quinnophile

[quinnophile]

#"An overjoyed imposter in a crowd of disaster" #STOP IT THIS IS A BEAUTIFUL SONNEt IN MY MIND

emergency contact.

pairing. bucky barnes x fem!reader. mcu timeline. tfatws. synopsis. you and bucky are friends... or, at least you were 2 months ago, before he cut all contact. if you had known an injury and a hostage situation was all you needed to finally get some answers out of the stubborn soldier, you would have handed yourself over to karli morgenthau months ago. requested through dm by @theslayerofthevampires warnings. smut ( unprotected piv, shower sex, silly/sappy sex, doggy style, clit play, switch!bucky with mentions/callbacks to sub!bucky, electricity kink? bestie idk but bucky's gone and got himself his own personal shock collar aka you, implied choking kink - m receiving ) , no use of y/n, reader+bucky's pov, ex-friends to lovers, mutant!reader, ex-avenger!reader, nurse!reader, slow burn, mutual pining/yearning, protectiveness, arguments, does this count as hurt/comfort? idk, implied anxiety+panic attacks, trauma, hostage situations, vomit, canon violence, fire, injuries, blood, mentions of death, angst, fluff, one (1) joke about electro-shock therapy & one (1) use of the word cripple, lord(e) free me from the hell of writing action scenes 😩. this fic ghosts over many of the events in tfatws, please keep this in mind while reading as it could effect it’s readability/the flow of the plot if you are unfamiliar with the events of the show! reader inclusivity. the reader in this fic is implied to have been part of the same program as wanda and pietro, i'm not the best at describing superpowers but, basically, she can manipulate and conjure energy/electricity through her hands. the request did not make it clear if smut was wanted, so i included it at the end of the fic so anyone who doesn't want to read it can skip it <3 wordcount. 11.9k hyde's input. diva down, y'all, send help (it's been a sad week so i decided to haunt y'all with my presence) fic playlist,, for anyone who cares 👉🏻👈🏻 besties aka taglist. @yes-ilovetowrite @strawberryforks

The last time you saw Bucky Barnes, he broke your heart.

Factually, this statement is inaccurate. You could not actually see him when he did it. Yawns have lasted longer than the phone-call, an abysmal fourteen seconds of cold, scripted, rehearsed words fed into your ear through a scratched speaker. Then the line went dead and all that remained was the static sound of silence.

“I am no longer the Winter Soldier. I am James ‘Bucky’ Barnes. Befriending you was part of my efforts to make amends. I’m sorry.”

He wasted no time in blocking your number.

Life takes no prisoners, rolling on and demanding you move forward, trudge through the quicksand of confusion before it swallows you whole and condemns you to a lifetime of wondering why.

Why he walked out your life. Why he chose that day to do so. Why he apologised.

The mind can be a wicked thing in times of distress. In the wake of Bucky’s departure, the rose-tinted frame of friendship cracks, allowing all your memories together to spill over the floor. Picking them up and wiping off the dust, you find yourself staring at captured interactions in a new light, different shades of words and shadows over gestures than you originally remember being there.

Had you hurt him, had you been the one to open the exit door, had you done something wrong that night — even now, you are none-the-wiser to what led him to sever ties.

You’ve always hated police stations.

There’s something sinister about them. A stain on the world, too much grey, and white, and blue lit beneath a sterile light. Metal always seems to clang, all voices fight to yell louder than the rest, and there’s a pervasive stench of bleach — like the building is one big, dirty secret the world is trying to wipe its fingerprints from.

Lump in your throat, you stomach your discomfort for the sake of the soldier. As easy as it was for him to block your number, he forgot to scrub you off his legal records. An emergency contact, a trusted confidant the courts had required him to provide as part of the pardoning agreements — a fail-safe, that’s what you are, someone to call up and pin the blame on should the Winter Soldier ever dare come out to play again.

When the call came in, a tempting siren to rip you from the boat of sleep, a sickness flushed over you, mind racing and heart bracing to hear those awful words. Mr Barnes has fallen off the grid. Reflecting on it now, trapped inside a claustrophobic interrogation room, you’re unsure if fiction would have been worse than the reality of the situation.

Mr Barnes has been arrested. As his registered contact, we cannot release him from custody without your signature. Please make yourself available at the earliest convenience and-

“This only works if you’re all willing to be honest,” declares the woman sitting across from you.

With the little facts you learnt about Dr Raynor, you never pictured her to look so… homely. The blouse almost fools you into thinking this isn’t the sharp-tongue, sharper-minded woman the soldier complained so much about.

“Okay, I’ll go first,” you surprise even yourself. The men sitting at each side of you just about snap their necks as they turn your way. “I honestly do not know why I’m here.”

The soldier was never one for grand displays of affections. Nor minute displays, either. His friendship was not one felt through hugs nor pats on the back, but seen in reassuring glances and the kind of smiles that told you he was still relearning how to form the shape with his lips

Knowing all of this, some foolish part of you had still hoped he would have missed you enough these past few months to lose a little of his composure the moment you walked through the station doors. You’ve flown across state lines just to sign him out of jail, for heaven’s sake!

The least he could do is pretend to still care about you.

“Genius here still has you listed as his handler,” Sam mutters. At least he had been happy to see you, throwing an arm over your shoulder and pulling you in for a side-hug, an silent apology in his eyes.

“No,” you adjust yourself atop the uncomfortable chair. It creaks, far too loudly for a room thick with this much silence. “Why I’m here. In this room. Part of this… weird couples therapy session.”

“Because if James has truly been freed from me by dime-store Captain America, he needs to tie up some loose threads before I let him leave,” the man in question can’t, or won’t, even meet your eyes, stare glued to a corner of the room.

Still, you can feel how you’re infecting his peripheral, can see the way his eyes almost drift towards you, like you’re a magnet drawing them in.

“Oh, trust me, I’m no loose thread. James,” his name is a hiss from your tongue, burning with a foreign flavour. He’s always been Bucky to you — he always was Bucky to you. “Cut me off long ago.”

“I know. That’s exactly why you’re here.”

The guerilla therapy session unfolds about as well as one would expect: in a hypnotic disaster, like a car-wreck you can’t quite tear your eyes away from. Dr Raynor adopts methods used on couples, introducing a seemingly simple prompt: “Suppose that while you’re sleeping, a miracle occurs. When you wake up, what is something you would like to see that would make your life better?”

While the two men busy themselves with snark, you bite back your answer. I’d like to go back in time, to two months ago.

Then a soul gazing exercise comes up, and you’re quick to scoot your chair backwards, out of the soldier’s line of sight, a freshly sharpened knife that promises to pierce the plastic wrap around your heart. But distance can’t save you from the crack in his voice.

“And if he was wrong about you then he was wrong about me!” It would have been less painful to have him dig into your chest and rip your heart clean out from it’s cage.

Hand gripping at the chair beneath you, your fingers jump, a silent plea for your composure to dissipate and allow them to lay themselves atop his shoulder, his brutal aversion to comfort be damned.

You reinforce your hold on the chair, instead, and face Sam, who is halfway through a speech in defence of his decisions. With the blink of an eye, he rises to a stand, smacks a hand atop Bucky’s arm, and turns his sights on you.

“You still a human light-bulb?” The teasing nickname awakens an ache in your soul — Tony used to call you that in the early days of the compound, free for the first time in years and still learning to control your powers. Warmth sizzles through your veins as a crackling light-source ripples from your hands, burning tendrils of electricity warping and dancing between fingertips. “Good, cause I got a favour to ask.”

With that, Sam leaves and lets the door slams on his way out. You’re a moment away from following after him, curiosity itching at your skin that you know he’ll satisfy — unlike the soldier, Sam actually answers when asked a question.

Dr Raynor is quick to intercept, “Ah, no. You sit back down and face James.”

Body barely lifted from the seat, the drop back down still manages to knock the wind out of your lungs. There’s a chance Bucky is to blame for that, a heavyweight gaze that’s pinned itself somewhere past your shoulder, melting you into a blurry stain within his line of sight — not fully in focus, a nuisance in the way of the wall he seems so interested in.

He blinks. Slowly, carefully, an intentional pause taken as he fills his lungs with a stabilising breath. When eyelids reopen, Bucky is finally looking at you.

Blue eyes that do their best to lack any hint of a soul, frozen and robotic in their stare. Humanity, unbeknownst to the soldier, bleeds out of him. It’s in the tightening of his jaw. It’s in the stiffening of his shoulders. It’s in the widening of his pupils.

You itch to ask him how he’s been.

“Now, James, time for a little honesty. And, do me a favour, would you? Really try. You need this more than you think.” The therapist is a horrible reminder of where you are, why you’re here. Bucky doesn’t even flinch at her voice, long ago conditioned to accept being spoken at instead of spoken to. “You crossed her name off your booklet. Why?”

The golden question.

Three simple letters that have shaped your past, present, and future days since the line dropped and Bucky’s number stopped being the one you could dial at any time of the day. Habits die harder than most would think; you sometimes type out the digits, just to tease yourself with the thought of pressing ‘call’ and actually having it go through.

“I completed the assignment you gave me, doc,” Bucky’s response is directed towards Dr Raynor, yet he remains fixated on you, watching you like a predator stalks its prey — too afraid to turn his back, lest you run back off to the burrows with the rest of the cottontails and strays.

“What I told you to do was make amends,” Dr Raynor crosses her arms over her chest, the image of a mother scolding her rebellious teenage son. Any minute now, you expect she’ll drop the classic ‘not mad, just disappointed’ line. “What you did was make a mess. At least tell me you told her the reason.”

Shame overcomes him, casting his stare down to where gloved hands sit fiddling in his lap.

You breath, and it’s like a building has been dropped on your chest. Skipping breakfast is starting to feel more and more like a strategic decision instead of one made on impulse; the cloud of nausea floating around your oesophagus is but an empty threat, no contents in your stomach for it to projectile rain over Bucky’s scuffed boots.

The soldier won’t answer, so you do it for him, “He didn’t.”

“Really, James? I mean, what have you been taking from our sessions? We both agreed her forgiveness would be monumental in your path to reconciliation-”

“I forgive him,” you interrupt, partially because you can’t stand how the pinch between his eyebrows deepens the more she chastises him, and because, as desperate as you are to understand what dictates Bucky’s decisions, you want to hear it from his own mouth, not from the stranger that’s been assigned to analyse his mind. “If that’s all he needed me for, then he’s got my forgiveness.”

The tips of his brows are just about kissing one another.

The soldier lifts his gaze once more, colliding with the intensity of your studying eyes. Red rims the borders of his, spider-webbed and bloodshot with lack of sleep. Who does he call now, when the nightmares leave him stranded and in need of a human life-jacket?

Selfish as you can be, you hope he at least is calling someone.

His lips part slowly. Cracked and bit ridden, a lack of life stains his mouth. He seems none-the-wiser to the state of it, living like there’s still a muzzle covering that half of his face and shielding his voice from the world.

“I don’t need to know why you’re sorry,” you interrupt him before he can possibly begin. It’s a lie you tell both yourself and him, but if you say it with enough conviction, perhaps you’ll start to believe it. “If you don’t want me in your life, I’m not going to force myself into it.”

The chair screams as your stand from it. His head follows your ascent, bending backwards to maintain eye-contact.

This would be easier were he not so naturally attentive. A weapon built to observe, and watch, and study the movement of others as an act of survival.

Is he trying to survive you?

Or, are you another target he needs to exterminate?

The light flickers overhead, product of your own discomforting thoughts as you let them delve into memories best kept concealed in an airtight safe, where all the bad of your past is free to slaughter one another to death. At the first spark of electricity between fingertips, you clench your first shut.

“I’m not like them, James. And neither are you.”

When the door closes behind you, the interrogation room’s light goes back to a cold white, the colour of one’s breath in the chill of winter. The breath Bucky pulls in is ice, a cool burn down into a hollow chest.

“Sorry doc,” his lips pull tight with dishonesty, pain at the edges of his mouth as he forces them to stretch wider. “I broke rule two.”

If anyone was going to drag you back into the fight, of course it would be Sam Wilson.

You had sworn to never step foot back onto the battlefield after the events with Thanos, the war to end all wars. While victory had been secured and families were reunited, too many faces you’d come to admire and adore had perished. Not into particles of dust, but as lifeless bodies strewn across a muddied field. Casualties that no number of glowing stones and no perfected time travelling device could ever bring back.

Cowardly as it may be, you hung up the mantle of hero. Secured an apartment in New York, enrolled as a nurse, and carved out a life of normalcy. Warmth still flowed through your veins, a daily itch that begged to be unleashed, but you learnt to mute it. Dull it. Serrate the weapon implanted into your DNA.

Befriending the soldier had helped take your mind off of it, gave you both common ground to tip-toe over like a mine-field, an unaddressed understanding between two tortured souls. Then he up and left you to fend for yourself.

You could not return the favour when Sam presented you with his plea, fervour behind each word he described the situation at hand with.

A group of mercenaries turned revolutionaries. Gunning for a good cause, yet turning violent. Altering their bodies with a serum, tearing the fabrics of their being apart and stitching it back together with a strength that did not belong to them. The Flag-Smashers are a force to be reckoned with.

Who better to reckon with them than an escaped super-soldier hating convict, the bionic super-soldier, a retired avenger, and the man who passed on the role of Captain America? From Earth’s mightiest to Earth’s most-unlikely, what a fall from grace your career as a hero has taken.

Let the record show, to whom ever it may so concern, that you were staunchly against the liberation of Zemo.

Voicing this was futile, of course, when the man himself was already stepping into the limited light of the warehouse and shooting all three of you an easy smile, like he had not just changed out of an orange jumpsuit.

Through high and low, in a plane bound towards Madripoor and on the ground running from bounty-hunters convinced you had a hand in killing Selby, Bucky has not spoken to you once. You’ve heard his voice, through one-word answers to a cautious Sam and in threats aimed at Zemo, but not once has it been directed to you.

Nor have his eyes, until now.

Neon strobes flash all around you, a dizzying sight that has you craving a drink and the permission to capture the light source and watch it implode on itself. Sharon’s instructions had been to blend in, unfortunately, so you weave through bodies and ignore the pain blooming from your temples.

You feel Bucky’s attention before you spot him. It hovers over you like a force-field, a protective bubble that seems to push the surrounding crowd one step back, heads turning to glance over their shoulders at the man, the myth, the nightmare. The Winter Solider, back pressed to a wall and arms crossed over his chest.

Someone did not get the memo on blending in.

A hand brushes against you. First a whisper of a touch, the kind that makes you doubt you’ve even felt it. And then it’s as loud as a scream, a faceless limb curling over the curve of your waist and entrapping you back against the stiff outline of a stranger. Possessive, yet inviting, coaxing you to sway in a rhythmless pattern to the music blaring throughout the room.

One look across at where he stands is all it takes for Bucky to move. On the prowl, he drifts through the crowd, finding pockets of space to slip past strangers. It triggers a reaction in you, one that yearns to prove you don’t need his help.

Super-powers on lock-down, you lay your own hand atop the stranger’s, who entangles their fingers into the fabric of your clothing and presses themselves closer to you, like they’ve spotted the green-light they were looking for to smother themselves against you. One steadying breath and a quiet mantra on repeat in your mind — disarm, disengage, disappear — you launch your attack.

Taking a deathly grip, you feel as the stranger’s hands mould beneath it. There’s an uncomfortable grunt at your back, one that deepens as you twist a wrist and pair it with a stomp of your foot atop their own. Free from any unwanted touch, you dash out into the crowd, leaving a slew of foreign curses and an aching hand behind.

You steal a look over your shoulder, confirm no one is following you, and run head first into someone else.

The chill of vibranium kisses one elbow, while the heat of flesh burns the other. When your eyes meet, the soldier appears more rattled than you. The red flush in his eyes has grown darker since the police station, the dusting of facial hair now a shadow of brown over his face.

It takes you a moment to register the shake in his hand.

Nearly unnoticeable, Bucky fails to ground himself in your skin. There’s no method behind his breathing, no in and out, no dance of the rise and fall of a chest. Instead, his breathing is scrambled all over the place; inhaling on what should be an exhale, and holding far longer than ordinary lungs would deem survivable.

You’re not sure he’ll hear you over the music. You’re not sure you want him to.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine,” the first thing he’s said to you in months and it’s a lie.

You don’t call him out on it.

You don’t let him rest thinking you believe it, either.

You do press a hand to his heart.

It races beneath cotton, beneath his suit jacket. A marathon of chaos thrumming throughout his arteries, spreading something dangerous to every cell that encompasses him.

And now he’s watching you, pinning you with a look so disturbed and vulnerable that you ache to flea. From him, with him. A game of tug-of-war between your desires and rationale.

Swallowing down a mouthful of your own nerves, you match the panic in his eyes with a softening of your own. Pressure against his chest, your free hand guides his to lay flat against your sternum.

And then you inhale, slowly, let him feel the rush of air expanding your lungs beneath his fingerprints. He tries, and fails, to do the same.

Holding your breath, you mouth a slow count of seven, making sure he reads over the words you don’t quite speak, and then you exhale. Slower than he does, chest deflating beneath his hand.

Where failure occurs, dust yourself off and try again. That’s exactly what you do with him, beginning a second inhale and forcing him to feel it once more.

Three, four, five breaths are pulled and pushed out both your lungs, slow motions amongst a crowd of pounding hearts. The soldier falls in line, synching himself to the timing of your rise and fall. Upon inhales, the distance between you both diminishes, bodies lingering closer for a counted pause in time, until you exhale and the space returns.

Your hand loosens atop his own upon the sixth breath. Bucky holds it still against your chest, not even a twitch of a finger. Your eyes widen, brows jumping with the proposal of an unspoken question, a nonverbal check-in. He nods, affirmative and slow, confirming the calming of his restless soul.

As you itch to step back, his metal hand clasps over the one atop his chest. You yield to his grasp, let him drag it north to where metal dangles from a chain. The soldier encases both of you around the dog-tags, a tight squeeze that brings no physical harm yet terrorises you with the branding of his name into your skin.

Your breathing is now the one out of line, falling behind in the steady pace you set.

The shape of your name forms over his lips. Before he can speak it, Sam beats him to it, emerging from the left with Zemo hot on his trails and the claim that Sharon has found the intel you were all hoping for.

Hours later, dodging bullets and taking cover amongst shipping containers, it remains stained over your palm.

James Buchanan Barnes.

Chaos does as chaos does best: it spreads.

You chase after it alongside the three men, trailing from one end of the Earth to another. Exhaustion stitches itself into your features, becomes a prominent descriptor for your face. And the silence between you and Bucky persists.

The avoidance is purposeful now, on both each other’s part. An agreement to keep out the other’s way. Yet presence is not something either of you can suppress.

When lights flicker on through every room he enters, Bucky says nothing.

And, when you wake up each morning to find an extra blanket shielding you from the cold, you say nothing.

Somewhere in Europe, an early morning, all hell breaks loose. Minutes from talking down the leader of the Flag-Smashers, Sam has the rug pulled out from beneath his feet by a self-entitled John Walker, storming on the scene with a barrel pointed at the girl’s head and a demand to surrender.

The ensuing events are a blur. An unchoreographed chase-down. Each pounding of your feet to the ground, the electricity pleading to be set free grew louder, warmer, a constant buzz frying your brain with the need for release. Another defeat notched onto all your belts, your meagre team of four dragged itself back to the Baron’s home.

Another fight awaited you there.

The Dora Milaje had their sights set on Zemo, yet they wound up wrestling against Walker and his sidekick. Despite your intentions to remain out of the fight, Sam and Bucky’s interference landed you a bruised cheek and your hands pinned behind your back.

You let the warrior fool herself into believing she immobilised your powers when, in truth, you never intended on using them.

Walker’s bruised ego and Zemo’s fleeing later, the silence between you and the soldier shatters.

“You’re bleeding,” of course you’re the one who has to swing the verbal axe.

Unaware of his injury, Bucky begins to inspect himself. He spots it in the mirror: a gash down his right shoulder blade.

“It’s a flesh wound,” and he’s an idiot, with skin torn open and spilling a river of red into the black cotton of his shirt.

“It would be embarrassing for a super-soldier and war veteran to die from tetanus,” so, maybe you’re being a slight hypochondriac. Working the wards does that to a person, steals any room for doubt when it comes to health and safety. “Don’t be so bull-headed, come here.”

Sam long gone in search of a calming breath and the will to not implode with anger, only you two fill the space of Zemo’s hideout. No other eyes are there to witness nor question as the soldier sits quietly in a bar stool, shirt off and back facing you.

A bowl of cold water and a damp rag, you swipe over drying blood and watch it revive itself, pink rivulets rolling down the stretch of his skin. You catch them before they can reach the waistband of his jeans, and accidentally brush a finger over the silvery mark of a scar long healed yet the pain it brings remains fresh.

You almost apologise.

Bucky almost says it’s okay, your hands could never hurt him.

Instead, you return focus to his open wound and he clamps his teeth down on his tongue.

The mending process is impromptu, the ultimate display of working with what you have. Or, rather, what you find. A half-drunken bottle of vodka to cleanse the wound, a sewing kit to stitch the flesh back together, a bandage to dress it.

The soldier struggles to dress, incapable of angling his arm correctly and pulling the fabric of a fresh shirt over his skin. Against your better judgement, you step in and help, looping over his head and feeding his arm through the sleeve.

“Thanks,” his smile is sheepish, false. A placeholder for whatever he’s really feeling. It sparks something in your heart. Something ugly, and dangerous, looming over all four chambers of the delicate organ, and feeding itself into your bloodstream. “I forget how hard the Dora Milaje hit-”

“Don’t talk to me like we’re friends,” it snaps out of you, cruel and aiming right for the soldier with intentions of killing the smile on his face. It doesn’t even waver but his eyes do, sinking to the floor like a kicked puppy. You feel sick with pity, yet ripe with anger. “Not after putting so much effort into proving we’re not.”

