “… Now, I'm going to explain a few things for you. I want you to listen.”

Bucky grumbles unhappily from his spot between Steve’s legs, his cheek smooshed against the Alpha’s thigh muscle. “What punishments?” he growls.

“Hush.” Steve presses Bucky’s face against his leg and waits until he feels the next shudder of submission travel through his body. “Okay. Okay, good.” He inhales. “So, punishment. That can be lots of things. It can be spanking, or lines, or restraints at bedtime. It just depends on the situation and what your Handler feels is going to help you best in that specific situation. Often it’ll involve losing privileges of some sort; to your favorite activities or your clothing, or even bathroom privileges if you—”

“What?!”

Steve squeezes his neck again. “We can start right now if you need it,” he purrs, the threat coming through loud and clear despite his calm tone. He waits, and is pleased when Bucky offers no further bratting over the issue. “Okay, good.” He returns to petting him, fingers carding through his short, soft hair. There’s product in it, and Steve would bet money it’s blow-dried. He finds himself wanting to feel it in its natural state. “If you leave your hair alone after a shower,” he murmurs. “Does it dry curly?”

Bucky whines and squirms and completely ignores the question. “You just wanna humiliate me.”

“No, baby,” Steve tuts sadly. “That’s not it at all. I know it’ll seem that way sometimes, especially in the beginning. But this is all for you, I promise. To benefit you in the long run. To make you happy. Everything we do at this school is based on what the science has proven, okay? Evidence-based practice, that’s all. We wouldn’t use these methods if they didn’t work.”

“... what methods?” Bucky asks, voice tiny.

Steve hums and rubs behind his ear. “I’m sure a lot of it will seem old fashioned to you. It is old fashioned, or ‘traditional’ if you like. You met Sharon earlier, yes?” He waits for Bucky’s grunt of acknowledgement before he continues, “She’ll be your Handler. She’s personally assigned to you and nobody else, so she’ll be with you every day all day, almost everywhere you go.”

“Great,” Bucky complains

“It’s a good thing. She’s here to help you with your needs. Just think of her like … like a service animal, yeah? Just a tool to help you succeed.”

“Does she heel and sit?” Bucky mutters, and Steve laughs in surprise.

“No. The other way around, if anything. You have a schedule. You’ll attend the classes and activities that’re set out for you, and you’ll comport yourself with dignity and respect.”

“You assume I know how to do that,” Bucky grumbles, and Steve scoffs and scruffs him playfully,

“Don’t worry about if you don’t know certain things, Sharon will guide you. You’ll never be punished for not knowing something, Buck. Only for disrespect or disobedience.” He pauses for a moment, letting the information sink in. He pets Bucky’s hair and watches where the kid’s got his eyes closed tight. “Do you understand?” he asks, but Bucky doesn’t answer, not even after a few seconds, so Steve gives the back of his neck another firm squeeze. “You don’t have control anymore, Sweetheart. Not over anything. And far from upsetting you, that should make you feel relieved. By the time you leave here it will.”

Not shockingly, Bucky growls. It’s just a piddly little thing from high up in his throat—an omega’s weak attempt at a sound their bodies aren’t equipped to make—but the intent behind it is clear. He struggles to pull away, Steve Holding him and pushing his face against his thigh until it passes. “Shhh. Calm down. Stop pulling away from me.”

Bucky continues to fight it for a second or two, but eventually he breaks off in an angry little sob. “Lemme go,” he grunts, embarrassed. “What is that? What’re you doing?”

“Holding you,” Steve tells him calmly. “Another thing I suspect you’re completely virgin to.”

Bucky huffs and shivers against him. “Shuddup,” he sniffles. “That’s not true.”

“Mhm. Some more of your school buddies?” Steve guesses, unsurprised when the kid’s flaming face tells him that he’s got it pegged just about right. “I see,” he says sadly. “So it wasn’t what people made it sound like, right? It didn’t make you feel any better. Then you got disappointed and you thought: ‘that’s it?’”

“No …”

“Mmhm. And since it wasn’t good enough, you decided you wouldn’t bother behaving the way anybody said you should. You figured there’s something wrong with you, so what’s the point in trying? Might as well act out, get attention that way. Because at least then you’d be getting a response from people. Am I getting warm?”

“Lemme go,” Bucky mumbles miserably.

“I’d like to, Sweetheart. But I don’t want to let go if you’re not ready.” Steve maneuvers his hand so that his thumb can dig more directly into Bucky’s glands. The omega moans, though he obviously hears himself and tries to stifle the sound. It’s both sweet and pathetic, and it makes Steve wince in sympathy. “It’s okay to react,” he tells him quietly. “Do you know why it feels like that?”

He isn’t expecting an answer from the kid, and he doesn’t get one. Bucky just cringes and tries to hide as much of his face against Steve’s thigh as possible, holding back the sounds that obviously want to come and making a face like he’s trying with all his might not to pass gas.

Steve tuts in gentle reprimand. “They call them the ‘happy hormones’. Dopamine, Serotonin, Oxytocin, Omgestrin.” He lets up on the pressure of his Hold when the smell of omega arousal hits the air. Bucky exhales hugely and slumps against him, all the tension from holding back his vocalizations leaving him in a rush. Steve hums knowingly. “You’ll learn about the science behind it in your classes.”

“I have to go to class?” Bucky asks, sounding wiped out. “Today?”

“No baby. Today is just for getting you settled in.” Steve tilts his head as he considers him. “Do you think you’re ready to work with me, or do you still feel like you’re gonna act up if I let go?” He waits him out patiently, knowing that when it’s new and unfamiliar, the first response most omegas give to having all of their control stripped away is fear and discomfort. “It’s okay if you need time,” he offers. “We can stay here for a little while longer.”

Eventually, Bucky gives a strained little shake of the head, his flushed cheek moving against Steve’s pants leg. But it’s more the fact that he’s visibly thought about his answer before giving it that convinces Steve they might be okay to move forward.

“Okay, good,” he praises, letting up most of the pressure from the back of Bucky’s neck. He smiles in relief when the boy doesn’t pull away. “Very good, Honey. I can tell you’re trying, and I appreciate that. You’re doing okay.” Bucky makes an unhappy little sound in his throat, but it’s more privately grumpy than it is bratty, so Steve lets it pass. “You’re a smart boy,” he tells him, carding a hand through his hair. “I’ve seen your transcripts, so I know you’re very bright. Smart omega like you, I’m sure you’ve got an idea about what’s landed you here. Some clue about why you’re in my office right now instead of back home in Boston. Am I right?”

“... yes,” Bucky whispers, like he’s still recovering the ability to articulate.

“Mmhm. Thought so.” Steve pets his hair. “Think you can tell me a little bit about that?”

“... I get in trouble for things.”

“Yes. Your parents told me that.” Steve feels him start to tense at the mention of his parents. “I know you disagree with them on this. Hell, you probably disagree on most topics, right? You don’t want to be here, don’t think you need to be, and they think you do.” Bucky nods teresely and Steve hums. “Well don’t worry, I’m not going to make you lie and say you’re happy about being here. I know you’re not. But can we at least agree on one thing? That for whatever reason, and no matter where you think it stems from, you’ve been uncomfortable for a while?”

Against Steve’s leg, Bucky is tense. He gives a tiny nod. “Yeah,” he breathes.

“Okay. And could we maybe agree that the way you’ve acted hasn’t exactly gotten you where you wanted to be?”

Bucky scoffs. “Yeah. You could say that.”

Steve smiles sadly. “Okay. Okay, good. So that’s two things we can agree on. I bet I have your parents beat on that front, then, huh?” He scritches playfully behind the kid’s ear, but stills when it doesn’t elicit anything positive. “So, why do you think that is, Bucky? Why do you think you’ve had these issues?”

“Dunno,” he pouts. “I don’t think about it that much.”

“Well why do you think a judge agreed that your parents should have custody of you for an extra two years?” Steve asks. “Would you say you do things impulsively?”

Bucky shrugs. “I guess.”

“Hm. That doesn’t surprise me. I’ve met a lot of boys like you. Even helped a few of them, if you can believe it.”

Bucky grumbles at that, shifting restlessly on his knees. “You don’t know me,” he mutters. He tucks his face farther down, and then Steve catches the angry little “... this is bullshit” that he whispers under his breath.

Steve pulls his hand away abruptly and widens his legs so that no part of him is touching Bucky. The omega sways in place and makes a fragile noise of surprise. He looks up at Steve and blinks, looking bereft. Poor thing hadn’t even realized he was taking such comfort from the contact until it was gone.

“Stand up,” Steve says sharply, using his Voice and the abrupt switch in tone to catch the boy off guard. Bucky obeys without even thinking about it, rising to his feet in front of Steve with a light frown, once again looking like he can’t quite understand why he’s obeying Steve’s commands. Steve nods at him. “Good. Now take off all your clothes.”

