#will I resist sticking my hand on the molten glass?

[hwanghyunjinenthusiast]

[19:17]

Tags: Jeon Wonwoo x Fem! Reader, Reader wears glasses, glasses kink (???? Both Reader and Wonwoo are really into the other wearing glasses), voice kink, oral sex (m. receiving), unprotected piv sex, heavy praise (f. receiving), petnames and creampie.

I will block you if you are a minor and/or have no easily visible indication of your age on your blog if you interact with me in any way.

A throaty whimper is swallowed by Wonwoo's mouth as his hands drag along your sides. Making themselves at home on your thighs, his long fingers digging into your skin as your hips jolt up into him in search of any of friction. His erection dragging along your slick folds through his boxers.

You whine out when he pulls away from you. "Patience, baby," he laughs, the scratchiness in his voice prompting your walls to clamp down achingly around nothing. He reaches up to remove his glasses, but one of your hands shoots up to stop him, "Wait."

"Hm?" He looks down at you, waiting for an answer. God, his eyes look so pretty behind his black frames.

"Can you- can you keep them on?" You whisper.

The way he blinks at you is so cute, and you want nothing more than to slot your mouth over his again, but you resist. "You want me to keep my glasses on? Why?"

"They look- you look so good when you where them. You look so hot," you breathe in explanation. You watch your words wash over him and he contemplates them for a few long moments.

"You don't have to if-"

"Will you keep yours on too?" He asks, the further drop in his voice and the molten look in his eyes catching you off guard this time around.

"You want me to what?" Your brains supplies intelligently.

"Keep yours on too. You look so beautiful with them," he responds, nuzzling your neck and peppering it with kisses that send electricity down your spine to pool between your thighs, "So fucking hot."

"Okay," you whine readily, wrapping your arms around his broad shoulders and tugging him closer to you. He doesn't keep you waiting for long. Kissing his way back to your awaiting lips. Moaning into each other as his tongue snakes its way into your mouth.

"You don't have to-" his words are cut off with a choked groan when you tighten your grip on his flushed cock. Scorching and heaving in your hand. "Hush. You know I want to," you tease, looking up at him through your lashes, "Besides, it's your birthday." That's all the heads up Wonwoo receives before you take his glistening tip into your mouth.

His abdomen shudders under your other hand. Years of hard-earned muscle jumping under your touch as you sink down gradually on him. He's a little salty and so familiar on your tongue. Wonwoo looks otherworldly like this. Inky locks sticking to his sweaty forehead and his eyes barely open behind his lenses. His bruised lips parting to let out guttural groans as his fingers fist your hair. The tip of him brushes the back of your throat and the gravelly 'fuck' that hits your ears goes straight to your clit.

His hips shallowly fuck your mouth. The sounds of you gagging on his cock echoing throughout your bedroom along with his quiet sounds of pleasure. A few stray tears roll down your flushed face, and your spit and his pre-cum dribble down your chin. It's filthy. It's so intoxicating watching him lose himself while he uses your mouth. You can't help but, hurriedly shove your hand that's not wrapped around his cock between your thighs. Rubbing jerky circles on your clit and moaning around him.

"Fuck. Fuck, fu-fuck wait. I'll-I'm going to cum," he heaves out, stilling your movements with his hands. Gently easing you off of his wet, red, throbbing cock.

It takes everything in him not to cum on your pretty face when you pout up at him, your hand still between your plush thighs, "Why'd you stop? I wanted you to cum in my mouth."

His cock jumps a mere few centimetres away from your face.

"Don't say that," he grits out, his eyes shutting briefly behind his frames. "I'd rather cum inside of you," he says, the intent in his eyes causing the butterflies in your stomach to rage, "It's my birthday, isn't it? I thought I got to choose today."

He says that like he doesn't do that every day. Like you don't let him do as he pleases with you whenever he wants.

"Fine," you comply with the pout more for dramatics than anything else, "How would you like me, birthday boy?"

Your insides squirm when one of his large hands wraps around his length. Saliva pooling in your mouth yet again and more of your wetness dribbling onto your thighs,

"Come sit on it."

The command in his voice and how lowly he says it has you scrambling to your knees at breakneck speed. You choose to ignore his chuckle at your eagerness. Steading your hold on one of broad shoulders, your other hand wraps around him, nudging his fat tip along your entrance. His hands grip your hips harshly as you slowly ease onto him. The drag of his cock along your slick walls is toecurling. Your nails biting into his skin while he splits you open.

"Always so wet and tight for me," he mutters into your ear. The depth of his voice prompting your walls to clench around him and whimper in his strong hold. "Won-Wonwoo," you whine out when his tip kisses your cervix, "So deep."

"Fuck," he groans, pampering your throat with kisses when you start to move. Your thighs shake violently with every nudge of his cock along your sensitive walls but, you persist. His warm, massive hands cupping your ass. Grabbing as much of you as he can while his mouth lavishes your breasts with kisses and nips.

"My pretty girl with such pretty tits," he grits into your skin, drinking in the way they jiggle in time with your bounces on him. Your plump lips parted and your eyes screwed shut behind your foggy lenses.

You've never looked hotter than in this moment.

All your hazy mind can come up with is Wonwoo, Wonwoo, Wonwoo. Your orgasm draws nearer but, you can already feel the burn stinging your thighs. You whine out in frustration, clutching at him even tighter as your walls spasm around him. Wetness leaking down his cock onto his heavy balls.

"Need help?" He pants, looking up at you with such genuine concern and unyielding patience that you think you might just fall in love with him all over again right now. You nod pathetically, "'M sorry. I know it's your birthday-"

"Shh, none of that," he interrupts, pressing a featherlight kiss to your cheek, "You've made today more than special. Thank you."

Before you can blink, you find yourself rolled onto your back with your devilishly handsome boyfriend hovering over you. He somehow looks even more attractive from this angle. His sweaty bangs hang in the space between you as he smiles down at you, "I can't think of a better way to celebrate my birthday than taking care of my favourite girl."

Your heart hammers in your chest and you soften at his words. "Won-" it's your turn for your words to be swallowed by a strangled moan when he drags himself out of you until his tip is the only part of his cock still inside of you before snapping his hips into you.

"My pretty baby," moans into your ear, his hands burning into your skin where they press your thighs into your chest, "looking so beautiful being fucked on my cock." All you can do is claw at his muscular back as he fucks you dumb on his length, "you'll take it all like a good girl, yeah?" He pants against your skin.

"Wonwoo," you cry out when one of his hands slots itself between your overheated bodies, rubbing fast circles into your swollen clit.

"Yes, plea-please. I'll take it all, please. I'm your good g-girl," you hiccup when he angles one of your legs higher to somehow sink deeper into you while he draws watery sounds of pleasure from you with his fingers.

"Then be good and cum for me. Want to watch you cum on my dick. Want to feel it," he slurs into your ear. His voice and words and fingers and cock and just everything that is him shoving you over the edge.

"Wonwoo," you whimper out, arching into him and keeping him as close to you as humanly possible. Your ankles locking behind his back and your fingernails raking his skin. Eager walls milking him while he fucks you through your orgasm.

"Shit," he gasps, his pace faltering, "Fuck. Fuck you feel amazing, baby. Fuck, I'm gonna cum."

"Please. I want it, please please please."

His hips are flush against you when his release rolls over him. He slams his lips against yours, moaning into you while his hips jerk into you. His cock pulsing inside of you and his warm cum painting your walls. You can't help the way your pussy grips him tighter, he's always just so gorgeous when he allows himself to lose his composure.

"Thank you," he says sleepily, toying with your hair and nuzzling into you.

"What're you thanking me for?"

"A pretty great birthday gift."

A laugh bubbles out of you, "We have sex all of the time, Wonwoo."

"True but, you haven't let me fuck you while you wear your glasses. 'Is was really fucking hot. We should do this more often," he says, smiling into your shoulder.

"The fogginess is a little annoying but, sure," you muse, tracing patterns on his back, "you look really hot too for the record."

AN: Happy Wonwoo Day!!! I don't know if I'll make it a habit to post on everyone I write for's birthday, but this was already pretty high up there in my drafts, so I thought why not.

Reblogs are greatly appreciated.

Do not repost, edit, copy and/or translate my work. I do not give you my permission to do so, nor will you ever receive it.

[jangofctts]

As You Are (Bucky Barnes x fem!reader)

Rated: Mature, Explicit 18+

Word Count: 6.4k

Warnings: smut, explicit language, mentions of alcohol, mentions of violence and injuries, light choking, brief thigh riding/grinding, vaginal fingering with them metal fingies, oral female receiving, unprotected vaginal sex (dont be a dick, wrap that stick), fucking on sam’s couch

a/n: ok hi this fic is very self indulgent bUT YKNOW WHAT WHO CARES EKJHEJHKEJH this is my first fic for marvel and AH I hope I did Bucky justice. ENJOY YALL

This had been a terrible idea. 

Right from the minute you tailed after he and Sam to the Baron’s extensive vintage car storage. Bucky had explicitly withheld any and all information regarding this little excursion to protect you but of course you’d shown up—none too jazzed about the little stunt Bucky pulled regarding the Baron. Fair. 

You were right—Bucky should have called but that overwhelming guilt of dragging you into another one of his problems stopped him from pressing that little call button. He never wanted to be the reason you ended up back on the run again. Though judging by the way things were going, it was more than likely you’d be in prison by the end of the week. 

Luck had your back in that sort of regard—too bad it could never rescue you from your own stubbornness and grief regarding that damn shield. 

You’d taken a devastatingly hard hit from Walker—a fractured orbital, a split lip and a dislocated shoulder. All preventable—if only Bucky kept better track of you before you showed up in that warehouse alone. Left to fight the shadow of what was once a symbol of hope for some—another man playing dress-up in something that will never belong to him. 

It was just their luck Bucky and Sam arrived in time—preventing you from becoming another red stain of violence splattered over that shield. 

James Buchanan Barnes is not afraid of much—but fuck. Seeing you crumpled over the concrete floor, all bloodied and struggling to raise a hand to protect your face… It was the same feeling as injecting his veins with a pure shot of adrenaline and anger shrouded in fear. He promised Steve he’d look after you… 

And as Sam carried you out of that warehouse you had the gall to tenderly tell them that you were just fine—as if your mouth weren’t full of blood and a face blooming with patchy bruises. The jealousy that sparked through Bucky’s chest when you clung to Sam’s chest did nothing to help that dark festering pit inside his ribcage he’s attempting to suture back together.

Bucky clenches his jaw. At least you’re asleep now. Curled up against the window, holding your injured arm in a way that limited the turbulence from jostling it. It’s the first time Bucky would describe you as fragile. He know’s you’re anything but that—stubborn mostly—yet most of all brave. It’s what Steve admired most about you—what Bucky loves most about you too. That vibrant spark flowing through your blood and how you’re not afraid to shout along to your favorite songs despite the odd looks you get. Bucky envies how self-assured you are, how you’ll never lose yourself because you know just where you’re headed. He wishes he still had that sort of drive instead of all this uncertainty and guilt clouding each muscle and fibre in his body.      

Bucky doesn’t realize the jet has landed until Sam stands and and places a large hand over your shoulder. Your face scrunches as you whine and curl further into your seat. “C’mon, kiddo.” You grumble something inaudible. “You want me to carry you?”

The delicate plates of vibranium clink together as Bucky’s hand tightens into a fist, jealousy flaring hot and bright. He quickly stands, too fast to be considering anything less than awkward. Sam’s brow quirks. “I can do it.”   

“It’s cool, man,” Sam says as he scoops one arm under your legs and the other around your back. “I got her.”

Bucky bristles. Whatever. 

It’s not like you and him have anything together. A one sided plague of affection that you’ll never know about—he wants to tell you. Fuck, the words burn through his tongue and collect like ashes between his teeth and yet they are never voiced from self sabotage. There’s no possible way to voice how you’ve haunted his thoughts and his dream since the moment his eyes met yours. How he’s memorized the lines of your smile and the sweet sound of your laugh, the sweep of your lashes and the rhythm of your steps. Bucky would know you deaf, blind, numb, in this world or any other twisted reality. 

He had said that he wasn’t afraid of much, but that’s not entirely true. Eternity, oblivion, crowded rooms, being alone too long. And you. You terrify him. You have the power to pluck at the very strings of his soul and unravel him completely until he’s no more—and you don’t even know it. Bucky Barnes is less afraid of dying than he is of loosing you but that fear never once provides him the courage to tell you. You may not be a scribbled name in his book, but he still hopes that one day he’ll earn the chance to strike his cowardice and put to rest the wretched ache in his heart that he feels for you. 

He wishes he told you in Wakanda, after the Blip, Riga, and right this instant. He watches Sam carry you out of the jet—what’s a little more time?

                          -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

The sun is beginning to melt into the horizon, turning the expanse of water into molten gold and shimmering blues. The hazy humidity from the late afternoon heat collects at the back of Bucky’s neck and the light breeze does nothing to cool. Bucky sighs and swipes at the bead of sweat creeping down his forehead with the back of his hand—he glances up. 

A ghost of a smile creeps across his lips. You’re exactly where he and Sam left you three hours ago. Surprising to be quite honest—you never did like to stay in one place for longer than ten minutes. You’re a pain in his ass, simply said.  

But now—now you’re haphazardly splayed out on the lawn chair you were forced into, a juice box loosely held in your good hand while the other still remains in the sling. He can’t tell if you’re asleep—Steve’s sunglasses do an excellent job of hiding your eyes. Yet as Bucky wanders closer, your head rolls to your right in greeting. 

“It’s rude to stare, y’know,” you grumble, lifting the juice box to your mouth. Your lips purse around the plastic straw. “And before you ask—yes, I have a very important job I’m currently overseeing.”

Bucky quirks a brow. “What—hogging the lawn chair?”

“No—“ You huff. You gesture with your juice box at the large cooler your sandaled feet are propped up on. “I’m the booze master. God of the ale, destroyer of sobriety—“

“Alright, Booze Master,” Bucky interrupts with a snort. “Why don’t you bestow upon me a beer, your majesty.”

You tap your index finger over your chin as a lazy smile fixes itself over your lips. “Granted.”

You slide your legs off the cooler and with a pained grunt you shift forward. Bucky shoots his arm out and steadies you back against the chair by your shoulder before you get any further. Your face pulls into a grimace.

“I got it, kid. Relax.”

Bucky pops open the cooler and fishes out a beer and pops the cap off between his left index finger and thumb. You watch with a frown, “I could’ve done that for you.” 

Bucky resists the urge to roll his eyes and takes a seat on the cooler. The bitter fizz floods his tastebuds as he takes a sip of his drink, a tangible silence blanketing the space between you. He gets it—people like he and you can never settle for complacency. As if the rest isn’t deserved despite the bloody knuckles and the shattered glass that slices through skin—the bruises and the broken bones. None of it is enough—not worthwhile to preserve yourself when other’s so desperately need your help. 

Or maybe it’s penance. 

Bucky sure as shit finds himself swallowed by the black maw of guilt each and every day. Battling the never ending shadow of doubt that clings to his soul like glitter to a an old carpet. Bucky believes it’s safe to say that you’re the same—every good deed you do added to the imaginary scale weighing against the bad despite it feeling hollow and insurmountable. Paying in blood to equate the amount you’ve spilled. A hopeless battle you both insist on fighting. 

Bucky sighs through his nose, bends at the waist and collects both your ankles in his left hand. You let him lift them both and settle your legs over his knees. You shiver, an eruption of goosebumps rushing up your skin at the cold metallic shock of Bucky’s vibranium thumb scrapinh over your bare flesh.

Bucky’s lips tilt down ever so slightly. “Did I hurt you?”

“Never,” you rush to say before he has the chance to flee. “S’just cold.” 

His hum reverberates low in his chest as those cerulean blue eyes fall to his hands. You clench your jaw until your teeth ache as his left thumb continues to stroke over the delicate skin covering the joint of your ankle. This is…new…

You’d been close with Steve and Sam, and by proxy Bucky—in some weird adjunct way. Compared to Sam’s teasing bumps of the shoulder and that infectious laugh far more addicting than the golden liquor of the sun, Bucky is frigid. Still attempting to shake off the whole Winter Soldier thing that’s molded onto his bones like stubborn permafrost. Touch had always been tricky with him—even a friendly pat over the back or a simple tap to the harm had him tensing under the touch—muscle and steel bunching to prepare for a harsh blow that would never arrive. Never from you.         

Bucky rarely sought out your physical comfort—you were always the one to initiate those friendly touches even if he was the type to just sit and ignore you like a grouchy old cat barely clinging onto that ninth life. The first time he breached that fragile barrier was in Wakanda—something in Bucky cracked and split into a cavernous ravine of nebulosity. Stitches shred apart then stapled back together as he grabbed your arm and wrestled you into a bone-crushing hug. You didn’t need to ask to realize he cried the entire time, gripping your shirt like a lifeline while he shuddered and sobbed into the crook of your neck. To him everything from the rain to silk sheets felt like shrapnel and the stars tasted like old blood and the past of things long gone—yet you were familiar. 

A comfort for the much needed healing of the scattered pieces of a man. You don’t mind helping him pick up the tidbits and reattach them with veins of silver. It’s the least you can do. 

The second time occurred after the loss of Steve. Some part of you had been wrenched out with his departure and he never bothered to return it. It doesn’t matter anymore—the hollow ache had been soothed with the Winter Soldier clutching you to his chest until you drifted off into a fitful sleep. A tether to a new reality you both partake in. 

Which brings you to now. There’s no cathartic reasoning behind his touch…it’s simple…a risky leap of faith into unknown territory. Bucky’s eyes lift to meet yours—curiosity swimming in those icy irises. You don’t mind—in fact you quite like the calloused warmth of his hand and the opposing chilly metal one tentatively exploring your exposed skin. 

“You have a scar here,” Bucky murmurs, skimming the thumb made up of flesh and sinew over the mottled skin occupying the crease of where the top of your foot meets your ankle. 

You bite the inside of your cheek. “I fell on barbed wire.”

“Clumsy,” he chides, quirking a dark brow. 

Your shoulders bounce with a huff. “I was like—twelve when it happened, James.”

His mouth quirks in a half smile, quite liking the validation of his name in the way your mouth speaks it. He wonders if you know the weight of granting you that leeway of calling him that. Shit—he doesn’t care what you call him, everything sounds lovely when you say it. 

There’s another silence—holding your breath until something splits and shatters into a million pieces. You’d be a liar if you said you didn’t want anything more than just friendship with Bucky but fear of rejection is a tricky thing. You take the easy way out and offer him the chance of something more on a silver platter. 

“Bucky?”

His fingers whisper up your shin as he inclines his head.              

“I’m tired. Drive me back to Sam’s?”

“Sure thing, doll.” 

                            -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Bucky holds the door open for you as you stumble in, escaping the hazy southern heat. He disappears into the kitchen as you make a beeline straight for the couch, sighing loudly once the plush cushions meet your back. You lazily lift your head once you hear his familiar footfalls nearing. 

With him he brings two Otterpops, one blue raspberry and the other cherry. Once he hands it to you he takes a seat on your left, close enough that his thigh and shoulder bumps against yours. “Don’t tell Sarah’s kids that these were the last ones.”

You roll your eyes and promptly stick the Otterpop into you mouth. “‘M ain’t no snitch.”

His low chuckle reverberates through his chest. The silence that follows isn’t an awkward one as you enjoy the cold treat—it’s filled with the humming cicada bugs outside and the breeze through the wind chimes. Comfortable with the normalcy—just a couple of regular old people enjoying life for a suspended amount of seconds.  

Once you finish the Otter Pop, you crumple the plastic up and rest it on the coffee table. He does the same—hints of the blue syrup sticking to the cracks of his plush lips. You force yourself to avert your eyes. You cheeks heat with a flush as you rush to occupy your mind with anything but wild fantasies of Bucky’s mouth. You lean forward again, pointedly ignoring the way Bucky’s eyes track your movements as you shuck off your sling, the prickle of unused muscles and bruised ligaments rushing through the limb. You wince as you slowly roll your shoulder. 

The muscles in Bucky’s jaw clenches. You sigh—he’s still blaming himself for your injuries. “Does it still hurt?”

“Not everyone has freaky healing powers, Buck,” you snort. You rush to appease him when he frowns. “It’s getting better though. Still can’t sleep on it—but eh.” 

“I’m sorry.”

You bite the inside of your cheek. No matter how many times you tell him he’ll never believe you. That’s something only he can fix. Doesn’t stop you from telling him anyway. “Stop blaming yourself for my idiocy. I made my choice and paid the price for it.”

Bucky’s eyes drop to his hands. “Can’t help it, sweetheart. Steve told me to look after you.”

Your heart constricts within your chest like a fist. You inhale and reach out to rest your hand over his wrist. “Funny—he told me the same thing about you.”

It surprises him—his dark brows furrow as his mouth parts, but nothing comes forth. Grappling with the right words that fit with what he feels. He’s still learning how to give his soul a name that fits. Learning how to take the dark, twisted bramble of his heart and make it into something that doesn’t ache each time it beats. He’s still learning how to look himself in the eyes, point to himself and say that there’s nothing frightening in there. Not anymore. No more. 

You suck in a breath and muster up the embers of courage. Here goes nothing— 

You cup Bucky’s cheek, the scrape of stubble welcome against your warm palm as you gently turn his face to look at you. His eyes drift to yours when the mumbled syllables of his name tumble from your lips. His eyes are framed with dark circles of wildflower bruises, his small smile a moonbeam stark against battered skin. You’ve dreamt so many times of swallowing it whole and pressing him close enough that your heartstrings become entangled with no hope of separation. But that’s something for him to decide. 

You drop your hand cradling Bucky’s jaw, but before your hand completely falls Bucky surges forward. His large hands rush to cup your face, swallowing your noise of surprise as his plush lips fall onto yours. The syrupy flavor of a Blue Raspberry Otter Pop he stole from Sarah’s freezer lingers on Bucky’s mouth, mixed in with the smell of old leather and cracked cardamom. Bucky nips at your bottom lip, tugging once and then rolling it between the blunt enamel of his teeth. Despite all the bad jokes regarding his age and senior citizen status—fuck he’s a damn good kisser. Compared to him you feel clumsy, sloppy, but no matter how hard you search for his distaste he doesn't seem to care in the slightest—if anything he’s pulling you closer. 

Bucky’s kisses may taste like the middle of June and a first love, but desperation lines every action like a wound with jagged edges. It’s a slow process learning to be free, but one day he’ll transform into starlight—and instead of a kiss like fire, it’ll be like touching your lips to a constellation’s aureate mouth.   

When Bucky pulls away, sucking in air and resting his forehead on yours, you catch a whiff of his hair. Freshly washed and smelling a bit like Sam’s shampoo. Your lips quirk. You’ll make sure to keep that a secret from Sam.

You pull back just enough to meet his eye, resting your palm over his vibranium hand that still cups your cheek. “Am I the first person you’ve kissed since the stone ages?”

His lips pull into a cheeky smile. “Maybe.”

You laugh and roll your eyes, skating your palm down the front of his shirt, the heat of his skin near searing through the fabric. “I guess we have a lot of catching up to do, huh?”

Bucky’s lips smother your small moan as he drags you into another kiss. You can feel his smile as he murmurs his agreement between desperate kisses and the enticing warmth of his tongue skimming along yours. The next time you part for air, Bucky drops his strong hands from your face to instead wrap them around the curve of your hips. He tugs you over his right thigh with ease and breathes a gentle sigh of your name, beginning to pepper kisses over you cheek and down the slope of your jaw.

Bucky reaches your ear and carefully nibbles the cartilage, his voice a warm scrape in your ear. “I want you.”

It’s such a simple phrase…and yet…it tears through you and pools like a heavy weight right to your center. “Then take me.”

Quick as a strike of a match, you’re tipped backwards, cradled right between the arm of the couch and the back of it. Heat rushes through each limb and gathers in your cheeks as Bucky’s vibranium fingers skate up your chest and curl around the column of your throat—that hardened soldier he’s tried to bury bleeding through the cracks of his resolve. You don’t care. You gasp into his mouth as he squeezes ever so slightly while he pushes a firm thigh between your legs. Shit—this is how you’re gonna die—grinding on Bucky’s muscled leg while he’s got a hand around your throat. 

What a way to go.    

With his other hand he grips the meat of your thigh and pulls you higher, grinding the rough material of his jeans covering his crotch into yours. You whine and arch into him. You need more. 

You both stay here for a good while up until it feels like you’re ready to burst at the seems if you don’t have him now. Bucky is no better—cheeks flushed as he fumbles with the zipper to relieve the noticeable bulge straining against it. Impatient and needy, you shoo away his hands and do it yourself, easily sliding your warm hand down his navel and over his boxers to palm at his cock. Bucky’s hand twitches around your neck, a sweet groan filling the air when you softly squeeze him through the elastic.

“Fuck, you’re gonna…” Bucky trails off and buries his nose into the crook of your neck. “Gonna make me cum in my pants if you don’t—don’t stop.”

While the thought is tempting, you want this to last just a little bit longer. Rush after the glorious high of just being near him, his kisses, everything about him. Bucky grunts at the loss of your hand and mouths a wet trail of sloppy kisses up your neck and returns to your lips. When you part he sweeps a stray strand of hair and tucks it behind your ear. He smiles softly.