“You’re right,” why doesn’t it fill you with victory to hear him say it? “I’m sorry.”

“Stop!” You get him to flinch, but at what cost? It only deepens the nausea in your soul. Still, you press on with irate words. “I’m sick of hearing you apologise. When have I ever asked you to be sorry?”

“It’s not something you ask,” he bites the inside of his cheek. “It’s something you’re owed.”

“You know what? Yes, I am owed an apology!” The pacing begins before you truly realise, boots scuffing over carpet and kicking up a storm in their wake. “Two months, Bucky! I haven’t heard from you in two months! And then I come here, I go out of my way to give up the peace I’ve worked so hard to bring into my life, and you won’t even look me in the eye!”

Tears sting, blurring your vision yet you won’t let the dam break, won’t let him see you so emotional when he’s the poster boy for stoicism. Fog in your eyes, you fail to notice the way his are suddenly pinned to you, following the back and forth pattern your steps engrave into the floor.

“I mean, who does that?” The words are practically ripped from you, painful as you bring them into fruition. Heaviness clogs your throat with a sob, another degree of distraught you have to fight to contain, reducing your voice to a whisper. “I thought we were friends.”

You’re not exactly sure what reaction you were hoping for.

A yelp of pain? A howl of anger? A whimper of sadness? Backed into a corner and speared by you words, the soldier gives you no such thing. He just stares.

Wide-eyed, unblinking, slow-breathing.

“If I deserve an apology, you deserve a ‘thank you’.” The laughter that tears through your chest possess not a trickle of humour. Instead there’s only grief, mourning for the friendship he left to rot. Dead and unburied, you’ve wandered the last few months desiccating through the streets of the city. Now, you reach for the knife he placed in your back and turn it on him instead. “Thank you for reminding me I can sleep through the night, if you’re not there to tear me away from it. Thank you for showing me I’m capable of doing this all on my own. Thank you for liberating me from… this. Us.”

As high as you get off of cruelty, the comedown is a complete crash of your system. Shoulders that deflate, hands that squeeze shut, and lights that flicker like an electrical storm. When one of the light-bulbs shatters under the heat of your ire, your eyes flinch shut and the barrier of tears snaps at last.

The first to roll is the warmest, lulling you in with the promise of oxytocin.

Bucky inches closer and, on reflex, you flinch back. Images flash quicker than all the surrounding lights, memories of the early days. Confinement, experiments, men in lab-coats.

You never forget the first life you take. In your case, you knew nothing about him. Not his name, not his age, not his favourite colour nor his dearest relative. All you have to remember him by is the smell of his body, blood spilling through every orifice and the stench of electricity convulsing his limp body.

Before the guilt could fully creep in, one of the lab-coats clapped and set off a chain reaction, overcome with a joy that did not match the territory of having just watched their colleague unexpectedly die at the hands of a child.

Of course, you were no longer a child to them, but a weapon.

“There’s something wrong with me,” Bucky starts, and pauses instantly to pull himself together, armour almost cracking under the pressure to reach out and wipe the next tear away before it can trail down your face. “Something in me, it… It hungers. I can’t watch it devour you.”

You hiccup over a sob, the gentle tone of his voice a blanket over the chaos of another light smashing. The soldier does not even react, he just keeps looking at you.

“What does that even mean?”

“It means that everyone I’ve ever cared about has either died,” the first thorn in his field of roses appears, a twinge of distress staining the calm of his voice. Not fear of your powers, but a plea to be understood. “Or I’ve made them hate me through hurting them. I can’t watch that happen to you.”

“Don’t worry,” you wipe at your cheek with the back of your hand, a futile attempt to dry tears that only spread further over your skin. “You hurt me by making me hate you.”

The events in which your life falls apart are quite simple.

First, there’s a threat posed against Sam’s sister. Second, an agreement to meet with Karli Morgenthau — she demands an audience of one, Sam brings her three: Bucky, him, and you. Third, Cadet America and Battlestar Galactica — or whatever John Walker and Lemar Hoskins are running around calling themselves… The point is, they show up uninvited and wreak havoc. Fourth, a fight ensues.

Despite the work put into suppressing that tingle in your bones, it feels good to finally let it loose.

No fear of frying someone into cardiac arrest, the strength that courses through the Flag-Smashers acts as a padding to your touch. For every punch thrown your way, you block it with an electrifying grip, hand closing over fists and watching as faces flush with fear while you zap a bolt of light through them.

A fist flies at you from the right, crashing against your cheek with a crunch that has your jaw aching and open, a thrum of pain echoing up the side of your face. Before you can unload the ball of electricity conjured in your hand, a Vibranium one interferes, grabbing your attacker by the scuff of their neck and knocking them unconscious.

“You’re okay,” the words carry relief, but it’s unclear who they’re aimed at: you or him. Barely two days have passed since you confronted him, yet Bucky stands before you now, right hand inspecting your jaw, like nothing between you has changed. Like these last few months have been nothing but a bad dream that he’s finally called and pulled you out of. “‘S not broken, just gonna bruise.”

If you have the will to answer, you’re not given the chance.

The fight around you both continues, three fighters caging you against one another. Back to back, you fight your way through them. Bucky is all brawl, fists thrown with his entire weight behind them and slamming into the Flag-Smashers with the intention to deescalate, not kill. You, on the other hand, continue the approach of defence, waiting for them to attack first before you unleash shock-waves over their system.

The fighting comes to stand-still at the first casualty. Lamar lays slumped over, a fountain of blood pouring from his mouth as he stares onward, void of life.

“Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey... c’mon... Lemar, Lemar, Lemar, Lemar, Lemar...” Walker’s voice fills the hall, frantic with denial as he checks over his fallen friend.

At Karli’s command, Lemar’s killer flees the scene. Walker is hot on his trail, tightening his grip on the shield of America as devastation and heartbreak settles over him in a blinding cloud. Bucky moves without much thought, dashing to follow the fight and capturing the attention of a handful of Flag-Smashers.

Too many for the soldier to take on his own, instinct comes over you as you raise both hands, eyes squeezing shut in an attempt to channel the power from every flickering light, every outsource of electricity scattered throughout the dilapidated building.

Pain. It infects you like a poison, like nothing you’ve ever felt before. Your eyes fly open with a cry, and find Karli’s hands crushing one of yours in both their grasp, bones snapping like twigs under her strength. The amber tendrils flicker in your other hand, unruly and unwilling to bend to the demand of shocking her, as the super soldier continues to hold you within her deadly grip.

“I’m sorry,” the girl is so soft spoken, you want to believe her. “But I can’t let you get in my way.”

The stitching of your shirt’s neckline snaps beneath Karli’s grip. You barely have time to spew any version of Bucky’s name before she slams her forehead into yours.

The light in your palm burns out and the world goes dark.

There’s this street in Brooklyn.

The floor is cobblestone and uneven, a hazard to cross when rain runs a river over it. Trash compacts and lives deep within the crevices that divide road and sidewalk. Business ends before twenty-two hundred hours, a paradox living within the city that never sleeps. No light guides the way — burnt out decades ago, the streetlamps sit as a landmark of time and not as a beacon of safety.

“You know,” you muse, the midnight breeze brushing over your skin in a sweet caress. “You don’t have to walk me home every time we go out.”

“This street is darker than my past. It’s the least I can do.”

“You don’t have to worry about my safety,” even so, the thought heats up your cheeks. “I’m a walking taser, remember?”

“How could I forget?” Not even you can help but laugh, reminiscing your first encounter. Amidst the chaos of the Sokovia accords, his feet escaped confinement and your hands wrapped around his throat in a mock shock-collar. “It’s not your safety I worry about. Someone’s got to be there to call an ambulance when you electrocute a poor unsuspecting criminal.”

Despite the strength that separates him from the confines of normalcy, Bucky gives in to the shove you give his shoulder, drifting several steps out into the empty road only to be sucked back into your orbit, an arm hooking over your shoulders and offering an apologetic pat.

Both your strides grow shorter as your building comes closer. If you hadn’t already taken two unnecessary laps in the search of more time, you’d ask for another walk around the block. But it’s late, way past any reasonable hour, and he has therapy in the morning. You can’t take more from him.

“I want to,” the soldier confesses, gentle tongue and smiling mouth forming the words. “That’s why I walk you home. Know you don’t need me to, but I think I need it.”

A comforting quiet carries you both the rest of the way, delicate thuds echoing as you travel up the steps to your building’s doorway. A moment of panic passes over you as you struggle to find your keys, hand rustling through your purse in search of the precious metal, only for something to jingle in Bucky’s grasp.

“Lookin’ for these?” He drops them into your open palm, a vibranium key-chain glinting beneath the moonlight — a souvenir from his recent visit to Wakanda, Shuri made sure to send you a scathing text detailing how the soldier blackmailed her into making it. “You left them on the bar. Wanna tell me again how you don’t need me?”

“Technically, I never said that,” while you verbally push at his buttons, your pointer finger pushes on his chest. Solid and warm, you’re overcome with a foreign urge. “But, oh thank you, my knight in vibranium armour!”

Standing one-step higher than Bucky, you meet no difficulty in throwing your arms around his neck and pulling him in for a hug. He, on the other hand, goes stiff as a board, smile melting into a thin line as the rest of him freezes. You double down in light of his non-reciprocation, squeezing your arms a little tighter behind his neck and leaning further over the ledge of the step — nothing but trust for the soldier as you unload the responsibility of bearing your body onto him.

Slowly, the arms glued to his side loosen. Rise over your mid-back. Take their own hold around you. His movements are awkward and full of insecurity — when was the last time he was hugged?

You let him decide when enough is enough, unfurl your arms when his slip from your waist. As you shuffle back over the step, however, the moonlight catches over something else.

“Oh, I forgot,” he’s receptive to your voice, patient as he waits for you to continue. “The book I’m reading, it’s set during a fictional war and, well… I’m sorry if this is a bit silly but, do soldiers really gift their dog-tags to people?”

There’s every chance the question catches him more off-guard than the hug you just imposed on him, for it takes a few second for him to answer.

“Sometimes, yeah,” he nods to his own words, flesh hand rubbing at the back of his neck. “To family, friends… Loved-ones. The tags, they have our names, our whole identity engraved on a metal plate. I guess that’s why they usually go the person you’d want to be remembered by the most.”

The beauty in your friendship has always been the lack of curiosity. A safe haven from each other’s histories; neither of you ask things the other would not want to remember.

And so, you swear you do not mean to pry.

“Do you have anyone like that?”

Instead of a name, the soldier gives you a look.

A single trail of his gaze down your face, something unspoken etched into the way his forehead wrinkles with a frown and his throat swallows.

“It’s late,” the distance between you both remains the same, yet his voice sounds miles away. Gone. Removed. Detached. “You should go up. I’ll call you in the morning.”

And then you never see him again…

You wake with an itch in your palm. World still shutout behind the darkness of eyelids, a pained groan coughs out of you when you try and close your fist. Fingers, swollen and bruised, brush against one another in a failing attempt to curl inwards.

“I’m tryin’ to help,” a voice calls out from the left. “Bit pointless if you keep movin’.”

Consciousness crashes down on you like a sledgehammer, reawakening your nerve endings to every ache and throb, ghosts from a fight long gone and passed.

You let the light seep back in, eyes peeling open to face the rays of warmth piercing through a shattered window. But your veins feel empty of it, hollow as you attempt to conjure that familiar lick of heat.

Karli Morgenthau sits at your bedside — a dirty mattress on the floor — gauze threaded through her fingers as she uses it to tighten a plank of wood to your crushed hand, broken bones screaming out in pain as she forces the fingers flat. A makeshift cast, the kind one would expect to be given while shackled in the hideout of an evil mastermind.

Except, no cuffs bite at your wrists and there’s no inch of her that appears evil. She’s just a girl, barely grown past a child, and the weight of the world has already engraved itself into her tired face.

“Where are we?” Your own voice rings in your head.

“The city you call home,” Morgenthau offers up freely, securing the bandage with a knot.

What she lacks in nursing skills, she makes up for with her bedside manners, unscrewing a bottle of water and holding it out for you. Rising slow, you take hold of the plastic and welcome the sweet relief of moisture to sandpapered lips.

Barely a sip slips down your throat before you gag, body rejecting it and spewing down your chin. The pounding in your head feels like it grows tenfold.

“How long was I asleep?”

“A day or so,” Karli surprises you, delivering soft pats against your back and aiding you in your throat’s need to relieve itself of the burning bile. “You’ve been slippin’ in and out, especially on the plane. D’you know you talk in your sleep?”

The dream replays in a montage, memories of Bucky and you on that dark street stabbing you in the gut with embarrassment. What nonsense had you said aloud?

“I think I’m concussed,” unbroken fingers push into your temple, massaging in a circular motion as you try to coax the agony out of your skull. “You need to get me to a hospital.”

“I can’t do that,” the girl’s demeanour shifts, the once soft stare of a child lost in a sea of madness now hardening with ice and sending a chill down your spine. “You’re my leverage, it’s the only way to keep your friends in line.”

“Karli,” as calm as you keep your voice, there’s panic coursing through your system. Your body won’t cooperate; you can’t summon a single wisp of electricity in your non-maimed hand. “This could kill me. And if I die, my blood is on your hands. Are you sure you can live with that?”

“We’re so close, don’t you get it?” Any sense housed within her has departed, leaving nothing but a crazed look upon her features. “The GRC are meeting tonight. We’re going to put an end to the Patch Act, and then we’ll set you free.”

Outside the window, New York is sunny. A blue sky with no clouds, birds fly through the air, and the Sun paints a golden hue over every inch of land it touches.

It wouldn’t be a bad day to die.

Bucky feels like he’s choking.

Perhaps his jacket is too tight, leather wrapped around him like a casket and confining him beneath the rigid material. Maybe adrenaline is stealing his breath, using it as fuel to propel him onwards through the GRC building, eyes scouring for anyone running around like a headless chicken to direct them towards safety. Or, possibly, his lungs can’t remember how to pull in air when you’re not around.

Days have blurred together. Nights have been restless. Helpless and hopeless, it’s taken everything to not turn towards a familiar comfort in your time of danger. A part of him longs for a time where those ten words still hovered over him like a threat, so he could command Sam to unleash the colder side of him and send him on one last mission.

The Soldier would have had you back by now.

Without him, Bucky is nothing but a man frozen in time. A veteran, a cripple, and a man who’s woken every day with torment in his chest.

Self-inflicted, the kind of pain one can only hope to heal with pressure and time.

There’s a call of the soldier’s name. A stranger wrapped in a pencil skirt and sporting a badge around her neck passes him a phone, declaring the call is for him. Before speaker even meets ear, Bucky knows who awaits him on the other end.

“Ain't you tired of fightin’ for the wrong side, Mr Barnes?”

“I've done this before, kid,” lights flash outside the windows, red and blue, and oh so reminiscent of that dance floor in Madripoor. For a moment, he feels you on his chest, like a phantom limb, lulling it to rise and fall with the rhythm of your own. “I know how it ends.”

“It doesn’t matter if I don’t survive this. I’m fightin’ for somethin’ bigger than myself.” Karli spits down the line as he trudges down a flight of stairs. “And with all the bodies you’ve collected, have you ever been able to say the same?”

That strikes a nerve.

Bucky resists the bait as well as he can, “You don’t think I ever fought for something bigger than myself? That’s all I ever try to do, and I failed twice.”

“Three times, if you think about it hard enough. Do you think she’d still be willing to die for you,” his muscles stiffen, every bone in his body locks, and his grip tightens on the phone. “If she knew what you did?”

“I don’t know what you’re-”

“Yes, you do. I’ll do you a favour and tell’er all about it, right before I kill her.”

“Touch a hair on her head and there won’t be anywhere far enough you can run that I won’t find you,” he can’t bring himself to say your name, a cocktail of fear and desperation. Karli can tell you his dirty secret. She can tell the whole world, for all he cares. What she can’t do, what he won’t survive her doing is taking you from this world. His world. “You don’t want to do this, Karli.”

“You’re right, I don’t.” Finally, a full breath of air. “Well, thank you. I'm glad you took my call. You've been a big help.”

The line drops and Bucky’s left with nothing but his own reflection, a face of agony in the window as he realises that, despite his efforts, he took the bait.

Hook, line, and sinker.

When you were a child, you loved the smell of gasoline.

Your father was a busy man. Time with him was rare, fleeting, something you had to fight to obtain. Being his daughter did not grant you premier access to him, you had to compete alongside all of his business associates; all those men in suits versus a little girl with skinned knees.

But road-trips, those were the only instance where he put down the pager and gave you all the love and attention any normal father would. Gas stations became a vision of home on the horizon, the promise of lukewarm meals, toilets that had never once been cleaned, and the sweet, sweet burn of petroleum deteriorating your brain cells.

The vehicle you sit in now is not manned by your father, yet it smells of gasoline.

Blindfolded and bound, your body sways blindly as tires screech over asphalt. Polyester slices at your neck, seatbelt fastened too tightly against your body. You know better than to complain.

It’s amazing how quickly old survival instincts return, slipping on like a cable-knit sweater you’d long kicked under the bed and forgotten about. You may not be in a literal cage anymore, dragged out for a routine poke and prod of chemicals and needles, but the process of being a hostage, all these years later, remains the same: sit still, be quiet, and do as you’re told.

What do you do, however, when your captor abandons you?

Bedlam overruns the scene. The vehicle comes to a halt, a door slams to your left, heat begins to pool over your skin. At first you tell yourself it’s nerves, a marker of the anxiety coursing in your veins. But it grows warmer, the air around you scolding to breathe and riddled with smoke.

There’s a ruckus of voices, all loud and none familiar, as several bangs ring out.

“Hold on!” A voice stands out amongst the noise.

Fists bang against metal and glass, pounding over and over, desperation thrown behind every punch. Hinges screech and snap as a door is pried open at the back of the vehicle, followed by the flee of feet over a metal body.

“Go, go,” the liberator of captives commands.

You test your own voice, a wail of distress that’s not loud enough, and your chances of being saved are halved.

Breathing grows weaker as the heat grows higher, a fire burning bright enough you see it in flashes behind the dark of your eye-covering.

“Thank you for saving us,” sleep calls to you through the rush of strangers, begging you to let yourself drift off back to that street in Brooklyn. “But there’s a girl! She’s trapped in the passenger seat!”

Eyelids reunite as your head lolls to the side, a ringing starting back up in your ears at the same time as the throb in your head. Your hand went numb hours ago, wrapped in gauze and tied tightly to your other. The voice of resilience inside your head, one that sounds alarmingly like a certain soldier, is screaming at you to fight.

To pry your lungs open with air. To tear your eyes open again. To let the buzz of electricity simmer from beneath your nail-beds, electrifying your touch enough to burn the bindings scratching at your wrists and to tear the blindfold from your face.

Your attempts leave you empty-handed, control lost from the moment Karli crushed one of your palms, abandoned in a time of need by your own powers.

All that pressure has put Bucky in a race against time.

Fire blazing on along the right side of the getaway car, smoke grows thicker as he rounds the driver’s side. Behind the window lays a cloud of grey, a storm that rolls in and obscures his view of the passenger seat. There’s a blurry shape, a figure slumped over.

The soldier’s fist slams through the glass.

And then he’s reaching inside, two hands grappling a hold of the passenger and hauling her over the van’s console. It’s messy, and graceless, and no doubt a bruising ordeal as he takes the weightless body in his embrace.

Brain switched off to outside stimulus, the only thought that passes through him is safety, get away from the ticking time bomb that is the burning van. Only then can he concern himself with trivial matters, like the state of the girl in his arms.

The girl who stirs, face turning into his chest as her ribs shake with the assault of a coughing fit. The girl whose blindfold slips down her nose and pools around her neck, a noose made of rags. The girl who’s capable of putting him into a state of cardiac arrest with one look alone, starlight sewn into the sparkle of her eyes.

“Took you long enough to rescue me,” you croak up at him between a cough. “Knight in vibranium armour.”

Bucky lowers your feet to the ground at your own unspoken request, squirming in his hold until the tips of your toes step over solid road and he’s loosening the bindings around your wrist.

If the world around you is at war, the soldier is dodging draft, too caught up in the battle of assessing what state you’re in. Wrinkled clothes, and dried blood, and the ash of a fire that’s still burning behind him. A grin creeps onto your face and sparks uproar in his chest.

An overjoyed imposter in a crowd of disaster, something in the stretch of your lips feels off; the corners do not quite reach your eyes. Exhausted and drained, pupils that stare past his own and plea for the gratification of sleep, the blessing of rest.

“Need you to follow my hand,” Bucky can’t help himself, palm cradling your face and a thumb soothing over the bags weighing heavy on your eyes. A cold sweat clings to your skin. “Think you can do that for me, darling?”

“Don’t call me that,” the words fizzle out into a giggle. With a slow wave of his metal hand, he watches as your stare stutters along in a failing attempt to catch up with his movements. “Makes my heart-”

You cut yourself off, body melting against his own.

Bucky won’t let himself make the same mistake, won’t have this moment be a repeat of that night in Brooklyn where his arms froze at his side instead of satisfying the craving he’d been feeling for months, scratching the itch to wrap you in his embrace.

The soldier’s arms slot around you with practised ease, like a lock sliding into place to conceal the greatest treasure. Touching you spreads warmth not only over his hands, but his soul, at long-last finding a breath of ease after months of drowning in himself. Slumping deeper into him, Bucky accepts you with every fibre of his being, heart lurching into his throat as he shuts out the chaos, for just a moment, and rests his head stop your own.