“What?”

He prevents a tantrum by reaching forward himself and undoing Bucky’s belt. “Your clothes,” he repeats. “Take them off and show me your body, right now.” He plays on the boy’s pride by tacking on a scornful, “What? I thought you said you weren’t some shy virgin. Gotta get over that embarrassment real fast, Little one.”

It works like a charm, Bucky’s countenance screwing up in anger before it smooths out again with false bravado. He squares his shoulders and makes direct eye contact with Steve as he toes off his shoes and finishes undoing his pants. He pushes them down and kicks them off to the side, then pulls his sweater hurriedly overhead. He stares at Steve once it’s off, and he probably thinks he’s acting so big and brave, but Steve sees him for exactly what he is: a scared little boy who doesn’t think he can depend on anybody else.

“Panties too, Sweetheart,” Steve prods, and when Bucky can’t seem to bring himself to do it, he leans forward to help. He gently pulls the omega’s underwear down, easing the waistband past his genitals and down his thighs. He encourages him with gentle touches to step out, and then Bucky winds up holding onto his shoulders for balance as he helps him step out of the socks, one foot at a time. By the time Steve’s sitting back on the couch to have a good look at him, Bucky’s standing before him completely naked.

Steve’s eyes track down to where he holds his arms ramrod straight at his sides, hands curled into tight little fists in an obvious effort not to cover himself. “Good girl,” Steve praises. “That was very good. Thank you.” He lets his eyes rake obviously up and down Bucky’s body, enjoying the sight of him, but more importantly letting Bucky see that he’s enjoying the sight of him. “You’re just lovely,” he tells him. On the Persian carpet, Bucky’s feet shuffle, shifting his weight in disquiet. “Shhh,” Steve chides softly. “Be still now, Honey. Let me look.”

The looking is, of course, not so much for Steve’s benefit as it is for Bucky’s. Steve’s already seen pictures and medical charts detailing every square inch of the omega’s body. This is about giving Bucky a taste of what it truly means to be vulnerable. He needs to feel seen, exposed, before he can ever truly learn to give in to his submissive urges. And he needs to learn to trust. Trust that the person caring for him won’t hurt him or let him down after he’s made himself vulnerable. It’s something that can only be gained through moments like this; experiences where he shows his metaphorical belly and bears his metaphorical neck. The more he learns to do that, the easier it’ll be to give in to what his body needs.

“Turn around and face the other way,” Steve says quietly, though still using his Voice to help him along in these first few moments of nakedness. Bucky obeys, turning, and Steve makes sure to rumble low in his chest for the boy to hear his approval. “Good girl,” he praises.

“M’not a girl,” Bucky grumbles, annoyed.

Steve tuts. “Come on, Buck. I’ve got two masters degrees and a Ph.D. And I just saw your little cocklet, didn’t I?”

“... yeah,” Bucky admits, though he also sullenly repeats: “M’not a girl,” under his breath.

“It’s a term of affection,” Steve scolds, eyes raking over the omega’s pert little backside. “Now be a good girl and stand still while Alpha looks at you.”

Bucky’s buttocks tense, the sides flexing gorgeously in response to the domination of being called a “good girl” all over again. That flex of muscles is involuntary, and a dead giveaway that if Steve were to grab his cheeks and spread them right now, he’d probably find his little hole clenching and releasing, too. In his slacks, Steve’s cock thickens with renewed interest. Bucky starts to whine almost subvocally. He shuffles his weight on his feet again, and the motion causes the room’s light to catch on a faint sheen. It’s a small amount, but it’s there. Right by his taint and the swell of his little sac, he’s got some slick smeared on his inner thighs.

Steve has to take a deep breath and give his dick a cruel pinch while he’s still got Bucky facing the other way. “Good,” he murmurs, letting a few more seconds tick by. “Very good.”

Bucky’s ass keeps flexing, muscles tensed and his hands still clenched up into tight little balls at his sides. “Can I move?” he grits.

“Not yet. Be still.”

Steve knows what’s going on in the kid’s mind and body right now. Most people watching Bucky would only recognize the anger, or the fear. It is those things, to an extent, but that’s not all it is. Even without that tantalizing little smear of slick, Steve would know, because can detect the deeper scent of satisfied omega. Bucky’s responding well to the orders and directions, miniscule as they are.

“Nobody wants to bully you here, honey,” Steve tells him gently. “It might feel like that at first. I bet that’s how you feel right now. I know you’re not used to such a … traditional pedagogy. But I want you to know I’m not doing this to be mean. Nothing that happens to you during your time here is done just to humiliate or demean you. It might make you feel that way at first, but in the end you’ll see that this is about helping you.”

Bucky’s facing the other side of the room, but Steve still hears the disbelieving scoff he gives. “I don’t feel like this is helping,” he says, tacking on a sarcastic “Sir” at the end.

Steve calmly leans forward and flicks the boy’s sac. Bucky yelps and all but jumps out of his skin, looking back over his shoulder with wide eyes and an outraged scoff. “Hey!”

“Hush. Turn back around and stand still.” Steve raises an eyebrow. “Unless you’d like another?” It’s almost amusing, how fast Bucky’s lips seal themselves into a thin line and he shakes his head with wide eyes. He turns around as ordered, and Steve softens. “Look,” he says gently. “I’ve been doing this for a long time now, and I’ve helped a lot of boys like you, okay?

“You think you have,” Bucky counters mutinously, shoulders tensing a second later as he anticipates having his balls flicked again for brattiness.

The only reason Steve doesn’t do so, is because this is a point worth addressing. “No, Baby,” he counters sadly. “It works. It really does. This isn't just an Alpha’s ego talking, or whatever you may think it is. I haven’t been Headmaster at this school for almost two decades for nothing. Trust me, we produce the desired results.”

“... whose, though?”

“Excuse me?”

Bucky shifts nervously. “Whose? Desired results?”

Steve has got to smirk at Bucky’s backside, at that one. Even cowed, it’s clear this boy is going to be a challenge. “Let’s just put it this way,” he drawls. “If my methods here didn’t produce well-behaved omegas, parents wouldn’t still be sending me their children to educate at sixty-grand a semester. And if that doesn’t carry weight in your book, then think of this: If my methods didn’t produce happy, grateful omegas, then all of my omega alumnus wouldn’t still be donating millions of their own dollars back to their alma mater each year, now would they?”

He can see from the way that Bucky’s posture slackens, then stiffens, then slackens all over again, that the boy can’t come up with a counter argument to that one. “Good,” Steve says with finality. “Remember that. I really do mean it, Bucky. I want you to take it to heart when I tell you that everything that happens while you're here is for you. To make you happy and healthy.” He can practically hear Bucky’s brain working up there, and sure enough it only takes a moment or two more of bare-assed vulnerability before the omega is snottily asking,

“Any other advice, Headmaster?”

“Oh sure,” Steve says cheerfully. “For example, I’d definitely advise you to try and reign in your attitude while you’re here. You and your ass will have a much easier time of it, if you do.” He’s laying it on heavy right now, but he’s had plenty of students like Bucky, and he’s always found that it’s best to come in hard and fast with the dominance, take them by surprise and play to their bodies’ own instincts before they can gather too much of a defense. Still, he switches to speaking in his most gentle and reassuring Voice as he tells him, “You’re handling this well, Bucky. I’m pleased with you so far.” He gives it another long moment, and then he murmurs, “Okay, Honey. You can turn back around now. Face me.”

Bucky turns slowly, one foot at a time, shifting on the carpet until he’s made a full turn. Steve isn’t surprised to see his little cocklet at half mast. He smiles gently to let him know it’s okay. “I expected that,” he tells him. “Did you know that it’s normal for your body to react that way?” He waits, but Bucky gives no answer. He’s glaring at the floor and quite obviously clenching his teeth. Steve hums. “You’re probably pissed at me right now, yeah?”

“Yes.”

Steve chuckles. “I appreciate your honesty, Bucky,” he teases. “And I know you’re pissed. It’s obvious. I’d be surprised if you weren’t.” He pauses, waiting until Bucky’s eyes flick up to him before he pointedly looks at the boy’s penis. “But you’re also aroused. Why do you think that is?” Bucky’s lips tighten into a thin, unanswering line, and Steve sits forward on the couch cushion. “C’mere.” He spreads his legs wider and pats his knee. “Step closer to me,” he Voices, and that time Bucky does listen and come closer, despite the attitudinal little huff he gives. Steve stills him with hands on his hips. “Don’t be embarrassed,” he says, before reaching to take him in hand.

Bucky gasps, his stomach sucking in and his body tensing up like he’ll pull away. Steve’s palm makes a loud ‘clap!’ as he delivers a quick smack to the side of his ass. “Be still.”