“Can I try something?” He breaths. Before he can even tell you what his idea is, you’re happily nodding along. “Wanna taste you. Been thinking about it ever since Wakanda.”

Oof. His words shoot straight your center. “Bucky—why didn’t you say anything sooner?”

His mouth quirks. “You make me nervous.”

Rolling your eyes you plant a kiss on his forehead and grant him his simple desire. Bucky sits and slides to the floor, close enough that he’s still able to hover over you. You lift your hips as Bucky tugs your shorts and underwear down and off your legs. Besides the general anxieties of being half naked in front of an incredibly attractive man and performing something so sinful on a friend’s couch—there’s a strange stroke of pride that alights through each of your vertebrae. A powerful man willingly dropping to his knees to please you. 

Bucky shoots you a smile and slides his hands around your ribcage, bends forward slightly and captures you mouth in a deep kiss. He parts and nips down your jaw and over your throat, sliding his tongue over the marks he leaves with his teeth as if to soothe the slight sting. You whine and arch into him as he slides lower, leaving an obvious trail of bruises and teeth marks in his wake until he reaches the collar of your shirt. Bucky moves his palms under the fabric to grab at your breasts, the flats of his fingertips rolling over your nipples that peak through your bra. You suck in a shaky breath when Bucky catches the pebbled bud between his forefinger and thumb, the hard vibranium of his fingers scraping over it. A low hum rumbles through his chest as he leans forward to playfully nip at your collarbone.

“I wanna see you naked.” Bucky admits as he slips his hands out of your shirt. You shiver as those chilly metal fingers gently come to rest on the outside of your bare thighs. 

“Not here, Buck,” you sigh. “T-they—fuck—they can come back any minute.”

Bucky quirks a brow, eyes dropping between your legs, then back up with a smirk. His plush lips part, yet before he can disprove your silly point—that your bare ass is already out and taking off the shirt would barely make a difference—you interject. 

“Shut up.”

His shoulders bounce with a chuckle. “You have such a way with words, y’know that?”

You make a noise low in your throat and reach out to sharply tug his ear. He easily bats your hand aside, hooks his hands under your ass and hauls until you’re all but hanging over the edge of the cushions. You squirm, unable close your legs or to relieve some of that burning tension collecting in your core as Bucky lowers himself and wedges his shoulder between your thighs. He slides his hand over your calfs and wrestles them over his broad shoulders—earning a perfect view of your pussy. You’re already wet—worked up and running on borrowed time. You roll your head back onto the back of the couch and clench your jaw. You don’t want to rush him but Christ—you really don’t want Sam or Sarah to find you like this.   

It feels like ages before Bucky’s lips touch your belly and then your navel with his warm tongue. With a grunt he shoves your shirt up to your breasts and circles your bellybutton with the tip of his tongue—his enhanced strength easily pinning you down as you jerk and giggle.

Bucky picks up his head and grins. “Try and hold still, doll.”

No sharp retort comes to mind. Fuck—he’s already got you so expertly wrapped around his finger. 

Bucky hums, satisfied with your weak nod and continues on.  

Bucky’s bare fingers trace minuscule patterns into the sensitive skin of your inner thighs, coaxing out a shiver that rushes through your body. They tickle towards the apex of your thighs and settle close enough to reach your aching center. He pauses for a moment and while you know he’s there, you curse when you feel his thumbs softly part the lips of your soaking cunt. They gently work up and down, smearing your wetness around but never enough to give you any friction as your body adjusts to the feel of flash and vibranium. You bite back a groan as your hips unconsciously twitch. 

Unsatisfied with simply touching you, Bucky shifts his weight to better reach your core. “Fuck—you’re so pretty.”   

There's a moment just before Bucky swoops down, face hovering close enough that you can feel his sticky, warm breath fan across you inner thighs. Anticipation grips your heart with an iron hold, and then— Bucky licks a broad stripe from the base of your cunt all the way up to your swollen clit. His mouth is molten, tongue like liquid velvet as you shudder and grab at his hair. Bucky grunts against you as you drag him closer by the short strands—greedy for any and all touch he gifts you. Bucky’s mouth slips around your clit, sucking and tracing circles over the bundle of nerves with the tip of his tongue. Your eyes flutter shut as a quiet moan wrenches free from your vocal cords.  

He trails lower, sucks on your labia, and makes his way down to your soaking entrance. The wet heat of his tongue circles your cunt, skips over it completely to catch the wetness before it leaks over the couch. Bucky opens his mouth wide and groans in appreciation, devouring your pussy like he’s been denied this his entire life. Desperation lingers on his tongue and all you are is the honey sweet taste of salvation. 

“Shit—Bucky,” you cry, throwing your hips forward in search of more friction.

It's perfect. So fucking delicious. 

You tense as the vibranium tips of his fingers, two of them, press at your entrance, teasing the clenching ring of soft muscle before sinking in. The chilly digits slip in with ease—all the way up to the second knuckle and when he draws them back, they're slick with your wetness. With a self-satisfied grin, Bucky thrusts them back in, then out—setting a steady pace that makes everything ache with desire. It leaves you just hovering over the sharp edge of ecstasy, the catch of his knuckles and imperceptible metal plating dragging along your walls pure torture. Fuck—he’s going to be the death of you—

Bucky’s mouth dips down a second time and sucks on your clit and with a few more curls and thrusts of his fingers inside of your clenching walls, your body seizes up tight. You're flying off that edge, faster than a fucking freight train. You cum onto his tongue and fingers with a strangled cry of his name, sparks of blurry white lining the edges of your vision as your back arches. Bucky continues to lick you through your orgasm, even as you buck and squirm in his iron hold. Supernovas implode behind your eyelids as heat, hotter than wildfire and jet fuel spreads from your center all the way up your stomach and down to your toes. You're shaking, lucid enough to hear Bucky murmur his praise—feeling the vibration of his groan, as he licks up the flood of your wetness over his tongue. 

Your brain swims in hazy bliss as you float back to reality. He's still curling his fingers into your pussy and it damn near hurts. You're too sensitive. Nerves rubbed raw and still throbbing—but you're too fucked out and still riding the waves of your orgasm to push him away. Bucky is all too happy to remain between your legs—takes this opportunity to tilt his fingers into your cunt faster, suckle and lave his hot tongue over your clit that burns from overstimulation—somehow you're back at the very edge again.

It's sharper than a vibranium razor against bare flesh. Your thighs shake around him as he twists his fingers inside you and bumps agains that tiny, little patch of nerves. You cry out as an orgasm floods through you veins, rupturing each cell in your being with molten pleasure. Your core pulses around Bucky’s fingers, fucking you through it until those burning waves of release eventually cease to a fading throb. You whine and push at his forehead because he's still going. You panic a bit—fucking hell, he’s gonna make you cry—but he pulls away, his mouth and chin wet with your slick. 

“Feel good?” Bucky purrs, resting his cheek on your thigh. 

If judging by the way you thighs still quiver and your chest heaves—then yeah—it felt good. 

Cheeky bastard.  

“Get up here—“

You grapple with his shirt, fisting the thin fabric, but he’s heavy and your entire body feels like jello. Your grip strength is all but laughable at the moment as Bucky clambers back onto the couch and grabs both of your legs, slotting his narrow hips between them. One leg is stuck against the back of the couch while the other hangs off the edge, foot skimming the hardwood floor to accommodate Bucky. Not the most comfortable but fuck it—who cares.    

Bucky grunts when you lift your hands and hook your fingers into the waistband of his jeans, tugging them halfway down his legs with a sharp yank. Already a dark patch of wetness stains the fabric of his boxers, the impressive bulge straining against the elastic and begging to be released. Your eyes meet his icy blue ones as you slowly pull his boxers over his cock. It bounces up towards his navel, thick and beautiful just like the rest of him. 

Impatient, Bucky’s fingers curl around your wrist and presses your open palm against his cock. He’s thick and heavy in your hand—perfect. The bead of precum that pools at his flushed tip smears against the inside of your palm as you experimentally roll your wrist, fascinated with the feel of his foreskin rolling over the steel heard flesh with each stroke.You give his a cock a rougher squeeze, a bolt of liquid heat settling in the pit of your stomach as a stifled moan reaches your ears. 

A sharp hiss of hair passes through his clenched teeth as you lightly tug on his cock. From the base up you pull, fixed upon the throbbing flesh, flushed and pulsing and all for you. His cock bobs when you let go—he huffs out a disappointed noise. “I need you, Buck—please.” 

Your previous two orgasms did seemingly nothing to soothe the growing ache for him. It prickles up your spine and singes through every nerve and bone—you whine and arch your hips, trying to touch your slick cunt to his cock. Bucky growls your name and pins your hips to the couch with ease. 

With his left hand, Bucky firmly grips your jaw, his stare folding into something serious. “You sure?”

Your tongue runs over your bottom lip. You grin. “Do your worst.”

Bucky curses and readjusts your calf slung over his hip and grips the base of his cock. You shudder as he runs the blunt head through your folds, slicking himself up with your arousal. You mewl and dig your nails into the flesh of his forearm as the wide tip of him pushes into your entrance—he shudders as you clench and arch. It doesn’t hurt, but he’s certainly not small in any way shape or form. You’ll feel him for days afterwards as your cunt swallows inch after inch. 

You both groan as he finally bottoms out. His jaw clenched tight as sweat beads at his hairline. Shit—he’s gorgeous—struggling not to loose control the moment he’s buried inside of you. You allow yourself to adjust for a moment but your own impatience rakes down your spine with claws of scorching arousal. You rock your hips in curiosity and squeeze around him. 

“Fuck—“ A ragged moans severs his words as your gentle rocking tilts into abrasive jolts. At this angle it’s difficult to fuck yourself onto his cock, but the measly thrusts are meant to tempt him. His left hand shoots to your throat, the chilly metal a stark contrast to your flushed skin. You dip your head back, exposing more of your supple skin—all his for the taking. 

You dig the heel of your foot into the small of his back and grab at his shoulders—tempting him into fucking you already. You’ve waited long enough. Bucky snarls your name, hooks one hand under your ass and pulls his cock nearly all the way, out only to slam back in with devastating force. There’s no time to adjust or gather your obliterated thoughts before Bucky sets a pace, desperate and feral. Each roll of his hips borders erratic, taking his pleasure without thought—intent on reaching his own end after being denied for what seems like a millennia—and maybe it has been. Bucky shifts, widening his knees as much as he can to sink lower onto your body—his soft hair tickles your cheek as his choppy exhales burn hot over your skin. 

Bucky turns his head to steal a kiss, open mouthed and catastrophic. No words are exchanged as he fucks into you with brutal strength aided by that damn super-soldier serum—there’s no need for them, not now anyway. You complete each other without the spoken utterances—still both a work in progress. Though most things are you suppose—constantly remaking yourselves, but instead of smashing the haphazard pieces back together alone—you have one another. You bury your hand in his hair and cry his name.  

You choke out another groan and feel your arousal begin to drip down your thighs—hear the thrusts of his cock into your cunt become shamefully wetter and damn—you really hope nothing gets on this stupid couch. You don’t want to explain that Sam. 

Electric heat sears down each vertebrae in your spine, blazing through each and every vein with the brilliance of a wildfire escaping the edges of the forest. This is gonna ruin you. Bucky’s hand reaches between your bodies and rubs tight, controlled circles over you swollen clit. There’s no build up to your orgasm—just a calamitous surge of warmth that sweeps your very soul off its feet. Your nails dig into Bucky's back as you shake and fumble for a foothold in your own consciousness—the steady warmth of his body a much needed anchor. 

You have no time to recover because he’s still going. Thrusting into your pussy with violent slaps that echo through the room and will more than likely leave bruises against your ass. Through the pressure of his hand over your windpipe—threatening to cut your air off completely—you garble out his name. Bucky drops his head to his chin, the weight of his gaze landing between your legs, watching the way his entire length disappears inside of you. When he raises his head he molds his mouth to yours. The soft, wet kisses rapidly morph into pricks of his teeth, his gravelly moans so pleasing to hear. 

You arch and tilt your head back as he presses you harder into the couch. The vibranium hand latched onto your jaw, works it open and slides a thumb past your plush lips. You lave your tongue over the digit—the metallic tang flooding your tastebuds. “Good girl—m’close. A little longer.”

Bucky’s panting breaths mingle with yours as his pace turns vicious. Chasing his high that he so desperately needs. Overstimulation bites at your nerves, but with a gentle tug to the soft strands of hair on the back of his neck and a sweet whisper of his name, Bucky bursts. His moan jumps up an octave, eyes slamming shut as he buries his face into the juncture of your neck and shoulder as he cums. He’s shuddering in your arms as his hips erratically jerk, hot spurts of his release coating your insides. You whine and tilt your hips up to prevent it from spilling onto the couch. 

Finally he slows to a stop, ragged breathing filling the air as the heat and weight of his body becomes a welcome comfort. Eventually that warmth grows stifling. He lazily pulls away, observing gaze drinking in each inch of bare skin exposed—the marks and the light sheen of sweat. You hiss as he curiously drags his thumb over the bite mark lingering just above your collarbone.

He parts his plush lips but before he can apologize, you interject. “Don’t—I like the reminder.”

Bucky shakes his head and drops down to tempt your lips into a lazy dance. “You’re a weirdo.”

You smile and cup his cheek. “I’m not the one with a staring problem. You know that you can’t kill people by glaring, right?”

Bucky kisses your cheek, your jaw, and then the dip of your throat. “You don’t ever shut up, do you?” 

You shudder as his softening cock twitches inside of you, another coal of desire flaring in the pit of your stomach. You flash him a coquettish grin. “Maybe if you give my mouth something to do, you’ll finally get some peace and quiet.” 

Something dark and dangerous flickers within those eyes. You shiver as one hand returns to your throat while the other draws teasing patterns over the outside of your thigh. He draws in close, nips at the shell of your ear and chuckles darkly. “You’re on.”

[jimjam-lillo]

Never Lose You

Lily and James meet again after 5 years in a bar. Too much history has happened but too many feelings remain. Loosely inspired by Cornelia Street by Taylor Swift because she is everything. Part 1/2 posted

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13611019/1/Never-Lose-You

A wave of sticky, hot air washed over Lily as she entered the crowded bar. Half of her immediately wanted to turn around, but the promise of alcohol and Marlene’s pushy hand on her back gave her the courage to keep moving through the sweaty people. 

Alice had texted that she’d already secured them a table in the far right corner, and LIly could see her waving excitedly at them now from where she stood. She pushed through and jumped into Alice’s open arms for a hug. 

Emma was sitting on the other side of the table already and pushed a drink across the table to her. 

“Drink up, ladies,” Emma grinned at Lily and Marlene, “Alice and I have been here for an hour already. You’ve got some catching up to do!”

The girls passed the next hour and a half laughing and chatting, catching up on their recent lives, and reminiscing on their Hogwarts years together. They saw each other as often as they could, but it had gotten harder after school and not being around each other constantly. They moved in all together immediately after school but soon enough Alice left them to go move in with her boyfriend, Frank. Emma left soon after to attend grad school, and that left Marlene and Lily. Both worked within a few blocks of their shared apartment, a small, cute, barely in price range 2 bedroom that they decorated with thrifted furniture and empty wine bottles. The bar they were at now, The Griffyn, had become their go to spot to catch up with the girls. Close enough to walk back home on a nice night, with cheap enough drinks, and the most limited amount of creeps to hit on them. 

It had been a painful, long day to end a painful, long week at work where the problems just never seemed to end. Usually Lily would refuse to go out or leave her couch after a week like that. She felt the best way to solve those weeks would be to turn on a good Criminal Minds binge and survive off of takeaway for the weekend. Tonight, however, the weather was warm for the first time in weeks, and Lily had missed her friends. She knew she needed to go out so she came home, showered, put her makeup on as if it was her own form of war paint, and headed out, choosing that she would have fun tonight. 

It seemed this was even better medicine than Criminal Minds and Derek Morgan's beautiful figure because Lily’s stomach was quickly hurting with how hard she was laughing. Alice was telling a very animated work story about some idiot co worker and causing Lily’s drink to come out through her nose as tears streamed down her face in laughter. She felt light, pure joy, and happiness wash over her, surely from an equal combination of her drinks as well as her company. Noticing now that her cup was empty, Lily insisted on buying the next round and leaping up from their table towards the bar, blowing kisses over her shoulder back at the table as Marlene called out “My hero!” to her. 

Lily was still laughing when she got close to the bar. There was a group of four boys, tall and broad shouldered, standing right in her way of accessing the bar. Unsure of how to get around them, Lily quipped out a “S’cuse me, gents'' as she slipped directly in between the two closest ones, cutting under the arm of one with long, black hair. Their conversation seemed to halt at the girl weaving through them, and Lily heard them begin to speak in hushed tones while her back ws to them but she couldn’t convince herself to be bothered. Instead she focused on flagging down the bartender. He was preoccupied down at the other end of the bar with a Bachelorette Party so Lily resigned herself to waiting for a few minutes until he could come deal with her, and leaned up against the bar, twiddling her fingers. She was scanning up and down the others leaning on the bar, seeing if she recognized any other regulars, when she felt a tapping on her shoulder. “Evans?” 

Lily whipped around at this mystery stranger knowing her name and she was met with shocked, hazel and sparkling eyes. “Potter?” She whispered back.

“It really is Evans! At a bar! Who would have thought!” The second voice shocked Lily and she tore her eyes off of Potters, to reassess the others with him. Sirius, who turned out to be the second speaker, was standing next to James, eyes filled with mischief and mirth, just as she remembered them. Peter and Remus were there as well, the latter smiling brightly at her. 

“Sirius Black, I would say it's been too long but ah… still not sure it's been quite long enough,” Lily shot back at him, with a teasing smile. 

“Oh Evans,” Sirius reached out and ruffled her hair, “I have missed you!” 

Lily pushed his hand out of her hair with a laugh and leaned around to hug Remus, who she’d always gotten along well with at school, and give an awkward one arm hug to Peter, who she never talked to quite enough at school to properly know. After they unlatched she turned back and James caught her eye. She hadn’t seen him since a week after graduation, at Emmeline Vance’s graduation party. The gold in his eyes brought her right back to that rooftop they sat on and her breath hitched in her throat. She could tell he was there too until he snapped out of it and his eyes turned from molten back to guarded and black. Exactly the guarded look he had that night when she rejected him.

“All right, Evans?” There was her Potter. With his roguish grin that she used to hate and then she didn’t, which scared her more than anything. 

“Alright, Potter,” she grinned back at him and walked right into his open arms for a hug. 

He smelled good. Like real good. Like manly and home and she resisted the urge to curl her fingers into his shirt and purr like a cat. Letting go of him after a respectable amount of time for a friend hug was hard. She didn’t want to give him friend hugs. She wanted him to hold her and wrap her up like he did when she was shivering from the wind that night. When he would so casually drop a kiss onto the top of her head. 

It took them a full year of being heads together and friends to reach that level of comfort and it took months of being that comfortable, for him to convince himself he wasn’t just seeing things, and to work up the courage to kiss her. And for her to kiss him. And then all those days, weeks, months of work came tumbling down because of her and her fears of starting something so new and real when she was just starting her life and leaving. 

She knew that James was special, that her and James together would be special and powerful and would be so damn good. But she also knew that if she was going to be with him, it was going to be deep, and real, and probably forever. And as a brand new graduate, forever was far and scary and she was a coward who rejected him without explaining any of her fears. If she just told him, just explained, he would have talked her out of it immediately. But she didn’t. And so he left her on that rooftop and she was too much of a coward to go after him. Or to track him down or keep touch and now here she was five years later, alone, and unable to be with anyone else because nobody else was him. 

“You here alone, Evans? Scoping the crowd out for eligible young bachelors?” Sirius waggled his eyebrows at her, scoping out the crowd.

“Mhm yes, Sirius I frequently spend my evenings in bars alone to pick up eligible bachelors. You wanna be my boy for the night?” She teased back, “Just kidding, I haven’t stooped low enough to be interested in you, yet. Marlene, Emma, and Alice are all back there,” she stood on her tiptoes to point at the table. “I’m getting drinks for everyone but you guys should come join us!” she couldn’t help her eyes from sticking to James at the invitation. His cheeks colored when they made eye contact, and his hand immediately went to ruffle his hair as he nodded. 

Remus helped her flag down the bartender, being much taller and after collecting their drinks they headed over to the table, the boys carrying her drinks for her, as well as their own. With her hands free and James’ eyes on her she felt extremely aware of where her arms were and how much they were swinging as she walked back to their table. 

“Look who I found!” Lily announces to the table, interrupting Alice mid sentence. 

The girls all jumped up to hug their newcomers and Alice stole two chairs from a nearby table so they could all squish in. Naturally, Lily ended up right next to James, smushed up all alongside him.

Isn’t this perfect. 

Lily spent the next hour sitting there, with her right side pressed up against James, brushing up against him even more every time she lifted her glass to take a drink, pretending she didn’t notice. He should have smelled like sweat, all squashed up as he was, but of course he just smelled like cologne. Cologne that she wanted to bathe in. She also spent that hour pretending that she wasn’t watching his jawline whenever he swallowed, his cheekbones everytime he laughed, his throat everytime a stray drop of beer ran down him. She had to look away when she started to seriously consider leaning over to lick it off. 

Marlene and Sirius were hilarious to watch and listen to as they bantered back and forth, barely stopping to let anyone else get a word in. She was sitting there just watching them and laughing when she felt James shift in his seat and couldn't focus on anything else as his head dipped down and leaned closer to her ear. 

“So,” he whispered into her ear, hot breath washing over her as she gulped. “How have you been?” 

She whipped her head around the table to see if anyone had seen or if there was any chance someone else heard, but saw them all still absorbed in Peter’s missing pet rat story. She chanced a look back at him and saw his face so close to hers, she couldn’t look away. “Good! Busy!” she swallowed hard and looked away. “I started working at a NonProfit a few months after graduation and have been there since.” Work talk was safe. Work talk meant no feelings. “How about you? Did you end up working with your dad?” 

“Yeah, eventually. I held out for a little bit, put my accounting degree to use at another firm but he pulled me over to Speakeasy about a year and a half ago to be their in house accountant. It's been good. Better than I thought at least,” he smiled uneasily. 

She gripped her drink tightly and smiled softly back at him, “Good. That’s good! I’m happy for you.”

“Yeah, thanks. I’m happy for you too.” 

It was awkward and slightly uncomfortable, but it felt like that was the necessary talk to open the floodgates and Lily felt her whole body relax. Maybe that meant they would be ok, they could recover and be like they used to or be even better. They could have their fresh start. 

After that Lily joined the group conversation, as did James. They laughed and chatted and teased and filled in the blanks of the years lost but quickly came back to their fun, light banter as if no time had passed. The years apart faded away as each drink was finished and before long he was her James again. It became natural to shove his side when he made a cheeky comment, not at all weird when he grabbed her to give her a noogie, or when she stole his drink to take a drag. They were back and together and one again. 

Sirius got the next round, then James, then Remus, each time Lily or Alice fighting them to let them buy it but “we crashed your girls night. It’s only right!” James shot back every time with a wink always directed right at Lily, which she always responded to with a fierce blush. Marlene was smirking at her and Lily was half refusing to make eye contact, half smirking right back as she realized she didn’t care if Marlene teased her when it felt so. damn. good. Sitting with him, laughing with him, just being around him. She felt like she had come back to life without even knowing she had stopped living. Each laugh felt louder, breath deeper, drink stronger. She liked it. 

The bar had begun to clear out until they were one of the last remaining tables. “Let’s go, drunkies” Alice had stood from the table and was attempting to pull Sirius up from the bench, as he responded with dead weight refusal to move. 

“Aliiiiiiice,” he groaned, face down, “we can’t let the party die already!”

“Who said anything about it dying?” Marlene smirked at him, “Let’s go, Lily and I live a block from here. We can party all night long.” Sirius gave a whoop and leaped up from the table, tackling Alice. 

“That okay, Lily? You don’t have to get up early for work or anything, do you?” James looked at her earnestly, rubbing the back of his neck, something that looked a lot like hope or fear glimmering in his eyes. 

She smiled softly back. “Of course. Not going to let this night die so easily.” He broke out into a wide grin then and hers quickly matched his, standing at the edge of the table, staring at each other, smiling like idiots. 

“Ehm, s’cuse me,” Peter squeaked out from the table Lily was blocking him from leaving. Their little bubble broke as she mumbled out an apology and stepped away to let him out, whole face lighting up in blush. 

“C’mon, Evans” James had walked a few tables ahead and stood there waiting for her to catch up. All the others had walked on. 

They caught up quickly but stayed a few paces behind the others as they emerged onto the street to have the cold air wash over them. She barely had time to curse herself for forgetting her jacket back at home when his was wrapped around her shoulders. 

It smelled just like him. Yep, I’m done for. 

[thehuggamugcafe]

Christmas Drabble #3: Peppermint Kiss

Crunch.

“Stop it.”

That was what your boyfriend of two years, Ren Amamiya said, looking up from the book he was reading.

The white, red, and green-striped candy cane was crunched between your teeth, your eyes meeting the glasses-framed stare of your significant other.

You smirked as Ren tilted his head to the side, glasses glinting underneath the living room’s light a barely-there frown touched his lips.

“Stop what, dear~?”

Crunch.

“That.”

The familiar taste of peppermint lingered on your tongue, red and green melding together and besmirching the white candy cane as it was rolled across your tongue, clattering against your teeth as you smiled.