“Bucky.”

“Gimme a little longer,” his mumbles into your scalp, resisting the urge to tighten his biceps as the full weight of you presses into him. “Just wanna hold you, feel you’re okay.”

Karli and all the rest can wait.

If a fight is what they want, he’ll give them it. He’ll kick, and punch, and do all that he can to hold off until back-up arrives — Sam is somewhere out there, wings spread and a shield at his back. But not now.

Now, he’s going to memorise the song your heart sings, and anchor his worry in the wholeness of your existence, and sync his inhales to your exhales.

“Bucky, it hurts,” foolishly, he hums in response, not yet cognisant of what you said.

Until your breath trips over itself.

He lets the world back in too quickly, numbing his vision with flashing lights and a shadow cast from a Flag-Smasher standing ten paces behind you and sporting shock all over his demeanour. When you come into focus, he’s staring down at your back and bearing witness to the spreading of a disease, a dark mass spreading over grey cotton.

And his hands… They’re not just warm, but scolding. Contaminated with a peculiar wetness that’s viscous and sticky, slipping between the crevices of his fingers like a syrup, thick streams that drip from his skin and stain the road a darker shade of black.

Bucky catches you as your knees buckle, soaking hands submerging themselves back into a pond of blood. The logical part of his brain is failing him. Lower-rib, left side, rebar impaled through shirt and flesh. So much blood. Too much blood. It is your spleen? It has to be your spleen.

He’s back to drowning again.

“Hey, hey,” he whispers, forcing down the lump in his throat as he pulls back to find you calm, not a single ripple in your features while tears surface over his own. “Eyes on me, remember? Follow my hand.”

Metal plates scream into place as he raises the vibranium to the level of your face, repeating a waving motion. At your back, the stain of you on his flesh is a bloodbath, a sickening sight he knows better than to subject you to.

Bucky’s own private hell grows.

Distant yells move closer as he tunes back into the insanity swirling around you both. Flag-Smashers are fighting tooth and nail with John Walker, flames have completely engulfed the wreckage of the van he pulled you from, and, worst of all, the other vehicle of hostages dangles by a thread atop the shell of a building, bars of metal that are slowly bending beneath the weight of wheels.

“You have to go,” you speak calmly, like every second that passes isn’t making it harder to stand up straight.

“No.”

“You have to stop them-”

“No!” Bucky shakes his head, hoping to block out the screeching of metal and the slamming of fists against skin. He just wants to hear you. “I’m gonna get you somewhere safe, okay? Get you in an ambulance and to a hospital. And I know you hate being a patient but, you don’t gotta worry ‘cause I’ll be there to hold your hand and-”

“Bucky,” there you are again, pushing him away and forcing him to let the noise of everybody else’s terror in, like he too isn’t watching his fears come to life before him. “Those people need you, please.”

“But I need you.”

Unlatched from him at last, you drift a few steps back, head shaking when he tries to reach for you.

A handful of civilians, the very same faces Bucky rescued from that burning van, crowd around you, carefully slipping your arms over their shoulders and hauling your slumping figure up.

“I’m fine,” you choke over a sob, tears to match his own sliding down your cheeks. “Go.”

All Bucky has ever tried to do is the right thing. He chased down the hostages. He pulled them from the van, a man even thanked him for saving them. So, why does it feel like he’s failed once again?

The taste of stale breath.

The smell of peonies.

The sound of a clock.

The touch of a paper gown.

The sight of the soldier at your bedside, one arm folded over the bed and under his head, and the other outstretched, an inch or two of space living between where his fingers end and yours begin.

Bucky snores, a soft whistle floating out with each exhale, while a monitor turns the beat of your heart into a muted beep, a green line pinging across the screen. The muscles in your neck are stiff, protesting as you try to get a closer look at him, but the moon is out and no light is on; you’re left to admire the shadows cast over his skin and the slow ebb and flow of his breathing.

A hiss shoots to the back of your throat.

Blue eyes that open in an instant, from deep sleep to a state of alert in less than three seconds. The hand he lay resting closest to yours shoots for the call button, but you intercept before he can press it.

“Don’t,” even as you coax him back into his chair, there’s conflict in his stare, like any minute now he’ll call the nurses into your room and cause a big scene you don’t need. “I just sat up too fast. Help me?”

Bucky nods, thumbs hooking under your arms and slowly tugging you up the bed while you busy yourself pressing the incline button and delighting in the way the mattress rises.

“When did you wake up?”

“Barely a minute ago,” you finally manage to pull in a full breath of air, and that’s when you feel the scratch of gauze around your torso. “You never told me you snore.”

“You never asked,” the chair creaks beneath him as Bucky struggles to get comfortable, elbows resting over knees only for him to straighten his spine and grasp a hold of the arm-rests.

“That’s kind of a hard thing to do when my number’s blocked.”

It’s an evil thing yet possessing no real malice, said completely out of the desire to see him squirm under the microscope of your eyes.

“How, uh,” he leans forward instead, right arm on the bed, tongue darting out to wet his lower lip. “How d’you feel?”

“Like someone took the knife you stabbed in my back and decided to replace it with rebar instead,” this time, your words make him flinch. His fist clenches, retreating from the bed until you hook your good hand around the wrist and stop it in its tracks. “Bucky, I’m just messing with you. You saved my-”

“That night, outside your apartment, I realised something.”

The mask of composure he wears is starting to crack, the shine of something earnest and vulnerable slipping through and forcing you into silence.

“Your life-” Bucky pauses to correct what he’s saying. “I told myself that your life would be better off without me, but I was just being a coward instead of being honest with you,” he’s squirming, uncomfortable with the weight of the truth in his mouth, and it makes you feel sick with the need to comfort and cradle.

“You don’t have to tell me anything if-”

“I’m the reason you ended up as one of Hydra’s experiments,” he practically throws it out, like a grenade that’s one wrong word away from detonating and exploding in both of your faces. “Your dad, he was one of my handlers. I’d been out of the ice too long, I wasn’t taking orders properly, and I… I killed him.”

“I know.”

“They realised his death would leave you orphaned, and so they took you,” not even the dark engulfing the hospital room can hide the shine of wetness his gaze, an visible ache splotching over a palette of blue. “All that pain, all the torture they put you through-”

“I know.”

“It was because of me.”

“Bucky, I know,” your hand engulfs his own, fingers threading like knots you have no intention of letting him loosen. “Steve told me years ago, right before I agreed to fight against the rest of my friends for you.”

“I’m sor-”

“I told you I’m sick of hearing you say that,” you almost lay your other hand on his cheek, only to find a cast — a real one — obscuring it. You settle for tugging him closer with your good hand, until he’s all but hanging off the edge of his seat. “Hydra made a weapon out of both us, Buck. The pain, the torture, all the bad… That’s on them, okay? I would never blame you-”

Soft and sweet, his lips land on yours like a secret.

Not the sinful kind, the ones that tear families in two and bring all but ruin to those who dare keep them. But the giddy kind, the ones that fill people with childish glee and leave them biting at their lips in an effort to contain it, the fear of ruining the greatest surprise.

His kiss is a question, iterations of ‘can I?’, ‘should I?’, and ‘how could i not?’ speaking directly to your heart. If his mouth is wax, then yours must be the stamp, moulding his affections into shape and making something meaningful out of him.

You answer with zeal, covering his cheek in your fingerprints as you pull him in, pull him closer, pull him onto the bed. It creaks in protest as the soldier presses a knee into the mattress, back curving over your body and shielding you away from the rest of the room.

You’re giggling into Bucky’s mouth like a fool, so much so that you barely feel the jolt of your shoulders as he bumps against broken ribs. It’s subtle, yet the soldier notices all the same, mouth tearing away and head dipping to make sure your injuries haven’t mysteriously worsened under the weight of his touch.

“What was it you realised,” you pull his attention back to your face, where your eyes are waiting to trail over the kiss-bitten blush of his rose-bud lips. “Outside my apartment?”

You ask it with every intention of pulling him in for another kiss, so long as he answers.

“That you’re the person I want to be remembered by most.”

There’s an apartment in Brooklyn.

It lives on a street that’s never lit, where the world falls quiet come twenty-two hundred hours, and the neighbours are forever complaining about flickering light-and power-cuts.

It’s insides are full of clutter. Keys strewn across the dinner table, books stuffed unceremoniously in crevices where they’re bound to be forgotten, vibranium trinkets made through blackmail congregate as litter around the TV unit.

A junk-drawer full of movie tickets — dates that end with him monologuing about the death of cinema. A bowl overflowing with arcade stubs — he’s adamant it doesn’t matter that it would be cheaper to just buy the bear, he’s going to earn you it through blood, sweat, and many tears. A bedside table has gained another strip of photos for it’s growing collection — he’s a fiend for dragging you into photo-booths and kissing you until the flash of the camera is a distant memory.

“Stooop,” you’re whining pathetically for all the wrong reasons, slippery hands losing grip and sliding down a tiled wall while you’re bent at the waist and grinding your cunt back against his cock. “This is supposed to be sexy, not sappy.”

“I’m not being sappy,” not even Bucky believes himself, voice trailing off in a chuckle.

He’s cruel, the most evil man you’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing, so of course he grips at your hips and forces them still. Like a punctuation mark ends a sentence, the tip of his dick is poking at that stop-talking-coherently spot inside your walls and threatening to make you gush more than the shower head spilling water over you both.

“Yes, you are,” you somehow find the will to form a sentence, only to gasp something akin to his name when cold vibranium presses into the arch of your spine.

“Maybe I am,” he finally admits, and if you weren’t halfway through a hail-Mary in an attempt to fight off an incoming orgasm that he’s definitely not earned the right to yet, you’d let out a cry of victory. “If admiring how resilient you are makes me sappy, then sure. Arrest me officer, I’m guilty, again.”

That ‘again’ prompts a kaleidoscope of events from Halloween night… Bucky, naked and shackled to the headboard, sporting literal tears in his eyes as he watches the buttons of your sleazy cop outfit strain while you make yourself cum for the third time without a lick of help from him. In your defence, the punishment was well earned — he’d been a little too proud of the number of eyes that had lingered over his gladiator costume.

You're back in the shower the moment fingers kiss over your scar, delicate promises sealed into the caress he brushes over the raised tissue.

It happens more often than not — you raise your arm to grab something out of a cupboard and suddenly Bucky is behind you and trailing over the mark; you wear a dress that cascades down your back and Bucky spends the whole evening brushing his thumb over the scar while holding conversations with friends across the table; you let him bend you over the nearest surface and expect him to have you seeing stars and, while stars are definitely seen, Bucky’s stare burns brighter along your left side. You’ve wondered if it’s a form of torture for the soldier, a bookmark on your skin for the night where your blood stained his hands.

That’s not how you remember the night — the pain, the bleeding, the rebar puncturing through bone and spleen. You remember the strength in his hands as they pulled you from the van, and the relief that fell over his face when you spoke, and the way he held you close while the rest of the world burned away in a cloud of chaos.

“I love you,” who chokes up with tears while standing eight inches deep and damn-near marking up a new blue-print for your organs to reorganise themselves to make more space for him? Bucky, that’s who, and you wouldn’t have him any other way. “So much.”

Okay, so maybe you would have him one other way.

The good man that he is, Bucky slips his cock out of you after a push back against his abdomen, already moulding his hands to the shape of your waist as you turn around to face him.

“That’s it, Barnes,” you try your best to sound authoritative. The shampoo burning at your eye makes it a little difficult, but you pull through and drag him into your hold, arms curling around his shoulders and a leg hooking itself over his hip. The tiles are cold, pressing into your back, a welcome contrast to the heat of Bucky. “I’m sick of you and your wimpy attitude. You’re banned from doggy style, standing or otherwise, until further notice.”

“Don’t be mean, darling,” he drags a thumb over your slit, kissing it against your clit with the practised ease of a man that’s spent the greater half of a year getting to know you inside and out, in every and any position. “Or I’ll cum. And I was really hoping to do that while I bury myself inside you.”

Left palm hovering over his sternum, a muted crackle of electricity burns into his skin, only to fade at your command, “Then I guess you better hurry up and give us what we both want.”

“Hmm, have I ever told you you’re my favourite electro-shock therapy?” He’s laughing at his own ridiculous joke, while gripping your wrist and guiding you up the path to his neck, locking your fingers around him like a collar he’s more than proud to wear. “Now, think you can spread your legs a little wider, baby? Wanna make you cum so hard you blow the building’s fuse.”

+ extra hyde.

· thank you @theslayerofthevampires for your patience and for trusting me to fulfil your fic idea! i hope the wait was at very least worth it <3 (the request prompt, for anyone interested: Well I was thinking that it could be where the reader goes with bucky and sam to after the flag smashers. Bucky is really into the reader but he's dealing with his inner demons that he doesn't let himself grt too close to her. Things change when karli and her followers take y/n hostage and that really pisses off bucky. Sam and bucky save y/n after that when y/n is thanking bucky for saving her bucky just grabs and kisses her which leads to bucky opening up to y/n about himself and he also confesses his feelings for her) · one of my personal pet peeves when it comes to fics is when it simply reads as a copy and paste of the source material with the reader forced into the scenes, hence why i skimmed over the events of tfatws as much as possible. hopefully this was enjoyable and bucky and reader's relationship felt like a story separate from the show's plot <3 · slowly working my way through requests, please tell me you're all proud of me! ( i have so many left to get through )

[quinnophile]

I Like the Way you Kiss Me

Chapter I

James Cook x fem!reader

summary: You move into a grimy South London flat through a mutual friend—Effy says the place is cheap, the people are sound. She forgets to mention one of them is James Cook. Loud, cocky, shirtless more often than not—he's everything you can't stand. From the second you meet, it's all eye-rolls and insults, tension sharp enough to cut. But when a late-night fight turns into a rough hallway kiss, things spiral into something ugly, hot, and completely off-limits. You hate him. He loves getting under your skin. And neither of you can stop.

wc: 5.7k

a/n: take 2 bc some of you need a fucking job. dedicated to @iamyourwayout for the banners <333 this fic was the winner of a poll I ran two months ago—ty to everyone who voted for “enemies to lovers flatmates from hell” (you have impeccable taste and clearly want me dead). Skins was actually how I was first introduced to Jack back in the day, but like a fool, I didn’t follow his career until after Sinners (huge mistake, massive regret). Anyway. Title from the song "I Like the Way You Kiss Me" by Artemas

warnings: enemies to lovers, smoking, drinking, party scenes, coarse language, mutual degradation, unresolved sexual tension, hallway makeouts, casual violence (slapping), emotionally repressed idiots, Cook being Cook, messy hookups, unhealthy coping mechanisms, internalized horniness, and denial so loud it should be illegal

likes, comments, and reblogs are always appreciated, please enjoy!!

Fic Masterlist/Main Masterlist

Chapter I: Say You Hate Me With Your Mouth

The flat reeks of nicotine and reheated takeaway.

Not the worst thing you’ve ever walked into, technically—there was that one squat-style Airbnb in Shoreditch with the mystery stains and sentient mold—but this place carries its own brand of domestic decay. Heavy. Stale. Like the air itself is clinging to memories that should’ve been aired out years ago and weren’t. Not exactly what you pictured when Effy texted, “It’s a bit shit, but it’s cheap and the people are sound.”

She said people, plural, but never clarified who else lived here. You’d assumed she meant her boyfriend was crashing here part-time, or maybe another quiet student who’d keep to themselves. Someone who washed their own dishes, didn’t blast dubstep at 2 a.m., and definitely didn’t leave their pubes in the shower like confetti.

You shift your duffel bag on your shoulder, the strap biting into your collarbone, and step over a pair of crumpled trainers dumped just inside the door. They’re caked in flaking mud and reek like they’ve been marinated in foot sweat and pond water—absolutely disgusting. They look like they’ve been kicked off mid-stumble and abandoned to rot. One of them is half-crushed under a warped takeout menu.

The hallway stretches narrow and dim, claustrophobic, the walls tinted a dingy yellow that might once have been white before years of smoke turned them into nicotine-stained parchment. Every corner smells like someone recently stubbed out a cigarette. The light above flickers with a faint electrical buzz. A battered leather jacket hangs from a crooked wall hook like it’s watching you, like it’s been waiting. It smells faintly of beer, stale cologne, and sweat that no amount of Febreze will ever cover.

You spot a can of lager teetering precariously on the radiator, half-crushed and warm to the touch. Condensation has long dried up—just a grimy ring where it sweated itself to death.

“Effy?” you call out, voice cutting through the stillness, echoing faintly off the grimy walls.

Silence.

Then a voice answers—but it’s not hers.

“Nah. She fucked off. Left me to babysit.”

It’s low, cocky, rough around the edges. A drawl that rolls the words around like he’s got all the time in the world and knows you don’t.

Then he appears.

And your stomach drops.

You don’t even need him to say his name. You know. You’ve heard about him. The way Effy said it like an afterthought—Cook—equal parts fondness and warning, like a cigarette that tastes good but burns too hot. Like a name that comes with a shrug because what else can you do about a human wildfire?

He saunters into view like he owns the oxygen in the flat.

Leaning against the kitchen doorframe, barefoot and shirtless, cigarette hanging from his mouth like punctuation. His sweatpants hang low on his hips, slung just loose enough to show the cut of his hipbones, the sharp V disappearing into boxers that are rolled down slightly at the waist. A smattering of tattoos and faded scars paint his torso like stories you’ll never be told. He’s lean but strong, the kind of body that looks like it came from fights and bad decisions, not gym memberships.

You blink. Hard.

He doesn’t move.

Neither do you.

His eyes are blue—too blue. Cold ocean in winter kind of blue. And they’re on you, shameless and steady, raking down your body like he’s scanning a barcode. His mouth pulls into a smirk, the cigarette tipping up slightly with it. Everything about him screams deliberate. Like he knew you were coming and dressed specifically to piss you off.

There’s something smug in the set of his jaw when he finally speaks again, accent thick and lazy, the grin spreading like oil on water. “Well? You movin’ in or just standin’ there like a fuckin’ statue?”

You tense, lifting your chin. “Who the hell are you?”

He exhales smoke through his nose, slow and measured, and it curls between you like fog—warm and toxic. His eyes drag over you again, slower this time, like he’s committing the view to memory. “James Cook. Flat legend. Effy’s mate. And your new worst fuckin’ nightmare, apparently.”

You hate him instantly.

There’s no hesitation. No need for second impressions.

Everything about him is a red flag with great hair. He’s the kind of hot that should come with a warning label: do not touch unless you're willing to ruin your entire life. Cocky. Chaotic. Addictive in the way black ice is—shiny, slippery, and guaranteed to break something. He’s the type girls with sense avoid, and girls without it end up crying over in club toilets at three in the morning, mascara running, heels in hand.

And judging by the look in his eyes, the lazy tilt of his head, the subtle way his gaze lingers a second too long on your mouth—he knows exactly what he is.

You yank your duffel higher and drag it down the hallway behind you, shoulder checking him on the way past, refusing to flinch when your arm brushes against his bare chest—hot, firm, smug.

“Where’s my room?”

He laughs under his breath, the sound low and amused, like you’re already his favorite game. “Top of the stairs. Small one on the left. You’re in the box.”

Of course you are.

The smallest room. The worst corner. The box.

You climb the stairs without looking back. Every creak underfoot feels like it’s groaning in protest of your decisions.

You slam the door behind you, hard, letting the echo carry down the stairwell. But not before you hear him mutter, voice cocky and too fucking pleased with himself—

“Fit when you’re angry.”

You hate him even more.

By the time you finish unpacking, the flat smells less like feet and boy and more like burnt garlic and overconfidence. It's a marginal improvement, but the stench curls under your door in thick, greasy ribbons—sharp and cloying, singed at the edges. You breathe through your mouth.

You’re starving. But not enough to willingly walk back into his orbit. Not until your stomach lets out a treacherous growl—loud, echoing, humiliating—and you curse under your breath as you grab your water bottle, which is, of course, empty.

The kitchen is smaller than it looked earlier. Maybe because Cook is in it now, and he takes up space without even trying. The ceiling feels lower. The light above flickers faintly, casting everything in a sickly yellow pallor, like you're inside a jar of old piss. There's a pile of dishes in the sink, crusted with something beige and possibly alive. A chipped ceramic bowl sits beside them on the counter, overflowing with loose change, ripped Rizlas, and someone’s expired student ID, bent in the middle like it’s been stepped on. Probably his.

Cook is at the stove, still shirtless—of course he is—stirring something that’s boiling far too aggressively in a battered old pot. The steam curls up like a distress signal, the smell thick and burnt and wrong, like someone tried to set fire to a school cafeteria.

Whatever he's making, it looks like a war crime.

The spaghetti is swollen and clumped together in starchy blobs, drowning in a red sludge that bubbles with the kind of rage that makes you concerned for the structural integrity of the pot. It might be a sauce. It might be something else entirely.

He doesn’t turn when you enter. Just calls over his shoulder, voice rough with amusement.

“Dinnertime, princess.”

You stare at his back for a moment—at the way his shoulders move when he stirs, at the line of his spine under freckled skin, at the stupid cigarette tucked behind his ear like a threat. Then you raise an eyebrow.

“You’re cooking?”

He snorts. A little too proud. “What, thought Effy hired a fuckin’ chef to cater for us all week? Nah. This is my specialty. Spag bol, à la Cook.”

He says it like it’s sexy. It’s not.

You move toward the cupboard, deliberately brushing past him as you reach for a glass—ignoring the way your arm skims his bare skin. He's warm. Radiating heat like a furnace. And he smells like sweat, old tobacco, and the sharp tang of that same cologne you’ve smelled on every boy who ever broke someone’s heart in the back of a pub. Boy, but bad. Like a cigarette lit behind a school gym. Like the scent of danger dressed up in Adidas track pants and a wicked mouth.