“... what’re you gonna do?” Bucky squeaks.

“I’m going to touch your genitals,” Steve tells him calmly. “And you’re going to hold still, unless you want to earn your first spanking.” He looks up at him, meeting those wide eyes with a calm nod. “I’ll put you over my knee right now if you need it,” he promises. Then he raises an eyebrow. “Do you need it, boy?”

Bucky’s face screws up, and Steve is honestly surprised when he controls himself enough that the only thing out of his mouth is a terse, “No.”

Steve smacks him again. “‘No Alpha’. Let me hear you say it.”

Jaw working in frustration, Bucky acquiesces with a gritted, “No, Alpha.”

Steve gives him a few seconds more of the warning look, just to make sure that he knows he’ll make good on the threat if he needs to. “Good,” he says, looking back between Bucky’s legs. “You know,” he muses, as he takes his time admiring the omega’s little prick. “This school isn’t just a place for academic learning. We teach all the classics, of course, but that’s probably the least important part of our curriculum. There are a lot of other things to learn: Manners, etiquette, self-care … and how to listen to your own body, how to understand what it’s trying to tell you, how to interpret the things you feel.” He cups his hand over Bucky’s cocklet and balls, holding them delicately in his palm. “I’ve barely touched you, yet you’re harder now than you were even thirty seconds ago. Do you know why?”

Above, Bucky gulps. “... fear boner,” he whispers, and when Steve snorts at that, he pouts and asserts, “It’s a thing.”

Steve smiles. “That’s cute, but no.” Gently, he takes Bucky’s stiff little prick in hand and plays with the wrinkle of foreskin that’s bunched at the tip. “Omegas are less than four percent of the population,” he murmurs. “And alphas not even double that. Which means, that despite your natural inclinations, you wind up spending most of your time around a bunch of betas. Of course it wouldn’t have been that way historically. Those things used to be arranged, but in modern society it has unfortunately become all too common.” He peeks upwards, pleased to see that Bucky’s staring down at him with parted lips and flushed cheeks.

“S-so?” he breathes.

“So, right now you’re in a room with an adult alpha male who’s touching you, and talking to you, and dominating you. And you’re biologically geared to respond to those things, especially when you haven’t had much regular exposure to alphas. That just increases your sensitivity. So that when I use my Voice, when you smell my scent, or when you see my big hand covering your tiny sex …” he cups him fully between his legs again and gives a little jostle “It’s all hardwired into your brain as positive, pleasurable. Your body likes it, seeks out more of it. That’s why you’re even getting a little wet right now.”

Bucky bristles in defense, “I’m not—”

“Shh. You don’t have to do that, honey. I already know.” Steve holds his prick and eases the foreskin down, revealing the delicate pink tip of him with an approving hum. “Mmhm. There it is. Look at that sweet little nubbin.”

Bucky all but stumbles into him, whispering a breathless, “Alpha …”

“That’s right. Good girl.” Steve steadies him with a chuckle. “You’re okay. Don’t lock your knees, honey. See what happens?” He trails a fingertip over the adorable little line of Bucky’s erection, eliciting another whimper from the boy. “It’s okay for you to call me that. I am your Alpha while you’re under custody here, and you may not think you care about that, but your body does. So even though you’re feeling all these other kinds of other emotions right now—anger, fear, embarrassment; your mind and body are still going to fight you on it. They’re gonna prioritize and respond to what you need, and if you don’t change your behavior to reflect those same priorities, then the only outcome you’re gonna get is dysfunction and illness.”

“I’m not,” Bucky says weakly, brow furrowed. “M’not dysfunctive.”

Steve smiles sadly. “Well first off, that’s not a word, baby.” He pulls on Bucky’s hips and leans back further into the couch, urging the boy to come down to sit on his lap. When he does, Syteve cups his chin and pecks him gently on the lips. It’s the most chaste kiss to ever exist, but the boy is still blushing when Steve pulls back enough to see his cheeks. Steve wraps an arm around his waist to draw him in against his larger body. “Now Bucky, I’m going to ask you something, and you don’t have to answer right away. I want you to take time to really think about it. And when you’re ready, you tell me.”

The boy’s looking up at him with wide, confused eyes that pluck at Steve’s heart, and Steve swipes his thumb just under his plush lower lip. “When’s the last time you were happy?” he asks quietly. Bucky’s expression instantly screws up, but Steve hushes him. “I don’t mean just happy from having fun in the moment, or from a specific thing that happened. I mean ‘happy’ as in content, consistently and thoroughly. When’s the last time you can remember when you felt truly settled in your skin?”

Bucky frowns. “I …”

“Shh. Remember what I said. Not right now. You just think on it.” Steve offers him a tender look and squeezes his chin. “You think you can do that for me?”

“... okay,” Bucky whispers.

Steve smiles. “Good girl.” He claps his hand on Bucky’s leg. “In the meantime, we’ve got quite a few things we have to do to get you set up: administrative and practical. Are you ready to see your room, get your uniform, a tour of the grounds, all that good stuff?”

Bucky nods, looking almost faint in relief—likely at hearing that he’s going to be given clothing. “Yes,” he breathes eagerly. “Please.”

Steve chuckles and pats his waist. “Thought you might say that. Alright boy, get up. We’ve got a lot to do.”

This story is an ongoing commission for an amazing supporter who wishes to remain anonymous. If you have a story that you'd like to see custom written, send me a message on Tumblr or reach out on my Kofi.

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llycaons · 6 months ago

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You are getting eaten uppp on the AO3 sub for that fic anti-rec list jsyk. Probably because it’s incredibly weird and mean behavior. Be blessed

No one “hates you” but someone posted your anti-rec list thing on the AO3 sub and people are (rightfully) saying it’s a weird thing to do that shows zero awareness of fic etiquette or like, being a normal person. Just strange. Like you want people to trigger tag *fruit* but are comfortable saying all this shit about authors (not just the fics themselves… the regular-ass people who write them)… weird and strange behavior

I was so excited to receive this ask until it was clarified that nobody actually hates me :( exciting news either way. is this reddit? were you on the ao3 REDDIT? good fucking luck on there anon I cannot imagine subjecting myself to that. also it's not a trigger tag and it's really bizarre that you bring that up at all when it has absolutely nothing to do with the actual conversation here

let's start. you're placing a heavy amount of moral weight on 'weirdness' while (I think?) also recognizing that it's inherently an amoral quality. and it is - but that criticism doesn't really mean anything to me. I've never been a 'normal person,' and idk what you mean by that. normal by who's standards? people who frequent ao3? let's say I am an out-of-touch meanie who doesn't understand 'fic etiquette'. based on the fact that it's ao3 fans, I can only assume it's people who are cool with ao3 hosting slave AUs and explicit child/adult content. and I'm really going to pretend like I care about their standards of conduct? oh no, the people who say 'your kink isn't my kink' about rape porn think I'm being mean to them! whatever shall I do! trust ao3 fans to consider legitimate critique a breach of etiquette but not...idk, incest porn. sure, I'm making assumptions but I am well-acquainted with the culture of that site lmao so am I wrong?

like, the meat of this ask is just so hung up on 'normality', which is not a very useful metric for moral behavior or critique and I'm not sure what you want me to do with it. I do many harmless abnormal things, and there are many 'normal' things that cause great harm. like, what does a normal person do according to ao3 fans? do they read cp? do you consider that normal behavior? is that harmless? does reading cp, or turning a blind eye to it, adhere to this precious fic etiquette? should I conform? should I be polite and sit quietly while the community I'm in runs wild with abuse apologism and bioessentialist nonsense? I recognize this is not what your ask was about, but you're asking me to compare my behavior to what ao3 fans think is acceptable, and I went through the entire tag last year so I KNOW what kind of things they like. I just don't think I can extend the benefit of the doubt to this place I've never heard of until today but which sounds a bleak and wretched place

anyway I am autistic and I don't mind being weird, and idk why you're so fixated on that as a value judgement or a way to shame me. you have to understand how little I value the moral standards of the average ao3 fan or the 'normal' signifier.

on to your next grievance - my critiques of the authors as people. I just read through my entire list and I am extremely specific and detailed about why I hated those works, going into poor characterization and soulless, boring writing. I specify if the works are confusing, infantalizing, bioessentialist, out of character, nonsensical, overwrought, passionless, disrespectful, insensitive, boring, poorly researched, misogynistic. is it really unfair to extrapolate from racist writing or an unwillingness to self-educate that the writer has racist ideas, and that might bleed out into their behavior and actions in the real world? that someone who writes an AU that doesn't make sense for the character didn't understand the characters' journey? that someone who writes a nonsensical story doesn't know what they're doing? that's just drawing conclusions based on what the writers themselves have already posted. that's entirely within the scope of a reader and any argument to the contrary is both absolutely absurd and an insult to the intelligence of literally any reader, of anything

but on that page I barely talk about the people who wrote them. except for the author who was white? because I know she's white, I looked her up and I think her writing of Chinese characters is really awkward and bad. I've also called a few writers racist idiots, but their fics were really poorly written, and the other one got mad when being corrected on cultural inaccuracies, so I mean. is that a stretch? like, maybe, but it is really unfair? I think no. it's not even that personal of an attack. but by and large I don't even care about the authors, and I don't know why you're getting so defensive of them when I'm simply judging their work and not them as people.