“You mean stop doing this?”

The telltale crunch as the candy cane was bitten into resulted in a stare from your boyfriend, narrowing his eyes as your toothy smirk twitched, quirking at the corners as it threatened to widen.

The frizzy-haired demon breathed a sigh, shaking his head.

Ever since you had decided that today was as good a day as any to put away the Christmas decorations, the tree included, he had to put up with the crinkling of plastic wrapping, and the painfully familiar noise as the colourful peppermint-flavoured candy stick was bitten into.

He quietly cursed himself for doing as you asked him to at the beginning of December.

Ren Amamiya was cursing himself for caving in to your request of purchasing two boxes of candy canes.

It hadn’t taken you long to work your way through half of one of the two boxes as you both took down and put away the decorations.

At first you ignored Ren’s subtle glances aimed squarely at you, staring at you out the corner of his eye.

At first you disregarded the way his brows twitched, onyx irises flashing with signs of irritation as you finished crunching your way through one candy cane, and quickly working your way through another.

Unfortunately, there came a point in time where you no longer ignored Ren’s quiet annoyance bubbling to the surface.

There came a point in time where you looked forward to your boyfriend’s reactions.

There came a point in time where you knowingly—and willingly—antagonized Ren.

You watched him in your peripheral vision, quietly observing—and delighting—in each of his reactions.

Crunch.

A brow twitched.

Crunch.

A lukewarm stare—a stare that was almost a glare, almost—was pointed your way.

Crunch.

The crisp noise as a page was turned, pausing to toss you a stare that was cold enough to frost the windows of the two-storey house you both called “home”. For all you knew, Ren’s chilly askance could start a full-blown ice age with little effort, if any trouble whatsoever.

Crunch—

The fourth crunch was what broke the dam and resulted in a tsunami of water rushing to greet you with arms wide open, as it were. The dam being Ren’s resistance to your nonchalant teasing, and the water being Ren’s patience as it snapped.

A quiet growl was all the forewarning you received. The thick novel Ren was reading hit the rug covering the floor around the couch with a dull thump; the couch’s springs wailed as they were relieved of Ren’s weight. Hands pushed you to the armrest; arms caged you in; black-framed glasses glinted as obsidian eyes flashed marigold.

“Something wrong, RenRen~?” you said, cooing your boyfriend’s nickname.

“As a matter of fact: yes. There is something wrong.”

He was practically hissing the words, heat fanning your face as Ren leaned in.

“And what’s bugging you? Can’t take my form of teasing?”

Feeling cattish, you stuck out your tongue. A small piece of what remained of your candy cane was there, reduced to a small and sticky ball of red, green, and white.

But it was what happened in the seconds following that caught you off-guard.

It was Ren’s lips pressing to yours.

The kiss was so sudden that your jaw fell open in surprise. Ren took that window of opportunity to slip his tongue past your lips, the moist organ scooping up the small saccharine ball of peppermint candy. He pulled back, strings of saliva connecting your lips to his mouth.

“…Maybe not, but…”

A chill shot down your spine, hitting your tailbone before it wormed back up to your nape, possessing your shoulders with a shiver. It wasn’t an unpleasant sensation, not if the familiar hint of embarrassing heat shading your cheeks with a rosy hue was anything to go by.

“…It appears you can’t handle my teasing either, sweetheart.”

Ren stuck his tongue out and for a moment, you thought he was letting his inner child shine through—but when you looked, actually looked, you narrowed your eyes.

There, on the tip of his tongue, was the same rolled ball that had once been the rest of your candy cane; the red, green and white colours mixing, intertwining was obvious to spot to your critical-eyed leer.

“Maybe, maybe not,” you said, making sure to lace your voice with a low, teasing croon. “But…”

Ren’s eyes flashed marigold, watching as you edged yourself closer to him and you, in due kindness, watched as his mouth was closed. The small sphere of peppermint-flavoured candy was seen for a moment and then, not seen the next.

“Perhaps I don’t mind egging you on?”

Ren smirked; his lukewarm onyx irises were slowly, oh so slowly engulfed by a hue of molten gold.

“Is that so…? Then…”

He leaned down, pressing a kiss to your lips. His mouth was a bit sticky from the round ball that no doubt was still on the tip of his tongue, literally. You take in a breath, inhaling the vague but brisk hint of peppermint lingering on his breath as he exhaled, chuckling in your face.

“I won’t mind responding to your challenges.”

[stranded-warriors]

 It was hard to believe the tower was still standing. The quartz structure had a whole side of it torn through by a molten hot asteroid which had nearly gone though the entire building, but the thin, tall structure stood defiantly even as it burned away in the night. A large crowd was to be expected as a cluster of dragon-types gathered around to watch the ongoing bonfire with awe as fire-resistant troops flooded onto street's overhead walkways into the belly of the beast. The threat of anyone becoming glassed by the meteor was done and over already, but a mere fire wasn't what the dozens of guards were storming through the crowds of people into the structure for; it was the thing making mince-meat of them on the scorched floor.

 Was it a monster from parts unknown, a pokemon who had ridden the comet with them, some kinda mythological entity? He called it a good distraction, the Quilava wouldn't have made it all the way down to street level if there hadn't been something up there keeping those arms-men in a bind.

 He reached ground level, slipped through the legs of the surrounding Haxorus and beefier folks all whilst dragging the limp body of an Abra on his back. Only halfway down the first alleyway away from the tower Quilava was utterly beaten, falling like a brick as he welcomed his back to the loving embrace of a cold stone floor. From the floor he saw glimpses of Abra he thought he just dropped pull himself to the nearest wall, sitting snug under the shade of the nearest roof. There was no blaming the Abra for his own legs feeling like jelly, or his back wanting to snap into two, he had brought this on himself when he decided he couldn't bring himself to leave some fool trapped under rubble. He got what he deserved.

 “Hey.” Quilava groaned, “I'm going to say it: I don't think our relationship's gonna last, kid. Don't take it the wrong way, it's not like I hate you, however if you really expect me to carry you around everywhere, I kinda can't.”

 Quilava felt a perplexed look staring at him from behind Abra's blindfold.

 “Remember what we said before we left?” he reaffirmed, “I'll make it up to you, just gimme some time.”

 “You can get away with saying that to me, but I'm going to let you know: I-owe-you's are a currency accepted practically nowhere.” Quilava sighed deeply, “Look, I hate hounding you like this. I just need to be sure we can safe, and I don't feel safe right now. I am with a complete stranger had only dug out of a whole an hour ago only to find-

 “Jeremiah.”

 “What?”

 “My name is Jeremiah.”

 “Quincy” the Quilava sighs, “I don't see how this changes much.”

 “Okay Quincy, what are you good at?”

 The Abra was smiling at him. He could see his teeth from here: they're a bit yellow, pointed on the ends, very feline-like, and they stick out of his mouth as he holds his dumb smile. The stupidity of his look didn't come off as intentional, by the tone of his voice the kid was sincere about his question. Jeremiah just wanted to know what Quincy was good at. Among the hundreds of questions which had arisen in the past hour, it was the one of the few Quincy knew how to answer.

 “I'm good with my hands, a-and I used to spar with a shortsword – good luck finding one for a pokemon of my size.” Quincy raised an eyebrow. “I'm going to guess you're one of those psychics or something? I recognize your species a bit.”

 “You could say that.”

 Quincy paused to take in his surroundings. Cool air, the lack of a sky, quartz – lots of it, as if he weren't sure anyone he knew he had to be somewhere he did not belong. This place was a city, but even then most pokemon-run “cities” were nowhere near as complex as this place. It had a web of complex walkways which would take years to build; a whole system of tight stone streets, not a spec of dirt of stone; that's not even getting started on the pillars high as mountains standing everywhere! It was all so odd yet familiar, and though he hasn't visited many towns as he'd like in his life they all meant one thing in common to him.

 “Kid, you ever visit a tavern?”

 “What’s that?”

 “As long as we stay away from mead-houses,” Quincy mumbles then picks up his voice, “-uh, they're places where you can drink and sleeps. Big cities have them, we're in one.”

 “That sounds great,” Jeremiah smiles again, “Can I pay them in 'I-owe-you's'?”

[thefiresensei]

So I have a confession to make...

I originally asked the lovely @speedythecat if I could use her OC Rain Valentine for the Ninjago Valentine's Week Challenge way back at the start of February... and I've only just managed to get round to writing it! I'm really sorry Speedy, and I hope I've done your amazing OC justice and have kept to her character (if you haven't seen Rain you just must look her up, she's a stunning OC).

**Rain Valentine belongs to Speedythecat (in case you hadn't realised...)**

One Red Hot Mess

"You are so gonna lose this one, Walker." Kai slammed his fist down, rolling back his sleeve fiercely and bracing himself, holding onto the edge of the heavy stone workbench top with his free hand.

Jay chortled, eyebrows pinched together as he mirrored Kai, rolling up his own blue sleeve and grabbing a hold of the opposite side of the worktop.

"Oh, you think so, do you? Fire isn't the only thing that gets hot around here, you know?"

"Uh guys, I dunno if this is such a good idea…" Cole immediately quietened as the two elemental masters turned and frowned, shushing the earth elemental down.

"Okay. Well, don't say I didn't tell you so when you both manage to burn the monastery down. Again." Cole looked pointedly at the fire elemental, who rolled his eyes in response before turning his attention back to Jay, muttering under his breath one time, and they won't let me forget it…

"Not going to happen, Cole. We're miles beneath the actual building in here anyhow." Jay gestured around the old dragon stables cut into the stone of the mountainside, now converted into the ninjas' equivalent of a garage, complete with pieces of machinery scattered amongst various vehicles. "And trust me, I'm going to whoop Kai's butt before he can manage to create any havoc."

"Yeah, yeah. Quit stalling, blabbermouth, and show me whatcha got." Kai leaned in, his eyes narrowing but the flicker of amber plain to see within the dark irises. Jay grinned, matching Kai, his own blue eyes sparkling.

"Let's do this."

"Okay, well here goes nothing." Cole placed the two plugs of iron down in front of the pair, eyes appraising both. "So the winner is the one who manages to melt their own piece of iron first. No cheating, no touching the metal beyond what was agreed. You both ready?"

Kai gave a quick nod whilst Jay sniggered.

"Okay then, on the count of three. Three, two, one…go!"

The dimly lit cavern sparked into light as the two powers ignited, Kai's flames soon flickering and burning brightly as Jay quickly coiled wire around his iron rod then began striking it with his own lightning. Kai's eyes widened as Jay's rod within the makeshift coils gradually began to glow, the fire ninja blinking hard then refocusing his efforts on his own rod, the fire tendrils glowing white as they flickered and licked around the iron.

"What in this realm are you two doing?!" Rain's soft, puzzled voice made all three accomplices jump, causing Jay to shoot a sudden, stronger bolt of electricity through into his magnetised coil, sending it flying across the benchtop into Kai's now glowing one. The equally shocked fire elemental yelped and sent the two rods cascading into the back wall with a ball of white hot fire, the shelf it had barrelled into collapsing with an ear splitting, flaming cascade.

"Kai, you idiot!"

"What? That wasn't just me, Jay."

The two bundled over to the wall, Cole shaking his head as the two rallied over to the smoking mess.

"Well would you look at that." Jay snickered, pointing at the molten pile seeping around the makeshift coils he had created. "Looks like mine had melted… first!"

"Yeah, intertwined with mine, Blueboy. It probably hit mine which melted it in the first place. This proves nothing"

Cole gingerly prodded at the heap of metal and broken shelving on the floor with a hastily grabbed stick, hissing under his breath and jumping back as fresh smoke rose up, curling around them as a molten mass ran down the heap onto the stone floor. "Guys, what is that?"

"It'll just be the iron, Cole."

"Nope. That aint molten iron, it looks a bit like-"

"No!" All three scattered as Rain pushed the brothers out of the way, silver hair billowing behind her as she threw herself down on her knees, a hand shakily hovering over the molten mass.

"Umm, Rain?"

Rain ignored Jay, her head shaking in disbelief as she stared at the mess.

"My glass. My glass sculptures." Her voice was low, shaky as she blinked heavily, eyes not leaving the now cooling mess before them. The three looked to each other, eyes wide as they comprehended what had happened, Cole's mouth forming a silent "oh". Jay elbowed the red ninja, not taking his eyes from the crime scene.

"You are so for it, Kai." Kai stepped back indignantly, glaring at the blue ninja.

"Me? Why me? If I recall you were also-"

"What have you done?" Rain suddenly stood, fists curled as she straightened herself up. Cole marvelled as he noted her freckles appearing to stop still, freezing to attention.

"We're sorry Rain," Kai nudged Jay, who nodded quickly in agreement. "But I'm sure you can make some more-"

"They took me months! And the one I had been making for Lloyd!" She stopped, eyes blazing as she surveyed the molten mess before flicking back up and locking onto Kai's. "Why do you always have to be so, so…reckless!?"

As she screamed the last word the bare glass bulbs illuminating the dark corners of the cavern shattered, Cole and Jay ducking and lifting their arms against the flying, glinting shards.

Kai tilted his chin up, amber within his eyes flaring as he stared the Master of Glass down, folding his arms. "Now hold on. It was an accident, and not just my-"

"What in the name of my grandfather is going on in here? Rain?" Lloyd's entrance immediately defused the situation, Kai's shoulders heaving as he took a breath and stepped back, looking away. The green ninja tilted his head, perplexed. "Guys?"

Jay grabbed hold of Kai's arm, nudging the grumbling red ninja towards the nearest exit, Cole quickly side stepping alongside him. "It was an accident, Lloyd. Rain's sculptures got, err, melted. And we're, um, sorry." Jay shot Lloyd with an apologetic smile before ducking out of the exit, bundling Kai out with Cole's assistance, sending a last wary look to Rain. His expression melted as he saw the grief in her haunted eyes. "We really are sorry." And with a last shove and push the three exited, Cole's brash I told you so echoing through the silent garage.

Lloyd quickly stepped over to his girlfriend, wrapping her in his arms and running a gloved hand slowly through her silky hair. After a few moments he leaned back, cupping her cheek gently.

"This isn't the first time your sculptures have been broken by accident, but you seem really, really upset about it this time."

Rain bit her lip, looking down.

"You also kinda looked like you were going to give Kai a pasting there…"

She smiled lightly, slowly raising her eyes to Lloyds.

"He would have deserved it."

"Huh, no doubt." Lloyd gently pulled her chin up to him, planting a tender kiss against her lips. Rain smiled lightly, exhaling softly, not resisting as Lloyd pulled her over to the seats at the workbench in the centre of the room.

"So why so upset?"

Rain took a breath, shaking her head and averting her eyes, mumbling softly. "One of the sculptures��� was a Valentines gift for you."

"Oh!" Lloyd's eyebrows rose, his eyes lighting up. "That, that was really sweet."

"Yeah and now you won't get to see it. Ever." Rain's voice was soft, no longer laced with anger but tinged with sadness.

"What was it?" Lloyd looked over at the shimmering mess in the corner, smoke tendrils now dying out amongst the molten iron and glass peppered with shards of wood.

"Your dragon."

"Sweet!"

Rain looked up shyly, her eyes seeking his. "You would have liked it?"

The green ninja practically bounced in his seat, red eyes glowing. "Are you kidding me? I would have loved it!" He paused, eyes looking inward and brows furrowing. Rain giggled, jabbing him in the ribs.

"Your thinking face does not suit you! What are you plotting?"

"Oh well thank you very much!" Lloyd leaned forward, taking her hands in his, rubbing his thumbs over her soft skin.

"We should make it again."

Rain looked up, confused. "We?"

"Yeah. Both of us. You could show me how, we could work on it together." Rain held his gaze, taking in the bright red orbs, the cute little fangs protruding slightly as he grinned. "It will be awesome."

"But you can't work glass."

Lloyd shook his head, his smile wide and infectious. "But I'm the destined green ninja, I'm sure you can make use of some of my powers. Or at the very least I can get you drinks, and maybe a piece of candy or two whilst you work on it."

Rain smiled, taking his face in her hands and planting a firm kiss on his mouth. "You sure? I mean, it can't really be your Valentine's gift now, now that you know about it."

"Are you for real? It'll be an even better gift!"

Rain tilted her head, eyes questioning. Lloyd shook his head again, blond hair flopping across his forehead as he grasped her waist and pulled her towards him, hugging her tightly before tucking stray silver hair behind her ear and whispering into it softly.

"Because we'll have made it together. So it'll be perfect."

[bravevulnerability]

prompt: "Are you awake? Please don’t be asleep. I’m drunk and need to tell you how much I love you."

Are you awake?  Please don’t be asleep. I’m drunk and need to tell you how much I love you.

He stares at the screen of his phone for a long moment, until his eyes go dry and his retinas burn, the words of the text message blurring.  

The pop of a gunshot jerks him to attention and Castle releases his breath, reaches for the remote and silences the action flick he’s only been half watching. He’s been dozing in his office, thinking – worrying – about Beckett. Apparently, for good reason.

She doesn’t drink excessively and he knows why, and she definitely doesn’t drunk text either.  

Castle sits up on the leather couch, swings his legs over the side of the furniture with his phone clutched in his sweaty palm. It’s considerably late for a weeknight, nearly midnight, and it seems that Beckett isn’t getting much rest either.

He hasn’t slept well since the bank, since the sniper case a couple of weeks ago, since before the summer.  

I’m awake.

He sends the response even as he starts for the front door. It’s chilly outside, but his jeans and sweater should keep him warm enough, so he merely slides on the pair of sneakers he left by the entryway, pockets his phone, his wallet, and his keys once he’s locked the door and trotting down the hallway.  

Where are you, Castle?

He’s sure she’s fine. May be drunk, but she’s coherent enough to message him without errors littering her texts. It fails to quell his concern though, can’t rip down the red flag that the knowledge of Kate indulging in alcohol raises within his mind.

He’s just going to check on her, ensure she’s all right; he’ll be back home within the next hour.

On my way.

She doesn’t answer his reply with another text, but she does answer her front door when he knocks.  

“Castle,” she breathes, her lips blossoming into that same gorgeous smile she wore for him only a few weeks ago, when she came to his rescue in the remains of an exploded building.

“Hey,” he greets, resisting the urge to reach for her waist when she sways in the front doorway.

“You’re here,” she mumbles, her lashes falling heavy with each slow blink, curiosity and confusion managing to flicker through her gaze.  

She doesn’t look good. Her hair is pulled back into a bun at her nape, but too many strands slip free, dangle along her cheeks, her jaw, curtaining purple stains beneath her eyes, so prominent without the aid of her concealer.  

“I got your text,” he states, as if that explains it all, but he doesn’t expect her to understand, to remember her words tonight nor tomorrow.  

Just another forgotten ‘I love you’.  

“M’text?” she repeats, tries to, her brow scrunching before rocketing to her hairline with realization. “Oh, I remember. I texted you.”

Castle purses his lips to subdue his smile, but nods his head. “Yeah, I was worried. Wanted to make sure you were okay here.”

Confusion tugs her eyebrows back into that adorable furrow while Beckett tilts her shoulder into the doorway. “Worried because I love you?” she inquires, her words popping like champagne bubbles between them, her shy smile like fine wine, and okay, drunken Kate Beckett is not at all like he would have imagined her.

But as beautiful as the words sound coming from her lips, her breath smells like vodka, cheap whiskey, and it reminds him why he’s here, why she’s saying any of this in the first place.

“Uh, no, not – necessarily,” Castle hedges, glancing over his shoulder to instill that he is still the only one standing in her hallway, witnessing this rare show of weakness from the woman in front of him. “Worried that you’re saying it out loud, I suppose.”

“Oh,” she gasps and he does reach for her this time, catching her by the hips when her entire body rocks forward with the revelation, teetering off balance. “It’s supposed to be a secret.”

“That – that you love me?” Rick gets out, his throat closing up around the words as he forces them out. But Kate shakes her head, lifts her hands to curl her fingers in the neck of his sweater.  

“No, that you love me,” she sighs, shame blossoming dark and vivid through her cloudy eyes. 

He’s had his suspicions, known deep down since that day in her hospital room, but to hear her confess the truth aloud still stings.  

But Kate isn’t done yet.  

“Can’t say it back yet,” she mutters, dropping her forehead to rest against his clavicle. Oh, he’s glad she’s not with it enough to notice the violent stutter of his heart, because say it back? She actually feels the same? “But then the bank. Almost lost you and I – I can’t lose you too, Castle.” He feels the flutter of her lashes at his neck, the single drop of moisture the second it falls, pooling in the hollow of his throat. Oh god, he’s never seen her cry like this. Not for him. “I don’t want you to go.”

“Hey, Kate,” he soothes, lacing an arm around her waist while his hand threads through her hair. “I’m not going anywhere. It’s okay.”

“Can’t promise that,” she rasps, but Castle shakes his head, presses his lips to the top of her head.  

“No, but I’m going to do my best not to get blown up or taken hostage again, okay?” he promises, grinning at the choked noise of her laughter. “I gotta stick around for my partner, at least until she’s ready to hear me tell her how much I love her back.”

The heat of her breath stains his skin, sets it aflame, igniting fiercely when Kate nuzzles her nose to the cove of his neck.

“Hate waiting,” she grumbles, humming in question as he nudges her backwards, into her foyer so he can shut her door behind him. “But you deserve more.”

“More?” he echoes, pulling back when Beckett finally lifts her head, meets his gaze with a smile that somehow manages to crack his heart in two.  

“Mm, you deserve someone – to love someone who’s not so damaged. Want to be better so we can-”

“Kate Beckett,” he growls, using this newfound privilege of touch to draw her body in close again, cradling her in an embrace she’s too wasted to fight. “How could you think… you’re already everything I could want. I don’t need more.”

God, he wishes she was sober, wishes he knew all of this sooner, almost wishes she never would have sent that text. She’ll forget all of this by morning, but he won’t. And how do they go back to their form of normal after this?

“I love you,” he says, his heart exalting with the words he’s locked away over the last few months, allowing them a night of freedom before they have to be sent back into confinement. “But I’ll keep waiting, as long as you need.”

“Not much longer,” she slurs, slumping against his chest, and Castle sighs, glances towards the short hallway he’s certain leads to her bedroom.

He supports the majority of her weight with an arm around her waist as he coaxes her to walk the brief distance, tries to ignore the glass on the coffee table, the half empty liquor bottle beside it.  

“Castle?” He hums his acknowledgment once he’s guided her inside her bedroom, led her safely to her bed. She’s staring up at him in the darkness, her eyes a molten gold. Stunning but untouchable, everything about her. “Don’t have to wait alone. Doesn’t have to be so miserable.”

“You’re – you want to wait together?” he asks even though they’re making no sense, but Kate’s biting her bottom lip.

“I could… I don’t want to do this alone.”

“Okay,” Rick concedes, taking a seat on the edge of the mattress beside her. “The walls are still up, but I could build a door, climb a ladder over the top, dig a hole-”

“Not necessary,” she chuckles, resting her head on the rounded edge of his shoulder, the simple action stealing his breath. “Not so complicated. Think you’re already inside the wall. Maybe – what’s the point in waiting when you’re already with me?”

He doesn’t have an answer for her.  

“Kate, I think we should save this conversation for when you’re ready, or at least until morning-”

“I don’t want to waste any more time,” she groans, her nose nudging his bicep. 

Castle reaches across to squeeze the bone of her knee.

“It’s not wasted, Beckett,” he murmurs, feeling her cheek smudge against his shoulder once more, her chest rising with a breath. “You’re worth any wait.”

She sighs, covers his hand at her knee and squeezes. “Castle, m’falling asleep, but while I can still say it – I love you.”

He lays her down, eases her body beneath the blankets and sweeps her hair from her face with his fingers, touches his lips to the skin of her forehead for just a heartbeat of a moment.  

“I love you too, Kate.”

He already knows the outcome, but he can’t help hoping she chooses to remember it this time.

[phinnsyreads]

(use headphones/earbuds for best listening experience)

This was stupid. It was a stupid idea, thought up by stupid people, in stupid, safe offices. Agent Two looked around slowly, letting his flashlight play over the walls, one of the only items the Agents were allowed to carry inside SCP-015. Agents Six and Lon were standing just behind him, doing the same. The idle chatter and joking had died off about thirty seconds ago, each Agent slowly realizing that this was no simple little milk-run. Go in, find the observation unit, pull the data and recover the unit. Cake. They'd laughed, Lon asking if she should find a Mario hat to wear, them being plumbers now and all. Now, however…seeing the dim, cramped tunnel yawning before them, the only joke was them being there at all.

Two stepped forward, slowly, fixing his flashlight on the ground. It was a hard mat of pipes, more or less level with the floor. A few small tubes stuck up here and there, snaking around like tree roots, or suddenly turning up in the middle of the floor like a pillar. The walls, the ceiling, every inch of the original structure was coated in pipes. Some researcher who led them up to the main door said that there wasn't anything left of the old warehouse really, except for the outer shell. He pushed away that whole line of thought, pointedly following the pre-mapped course they'd had to memorize, stepping around a pillar of tightly woven hair, the glossy surface steaming gently.