He doesn’t flinch. Doesn't even blink. Just hums some off-key tune under his breath—something chaotic and unrecognizable—while casually dumping enough salt into the pot to kill a small animal. The spoon clatters as he lets it go, the steam hissing like it’s offended.

Then he turns, slow and cocky, leaning back against the counter with his arms crossed—like he owns the kitchen, like you’re trespassing.

“So,” he says, eyes dragging over you with lazy amusement, “where you from?”

You sip your water. Cold. Necessary.

“Not here.”

His grin spreads, slow and sharp. “No shit. You’ve got that ‘too good for this dump’ vibe. Bet your suitcase’s got color-coded knickers and alphabetized playlists.”

You narrow your eyes. “What does that even mean?”

“Means you’re high-strung. Needy. Probably allergic to fun.” He gestures vaguely in your direction. “Effy’s got a real type when it comes to mates, innit?”

You don’t respond. Mostly because you’re not sure if he’s insulting you or flirting. Probably both. Probably on purpose.

He turns back to the stove, plates up with all the finesse of a drunk raccoon, then slaps a bowl in front of you like he expects applause.

You stare at the congealing mess.

You poke it with your fork. It jiggles.

“I think it’s still moving,” you mutter.

Cook drops into the seat beside you, chair screeching as he shoves it back. He sits close. Too close. His knee brushes yours under the table, and he doesn’t move it. Just smirks, mouth still red from the heat of the kitchen—or from biting it too much.

“Tastes better than it looks,” he says, digging into his own bowl. “Like me.”

You give him a long, flat look. “That supposed to be charming?”

He flashes teeth. “That was charming. I’ve been told. Loads of times.”

You eat. Begrudgingly. It’s…edible. Barely. Mostly salt and regret.

Cook watches you like it’s a personal victory. He slouches deeper into his seat, sprawling like he’s built to take up space, thigh pressed against yours now, bouncing with unchecked energy. His fingers tap the table—ringed and twitchy—like he can’t sit still, like stillness is a cage.

You pretend not to notice. But you do.

You clock every twitch of his smirk. Every time his eyes linger when they shouldn’t. Every smug little inhale. Every sideways glance you weren’t supposed to see.

You finish quickly, more out of self-preservation than hunger, and rise to rinse your bowl.

You barely get to the sink before he’s there behind you.

Too close again.

Close enough that his breath brushes the back of your neck.

“You’re welcome, by the way,” he says, voice low and close, curling just under your skin.

You stiffen.

“For what?” you ask, not turning, not trusting what might happen if you do.

“For making your first night less shit.” A beat. Then, lower—like a threat and a promise: “And for not fuckin’ you. Yet.”

You whirl around, heart lurching, pulse spiking.

“Excuse me?”

He just shrugs, grinning, backing away slowly like he’s proud of himself. His voice is cocky, lilting. “I said yet.”

You slam the kitchen door behind you hard enough to rattle the frame.

From the hallway, through the crack in the wall, you hear him call out, sing-song:

“You’re proper fun when you’re mad, y’know that?”

You clench your jaw, blood in your ears.

You’re not sure if what’s blooming in your chest is hate or heat.

But either way, it’s not going anywhere.

You make it exactly four days without physically assaulting him.

That might sound impressive, but it’s not. It’s restraint born of exhaustion and a locked jaw. And it's not for lack of opportunity. Cook seems to exist for the sole purpose of testing human limits—your limits specifically—with the finesse of a sledgehammer and the subtlety of a plague.

He’s got a gift, really. A rare talent for being absolutely unbearable in the most casual, insidious, spine-crawling ways.

Like leaving the toilet seat up and the toilet paper roll empty every single time.

Like eating your snacks and claiming he “thought they were communal.”

Like stealing your towel—your only clean towel—while you were in the shower and shouting through the door that it was “on the floor,” as if that somehow made it his.

Once, he knocked on your bedroom door at midnight just to ask if you were dead because you were “too quiet, babe, thought you might’ve offed yourself.” Then he winked. Then he walked away before you could respond. You still don’t know if you’re furious or impressed.

And then there’s the couch.

God, the couch.

Any time you’re watching a movie, any time at all—he’ll plop down beside you with a beer, a stupid grin, and that loose, sprawling posture that somehow ends with his thigh pressed against yours and his elbow right where your ribs are. He’ll make comments, ask invasive questions, and worst of all? He’ll make sex noises at any scene with even mild kissing. Doesn’t matter if it’s animated. He’ll groan theatrically, whisper "oh yeah, baby, snog that princess" until you either leave or punch him.

You’re not sure which he’s hoping for.

But the final straw?

The bathroom.

It’s been a long, disgusting day. London is sticky with mid-summer humidity, and you’re sticky with it. You can feel the grime behind your knees, the sweat clinging to your lower back. Your hair is plastered to your temples, your shirt damp at the collar and sticking in places you don’t want to think about.

There’s only one thing on your mind: a shower. A long, blistering shower that scalds you clean and maybe peels off the past four days entirely.

The moment the water heats up and steam starts to rise around your ankles, you feel it—peace.

You close your eyes.

For the first time since dragging your duffel into this hellhole, you breathe.

The tension in your shoulders unwinds by degrees. The hot spray needles across your scalp, down your neck, your spine. You soap your skin in slow, soothing circles. Let the fog climb the walls. Let yourself forget that James Fucking Cook is your flatmate. Let yourself exist.

Until—

Creeeeaak.

The door opens.

Just enough to let the cool draft of the hallway snake in through the steam, curling damp along your calves.

You freeze. One hand mid-lather, the other clutching the edge of the curtain like a shield.

Then you hear it. That voice.

Unmistakable.

Cocky. Lazy. Unbothered. Like he belongs everywhere.

“Oi.”

You snap the curtain aside just enough to glare.

Your hair drips in your eyes, and water clings to every inch of you, trailing down your sternum in rivulets, but your rage is volcanic.

“Jesus fuck, Cook—!”

He’s already at the toilet. Casual as hell. Hand on his zipper. Not even blinking.

He holds up one hand like you’re the one being unreasonable. “Relax, princess. Just need to take a piss. Don’t get your knickers in a twist.”

Your mouth drops open. “You couldn’t wait five minutes?!”

He shrugs one shoulder, completely unbothered, his gaze flicking lazily in your direction but never quite meeting your eyes. “Bladder doesn’t work on your schedule, babe.”

You let out a sound—somewhere between a laugh and a growl—and yank the curtain shut with more force than necessary, sending a splash of water over the edge of the tub.

You rinse in record time.

You're shaking with indignation, blood hot with fury, and okay, maybe a little bit of embarrassment. You grab your towel—a different one, a ratty spare you stashed in the cabinet after the last time—and wrap it around yourself, knotting it tight across your chest.

The steam is thick now. A fog that clings to your skin and your lungs and your fucking ego.

You fling open the curtain and step out, water still dripping down your thighs, your calves, trailing across the tile in slick prints. The room is humid, suffocating. Your skin glows with heat. And Cook—

Cook is right there.

His eyes land on you and drop. Instantly. Traitorously.

You watch the flicker in his expression—something lazy, something dark—and it flashes through his eyes like a pulled trigger.

You don’t miss it.

Neither does he.

His jaw ticks. His lips part, just barely.

You growl. “I swear to God—”

He lifts both hands like he’s being arrested, palms out, still grinning. His eyes stay on your towel, then drift upward—slowly, like he’s enjoying the climb.

“What?” he says, voice dipping low and casual. “Not my fault I’ve got eyes and you’ve got zero shame flauntin’ your body.”

“You walked in on me,” you snap. “This is your fault.”

He leans back against the wall, tilting his head like he’s amused, like you’re some little show he gets to enjoy between beers. “And yet,” he murmurs, mouth twitching, “you’re still standin’ there.”

That’s when you feel it.

How close you are.

How the towel’s starting to slip just slightly at the edge, the knot loosening with every breath you take. How the air between your bodies is sticky and hot and thick, like it could be sliced open with a knife. How his bare chest is catching the light of the mirror lamp, damp from the heat, shadows highlighting the sharp lines of his collarbone and ribs.

You should move.

You don’t.

Because your legs aren’t listening. Because your brain is screaming and your body is something else.

And his eyes—

His eyes are dragging across your skin like they’ve been starved.

You don’t move.

Neither does he.

The tension in the bathroom has thickened, almost syrupy now—heavy enough to drag at your breath. The overhead light flickers once, throwing a pulse of shadow down the slope of his cheekbone. Water still drips from your hair and hits the tile in slow, rhythmic drops, but you barely hear it over the pounding of your pulse in your ears.

Your towel slips a fraction lower.

Cook’s eyes follow it.

And for a second—just one taut, electric second—you can feel the gravity shift between you. Like the floor could drop. Like something could happen. Like it wants to.

His mouth opens just slightly, tongue flicking across his bottom lip like his body moved before his brain did.

And then—

“Cook?”

Effy’s voice, muffled but unmistakable, floats in from the living room.

“You in there?”

You both jolt like guilty kids caught smoking behind the school. The spell—if that’s what it was—snaps in half like dry twine.

You shove past him so fast your shoulder knocks against his chest. He doesn’t try to stop you. Doesn’t say a word.

Because maybe he’s smart enough to know that if he does, you’ll slap him.

Or kiss him.

You’re not entirely sure which one would be worse.

The hallway feels colder than before. You dart into your room, slam the door shut behind you, and drop your towel with shaking hands. Your skin still burns, and not just from the heat of the shower.

What the fuck was that?

You yank on the first clothes you find—sweats, a tee, hoodie—and scrub your towel through your hair hard enough to hurt. Your face is flushed. Your neck is still damp. Your body feels like it’s buzzing under your skin.

You sit on the edge of your bed and press your palms to your thighs to ground yourself.

But the memory is still there.

His eyes.

The way his voice dropped.

The way you didn’t move.

You eventually reemerge—because you refuse to hide in your room like a coward—and find Effy sprawled on the couch like she owns the place. Which, in fairness, she kind of does.

She’s got her long legs crossed, cigarette perched between two fingers, half-lidded gaze scanning the muted TV. She looks like she hasn’t moved in ten minutes. Her nails are painted black and chipped at the tips. There’s a takeaway bag beside her and a lighter balanced on the edge of the coffee table.

She glances up when you walk in, expression unreadable.

Then she sees your face.

Then she sees his.

And then—the smirk.

“You two been bonding?” she asks, voice smooth, smoke curling around the question like a ribbon.

You shoot a glare at him, throat tight.

“He walked in on me in the shower.”

Effy exhales and flicks her ash into a chipped mug. Shrugs. “Yeah. He does that.”

You blink. “Unbelievable.”

You flop into the armchair across from them, arms crossed, legs pulled up, trying to fold into yourself without making it obvious. Your skin still feels too hot. Your hair’s still wet. You want to disappear into the upholstery.

“You didn’t warn me he was such a perv.”

Effy’s voice is bone-dry. “I thought it was obvious.”

Cook, naturally, flops onto the couch beside her without a care in the world. He kicks his feet up on the coffee table, crossing one ankle over the other, knee jostling yours ever so slightly when he does it. He looks completely unbothered. Smug, even.

“I thought it was a good start,” he says, glancing at you from under his lashes. “Boundaries are for boring people.”

You don’t respond. You don’t trust yourself to. Every nerve ending feels flayed. Every breath he takes is in your direction somehow.

Effy looks between the two of you again—at your hunched shoulders, at the way Cook’s watching you sideways like he knows exactly what he almost got away with.

There’s something wicked flickering behind her eyes.

“Well,” she says slowly, dragging her cigarette to her lips and exhaling a stream of smoke toward the ceiling, “at least you’re not bored.”

You say nothing.

You just sit there, heart still racing, and wonder what it means that you didn’t immediately want to kill him for what happened in that bathroom.

You should be mad.

You are mad.

But it’s the wrong kind of mad.

And it’s not going away.

Case in point—today was supposed to be normal. Uneventful.

Well, as normal as anything can be in a flat where your room smells like paint thinner and regret, and your flatmate lives like he’s allergic to silence and clothes.

Effy’s back for once. There’s sunlight bleeding in through the thin curtains, casting soft gold across the kitchen counters and turning the dust in the air into glitter. She’s frying something vaguely edible while chain-smoking and humming along to whatever song’s playing on her tinny phone speaker. The scent of burnt eggs and hash browns mixes with old smoke and cheap incense from her room.

You’re seated at the far end of the kitchen table, cradling a chipped mug of tea like it’s a shield. Your legs are curled beneath you, hoodie sleeves tugged over your hands. You’re pretending to read something on your phone. Really, you’re just not looking at Cook.

Who’s across from you. Shirtless. Again. Of course.

He’s eating cereal directly from the box, milk dribbling slightly down his thumb, like a toddler raised by wolves. He looks at ease, slouched back in the chair like he could fall asleep in it. His hair’s a mess of finger-combed curls, his eyes a little bloodshot. He probably hasn’t been to bed yet.

He looks at you. A lot.

Not in any obvious way. Not with a smirk or a wink.

Just glances. Quick. Calculated. Like he’s testing something. Like he’s waiting to see if you’ll catch him.

You don’t give him the satisfaction.

But you feel it. Every time.

The hair at the back of your neck prickles when he does it. You know the difference between being looked at and being seen, and whatever Cook’s doing feels closer to being studied. Undressed. Dismantled.

Effy finally speaks, breaking the spell.

“You two gonna keep playing eye-fuck chicken, or should I leave the room?”

You nearly choke on your tea. “What—?”

Cook doesn’t blink. “We’re just making memories, babe.”

You shoot him a death glare. He raises his eyebrows, mouth twitching. A smirk threatens, but he tames it. Barely.

Effy rolls her eyes. “Whatever this is,” she says, waving her fork between the two of you, “just don’t do it near my laundry.”

You grit your teeth and stand, dumping your tea into the sink even though it’s still half-full. Anything to move. To breathe.

You retreat to the living room, drop onto the couch, and pretend you’re deeply invested in whatever’s on the TV. You don’t even register what show it is. All you know is that it’s background noise to your spiraling.

And then—

Cook saunters in.

No shirt. Just the loose, low-slung joggers, the waistband of his boxers peeking above the elastic. A cigarette tucked behind one ear, a half-eaten piece of toast in his hand.

He drops down on the opposite end of the couch like it’s choreographed, like he was waiting for you to get there first.

You don’t look at him.

You don’t.

Until he shifts—just a little. One leg stretching out, his foot nudging yours under the blanket you’ve half-draped over your lap.

You flinch like you’ve been shocked.

He doesn’t say anything. Just keeps chewing.

The room feels too quiet. Too hot. Like all the air’s collecting in your lungs but refusing to leave.

He finally speaks.

“You’ve got a tell, you know.”

Your eyes snap to him. “What?”

Cook smirks, slow and lethal. “Your mouth. You do this thing. When you’re trying not to lose it.”

You blink. “I’m not—”

“You are,” he interrupts, tapping a finger to his own lips. “Right corner. Twitches when you’re pissed. Or turned on. Can’t tell which yet.”

You say nothing. You can’t. Your brain’s short-circuiting and your body is full of static.

He leans forward suddenly, elbows on his knees, his eyes on yours, and does not look away.

The smirk’s gone now. What replaces it is quieter. Darker.

“Am I under your skin yet?” he asks softly.

Your throat closes around the answer.

Because the truth is: yes.

He’s everywhere. Under your skin. Behind your eyes. Stuck in your lungs.

You open your mouth to tell him off. To say something sharp and cutting and final.

But then Effy reappears in the doorway with a bowl of food and zero shame.

“What are we watching?” she asks, flopping between you with a puff of her incense-perfumed cardigan.

You snap your gaze back to the screen.

Cook leans back, stretching his arms behind his head.

But you feel him grinning.

And you hate that your pulse is still pounding.

The night begins the way all disasters do—too loud, too hot, and already spinning off the rails.

Effy’s throwing some sort of party. For what, you’re not sure. Someone got a job. Someone dumped a boyfriend. Someone found a vintage leather jacket in a bin and took it as a sign from the universe. Either way, by 10:37 p.m., your tiny flat is packed wall to wall with smoke, noise, and bodies you don’t recognize.

The air is thick with sweat and perfume and cigarette haze, the kind of haze that clings to your hair and buries itself in your clothes. Every time someone opens a window, someone else slams it shut. There’s no breeze. Only basslines. The music pulses through the floorboards, through the walls, through your chest like a second heartbeat.

Glitter sticks to every surface. There’s a pair of knickers in the hallway no one will admit to. Someone’s already passed out in the bathtub. Someone else is doing a line off the kitchen counter and laughing like it’s a punchline. The flat smells like spilled rum, cheap deodorant, and every mistake anyone’s ever made at 2 a.m.

You're tipsy—comfortably so. Warm in your fingertips and heavy-limbed in the way that makes everything feel slow and dreamlike. Just buzzed enough to ignore how much you hate crowds. Just enough to let your guard slip.

Your lip gloss is sticky. Your top rides a little too high on your waist. Your jeans hug your hips too tight but in a way that makes you feel good—sharpened, a little dangerous.

And when you saw Cook in the kitchen, leaning too close to some blonde in a backless halter—his hand on her waist, his lips brushing her ear, her laugh too loud and too eager—something in your chest coiled up tight.

So yeah.

Now you look good.

And you know it.

You didn’t dress up for him. You didn’t.

But now you’re wearing it like a weapon. And the moment your eyes locked across the room for half a second—just half a second—you knew he noticed.

He didn’t stop touching her.

But he stopped smiling.

You don’t see him again until later. After midnight. After your third red cup of something warm and spiked and impossible to name. After Effy spun you through the living room with both hands in yours, mascara smudged and mouth stretched in a rare, genuine laugh. Your feet ached from dancing. Your skin buzzed with heat.

You left the chaos for a breather, navigating bodies and stray limbs to reach the hallway. You didn’t expect it to be quiet.

The music is muffled now, like it’s behind glass. The lights are dim—one blown completely, the other flickering like it’s ready to give up. Shadows stretch long along the walls, warped and soft at the edges.

You’re heading to your room. You don’t hear him approach.

You feel him.

His hand closes around your wrist—warm, rough, callused—and it stops you mid-step.

Your breath catches.

You spin.

Cook’s there, standing half-shadowed, the hoodie zipped halfway over his bare chest, his curls a mess, damp at the temples. There’s a smear of something dark red on his jaw—lipstick, probably—and his pupils are blown wide.

His grip loosens, but he doesn’t let go.

“What,” you snap, already defensive, “lost your little blonde?”

His expression doesn’t shift. Not even a flinch. But his jaw tightens.

He doesn’t answer. Just looks at you. Long. Flat. Hard.

Then—

“What the fuck’s your problem tonight?”

You blink. “My problem?”

He steps closer. “Yeah. You’re actin’ like someone pissed in your drink.”

“Maybe someone did,” you shoot back. “This place is full of rats.”

Cook tilts his head to the side, slow and mocking, that familiar smirk crawling onto his face like it knows you hate it. “Funny, comin’ from you.”

The hallway feels narrower now. Like it’s pulling inward. Like there’s not enough space for both of you here. The air smells like sweat and smoke and adrenaline. Your heartbeat’s in your ears.

“You’re jealous,” he says, voice low and sharp like he’s testing it out.

You laugh, bitter and biting. “Of what? The girl with the IQ of a teaspoon and no idea how to say no?”

He grins, teeth flashing, but there’s something dangerous behind it now. Something darker.

“She was sweet. Not like you.”

You scoff. “Sweet gets boring.”

He shrugs like it doesn’t touch him. “So does bitchy.”

“Then stop looking at me like you want me.”

That hits.

He goes still. His face shutters for half a second—like you sucker-punched him. Then his mouth twists.

“I don’t,” he says, but his voice is wrecked. Too low. Too fast.

And he doesn’t move.

You step forward, shoulders squared like you’re marching into a fight. “Then move.”

He doesn’t.

He just stares at you, breathing harder now. You can see the muscle twitch in his jaw. His fingers flex and release at his sides like he doesn’t know what to do with them.

“You think you’re so fuckin’ above it,” he mutters. “Like you haven’t been starin’ at me for days.”

“You wish I was staring.”

“I know you are.”

You’re chest-to-chest now. Close enough to feel the heat rolling off him in waves. His eyes drop to your mouth and flick back up, sharp and deliberate. Your pulse throbs in your throat.

“Say it,” he breathes.

You swallow. “Say what?”

“That you want me.”

You roll your eyes. “I’d rather die.”

He steps forward again. And this time, your back hits the wall.

The impact is soft but final. The hallway spins a little. He’s so close now you can smell the bitter beer on his breath, the sweat on his skin, the faint trace of cologne and smoke that always seems embedded in his clothes.

“You’re fuckin’ lying,” he says.

And then he kisses you.

No warning. No hesitation. Just heat.

It’s a crash.

It’s teeth and tongue and desperation. His hands find your waist—tight, possessive, like he’s anchoring himself to you—and your fingers tangle in the fabric of his hoodie before you even realize they’ve moved.

You kiss him back like you’re trying to burn the anger out of your system. Like you’re trying to win. Like you’re trying to hurt him.

His mouth is hot and messy, his lips chapped, and he tastes like cheap cider and sweat and something familiar. His tongue slips against yours and your knees buckle slightly, your thigh brushing his hipbone as your body arches forward. His hands slide under your shirt—fingertips grazing bare skin, hot and rough and hungry.

He groans into your mouth, low and filthy, and you feel it in every nerve ending.