no matter how much of a fun hobby anyone claims fanfic is, it's not a form of media uniquely exempt from criticism. and I don't think it's healthy for any writers to take criticism of their work so personally. that's something for them to take responsibility for if they're going to post their stuff on the internet, and by extension readers need to be okay with that too.

also I gave them all gold stars...ao3 girlies can't appreciate a passionate and thoughtful critique smh.

back to my tag request, which is something that makes my personal blog usable for me - trying to act like an unusual tag request is the same as making assumptions about people based on what they write and post publicly is both unfair and really shitty of you, anon. is my 'weird' request really as bad as calling someone a misogynist for writing something sexist? I DO judge people for what they decide to publicly put into the world, and rightfully so. people have a responsibility for their creations. meanwhile there is absolutely no reason to judge me for my tagging requests no matter how strange they seem to you, because they're absolutely harmless. this isn't hypocrisy and I don't understand why you seem to think it is.

and I don't go out of my way to be an asshole - if someone's first language isn't english or if they're clearly not an experienced writer, I'm not going to be a dick about it. I mean, I try. I barely have over 100 followers. the anti-rec page is hard to get to, and notposted anywhere but my blog. I have never harassed anyone, or encouraged harassment. I don't even comment negative reviews. I purposefully didn't tags the recs when they were posts because I didn't want people finding them, and I don't even talk about my interests on other websites, much less spread my rec list around. this is purely a personal project I did for fun while under one of the most stressful times of my life to share with my online friends, and I don't regret it. I had a blast. this is nothing I wouldn't post on my blog or talk about with my friends anyway. I don't mind being criticized for it, since it's public too. I just don't feel bad about it either nor do I feel like apologizing or taking down the page.

so yeah idk what you expected from me but I don't really give a shit that a bunch of fanfic readers are mad at me for having standards. you (general you) simply cannot expect to publish something on a public website with a massive fandom and then whine when a random stranger on the internet dares criticizes you. one of these writers is a published author! if she's one of the people upset - learn to take some criticism! maybe it'll improve her writing! and I'm hardly posting on the front page of a major website here, I don't even know how that sub found my list because I don't really post about it on here either unless specifically asked about it

anyway this ask got me to go back and read that page again and I had such a good time revisiting it that I'm linking it. so hi everyone read my anti-rec list it's genuinely so funny and I'm very proud of it and it's actually quite well-thought out so yeah i'm not ashamed or embarrassed but thanks for letting me know as this is kind of fun news and brightened up the day

ALSO I feel like there's so much focus on the anti-rec page when I have a lovingly crafted and THEMED rec list right there split into equal sections, all carefully and appropriately titled with summaries, ratings, trigger warnings...I'm very proud of my rec list most of all. in fact, the anti-rec list was the wild child I tacked on at the end for a laugh when I really needed to complain

bascially tho I'm a complete stranger who put like six fanfics on a list and talked about them because I didn't like them so idk why everyone's freaking out. well knowing ao3's allergies to the slightest criticism I guess I do know why, but it IS deeply unserious. anon. pretend I'm looking you right in the eye. you know this. I don't need to be blessed. it is deeply unserious. it's going to be fine.

#well that was fun #but as my beloved mutual said. WHO CARESSS #I say this after writing like 15 paragraphs. but that's just bc I like to get the last word in #Anonymous #asks #incest tw #rape tw #csa tw

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harbingrs · 22 hours ago

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so yeah anyone who tells me to 'get therapy' is simply outing themselves as my mortal enemy. if you think my posts are 'save it for therapy' posts you don't have to read them.

I genuinely could not care less what anyone thinks 'cause the solution is that simple. are you gonna walk into someone's house and pick up their diary and read it and accuse them of 'trauma dumping'. 'cause this is my house and you're in it.

it's absolutely some heavy shit. appropriately tagged heavy shit, even. and if it was an actual conversation it would be a little wacko for me to go full monologue about my trauma history.

but this is not an actual conversation and that means there's no unwilling audience who's having their emotional labor exploited or whatever out-of-context shit people say when they're using words like 'trauma dumping'. nobody is being held hostage here and you can literally just do something (anything) else.

like I'm sorry you're gonna have to manage your own selective attention. if that's hard for you I can let you know what medication works for me. but don't come in here and read my diary (or my autobiography, even) and then be like 'why are you subjecting me - personally - to this experience. the tags scream 'dead dove do not eat' but you sure done did eat it anyway. would you like to be compensated for your emotional labor. do you accept PayPal

#posts #do we need a did is did-ing tag #to account for the drastic personality change #maybe we are simply experiencing personal growth #(we say while saying 'we')#it's not a phase mom this is who I really am #<- should that be the did tag?

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devotion-that-corrupts · 1 year ago

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10 Characters / 10 Fandoms / 10 Tags

pick 10 characters from 10 fandoms and tag 10 people. thank you for tagging me @ithinkthiswasabadidea :)

apparently you don't have to comment on them. HOWEVER, i love talking about my interests, and you've given me an excuse to do it, so let's go!

(not in any particular order, i love them all.)

constantin d'orsay (greedfall) baby boy. has done nothing wrong ever in his entire life. seeing him activates my knight instinct. i would fight lord and lady d'orsay for him. i would fight the high king guy for him. i would fight god for him. if he is wrong i would reshape reality to make him right. all of this to say, i love him a normal amount.

viego (league of legends / ruination / runeterra) if i had a nickel for every time a character i love was born a second son of a ruler and so was never intended to lead, yet became an heir after his brother's death, was supposed to die because of poison, had only one person he cared about deeply, in something between eternal love and obsession caused immense destruction for the sake of that person (who has never asked for any of this), had some sort of transformation during which his hair turned from fair/blond to platinum, his eye color changed, and there appeared some weird magic-related thing on his head symbolizing his becoming a villain (or, rather, making it clear that he was wrong all along), then i'd have two nickels. which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice. ok, now for a more normal explanation. bringing your kingdom & then entire realm to ruin for your wife? in grief, in hopeless attempt to revive her? i love this! i love it when love turns people evil.

camilla hect (the locked tomb) i don't have coherent thoughts about her. i simply adore her with my whole heart. here's to camilla hect, yet another of devotion's casualties!!!

gale dekarios aka gale of waterdeep (baldur's gate 3) i will kill mystra.

gabrielle de lioncourt (the vampire chronicles) there is much to analyze about her background and her relationships, esp with lestat, and i am most definitely unfit for this. let me just say that if i were a vampire, i would also ditch humanity and explore some jungle instead. and probably wear men's clothes.

millions knives (trigun) unhinged codependent siblings… <3

fang runin (the poppy war) my darling girl who fell in love with the war, and nobody told her it ended. i think she should get to burn the world down, as a treat.

breezepelt (warrior cats) i am including him because he is my og blorbo. 10-year old me really looked at the worst guy ever and said yeah that's the one. my love for writing about dysfunctional families and defying religion could probably be traced back to him.

constance blackwood (we have always lived in the castle) i NEED to teleport into the world of this book and ask constance her perspective. because she knew it, i mean, she knew what must have actually happened the whole time. i wonder what she felt after the accident, and if/how her view changed since then. i wonder what she thought of her parents, and of merricat, and of the life they came to lead. we get some of it from the dialogue and interactions ofc, but it doesn't stop me from contemplating all of this.

august (the wicker king) guard dog of a boy. 'I like following him. Following orders. Doing whatever he wants.' 'I’m always going to want to be at your heels, fighting for you. Hurting myself because you tell me to.' i hope belonging to someone else brings him peace.

anyways, i had to open the book to find these quotes, and now i want to reread it all over again. let me just tag some mutuals and then i'm gonna go read.