Six plodded along, taking the rear and keeping a close eye on Two and Lon. Skittish kids. Lon was jumping at every sound, and Two looked like he was ready to drop and run if he saw so much as a mouse. Kids. He sniffed in the dark, playing his light forward, smelling heat, sewage, and God knows what else. They needed a good military hand to lead them, but damned if Six was going to mollycoddle grown adults who were going to jump at shadows. They were going to get this goddamn job done, and get the hell back out. Fuck that bullshit SCP slip, they were just security blankets for eggheads and flakes. “Semi-sentient” my ass, they just didn't want people denting their pet horrors. He wanted out of this dripping nightmare. He was going to get this mission done with or without them.

Lon tiptoed over a thick, thorny mass of pipe, the surface like braided thistles, trying not to whimper. She kept close to Two, keeping the light at her feet so she wouldn't step on anything nasty. She hadn't wanted to seem like the little, weak girl…but she had a terrible fear of tight spaces…and this place was like walking around in someone's slowly closing arteries. Lon shook her head, hard, breaking off that whole train of thought. She was the tech, Six and Two were the safety. All she had to do was stick by them, pull the data cards out of the MRV, and then leave. She tried hard not to look back at the sealed doors in the distance behind them. Only a couple turns to the MRV, a little work, and then out. In and out, simple as pie. She ignored a softly throbbing pipe of leathery flesh near her arm with a focus that was almost physical.

They found the MRV after what felt like an hour of walking. It was hard to keep your bearings. The rampant growth of the pipes had cramped some areas down to crawlways, and snarled others in to random, claustrophobic mazes. Six had nearly gotten stuck twice, and had looked like he was about to murder Lon when she made a comment relating to Winnie the Pooh. Lon was talking again, at least…but it was brittle, whistle in front of the graveyard chatter. Two kept trying to follow the directions…but even with them being less than a week old, they were little more than a guideline. When they'd finally found the MRV, it'd been a momentary relief. At least they were at the half way point. Then they'd looked at it in the light.

It had been speared, for lack of a better term. Pinned against a pipe of some kind of dense fabric, a smooth, black pipe had docked itself to the camera lens of the observation vehicle. It wasn't smashed or damaged, it just…connected, as if it was made for it. It had lifted the little treaded robot nearly a foot off the ground, and it looked like other, smaller pipes had started to connect to other open spaces on the vehicle. It just sat there, the wheels slowly turning as the battery died, like a bug on a nest of pins. Some clear, foul-smelling fluid was dripping softly from the camera housing.

“Well.”

Two's voice echoed in the dark, a monument to pointless speech. They all stood, for a few moments, then Lon started to, carefully, look over the MRV. Six was looking around with an increasing restlessness, starting to mutter quietly. Lon was reaching for the data cards, before stopping, looking over at Two.

“Um…Two…since it's grown in to the MRV, do you think it…counts?”

“What do you mean counts?” Two kept the light on her and the machine, a hiss of steam behind him making him flinch.

“I mean as damaging 015. If I take out the data cards, do you think it will…react?”

Two looked around slowly, shining his light along the floor, a pipe as wide as a car and seemingly made of compacted lint.

“…this suddenly seems like a bad-”

“Oh shut the fuck up.”

Both Agents turned to stare at Six. He'd stepped up to the MRV, flexing his hands and reaching in to his coat with one hand. The other pushed Lon away none too softly.

“Move it. Reaction, for fuck's sake…they just say that shit to fuck with people and keep their toys safe. It's a bunch of weird pipes. Beginning and end, there. Maybe it grows or whatever, but the damn thing sure as shit isn't going to take offense to people. I'm grabbing this goddamn thing, and we're getting out of here.”

As he spoke, he stepped forward, flipping open the dataport cover. More of the clear, scummy liquid had pooled inside. The other two Agents froze, staring in shock a moment…and the building seemed to do so as well, the whispered sounds of venting steam, sliding materials, and soft pinging had all stopped. The heartbeat in Lon's ears sounded like gunshots. Two started forward, reaching for Six.

“Jesus, Six, what the fuck are-”

Six ignored him, slipping out the thin data cards. It felt like old, nasty water over them…bad, but they were built to resist it. He slipped them out, then put the bundle in his pocket. He prodded around the edge of the camera lense, shifting the MRV a bit, trying to see if it would work free as Two and Lon backed away, slowly, the silence around them seeming to crush inward. Six gave up, turning away from the helplessly trapped MRV and shining his light on the two white-faced Agents.

“Fucking kids. I don't know how you guys survive.”

The pipe under him opened with the soft sound of tearing felt.

Two and Lon didn't even have time to react, before he slid in to the widening gap up to his armpits, and started screaming horribly. Six's flashlight went tumbling away as the two Agents, galvanized by the big man's wretched screaming, ran to help him. A blast of heat and light was pouring up from under the man, as the two Agents grabbed his arms and looked down. He was submerged in a mass of thickly flowing molten glass. His clothes had already started to smolder and burn, the stench of seared flesh almost more overpowering than the reverberating screams. They pulled, and dragged up half of a man, with a ruined, seared mass of flesh and cloth where his lower body should have been.

They panted, trying to drag him, Lon starting to scream along with Six, Two's eyes wide and fixed on some point far away from there. There was a horrible swell of sound rising all around them, pinging, hissing, clicking, cracking, a pipe to their side bulging alarmingly and causing them to nearly fall. They regained their footing just as a wooden pipe above them burst open in a spray of splinters and clear, stinging dust.

Two and Lon spun away, gagging and choking, Two spitting out a sudden mass of blood. Glass. It was powdered glass. It poured over Six, muffling his screams, shifting as he struggled a few moments, then stopped, the glass quickly covering the body and spreading. Lon blinked, eyes red and puffy, looking over at Two. He nodded, and they bolted down the hall, trying to ignore the rising cacophony of sound, sounding like an approaching subway train. A mass of oily, reeking chemicals boiled up behind them, a jetting surge of rose thorns nearly cutting off their forward progress, forcing them to crawl along a bone pipe that was shuddering like an old man in the cold.

They ran, keeping just ahead of…whatever it was, hearing splintering explosions and shivering cracks all around them. They finally came to a snarled crawlway, barely a few feet wide, that was the only way forward. Two dived in, doing a low crawl, trying to will himself forward like a snake, knowing the passage was only about fifteen feet long, easy, wouldn't take any time. Lon hesitated, that tiny, black gap looking like a mouth, before a sudden burst of steam behind her sent her shrieking forward, sobbing as she started to crawl, calling after Two.

Two ignored the growing vibration all around him, the creaking ping near his head, and slid free of the opening, he turned…and saw nothing. No Lon, no sudden bursting…just the empty hole. He looked around, hands twitching, thinking, then slid back inside, trying to find Lon and physically drag her out. He could hear her, muffled, probably behind the next turn…and his flashlight revealed a solid wall of three thick, flaking white pipes. This was it, he was sure of it, the tunnel was right here…and then he heard the pitiful scream behind them. Lon begging, pleading, screaming for him. Two stared, eyes wide, then slammed his flashlight against the pipe. It burst, sending a reeking, corrosive slime over his hand, making him reel back down the crawlway, screaming as it ate in to his flesh. He stood outside the opening, holding his steaming hand away from him, trying not to look at the exposed bone.

“Oh…oh Jesus…Lon…Lon, I'm sorry, I'll get help, I'll get someone, just sit tight, I swear…”

He bolted down the hall, his flashing seeming to dim in time to the rising sound.

Lon panted, screaming for Two, hearing the hard bang on the other side of the pipe and his sudden, shrieking retreat. She sobbed, her whole body shaking, and slowly started to work her way backward, crawling on her belly, crying as she muttered some half-remembered prayer.

When her feet pushed against a sold wall of pipe, she couldn't even muster a fresh scream.

She was trapped, the space not much bigger than a coffin, helpless. She sobbed, face on the ground of warm, fuzzy pipes…and noticed the silence. Aside from her cries, there was nothing. No pinging, no cracks or explosions…nothing. She raised her head in the barely illuminated dark, looking around. She was alive. It was calming down. They'd come for her, Two would get help. She was getting out of here. She fought back her growing claustrophobia, looking along the walls. She noticed a small gap at the ceiling, and started shifting to get a better look, twisting back…and finding only the open end of a pipe. Lon sagged back, closing her eyes, tears leaking down her face.

The first sticky drips she simply assumed were the same tears. Then one fell on her mouth…and it was sweet. She opened her eyes, and saw a thick, quivering mass of amber goo splatter from the mouth of the pipe, coating her and the floor as it surged out. She coughed, shifting back…it was honey. Honey, or something like it. At least it wasn't molten lead or acid…then she saw the level rising. It wasn't draining. The pipes were packed too close. She looked around her tiny chamber with horror rising much faster than the honey oozing up her sides. Lon beat on the walls the floor, the ceiling, trying to block the pipe with her hands, heedless of provoking the thing more…as the honey rose and rose, as cloying sweet as a school age lover.

Her last, gasping breath was sweet and stale with honey and screams.

Two ran, totally lost now, his flashlight dimming by the moment, the sound of cracking and bursting pipes starting to trail off. Maybe it was done, finally. 015 was protective, but it didn't seem vengeful. People had gotten hurt before, and gotten out fine. It happened. They'd find a way to get Lon out too. She might even be out already, just found another way to get around the blockage. That was probably it, she was out of this stupid place. Six was a shame…but why had that lunatic opened the case? What the hell had possessed him?

He was still musing on this when he tripped over an unseen pipe in the dark around his feet.

He pitched forward, yelping a half-surprised, half-terrified bark as he went sprawling. Or he should have went sprawling. Instead, he fell past the floor, in to a yawning, open pit of a pipe, the slick, oozing sides plunging down at a sharp angle. He screamed, trying to grab something to stop or slow himself, but the walls were oozing and thick, his downward slide gaining speed. His dimming flashlight showing a seemingly endless tunnel stretching off below him. He slid, and slid, a scum of stinking, smooth ooze sticking to his clothes and skin.

The tube twisted, banging him against the wall as he followed it, his flashlight jittering and starting to flicker. Panic slammed down like a fist, Two grabbing the light and trying to keep it still, pleading with it, staring at the lamp bulb as it dimmed more and more. It surged a moment, then flickered out, the darkness pressing to his eyes like cloth, the Agent slipping down faster and faster, screaming until he was hoarse, screaming until his throat bled, screaming even as he passed well beyond the physical boundaries of that tangled web of pipes.

Days later, when his skin started to shred off, it was almost welcome.

SCP-015 Recovery Report

Agent Two: MIA Agent Six: MIA Agent Lon: MIA MRV-889236 Status: Unrecovered

Data deemed non-vital in light of lost staff. SCP-015 classification level review suggested.

[mlpdestinyverse]

“Unexpected Development”

Feat: Monochrome,  Skychaser

Returning to the Cutie Mark Sanctuary after running an errand for Scootaloo, Skychaser has an...unexpected reunion with a familiar (and heckin gorgeous) face.

Story and Description Under The Cut!

-Skychaser walks alone down a hallway of the Cutie Mark Sanctuary, one of his arms tightly holding a plastic shopping bag close to him. Scootaloo had sent him off on an errand, which wasn’t an uncommon occurrence. But what Skychaser finds curious is that the mare had requested numerous packs of drawing charcoal, erasers, and graphite pencils. Now the stallion is all for providing more supplies for the visual art sector! They certainly needed it. But based on what she had said, Scootaloo was going to sit in on a volunteered art class. As far as Skychaser remembers, Scootaloo only ever checks in on volunteered classes. Rarely did she sit in on one. And for it to be art-related one, and one she seemed to REALLY be looking forward to? Very curious. Skychaser shakes off his thoughts as he approaches the room number Scootaloo had given him.- ’Maybe we have a special artist on our hooves…? Eh, better not think too much about it. We got kids ready to show their stuff~’ Skychaser: -sits and opens the door with his free hoof. He looks down to quickly readjust the supplies with both arms, careful not to drop them- Alright, kiddos, I got your emergency art stash right he- -Sky stops dead in his tracks upon lifting his head. He doesn’t notice the children at the tables, who have looked up upon his arrival. He barely even notices Scootaloo, sitting backwards in a chair on the opposite side of the room and leaning her head over to catch a glimpse of him. What captures his full attention is the pony standing at the front of the classroom, their colorless hair tied back in a ponytail while glasses adorn their face. They, too, turn their attention towards him with calm green eyes. Skychaser recognizes the pony instantly. He doesn’t realize his hold on the art supplies has weakened until the bag thumps to the floor.- Skychaser: -takes in the pony’s taller, muscular form, and finds himself sputtering- I w-wh- M-M-Monochrome? Monochrome: -quiet at first, searching Skychaser’s face and molten orange eye with unmasked curiosity, until their eyes widen with recognition- ...Skychaser? -The room is soon filled with murmuring as the kids exchange confused and intrigued looks. However, Scootaloo claps her hooves at them Scootaloo: Hey now, this art lesson isn’t over yet! Professor Monochrome didn’t come aaaall this way as our special guest just to listen to everypony gossip! Kids: Sorry Professor Monochrome… Monochrome: (!) -returns their attention to their class- Ah...no, it’s fine.

Skychaser: Oh! R-right! Sorry... -self-consciously picks the bag back up, only for large black hooves to reach for it, startling Sky with the sudden proximity. For somepony who’s seeing someone for the first time in years, Sky notices how strangely calm and unreadable the other pegasus is- Monochrome: -takes the bag- Thank you. Skychaser: -is beginning to realize how hot his face feels, all but absentmindedly replying- Yeah, welcome… Scootaloo: -grins and pulls out a chair at the table next to her- Hey, PST, Sky! Come on, sit next to me! Skychaser: (??) O-okay? -stiffly walks over to Scootaloo, keenly aware of himself as he passes Monochrome. As he sits with Scootaloo, absolutely having no clue as to why he’s there, he can barely pay attention to Monochrome’s lesson, completely enamored by the pony themself.-

‘What the hell, what the hell, why are they here, how are they so big- why are they so BUFF?! I mean damn, puberty hit them like a fucking METEOR-’ Scootaloo: -watches for a moment as Monochrome walks around the classroom to hand out supplies and give their instructions. She then turns in her chair to face Sky and whisper- So! How do you know Chromey? They're not exactly the social type. Skychaser: (!) -shifts uncomfortably, but also speaks quietly- We uh... used to go to the same racetrack as kids. That was like...ten years ago though. -pulls in eyebrows- You know them? Scootaloo: -snorts in amusement- I mean yeah! Momo’s my nephie! Skychaser: (?!) Your what?! -cringes, realizing he had raised his voice and garnered the attention of some kids. Even Monochrome glimpses up for a moment, causing Sky to quickly look away. He focuses back on Scootaloo, whispering harshly- You’re related?! Scootaloo: Yep~ When I was a kid, their mom Rainbow Dash was like a big sis to me! And her parents practically became my parents. So we all consider each other family! Skychaser: ...wow… -Sky goes quiet. Normally he tries to participate in any classes he ends up getting involved in, but this is an exception. He gets lost in his thoughts instead. He almost feels guilty, realizing memories of his old friend had drifted to the back of his mind. But he also tries to remind himself that he had been pretty...preoccupied, with everything that had happened.- ‘What are the chances...who could’ve guessed that I’ve actually known someone from their family all these years?’ -Apparently Sky had walked in half way through the class, because twenty minutes later, Scootaloo stands to announce the ending of the session. Skychaser watches tensely as both she and Monochrome dismiss the children and say their goodbyes. Sky suddenly panics, realizing he hadn't planned out anything. What was he going to do now? What was he going to say?- Scootaloo: -once the last child trots out of the room, Scootaloo turns and beams at the remaining two ponies- Alright you two, I’m just gonnaaaa step out and let you two catch up- kay~? ‘KAY, PEACE! -zips out of the room and happily shuts the door behind her- Skychaser: -nervously sweats, thinking about how weirdly eager Scoot was to leave the two of them to talk. As Mo turns away from the door, Sky forces himself to focus.- ‘It’s okay...it’s just Momo...be chill.’ Skychaser: -smiles and casually leans forward, resting his arms against the desk while feigning confidence- Well, well! Monochrome Dashielle-! -immediately stops in his tracks, seeing the rather disturbed face the other pegasus makes- Monochrome: ...please never utter that again. -walks over to their bag, beginning to repack it- Just stick with ‘Monochrome’. Skychaser: -winces, dropping the facade- Ah, sorry... ‘Two minutes into this conversation and you’re already fucking it up, Sky. Nice.’ -attempts to change the subject- Wow, it’s...been a while, huh? You look… ‘Good’- no, ‘fine’- wait, ‘beautiful’- SHIT-’ ...pretty swell!  -laughs awkwardly- I almost can’t believe you used to be tinier than me. So much for being older, huh? Monochrome: -momentarily glances up from their bag before their eyes flick back to their task- Yeah. Guess ten years does a lot to you. Skychaser: (...?) -a feeling of nervousness settles in, realizing that Monochrome...doesn’t seem very interested in him. They seem detached. Maybe even standoffish- Is...everything okay? Monochrome: -pauses in what they’re doing. A few heartbeats pass without them moving or saying anything- Skychaser: (??) -starts to feel a bit concerned- Mo-? Monochrome: You’re really going to act like nothing happened? Skychaser: -confused and anxious as Monochrome meets his gaze. Instead of the calm they had been displaying up to this point, a mix of annoyance and...hurt, breaks the surface- Monochrome: -furrows their eyebrows- Like you didn’t disappear without warning…? Are we supposed to just carry on and ignore that? Skychaser: -guilt and unease hits him. The thought hadn’t even occurred to him. He realizes how insensitive he must have seemed, not even acknowledging something that apparently had been so crucial to Monochrome.- ‘I just didn’t...think they’d miss me much.’ ...I’m really sorry, I just...-tenses and averts his gaze in discomfort. He recalls the day he had turned on Lightning Dust and had quit training under her, a memory that causes his stress to skyrocket- ...i-it’s hard to talk about. But I promise I had my reasons... -Skychaser searches the floor, unable to look at Monochrome again. He only lifts his head when he hears a heavy exhale. Monochrome too is staring at the floor, appearing worn but pacified- Monochrome: I’m...sure you did. Sorry. Skychaser: -sits up straight, desperate to sincerely express his regret- I honestly didn’t mean to leave you without saying anything. It just...happened. Monochrome: I believe you… -goes silent for another moment- ...do you still race? Skychaser: -lets out a short, light laugh- Heck no. And I'm guessing you don't either.- When Mo looks up again, Sky smiles kindly- I knew art suited you. Monochrome: ...yeah. It does. Skychaser: -feels a heavy wave of relief as the other pegasus picks up their bag and walks over to his table. Yet that relief is overwritten by a shock of feelings as Monochrome sits down and slides off their glasses, giving Sky a perfect view of their perfect face- ‘Oooooh my God.’ -gulps- You uh...have nice glasses! When did you start wearing those? Monochrome: -calmly blinks- Oh...no, these are fake. -folds them up and puts them away- I figured that if I was going to be teaching kids, I might as well look the part. -readjusts their tie- Calling me ‘professor’ was Aunt Scoot’s idea, though. Skychaser: ...‘That’ssocute. OhmyGodthat’sadorable.’ Monochrome: -relaxes against the desk, leaning their cheek on a hoof while giving Sky their full attention- I see you pierced your ears. You look good with plugs. Skychaser: -his face heats up significantly. He can feel himself short-circuiting- Y-you do too- I mean, that you look good! Yeah! -resists kicking himself before realizing there is one other thing he needs answers to. He raises an eyebrow and gently jokes- So like...are you going to explain the muscles, or…? Monochrome: Ah. They make me feel good. But I mainly wanted to make sure I could pick up my tortoise without any problems. He’s pretty big. Skychaser: Oh! I kind of remember you mentioning a pet turtle! Monochrome: -reaches back into their bag. They pull out a wallet, and then tug out a small picture from within, sliding it across the table- His name’s Tank. Bravest tortoise you’ll ever meet. Skychaser: -he stares. Although he sees the turtle and mentally acknowledges how cute it is, what really strikes Sky is Monochrome’s smile in the picture. It’s small, but it seem so radiant and genuine- ‘What a smile…’ Wow. Monochrome: Handsome, I know. Skychaser: Yeah…(!) -quickly snaps out of it- Ah YEAH, he is! He seems like a cool guy- -feels his heart flip as Mo’s mouth cracks a smile, a gentle look coming into their eyes- Monochrome: -takes their picture back- The coolest, yeah. Skychaser: ‘...no. Sky, no, be jealous of a turtle and you’ll never live it down.’ Monochrome: -glances up at the wall clock, and appears displeased- Mm...I don’t mean to cut this short, but I have to get going. I have a shift really soon. Skychaser: Oh! Where do you work? Monochrome: ...Wildmart. Skychaser: ….I’m so sorry. Monochrome: -sighs, sliding their saddlebag on- It’s just until my art career picks up. I’ll survive. -nods at Skychaser- Take care, okay? Skychaser: -a bit surprised by the short farewell and its strange sense of finality, watching Monochrome make their way to the door. But there was so much more he wanted to ask, and so much more he wanted to talk about.- ...hey! Monochrome, wait- Monochrome: (?) -turns, their hoof on the doorknob- Skychaser: -rubs his arm nervously under Monochrome’s expectant gaze- ...I’m really happy to see you again. And I know it’s been forever. But...I’d really like to see you more. -lifts his head and flashes Mo a shy yet warm smile- Maybe we can...start all of this over, you know? Monochrome: -eyes are widened a bit, as if genuinely stunned- ....really? Skychaser: (?) -doesn’t quite get why Monochrome seems so puzzled over this- Yeah! Maybe we can talk again sometime. What do you say? Monochrome: -hesitates, looking off to the side in thought- ...I’ll be volunteering for the rest of the week. -fully turns to look at Sky- If you really mean that, then just...drop by here. Same time. Skychaser: (!!) -nods enthusiastically- Sounds good! -playfully salutes- I’ll see you tomorrow then! Monochrome: Yeah...I’ll see you. -Skychaser watches as Monochrome walks out and closes the door behind them. Though he’s excited, he lets out a relieved yet disbelieving short laugh, leaning back in his chair while smoothing back his hair with a hoof- Skychaser: ...well that happened.

Monochrome and Skychaser ended up seeing each other again after ten years. Monochrome was originally distant so they could avoid the stressful situation - because surely they'd never seen Sky again after this and who knows who he is now and if he'd even want to know them again - but Sky's question got them to finally (for once in their dang life) talk about their feelings. Mo was also still pretty convinced that they're not interesting, hence the surprise that Sky ACTUALLY wanted to see them more. Meanwhile, Scoots just wants her nephie (again, nephew+niece, for those unfamiliar with the term) to stop being all by themself and mmMMMAKE SOME FRIENDS, GOSH DANG IT.

After this? Sky and Monochrome tried to rebuild their old friendship. Mo found themself having trouble opening up, but appreciated Sky's company and time. And then Sky finally got the fricken guts to ask Mo out, and the dorks ended up dating for less than a year. Yeah, the two ended up breaking things off mutually, due to clashing...issues. But they chose to remain close, supportive friends afterwards.

[cutelilcurtain]

Date Night: Part 3

A/N: This is by far the longest installment of this piece (so much so that it’s going under a cut), but I can tell you that there will in fact be a part four, likely the final part. It’s already written, I’ve just been advised to let you guys wait it out and suffer a little. I hope you’re all still enjoying the story, I know I’ve loved writing it!

Read part one here.

Read part two here.

I’m gonna go ahead and tag @today-in-fic since this has turned into a proper fic.

Open the door to the restaurant for her. Ignore the way your voice cracks when you give your name for the reservation. Don’t trip over the host when he beats you to pulling out her chair for her. Look at her eyes. Let her order her drink first. Do not talk about work. Anything but work.

Mulder’s thoughts are occupied, running a mile a minute to try and keep up with the umbrella thought that is you’re on a date with Dana Katherine Scully. She obliges his nervous ticks, smiles and laughs when he tries and stumbles over his endeavors.

She orders wine and he follows suit. He can’t stop staring at the sweet sweep of her hair as she glances over the menu. He’s never seen her hair in anything other than the classically Scully bob she keeps it in, never known the strands to curl so lovingly at her temples.

Oh, that I were a glove upon that hand. That I might touch that cheek!

He resists the urge to reach across the table and stroke his thumb across the ridge of her cheekbone, to swirl that delicate little curl between his fingers.

“The smoked salmon sounds good. What are you getting?”

Her voice cuts across his reverie and shatters it to pieces, and Mulder realizes he’s hardly glanced at the menu. Then- oh, God- she’s shrugging her shawl off her shoulders. He realizes with a flush of heat to his cheeks that the cut of the dress across her shoulders means that she must be wearing a strapless bra- or none at all.

“The carbonara, I think.”

Damn he’s in over his head.

Say something else, you moron. She beats him to it.

“You look very nice tonight,” she hums, bringing her glass of Pinot Gris to her lips. He is humbled to hear an edge of nervousness to her voice as she compliments him, and he smiles crookedly.

“Thank you,” he nods graciously, glancing down to make sure he’s actually dressed and isn’t trapped in some embarrassing fever-dream. He looks up again and watches her fold her hands beneath her chin, elbows resting on the table. “You look absolutely stunning, Dana.”

Her Christian name falls from his lips and it sets them both alight, a smart sort of intimacy hovering between them. She smiles, her voice impossibly soft.

“Thank you.”

He hates the silences. He wants to do more than compliment her. He wants to sing a song about the woman across from him. He wants to get down on one knee and propose.

Baby steps.

“Did I tell you Matty called me ‘Cool Aunt Dana’ today after his Little League game?”