He presses you harder into the wall. One leg slips between yours, his thigh bracketed against your hips, and you grind without meaning to. He shudders.

When he pulls back, you’re both gasping for breath.

His voice is ragged. “Told you.”

You slap him.

Hard enough to turn his face. Not hard enough to hurt. But enough to leave a mark.

He licks the blood from his split lip and turns back to face you, grinning.

“You’re even hotter when you’re mean,” he says.

And that’s when you run.

You shove him off, heart hammering, legs shaking, every inch of your body on fire, and you run.

You run like your life depends on it.

You slam your bedroom door and lean against it like it might hold him out—or worse, hold the memory in.

You’re shaking.

You’re sweating.

You’re still wet from his mouth.

And the worst part?

You want it to happen again.

[quinnophile]

To Love Me Is To Suffer Me

remmick x fem!reader

18+/MDNI

wc: 11.2 k

Summary: When a mysterious stranger comes to town, it doesn't take long for you to bite off more than you can chew...or for him to bite you back. Scenes of domestic Remmick and Reader, Bonnie & Clyde style.

Warnings: Contains smut, MDNI. Vampirism, blood sucking, oral sex (f!receiving), pathetic!Remmick, needy!Remmick, begging, spit!kink, finger sucking, monsterfucking, descriptions of gore and violence, death, alcohol consumption, hickeys/love bites, hair pulling, mentions of other Sinners characters so sorta pre-movie as far as timeline? Also this is going to sound like a joke but reader sits out in the sun without SPF--always wear sunscreen kids! As a skin cancer survivor, I'm telling you now, please take sun protection seriously. Finally, canon-typical racism (please see author's note)

Author's Note: I've tried my best to keep reader descriptions as neutral as possible, but I welcome feedback from my POC readers on how effective that language is. Please also note, this story contains a racial slur used against the Asian community (not spoken by Remmick or reader) that reflects canon/period-typical racism. This may be upsetting to some readers. I will not be offended if you decide to sit this one out for that reason. Please mind the tags and engage with content that is comfortable for you.

Reblogs, comments, and likes always appreciated! Please reblog if you like what you read; it helps keep writers engaged in fandom spaces and creating cool shit for you!

Special thanks to my beta reader, @madkingcrowley for her feedback and encouragement on this one! Thanks also to @flixpii for the image of Remmick used in the banner.

And many many continued thanks to all of you for reading and for enjoying my writing. I know it's been over a month since my last fic, and fic writing is much more of a casual hobby for me than anything else, but I've been wanting to avoid one-hit-wonder status, and I'm happy to be returning with something I feel confident about. I hope you like it <3

It started after a drunken night at the bar. He was just another handsome stranger, always lurking at the periphery of your sightline while you sipped your drink. You had learned to ignore these guys, the ones who sniffed for trouble the way a dog could sniff for a bone. But there was something different about him, something magnetic, something lurking under the surface. Something that made you smile when he claimed the barstool next to yours and insisted on buying your next drink.

“‘S a pretty thing like you doin’ out here all on yer lonesome?’ he asked when the bartender parked two neat whiskies in front of the two of you. You couldn’t quite place the accent, a talent you normally prided yourself on. It was Southern, certainly, but not entirely Delta, like he’d moved around a lot, picking up fragments and sounds from all over the South.

“What, a girl’s not allowed to grab a drink after a long day’s work?” you reply playfully. He swallows a sip of his drink and hums low in his throat, somewhere between satisfied and thoughtful.

“Ah, so y’are here alone.”

“What’s a mysterious stranger doin’ in Clarksdale?’ you press, bringing your whiskey to your lips and sipping gently, the alcohol burning your throat comfortably and spreading warmth through your body from the inside out.

He chokes a little on his next sip, coughing uncomfortably.

“I’m a, uh, a talent scout. Of sorts.”

You laugh, throwing your head back.

“A talent scout? In Clarksdale, Mississippi?”

His cheeks flush red briefly as he takes another sip.

“Yeah, what of it?” he asks defensively.

“Jus’ never  hearda no talent scouts comin’ ‘round these parts is all,” you manage to get out through your giggles. “What kinda talent you lookin’ for?”

“All kinds,” he replies. “Music mostly.”

“Well,” you taunt, downing the rest of your whiskey in one shot, “I ain’t no musician, but I’ve been called…talented…in my lifetime.”

You plant your foot on the bottom rung of his barstool, nestling your boot in between his.

“Yeah?” he asks, swallowing thickly.

“Yeah,” you reply cooly, setting your glass back down on the bar. “That kinda talent the thing yer lookin’ for?”

“Yeah, it, uh…” he leans into you slightly. “It might be. You got room to squeeze me in for a, uh…a demonstration?”

You grinned.

“Yeah…I reckon so.”

And that’s how it was. He’d come crawling to your door ever since. It didn’t take you long to question why you only saw him at night– it was a small town, there were only so many places to hide. You didn’t believe him at first, thinking he was making up a story to scare you. You weren’t prepared to see him, while you were walking home one night, hunched over a man’s body, latched onto his neck, slurping like a child sucking on a popsicle in the summer heat.

When he brings his head up, the man on the ground lets loose a wet, choked garble. Remmick’s head tilts back in ecstasy, blood slowly dripping down his chin and wetting the front of his shirt. You could see his teeth, more than teeth, the daggers in his mouth, glinting in the moonlight as his jaw hangs open.

You stare at him, your lips parted slightly, your chest rising and falling with every quick breath. You don’t know what to do. Should you run? Would he catch you? 

Would it matter?

Where there should be panic is another emotion. 

You recall him hovering over you on the mattress.

Right there, ah, fuck, yes, riiggght there, don’t stop.

Yeah? Feels good?

Fuck, yes, yes, keep going, God…

So gorgeous, baby. Just wanna take a fuckin’ bite outta you, girl, shit.

Do it, please, fuck, fuck, yes, take me, oh God…

How many times had you unknowingly begged him for this?

To bite you, to sink his teeth into you and suck, to drain the life out of you the same way he was draining this pathetic bastard. Your heart is pounding so fast it feels like a train trapped inside your body.

You quietly step into the small clearing of trees, towards Remmick and his prey. You don’t recognize the man, but he’s wearing a suit. A tourist, you think, an outsider who won’t be missed when he fails to return to his motel the next morning.

A twig snaps under your boot and Remmick’s gaze snaps towards you. His eyes, ordinarily a fair blue, are red. Not bloodshot red, red red. A deep glowing crimson, staring at you from the darkness. He scrambles to his feet, blinking furiously, as if trying to reset, to restore the natural, human, blue color to his irises. 

That’s when you notice his hands.

His fingers are long, unnaturally long, and decorated with long claws, caked in dirt and a dark red liquid that can only be more blood.

Now standing, he stumbles towards you, fighting the monstrous parts of himself back into submission, desperate to bring his human features to the front again.

“Oh hey, darlin’, look, it’s not uh, it’s not–” 

He’s blinking, shaking his hands, slurring around his fangs, trying to force the vampire back into hiding.

You close the distance between you, striding up to him and balling his shirt in your fists, yanking him down and pressing your forehead to his, your heart hammering in your chest. Your breath is ragged, catching in your throat as you try to restrain yourself.

“You weren’t kiddin’, huh?” you ask breathlessly.

“Nope,” he breathes. “That a dealbreaker?”

You tug his collar in closer and crash your lips into his. He tastes disgusting and delicious, the metallic taste of blood mingling with the saltiness of his sweat. You can feel the sharp points of his fangs pressing against your bottom lip. Finally, you part from him, a gasping breath filling your lungs. Your cheeks are burning hot and your pulse thunders in your ears. You flick your eyes back open, staring into the bright red ones gazing back at you.

“You really are a damn fool, askin’ me a question like that.”

In the months since, the folks in town had started to whisper. You’d catch fragments of words, worried glances thrown your way. People mumbling about a mysterious stranger always hanging around you, asking why your curtains were drawn in the middle of the day, muttering about vicious animal attacks that seemed more severe than a feral dog or coyote.

You can’t remember when he started staying over. Can’t remember how you agreed to help him get rid of the bodies. 

“C’mon, just a little further,” he grunts, dragging the man behind him by the ankles.

“Don’t know why I agreed to this, it’s your mess,” you huff, trudging along next to him, shovel in hand.

“Cuz ya love me,” he grins, his fangs still coated in blood and spit, a dark red froth lingering near the corners of his lips.

“You’re disgusting,” you retort through a chuckle. He laughs in response.

Finally, you come to a clearing, at the center of which is a small lake, moonlight shimmering on the surface of the water. 

“You made me drag this shovel the whole way when we’re jus’ gonna dump him in the water?”

“Nah. He’ll float in the water, we gotta bury ‘im,” Remmick puffs, dropping the man’s feet into the dirt. “But where there’s water, there’s critters.”

“So?”

“So…we bury ‘im ‘bout halfway, and the critters’ll take care of the rest. Then, somebody comes walkin’ through here, all they gonna see is whatever’s left.”

He speaks with the assurance of a man who’s done this a thousand times before, until you remember that he probably has. Annoyed, you shove the spade of the shovel into the soft dirt.

“Fuckin’ breakin’ my back cleanin’ up after you, I swear to God…” you mutter, sweat beading on your brow.

“Aww, c’mon princess,” he croons gently, stupid grin plastered on his face. He wraps an arm around your waist, pulling your back to his chest. “Don’t be mad.”

“Too late,” you protest, but he can hear the smile in your voice.

“Mmm, how mad are ya?” he whispers, his breath hot against your ear.

“Mad enough to kill ya myself,” you retort, a sly smile creeping across your face. You spin out of his embrace and raise the shovel towards his chest, holding it like a spear. False shock lights up his face.

“Ya wanna kill me?” he asks. He brings his hands to the metal of the shovel and gently rests the tip against his chest. His shirt is absolutely soaked, part sweat, part spit, part blood. “Then do it.”

You stare at him for a second, mischief in your eye. This is the way it was between you; teasing, taunting, tiptoeing on the razor’s edge and flirting with death, just to get a rise out of each other. Bonnie and Clyde on an eternal suicide mission. 

“Betcha won’t,” he challenges.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“What makes you so sure, huh? It’d be easy. Just shove this through your heart, toss you in the same pit with this poor sucker,” you reply, nodding to the corpse still sitting by the shore. “Shouldn’ta taught me how to get ridda dead bodies so easily if you didn’t wanna become one.”

He laughs at that. 

“Yer prob’ly right,” he drawls. “But I’m faster’n you, darlin’. Maybe you shouldn’ta come out to the middle of the woods at night with a monster, huh?” 

He drops the end of the shovel and it hits the dirt with a dull thud. He takes a step closer to you, his eyes glowing red in the dim light. You inhale deeply. The scent of the pines floods your senses so thoroughly you can almost taste it.

He rushes you so quickly you don’t even have time to drop the handle of the shovel. His hands clasp around your waist as he spins you, and you shriek in delight. He lifts you off the ground, just barely, just enough to drag your toes through the dirt. You throw your head back, laughing up at the moon, the disco ball above your impromptu dancefloor. 

When he lowers you, he’s grinning with his human teeth, his fangs now almost entirely retracted. He stares at you, eyes wild and sweat dampening the hair at his temples. Your hands tangle in his hair, caressing his soft locks. You scratch behind his ear, and he leans into you, humming in satisfaction. He’s perfect like this. He’s all yours. For just a moment, you forget that there’s a cadaver on the ground behind you. It’s just you, him, the moonlight. Forever.

Remmick goes through phases, swinging on a pendulum from controlling to clingy with hardly a moment’s notice. Every evening, it was a game you played with yourself, trying to guess if he’d be spitting in your mouth or sucking on your fingers. 

You stand in the bathroom, staring at yourself in the mirror as you scrub your toothbrush back and forth across your teeth. Remmick’s sitting on the edge of the bathtub at your left, toying gently with your unoccupied hand. He weaves his fingers in between yours, rotating your wrist to examine the front and back of your hand, before bringing it to his mouth. He decorates each knuckle with a soft kiss and you smile around the toothbrush. Clingy tonight.

You pull your hand free to hold your hair back as you lean over the sink and spit. Remmick lets out a tiny huff, pouting at the loss of contact. He stands and wraps his arms around your waist, nuzzling his face into your hair.

“What’sa matter, baby?” you tease, turning the faucet on. 

“Jus’ wanna hold on,” he mumbles, his voice muffled by your hair.

You rinse and spit again, and you can feel his chest expand against your back as he inhales.

“Lemme go, I gotta floss,” you chuckle.

“No,” he protests. You sigh.

“Fine.”

You grab your floss and cut a long string. You pop the floss in between your top front teeth, and you can feel Remmick shift suddenly. He stands a little straighter, a little more on edge. You work the floss in and out of your teeth, the faint taste of warm blood oozing in your mouth. You didn’t floss as much as you knew you should, and the blood seeping from your gums was your punishment. 

You lean forward to spit again when his hands tighten around you, pulling you up.

“Mm,” you protest, your lips pressed together tightly as you turn to look at him quizzically.

“C’mere,” he breathes, crashing his lips into yours ferociously. Your eyebrows shoot up in surprise as he kisses you. His teeth catch your bottom lip and you yelp in surprise. The second you part your lips, he delves his tongue into your mouth, the sudden obscenity making you blush. 

“Taste so fuckin’ good,” he moans against your mouth. He’s lapping the traces of blood and spit from your mouth like a stray dog drinking from a puddle after a storm. He runs his tongue across your teeth, your gums, drinking in as much as he can before you finally pull away from him.

“Yer that fuckin’ desperate, huh?” you smile shyly, cheeks still flaming red.

“C’mon baby, just another little taste?” he pleads, lunging towards you again. You pull back and he pouts again. “Not even bitin’ ya, just tryna clean ya up, c’mon, please?”

“Yer funny when yer whinin’, ” you smile. He groans in frustration, but settles for planting tiny kisses on your jaw, your neck, your shoulder, as you continue working the floss in and out of your teeth. More blood floods your mouth, mixing with your saliva. 

When you finish, you toss the string in the trash can on the floor next to the sink. Lips pressed together, you turn to him without a sound. It was always fun to play with him when he was like this, so worked up that he would do anything you asked ten times over. When your eyes meet his, you can see they’re wide and eager, like a puppy waiting for a command. 

You rest a hand on his shoulder and press down, gently but firmly. He slowly kneels on the hard tile in front of you, his doe-like eyes never leaving yours. You love him like this. When he looks at you like you’re the only thing in the world that matters. Your heart flutters in your chest, and you know he can hear it. 

You bring your fingers to his mouth, your thumb lightly brushing his bottom lip. His eyes flutter shut as he sighs softly, leaning into your touch. You grip his jaw between your fingertips, squeezing gently, until he obediently opens his mouth below you. 

You smile.

Bringing your other hand to the back of his head, you take a fistful of his hair by the root and tug. Not rough; not yet. Just enough to pull his head back. He looks like a baby bird, eagerly waiting to be fed. You hum in satisfaction, a low rumble echoing in your chest. When he was clingy, he could be irritating, but when he was obedient, when he was a good boy…he was irresistible.

You make him wait like that for a torturously long time. His chest heaves as he begins to pant, his eyes subtly shifting as deep crimson begins to overtake his usual blue. You can see the fangs above his canines are already out. It was kind of cute, the little monstrous parts of him that seeped through the façade when you teased and tortured him. 

You can tell that he’s desperate, but he wouldn’t dare speak. Wouldn’t make a sound, for fear you’d turn and spit into the sink. You smile sadistically, enjoying seeing him come undone at your fingertips, no speaking required. The only sound echoing in the bathroom is the soft drip drip drip of the faucet that you evidently hadn’t twisted all the way off.

Unable to bear it any longer, he slowly reaches for the hand that’s still gripping his jaw. He searches your face for signs of displeasure, looking for any signs of impending punishment at moving, at touching you. When he sees none, he brings your hand to his mouth and gently kisses it again. Not clingy this time; reverent. Submissive. 

You smile and lean forward. He drops your hand, opening his mouth wide. Slowly, you open your lips as you stand over him, letting your bloody spit drip onto his waiting tongue. He closes his eyes and exhales in ecstasy, the taste of you dancing on his tongue. You watch in awe as the rest of his fangs slowly erupt from his gums. You wonder if it’s painful, the sharp points forcing their way through his flesh. It didn’t usually have the same consequences that it did for humans, but he could still feel pain.

He opens his eyes and stares at you, blissed out, head still hanging back.

“Puppy enjoy his midnight snack?” you ask, the saccharine sweetness of your voice clashing with the deliciously lewd image of Remmick on his knees in front of you. He rises slowly, connecting with your lips as he stands, licking the remaining drool from your mouth.

“Thank you,” he breathes.

You smile against his mouth, folding your arms around his neck and pulling him in closer.

It was always so hard to get used to the schedule; sometimes you’d sleep through the day with him and prowl around at night, but some days, your body still wanted to rise with the sun.

It had been one such day, Remmick snoozing in the darkness of the bedroom while you got up, made your coffee, went about your day. You’d run a few errands, stopped in to haggle with Grace over the price of some new cheese they’d just put on the shelves before Bo lovingly stepped in and sold it to you with the “Friends & Family” discount. When you returned home, all you wanted to do was sit outside.

After bringing in the groceries, taking care not to wake your sleeping vampire, you bring your ancient lawn chair out into the expanse of grass that you called your backyard. It was enormous; living on five acres afforded you plenty of privacy. The hinges squeal, showing their age as you wrestle with the chair. Finally beating it into submission, you glance up at the sun, shading your eyes with your hand, and debate whether or not you’ll be out long enough to justify sunscreen. You decide against it, but head back to the house for a glass of water and your sunglasses.

Twenty minutes later, your skin is slick and sticky with a thin layer of sweat, the sun beating down on you. The heat hadn’t broken for five days. Five days of unrelenting heat and humidity, reminding you of at least part of the reason so many of your neighbors had been leaving the Delta en masse over the last few years. But you were used to it, craved it. It was all you’d ever known. The oppressive weight of the sun warming your skin, leaving your flesh lightly toasted, the heat lingering in your body and radiating off of you long after the sun dipped below the horizon.

You sigh heavily and reach below you to bring the water glass to your lips. The old lounge chair squeaks beneath your weight as you shift. You raise the glass to your mouth and a cold drop of condensation falls to your chest, right between your breasts, making you inhale sharply. The cool water flooding your mouth brings some relief, but not enough. You only counted your blessings; it had been so dry that the bugs that would ordinarily be swarming you were nowhere to be found. You press the water glass to your temple, letting the cold beads of water wrapped around the glass paint your skin. You love the heat. You love the sun. But there’s a dull ache in your chest. He could never be with you like this.

Sure, you shared the nights, parading down Main Street after too many drinks, hanging off of each other, singing, dancing, practically howling at the moon in your joy. But the feeling of sunlight dowsing your body in heat, the pure, uninterrupted feeling of life coming from the sun…he hadn’t felt that in centuries. And he never would again.

It’s stupid, you think, to obsess over something like this. Remmick had never even mentioned the sun or the daylight, beyond the simple, practical fact that he needed to be inside before the sun rose. But still…imagining living a life entirely in the darkness…it unnerved you. You felt recharged by the sun, like a plant that perked up after being moved from the windowsill to the yard. You couldn’t imagine it. 

You raise your face to the sky, a drop of sweat sneaking down your neck and disappearing under the neckline of your dress. 

You wonder if he misses it.

“Ow, ow, careful…”

You’re in bed, Remmick on top of you, in one of his moods. He had been all over you all night, so close you were almost tripping over him. He has your wrist in his mouth, gnawing on the thin, delicate skin.

“‘M bein’ careful…” he mumbles, barely listening to you.

“No fangs, you promised,” you protest, trying to wriggle your wrist away from him. “Ow!” 

You cry out when he catches your skin between his teeth.

“Sorry, sorry. But look…all in one piece,” he says proudly, holding your wrist. You look at the skin, a deep red blooming over your veins.

“Tryna eat me?” you ask hotly, snatching your wrist and rubbing at the mark.

“Tryna make you mine,” he growls playfully, attaching himself to your neck. His hot breath near your ear makes you shudder. “Tryna make the whole world know yer mine.” 

He nips and sucks on your neck, marking your flesh with each bite.

“Rem, c’mon…” you giggle.

“No…wanna make sure the whole world knows who ya belong to,” he mutters, still half-drunk on your body.

“Gonna make me look like a damn hussy,” you reply. Your voice is filled with half-baked protest, but clearly your body hasn’t gotten the memo, your fingers tangling in his hair.

“Mmm, ‘s right. My perfect little whore,” he drawls. 

“Ow, careful,” you hiss, his next bite stinging particularly sharp.

“Aww, ‘sa matter? Baby can’t handle a little…bite?” he teases, punctuating the last word by latching back onto your neck, plunging his teeth into your skin. You inhale sharply, breathing through the pain. He shifts against you and you can feel him press into your thigh, already hard.

“I’m fine, jus’ not tryna get all chewed up, is all,” you huff.

“Mm, sounds like an excuse,” he smiles into your neck.

“Remmick, I swear if you–ah–ah!”

You choke on a cry as you feel his canine fangs break your skin. Your hot blood floods into his mouth, and he closes his lips around the puncture, careful not to let your blood seep out. He hums haltingly against your neck, as if trying to stop himself.

“Ah, ah, sorry sweetheart,” he pants when he finally detaches from you. “Got carried away. Didn’t realize they were comin’ out.”

He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. You can see the two fangs above his canines just barely breaching through his gums. It’s amazing, you think, that even when the sharp points are hardly exposed, they can draw so much blood.

“Ah shit, sorry baby,” he croons, his brow furrowing as he inspects the wound. “Shit. Didn’t mean to, promise.”