(no pressure!) (also you don't have to elaborate on them) @kuramirocket @grin-unsettling @boygirltwins @fairylightfairlybright @drizzit @msnormandy @darkvisionvamp @gardenbastard @cjflint @pups-2-dust & anyone else who wants to :)

#i don't usually write long posts on tumblr so i'm not sure if the formatting is readable #jay talks #tag games

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snurtle · 11 months ago

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#or some of u are bad ppl and often project it in your fantasies and writing#its disingenuous to pretend fiction and reality are always completely unrelated

huh? huh? leaving these tags on a post i reblogged about how people treat their barbie dolls fictional characters is infuriating to me.

like. no! no? no! thought crimes aren't real, people are just people, and there's no good or bad about it.

nobody is saying fiction and reality are unrelated; they're just not related in the way people who wring their hands about "bad people" seem to think they are.

who cares about internet rando writing beginner fanfiction about niche anime #4582 ? (that post was specifically about fandom and shipping, so let's not overly inflate the scope of what it was talking about. ) pretending someone doing fandom things is working towards some malevolent greater purpose is, most of the time, making up a guy to be mad at. the other 20% it's trolls, and they get bored and go away. calling that minority of shitheads bad isn't going to do anything to them. they'll laugh. and that post wasn't for them, anyway. it was for the internet randos paralyzed by fear that they're going to be harassed into dust for knocking two action figures together in a way somebody else didn't like. that's literally what it is.

like. who. really. cares. if there are kinks and badly written social dynamics and whatever other thing. it's writing. it's not even being sponsored by anybody. it's just some dude. what's calling them bad going to do?

what even is "bad" anyway. who are "bad ppl" . can you clearly delineate those people from your friends and family? from your community? is it separate from demographics or do certain groups get a pass? is it just people who write things you find distasteful, or can you point to material harm it's caused? can you prove that it's only caused harm, and never helped anyone? do certain cases not count? why?

every single one of those rhetorical questions is going to have edge cases and maybes and i'm not sures, and none of it is going to be simple.

i'm going to ignore my own fandom limitation for a second. i want you to read giovanni's room and try to tell me if the author was a "bad person" or not. go for it.

bad people. 🙄

#just do it where i cant see you because i've already blocked you #shithead.#you can make anything bad if you sandblast enough context off of it.#conservatives do that shit all the time!#see? i did it there too just now.#text it #every. single person. is going to be engaging with fiction from a different point in their life.#only a sith deals in absolutes etc etc.#long post

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little-peril-stories · 1 year ago

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Whumptober 2023: Are You Nobody, Too?

So these tags happened in June:

Okay. Like, I know not everything needs to be explained in a story. Sometimes, things can just happen. But once an idea gets into my head, it's very hard to let go. So, here's Where She Learned To Do That.

(It's so long omg I'm so sorry in advance please forgive me.)

Whumptober 2023 Masterlist

Warnings: angst, blood (only a little), traumatic memories

Chapter 46 | Chapter 49 | Box in Your Heart | TPOT Masterlist | Finale Part 1

Word count: 6500 || Approx reading time: 26 mins

Are You Nobody, Too?

Teaser: “Can I help you?” He looks me over with a vaguely confused and slightly appraising look. As his gaze travels, I remember what Stella said about him being a bad apple. More important, though, is the thing she said about him starting fights. “I think you might.”

“Oh. Look who’s back.”

I glance up from the gravy stain I’m scrubbing from the front of my apron, wondering what has lent the vaguely sarcastic, displeased quality to Stella’s voice. Not that it’s that different from how she usually sounds, but there’s a touch more disdain there. Even though I’m not sure if she’s actually talking to me or if she expects a response, I ask, “Who?”

Victoria, next to me, looks around at the empty dining room. “Um…”

“Not in here,” says Stella impatiently. “Out there.” She jerks her head toward the window, where the sun is shining brightly despite the chill that’s creeping in—hinting at the looming autumn, heralding the end of summer, turning the leaves from brilliant green to yellow.

Celeste, hearing the tone, joins us. “Oh, that Bailey boy.”

“Oh,” Victoria says. She sounds disapproving, as I guess she’s supposed to, but maybe I’m the only one who notices her cheeks turn a little pink.

“Who?” I think sometimes they forget I’m not from around here, and that Bailey boy means nothing to me, and it certainly won’t bring out the shocked-and-appalled reaction Stella is clearly looking for.

Curiosity gets the better of me, and I steal a glance outside. All I can see of the man in question is a set of long legs, a relaxed, loping gait, and a head of golden curls. Nothing questionable that I can see, certainly nothing to put such disdain into Stella’s voice.

When I look back at her, she’s frowning. “If you don’t know him, Lucy, consider yourself fortunate. A bad apple, that one.”

Chuckling, Celeste murmurs, “Oh, Stella, he’s not so bad.”

I duck my head slightly, glad of my long sleeves, and wonder if Stella knows how skilled she really is at picking out rotten apples from the ripe ones. “Oh, I see.”

Victoria gives me a half-warning, half-amused look. I know what you’re doing.

And it works, too, because after a few long minutes of making Stella wait for me to ask about whatever gossip—and unsolicited advice—she obviously wants to share, she launches right into it. “He goes away in the spring and summer, that boy, off working who-knows-where, and I think we can all agree it’s hardly likely to be honest work, but he comes back when the weather turns cold.” She screws up her face. “I’ve thrown him out of here for starting fights more times than I can count, and he’s…well, he’s quite the Romeo—it’s no secret—more lecherous than I’ve ever seen or care to see again. Stay away.” She spins to face Victoria. “Isn’t that right?”

“Of course,” Victoria squeaks, her cheeks flushing fully. I swear Celeste, who has a far more palatable sense of humour than Stella does, is about to burst into a laugh.

So am I, but I keep it together. After all, I’ve only been here since the spring, not even a year, and I don’t want to ruffle Stella’s feathers too much. She’s the one who pays me every week, after all.

“You’re going to have to use soap on that apron,” Celeste says lightly, watching me struggle, “or it’s never going to come out.”

I nod, resigned to the fact that she’s probably right, but really only half-listening, anyway. Something Stella said is sticking in my brain, and it’s not the thing about staying away from That Bailey Boy.

***

I sit on it for days, obviously, because the very thought of putting my idea into action makes me break out in a cold sweat, and it’s easier to keep working my ass off and stay on Stella’s good side. I don’t even bring him up again, mostly because I don’t see him, and I have a feeling that if I get Victoria on the subject, she’s either going to talk my ear off about whatever happened between her and That Bailey Boy or get annoyed at me for prying, and I don’t have the energy for either.

But one day he’s just out in front of some house near the outskirts of town, chopping wood. It’s the sound, the thwack and crack of splitting logs that draws my attention first, then the bright sunny hair, and I recognize who I’m looking at.

I don’t realize I’ve stopped until he halts what he’s doing and says, “Uh…hello?”

And I suppose I have little choice but to say, “Hello,” and I guess my idea is now a plan.

“Can I help you?” He looks me over with a vaguely confused and slightly appraising look. As his gaze travels, I remember what Stella said about him being a bad apple.

More important, though, is the thing she said about him starting fights. “I think you might.”

He frowns and stands up straight, leaving his axe in the chopping block. “And how’s that?”

Before I can lose my nerve, and before I can think things through, I say, “I hear you like to fight.”

Fuck, what a way to begin.

Luckily, his mouth twists into a barely stifled laugh. “You’ve been talking to that old bag who runs the inn.”

“So?” Why am I so nervous? I’ve seen what a real bad apple looks like. This guy’s nothing.

Leaning against the handle, he tips his head to the side. “Who the hell are you, anyway? Never seen you around here before.”

“I’m Lucy.” I rush the name, throw it out before I can fuck up and say the real thing. “I want you to teach me to fight.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Why the hell would you need to learn how to fight?”

“I just do.”

In case anyone ever tries to hurt me again.

In case Constable Baden Hatchett ever finds me, and I have to choose to fight or die.

“I don’t know, Miss. I got enough trouble as it is.” There’s something off about the way he says it—like he doesn’t really believe his own words. Like he’s still fighting back a laugh. “But I sure appreciate you thinking of me. Even though we’ve never met before now.”

A smirk that feels familiar even though I’ve never seen it before slips over his face.

“I’ll pay you for the lessons.” I almost say, I can make it worth your while, but at the last second, I realize that is open to far too many interpretations. “It’ll be a business arrangement.”

“Girls don’t fight,” he says pointedly, and now it’s me who’s smirking.

“They do,” I say, “and they can get damn good at it if someone teaches them how to do it right.” Girls do fucking fight, and if they did it even more, they might have fewer worries and fewer scars. “I want to learn how to protect myself.”

He stands up straight again, resting his hand on the axe handle. He sweeps another curious gaze from my face to my feet. “And you’re asking me?” I nod. “What’d you say your name was again?”

“Lucy.”

“Why you wanna defend yourself, Lucy? Who’re you afraid of?”

Clenching my jaw, I say, “I’d just feel safer if I knew how to protect myself, that’s all. Just in case.”

Back down goes his head, tipping to the side. “Well. Guess it’s the gentlemanly thing to do, saying yes.”

“Just lessons.” I don’t know if he needs the reiteration, but Stella’s warning is ringing in my head now that I’ve gone and done exactly what she said not to do. “Fighting. Self-defence. That’s all.”