Mulder chuckles and sips at his wine, shaking his head. “You’re in with the cool kids then, eh?”

Scully laughs a little and nods. “He told all of his friends I was an agent at the FBI and they all think I’m some sort of spy now. I told them all about my spooky partner in the basement, so you’re a Little League hero too.”

“I haven’t been one of those since I was in Little League. It feels good to be back on top.”

Scully laughs like he’s rarely heard before, and Mulder holds on to it forever.

-----

He’s delighted when she accepts the dessert menu.

“If you’re tired, we can get it to go?” She’s finishing off her wine and he can see the soft flush in her cheeks. He shakes his head and folds his napkin on the table.

“I’m fine,” he hums. She nods and peers over the menu a moment.

“Shall we share something?”

He nods in response and holds his breath when she shimmies a little around the table to share the menu. When he finally inhales, he can smell her perfume again and it gets him more drunk than the wine does.

They decide on some form of warm chocolate cake with ice cream, and when it arrives, Mulder notices they’ve only brought a single spoon. The staff has cleared away everything but their water glasses at this point, and he fails to catch the waiter before he steps away.

“Ruh-roh,” he jokes, and watches a glimmer of something catch in Scully’s eye. It does something to him. She spins the plate of dessert around so that the spoon handle faces him.

“I don’t mind sharing if you don’t.”

Her voice is unfairly soft and low, and Mulder wills his hand not to shake as he picks up the spoon. It looks almost comically small between his fingers, but he’s too focused on the way they’re forced to lean into the center of the table towards each other as he scoops the first bite of chocolate. He offers it to her, always the gentleman.

When she leans forward to accept the bite, Mulder can feel his cock twitch in his slacks. She rises from her chair ever so slightly and wraps her perfect lips around the spoon, pulling shiny molten chocolate and softly melted vanilla bean cleanly off. She settles again in her seat with a grin, fingers hovering just in front of her mouth as she collects herself, tongue darting out to catch a rogue crumble of chocolate cake as it sticks against her lips.

She giggles and lets a soft hum of approval vibrate in her throat.

They take turns taking bites, and Mulder swears the taste of her on the spoon is sweeter than any dessert.

Eventually the plate is devoid of anything, and Scully swipes her finger across the edge of the plate to gather the last of the molten chocolate. Her finger disappears tantalizingly behind her lips and emerges clean, and she regards him with a smile.

“Thank you, for tonight. Everything was exquisite.”

She’s speaking like it’s already over, and Mulder feels his heart sink a little. He doesn’t want it to be over. He wants to rewind and relive it over and over again, pull it back like the tapes he used to transcribe. He wants to find all the details and spin them again and again, committing them to memory until the reels wear out.

Instead he smiles and nods, waving the waiter over to settle the check. He picks up both of the little chocolate mints in shiny gold foil and lets her pick which hand she wants, earning him another giggle.

He’ll count tonight a success.

Outside, the air is cool and comforting. They walk languidly to the car and Mulder is careful to make sure she’s tucked inside before closing the door.

On his walk around to the driver’s side, he glances up at the stars with a smile.  

[koderenn]

Summary: A severed Force bond cuts deep into their healing past, as Ren and Rey struggle to redefine themselves and what they mean to each other. But with a schism running down the New Republic and the remnants of the First order in hiding, time is of the essence and broken hearts only get in the way.

Click here for Chapter 1

Poe dragged a chair next to the narrow bed, its metal legs screeching against the durasteel floor of the medical bay. He flipped it and straddled it, setting his forearms on its back and looking at the young woman in front of him with worry. Rey was still asleep, but according to the medical staff should be waking up any minute now. A monitor at the side of the bed beeped in rhythm to her heart rate and its screen blinked her vital signs. A soft yellow light overhead warmed the simple white and blue colors of the room. The clean soft curves and glass surfaces of the ship’s architecture reminding him of its manufacturer’s aquatic origin. The Mon Calamari species.

Poe rested his chin on the back of his hands, studying the crease between Rey’s brows and the light downturn of her lips, evidence of her discomfort even in her drug-induced sleep.

He rubbed his red eyes and unshaven face. The image of Rey hunched over, in pain, with tears streaking down her cheeks, was burnt and seared irrevocably in his memory. And the helplessness he had felt when he and Leia came across her, bloody and writhing outside the heavy metal doors of the medical bay with nothing but that man’s name on her lips, was a feeling he had never experienced before.

All her pain was because of him; currently sedated and recovering two doors down the bay. Anger boiled in his chest blistering and scalding at the thought of Kylo Ren and the atrocities he had committed. The leniency and forgiveness that Leia was showing was understandable. She was after all his mother.

But Rey…

Rey’s attachment to that man ran deeper than he could have ever expected. It was obvious that she genuinely cared for him. A lot more than he was comfortable or willing to accept.

Poe ran his fingers through his unkempt curls, dejectedly.

I doubt Rey ever felt like that for me.

He shifted in his seat pinching his eyes with his thumbs and willing the image of them together out of his mind. The acrid truth of their relationship stung too much. Instead he tried to focus on the last few days and the events that had transpired since then. They were equally as mind-blowing but at least he had found himself able to cope with them.

Barely.

The world was turning upside down and he didn’t know which end was what. There were Stormtroopers aboard the ship, wishing to defect. Coruscant was in rubbles and its fugitives were boarding Republic ships with any means possible. More than half of the First Order fleet was either surrendering or blowing themselves up. General Hugs with a handful of Star Destroyers had disappeared to Force knows where. And Leia…

Stars, Leia…

Leia was falling apart.

A sigh and slight movement of Rey’s head tore him out of his thoughts and he reached for her motionless hand squeezing it lightly. She mumbled something indiscernible, but quickly went back to her fretful sleep.

He couldn’t stay long. His presence was needed back at the bridge. And he had to figure out what he would do with all these people aboard the Resistance ships. The ships’ supplies weren’t enough to sustain everyone for more than a week or so. Normally Leia would have already been snapping orders around. But not this time.

“How’s Rey?”

Poe looked up startled to see a concerned Finn sticking his head through the open doors.

“She’s, uh…” He sighed. “Asleep. She’s still asleep.”

“Can I come in?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Finn stepped in as silently as he could. With all the commotion going on outside, Poe highly doubted Finn’s boots would be the ones to wake her up.

“I’ll stay with her, till you’re back,” Finn said. “There are messages coming in from the Republic fleet and Admiral D’Acy has just left to take over the helm on the Titan. You really need to get to the bridge.”

I know.

Poe rubbed at his face once more, before steeling himself and getting off the chair. He leaned in and set a kiss on Rey’s creased forehead.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he whispered back.

Poe patted Finn’s shoulder and turned to head out, when he caught hazel eyes trained on Finn, blood shot and racked.

“You’re up!” Finn exclaimed.  A flutter of relief and joy went through Poe.

But Rey just sighed and a sheen of tears formed in her eyes. And the voice that left her lips was as broken as the city below.

“He’s gone, isn’t he?”

*

 It was time to register his vitals again. Louise passed outside the Jedi’s room and peeked inside to make sure she was still asleep. General Dameron was seated next to her, pensive and quiet. Louise couldn’t figure out what it is that he saw on that woman. Well, apart from those supposed powers she owned.

She shrugged and walked down the medical bay’s corridor to the room with the bacta tank. The guard stationed outside winked at her and she gave him a hint of a smile in reward before going through the hissing doors. The room was quiet, the General and the Chief of Medicine having obviously departed some time now. Things were finally quieting down as the ship entered the night cycle. There were no more trauma patients coming in as the battle of Corruscant seemed to be coming to its end, finally. These past three days had been exhausting.

She was about to log into the bay’s records, when a crack resounded in the empty chamber and she snapped her head up, the hair at the back of her neck standing on end.

What was that?

Everything was still, apart for the waves of green and grey illuminating the room, and disappearing into its shadows.

She twisted her head towards the direction of the immersed man. His palm was set on the tank’s glass and spidery cracks were covering its surface.

Her eyes widened in horror and her gaze drifted to catch his dark eyes trained at her frozen form.

He’s up. Oh, my merciful gods, he’s awake!

Louise blinked at the terrifying realization and the glass shattered.

Bacta flooded the floor. Thick and muculent. And she remained transfixed, watching the man in the shadows scramble on unsteady feet for a moment or two and impatiently pull on tubes and cords. His broad muscled body straightened slowly and he stared at her through wet strands with burning eyes.

Kylo Ren was free.

*

Ren’s head hammered with an ache that clouded any coherent thought.

The room was dark and he couldn’t make out a thing about his surroundings. He tried to get to his feet, the slippery ground giving out from under him and making it difficult to properly steady himself. His right leg throbbed and piercing pain radiated around his ribs with every inhale of breath. Cords and tubes covered his body, and familiar anger rose inside him as he tugged everything off and straightened his back.

A woman was standing across the room, gaping at him.

He looked around cautiously trying to decipher his environment through the heavy haze settled in his mind. The pale curved surfaces of the chamber had nothing in common with the harsh charcoal lines of the Star Destroyers, and the woman’s loose attire was far from the constricting First Order uniforms. Which meant…

Ren frowned.

Where am I?

It was quiet in the room. And eerily silent in his mind.  

Rey.

Worry crept in his chest, molten and corrosive.

He had to find Rey.

The woman in front of him snapped into action darting for a panel and punching a button that caused blaring alarms to go off. The ear piercing sound seared through his aching head. His palms flew to cover his ears and his shoulders hunched over like a wounded beast’s.

Ren gritted his teeth and instinctively waved his hand, tossing the woman to the wall with a loud thud. Channeling his pain, he gathered the Force and a rod detached itself from the wall flying into his hand, right as the doors opened to reveal a startled guard. A blaster was aimed at him and fired, but the bolt was suspended in midair a few inches away from his outstretched hand. Ren crossed the room in a few swift strides, brutally bringing the rod down to the man’s back.  The guard dropped unconscious at his bare feet.

He swirled the rod in his hand in one fluid motion, approaching the now unguarded door.

Something felt seriously wrong and it wasn’t the wounds he bore.  He felt empty. Alone. He groped for the thread of energy that tied him to the one person he madly wanted to see, only to realize he couldn’t find it.

Rey?

He stepped into a clean, brightly lit hall, with numerous doors running down its length. The white light stung his eyes and he brought the back of his hand up to shield them. A sterile bitter smell drifted to his nose, reminding him very much of that of a medical ward. He squinted, spotting a pair of metal doors at the end with the distinctive insignia on it. He was right.

A few members of the medical staff, he noticed, had shrunk to the walls, staring at him horrified.

Ren glanced down at his half-naked body, cursing under his breath. He needed to get a change of clothes if he were to have any hope of blending in and finding Rey, as amusing as that seemed. He gripped onto his only weapon tightly and darted for the exit, just as the doors hissed open and more men filed in. They looked scruffy and unkempt in their worn out beige and orange clothes, which resembled very much those of…

The Resistance.

Fuck!

His mind barely had time to reel over the staggering information, when weapons were leveled at him and more shots were fired. He clenched his jaw, flinging the bolts away from him in annoyance. He threw his hand out, wrenching a computer terminal from a wall and tossing its sparking bulk on the soldiers crouching at the entrance.

Ben clawed at the bond again, straining into the Force and frantically calling out Rey’s name, but the cold silence echoing back turned his insides into stone.  

Where’s Rey?

Why couldn’t he feel…

Is she…

No. There’s no way she was… He quickly stomped at the thought, desperately un-rooting it from his mind because it simply wasn’t an option. His girl was fine. He’d find her. Fate was cruel, but not that much as to rip her away and let him live instead.

But the nauseating emptiness that ached and throbbed within him cast a heavy shadow on his hopes. He couldn’t feel the bond. He couldn’t feel her…

His vision blurred unexpectedly and his throat clenched, stealing the breath from his lungs.

No.

Ren bit his lip, drawing blood and iron as he tried to contain the agony in his chest spreading like wildfire through his senses. A grunt escaped him, threatening to morph into a primal roar.  He gripped the metal rod white-knuckled, searching for a means to release the anguish and despair tearing at his insides.

Doors hissed open to his left and two men barged in the hall.

Ren immediately recognized them and crimson fury eclipsed his vision. He delved for the wide-eyed pilot first, swinging the rod in a side slash aiming for his ribs, but the man got lucky and managed to evade it in the last instant. The traitor reached for the blaster hanging on his hip, but Ren ripped it easily from his hand with the Force. He landed a hard kick on the pilot’s chest bringing him to the floor and aimed the blaster to his head, efficiently freezing all movement in the bay.

Eyes blinked at Ren in fear and awe and hate, hidden behind their blasters. His chest heaved and pain ignited his every breath, but it didn’t even compare to the gaping hole that pulsated inside him. The bond that once tethered him to Rey was no longer there. Replaced only by a raw chasm so deep and bottomless that it threatened to swallow his very sanity if he fumbled with its edges.

Rey was gone.

And nothing else mattered anymore.

“Ben?”

He swirled his head at the voice to his left. A young woman was standing at the doors. She looked frail and tired, with her slim figure clad in a plain medical robe and her long legs bare on the steel floor. Wide hazel eyes were staring back at him on a freckled face that he could map by heart. His girl made of sun and sand would be cold in such a room.

Ren swallowed. The stinging in his eyes distorting his desert girl into an illusion.

It wasn’t her.

This woman standing before him was a complete stranger.

She brought her hand to her mouth to stifle a sob and her eyes welled up with tears. She was looking at him.

It can’t be…

“Rey?” He heard himself rasp.

A blaster went off, but he was too distracted to stop it. The bolt stunned him, causing his knees to buckle and his body to sag heavily on the floor. The room spun and he fought for awareness as light steps approached him slowly, followed by a clicking sound. And then, a warm voice that colored his innocent childhood years spoke sternly, just as he slipped into unconsciousness.

“Sedate him.”

[squidwhumps]

3.

A blast several inches from his foot, and he lands roughly on the ground, something cracking in his shoulder. He scrabbles uselessly at the writhing, severed vine clinging to his right ankle; it holds fast, pulsing nauseatingly with every ragged breath he takes. The thorns dig deeper into his flesh with each impact he makes against it—shakily, he leaves it be, using his good leg to push himself backwards until he’s propped against a nearby tree.

Zuhra’s wasted no time in engaging the main body of the Ya-Te-Veo; she puts the flight potion that she downed right before to good use, springing out of the way of the thrashing vines. When she fires, the bullets leave smoking craters: Metzli’s enchantments, reliable as always. But one of the tendrils snaps, a little too close to comfort, near her cheek—Ayer starts, shaken out of his reverie, and struggles to untangle his rifle from where it’s slung across his chest. His bad shoulder screams with the effort, but he manages to get it out and propped against his knee with only a few black spots dancing across his vision.

From there it’s easy to pretend that this is a routine job: a deep breath, and his vision sharpens—a bullet makes contact with one of the vines, ballooning into a net and pinning it to the ground. Four more in quick succession—two sink harmlessly into the bog, but the others find their mark in the Ya-Te-Veo’s limbs. The beast thrashes, its cellulose-enforced muscles bulging with the effort, but the glowing blue threads hold strong. The wind picks up as surrounding leaves are suctioned into the area surrounding the nets—Zuhra has to leap back to keep from being affected by the altered gravity.

“Ayer! Are you alright?” she calls, and lets three bullets loose into the body of the creature. She shakes out the spent shells and reloads.

“I’ll manage,” he shouts back, shoving bullets into his own magazine one-handed. His left arm barely moves anymore—he supposes it’s lucky that he didn’t land on his right. “Can you lure it a little closer, away from the bog?”

“Yes, but be careful!” At any other time, Ayer would’ve been touched. Now, though, he just focuses on swallowing down the bile that threatens to rise in his throat, and ignoring the way he can’t feel his toes. He draws his pistol and presses it into his left hand.

Zuhra’s quick footwork brings the Ya-Te-Veo lurching towards him earlier than he expects. She empties her revolver into its crown: six bullets, and six glowing holes. The forest shakes with the creature’s rage, and it reaches out with the vines around its torso to snatch her from the air—

“Zuhra, jump!”

She kicks off of one of the reaching limbs and flips into the empty space above the Ya-Te-Veo’s head. Its vines follow her up, stretching to snag at her feet—and a glowing blue bullet sinks into the base of each of them.

Its arms blow back explosively, and before the ends of its rapidly growing vines can wrap back around its trunk, Ayer fires every bullet in his pistol at the Ya-Te-Veo’s core. Even for firing wrong-handed, this probably ranks pretty high up in worst-he’s-ever-aimed—but somewhere in the wide arc of bullets one of them sinks into the bark and holds.

For all her happy-go-luckiness, that new bartender sure knows her way around fire runes.

The trunk lights up with molten fissures, and a few moments later chunks of burning debris are flying everywhere. Ayer flings his good arm up to block a piece of charred wood that launches his way, and through the smoke he sees slivers of something radiating a searing white light.

“Zuhra—” he begins, but she’s a step ahead of him. The reflection of the Ya-Te-Veo’s core off her cold-iron dagger nearly blinds him—he leans his head back against the trunk and squeezes his eyes shut as the clearing goes blank with light—but then the starlight is fading, the color of the trees returning, and Zuhra is pulling her blade out of what is now a putrefied clump of plant matter. She wipes it on her shirt, nose scrunched with distaste, then turns to Ayer.

“Alright, time to…” she trails off, and then her voice is soft and afraid like Ayer’s never heard before. “Ayer.”

“Hm, yeah?” he says, rolling his head—so, so heavy—across the bark of the tree to look at her. She’s staring at something in front of him, and he doesn’t know if it’s a remnant of the monster or what until he cranes his neck to—oh.

The part of his leg below where the vine still grips ferociously is almost comically ballooned, straining against the leather of his boots. The slice of ankle he can see between his sock and pant leg is purpled and blotchy. He tears his eyes away.

“Yeah,” he says, sounding breathless even to himself. “That’s certainly, uh, something, isn’t it. Can you help me cut the vine off? The boot too, if you can.”

“Y-yeah. Hold on.” She crouches down, and her knife is steady as ever. The cold iron makes quick work of the vine, which shrinks and shrivels off under its touch; as she pulls it out, dark blood drips from the thorns. His shoe is a little more trouble. Cursing, she pulls out a serrated knife from her belt, and starts sawing. “Any other injuries?” she asks, conversationally, as she works.

He leans back against the tree again. “Left shoulder’s busted. Might’ve cracked some ribs while it was swinging me around, but nothing serious.” Zuhra’s bark of dry laughter lets him know what she thinks of that, and he grins despite himself. Then he closes his eyes for just a moment and then his foot is freed, his boot and sock tossed to the side, and he’s standing up, his good arm slung across Zuhra’s shoulders. “Oh,” he says, suddenly light-headed, and wobbles on his left foot.

“Can you walk?” Zuhra asks. Ayer knows if he says no he’ll be thrown into a fireman’s carry, and the thought of bouncing on Zuhra’s too-small shoulders with his busted one makes him want to cry, so he mumbles an affirmative. Zuhra hesitates for a second, and then they jostle into motion.

2.

“I think it was sighted around here,” Zuhra says, nose-deep in the map and floating a few inches from the ground. They’re deep within the forest, where it’s dark enough that the air smells thick with mold and decay. Even more pleasing to the olfactory organs is the stench of peat just nearby—the boglands that some unfortunate teenager had wandered into and gotten eaten in.

“Hey, you think I can find my prince here?”

“What?”

“He’s big, he’s dashing, he’s green…I’m head ogre heels for him.” He barely dodges Zuhra’s punch, and cackles. “Don’t deny it, who could resist that ogrussy?”

“The ogr—Ayer!” This time, she lands a hit on the back of his head—he’d almost forgotten about how high a flight-potion-assisted Zuhra could jump. He rubs at it dolefully.

“That’s not very Shrektacular of you,” he says, before a thick green appendage from a source nowhere near as charming grabs onto his ankle and tows him through the brush.

1.

“A Ya-Te-Veo was spotted in the bogs,” Metzli tells them, “and the council has hired us to clean it up.”

“Huh. So you mean, you’re hiring us to clean it up,” Ayer says. “Aren’t those things like, plants?”

“Plants with murder on their minds, yes. They’re not smart, but they’re fast—I want experienced hands on this.” She inspects the glass she was shining—satisfied, she places it aside and picks up another one. “What do you need me to prepare for you?”

“If it’s fast, we’ll need a flight potion,” Zuhra says, “and since it’s plant-based we’ll want explosive bullets. As much fire as possible.”

Metzli hums. “I’m sure Lorelei can help out with that. I’ll have her enchant some ammunition for you by tomorrow morning.”

Ayer looks up from his phone. “Add gravity nets to that too,” he sighs, showing the drawing of a Ya-Te-Veo to Zuhra. “Ugh, I hate monsters with tentacles.”

4.

An indeterminable amount of time later—it feels like days and seconds all at once, though Ayer vaguely remembers having to lean on a nearby tree and catch his breath at least twice, so it can’t have been that short of a trip—they reach the car, and Ayer sags into the passenger seat gratefully. Zuhra throws all their gear in the backseat, which is weird—she’s usually pretty methodical about packing everything away: something about safety hazards, or whatever.

He loses that train of thought when she slams on the accelerator and he smashes his bad shoulder into the seat. His vision goes white and he hears himself let out a pathetic wheeze—and even weirder than Zuhra’s sudden carelessness is the fact that she doesn’t immediately make fun of him. She’s too busy punching numbers into her phone one-handed, it seems. Ayer wonders who she’s calling. Swaga, maybe? He knows that recently, Zuhra’s been training in the evenings with her, and the little green brat’s flirting is so obvious that it makes him sick.

Speaking of being sick. He feels weirdly sweaty, and his stomach’s doing flips in his gut. It’s like that one time he tried eating that 2-week-old pizza in his fridge. The white dusting he thought was parmesan was, evidently, not—it put him out of commission for a week while his digestive tract rebuilt itself, and he couldn’t eat but except saltine crackers for the next few days. Ugh, just thinking about it makes him want to hurl—

He rests his head against the window and tries not to retch. Zuhra’d kill him if he threw up in her nice car. Zuhra, who right now is saying something about Robin. Oh, and he catches snippets of his own name in there, too. Mean old Robin with the stick up his ass. What’s his problem, anyways.

“’m the better doctor,” he tells Zuhra firmly—as firmly as he can when his mouth doesn’t seem to work properly. She looks at him, brow furrowed, and then returns her focus to her cell phone and the road ahead. Rude. He stares out the window. Whatever, he has better things to do than to pay attention to this weirder-than-normal Zuhra. Better things, like counting the cars that they’re passing. …Wow, Zuhra’s driving fast. A particularly harsh turn has his face smashing against the side window, and when they straighten back out he nearly goes flying across the center console. Zuhra sticks an arm out to steady him—he can’t hear her too clearly, but he thinks she says something about a seatbelt, so when he’s balanced back in his seat he tugs at it with his right hand. It doesn’t move even when he pulls it with all his strength, so he gives up and lets his hand fall.

He’s tired.

His head droops to his collarbone, and distantly he notices that someone had replaced the part of his leg below the knee with like, a really fat purple sausage. It looks really dumb, and he wonders whose shitty idea that was. But, y'know, maybe the sausage-man that this leg came from really wanted to have prettier legs, and Ayer’s legs were the prettiest ones around. If that’s the case he guesses it’s okay. He still has one leg, after all, and it would be selfish not to share. He tries to wiggle the toes of the sausage leg, and as expected, they don’t move. Oh well. He’ll have to work on getting used to it. He hopes the sausage-man is making good use out of his old leg.

He feels hot.

He feels cold.

And then he feels nothing at all, really.

5.

“Ayer.”

A voice like a breath of wind, and Ayer’s eyes snap open. In front of him is the biggest door he’s ever seen, and it’s rimmed with golden light. But he doesn’t care, because he knows that voice, and he whirls around and sees—

“Lana,” he breathes, and then he’s scrambling to get his feet under him and stumbling towards her and she opens her mouth and says,

“Stop.”

Her voice is a thousand whispers and a thousand screams, and he feels the command shake through his bones like a tempest. He stops, because there is no other choice. She extends a finger and he follows it with her eyes until he’s looking straight down. A silvered chain extends from his chest and leads to somewhere beneath his feet. It’s been pulled taut by his movements. The finger lowers.

He’s seen chains like this before, and the implications of it have his mouth running dry. Even unmoving, the surface of the links are beginning to oxidize. He turns his head towards the door—his door, he now realizes—and back again. “Lana,” he says again, desperately. “Lana, what are you doing here?”

Her eyes are hidden by a shining light, so bright that the only way to look at her face is to focus on the line of her lips. She inclines her chin, and then she moves to the side and Ayer’s breath catches in his throat. Where his own door was, the area behind her is covered in a pile of rubble. Then she returns to her original position and the remnants of her door are hidden from sight.

She has a halo, Ayer realizes—a circlet of bone, growing out of her skull. The light from before follows her around, hovering in the center of the ring. His heart drops into his stomach. “Are you—an angel?”

“Yes,” she sighs, and Ayer feels strands of his hair flutter from the invisible wind that picks up as a result. “I am here to guide your soul.” She waves her hand over the white expanse they’re sitting on, and it dissolves into color. Ayer looks down. He sees himself.