You bring your fingers to the spot on your neck and feel the warm, sticky liquid oozing from the bite. It’s not much, just a trickle. He’s bitten you deeper before, usually at your own request. You pull your fingers back, inspecting the bright red blood painting your fingertips, seeping underneath your nails.

“Fuck, I’m sorry sweetheart,” he apologizes again. There’s something in his voice, a worried agony creeping in, panic that he’s done something irreversible. He’s so gentle, God, he’s so gentle with you when he makes you bleed. You’d been with men who couldn’t be trained to be gentle if they were wearing a fucking shock collar, and here was this ancient, bloodthirsty monster who would kiss your bruises and beg for your forgiveness if he ever hurt you, even on accident.

“C’mere, sweet boy,” you coax. “Open.”

He blinks down at you for a second, arrested by your affection in the face of his mistake. When his brain finally registers your words, he parts his lips gently. You brush your bloodied fingers across his soft lips before pressing them into his mouth, sliding them on his tongue. He closes his mouth around your fingers, sighing sweetly at your taste. You slowly push your fingers deeper into his mouth while he gently cradles your wrist with both hands. His tongue swirls around your fingertips, drinking every drop you give him. When he’s cleaned your fingers completely, he carefully releases you, mindful of his fangs. You notice that more of them have started to peek through.

“Yer not mad at me?” he asks pathetically, his eyes locked on yours.

“How could I be mad at you?” you coo, toying with the hair near his temple. “Just clean up your mess, yeah?”

You turn your head to the side, exposing the bite to him again. He chuckles before leaning down and pressing his tongue flat to your skin, licking one clean stripe over your wound. The salty taste of your sweat mingles with the coppery taste of your blood, a unique cocktail of you flooding his senses.

You’re lying in bed, somewhere between sleep and consciousness. Next to you, Remmick’s hands caress your shoulders and run down your arms, his fingers swirling gentle patterns down your skin. He loved cuddling with you after he fucked your brains out; it was one of the things about him that made you smile. Even when he was in a dominating mood, calling you names and abusing your body like he was trying to make you cry, he was left completely helpless in the aftermath, always reaching for your hands, your hair, your lips, desperate to hold onto you a little longer.

“Mmmm,” he hums, transfixed on you.

“Wha?” you ask, only half paying attention.

“You were out in the sun today.” 

It’s not a question.

“How’d’ya know?” 

Your breath is light and feathery as he continues stroking his hands along your shoulders, your arms, your chest, your stomach.

“Can feel the sun on ya,” he replies quietly. His eyes are drinking you in with the same greed his tongue did just a minute ago. “Feels good.”

“What’s it feel like?” Your curiosity wins out over the exhaustion, and you shift slightly, watching him. He gently turns your arm over in his hand, inspecting your skin.

“Feels…warm, still,” he breathes. “Feels like…wow.”

“What, baby?” 

You’ve never seen him like this. You can’t quite decode the expression painted across his face– somewhere between awe and sorrow.

“No, just–” he chokes. “Jus’ never thought I’d feel the sun again. Been so long.”

He shuts his eyes against the volatile emotions coursing in his veins, like he doesn’t trust himself with the feeling. Gently, you bring one hand to his cheek, cradling his head. He leans into your touch, nuzzling his cheek into your palm. With your free hand, you take one of his hands, tangling your fingers together before guiding him to your forearm. You rest his hand atop the skin there– always the first part of you to get sun-soaked when you were outside in the summer heat. He inhales sharply, surprised by the heat still lingering on your body.

“God,” he sighs. “Can’t believe I can feel it on you. Through you.”

“Ya never felt this before?”

“Never been…close enough to someone, y’know,” he stumbles. “Never knew I could…wow.” 

He traces his fingers up around your shoulders, as if his hands are hunting for every scrap of sunshine that might still be baked into your skin. He finds the back of your neck and pulls his hand back suddenly in shock. You weren’t great about sunscreen in general, always trying to find reasons to avoid it–I’ll only stay out for a little while–but even when you remembered to apply it, you almost always neglected the back of your neck.

His fingers return to your neck, the tickle making you flinch. He stills and his eyes lock onto yours, trepidation filling his gaze.

“Y’okay?”

“Yeah,” you smile. “Just tickles, is all. You’re fine.”

He returns to your skin, dragging his fingertips through the slick sweat coating your collarbone. He traces down your sternum, between your breasts, and presses his palm flat against your chest, right above your heart. You can feel it beating against his hand, the steady thump thump thump of your adoration echoing in your ribcage.

He didn’t usually talk about it, about before, about his life– the one he was actually alive for. You had a million questions, but had learned pretty early on to take them one at a time. The wedding ring would probably be the last door you’d open, if it wasn’t already barricaded shut. But you decided to try your luck with this one.

“When's the last time you saw the sun?” 

You’re half holding your breath when you ask it. 

He sighs heavily.

Then he’s quiet.

“I don’t know.”

His voice is small in the room.

“I can’t even remember what it feels like.”

You’re both quiet. The silence fills every corner of the room, permeating through the air.

“Whatcha thinkin’ about?” you poke gently, careful not to overstep. 

It reminded you of being a child, trying to feed the baby bunnies that lived in your mother’s old wooden planter. She cursed them for digging up her gardenias, but you were enamored with them. Every day after school, you’d bring anything you could find– lettuce that had wilted in the fridge, dandelion greens you pulled from the schoolyard– and held your hand out to them, quietly, hoping not to scare them off.

His hands start to dance over your skin again, his fingertips soft and gentle along your flesh.

“Thinkin’ ‘bout you.”

“What about me?”

“Yer human.”

There it is.

You’d never actually had this conversation.

“And I fuckin’ love ya,” he says, choking back a sob. “Fuck.”

You bring one hand to his face again, cradling his cheek. Something hot and wet brushes your thumb, and it hits you: he’s crying.

“Goddamn it,” he mutters.

“‘S okay, baby,” you whisper.

It’s the cruelest paradox the universe had ever devised. He would live forever. You would die. 

He’d turned people before, that much you knew. But every time he bit you, consumed you, he held himself back. You’d begged him a thousand times, almost always in a fucked-out bliss, to keep going, to kill you, to make you his own, forever. But he never did. You’d read about vampires who kept a human around, a toy to play with, a snack to indulge in whenever the urge got too strong, but you somehow felt this was different. He wasn’t keeping you around to satisfy his needs. There was something in his eyes, something he tried desperately to mask, that told you his restraint was intentional, drilled into him. 

He absentmindedly twists the golden band on his left ring finger.

You wonder if that has anything to do with it.

“That guy?” you suggest, nodding in the direction of one of the two drunk guys at the end of the bar. Remmick swallows his whiskey and sets the glass back down on the bar.

“Nah. That buddy he’s with is gonna notice if he up and disappears.”

You scan the bar again. He’s been trying to teach you to pick out good targets, but being that he had a few hundred more years of experience than you, you were still trying to play catch up.

“Mm,” you hum, sipping your own drink. “That guy.”

Remmick follows your gaze towards the man cornering two young girls at the other end of the bar. He smiles, swirling the dark liquid in his glass.

“Good eye,” he grins. “You findin’ your in?”

“I’m thinkin’ about it,” you reply thoughtfully, mind already buzzing with a myriad of tactics to get him alone. Your go-to strategy was usually to ask them to walk you home, but getting this guy off of the girls he was evidently unnerving would be a challenge. His body language told you he had his eye set on them, no doubt expecting a favor or two in exchange for the drinks he’d bought them—drinks that had, so far, gone untouched.

The girls politely smile with tight lips at his constant babbling, stiffly laughing out of obligation at the occasional joke. You’d seen it a hundred times. Hell, you’d lived it about a hundred times. Just another sleazy guy trying to score with girls too young and too scared to talk back. 

You quickly tossed the rest of your drink back and firmly set the glass back up on the bar.

“You ready?” you ask.

“If you are,” Remmick smiles slyly. “Usual place?”

You nod. He follows your lead and finishes his drink.

“See ya there,” he responds playfully. You watch as he tosses a few bills on the counter to cover your tab, then stands and silently leaves the bar, just another face turning invisible in the chaos of the crowd before slipping out the door.

You turn your attention to the man and the girls again. The girls are trying to get the bartender’s attention despite their still full glasses, looking anywhere but at the half-drunk asshole still oblivious to or decidedly ignorant of their resistance. Standing, you catch the eye of one of the girls and give her a slight nod. You cross to their side of the bar, saddling up next to the guy.

You can smell the booze coming off of him, a distinctly different smell from the naturally alcoholic smell of the bar. This is sour, pungent, his breath broadcast to everyone in the immediate vicinity by his neverending babble. Affecting impatience, you lean against the bar on his right side, still completely invisible to him, his attention fixated on the other girls.

“Hey,” you start, waving your hand to catch the bartender’s attention, “Hello? Fuck’s sake, what’s a girl gotta do around here to get a damn drink?”

It’s almost comical how easily it works. The sonofabitch turns to you, his gaze finally leaving the pair of girls who glance at you with a mixture of concern and gratitude. You meet their eyes again and assure them with the slightest uptick of your lips. Smiles, glances…invisible communication becomes a survival tactic between women in spaces like this, and it’s a language you’re fluent in. Without another word, the girls abandon their glasses and quickly head off, hand in hand, towards the bathroom.

“Hey,” the man slurs. “Ain’t seen ya ‘round here before.”

“And ya might not see me ‘round here again, the way this shit’s goin’,” you huff, affecting irritation. “I swear, this goddamn asshole is ignoring me on purpose.”

“Well that ain’t no way to treat a lady,” the guy agrees, his eyes hazy and unfocused. You wonder if he’ll even be able to stand, let alone walk out of here. 

“Hey barkeep!” he barks, “Let me buy the lady a drink.”

The bartender glances your way from where he’s chatting up another customer. You throw your hands up and step away from the wooden counter, shaking your head.

“Nah, that’s it. I’m just gonna call it a night. Ain’t worth all the trouble,” you sigh, annoyance in your voice. He stands up quickly– too quickly, staggering a little and catching himself on the bartop.

“Well–” he drawls, his voice fighting against the noise of the bar, “lemme at least–hic–walk ya home.”

You smile. You love it when they volunteer without having to be asked. You suppose you owe some of the credit to the girls, his determination and desperation building on them and now redirected onto you. It was always easy to swoop in and steal another girl’s rejected leftovers.

“Aw hell, you ain’t gotta do that,” you reply shyly. “You don’t even know me.”

“Well,” he stumbles, “We oughta fix that.” He pulls some crumpled bills out of his pocket, throwing them on the bar. You silently clock the amount of cash and make a mental note to empty his pockets before getting rid of him. “C’mon.”

You follow him to the door of the bar and step out into the night, the sky an inky black above you, peppered with thousands of stars. The new moon makes them extra visible, each twinkling white dot illuminating its own little corner of the sky. The humidity lingering in the night air keeps a blanket of heat around you as you step out onto the dirt.

“Name’s Earl by the way,” the man continues.

“Nice to meet you, Earl,” you reply, flashing him a smile. You start walking down the road, leading him with you.

“What, you ain’t got a name?” he teases, tossing you a drunken, stupid smile in return.

“Now where’s the fun in that?” you retort.

“Oh, I see,” he slurs, “You one of them mysterious types, huh? Well, which way we headed, mystery girl?”

You force a laugh.

“I live on the other side’a Main, down past the tracks.”

“Damn, bit of a hike.”

“You don’t have to walk with me, honest,” you respond innocently. “I’ll be fine.”

“Now what kinda–hic–gentleman, would that make me, huh?” he grins. “Lead the way darlin’.”

You hate how it sounds coming out of his mouth. Remmick was the only one that called you that. Your tactical brain is briefly eclipsed by your emotional one, and you have to fight to keep the disgust and irritation off your face. You stride a couple of steps ahead of him to put a little distance between you and avoid his gaze.

He continues to babble on, talking about himself, his job, his money– “savin’ up enough that I think imma be able to buy a car ‘fore the end of the year” –and seems to be content carrying the conversation with only a few “mmhmms” and “wows” from you every few minutes.

When you finally reach the treeline at the end of the road, he stops.

“Where we goin’, mystery girl?” he asks, a trace of trepidation seeping into his voice.

“It’s too long goin’ all the way around,” you reason cooly, “so I usually jus’ cut through the trees. ‘S only a few more minutes this way.”

You have to be careful here. When they’re too attuned to reality, they catch the red flags too easily. You’re praying that the booze has given him enough confidence and the machismo has inflated his ego enough to play along. He’s still standing on the road hesitantly. Brain working a mile a minute, you decide to sweeten the pot.

“It’s alright, really,” you reassure him, charm and sweetness dialed up to a hundred. “Thanks for walkin’ me this far. I uh–” you look down bashfully. “I really appreciate it.”

He stares at you, drunken stupor still dulling his senses. His eyes dart between you, one of the  straps of your dress hanging off your shoulder, and the dark woods behind you.

“Goodnight, then,” you continue, a gentle sadness punctuating your words. You turn slowly back towards the trees.

“Wait.”

You smile. Too easy.

“I said I’d walk ya home, didn’t I?”

You turn back to him, your lips wide in a grateful smile.

“Well thank you, Earl. Really. You are a gentleman.”

You know lying is a sin, but at this point, you figure, what’s one more added to the list?

You lead him into the woods. It’s always easier to lie when you don’t actually need to; there is a path through this part of the forest that leads towards your neighborhood. All you have to do is go about a half mile east, then take the fork going south that leads towards the old train tracks. You walk, side by side, along the dirt that’s been stamped down over the years from countless people who’ve taken the same shortcut. He’s gotten quieter, a little more wary, so you pick up the conversation.

“Don’t sound like yer from ‘round here.”

“You got that good of an ear, huh? My sister was like that.”

You notice the past tense. Was.

“Where you think I’m from?” he asks.

He’s definitely Southern, that much is clear. But his voice is lacking the rich, deep notes of Mississippi that you love so dearly. Instead, you notice the flatter, brighter twang of someone from further north.

“Mmm…you kinda got that Tennessee thing goin’ on,” you chuckle. He laughs.

“Well I’ll be damned,” he responds. “Hit the nail right on the head. Memphis. Moved down here a few years ago to open the store.” You vaguely remember him rattling on about some grocery store he owned in town. 

“But the competition down here is a real motherfucker,” he continues. “E’rybody said it’d be so easy, ya buy a building, buy some stuff real cheap, sell it for real expensive, and make yer goddamn money. But these fuckin’ chinks got a damn iron fist on the market down here.”

Your breath catches in your throat and your stride falters for just a microsecond. You’d grown up in Clarksdale; you never thought twice about the people that lived here, the people that you called friends and neighbors. You forgot how disgusting outsiders could be. Your stomach flips, not wanting to be around this piece of shit a second longer. But, remembering your–now, ultimately righteous–mission, you press on.

“Which store is yours?” you ask, veiling the disdain bubbling in your stomach.

“Potter’s General,” he chirps, oblivious. “My granddad’s name. I owe it all to him.”

“Hm, don’t think I’ve ever been in. I’ll have to stop by.”

“It’s just down the road from that big Chinese store, Cho or Choi or Chow or whatever the hell they’re called,” he blusters on.

You swallow the venom that threatens to sneak into your voice and make a mental note to swing by tomorrow and tell Bo and Grace that their competition wouldn’t be a problem anymore.

“I’ll have to stop in tomorrow,” you manage as evenly as you can, “Think I’m almost outta flour anyhow.”

You reach the fork and turn left. North. Towards the lake.

He follows you.

“Yeah,” he concurs, “and, ya know…I always offer special prices to beautiful young ladies such as yerself.”

He turns his attention to you and you can feel the ticking timer in your brain screaming at you, counting down the seconds until you reach the clearing. That was the paradox of this scheme; you had to pick creeps, losers, weirdos that nobody would miss if they vanished from the earth. But that also meant that you had to be alone with them, walking through the woods with them at night, cornered with them if you couldn’t distract and toy with them long enough to get to the meeting spot. You quicken your pace just enough to push on, but subtly enough to not draw his attention.

“Not much further now,” you purr suggestively, hoping to give him just enough to motivate him to keep moving.

“Good,” he hums. “It’s gettin’ late.”

“Yeah,” you giggle. “I know, it’s such a pain livin’ this far outside of town. Thank you again.”

“Anytime, sweetheart,” he drawls. You have to stamp down your gag reflex at the pet name again. You know Remmick can hear you now, and you imagine his blood boiling at the sound of his favorite name for you coming from the mouth of this ignorant pig.

Finally, fucking finally, you reach the clearing that opens to the lake. You step out into the tall grass, letting out a sigh of relief. You turn to him again, smiling wide, smiling with honesty for the first time since speaking to him. He looks around the clearing, the tall grass swaying gently in the evening breeze.

“Uh, how much further?” he asks, confusion taking root in his voice.

“Here we are,” you grin, all the venom and disgust in your stomach mixing with delight.

“I don’t get it,” he says.

“She means–” Remmick interrupts, stepping forth from the shadowy treeline, “That this is where it ends, bucko.”

You quietly take a few steps back, approaching the sandy shore of the lake. The most important rule Remmick had made you promise to abide by: stay out of the way when the shit gets going.

“Who the fuck…what the fuck is goin’ on?” Earl demands.

“This is the end of the line, pal. Ain’t that what the kids’re sayin’ these days?”

You stifle a laugh. To most, it’s just a simple expression. To you, it’s a reminder of the absurdity of his actual age. Here was this borderline prehistoric creature, as far as you were concerned, and it was the same man that whimpered when you stuck your fingers down his throat.

“Listen, I don’t want no trouble,” Earl reasons, putting his hands up and stepping backwards a few paces. “Didn’t know ya were nobody’s girl,” he spits, looking beyond Remmick to where you’re standing at the water.

“Y’ain’t talkin’ to her, yer talkin’ to me,” Remmick shoots.

“Listen, buddy. Y’ain’t gotta do nothin’, I’m leavin’, alright?” Earl goes to turn around, but Remmick darts his hand out quickly, snatching the man’s wrist and holding him fast. 

“C’mon now, don’t gotta be like that,” Remmick chuckles. He’s got his back to you, so you can’t see his eyes. You wonder if they’re red.

“Look, I was jus’ tryna walk the lady home,” Earl begs, panic and desperation sinking in.

“And I’m sure the lady thanks ya for it. Don’tcha, sweetheart?”

“Thank you,” you smile sadistically, your pulse thumping in excitement. “It really was so nice of you to join us.”

Earl’s wide eyes flick from you back to Remmick and he gasps in horror, trying to scramble away, tugging against Remmick’s inhuman grip.

“Truly,” Remmick continues, echoing your sentiments. “Because I am fuckin’ starved.” 

With that, Remmick is done playing with his food. He dives into Earl’s neck, fangs bared. The scream that pierces the air rings through your body, blossoming into pride, delight, satisfaction, and…something darker. Some dark, shameful hunger deep inside of you. Some part of you that would feel guilty for luring a man to his death, if it wasn’t so irresistible watching Remmick feed.

You couldn’t believe the art of it all. Within seconds, Earl was pressed back into the ground, Remmick pinning him down. Earl was the perfect portrait of a man with an inflated ego– from the casual racism to the physique he clearly and obsessively maintained. He was tall, lean but slightly muscular, conventionally attractive, and well-groomed. But here was this smaller, scrawnier man, this animal with dirt caked under his nails and his chest hair poking out of the neckline of his sweaty undershirt, holding him down like it was nothing and viciously tearing into his flesh. Something about it was so primal, and it itched at something deep within you.

You step forward to watch, feeling like a voyeur in the most delicious and deplorable way. Remmick has one hand planted on Earl’s chest, the other hand pressing his face to the side and into the dirt. His own face is buried in Earl’s neck, his lips still latched to the other man’s skin. Earl sputters and chokes, looking paler by the second as his blood floods Remmick’s mouth. It reminds you of all the nights you’ve begged him to bite you, the way his fangs burn as they pierce your skin and sink into your flesh, the lightheadedness that overtakes your senses as he drinks from you. The ecstasy that overwhelms you when he brings you right to the edge before pulling away, making you beg him for more. It strikes you, then– he could kill you, could drain you dry, and you’d only be begging him for more.

Remmick comes up for a breath, tossing his head back, panting hard. His claws curl inwards slightly, their pointed tips pressing into Earl’s skin, tiny beads of blood blossoming from his chest and blooming across the fabric of his button down. Holding his jaw slack, Remmick swipes his tongue over his bottom lip, collecting the blood lingering near his mouth. You unconsciously mirror his action. Blood is everywhere, fucking everywhere, smeared across his face, dripping from his chin, coating his neck, staining the collar of his unbuttoned blue cotton shirt and seeping into the dirty undershirt beneath. Everything turning deep red under its touch, the slick liquid looking almost black in the shadows hugging the contours around his collarbone. 

You feel your pulse thundering in your ears, certain he can hear it too when he laughs darkly, head still tilted up towards the sky, eyes closed.

“What, ya like whatcha see, baby?” he teases you.

“Some’n like that,” you mumble, still transfixed at the gory scene before you. Earl gargles underneath Remmick’s grip. Remmick growls and dives headfirst back into his prey, Earl in turn gasping and choking, fighting with his little remaining strength. All of them did– one last hurrah before they stilled, eyes getting that far-off look or closing entirely, slipping into death as if it were a comfortable old blanket.

When he finishes Earl off, Remmick sits back on his haunches, breath heaving. It was an extremely physical task, you realize, though he made it look so natural. As he pants, you drink in the sight of him– someone, something, so beautiful, so unnatural, so breathtaking, the curve of his jaw, the tousles of dark hair made damp by sweat, the sharp, dangerous points of his fangs framed by soft, sweet lips. Bloodsoaked lips that could be gentle, could kiss and nip and pray against your skin.