“You really gonna pay up?” Up, down. The gaze flicks over me again.

What else can I do but nod? I don’t want to give up part of my wages to this stranger who I’ve been explicitly told to avoid. But who else would have even listened to my request?

“All right then, Lucy.” He extends a brown, calloused hand. “Henry Bailey.”

“Pleased to meet you, Henry.” I wonder if he can tell how nervous I still am.

“It’s gonna be a pleasure doing business with you, I’m sure.” He cracks another smile. It’s handsome, and I hate it, because it’s not even malicious. Sly, perhaps, and undeniably bemused. But there’s no cruelty or debauchery in his gaze.

“See them stables over there?” He points. “They’re not being used right now. Meet you there tomorrow.”

“I have to work.”

He snorts. “Then come after you’re done.”

“I work late.”

“You wanna learn, or what?”

“Of course I do, I just—”

He lifts the axe again, shrugging his shoulders. “Before work or after work. Your pick.”

I grit my teeth, already wondering if I’ve made a terrible mistake. “Aft—no.” Do I want to be alone with this man in the middle of the night, in the dark? “Before.”

“All right then. See you at sunup.”

The next log lands on the block, splits with a shriek, and the two halves hit the ground, the cut clean and perfectly precise.

***

“I’m not teaching you shit,” he says, “till you can make a fist and hold it right.”

I haven’t spent much time in barns before, and I’m not sure I like it much. A musty smell clings to the air, and even though it’s a bit too dim to see properly, I’m sure there must be dust everywhere. There’s still hay littering the ground, not particularly fresh, and I definitely heard something skittering around—or several somethings, more like—when we opened the door. Henry Bailey is wandering around, inspecting the space, kicking detritus out of the way to clear a space in the middle. Even though it’s early, with autumn light creeping up the horizon, he doesn’t seem tired.

Lucky bastard.

“What do you mean, hold it right?” I ball my hand into a fist and peer down at it. When I look up, he’s smirking.

“How d’you like broken knuckles? Shattered elbows?”

I watch him warily. When he doesn’t say anything else, I realize he actually expects an answer. “I don’t, obviously.”

“Then you’re gonna have to learn how to make a real fist.”

“Okay…” I relax my hands. “What do I do, then?”

He pauses now, studying me again. “Why do you want this again?”

“That’s none of your business.”

His mouth twitches. “You came looking for me, asking for lessons, but it’s not my business.”

“No.”

With a shrug, he says, “If you say so.” In a few strides, long legs sweeping up clouds as he walks, he appears in front of me. “Don’t slouch like that. You already look like you’re fucking terrified.”

“I’m not,” I say, glaring.

“Bullshit.” Out of nowhere, he winks. “That Stella hag told you all kinds of stories, didn’t she?”

“How do you know I know her?”

“She hates my guts and tells all the pretty girls to stay away,” he says with a grin. “I broke a chair in her inn once.” He pauses. “No. Wait. Twice.”

He hates my guts. Like everyone else.

I don’t hate you.

The same words—that conversation, that ridiculous sentiment expressed to someone I barely knew a damn thing about, almost a year old now—come back to me, and it sounds so real, as if he’s here standing in front of me, and not this guy. Fire sweeps through my face, just as it did back then.

Henry notices, and a flicker of laughter crosses his face. “Jeez. I’m not that scary.”

“No,” I agree. “You’re not.”

“Well, then, fucking stand up straight.”

We stare at one another, both of us sizing the other up, and I’m keenly aware of how much this first lesson is going to set the tone for all the ones that follow.

“You are an asshole, though,” I say, but I straighten my spine, put my shoulders back, and plant my feet.

That Bailey Boy barks out a laugh. “Now we’re getting somewhere. If you want to fight, we need more of that and less of the—” He adopts a high-pitched voice that’s obviously meant to mimic mine. “—pleased to meet you, Henry horseshit. If you got a spine, you’re gonna have to show it.”

“You really are an asshole.” He has no fucking idea. “I have got a spine.”

“Good. Then you’re gonna prove it.” In one smooth motion, he clasps my wrist and pulls my arm up, raising his eyebrows when every part of me goes stiff. “Thought you weren’t afraid of me?”

But it’s not him, not really. “I’m not.”

“Look.” He lets go. “You asked me for this. You just said you aren’t scared. But I barely touched you and you froze. You’re either in it or you’re not, so which is it?”

“I…”

Once again, he just waits for my reply.

“I’m in it,” I say.

“Then wipe that look off your face and get used to this.” He takes my arm again. “Lots of ways to make a fist. Thumb in, thumb out, below, on top. Straight on, twisted. They all work for different things, long as you know when to use them.”

This makes me glare. “I thought I was supposed to learn the right way.”

“Joke’s on you. They’re all the right way. Depends on what you’re trying to do and who you’re up against.”

With my eyes narrowed, I wait for him to tell me he’s messing around.

Instead, he lets go, leaving my arm in mid-air, and says, “How would you hold your arm if you were about to punch me?”

“I am about to punch you.” I make a fist and draw my arm back.

The smirk on his face says that I most certainly am not, and his words confirm it as he points out everything I’ve done wrong in the last thirteen seconds in the simple motion of pulling my arm back for a strike.

“If you can,” he says, when he’s done, paying no heed to the flaming heat in my face, “you should try to build up your strength. Get some muscle. If you’re really serious.”

As if I’d know the first thing about doing that, or even have the opportunity to even try. “How much free time do you think I have?”

He shrugs. “Just a suggestion.”

Without warning, he moves behind me. “You scared of getting jumped?” It’s unsettling how his voice has gotten closer to my ear, but I can’t see him anymore. “That why you want to learn?”

“Sure.” I doubt Baden Hatchett or any of his constables would be sneaking up from behind if they got close enough to rearrest me, but it’s a true enough statement.

“You been jumped before?”

Long ago, a boy and a girl in an alley. Their faces flash in my mind. A year later, another alley, a man, falling snow, and that same boy, with his hands brushing my face.

I swallow the sudden temptation to cry. “I guess.”

“You guess?” Still behind me, Henry snorts. “You’re a real puzzle.”

Good. I’m going to keep it that way, too.

“Still. Smart.” He laughs. “Lotta nasty people out there.”

I whirl around, stupid Stella’s stupid voice in my stupid brain. “Don’t you dare try anything, Henry Bailey. I’m trusting you, and I’d you—”

“Jeez, Lucy.” He sighs and takes a step back. “This doesn’t seem much like trust, does it?”

And now we’re back in another long stare, a stand-off. I hate myself for looking away first. “You’re trying to scare me.”

“You think you’re gonna take on a grown-ass man who wants to hurt you, and you can’t even handle being a little scared?”

…She was looking for good pickpockets but also ones who could handle being scared a little…

“Stop messing with me.” Anger spills into my voice. “I’m fucking serious about this, and you’re hiding behind me and making fun of me. Are you going to teach me, or should I fucking find someone else?”

That Bailey Asshole is grinning. “You sure got a mouth on you.”

“So I’ve heard,” I snap. “Are you helping me or not?”

“Where the hell did you come from, Lucy…?” He pauses then, realizing that I never gave him a surname.

With a huff, I spin on my heel and head for the door. What a goddamn waste of time.

Footsteps, dust, and a grip on my wrist.

“Let go.”

“Lesson one,” he says smoothly, ignoring the command. With his free hand, he takes mine and guides it up to the wrist that grabbed me. “If someone grabs you. How to get out.”

The panic that was welling within me begins to ebb. He’s serious. He’s going to teach me.

He’s serious, and so am I.

***

Victoria practically goes into hysterics when she sees the bruises for the first time. “Lucy! What on earth happened to you? Are you all right?”

A quick glance in the mirror reveals the weeks’ worth of bruises that have built up on my arms, legs, and back, most of which have resulted from me falling into things after losing my balance or tripping over my goddamn skirt. I told Henry I wanted to wear trousers, thinking it would be easier to learn, and he just laughed in my face.

“Uh…no?” He’d cracked up, even twisted the knife a little harder by pretending to wipe tears from his eyes. “Why would that be a good idea? Are you likely to be wandering around in pants? If you don't learn how to fight in a dress now, you won’t know what to do when it really counts.”

Infuriatingly, he was right, and now I have purple and yellow splattered all over my limbs to show for it.

Of course, Victoria doesn’t know that this is all pain I’ve willingly signed up for, and she flies across our room, only half-undressed, to clasp my hands. “Who did that to you? Are you all right? Who’s hurting you like this?”

“Oh, my goodness. Victoria.” I know I should take her questions seriously, but the earnest concern in her face is so sweet and endearing—and misplaced—that I have to giggle. “No one’s hurting me. You don’t have to worry.”