They have him laid out in the Shop’s back room, and he looks like—to put it lightly—absolute shit. His leg’s swollen all the way to the hip; his shoulder looks like it got run over with a truck. Robin’s hunched over him, feeling him up with those magic tentacles of his—someone had summoned a cluster of leech-like wisps, and they float over his exposed leg, sometimes dropping down to suck thick, purplish fluid into their translucent bodies.

Swaga has Zuhra—snarling and eyes wild—pinned against the wall and Ayer’s breath stutters to a halt when he realizes Zuhra’s crying. He reaches towards her, entranced, and flinches violently when Lana dispels the image.

“You have good friends that care about you,” Lana whispers. It curls around his ears like a caress. “You should be happy.”

“Yeah,” Ayer says, “I’m a lucky guy. I’m,” he looks down at his hands. His chain is crumbling on his chest. “I’m really glad I got to see you again, sis. Even if it’s like this.”

And then—something in Lana’s serene expression cracks, and the light above her head flickers: off, and then on again with barely enough time in between to blink. “Ayer—” she says, and her voice sounds distorted and torn but more alive than anything that had come before.

Ayer looks up, eyes widening. “Lana?”

The light dims—brightens furiously—and then shuts off, and Lana’s sitting there. The real Lana—the Lana that Ayer knows—and the only thing that stops him from rushing forward is the sizzling gold sloughing off of her. Her shoulders heave laboriously, and she reaches out as if to grab him. “Ayer—Ayer, it’s not your time—you have to go back—”

“Lana—Lana, I missed you so much, I—”

The light sparks to life for a split second before being smothered again, and Lana’s on her hands and knees on the ground. Glowing ichor drips from the side of her mouth—she spits it out, and it vaporizes on contact with the floor. Shaking violently, she raises her hand again.

“Ayer,” she says, her voice layered with overtones and undertones and everything in between, and then—for a moment—all the static in her voice is gone. “I’m so proud of you. Promise me you’ll stay safe—” and she curls her hand into a fist.

The chain on his chest snaps back to place, Lana’s halo lights up like the sun, and Ayer claws at empty air as he’s swallowed up by the floor.

6? 41? 12? 20?

His arm feels like it weighs a thousand pounds but he flings it out anyways—gets a yelp for his efforts—it catches against something hard and he pushes himself up against it but then there’s hands pushing him back down and shouting and—

“Lana,” he tries to explain—she’s out there and she’s alive and she’s suffering—but his throat feels like sandpaper and his voice sounds like sandpaper and he—

—he kicks out and wisps buzz into his vision and why there’s so many wisps around him, he doesn’t know—

—his foot catches against his other leg and pain like he’s never felt before runs jagged up his spine—the intensity of it knocks the air from his lungs and he chokes for air and—

—and Zuhra’s there—

—and he tastes the sleep soot before he sees it and he feels consciousness slip away like a silk ribbon between his fingers.

10? 2? 136? 0?

He wakes up and he’s in Lana’s bed.

But he doesn’t have the time to wonder about how he got here, because he’s covered in cold sweat; his stomach spasms violently, and he’s barely able to turn his head before he’s throwing up all over the sheets.

Lana’ll kill him for getting her pillows all gross, but he can’t really focus on that because he can’t breathe—his lungs burn even though he’s gasping like a fish—and then there’s a hand on his shoulder telling him to take—deep breaths. In, out, in, out. It’s nonsensical, but he follows the too-slow rhythm of the voice because some part of him tells him it’s a voice to trust. In, out, in, out, and the fire in his chest recedes just enough that he promptly tumbles back into dark, comfortable unconsciousness.

8.

The next time he surfaces, it’s to fingers combing through his hair. He must make a sound, because the fingers stop—he makes another sound and pushes his head towards them until the fingers give a watery laugh and continue petting him.

He cracks his eyelids open against the morning sun, and his eyes focus somewhat blearily on Zuhra. She’s propped up against some pillows, balancing a book on her lap, but her attention’s all on Ayer—he feels a little self-conscious under her gaze.

“Welcome back,” she says, like she’s afraid he’ll break if she speaks too loudly.

He reaches towards her, aiming for her other hand—the one not occupied with touching his hair—but aborts the motion when he gets too tired halfway through. His hand flops on top of the blankets somewhere between them. Blankets, too fluffy and too void of cat hair to be his own.

“Where are we?” he asks. His voice is creaky and his tongue feels thick and clumsy in his mouth, but Zuhra doesn’t seem to take notice.

“Metzli’s room. She’s been sleeping at your apartment, taking care of Fish.”

He hums, absentmindedly. Then it hits him. “Wait, how long have I been out?”

“Three days, twenty-one hours, and…” She squints at the clock across the room. “Thirty-two minutes. You want the seconds on that, too?” She laughs, but Ayer knows that she could give him the number if he asked—he may be out of it, but he can see the dark circles framing her eyes, the way that her hand slowly digs into the blanket on her lap.

“I’m sorry,” is all he can think to say in response, and he knows it’s not enough, but he can’t think of anything else that would sound sincere—nothing that doesn’t sound cheesy, or flippant, or unappreciative, so he settles for repeating it again. “I’m sorry.”

Zuhra puts her book aside and sinks down until she’s curled up next to him. “You don’t need to apologize; none of it’s your fault, anyways—I’m just,” she closes her eyes, and when she opens them again they’re glassy. “I’m just so glad you’re here,” she murmurs, and Ayer would cry if he had the strength. Instead, he settles for tucking his head under her chin—Zuhra wriggles closer to oblige him.

As he tries to turn on his side to get a better cuddling angle, he hears something clatter—belatedly, he notices the IV attached to his right arm. And then there’s a groan, and a sleepy-but-furious voice says, “Zuhra, for fuck’s sake, I told you not to touch the medical equipment.”

Ayer freezes. Robin?, he mouths at Zuhra, raising his eyebrows.

She nods, then leans in close and whispers, “They told me to wake them as soon as you woke up, but—well. I thought I’d let them sleep a little more.”

“Time for a wake-up call, then,” Ayer whispers back, grinning. “Help me up?”

When he gets into a sitting position—which takes more help from Zuhra than he’d like to admit—he sees Robin splayed out on the couch. They’re holding a pillow over their eyes with their left hand, and a quilt’s become tangled—almost impressively so—around their legs. Their other arm’s fallen off the side, fingers trailing on the floor. They look adorably deep in sleep, despite their brief lapse into wakefulness a few seconds ago.

Ayer gestures for Zuhra to pass him her book.

A paperback, of some boring title he doesn’t recognize. He gives it a few experimental hefts with the atrophied muscles of his left arm. His shoulder’s healed well—it’s a little stiff, but he thinks he can make it. He eyeballs the distance—rechecks the weight of the book—and with all the skill of a professional sharpshooter, takes aim and hurls the book directly at the crown of Robin’s head.

They jerk awake with a shout, flinching so hard they knock themselves off the couch and onto the floor. When they untangle themselves, and stumble to their feet, Ayer almost regrets waking them—their eyes are bloodshot, their skin is pale and sickly, and most importantly: they look ready to strangle someone.

Still, though. It was hilarious. “Good morning,” he says smugly, folding his hands across his lap.

“Ayer, you rat bastard,” Robin growls, stalking over and tugging viciously at his ear. “You wake up and the first thing you do is to fucking antagonize me, huh?”

Ayer yelps. “Hey, you’re not supposed to harm the injured—isn’t that like, the Hippocratic Oath?”

“I’ll harm whomever the fuck I want, you little bitch—” Robin climbs on the bed, straddles him, and starts yanking at Ayer’s cheeks with both his hands. “—little ungrateful bastard—I put sweat, blood, and tears into reconstructing that shoulder and you use it to throw shit at me—”

Ayer would say something back, but his face is being pulled into unnatural shapes and all that comes out is a garbled laugh. He takes his left hand and uses it to jab Robin in the ribs—they tussle for a few more seconds before Robin loses their balance and falls back. Onto Ayer’s right leg.

“Fuck,” he wheezes, vision going white, and Robin does something sparkly with their fingers before crawling up and collapsing next to him. Zuhra’s giving them both the side-eye, but her lips are quirked into a smile.

“It’s what you deserve,” Robin says, as if they didn’t just use the last dregs of their magic to check for damage. As if they weren’t currently nosing Ayer’s right arm up so that they can burrow their head into his shoulder. Zuhra sighs and mirrors them with a little more grace, lifting Ayer’s left arm and sliding under.

“You guys spoil me,” Ayer sighs, tilting his head back into the pillows.

“You better fucking know it,” Robin gripes, kneeing him in the ribs—gently. As gentle as casual violence can get, anyways.

And—and it’s not perfect, not by the widest margin. He’s got a leg that makes his brain go wiggly if he thinks at it too hard, two arms rapidly losing circulation from the two muscle sacks lying on them, and he still feels exhausted even though he’s apparently slept for four days. But he’s warm and being cuddled from two sides and Lana—Lana!—told him to be happy, so he… lets himself be.

And if he pretends not to notice the way that Robin’s passed out and drooling on his shoulder within seconds—well. What can he say? He’s a softie at heart.

[illucescit]

Test

3.

A blast several inches from his foot, and he lands roughly on the ground, something cracking in his shoulder. He scrabbles uselessly at the writhing, severed vine clinging to his right ankle; it holds fast, pulsing nauseatingly with every ragged breath he takes. The thorns dig deeper into his flesh with each impact he makes against it—shakily, he leaves it be, using his good leg to push himself backwards until he’s propped against a nearby tree.

Zuhra’s wasted no time in engaging the main body of the Ya-Te-Veo; she puts the flight potion that she downed right before to good use, springing out of the way of the thrashing vines. When she fires, the bullets leave smoking craters: Metzli’s enchantments, reliable as always. But one of the tendrils snaps, a little too close to comfort, near her cheek—Ayer starts, shaken out of his reverie, and struggles to untangle his rifle from where it’s slung across his chest. His bad shoulder screams with the effort, but he manages to get it out and propped against his knee with only a few black spots dancing across his vision.

From there it’s easy to pretend that this is a routine job: a deep breath, and his vision sharpens—a bullet makes contact with one of the vines, ballooning into a net and pinning it to the ground. Four more in quick succession—two sink harmlessly into the bog, but the others find their mark in the Ya-Te-Veo’s limbs. The beast thrashes, its cellulose-enforced muscles bulging with the effort, but the glowing blue threads hold strong. The wind picks up as surrounding leaves are suctioned into the area surrounding the nets—Zuhra has to leap back to keep from being affected by the altered gravity.

“Ayer! Are you alright?” she calls, and lets three bullets loose into the body of the creature. She shakes out the spent shells and reloads.

“I’ll manage,” he shouts back, shoving bullets into his own magazine one-handed. His left arm barely moves anymore—he supposes it’s lucky that he didn’t land on his right. “Can you lure it a little closer, away from the bog?”

“Yes, but be careful!” At any other time, Ayer would’ve been touched. Now, though, he just focuses on swallowing down the bile that threatens to rise in his throat, and ignoring the way he can’t feel his toes. He draws his pistol and presses it into his left hand.

Zuhra’s quick footwork brings the Ya-Te-Veo lurching towards him earlier than he expects. She empties her revolver into its crown: six bullets, and six glowing holes. The forest shakes with the creature’s rage, and it reaches out with the vines around its torso to snatch her from the air—

“Zuhra, jump!”

She kicks off of one of the reaching limbs and flips into the empty space above the Ya-Te-Veo’s head. Its vines follow her up, stretching to snag at her feet—and a glowing blue bullet sinks into the base of each of them.

Its arms blow back explosively, and before the ends of its rapidly growing vines can wrap back around its trunk, Ayer fires every bullet in his pistol at the Ya-Te-Veo’s core. Even for firing wrong-handed, this probably ranks pretty high up in worst-he’s-ever-aimed—but somewhere in the wide arc of bullets one of them sinks into the bark and holds.

For all her happy-go-luckiness, that new bartender sure knows her way around fire runes.

The trunk lights up with molten fissures, and a few moments later chunks of burning debris are flying everywhere. Ayer flings his good arm up to block a piece of charred wood that launches his way, and through the smoke he sees slivers of something radiating a searing white light.

“Zuhra—” he begins, but she’s a step ahead of him. The reflection of the Ya-Te-Veo’s core off her cold-iron dagger nearly blinds him—he leans his head back against the trunk and squeezes his eyes shut as the clearing goes blank with light—but then the starlight is fading, the color of the trees returning, and Zuhra is pulling her blade out of what is now a putrefied clump of plant matter. She wipes it on her shirt, nose scrunched with distaste, then turns to Ayer.

“Alright, time to…” she trails off, and then her voice is soft and afraid like Ayer’s never heard before. “Ayer.”

“Hm, yeah?” he says, rolling his head—so, so heavy—across the bark of the tree to look at her. She’s staring at something in front of him, and he doesn’t know if it’s a remnant of the monster or what until he cranes his neck to—oh.

The part of his leg below where the vine still grips ferociously is almost comically ballooned, straining against the leather of his boots. The slice of ankle he can see between his sock and pant leg is purpled and blotchy. He tears his eyes away.

“Yeah,” he says, sounding breathless even to himself. “That’s certainly, uh, something, isn’t it. Can you help me cut the vine off? The boot too, if you can.”

“Y-yeah. Hold on.” She crouches down, and her knife is steady as ever. The cold iron makes quick work of the vine, which shrinks and shrivels off under its touch; as she pulls it out, dark blood drips from the thorns. His shoe is a little more trouble. Cursing, she pulls out a serrated knife from her belt, and starts sawing. “Any other injuries?” she asks, conversationally, as she works.

He leans back against the tree again. “Left shoulder’s busted. Might’ve cracked some ribs while it was swinging me around, but nothing serious.” Zuhra’s bark of dry laughter lets him know what she thinks of that, and he grins despite himself. Then he closes his eyes for just a moment and then his foot is freed, his boot and sock tossed to the side, and he’s standing up, his good arm slung across Zuhra’s shoulders. “Oh,” he says, suddenly light-headed, and wobbles on his left foot.

“Can you walk?” Zuhra asks. Ayer knows if he says no he’ll be thrown into a fireman’s carry, and the thought of bouncing on Zuhra’s too-small shoulders with his busted one makes him want to cry, so he mumbles an affirmative. Zuhra hesitates for a second, and then they jostle into motion.

2.

“I think it was sighted around here,” Zuhra says, nose-deep in the map and floating a few inches from the ground. They’re deep within the forest, where it’s dark enough that the air smells thick with mold and decay. Even more pleasing to the olfactory organs is the stench of peat just nearby—the boglands that some unfortunate teenager had wandered into and gotten eaten in.

“Hey, you think I can find my prince here?”

“What?”

“He’s big, he’s dashing, he’s green…I’m head ogre heels for him.” He barely dodges Zuhra’s punch, and cackles. “Don’t deny it, who could resist that ogrussy?”

“The ogr—Ayer!” This time, she lands a hit on the back of his head—he’d almost forgotten about how high a flight-potion-assisted Zuhra could jump. He rubs at it dolefully.

“That’s not very Shrektacular of you,” he says, before a thick green appendage from a source nowhere near as charming grabs onto his ankle and tows him through the brush.

1.

“A Ya-Te-Veo was spotted in the bogs,” Metzli tells them, “and the council has hired us to clean it up.”

“Huh. So you mean, you’re hiring us to clean it up,” Ayer says. “Aren’t those things like, plants?”

“Plants with murder on their minds, yes. They’re not smart, but they’re fast—I want experienced hands on this.” She inspects the glass she was shining—satisfied, she places it aside and picks up another one. “What do you need me to prepare for you?”

“If it’s fast, we’ll need a flight potion,” Zuhra says, “and since it’s plant-based we’ll want explosive bullets. As much fire as possible.”

Metzli hums. “I’m sure Lorelei can help out with that. I’ll have her enchant some ammunition for you by tomorrow morning.”

Ayer looks up from his phone. “Add gravity nets to that too,” he sighs, showing the drawing of a Ya-Te-Veo to Zuhra. “Ugh, I hate monsters with tentacles.”

4.

An indeterminable amount of time later—it feels like days and seconds all at once, though Ayer vaguely remembers having to lean on a nearby tree and catch his breath at least twice, so it can’t have been that short of a trip—they reach the car, and Ayer sags into the passenger seat gratefully. Zuhra throws all their gear in the backseat, which is weird—she’s usually pretty methodical about packing everything away: something about safety hazards, or whatever.

He loses that train of thought when she slams on the accelerator and he smashes his bad shoulder into the seat. His vision goes white and he hears himself let out a pathetic wheeze—and even weirder than Zuhra’s sudden carelessness is the fact that she doesn’t immediately make fun of him. She’s too busy punching numbers into her phone one-handed, it seems. Ayer wonders who she’s calling. Swaga, maybe? He knows that recently, Zuhra’s been training in the evenings with her, and the little green brat’s flirting is so obvious that it makes him sick.

Speaking of being sick. He feels weirdly sweaty, and his stomach’s doing flips in his gut. It’s like that one time he tried eating that 2-week-old pizza in his fridge. The white dusting he thought was parmesan was, evidently, not—it put him out of commission for a week while his digestive tract rebuilt itself, and he couldn’t eat but except saltine crackers for the next few days. Ugh, just thinking about it makes him want to hurl—

He rests his head against the window and tries not to retch. Zuhra’d kill him if he threw up in her nice car. Zuhra, who right now is saying something about Robin. Oh, and he catches snippets of his own name in there, too. Mean old Robin with the stick up his ass. What’s his problem, anyways.

“’m the better doctor,” he tells Zuhra firmly—as firmly as he can when his mouth doesn’t seem to work properly. She looks at him, brow furrowed, and then returns her focus to her cell phone and the road ahead. Rude. He stares out the window. Whatever, he has better things to do than to pay attention to this weirder-than-normal Zuhra. Better things, like counting the cars that they’re passing. …Wow, Zuhra’s driving fast. A particularly harsh turn has his face smashing against the side window, and when they straighten back out he nearly goes flying across the center console. Zuhra sticks an arm out to steady him—he can’t hear her too clearly, but he thinks she says something about a seatbelt, so when he’s balanced back in his seat he tugs at it with his right hand. It doesn’t move even when he pulls it with all his strength, so he gives up and lets his hand fall.

He’s tired.

His head droops to his collarbone, and distantly he notices that someone had replaced the part of his leg below the knee with like, a really fat purple sausage. It looks really dumb, and he wonders whose shitty idea that was. But, y'know, maybe the sausage-man that this leg came from really wanted to have prettier legs, and Ayer’s legs were the prettiest ones around. If that’s the case he guesses it’s okay. He still has one leg, after all, and it would be selfish not to share. He tries to wiggle the toes of the sausage leg, and as expected, they don’t move. Oh well. He’ll have to work on getting used to it. He hopes the sausage-man is making good use out of his old leg.

He feels hot.

He feels cold.

And then he feels nothing at all, really.

5.

“Ayer.”

A voice like a breath of wind, and Ayer’s eyes snap open. In front of him is the biggest door he’s ever seen, and it’s rimmed with golden light. But he doesn’t care, because he knows that voice, and he whirls around and sees—

“Lana,” he breathes, and then he’s scrambling to get his feet under him and stumbling towards her and she opens her mouth and says,

“Stop.”

Her voice is a thousand whispers and a thousand screams, and he feels the command shake through his bones like a tempest. He stops, because there is no other choice. She extends a finger and he follows it with her eyes until he’s looking straight down. A silvered chain extends from his chest and leads to somewhere beneath his feet. It’s been pulled taut by his movements. The finger lowers.

He’s seen chains like this before, and the implications of it have his mouth running dry. Even unmoving, the surface of the links are beginning to oxidize. He turns his head towards the door—his door, he now realizes—and back again. “Lana,” he says again, desperately. “Lana, what are you doing here?”

Her eyes are hidden by a shining light, so bright that the only way to look at her face is to focus on the line of her lips. She inclines her chin, and then she moves to the side and Ayer’s breath catches in his throat. Where his own door was, the area behind her is covered in a pile of rubble. Then she returns to her original position and the remnants of her door are hidden from sight.

She has a halo, Ayer realizes—a circlet of bone, growing out of her skull. The light from before follows her around, hovering in the center of the ring. His heart drops into his stomach. “Are you—an angel?”

“Yes,” she sighs, and Ayer feels strands of his hair flutter from the invisible wind that picks up as a result. “I am here to guide your soul.” She waves her hand over the white expanse they’re sitting on, and it dissolves into color. Ayer looks down. He sees himself.

They have him laid out in the Shop’s back room, and he looks like—to put it lightly—absolute shit. His leg’s swollen all the way to the hip; his shoulder looks like it got run over with a truck. Robin’s hunched over him, feeling him up with those magic tentacles of his—someone had summoned a cluster of leech-like wisps, and they float over his exposed leg, sometimes dropping down to suck thick, purplish fluid into their translucent bodies.

Swaga has Zuhra—snarling and eyes wild—pinned against the wall and Ayer’s breath stutters to a halt when he realizes Zuhra’s crying. He reaches towards her, entranced, and flinches violently when Lana dispels the image.

“You have good friends that care about you,” Lana whispers. It curls around his ears like a caress. “You should be happy.”

“Yeah,” Ayer says, “I’m a lucky guy. I’m,” he looks down at his hands. His chain is crumbling on his chest. “I’m really glad I got to see you again, sis. Even if it’s like this.”

And then—something in Lana’s serene expression cracks, and the light above her head flickers: off, and then on again with barely enough time in between to blink. “Ayer—” she says, and her voice sounds distorted and torn but more alive than anything that had come before.

Ayer looks up, eyes widening. “Lana?”

The light dims—brightens furiously—and then shuts off, and Lana’s sitting there. The real Lana—the Lana that Ayer knows—and the only thing that stops him from rushing forward is the sizzling gold sloughing off of her. Her shoulders heave laboriously, and she reaches out as if to grab him. “Ayer—Ayer, it’s not your time—you have to go back—”

“Lana—Lana, I missed you so much, I—”

The light sparks to life for a split second before being smothered again, and Lana’s on her hands and knees on the ground. Glowing ichor drips from the side of her mouth—she spits it out, and it vaporizes on contact with the floor. Shaking violently, she raises her hand again.

“Ayer,” she says, her voice layered with overtones and undertones and everything in between, and then—for a moment—all the static in her voice is gone. “I’m so proud of you. Promise me you’ll stay safe—” and she curls her hand into a fist.

The chain on his chest snaps back to place, Lana’s halo lights up like the sun, and Ayer claws at empty air as he’s swallowed up by the floor.

6? 41? 12? 20?

His arm feels like it weighs a thousand pounds but he flings it out anyways—gets a yelp for his efforts—it catches against something hard and he pushes himself up against it but then there’s hands pushing him back down and shouting and—

“Lana,” he tries to explain—she’s out there and she’s alive and she’s suffering—but his throat feels like sandpaper and his voice sounds like sandpaper and he—

—he kicks out and wisps buzz into his vision and why there’s so many wisps around him, he doesn’t know—

—his foot catches against his other leg and pain like he’s never felt before runs jagged up his spine—the intensity of it knocks the air from his lungs and he chokes for air and—

—and Zuhra’s there—

—and he tastes the sleep soot before he sees it and he feels consciousness slip away like a silk ribbon between his fingers.

10? 2? 136? 0?

He wakes up and he’s in Lana’s bed.

But he doesn’t have the time to wonder about how he got here, because he’s covered in cold sweat; his stomach spasms violently, and he’s barely able to turn his head before he’s throwing up all over the sheets.

Lana’ll kill him for getting her pillows all gross, but he can’t really focus on that because he can’t breathe—his lungs burn even though he’s gasping like a fish—and then there’s a hand on his shoulder telling him to take—deep breaths. In, out, in, out. It’s nonsensical, but he follows the too-slow rhythm of the voice because some part of him tells him it’s a voice to trust. In, out, in, out, and the fire in his chest recedes just enough that he promptly tumbles back into dark, comfortable unconsciousness.

8.

The next time he surfaces, it’s to fingers combing through his hair. He must make a sound, because the fingers stop—he makes another sound and pushes his head towards them until the fingers give a watery laugh and continue petting him.

He cracks his eyelids open against the morning sun, and his eyes focus somewhat blearily on Zuhra. She’s propped up against some pillows, balancing a book on her lap, but her attention’s all on Ayer—he feels a little self-conscious under her gaze.

“Welcome back,” she says, like she’s afraid he’ll break if she speaks too loudly.

He reaches towards her, aiming for her other hand—the one not occupied with touching his hair—but aborts the motion when he gets too tired halfway through. His hand flops on top of the blankets somewhere between them. Blankets, too fluffy and too void of cat hair to be his own.

“Where are we?” he asks. His voice is creaky and his tongue feels thick and clumsy in his mouth, but Zuhra doesn’t seem to take notice.

“Metzli’s room. She’s been sleeping at your apartment, taking care of Fish.”

He hums, absentmindedly. Then it hits him. “Wait, how long have I been out?”

“Three days, twenty-one hours, and…” She squints at the clock across the room. “Thirty-two minutes. You want the seconds on that, too?” She laughs, but Ayer knows that she could give him the number if he asked—he may be out of it, but he can see the dark circles framing her eyes, the way that her hand slowly digs into the blanket on her lap.

“I’m sorry,” is all he can think to say in response, and he knows it’s not enough, but he can’t think of anything else that would sound sincere—nothing that doesn’t sound cheesy, or flippant, or unappreciative, so he settles for repeating it again. “I’m sorry.”