You feel your own breath begin to accelerate, softly gasping in time with his own heaves. Again, he notices, and again, he chuckles, a dark sound coming from deep within his chest, a vibration you could feel in your bones. He doesn’t say anything, just lets you approach a little further, now within arms reach of the mess. He opens his eyes, the glowing red reflection illuminating in the darkness.

“Pretty girl likes to watch, huh?” he taunts, amusement and exhilaration in his voice at once.

You nod.

“C’mere,” he beckons sweetly, standing to meet you. You take his outstretched hand, his claws delicately brushing your skin as he pulls you close. “Y’like watchin’ me feed on somebody else, huh?”

You nod again.

“Well, don’t worry. There’s enough’a me to go ‘round, darlin’,” he brags, leaning in and smashing his lips against yours.

The first thing you taste is the blood. The sticky, syrupy feeling of it painting your skin as Remmick moves his mouth against yours. The coppery, metallic notes spreading through your mouth. 

Then you taste him. Remmick’s spit, the drool that always floods his mouth when he feeds, seeping across your tongue, the unique, salty, musky taste of him overwhelming your senses. You pull back suddenly, gasping for breath. Your heartbeat continues its thunderous hammering.

“Mmm,” Remmick grumbles when you part. “Such a motherfucker.”

You see the glazed look in his eye that usually takes root after he feeds. Even after the initial high had swept through his body, his mind was still catching up, being bombarded with the memories and thoughts of his victim. It amazed you, how he essentially witnessed an entire lifetime’s worth of thoughts and emotions in the blink of an eye. His reactions always surprised you, too; sometimes, he would just sit there quietly, lost in thought, looking almost sad or remorseful while he was subjected to the person’s life from a first person perspective. Other times, he was restless, filled with anger or satisfaction or some sick combination of the two, the instinct to devour still overwhelming his body as he reached for you in his bliss. Tonight, he seemed eager to eat you whole, his mouth leaving kisses along your jaw and neck, painting more blood across your skin.

“If you could see the things he was thinkin’ ‘bout, baby, I–” he hisses sharply, cutting himself off. Usually an indicator of a memory or private thought popping up suddenly, disturbing his own train of thought. “God, fuckin’ glad that creep is dead. Goddamn.”

“Tell me,” you gasp breathlessly as Remmick continues trailing his hands up and down your body, planting kisses anywhere he can reach.

“God, the whole way here,” he moans, “Whole way here he was thinkin’ ‘bout you in this dress. Thinkin’ ‘bout this body,” he continues as his hands grope your tits through the fabric, “Thinkin’ ‘bout my girl.” 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Thinkin’ ‘bout–ah–,” another memory disturbing him. “Thinkin’ ‘bout whatcha taste like, up here,” he mutters against your mouth, “and down here…” 

One of his hands reaches under your dress and gropes at the soft cotton of your panties. You feel a wet spot growing, spreading across the inside of the fabric and only hope it isn’t saturating the garment, not betraying you to him just yet.

“God,” you breathe, your head tilting back, allowing him even better access to your neck. 

“Whole way here, thinkin’ ‘bout doin’ filthy things to my girl. Fuckin’ callin’ you darlin’, callin’ you sweetheart, fuck…” Remmick moans. “Christ.”

A shiver runs down your spine when you feel the tips of his fangs ghosting over your skin, the sharp points scratching your neck. His hand between your legs rubs slow circles against you, making you collapse against his collarbone, hands clutching his shoulders for support. You breathe him in, the scent of his sweat mingling with something else, something that smells like rot. You inhale the bizarre combination, sighing into his touch.

“Mmmm, wanna little taste of ya, darlin’,” he whispers into you. “C’mon baby, jus’ one taste? Little treat, hm?”

“God, yes, please, yes,” you pant.

You can feel his lips move into the shape of a smug smile. The next thing you feel is the sharp, familiar pinch of his fangs. He doesn’t bite too hard, and you know he’s holding back. But you can still feel the warm, elated feeling of blood rushing out of your neck and into his mouth. It always felt magnetic, like a part of you was drawn to him by something outside of your control. 

Suddenly, your vision starts to fuzz. The lightheaded, buzzy feeling, the one you’ve begged him a thousand times over to fill you with, creeps into your being, making you feel like you’re weightless.

Then, just as quickly as it began, it’s over; Remmick gently releases your skin, licking the remaining traces of you from his lips.

“Mm, taste so good,” he practically sings, his voice dripping with praise. “Jus’ wanna take you right here.”

“Then fucking do it, Christ,” you whisper harshly, frustrated at the sudden loss of contact. He laughs, a deep and resonant sound reverberating through his ribs and into your body. 

“Y’ain’t gotta tell me twice, sweetheart.”

He takes your hand and pulls you towards the lake, wrapping you in a firm embrace once you reach the sand. He gently guides you to the ground, laying you down in the soft, cool sand. 

His hands grip your ankles, dragging you towards where he’s kneeling, hunched over on the shore. He sits up on his haunches and places his palms on your knees, the gentle pressure making your hips twitch.

“Easy, sweetheart,” he croons.

You whine in response.

He loops his thumbs under the hem of your dress and drags the fabric up towards your waist, leaving your lower half exposed, only your panties separating you. 

“Been thinkin’ ‘bout this all night,” he mumbles. “Since the bar, sittin’ there in this cute little thing.”

He runs his hands, claws and all, up and down your thighs. His claws gently scratch at your skin, already sticky with sweat. Fireflies dance around the tall grass, illuminating your sinful dance.

“Rem, c’mon,” you moan softly. “Quit teasin’.”

“Ah, ah,” he scolds, a bloodstained smile painted across his lips. “Patience, baby.”

You sigh heavily, desperation getting the better of you.

“Been thinkin’ ‘boutcha the whole time I was out here waitin’ on ya, goin’ fuckin’ crazy thinkin’ boutcha out there with him.” 

Remmick’s clingy tendencies flowed seamlessly into burning jealousy, especially when he had a name and a face to direct it at. You couldn’t count how many times he’d pulled you into kisses so intense it felt like he would eat you alive, or how many times he’d dragged you home, or hell, even just to the bathroom stall, when someone looked at you too long.

“Fucker wanted ya,” he growls, leaning over you, drool beginning to drip slowly down his chin. “Gotta remind these sons ‘a bitches who ya belong to.”

He grabs your chin forcefully, yanking your jaw open. You obediently stick out your tongue, desperate for any part of him that he’s willing to give you.

He smiles, a twisted, joyous grin overtaking his features. Then he parts his lips, letting his hot, thick drool pool onto your tongue. You swallow greedily, feeling the warmth of him bloom in your mouth and spread through your head. It was an aphrodisiac–whether it was something actually messing with the chemicals in your brain, or just the irresistible magnetism of feeling a piece of him inside of you was immaterial. You sometimes think you could survive off of nothing but him.

He chuckles above you, and your eyes shoot open.

“Ya said y’couldn’t read my mind,” you accuse, shocked at his response to the depraved thoughts running through your brain.

“Don’t need’a read your mind to know what yer thinkin’ darlin’,” he teases, brushing your cheek with one thumb, the claw drawing dangerously close to your eye. Your lashes flutter shut as you sigh quietly.

He brings his hands back to your knees, resting his palms against you. The night air has the distinctly Southern feel of cool air insulated with too much humidity, tricking your body into the familiar dichotomous combination of goosebumps and sweat. 

“This whatcha want, sweetheart?”

He slowly, torturously slowly, presses your knees apart, spreading your legs underneath him. Your breath hitches in your throat as you nod, your hair rubbing into the sand behind you.

“Gotta use yer words, baby.”

Oh, fuck him. Another one of his moods. You’d almost prefer if he was being strictly dominant; dominant Remmick was mean, humiliating, ruthless. But when clingy Remmick turned into jealous Remmick, his affections manifested as unbearable teasing. Because deep down, there was still a part of him that was desperate for you. Willing to get you all worked up, but still needing you to tell him how much you wanted him, how badly you needed him, how good he was being.

“Want ya to touch me, please,” you rasp, your throat dry. He grins.

His thumb finds its way to your panties and he presses down hard on your clit through the soft cotton, making you choke on a breath. He rubs slow circles against you, and your hips tilt upwards to meet his contact.

“There’s my girl,” he says, his voice dripping with adoration.

His thumbs press into your hip sockets, the force against your pressure points making you squirm, and he glides his thumbs underneath the garment that protects what little is left of your modesty. In one smooth motion, he hooks the fabric and pulls down, exposing your dripping cunt to the night air. You shiver and your cheeks burn hot at the sudden feeling of vulnerability. He eyes you like so many of the creeps at the bar have before, but this time, you welcome it.

“God, I fuckin’ love you,” he pants, drinking you in, eyes roaming from your face to your tits to your soaked pussy.

“Then fuck me like it,” you smile, breath still heavy.

He rolls his head back in pure ecstasy, a loud groan tumbling from his lips. When he snaps his head forward again, he digs his hands into your hips and roughly tugs you towards him, making you flinch in surprise. His claws pinch your flesh and you can see tiny crimson beads of blood blossoming on your skin.

He lowers himself between your legs, roughly falling onto his elbows. He plants one hand on each of your thighs, framing your cunt.

“Oh, jus’ look at her,” he praises, inspecting you like a showdog. “She’s already fuckin’ droolin’ for me.”

You can feel your cheeks flush again and you turn to the side, pressing your face into the cool sand.

He lunges forward and presses his tongue into you, making you gasp at the sudden and severe contact. Your hips twist in response, but he holds you down firmly.

He slowly drags his tongue up your core, adding his slick spit to your already drenched folds. When he reaches your clit, he brings his lips to the bundle of nerves and gently sucks. You gasp and your hands shoot down to take root in his hair, fingers scratching at his scalp. He moans against you in response.

“Yes, oh fuck, jus’ like that,” you manage to get out through a strangled breath.

He continues lapping and sucking at your core, tension building in your stomach.

“Fuck, fuck, ah–” you can hardly hold onto him, your hands desperately pulling at his hair, your hips swirling and twitching in time with the movements of his tongue. He breaks from you and glances up at your face, contorted in pleasure.

“Yeah, feel good baby?” he taunts. You bring your eyes to his, the bright red color reminding you of the corpse that’s already attracting flies just a few feet away from you. His chin is glistening, covered in a mixture of the two of you, your juices, his drool, and the remnants of blood that remain from his meal.

“God, Rem, shut the fuck up,” you grumble, shoving him back down. He laughs, the sickly sweet sound echoing around you.

To your frustration, he doesn’t go back to your pussy; instead, he presses a kiss to the inside of your thigh, painting your skin with the disgusting, sticky mess surrounding his mouth. He continues, leaving sloppy kisses along your skin as he finds his way back to where you’re waiting for him.

When he finds you again, he wraps his arms underneath your thighs, holding you close. He buries his face in your cunt, inhaling you like he’s trying to memorize every detail about your body, down to your scent. His tongue runs figure eights up and down your puffy lips, the sensation making you whine.

You tug at his hair, trying desperately to ground yourself. Your head is swimming, the pleasure blinding you. It feels like the earth underneath you is moving, tilting and tossing you every which way. The heat in your cheeks spreads to your neck, your chest, out into your limbs, overtaking you from every angle.

He continues his motions, delving his tongue past your folds and slurping you up, drunk on your taste. Your breath comes in quick, shallow gasps.

“Fuck, Rem, gonna…” 

You can’t even finish your sentence through your bliss.

“Not yet, darlin’,” he mumbles against you.

“Don’t… can’t…”

“Not yet, baby, hold on.”

He doesn’t slow down.

“Rem…”

“Fuckin’ wait,” he growls.

You force yourself to breathe through your mouth, trying to slow down your impending high.

“Good fuckin’ girl,” he praises.

It sends another rush to your head.

The pressure building in your abdomen brings hot tears to your eyes. You try to focus on anything but how close you are– the soft feeling of his hair in your fingers, the intoxicating smell of the pine trees that shield you from the rest of the world, the flickers of the fireflies that dance around you. Anything, anything that’s not the feeling of him pressing on your clit with his tongue, the feeling of his fangs scratching your folds with each move of his jaw, the feeling of him pressing his hands against your lower stomach, applying more pressure to your already sensitive center.

“Remmick– Remmick, please, fuck, can’t do it anymore.”

He chuckles. Sick fucking bastard.

“Baby wanna cum?” he smirks, his lips moving against your sensitive opening.

“Fuck, yes, yes, please, fuckkkk, please, can’t, can’t…” your pathetic panting fills the space between you.

“Tell me who ya belong to,” he croons, darkness saturating his voice.

“You, fuck, only you.”

“Yeah? Who got yer pussy cryin’ this good?”

“You, always you.”

You don’t know how much longer you can hold on. Your body is buzzing with electricity, threatening to topple over at any second.

It’s your turn to read his mind now.

“God, fuckin’ love you, Remmick.”

He shuts his eyes with a soft cry before diving back into you. It’s all the permission you need. The pressure in your stomach floods out into your body, lighting you aflame. You can feel it, feel him, in every part of your body, exploding through you like you’re being baptized in it. He doesn’t slow down, still sucking and lapping at your release as it coats his tongue. You can’t catch your breath, your chest heaving, your skin still soaked in sweat. Your hips buck against him as he continues, forcing you to ride out your orgasm. 

When you finally start to come down, he relents, dragging his tongue one last time through your folds to collect the rest of your juices. He brings his head up and you can see it literally dripping from his chin, a clear drop of liquid falling onto his shirt, leaving a dark wet stain. He crawls over you and presses his mouth to yours. You can taste yourself, you can taste him, dancing together on your tongues in a perverted tango of need. 

As he kisses you, you continue to play with his hair, twisting and tugging at the now sweaty locks. When you get to that spot behind his ear that drives him crazy, you dig your nails into his scalp and scratch.

“Mmmmm,” he moans against you. He detaches from your lips and his jaw hangs slack, like a dog being itched in just the right spot. He tilts his head into your touch, satisfied. You drag your hand down the side of his face, his neck, bringing it to rest on his chest, just over his heart. 

You can feel it beating– one of the most incredible parts about him. He was dead. Technically, at least. And yet, here was his heart, still thump thump thump-ing away under your touch. You hold your hand there for a while, feeling him, dead but alive, listening to his heart sing for you. 

He gently takes your hand in his and brings it to his mouth. He places one soft, gentle kiss to your palm.

“C’mon, sweetheart. Let’s go home.”

[quinnophile]

last train home — iii. homeostatic

pairing. bucky barnes x fem!reader mcu timeline. post-thunderbolts synopsis. after a harrowing dream, bucky wakes to the most devastating day of any month: your anniversary. one run-in with you and a mystery man, and a late-night phone call later, the soldier is breaking his third rule: don't spend the night with you. warnings. no use of y/n, ex!reader, lawyer!reader, exes to ???, exes with feelings, angst, fluff, mutual pining, miscommunication, panic attack, a break-in/burglary, bucky is still down bad & pathetic ( just how i like my men ) thunderbolts* spoilers!!! click here for part 1 & here for part 2. word count. 4k hyde’s input. somebody made the mistake of sending an ask that said this couple give off we hug now vibes and, well, i put that song on repeat and wrote this part. enjoy! ( i'm miserable )

When Bucky opens the door, you are asleep on the couch.

The apartment smells like Christmas, and pine, and cinnamon, a comforting scent that wraps him in a hug. Snow falls by the window pane and from his coat, melting into the hallway floor as he rips at stubborn laces. The television is low, a murmur that brings the simple comfort of noise to a sea of silence. Mulled wine has stained your lips, and the neckline of your shirt — his shirt, really, but you have kept it hostage as yours, just like you have done with his heart.

When Bucky was younger, he imagined love to be grandiose. Something large and disruptive, that demands to be noticed and screams until it is reciprocated. Then, he stopped imagining love, lived only in self-hatred and regret. Now, he is learning that love is quiet, gentle, steady. It does not kick the door down, but knocks with hesitance and waits for the door to open. It moves slowly, without rush, takes its time infecting every crevice of the heart, and mind, and soul. And, while it craves reciprocation, it settles for the simple right to exist.

He cannot verbalise it, cannot string those four letters together alongside your name. Not yet. But he opens the door, invites it in, and hands it a soothing cup of longing, the promise of something good coming to those who wait.

For you, he could wait forever and a day.

The soldier’s left knee pops as he crouches down, he is too invested in tracing his fingers over the frown in your forehead to pay his pain any mind. Like heat to butter, the wrinkle melts back into smooth skin as his touch meets it. You visibly relax, unconsciously aware of his presence as your sleeping form inches closer to the edge of the couch.

There is no difficulty to how Bucky lifts you from the cushions. You go easily, with no protest, like nestled in his arms is all you are ever meant to be. But then maybe his judgement is biased, because, how could it not be?

He wants you to belong in his hold.

A careful journey crossed over creaking floorboards, a nudge of his shoulder against the bedroom door, a leisurely descent onto the mattress.

The bedsheets greet him like they do most nights, cold to the touch and inviting him to seek you out beneath them.

You find him first, an arm blindly reaching behind to find his own and snake it over your waist.

“It’s been one month,” you whisper, like the words are a fawn and must not be spooked by loud noise.

“I know,” he whispers back.

“Since you first kissed me,” you clarify, needlessly. “Do you remember?”

“Of course I do,” the earrings sitting pretty in his coat pocket, forgotten in the rush of finding you snuggled into the couch, a testament to his dedication to the memory, to you.

“We got take out from Izzy’s-”

“Because it was too busy to sit in-”

“And so I asked if you wanted to go to my place-”

“Before freaking out and assuring me you weren’t trying to sleep with me.”

“Maybe I was,” you are receptive to the way he has nestled himself behind you, legs to legs, chest to back, lips pressing their indent into your scalp. “You just didn’t notice.”

“I wasn’t trying to sleep with you-”

“Wow-”

“I was trying to work up the nerve to ask you on a date,” Bucky feels a stutter in your breath, a subtle pause between inhale and exhale.

“Is that why you kissed me?”

“No,” his hand squeezes at yours, a hum of delight ripping through his soul as you press both of them to your beating chest. Would that he could, he would tattoo your heart’s beat into his own. “I kissed you because I couldn’t physically hold myself back anymore.”

Months of patience. Months of building trust. Months of finding reasons to meet you for coffee, or dinner, or to fix the flickering lights in your kitchen, or to help you get home safe from work.

Time rewarded him with opportunity, the liberation of learning what your breath feels like and how your kiss tastes.

“You never asked me to be your…” And you trail off into a fake yawn, a way to cover up your shyness around the label.

“D’you want me to?”

“You don’t need to, I’m yours,” he feels your voice in his throat, in his chest, coursing through his veins and giving his cells the nutrition that is your affection. “But it means we don’t really have an anniversary.”

“D’you want one?” Servitude comes easy to the soldier, he’s been kneeling at your feet and presenting you with his metaphorical sword since the moment you showed him how good it feels to breath again.

“I guess,” you shrug, hesitant eyes trying to catch a glimpse of him over your shoulder. He meets them halfway, props himself up on his spare hand. “I want us to be something worth remembering.”

“We are,” he seals it, like a promise, with his lips dipping down to press against yours. A ghost of a touch, similar to the first kiss he dared steal, nervous until he felt your mouth move. “So pick a date.”

“Today,” you say it like that is all you have been able to think about all night, in waking hours and through sleep.

“Then it’s settled,” his head crashes back down onto the pillow, the same your own rests against. “The nineteenth will be our day.”

Reality pulls Bucky’s eyes open with the shrill of his ringtone.

A blurry screen, until his eyes focus through the lingering clouds of sleep and he sees an unwelcome name.

Michael, the head representative of the Avengers legal team.

The soldier almost tosses the device at the wall, until his eyes notice the date scribbled across the screen. Even if you no longer sleep by his side, he remembers.

Thirty-two months since he first kissed you.

Ordinarily, Bucky tries his best to be selfless.

Answering every beck and call, cleaning up after the more rambunctious ones of his teammates, offering support to any pair of doubtful eyes he comes across. His help is subtle, reserved in nature yet wholly noted by those who receive it.

Today, the soldier decides to be selfish.

Burnout after months of feeling trapped in a role he does not deserve and coasting through the turbulent reality of having you physically closer than you have been in years, yet with an emotional distance that has doubled, Bucky needs a day to himself.

He dodges every call. He hauls up in his apartment. He avoids any street too close to the watchtower.

And winds up at Izzy’s.

The ritual is private, one he detoxed himself from over the course of a few months only to wind up back here all the same, on the nineteenth day of the month and with a dumbbell of longing weighing heavy on his heart.

It is not too busy and, still, he tells the waitress to place his order to-go.

One pop of a bottle opener later, he is sat by the window and counting every passing minute until he can go home, set the table, and relive a fraction of that life-altering night.

Only a fraction, because you are not there to help him set the table, or finish off the food, or give him the courage to finally steal a kiss.

The restaurant door rings open. A scuffle of bodies piling into the place. A few excuse mes, and sorrys, and hey watch its. And then…

“Bucky!”

He is not entirely convinced you are anything more than a figment of his pathetic imagination, until you scrape out the chair beside him and drop down into it, back turned on the rest of the world and eyes focused solely on him.

His own back straightens, his hand tightens around the neck of the bottle, and the next sip he takes sees him empty half its contents.

“You,” you teeter closer, nudging your foot against the leg of his chair. “Are the talk of the town today.”

“I am?” The lowlights trickle over you, a backdrop halo that has him certain you are his guardian angel, here to relieve him from his wallows in self-pity.