“Lucy! Don’t lie to me!” She stares at a nasty one on my upper arm, dealt when I fell directly onto the corner of the barn’s windowsill by pure bad luck. “Look at the state of you!”

I bite my lip. Telling her I’m spending hours outside of work letting Henry Bailey put his hands all over me as he teaches me how to defend myself in case my former fiancé and jailer ever reappears to cart me back to prison or to the gallows… Not a wise idea.

“I’m…” Even though I lie to her every day of my life, I still hate it. There’s not a mean bone in her body, not an ounce of spite in her blue eyes, and I can’t imagine how hurt she’d be to learn I’ve never once been truthful about who I am.

“You’ve been sneaking out, too,” she says, “so early in the morning, and—”

“I fell.” I’m not sure Victoria’s stupid enough to believe me, but all I can do is try. Then again, I told her the IA tattoo, something I succeeded in hiding for only about a month, was a religious thing I got in church as a child, and she believed me, so… “I go out for walks before work. To wake up. Um…hear the birds.” Good god, I’m really giving myself away with that one. It’s almost winter. What birds? “Watch the sun come up. But I fell down the hill the other day. It hurt like a b—”

I stop myself just in time, and to my relief, Victoria pretends not to giggle.

“It really looks awful,” she says, brushing a finger over one of the lesser bruises, lightly enough that it doesn’t ache. “You must be more careful.”

“I know.”

When she lets go of my hands, she begins to pull away, then pauses, twisting a golden curl around her finger. “This has nothing to do with…”

“With what?” I keep my voice calm, face unworried.

“Never mind,” she says. “Just take care, all right?”

I wonder… If she can tell I’m lying about this, does she know I’m lying about other things, too? But she hasn’t said anything yet.

“You must be exhausted,” she says, returning to the task of getting ready for bed. “We’ll turn down the lamp early tonight.”

I smile, relief and gratitude warming my chest. “Thanks, Victoria.”

Because she’s right. I’ll be back at it again tomorrow, and before winter hits full force, I am going to knock Henry Bailey on his ass.

***

I’m going to knock Henry Bailey on his ass because he’s still an asshole, but we’re this far into our arrangement, and he’s only gotten more confusing and more annoying. He hasn’t yet taken a cent yet that I’ve offered, despite his apparent interest when we first met, which is beyond concerning, but has instead promised he will the first time I best him, something I haven’t had the chance to even try, let alone succeed at.

That’s only part of it, though. He still does things to irritate me, and the more I ignore the attempts at flirtation that started in earnest about a week into our lessons, the harder he tries.

“Congratulations kiss?” he teases the first time I land a kick, dislodge his grip, and “escape” to the designated safe spot we’ve set up in the barn.

“You wish,” I say, jumping back down.

With a wink, he just says, “You know it.”

Standing behind me, observing silently as I hurl practice punches at a sack of old hay (as if I’m letting you throw at me before you can do it right, he said), he guides my arm with deft, steady fingers, a little too close.

“Back off, Henry.”

“Just trying to protect you from damaging yourself,” he says, and even though I don’t turn around, I can tell he’s grinning.

After a particularly tiring session, watching me pant and try to catch my breath, he asks, “Want me to carry you back to old Stella? It’ll be heroic and romantic. Her head might just fall right off.”

“No, thank you,” I mutter, swiping at the sweat on my forehead with one hand and brushing away dust from my skirt with the other.

“You know, you wouldn’t be so bleeding hot if you just pulled up your sleeves.”

“I don’t want to pull up my sleeves.”

“Afraid to show a little skin?”

“Around you? Definitely.”

He’s sprawled on the floor. Just watching with undisguised amusement. “You’re something else, you know that?”

“Why? Because I’m not swooning over you like everyone else?”

He was in the inn last night, with a group of men I assume go out with him to work during the warmer months. I told him if he broke any chairs or did anything to make Stella mad—which inevitably makes my life ten times more difficult—I would be the one cracking chairs over his head. Every girl who passed through, even the ones who were obviously there with their husbands, spent a few extra seconds staring at his stupid chiselled jaw and glossy golden head. Including, as was noted by me and Stella and Celeste, our sweet Victoria.

“Didn’t you learn your lesson last time?” Stella snapped, confirming my suspicions that there was some encounter in the past she hasn’t told me about, and Victoria blushed and avoided looking at him for the rest of the night, at least when she thought no one was looking.

For his part, I’m not even sure he noticed she was there.

“Is that jealousy I detect, Miss Prim and Proper?” He snorts. “Miss Prim and Proper who’s secretly plotting to kick someone’s ass in the future?”

Oh, and he’s constantly badgering me about why I want to fight. Who I want to fight.

“Henry, just mind your own business, for god’s sake.”

Outside, the wind picks up. Autumn is in full swing, with maple leaves now the colour of crabapples, some of them already starting to fall and coat the ground, painting it the hues of the season—sun-bright yellow, brilliant orange, and of course, blood red.

I love it and hate it at once. It’s beautiful, but there’s little I can do to quell the memories that are steadily rising as we draw closer and closer to the one-year mark of what happened to me last fall.

“Hey!” Henry sits up, snapping his fingers. “You even listening?”

“No.” I look away from the window. “What did you say?”

There’s a knowing glint in his eyes. I don’t like how well That Bailey Boy can read people—or, at least, read me. “Who you thinking about all the time, Miss Lucy?”

“No one.”

He rolls his eyes. “I can’t figure you out. You’re not thinking about anyone, you don’t got a sweetheart as far as I can tell, but it’s always back off, Henry.”

“Not everyone has to fall in love with you, you know, you insufferable dickhead.”

That makes his jaw drop. “How’d you get so feisty? You were falling over all winded three minutes ago.”

“I’m better now.” I am suddenly regretful of my choice to do our lessons before work begins. The idea of facing the day after all this, particularly this stupid conversation, is exhausting. “You’re being an idiot.”

And I’m being mean, but I don’t care. I don’t want to talk about who I’m thinking about all the time.

“Never had a girl call me a dickhead before,” Henry says, and instead of being pissed off, he just gives me the most ridiculous little pout I’ve ever seen.

In spite of myself, I laugh.

“See you tomorrow,” he says, getting to his feet, and without another word, he disappears.

***

For some stupid reason, I expect things to get better and easier once he actually lets me spar with him. It’s all slow and pretty fake—he never looks that concerned when I’m going for him—and still I end up with more bruises and even less confidence than before.

“Your head’s always somewhere else.” It’s almost a scolding. “You get caught up in thinking about your lost love, you’re gonna get caught off guard.”

“There’s no lost love. Don’t you ever listen to me?”

“Then why won’t you let me kiss you?”

“You’re such a prick, Henry,” I say, and he falls to the floor, howling.

“Where have you been all these years?” he asks, not for the first time, and I can’t help but smile.

“You like being insulted right, left, and centre?”

Flashing me his most winning, beaming grin, he says, “By you, darling? Of course.”

“You’re so disgusting.” I wrinkle my nose, and as usual, he doesn’t seem at all put off. “Why don’t you make up with Victoria?”

“Who?”

“You’re a pig,” I tell him, and he shrugs. I can tell he’s lying about not knowing who she is.

By the time the trees are almost fully bare, my bruises aren’t doubling in number at the rate they were before, and I’m tripping over my skirt less, and it’s starting to feel intuitive every time I shake off his grip when he tries to catch me off guard.

But the sky darkens early, and the candles have to burn longer, and wind whistles through every door and window.

And in the night, there are memories whose hold no amount of training can dislodge.

“Again,” I say. It must be the third time he’s pinned me today; honestly, I’m not even certain. He looks down at me with a piercing gaze.

“You sure that’s a good idea?”

“Again,” I repeat, pushing him off. He doesn’t resist. One of these days. I’ve got to get the better of him one of these days. Otherwise, what’s the point? If I can pin him, I might have a chance in hell of pinning anyone else who might ever try to lay their hands on me.

He purses his lips. Is he annoyed? What the fuck reason does he have to be annoyed? He’s the one who keeps winning. “I think maybe you should take a break.”

Irritably, I point out the window. “I have to work soon. This is all the time I have. One more go.”

It’s still dark, even though my duties at the inn start soon. Autumn is well and truly upon us, almost over—any day now, it’ll turn to winter—and I don’t want to walk back to Stella’s alone and cold in the gloom, thinking about having had my ass kicked again and again and again.

“All right,” he says, but I can tell he’s not happy. “One more.”

I guess he could sense the mood I’m in today from the moment we started, because he hasn’t made many jokes at all. Or perhaps the cold weather and dark sky bring back awful memories for him, too.

“Fuck it, Lucy, pay attention!”

My head cracks against the barn floor, and it fucking hurts.