Zuhra puts her book aside and sinks down until she’s curled up next to him. “You don’t need to apologize; none of it’s your fault, anyways—I’m just,” she closes her eyes, and when she opens them again they’re glassy. “I’m just so glad you’re here,” she murmurs, and Ayer would cry if he had the strength. Instead, he settles for tucking his head under her chin—Zuhra wriggles closer to oblige him.

As he tries to turn on his side to get a better cuddling angle, he hears something clatter—belatedly, he notices the IV attached to his right arm. And then there’s a groan, and a sleepy-but-furious voice says, “Zuhra, for fuck’s sake, I told you not to touch the medical equipment.”

Ayer freezes. Robin?, he mouths at Zuhra, raising his eyebrows.

She nods, then leans in close and whispers, “They told me to wake them as soon as you woke up, but—well. I thought I’d let them sleep a little more.”

“Time for a wake-up call, then,” Ayer whispers back, grinning. “Help me up?”

When he gets into a sitting position—which takes more help from Zuhra than he’d like to admit—he sees Robin splayed out on the couch. They’re holding a pillow over their eyes with their left hand, and a quilt’s become tangled—almost impressively so—around their legs. Their other arm’s fallen off the side, fingers trailing on the floor. They look adorably deep in sleep, despite their brief lapse into wakefulness a few seconds ago.

Ayer gestures for Zuhra to pass him her book.

A paperback, of some boring title he doesn’t recognize. He gives it a few experimental hefts with the atrophied muscles of his left arm. His shoulder’s healed well—it’s a little stiff, but he thinks he can make it. He eyeballs the distance—rechecks the weight of the book—and with all the skill of a professional sharpshooter, takes aim and hurls the book directly at the crown of Robin’s head.

They jerk awake with a shout, flinching so hard they knock themselves off the couch and onto the floor. When they untangle themselves, and stumble to their feet, Ayer almost regrets waking them—their eyes are bloodshot, their skin is pale and sickly, and most importantly: they look ready to strangle someone.

Still, though. It was hilarious. “Good morning,” he says smugly, folding his hands across his lap.

“Ayer, you rat bastard,” Robin growls, stalking over and tugging viciously at his ear. “You wake up and the first thing you do is to fucking antagonize me, huh?”

Ayer yelps. “Hey, you’re not supposed to harm the injured—isn’t that like, the Hippocratic Oath?”

“I’ll harm whomever the fuck I want, you little bitch—” Robin climbs on the bed, straddles him, and starts yanking at Ayer’s cheeks with both his hands. “—little ungrateful bastard—I put sweat, blood, and tears into reconstructing that shoulder and you use it to throw shit at me—”

Ayer would say something back, but his face is being pulled into unnatural shapes and all that comes out is a garbled laugh. He takes his left hand and uses it to jab Robin in the ribs—they tussle for a few more seconds before Robin loses their balance and falls back. Onto Ayer’s right leg.

“Fuck,” he wheezes, vision going white, and Robin does something sparkly with their fingers before crawling up and collapsing next to him. Zuhra’s giving them both the side-eye, but her lips are quirked into a smile.

“It’s what you deserve,” Robin says, as if they didn’t just use the last dregs of their magic to check for damage. As if they weren’t currently nosing Ayer’s right arm up so that they can burrow their head into his shoulder. Zuhra sighs and mirrors them with a little more grace, lifting Ayer’s left arm and sliding under.

“You guys spoil me,” Ayer sighs, tilting his head back into the pillows.

“You better fucking know it,” Robin gripes, kneeing him in the ribs—gently. As gentle as casual violence can get, anyways.

And—and it’s not perfect, not by the widest margin. He’s got a leg that makes his brain go wiggly if he thinks at it too hard, two arms rapidly losing circulation from the two muscle sacks lying on them, and he still feels exhausted even though he’s apparently slept for four days. But he’s warm and being cuddled from two sides and Lana—Lana!—told him to be happy, so he… lets himself be.

And if he pretends not to notice the way that Robin’s passed out and drooling on his shoulder within seconds—well. What can he say? He’s a softie at heart.

[hkvoyage]

Fic: Butterfly Wings - Chapter 41

Story summary A fashion blog started at University launched Blaine Anderson’s fortune and fame. As Vogue’s new editor-in-chief, he is struggling to find an original angle for an upcoming issue. Kurt Hummel has recently arrived in New York City after finishing high school, and is having no luck building a musical theater career, so he decides to explore another passion of his: fashion. He applies for an internship at Vogue, and Isabelle sees in him the perfect fresh face to liven up the magazine, and convinces him to try out as a model. Kurt meets Blaine, and in spite of their 10-year age difference, sparks fly. Can they overcome misunderstandings and sabotage to find their happily-ever-after? Klaine model AU. Rating for this chapter: General (overall story is mature) Word count for this chapter: 4,262 Can also be read on A03 / FF Masterpost is here. The fantastic artwork produced by Cassie at @cc-graphics can be here.   Thank you to the amazing @lilyvandersteen for the beta work and support. ***** Your wings already exist. All you have to do is fly. - AnonAugust Kurt wakes up to the smell of coffee brewing in the nearby kitchen. While Blaine is an early riser, he much prefers to sleep in. He stretches his arms over his head, then rolls to the side and hugs Blaine’s pillow. Last night’s sex was amazing, with Blaine worshiping every part of his body. It was sinfully slow and luxurious, and made him feel so loved. Kurt mentally goes over his plans for this evening’s surprise for Blaine. He hopes that tonight goes exactly how he wants it to go. He’s taking a chance, but Blaine is totally worth it. Kurt has thought of the grand romantic gestures that Blaine loves to do, but Kurt feels a little uncomfortable doing them himself. Blaine has always enjoyed the little things and moments in their relationship. Hopefully, this will be an extra one to put in the bank of memories to cherish.

“It’s an overcast day – there’s a 60% chance of rain,” Blaine says as he enters the bedroom with two mugs of coffee. He gives Kurt a kiss before climbing back into bed. “How about we explore the little towns nearby. I think everyone will be going to outlet mall and arcades in Lake George on day like this.” “That’s fine by me. I’ve planned a special dinner for tonight, so we have to be back by midafternoon so I can get it ready,” Kurt replies. They head to nearby Chestertown and browse in the small shops before going to the Main Street Ice-cream Parlor for a light lunch of soup and half a sandwich. They giggle at the food on display as they pay for the meal, and Blaine can’t resist buying Adirondack Moose Poo (chocolate covered raisins). They stop at the Crossroads Country Store on the way back, and buy soft ice-cream cones at the next-door kiosk. “Why don’t you head down to the lake, Blaine. Maybe take the boat out? Or do something that will get you out of here for a couple of hours.” “I didn’t think you’d want to get rid of me so quickly,” Blaine pouts. “I’ve got plans for tonight and I need to get ready. When you come back, take a shower downstairs.” “I think I’ll go for a long run and then a swim in the lake. I’ll see you later,” Blaine says as he heads to the bedroom to get changed. Once Blaine has left the log cabin, Kurt pulls out from the freezer the lobster bisque and peach pie that Amy made for him last week. He peels the potatoes and cuts them into fine slices before placing them in the casserole dish. Kurt whips up a salad with ingredients they have bought from the local farmer’s market. Kurt consults his tablet and makes the marinade and sauce for the main course. When all is under control in the kitchen, he pulls out two bags from the spare bedroom’s closet and sets things up. When Kurt is satisfied with the result, he rummages around in the bedroom’s chest of drawers and pulls out smart casual clothes for Blaine to wear. He places these in the downstairs shower room and makes sure Blaine has everything he needs for when he gets back. Kurt heads back upstairs and takes a long, hot shower. He gets dressed in his preselected outfit - shorts, button-up casual shirt and scarf. He spends even more time than usual on his hair. When he heads to the main room, Kurt can hear Blaine’s footsteps down below. Once Kurt hears the shower on, he turns on the heat in the oven and heads toward the main area to wait for Blaine. ***** Blaine slowly climbs up the stairs, wondering what’s in store for the evening. The only light in the room are an endless number of candles, covering most surfaces. However, what captures Blaine’s attention are the tabletop picture frames now on display. Blaine walks around the room slowly, examining each frame. Most display photos of Kurt and himself – at the Brooklyn Flea Market, at the Tony Awards Ceremony, at the Vogue staff party, chatting at the Hamilton photo shoot, at the baseball game with Burt, and in the hammock on Governors Island. Blaine giggles when he sees the selfie Kurt took when they were in the bubble bath in LA. Blaine’s eyes tear up thinking of all the good times they have had together. He can’t wait to for more memories and photos. Blaine sees two additional frames that contain something that aren’t photos, so he moves over and picks the first one up. It contains their bucket list, handwritten in beautiful calligraphy. The last frame contains a water color picture of two butterflies. “Did you paint this, Kurt?” “Yeah, I did. I’ll tell you about it later. The first course is ready.” Blaine moves to the table and notices it has candles as well. Always the gentleman, Blaine pulls out Kurt’s chair for him to sit down. Blaine loves the lobster bisque, and he can tell that this was made by Amy, but he’s not going to let on to Kurt that he knows. Jazz music is softly playing in the background, and they chat about what they’ll do during their last couple of days in the Adirondack mountains. “It’s going to take a little time for the next course, Blaine. Have a seat on the couch and relax.” Kurt takes a platter that contains two New York strip steaks that have been soaked in his special marinade and heads off to the balcony. After a couple of minutes, Blaine can hear Kurt cursing, so he goes outside to see what’s happening. There is Kurt, bent over the BBQ, trying to figure out how the gas cylinder turns on. When Kurt looks up, his cheeks are tinged pink. “You and my dad make this look so easy. I can’t figure out how to turn on the gas grill.” Blaine chuckles and swiftly moves toward the grill. He turns the tap on the top of the gas cylinder, opens the grill hood, and then presses the igniter button. Soon flames can be seen underneath the cooking grate, and Blaine closes the hood whilst it’s heating up. “Why don’t I cook the steaks, while you get everything else ready?” Blaine offers. “I wanted to do everything by myself, to make it a special night for you.” “We’re a team. It’s always a special night when we work together.” “That cheesy line just earned you the title of chief BBQ griller. I’ll head back into the kitchen.” Blaine hums to himself as he cooks the steaks, stringing musical notes into a new tune. He feels so inspired to compose new music when he’s with Kurt like this. When the steaks are ready, he cuts them into strips and returns to inside, and places the platter onto the table. “Mmm. Gratin potatoes. They’re my favorite,” Blaine exclaims, licking his lips. They eat the steaks with the béarnaise sauce Kurt prepared earlier, and the conversation is light and easy. When they’ve finished, Kurt takes their plates to the kitchen. Blaine quickly follows and helps him stack the dishwasher and tidy things up. “I’m stuffed. I thought we could wait a while for dessert,” Kurt suggests. “Good idea. I couldn’t eat another thing right now. Why don’t we head to the balcony and watch the last of the sunset?” Blaine replies. “I’ll meet you there in a minute.” Blaine refills their glasses and sits out on the deck, enjoying the cool gentle breeze that is coming off the lake. “I have a present for you,” Kurt says when he walks onto the balcony. Kurt moves a chair so that he is sitting directly in front of Blaine. Blaine lights up when he hears those magic words, and Kurt deposits a small box wrapped in paper decorated with hand-painted butterflies in his lap. He carefully unwraps the present, being careful not to rip the paper. Inside, there’s a box that is the perfect size to hold a ring. Blaine’s heart starts to race - could it be? When he opens the box, he sees a small blob of molten silver with a gem stone half sticking out. “This is my promise ring to you. I came up with a beautiful design, I found the perfect piece of amber that matches the color of your eyes, I spent hours creating the setting, and then when I was soldering the amber onto a ring band, I used too much heat, and the whole thing melted into the blob that you see.” “It’s the thought that counts, Kurt,” Blaine reassures. “I’m glad you said that, Blaine. At the time, I was beside myself when the promise ring became a huge disaster. When I was in the subway on the way to Tiffany’s to buy a proper ring, I had this blob in my hand and was rolling it around in my palm and it became deliciously warm. When I got out of the subway, I went to the nearby park to think. The more than I thought about it, the more I realized that this ring symbolizes my promise to you. The blob is smooth in most places, like our relationship is most of the time. But it’s a little sharp where the amber peeks out. There will always be bumpy times in the future, and I promise you that I will make the time to really listen to you and work things out. The blob heats up if you give it attention. I promise to love you and do both big and little things to keep you feeling warm inside. If we’re going to make it in the long haul, we’ll need to be brave enough to take chances and experience new things. This blob is a reminder that things don’t always work out, but I promise you that I will always be there to catch you if you fall. I promise to do silly simple things with you and keep our bucket list fresh and interesting. You’re my best friend, and I love spending time with you. Lastly, I promise that I love you and that I’m committed to the same long-term vision as you – marriage, family, and doing what matters to us. We’ll go at the pace that feels right for both of us, but we’ll get there in the end.” Blaine cups Kurt’s face in his hands and leans in to give him a kiss. Blaine pours every ounce of his love into the kiss. Blaine didn’t believe it was possible, but now he loves Kurt even more. “I’m going to lose it right now – that was so beautiful. I need one of your hugs.” Kurt stands up and holds out his arms. Blaine quickly rushes into them. With Kurt’s warm body against his, Kurt’s strong arms wrapped around him, Blaine feels like he can do anything. Eventually, Blaine pulls away from Kurt and they head back inside. Blaine looks at Kurt’s watercolor painting of the two butterflies in the frame. “I love this painting, Kurt. I’m going to keep it on the night table on my side of our bed. God, I love thinking that it’s our bed in our place.” “Go have a seat and I’ll make some coffee. There’s a story about the painting.” Kurt heads to the kitchen and brews the coffee while slicing two pieces of peach pie. There’s still one part of his plan that he needs to execute. He returns to the main room and sits down on the couch, barely touching his slice of peach pie. “When I was in Lima in May, on the first warm day, I headed out to the backyard in the afternoon to sketch fashion designs, and I spotted two butterflies. I couldn’t stop watching them. They would flutter close together and then fly away from each other, but never too far apart. Sometimes one would soar high, and at other times, one would dip a little low, but they would always come back to each other. Sometimes they would land on a flower and stay still for a minute, then they would flutter their wings and fly again. It seemed like a dance that they knew so well.” Blaine places his empty dessert plate on the nearby table. “I get what you’re trying to tell me. That I should take the risk with my songwriting. That I should focus on what makes me happy. I want to be like you and really go for it – go for my dreams. But what if I’m not good enough? What if it doesn’t work out? Music is a tough business to get into.” “I know you, and this is a side of you I don’t get to see very often… You’re scared. But, sweetie, I believe in you. You have a musical gift, and it wouldn’t be right to let you hide that away.” “But what if I fail?” Blaine asks in a small voice. “Then you’ll pick yourself up and try again. I can’t predict what will happen in the future, but remember my promise to you earlier. I can’t stop you from failing, but I can promise to make it safe if you do.” “I love how you get me, Kurt. I love how you’re there to support me.” “You don’t know how much you’ve changed my life since the first day I met you, Blaine. You’ve given me courage to try new things. I’m so glad that I found someone who I know will always be 100% behind me, whether I soar or drop to the ground. Blaine… Now it’s your turn to fly.” ***** After they spend time waking up in the most delicious way, they put on their swimming trunks and gather up beach supplies. They cross the small street at the front and fifty yards ahead is the lake. The private lakefront has a picnic table and a small dock with a motorboat. “Let’s take a spin on the boat,” Blaine suggests as he rushes over the deck. “Are you thinking fishing or waterskiing?” Kurt asks, handing over the motor key. “Neither. I want to feel the rush of air on my face one last time before we leave tomorrow.” They climb into the boat and Blaine starts up the engine. They circle the lake a few times and take in its natural beauty. “This is the life,” Blaine sighs when they stop in the center of the lake, spotting the families swimming along the shore and a few fishing boats at the lake’s western end. “I’ve always wanted to learn how to sail, but I never got around to it.” “It’s not too late, Blaine. I’m putting it on our bucket list. Maybe on our next vacation, we can go someplace where we can take sailing lessons together.” “You’d do it with me?” Blaine asks. “Sure, why not? I’ve never thought of sailing before, but I can totally get behind an activity that shows off your naked chest.” “It’s all about the naked chest, isn’t it? Maybe I’ll wear a Speedo while I’m at it,” Blaine jokes. “Don’t say things like that unless you mean them, mister,” Kurt growls as his eyes darken. “It’s more about the smile, you know. You have this special smile when you’re really happy,” “I don’t want to go back to New York City tomorrow,” Blaine says wistfully. “It’s a concrete jungle full of busy self-important people, noisy streets and dirt. I’ve really enjoyed the nature and being close to the water this week.” “If you pursue music, there’s nothing to say that we have to live in New York City.” “We’ll have to be in New York City for at least four more years until you graduate FIT.” “FIT does have a two-year program in jewelry design. I’ve looked into it and with my high school AP credits, the courses in Paris, and working at Bellerose Boutique… If I take a full load during the summer, I could graduate with an associate degree by December next year.” “Kurt, you told me that when you were growing up in Lima, your dream was always to live in New York City. I can’t take that away from you. Besides, what would Tiffany’s do without Kurt Hummel as their lead designer?” Blaine says as he nudges Kurt. “Dreams change, or at least they evolve. The reason I wanted to move to New York City was to live in a place that was accepting of me. But there’s lots of places in this world that are accepting of gay couples. And for the record, I don’t want to be Tiffany’s lead designer. That would be a job with long hours, stress, and high-profile events. Just think of it, Blaine. We would have PAs coordinating our schedules to fit in a date night every once in a while. Our children would be taken care of by a nanny and Bentley would drive them to and from an exclusive private school each day. When they’d get home, they would be greeted by Amy, and a tutor would arrive to help them with their homework. There wouldn’t even be time for regular Friday night dinners! On vacations, we would go to openings of new Monarch Houses, all smartly dressed for photo opportunities.” Kurt wrinkles his nose. “Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t like that vision of the future.” “Neither do I,” Blaine agrees. “So maybe we should talk about how we envision our lives in ten years’ time.” “You’re right, Kurt. I can see that if we stay in New York City, our lives could get out of control and we wouldn’t focus on the things that are important to us. With so many changes in our dreams, can we call it a ‘work in progress’ and figure out where it would be best for us to live and raise a family the way we want to?” “I like the ‘work in progress’ idea, Blaine. We don’t have to figure out everything in a week. I think we both have a lot of things to think about and discuss for our future.” ***** Blaine is awake at 6 a.m. and quietly climbs out of bed to use the bathroom. He closes the bedroom door to let Kurt sleep in before their drive back to New York City. He heads to the kitchen and brews a pot of coffee, and slices a slither of leftover peach pie. Hopefully, Kurt won’t notice. Once Blaine has poured himself a mug of coffee, he heads to the balcony to watch the sunrise over the lake. This vacation has been more than Blaine could ever dream of. He’s had so much fun with Kurt at Schroon Lake, whether it’s been boating, swimming or exploring the area. And the sex has been freaking fantastic as well. However, the times Blaine liked best was when they spoke honestly with each other…about their future. Blaine knows that Kurt is right – something big has to change in his life. Kurt’s version of the future without making any changes in their lifestyle is quite frankly frightening. Blaine already resents the events he attends with Isabelle – they cut into his personal time, which he would rather spend with Kurt. And while he enjoys being Vogue’s editor-in-chief, it’s starting to get samey. He needs a new challenge and new dreams. He’s been offered the unique opportunity to write songs for Marley Rose’s debut album with SONY Records. He recently received the first royalty check for ‘Butterfly Wings’ and the sales are still steady. He’s got money saved up in case something happens, and maybe he should use it to take a chance. Blaine mulls over the interview he gave for Vogue’s June issue. He was very clear about what mattered to him – music, staying healthy, helping others, challenges, and dreams. But the most important item was love – love for a man and love for his family. Even though Kurt is ten years younger than him, Blaine feels that Kurt is the wiser one in their relationship. Kurt was brave enough this week to lay everything on the table. The commitment to live together and share a long-term future. To accept new challenges in pursuing jewelry design. To be willing to leave New York City if that’s what it takes to make their version of family life come true. When Blaine feels a gentle hand on his shoulder, he looks up and sees an adorable Kurt with messy sleep hair. This is the man that he wants to spend his life with. This is the man he wants to have a future with. Blaine puts down his coffee mug and says, “I’m ready to fly.” ***** Two months later “I feel great, Dad. It feels right,” Blaine says into his phone. “Are you sure you and Kurt don’t want to come to Ohio this weekend? Get away from New York City?” “No, we’ll be okay. Kurt and I are still planning to come to Ohio for Thanksgiving. Has Burt accepted your invitation yet?” “Burt and I have got it all planned. Burt is picking you two up from the Dayton airport. Cooper arrives half an hour later and then everyone’s coming here. Burt will stay for Thanksgiving and we’ll all go to Lima the next day, after Kurt has done his Black Friday shopping, of course. On Saturday, we’ll head to the Monarch House in Lima for the opening.” Blaine looks up and sees Unique with her make-up bag. “I gotta go, Dad. I’ll call you over the weekend.” When the phone call ends, someone unexpected enters the room. “Blaine, I’m really proud of what you’re about to do. Good luck,” Unique says. Blaine is in a small room outside the ballroom at the Carlyle Hotel, waiting to for someone to tell him that everything’s ready. “I didn’t expect to see you today, Unique.” “Did you think I would send you out there without Unique’s special brand of magic?” she retorts. “Well… Can you help me with my hair? Kurt is pretty good at it but I’m sure you can make it look even better.” Unique fusses over his hair, muttering about how she’ll have to spend time with Kurt to perfect his efforts with enhancing Blaine’s curls. She takes out make-up powder and starts brushing it on Blaine’s face… sniffling. “Don’t you dare cry, Unique. If I see one tear, I’m going to lose it.” “Unique doesn’t get over-emotional about her fantastic boss and close friend. The powder must have landed in my eyes.” Blaine pulls up his arm and gives her a gentle squeeze on her shoulder. Blaine goes through his speech in his head, making sure he remembers all the points he wants to cover. Blaine looks up and smiles when he sees Kurt walk into the room. Kurt is wearing the exact same suit that he wore for the Tony Award Ceremony – the black Dsquared2 jacquard camouflage blazer that Blaine loves so much. “Nervous?” Kurt asks. “Not at all. I feel surprisingly calm. I know this is right for me – right for us.” “I’m going to head into the ballroom then. I’ll meet you after the press conference.” Kurt pulls Blaine into a searing passionate kiss before leaving the room. After a few minutes, Blaine hears the call that everything’s ready. He takes a deep breath and looks into the mirror. Blaine is wearing the exact same Armani suit that he wore when he met Kurt eighteen months ago. I’m ready too. Blaine walks onto the small stage set up and finds his place on the podium. There are board members sitting on both sides, as well as Anna Wintour and Isabelle Wright. It takes a few minutes for Blaine’s eyes to adjust to the bright lights and the flashing cameras. When he feels ready, Blaine starts to speak. “Thank you for coming today. Earlier this week, I tendered my resignation as Vogue’s editor-in-chief to the Board of Directors. I’ve enjoyed working at Vogue, and the challenges and opportunities it has given me. However, I have new goals, new dreams, and new opportunities I wish to pursue. These are not related to the fashion industry, but are more personal in nature. My resignation will be effective at the end of this month, but I’ll be working at Vogue on a part-time basis for the next twelve months. This will give me sufficient time to hand over the Vogue reigns to Isabelle Wright.” As Blaine continues on about Isabelle’s achievements, press kits available and the like, he glances around to seek out Kurt in the audience and finds him in the last row. They’ve spent the last two months talking about their plans. The penthouse has been put up for sale and they’ll rent a more modest apartment until Kurt graduates FIT. In the meantime, Blaine will work part-time at Vogue in order to keep some income flowing in. They’ll regularly reassess their plans as Kurt decides what to do in jewelry design and Marley Rose’s debut album is released. At the end of his speech, Blaine’s eyes lock with Kurt’s – they are full of love, warmth, hope, and promises. When Kurt jumps up to be the first to applaud him, Blaine notices the butterfly brooch attached to his lapel. Blaine thinks that he’s like a butterfly - growing and changing and finding his true colors in life. Author notes Although there’s still the epilogue to go, I want to take a moment to thank @lilyvandersteen from the bottom of my heart for being my beta. Without her, this story would simply not be. Some authors just need a beta to correct typos and grammar, but I needed SO much more. It’s really hard to draft a 200k+ word story before posting the first chapter, particularly for a novice writer like me. She contributed fantastic ideas as I was plotting the story. She read the draft chapters as I was writing, giving me her feedback with flaws in the story’s logic and characters’ behaviors, and cheering me on when it was going well. She helped me figure out the best way to solve problems when the plot didn’t work as I expected. She then reread every single chapter after I polished them up and corrected my grammatical flaws. She did a second beta review for certain chapters that I fine-tuned based upon your feedback. You cannot begin to imagine the amount of time she has spent on this story. On top of all this, she has a full-time job, young children and writes her own Klaine fic. Her time management skills are impressive. Most importantly, she was my personal cheerleader when I thought I couldn’t do it. Writing a multi-chapter creative story was a personal goal for me, and I could never have done it without her help. Along the way, I made a friend who I admire so very much. I don’t think that I’ve ever had a friend who has supported me quite like she has. She’s simply amazing. I thank you Lilyvanadersteen <3 <3 <3. Next up:  the Epilogue.

[gyromitra-esculenta]

trying to defeat writer’s block be like throwing stuff at wall and seeing what sticks. so, r76 excerpts out of that one au i was not supposed to write, and maybe sleeps. whatevers. *plants face into desk and sleeps*

The sky is on fire, the rushing clouds washed in crimson rumble with voices of many, and smoldering ash clogs the air, but Jack reaches out with his hand towards the disappearing back of a man he feels he should know – even if he is not sure this is a man, a human, because no human has claws dripping with blood.

Everything is rubble and destruction, death and agony, twisted life and undeath springing up in tangled boughs ripping streets and buildings alike as he falls into a molten blaze in his chase, only to wake up to a lullaby that brings up something buried deep and forgotten.

“Nice of you to join us, sunshine,” red eyes morph into brown, almost black, and Jack releases the breath caught in his throat when Lena elbows Genji and pushes him back.

“Down, dragon boy, I need to check Jack’s…” She fiddles with something on the side of his visor. “Okay, luv, you’re good to go.”

“Sure, sure, baby. And why the fuck are we supposed to go after that Lacroix babe?” Genji rolls his eyes, stretching.

“Don’t question orders. Execute them,” Winston gets up. “Lena?”

“Okay, dears, we’re going to put Amelie Lacroix, hiding out in her luxurious apartment, into our custody. You know, the president of Talon corporation, and they have their finger in so many pies they actually run out of hands.”

“Protective custody,” Winston adds.

“Oh boy, this is going to be so much fun,” Genji snorts, flicking his fingers.

“With the bloodbath that went down in Talon headquarters, which she is tied to directly, we are expecting resistance,” Hanzo mutters under his breath.

“We are doing it by the book,” Winston cuts in, irritation clear in his voice.

“Because,” Lena chirpily adds, “we think that the head honchos at Talon will try to keep her real quiet if anything. If you know what I mean. Chop-chop quiet. Glasgow smile quie…”

“Enough, Lena,” Winston grumbles when APC stops. “You come with me, Hanzo with Reinhardt, and you, Genji, with Jack.”

“Fuck it, why do I have to go with him?” Jack sighs in agreement.

“Because you’re being a luv, as usual,” Lena giggles, jumping out. And Jack… Jack has a very bad feeling about this all as his HUD flickers.

*

There is a certain dreamlike quality to the column of fire that rises into the sky and the blast wave feels like a caress as the red eyes turn towards him.

“Always rushing in, Sunshine.”

Jack knows he should not survive this, the wind, the debris, the heat, but somehow he hears Lacroix’s level voice above as his vision cuts out.

“We need to run the containment protocol.”

*

“He’s going into cardiac,” one of the surgeons mentions at the pain that blossoms in his chest. “Give him two hundred for a start.”

Somehow, Jack sees himself on that table, all tinted in blood-red, and monsters tear at his flesh.

*

The explosion was real. It happened, the electromagnetic storm painting the sky visible through glass roof with pastel colors is a proof of that and Jack knows he should be blind. He stared right into the fiery red inferno.

Then maybe he is blind as he follows a vaguely human visage, a truly more animalistic thing with claws dripping blood, through the battlefield the hospital has become.

Soon he realizes that the windows are merely screens, broken, repeating a flashing image of the artificial sky. They are underground.

*

“Oh, thank god, Jack, here,” Lena calls him over the communicator.

“Sergeant Morrison, come, step into the chamber,” Lacroix adds on the intercom. ‘Said the spider to the fly’, Jack chuckles darkly to himself just as he does what he is told.

“Amelie, uh, just asking, but are his lil swimmers going to be okay after that?” God, leave it to Lena, to ask the important and cringe-worthy questions.

“That, Cherie, should be the least of our concerns.”

The smell of ozone hits his nose and Jack can feel the hair on his arms rise with static electricity. Everything goes to shit, the doors on the other side of the room blast open with an explosive charge, and the world becomes dreamlike again as the intruders, the ones hunting them, turn their guns at each other, dark tendrils of something living wrenching their hands and crushing them at the same time.

He thinks he is bleeding as he falls down.

“What’s the matter, Sunshine?” The beast by the tree asks, coiled in darkness, too many teeth and eyes burning red twitching in the shuddering mass crawling along the fluid surface. The claws move over his face. “Aren’t you getting too close to the fire for the comfort?”

“Have I ever stepped out of it?” It ripples in mirth.

“You were free for a while,” the darkness melts against him and yields under his fingers.

“I think I forgot a lot,” Jack whispers looking into ‘J’ and ‘G’ carved into the bark.

“Harbinger project. Only explanation why la poule brought you here at all,” Gerard turns back. “Finish it up.”

He braces for the pain but something almost physical pulls him back and throws him to the ground. The rest is training, repetition and that little thing that refuses to be satiated with blood spilled in the back of his mind.

*

“You mean Shrike. As in, the Shrike?” Lena giggles. “And you are helping us now why?”

“Because,” the garbled voice on the other side answers, “if Morrison gets his ass blown up, there will be nothing to stop Reaper.”

“Right. Reaper.”

“Don’t joke around, girl. This monster can, and will, bring the end of the world as we know it. The Harbinger is the only thing that can stop it and the little monsters they spawned out of it.”

The Shrike speaks as if he knows. But he knows nothing, not really. Jack feels his lips curl up a little bit when he sees the apparition, a bloodied long-limbed monster, stalking along the wall after the panicking soldiers.

Stop it? No. No-one can. No-one will.

“I see you.”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing, Lena. How’s your status?”

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

“So are you going to stand here and talk your ass off or are you going to get me out of here?” Sombra blinks in confusion, not used to having her monologues and gloating interrupted, and Jesse tries to hide his snicker behind his hand.

“I could kill you, old man!”

“So could a determined sheep.”

“Did you… did you just compare me to a sheep?” Sombra squawks indignantly.

“I’m just not very fond of sheep. It’s mutual, I’m told.” Morrison knocks on the reinforced glass. “The fucking fish tank?”

“I told you, witch, that if Reyes is invested in this guy, he must be a piece of work.”

“And you look like you never outgrew your weeaboo phase,” Morrison interjects with more knocking.

“Ha, I think I like him regardless of him calling me a sheep,” this time Sombra smirks. “I say we keep him, idiot.”

“Ah, fer fuck’s sake,” Jesse shoots the panel and kicks it in, only to be met with a vicious jab to the face in return. “What the fuck?”

But Morrison is outside and turns his eyes on Sombra. The witch teleports a good ten meters away while Jack rolls his shoulders.

“I owe you both for making my life shit more than it already was.”

“Yeah, but no,” Sombra sticks out her tongue. “Get a gun, old fart, we have company, and I can’t hack them all.”

“That’s your problem. I’m going after Lacroix and Ziegler.”

Jesse sits up and stuffs the paper tissue he dug out of his coat pocket up his bleeding nose.

“Well, partner, I reckon they will both be where we are actually going, so joining forces, not that bad idea.”

Jack considers the idea.

“Any of you do funny stuff, I shoot you.”

“Sheep notwithstanding, I think I like him even more now, brother.”

“Stuff it, sister.”

[amillionsmiles]

come out your way (Scarlet Heart)

Title: come out your way Summary: Baek-ah and Hae Soo work at a café.  Neither has much of a love life, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t trying. / in which ship teases abound, Baek-ah and Hae Soo are #bestbros, and nobody dies.  Coffee Shop AU, oneshot. A/N: birthday fic for @jellyfishcharms , but shout out to @gizkasparadise and @heyitsmarcobodt as well :) 

{Read it on Ao3} or continue under the cut.

“Classy.”

Hae Soo’s hand jerks.  The pin she’s clutching drags across the creamy surface, marring the delicate lines she’d already set down in chocolate.  Frowning, she half considers pouring another espresso and trying again.

“You know,” says Baek-ah, settling back on his elbows, the corner of his lips ticking upwards in amusement, “most girls would just do a heart and be done with it.”

Heat rises to Soo’s face.  She risks peering over his shoulder, to the customer currently occupying the seat by the window.  He’s put aside the papers he was reading, briefly—good, Soo thinks, he needs a break—and his face is tilted toward the light, contemplative as he stares outside.  She lets herself admire the swooping part of his thick brown hair, that strong jaw and the way his glasses rest on the bridge of his nose, just slightly askew, before shaking herself.

“I don’t want to be obvious.”

Baek-ah levels her with a flat look.  “So I’m supposed to believe that you don’t have the hots for my older brother.”

“Not so loud,” she hisses, resisting the urge to duck below the counter.  “And I don’t have the hots for him, I just think he’s…”

“Dreamy and oh-so-intelligent,” Baek-ah supplies, rolling his eyes.

Soo—in a charming demonstration of maturity—sticks out her tongue.

It’s not her fault that the elder Wang brother almost—almost—makes her wish she was twenty years old again and back in university, just so she could spend an hour every day listening to him lecture on the Goryeo dynasty in that smooth, soft baritone.  Professor Wook—

“Careful,” says Baek-ah, sounding on the verge of laughter.  “Any longer and I think you’re going to start drooling into his drink.  Also, are you going to deliver that?  It’s getting cold.”

The two of them look down at Wook’s order and the sorry excuse for latte art adorning it.      

\^o^/ written in molten chocolate, floating on a cloud of cream.

“Oh, my god,” panics Soo.  “I can’t give him this.”

Baek-ah, the traitor, has already lifted it out of her reach (another strike in their friendship, Soo thinks—he’s too damn tall).

“It’ll be fine,” he soothes, pointedly ignoring her glare.  “I bet you five dollars he’s too busy grading to even look at it.”

Soo purses her lips.  It might be childish, but her pride stings a little thinking about how easily her effort could be overlooked, and Baek-ah picks up on it, grin widening.

“Hopeless,” he teases.

“Not as bad as you with Woo Hee,” she fires back, going for the low blow, and Baek-ah pouts.  He spins on his heels, making his way over to Wook’s table, and Soo quickly busies herself by attacking some imaginary spot of dirt on the counter with a rag.  It’s slow in the shop today, which, on the one hand, she’s grateful for, because she gets more of an excuse to sneak glances at Wook.

On the other hand, she’s not sure said glances are good for her professionalism, or her heart.  What she wouldn’t do for a stream of customers right now, just so she can busy herself with ringing them up at the register and not this fretting over whether Wook is going to avoid her like the plague from now on.

In the end, though, she’s only human.  Soo finally succumbs to her need to know and looks up to find Wook staring down at his drink, a puzzled crease in his brow.

Oh god oh god oh god—

His eyes snap up, catching hers; and then, of all the small miracles, he smiles in acknowledgement, raising the cup.

Soo manages a small smile in response before she has to turn around to hide the significantly larger, wilder one threatening to overtake her face.

When Baek-ah comes back behind the counter, he hands her a five-dollar bill.

*

It’s a Thursday evening when Jung blows into the coffee shop, carrying the scent of pine with him.  He scoops Soo up in seconds, spinning her around, and Soo laughs and hits his shoulder to get him to put her down.

“Welcome back, mountain man.”

“Do you like my beard?” asks Jung immediately, trying for nonchalance and coming up just a bit short.

Soo pats his cheek.  “You look very rugged.”

“Thanks,” Jung beams, before he draws closer to rub his rough stubble against her cheek, whining, “Soo-ah, I missed you.”

“I’m sure you did,” she says, fighting a smile as she bats him away to get started on the next drink.  Jung moves out of her way, turning to greet, “Hey, Chae-ryung.”

“No customers behind the counter,” Baek-ah calls from where he’s perched on a stool, tuning his guitar for tonight’s open mic.  Jung pretends to ignore him, but soon enough he’s zoomed over to Baek-ah and the two brothers are embracing.  Soo catches snippets of their conversation as they break apart: “Are you going to the family dinner tomorrow?” Baek-ah asks, and Jung pulls a face, as if to say, is there really any way to avoid it?

“I’m going to clean up some of the tables,” she tells Chae-ryung, grabbing one of the boxes they use to carry the dishes.

Humming as she makes her rounds, Soo thinks she likes the café best like this: the gentle clink and clatter of silverware against porcelain, the soothing ebb and flow of chatter, the bright rolling sound of Baek-ah’s guitar once he finally begins to strum.        

Her cheerful mood isn’t quite shared by everyone, though, and Soo sets her crate down when she passes by the youngest Wang, who is currently face-down in his chemistry textbook.

“Hi, Soon-deok,” Soo says to the girl sitting across from him, before she reaches for the boy’s shoulder, shaking him slightly.  “Eun.”

“Soo!” Eun jerks to life under her hand.

“Do you two want some more coffee?  It looks like you could use the energy boost,” she asks, tipping her head toward the notecards scattered across the table.

“I’m fine,” says Soon-deok.

Eun, meanwhile, is already holding out his cup.  “Yes, please,” he begs.  He waits until it’s filled to the brim before saying, “Soo, if I get an A on this test, will you go out with me?”

It’s a testament to how often this question has come up between them that Soo doesn’t even falter.

“No,” she says firmly, placing a hand on her hip. “However, I’ll give you a free drink.”

“Will you draw a heart in it?”

Typical Eun.  Like a bright-eyed puppy with a bone; give him an inch and he’d take a mile.  Out of the corner of her eye, Soo sees Soon-deok’s lips press together, but the girl remains quiet as she watches her longtime crush flirt with someone else.

“You know, Eun,” Soo says, keeping her voice casual, “instead of wasting your time with me, you should really spend your energy getting to know the girls your age.  There could be a great one right in front of you that you just haven’t noticed.”

Eun frowns.  “But you’re in front of me.”

Soo meets Soon-deok’s eyes, blanching. Sorry.  I tried.

It’s okay, Soon-deok’s gaze reassures, grateful.  Out loud, she says, “We should get back to work, Eun,” bringing her chair around so that they’re sitting just that much closer.  Eun looks surprised when their elbows brush, but he doesn’t move away, and soon the two of them are bent over his textbook, quizzing each other on various harmonic structures.

Soo smiles to herself and shakes her head as she leaves them, thinks: Hang in there, Soon-deok.

*

Jung brings her pictures from his tour of Korea’s various parks and peaks: Seoraksan’s fall foliage, Taebaeksan’s trees encrusted in snow.  There’s a part of Soo that regrets not taking the offer to travel with him, but the rest of her knows she’ll be much more satisfied once she’s in the position to fund her own trip.  She is, after all, an independent, 21st century woman—

—currently waiting for a certain independent, 21st century man to make up his mind.

The man in question loiters by the door of the shop, as if some invisible barrier keeps him from progressing any further.  Dressed in a black suit, he cuts a sharp figure against the softer hues of the café, and Soo bites the inside of her cheek upon noticing his cheekbones.  That one redeeming quality, however, is quickly overshadowed by the man’s sour expression—his gaze sweeps around the room with something that borders on distaste.

And Soo, who hasn’t dedicated her life to this shop, exactly, but still feels a surge of defensiveness, stands up a bit straighter.

“Sir,” she says, adopting the warmest tone possible, “I can help you here at the register, if you’d like.”

Man-Wearing-Suit finally deigns to acknowledge her presence; he scans her from head to toe before answering, dismissively, “That won’t be necessary.”

“Well.” Soo’s mouth works open and closed; eventually, she comes up with: “Have a good day then.”

The corner of the man’s mouth twitches, but before Soo can determine whether it’s a frown or a smile (what would a smile look like on this man? she wonders), Baek-ah returns from the bathroom.

All of a sudden, the energy shifts.  It’s like she’s fallen into an alternate dimension, become spectator of whatever medieval duel is playing out in the two men’s silent exchange.  Eventually, Man-Wearing-Suit breaks eye contact, turning on his heels and pushing back outside, the lingering chime of the bell over the door the only sign he’d ever existed.  Like some sort of weird, well-dressed grim reaper, Soo thinks.  

“What was that all about?” Soo asks, poking Baek-ah’s shoulder once he gets back to the counter.

“Nothing.” He taps her forehead with a pen.  “Did that guy not order anything?”

“No, he just stood there until you showed up and chased him off.  What a creep,” mutters Soo, eyes flitting toward the previously occupied spot as she adjusts her ponytail.  “What do you think he even wanted?”

“No idea,” says Baek-ah, but he avoids her eyes.    

*

“No idea my ass,” Soo says the next morning, punctuating each word with a sharp jab to Baek-ah’s chest. Mystery Man has just left, and Soo is still reeling from the mixture of shock and betrayal she’d felt upon walking in to see him and Baek-ah sitting together, conversing in low tones.  “You, Baek-ah, are a dirty liar.”

“Soo.” Baek-ah grabs her index finger, halting her attack.  “I can explain.”

Soo narrows her eyes.  “You’d better.”

“He’s my brother.”

She nearly chokes on her saliva.  “What?”

It’s not like she isn’t familiar with the size of the Wang clan.  Eun’s helpfully drawn a diagram for her once or twice, but overlaid with his narration of all the family drama and chaebol maneuvering, it’s enough to make her head spin.  So Soo decided a long time ago to only pay attention to the Wangs who were an immediate presence in her life.

“Remember the one I mentioned was living abroad?”

“Vaguely.”

“Well, that was him.  He’s moved back.  Dad’s getting old, you know, so now suddenly everyone’s sniffing around, trying to see who gets the biggest piece of the pie.” Baek-ah says the last part wryly, a bitter twist to his mouth.

Soo adjusts to the shift in her friend’s mood accordingly.  “And what about you?” she asks, soft.  “Do you get anything?”

Baek-ah lets go of her finger.  “You know I’m not interested in any of that.”

“Okay, so, then why was your brother here?”

“At dinner the other night I mentioned I worked here.  I guess he wanted to check it out, see what was so great about the place I ditched the family business for.”  Baek-ah turns away from her, reaching for a pad of sticky notes and doodling as he continues to talk.  “And—well.  He was also trying to get me to come back.  He wants my support for whatever’s about to go down.”

Soo makes a face.  “That’s not really fair.”

Baek-ah shrugs.  “He’s doing his best with what he knows, just like the rest of us, I guess.  It just sucks because—I like my life now, you know?  Being able to focus on my art and music, working here.  If I go back…I don’t know if I’ll make it out again.”

The look on his face is contemplative, conflicted.  Soo’s eyes trace down to Baek-ah’s hand, where he draws the same scribbled storm cloud with a permanent marker, over and over.

“Hey.” She nudges him.  “If anyone in your family wants to give you crap, they’ll have to go through me.”

That gets him, finally, to smile.  “Noted.”

*

“You’re hurting my arm,” Soo complains.

“Shh, she’s about to read it,” says Baek-ah, tightening his grip.

Soo follows his hopeful gaze toward the object of his affection.  Woo Hee’s hair is up in her usual bun, earbuds in and training bag by her feet.  The ballerina raises her cup to her lips (always “to-go” even though she spends at least an hour every Wednesday sitting in the café), pausing when her fingers wrap around the bright yellow Post-it Baek-ah oh-so-cleverly stuck to the back.

“Please tell me it wasn’t one of your cheesy poems,” Soo says, as the two of them watch Woo Hee rotate the cup around and gingerly peel off Baek-ah’s offering.

“It was a poem,” Baek-ah confirms.  “And a drawing.”

Woo Hee reads over the poem carefully.  A pink flush creeps up the back of her neck, splashing across her cheeks, and her lips press into a thin line.  She’s either angry, embarrassed, or flattered, though Soo is starting to suspect it might be a combination of the last two.

(Not that she’s going to tell Baek-ah that, yet; he deserves to suffer a little longer.)

On cue, Woo Hee’s gaze swivels toward the counter, where Baek-ah flashes his most charming smile, complete with a little wave.

Woo Hee slowly crumples his message in her palm, maintaining eye contact the whole time.

“Well,” exhales Soo, finally disentangling herself from the hold Baek-ah has on her upper arm.  “That could have gone better.”

“Why does she hate me?” moans Baek-ah.  “Is it the hair?”

“Your hair’s fine,” Soo reassures.  “I think maybe she thinks you’re just messing with her and is waiting for some more serious gesture.”

“I thought serious would scare her off.”

Soo rolls her eyes.  “You really think you are going to scare Woo Hee off?”

“Fair point.”  Baek-ah’s eyes light up.  “I should write her a song.”

“It is what you do best.  Maybe don’t serenade her in the middle of the coffee shop during rush hour, though.”

“I’m offended, honestly, that you’d even think I would do something that tacky—”

A bell chime cuts them off.  Soo looks over Baek-ah’s shoulder to see his infamous brother has entered the shop, making himself comfortable at the table in the back corner.  Baek-ah turns with her, his expression flickering upon seeing their new arrival.

That decides things for Soo.

“I’m going to handle this,” she says, rolling up her sleeves and pushing past him.

“Soo, wait—”

Baek-ah’s protests die behind her as she comes to a stop in front of his brother, who looks up, coolly.  Part of Soo wishes she had thought to ask for a name before she came over to confront him; it would add more weight to her impending lecture.  Oh, well.  He’ll have to be Wang-whatever in her head. Clearing her throat, Soo puts her hands on her hips.

“This isn’t going to work.”

“Who are you?” Wang-whatever responds, nostrils flaring slightly.

“Baek-ah’s friend, but you can ask your brothers Jung and Eun about me, too.  And whatever power play you’re trying to pull might work at home, but I’m not letting you use it here.  You can’t just show up and expect to bully Baek-ah into submission by lurking around until he says yes.  He’s an adult with his own life, and if he chooses to spend it away from the family business, then so be it.  Either way, it’s his decision to make, and he’ll let you know on his own terms whenever he’s ready.  In the meantime, I’ll take your order,” she concludes, whipping out her pen and notebook.

Wang-whatever’s eyes narrow as he grapples with her speech, trying to make sense of its sudden shift.

Hm, Soo thinks, a tiny bit smug as she keeps her pen poised above the paper.  Like I thought—more bark than bite.

Eventually, he swallows.  His “what?” comes out annoyed but hesitant, almost chastised.

Soo points to the sign above his head.  “Seating is for customers only.”

The staring contest commences.  Soo throws her whole weight behind it; she’s weathered down more than one Wang family member in her time here and doesn’t expect that streak to end anytime soon.

True to form, her opponent breaks first, gaze sliding down and away to the left as he requests a “Café au lait,” tone carefully neutral.

“Good choice,” says Soo.

*

Baek-ah recounts her sharp dressing-down of his brother to Jung and Eun when they come into the shop, which earns her several rounds of applause and Jung’s proclamation of “You’re my hero.”  Baek-ah himself seems more relaxed, and that’s enough to dispel any lingering doubts Soo might have had about her behavior.  We protect who we can, she muses, watching as her friend jots down lyrics on a napkin in between cleaning tables and delivering drinks.

So it’s a bit of a surprise when his brother walks in and orders a latte macchiato.  Their fingers brush slightly as he hands over the bills, but he withdraws them so quickly that Soo barely has time to process it.  

Soo frowns, watching him head toward the back.  “I thought I told him not to come by for you anymore.”

Baek-ah smirks.  “Maybe he’s not here for me.”

*

It’s been a week.

A week during which Soo has come to the disturbing realization that Wang-whatever has become one of their regulars and…

…she actually might not mind.

She’s yet to pin down a typical order for him.  Soo has a sneaking impression that he’s just going down the list trying to figure out what he likes, a hunch supported by the other day, when she’d watched him make a face after taking a sip of the dark French roast he’d ordered.  He’d hurriedly tried to remedy things by dumping in some cream, and Soo had had to bite her lip to keep from laughing.

She’s starting to suspect that her life is entangled with the Wang brothers and their antics, for better or for worse, so what’s one more to add to the list?

Today’s order is a simple cappuccino, and Soo finds herself doodling a flower onto its surface without thinking, until Baek-ah leans over her shoulder and says, smugly, “You should go talk to him.”

Soo stiffens.  “I already have.”

“I meant civilly, though.”

“I was sticking up for you!” Soo protests, crossing her arms.  “You ungrateful jerk.”

“And, like I’ve said a thousand times over, I appreciated it,” says Baek-ah.  “But, as they say, it’s time to bury the hatchet.  I’ll bring him your little peace offering, and then maybe as he’s leaving you could, like, wave nicely or something.”  He reaches for the cup.

“No!” Soo blurts, surprising even herself as she blocks Baek-ah’s arm.  Then, recovering: “I’ll deliver it myself.”

Baek-ah raises his hands in surrender, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards.  “As you wish.”

She glowers at him and takes the drink, trying to calm her nerves as she approaches the back.  He’s just another customer, she reassures herself.  Who’s maybe just a little attractive.  And she may have chewed him out a week prior, but he seems, surprisingly, to not have held a grudge, and Soo is starting to suspect that what she initially interpreted as a cold demeanor might be a front for a gentler brand of awkwardness.

She reaches the table.  “Your cappuccino.”

He looks up from his book, then does a double-take and sits up a bit straighter.  “Thanks.”

A drawn out pause hovers between them.  The edge of his watch peeks out from under the cuff of his suit, a glimmer of gold against the black, and Soo entertains herself briefly with envisioning him in a more colorful palette.

Her tongue is strangely dry in her mouth, but she manages: “I’m Hae Soo.”

Surprise.  And then, slow as a flower unfurling, a smile.  “Wang So.”

Oh, Hae Soo thinks, quietly; oh.

And she smiles back.