I hit my head on a cobblestone road, once. Years ago now. It bled, leaking hot liquid down my face, and a boy whose name I did not know pressed a handkerchief against it to stem the flow. It hurt like this, if I remember correctly, around the same spot. I went back alone to a room in a sleazy boarding house and cried myself to sleep.

“Fuck! Hey! You okay?”

I sit up, moved by the worry in Henry Bailey’s voice. “I’m fine.” Wincing, I gingerly touch my fingertips to the throbbing spot on the side of my head. “Shit.” The skin is broken; the pads of my fingers come away red. “Shit.”

“Fucking hell,” he says, next to me now. “I didn’t mean to knock you over that hard. Are you all right? How many fingers am I holding up?”

I bat his hand away. “Seriously. I’m fine.” If he’s upset now, he’d lose his shit if he knew what kind of shape I was in around this time last year. One little knock to the head is nothing.

“Answer me, damn it. How many—”

“God damn it, Will! I’m okay! Just give me a min—”

A boiling surge of mortification hits me so hard, it’s more likely to knock me out than the smack of my skull against the floor.

Fucking shit.

“Henry,” I say quickly, but I said what I said and I can’t take it back. “Henry. I’m okay.”

He leans back on his heels. “You hit your head real bad, or are you still thinking about No One even while your head’s bleeding?”

No one. No one.

I close my eyes. I don’t want to look at him right now.

“Just hold on a minute.” I hear him stand up and walk away, and it’s a relief to have some distance between us. I can’t pretend that my head isn’t throbbing, or that this miserable anniversary I’m living through isn’t fucking me up big time, or that I don’t sometimes look at Henry and see Will. Wish I was seeing Will.

“Here.” I open my eyes when he comes back. There’s a wad of cotton in his hand. “To be honest, I’m surprised you haven’t needed patching up before today.”

Somehow, that makes me smile. “You’re an ass.”

“And you’re a clumsy scatterbrain.” Henry presses the cotton against my temple. “Wanna actually tell me what’s eating you?”

All I can do is shake my head and say, “I’m fine.”

He sighs. “Y’know, out of everywhere in this boring-ass shithole of a town, I’d be the last person to judge you, right? You get that?”

I do. I really do. But he doesn’t know what he’s asking for. Stella thinks he’s such a rascal, a bad apple, a no-good sort of man with no decency at all, but I think even he’d be floored to find out what’s hiding in my past.

“I appreciate that.”

He studies me, quiet for a while, blue eyes more serious than I’ve seen them. “It’s all right, you know. If you're…if you’re not. Not all right, I mean.”

I’m not all right. But I don’t think I need to say it. He obviously knows.

“You remind me,” I say, “of…” Can I say it? I don’t think I can. “Someone I knew. Someone it…” I swallow a lump in my throat. “Someone it hurts to think about.”

“Will, huh?”

I don’t look at him, and I don’t answer.

“Will is No One, your tragically lost sweetheart.” He leans back on his hands, and before I know it, he’s spinning the wildest fucking tales I’ve ever heard in my life. “Died too young of a mysterious fever. No! Poisoned by a jealous rival.” At my incredulous look, he keeps going. “Uh…a sailor lost at sea? No. He…shot a man through the heart, all to defend your honour, and now he’s on the run.” I laugh, wiping my eyes, annoyed at how close to and yet how far from the truth that one is. “He left you at the altar, and you’ve got a secret kid squirrelled away somewhere.”

“Henry!”

“He broke your heart, and when you see him again, you’re gonna give him the punch in the kisser he deserves.”

Ignoring the voice in my head screaming at me that Will wasn’t the one doing things like running away and earning a punch in the kisser, I tell him, “Wrong. Wrong. Unbelievably wrong.” Since I can’t correct him, I just finish with, “It’s more complicated than that.”

“Yeah,” he says with a sigh. “I bet.”

After a few breaths, he stands up to grab his scarf and begins to wrap the scratchy grey wool around my head.

“What the hell are you doing?” I demand, pawing at him to get him to stop.

“What? Don’t got any real bandages for this. I’m gallantly saving you from bleeding out in this gross-ass barn. You should be thanking me.”

“Gee, thanks.” But I’m laughing, even though my head still hurts and probably will for the rest of the day. “I don’t think we’re in bleeding out territory, though.”

He sighs again. “Well. That’s good news, I guess.” At the pause, I know what’s coming, and even though I want to get my back up, I know he’s right. “Can’t drift off like that. You do it all the time and I keep telling you, you gotta stay focussed.”

“I know.”

“And if it’s really not that bad…” He gestures toward the cotton pressed to my head. “Then you’re lucky, but what if I was actually trying to hurt you? Being sad isn’t an excuse for acting like an idiot.”

I know I deserve the chiding, but despite that, the scolding forces out of me a sideways glare. “You’re one to talk.”

With a snort, he says, “You think I got my reputation because I’m sad? I’m just an asshole.”

“No, you’re not,” I say impatiently. “Just an idiot. Like me.”

He’s quiet for a moment or so, just staring.

“What?”

And then he grins. “Got you to say I’m not an asshole.”

“Ugh.” The urge to take it back is strong. But I’m laughing again.

“Tell you what.” He fixes his shirt—tucking it in neatly (sort of), rolling down the sleeves. “Take a day or two to sort yourself out. Make sure that isn’t worse than it looks.”

“But—”

Holding up a finger and shaking his head, he goes on, “I’m not going anywhere, anyway. I’ll be here till the spring, so what’s the rush? Take a few days off. But I’ll give you a challenge.”

I frown, suspicious. “What kind of challenge?”

“You come back, all fixed up and fired up and ready to go, and we get back at it. Practice as long as you want or whatever, but when you decide you’re ready, we spar.”

“How’s that different from what—”

But there’s that annoying, mischievous grin. “Forget paying up. You win, I’ll never hit on you again, ever.”

I blink. This was not what I expected him to offer.

“You pin me, knock me off my feet and get me at a disadvantage, then I promise I will let you sulk in sorrow and self-pity about your long-lost Will for as long as you decide that’s what you want to do.”

“But if you win?” I’m not sure I’m going to like what’s coming.

He winks. “Then I get to give you one kiss and see what happens.”

“You’re so disgusting,” I say. “You don’t even want to kiss me. You just want to say you did.”

Laughing, he says, “Then I guess you better win.”

The cotton is red when I pull it away from my head, but not nearly as bad as I feared. His gaze, when I look up, is fixed on me, glinting and laughing and full of challenge.

“So? What do you say?”

“I say Stella was right about you all along.”

But.

Outside, the sun is teasing its way into the morning. If I don’t get moving soon, I’m going to be late, and then I’m really in shit.

His proposition is unbelievably stupid, a trap because he thinks there’s no way I can get the better of him, and he’s sick of me getting lost in thoughts and memories while we’re supposed to be fighting.

“One week,” I say. A smile spreads across his face. “A few days off. Time to practice. And then in a week, I’ll take you up on your stupid offer. And I’ll win.”

Narrowing his eyes, he asks, “You serious?” I nod. “Then shake on it.”

His grip is firm, like this is some kind of binding contract to him, and I suppose it is. I try to match the pressure and steadiness of his hand curled around mine.

“One week,” he repeats, and I do the same. When we let go, he sweeps a still-concerned-but-less-so-now glance over me. “Want me to walk you back to the inn?” I shake my head. As if I want Stella, Celeste, or Victoria to see me strolling up with him That Bailey Boy on my arm and blood on my head.

“Just you wait, Henry Bailey,” I say, getting to my feet. “You’re gonna rue the day you ever agreed to teach me how to fight.”

With a laugh, he shoves his hands into his pockets and heads for the door. Before he heads out into the grey morning light, he shoots me his signature sly grin, and said, “Can’t wait, darling,” and vanishes.

“You’re an ass!” I call after him, but he’s gone, his hearty laugh already fading.

He is, and maybe I’m a fool for taking him up on his offer, but for the first time in weeks, I’m feeling something other than the empty dread these long, bitter days have brought.

For the first time in weeks, there’s a fire burning inside me, buoyed by an old friend, one I haven’t met with in far too long.

Hope.

Chapter 46 | Chapter 49 | Box in Your Heart | TPOT Masterlist | Finale Part 1

Whumptober 2023 Prompts Fulfilled

No. 1: “But now this room is spinning while I’m trying just to fill in all the gaps.” | Swooning | “How many fingers am I holding up?”

No. 5: “You better pray I don't get up this time around.” | Debris | Pinned Down | “It's broken.”

No. 14: “Feed me poison, fill me ‘till I drown.” | “Just hold on.”

No. 15: “I don't need you to help me; I can handle things myself.” | Makeshift Bandages | Suppressed Suffering | “I’m fine.”

No. 30: “It’s okay, just to say, ‘I’m not okay.’”

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