Granted, you will leave and the ache will grow tenfold. But, for now, you are here, beside him, tucked in the window seats of the very place you two used to frequent every nineteenth.

If you smile at Bucky a little longer, maybe he will be able to convince himself it is not tearing him apart to see you perfectly happy while he is still bending over backwards to relive memories.

“The legal town, at least,” your shoulders shake as you let yourself laugh, a familiar set of earrings winking at him. “Apparently you’ve been M.I.A. all day.”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“I have my sources,” this time, it is your eye that winks at him. Something in his stomach turns, a devastating need taking root to ask you if you remember him walking you home from the gala. Or did you wake up the next day to a headache instead of heartache? “Your side finally submitted an answer to the courts today. I heard one of the lawyers mouthing off about your absence during an emergency meeting.”

That explains why Michael has been calling him since seven thirty this morning.

“I was busy,” if ‘busy’ is the correct term to describe scrolling through his phone’s gallery for every blurry picture he still has of you.

Try as much as he had, his shaky hands and poor-quality camera were never enough to capture the beauty of seeing you live and in the flesh.

“Sorry, I just realised,” you are glancing over your shoulder, searching for something. Bucky cannot help but wonder what it is you are hoping to find. “I didn’t even ask if this seat was taken. I’m probably interrupting your-”

“It’s not,” he says, and needlessly clarifies. “Taken. I’m waiting on my take-out.”

He points down at where his receipt sits on the windowsill’s table and watches how your curiosity gets the better of you, like always.

“You still get shrimp tempura?” Of course that is what you notice first, because why would the universe ever let him play it cool around you? “I thought you only used to order that because I liked it.”

“I did,” there is no point in denying it — you know Bucky well enough to tell when he is lying.

“Oh,” you exclaim, eyes darting back down to finish reading his receipt. The soldier sees the moment things click into place, history printed into thermal paper. Thirty two months later, one less mouth to feed, yet his order has stayed the same. “Oh. James-”

Whatever pity you are about to throw his way is cut off by someone calling your name.

A man. Tall, blonde, brown eyes. A loose tie hangs from his neck, his suit jacket is nowhere to be seen, and he still looks more like a politician than Bucky ever did.

Handsome, put together, charming.

It is no surprise you have a man like that waiting on you.

“I got us a booth, you coming?” He stands just at the back of your chair, a hand resting on it that is quick to help you slip out the seat.

“Tim! Hi,” as you turn away from him to greet Tim, Bucky turns from you too, suddenly fascinated by the passing of strangers outside the window. If you greet him with the same kiss on the cheek that you used to give the soldier, he does not want to know. “Sorry, I didn’t even know you guys were here yet.”

“Walked through the door a few minutes before you, actually,” his laugh sounds expensive, confident. He does not use it to stave off an anxious shake in his voice.

“Bucky,” he can feel your eyes are back on him, waiting to be acknowledged. He cannot bring himself to give you what you want, and so, when he turns back, his gaze lands on the bar. “This is Tim, my-”

“They just called my order,” he cuts you off before you can say it. Boyfriend. Lover. Date. The owner of those shoes in your apartment might be standing right in front of him, but that does not mean Bucky needs to have it confirmed. “You two enjoy your evening.”

He does not need to know who you celebrate a new anniversary with.

Sometime past three, that is when the phone rings.

Once more, it rips Bucky from a dream. Not of couches and kisses, this one is brighter, busier. A crowd of Wakandans — and, among them, him — all gathered around to see which lawyer could be emboldened enough to take on the matter of the Winter Soldier's pardoning.

An unsaved number, entirely unfamiliar. He plays with the idea of hitting ignore and going back to the realm of bittersweet memories. His thumb hovers over that big red button, itching to press it, yet his mind will not cooperate, his heart will not let him.

He presses the green icon.

“Bucky,” your voice bleeds through the speaker, and panic bleeds through him.

“What’s wrong?” Because something is wrong — he can hear it your voice, fear that holds him by the neck and demands he fix it, fix you. A strangled breath cracks through the speaker, scratching at your throat as you struggle to pull it in. He calls your name. “Slow breaths. In and out.”

It takes a few attempts, all failed and tightening the rope around his heart, but you eventually manage to get some air in your lungs.

“I think,” you pause for another, purposeful inhales and exhales that bring him the comfort of knowing you are breathing. “I think someone’s in my apartment.”

The words rip him out of bed.

Bedsheets halfway off the mattress, strong limbs that scramble to carry him across the floor and over to a neglected pair of jeans.

There is no room for panic. Panic brings error, and Bucky can not risk a single thing when it comes to you.

“Okay,” things are far from okay. He burrows his feet into shoes while his shoulder keeps the phone glued to his ear. “Your bathroom door still locks, yeah?”

“Yeah, yes,” you keep pausing to breath, to stave off the incoming panic attack. You are fighting a losing battle. “Oh god, I can- I left Alpine on her scratch post, she keeps meowing.”

Bucky scans the thesaurus of his mind, desperate for new words of comfort to ease your distress.

“Listen to me.” Fuck! Where are his keys? He cannot find his keys. Bile burns the back of his tongue. “Get in your bathroom and-”

“I'm already there,” you cut him off. “I still remember what you taught me.”

Never has the soldier been more grateful for his paranoia, at last serving some good in his life in the shape of guiding you with basic forms of defense, a checklist of what-to-dos should anything ever happen while he was not around.

“Good. Well done,” he finds his keys nestled between two couch cushions and immediately bolts for the door. “That’s my clever girl.”

“Bucky, please;” you are killing him with your voice; desperate, and pleading, and entirely relying on him to rescue you.

One foot out the door — heart already rushing off ahead of him, a mile down the block and racing to you — he has to force himself to pause, look down, and notice, in all the commotion, he has forgotten to grab a shirt.

“I’m coming,” he tears back into his apartment, searching for the first sign of something to cover himself with. “I promise. I’ll be there, nothing’s gonna harm you.”

There is a sniffle, then, “And Alpine?”

“Is a fighter, okay?” Finally, his skin is covered and he is on the move, door locked hastily before he is racing down flights of stairs. “Whoever the hell’s in your apartment’s probably fighting for their life. Bet she’ll have dealt with them before I even get a foot through the door.”

His words must be a prophecy, for ten minutes later he is a heaving mess in an empty living room, metal fingers soothing over the snowy fur of a feral cat. A splash of red stains her front left paw and those feline eyes seem to be speaking to him, telling him 'look, I kept her safe'.

Bucky coaxes you out of the bathroom with a simple call of your name. A click of a lock, a turn of a handle, and then you're in his arms. Sobbing, shaken, aching to find an anchor in him.

As much as it may break him, the soldier does not shush your cries. He absorbs them, lets you pour it all out into his skin, hands grippng at his back as though to say come closer, I need you. His hand — flesh and feeling — soothes the top of your head, accompanied by a gentle coo of incoherent words that melt into a harmony with your crying.

“You didn't change your number,” you eventually manage to string a sentence together.

“Of coure I didn't,” Bucky is in no rush to let you go, basking in the beat of your heart knocking against his skin. Alive, breathing, trusting him enough to hold you. “What kind of hero would I be if you needed me and couldn’t reach me?”

He waits until you are ready to pull away.

When you do, your blood-shot eyes do not quite lift off the ground. You step back from him, twice, and your arms curl around your frame, like you are hoping that is enough to hold all your pieces together.

The soldier does not tell you he arrived to an open door. Or that mud-stained footprints have ruined your cream carpet. Or how your briefcase has been torn into, papers of legal jargon strewn across the kitchen counter.

Instead, he sits you on the couch and he hands you a cup of tea.

“You still wear your watch,” your gaze clings to the timepiece on his wrist as he hands you the mug.

Would it be wrong of him to remind you of the words you ingrained into the metal, the words that press into the skin of his wrist and have stamped themselves into his bloodstream?

Me and You. Just us two.

Bucky decides to spare you the pain, “You still wear your earrings.”

“They’re pretty earrings.”

“It’s a good watch,” it's died on him twice. He just keeps replacing the battery.

Your mug eventually dries up, every last drop of tea spilled into your mouth. Bucky does not wait for you to move, simply pries the cup out of your hand and carries himself to the kitchen sink.

“That wasn’t, you know… A date. Tim’s a paralegal, he’s been helping with Sam's-” you are spilling out words, fingers tugging at a loose thread on your sleep-shirt while Bucky’s are lathered in dish-soap and scrubbing at dirt that does not exist. “I don’t know why I’m saying this to you.”

Is it obvious how the air is reaching his lungs a little easier?

The weight of putting a face to your new lover has been lifted off his chest, and you do not even realise it.

“Discussing the lawsuit with me is a conflict of interest, I understand,” he tries to reason but you are already shaking your head and rising off the couch.

“I don’t know why I’m worried about you thinking it was a date,” you let it hang there, for a few seconds, heavy in the space between you both. Then, with a shake of your head, the doubt creeps in. “I shouldn't have called.”

“Don’t,” he steps out from behind the sink, bubbles clinging to his fingertips.

Meanwhile, you are starting to pace while you verbally ruminate over all your perceived wrongdoings.

“We’re no longer-”

“Don’t, please,” he catches hold of you, soaked hands on dry arms. Touching you has always been cause for his undoing, now more than ever. “I want you to call me. I don’t care who that was tonight. I could have ran into you with a baby and a ring on your finger, and it wouldn’t matter. I would still be here, I’ll always be here. So just…” Use me. Keep me tethered to you, forever in love and in ache. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”

Eyes caught in a war of staring, time seems to freeze around you both. The hand on your arm grips a little tighter, your feet shuffle a little closer, both your breaths grow a little shakier.

That four letter word is banging on his chest, begging to be let out after years of confinement. Once again, he hands it a cup of longing and implores it to wait — forever and a day, if need be.

Somewhere to the left, Alpine meows, and you tear yourself away from him.

Dropping back down onto the couch, a look of defeat paints over your face as your head meets your hands.

“That’s the problem, Buck. You ended this, so why should I worry about moving on? I’m sure you have.”

“Right,” his jaw is tense, attempting to resist his own lie.

“I just… I need you to know I wouldn’t take someone to Izzy’s, not for a date,” you pause before you land the knockout blow. “Especially not today.”

It does not matter that the day has technically rolled over into tomorrow, that the date on his phone’s screen no longer ends in ‘-teen’, that you caught him at his most vulnerable, his most pathetic, summoning the ghost of your relationship in a recreative seance. All that matters is that you remember what the nineteenth once meant to you.

You ask Bucky to stay and the agreement cannot fly out of him fast enough.

If you had not asked, he would have ended up posted outside your door anyway.

He makes himself useful, drifts room to room through your apartment and maps out every move the intruder seems to have made. Between the lack of valuables missing and the lawsuits spread out on the counter, something twists in his guts.

There is no point filling you with worry at this late an hour, however. He can tell you his theories in the morning. For now, you need sleep.

You find it eventually, curled up on the couch.

For a moment, Bucky wonders if he has stepped inside his dream. Though the apartment does not smell like Christmas anymore, his left knee still pops as he crouches by your resting shape and your frown still loosens at the touch of his fingers.

“I haven’t tried moving on,” it is a whisper, something meant only for him, Alpine, and the quiet of your apartment. Selfishly, the soldier hopes some part of you hears him. “I don’t think I ever will.”

No protest comes as he lifts you off the couch, holding you as delicately as one would a flower. Head to his beating chest, you curl deeper into his hold and remind him of how perfectly you slot against him, like nestled in his arms is the only place you are ever meant to be, even after all this time.

Even after one of those arms hurt you.

Before he grows too comfortable holding your weight, Bucky delivers you down onto your bed.

“Happy anniversary,” he brushes the words against your forehead, in lieu of the kiss he aches to place.

The floor creaks as he creeps back out into the living room, bedroom door wide open in case you wake and instict commands you to seek him.

While you curl into the mattress, Alpine curls into his lap, and Bucky settles in for a sleepless night.

You are not safe, that much Bucky is sure of.

But at least he is here.

+ extra hyde !

· i fear this part is mostly filler to get the plot to where i want it to be. · “hyde, girlie, your last four longer fics all end with the reader falling asleep!” god forbid a girl be eepy-sleepy 🙄 · look, i have a very peculiar, raunchy, filthy, downright disgusting kink ( feeling safe enough around a man to fall asleep ), sue me! · speaking of kinks, they're going to fuck in the next part, i swear.

[quinnophile]

im sorry i didn’t mean to call you a cunt (affectionately) im just an eager whore, please take your time bc ik you’re gonna cook with that fic

Im sorry I didnt meant to tell you to fuck off (unaffectionately) 💚 jk tysm im really excited to share it BUT I CANT WRITE SMUT TO SAVE MY LIFE 🥲

[quinnophile]

FUCKING ERITE THE FUCKING REMMICK FIC YOU CUNT <3

I AM TRYING WITH ALL MY MIGHT SO VERY KINDLY ♡♡

[quinnophile]

i swear the remmick fic is nearly finished I'm just embarassed by my smut 🥹

hyperfixation please stay with me long enough to complete the project. hyperfixation do not fade. hyperfixation finish what you started for the love of god

[quinnophile]

Under the Blood Moon Masterlist

summary: in the humid belly of the night, you flee through the wild woods, breathless and bleeding, chased by a monster dressed in the skin of a man, and when he inevitably catches you, it's not to kill, but to keep. What follows is neither rescue or ruin, but a slow, savage claim written in blood, hunger, and heat.

wc: 15.2k (wip)

warnings: heavy dubcon, dead dove: do not eat, blood kink, period sex, heavy breeding kink, monsterfucking, possessive behavior, coercive control, demon x human dynamics, religious imagery, breeding/ownership language, filthy talk, cockdrunk reader, forced orgasm, restraints/restraint kink, forced captivity, manipulation, southern gothic horror, explicit sexual content, obsession, violence, rough sex, blood play, dark romance, somnophilia undertones (reader too weak to consent properly), gore, murder, body horror, emotional manipulation, pregnancy themes, psychological conditioning, trauma bonding, devotion through violence, canon-typical Remmick unhingery, homegrown cult wife aesthetics

M I N D T H E T A G S

Part I: Hunt the Hare

Part II: And Lead Her Down the Rocky Road

Part III: (tbd)

[quinnophile]

manchild.

pairing. bucky barnes x fem!reader mcu timeline. tfatws. synopsis. bucky can't help but wonder why they always come running to you,, or your living fossil of a roommate disapproves of your taste in men and its totally not because he wants a taste of you. warnings. smut ( pwp, service dom!bucky, unprotected piv, oral sex - f receiving, clothed sex for like a sec, fingering, creampie, tummy bulge, dirty talk, dry humping, possessiveness, dumbification, praise, temperature play, food play, nipple play, pussy pronouns, hair pulling - m receiving, multiple orgasms, consent kink, implied competency kink and cum eating, bucky barnes begs agenda 2025™, both bucky and reader spend the whole fic towing the fine line between horny and pervy ), no use of y/n, angst, fluff, frenemies to lovers, roommate!bucky, cocky+flirty!bucky, also guard dog!bucky ( if that even makes sense ) ( it doesn't ), jealousy, pining, so much bickering, attachment issues, miscommunication bc these two combined have the emotional intelligence of a chihuahua, bucky's hobby is baking bc i said so. reader inclusivity. bucky can pick the reader up ( but he's literally a super soldier so 🧍‍♂️ ), one mention of bucky trying to grab the reader's hair, reader has a nut allergy and does not speak russian ( neither do i, so please forgive the very small amount of google translated russian ) word count. 16.3k hyde’s input. god bless sabrina for saving the summer again. also don't let this flop, it's my birthday tomorrow and i'm not above crying over poorly-received erotica ( i'm joking ) ( no i'm not )

Bucky Barnes is not someone you’d call a friend.

He’s more of a nuisance, really. A fossil, dropped off at your door by one Sam Wilson with a simple request: “Can he crash here for a few days?”

That was four months ago, and Bucky’s still living on your couch.

Which is exactly where he’s sat right now, head buried in a book you barely even remember owning. The pages, so full of neglect, give him hassle as he tries to turn them, catching on one another and refusing to be pried apart by vibranium fingers.

“How do I look?” You ask as you step out from your bedroom, hands fastening an earring into your right ear.

Unfazed by your appearance, he doesn’t bother glancing up from his book as he sardonically replies, “With your eyes, like the rest of us.”

You contemplate plucking one of your heels off and throwing it at his head. Knowing your luck, it will fly right past him and smash your coffee table into pieces. Just like your roommate, it’s vintage. Unlike your roommate, you willingly brought it into your home.

“Ha. Ha.” Rounding the couch, you swat his feet off the table before snapping his book closed. “Now if you’re done playing comedian, would you answer the fucking question?”

“That’s your generation's problem, you know? You swear more than you breathe.”

“Better than waging a world war every few years.”

“Considering the current state of the world, I wouldn’t rest too comfortably on that one,” Bucky rises from his seat and squeezes past you, irritatingly close in a way that makes sure you feel each defined muscle in his chest as it brushes against your shoulder. “Anyway, you look fine, as always.”

“I look fine?” You parrot his words and follow his footsteps over to the kitchen. “Careful Barnes, don’t get too excited, it’s not healthy for a senior citizen’s heart.”

“You know what I mean,” a heavy sigh slips out the soldier’s mouth as he busies himself filling the kettle, glancing back at you from over his shoulder as he continues speaking. “I don’t understand why you worry so much about all of… this.” He gestures at you, water splashing off the tips of his fingers.

“God forbid a woman cares about looking good on a date,” you’re becoming annoyingly aware of the pout on your lips and try your best to correct it, whilst prying open the fridge door and fishing out a bottle of beer. “Gee if only it were still the 40s, then I could slap some mercury on my lips and hit the town with a man ready to buy me off my daddy for the cheap, cheap price of two goats!”

The frustration within you only rises as you struggle with the bottle’s cap, the skin of your hand pinching as you put all your force behind removing it. Since when are twist-tops so damn hard to twist off?

Bucky’s by the kettle, pouring boiling hot water into a mug he’s wrongfully claimed as his and looking irritatingly fine surrounded by steam — which has your mind trailing back to a few weeks ago: an early morning, exiting your bedroom to find your lodger stepping out the bathroom with nothing but a towel around his waist and the remnant dew of a steaming hot shower trailing down his very naked, very defined biceps, and pectorals, and- He’s not even trying to mask the amusement on his face as he indulges in your failure.

“Don’t you think you’re being a little ridiculous?” He asks and pries the bottle out of your hold, effortlessly ripping the cap off with a twist of his left hand. A familiar warmth curls between your legs, awakening a response from you that you’ve sworn, under no circumstances, will happen due to Bucky Barnes. You barely want to exchange air with him, nevermind bodily fluids. “There’s no way you’re worth two goats.”

“Every day I wake up and resist the urge to smother you in your sleep.”

Your vitriol is met with a smirk taking over his lips. Watching as he brings the beer up to his mouth, you catch yourself forgetting to blink as the soldier engages you both in a staring contest, all the while he’s tilting the bottle up to steal the first sip. He presses the cold glass back into your hand. You try not to focus on his tongue, peeking out to swipe over his bottom lip and clean up a remnant drop of beer.

In a move that puts you even more on edge, Bucky shuffles closer to you. Delirium floods your mind as the smell of smoke, and musk, and a just a twinge of sweat floods your nose, a smell so masculine it has you debating setting feminism and your own self-preservation back hundreds of years by nuzzling your face into the pulse point of his neck, like you’re some damn animal being exposed to pheromones. Meanwhile, he appears none the wiser to the negative effect he’s having on you, too busy reaching his arm behind you and into the fridge.

“Those boys you entertain, do they ever pay you any compliments?” His voice is so gentle, you almost wonder if that’s how it would sound whispering in your ear. Luckily, you don’t actually wonder about that. Not at all, not even a little. “Or is that your job too, like the bill?”

As quickly as he caged you in against the fridge, he moves away and leaves the cool air to rush over your skin, dragging your mind back into reality and away from whatever thoughts it keeps trying to tempt you with. You track his movements towards the island counter as he sets down a glass bowl, marked by condensation and filled with a batter of some sorts.

It's becoming more and more common to catch Bucky pottering around in the kitchen, a recipe on his phone screen and a personalised ‘Kiss the Baker’ apron — which Sam bought as a joke for his birthday — tied around his waist. He’ll never admit it, but a part of you believes baking helps him relax, to shut off whatever thoughts are floating around in that disturbingly pretty head of his and let him focus solely on measuring, mixing, and making delicious sugary treats. You can hardly complain when he’s gifting you the privilege of an at-home bakery. Fortunately, he gives you plenty of other reasons to complain. 

“Boys I entertain? Way to make me sound like a stripper,” you huff, sneaking over to dunk a finger into the batter as he turns to grab his coffee. “And I’ll have you know, they do pay me compliments.”

Licking your finger clean, you can’t fight the humm of approval that creeps up your throat nor the way your eyes slip shut as you savour the cold, tangy sweetness of the cake mix. Something warm presses against your left side as Bucky returns to the island, setting down his mug and a cake tin.

“Really? What kinda things do they say?” Just as you go to double dip, he smacks the top of your hand with a wooden spoon, and you nearly freeze at the contact. For a few short seconds, the factory in your mind goes into lockdown as every single one of your brain cells scramble to not conjure up the image of him smacking that utensil on a very different part of you. “Hands off. It’s a lemon cake, not a lemon and your-dirty-fingers cake.”

You silence your thoughts with a swig of beer before putting a safety distance between Bucky and you, unsure whether to be relieved at his obliviousness to the less than ideal affect he’s having on you, or offended by his complete lack of reaction to being so close to you while you’re all dressed up and waiting for another man to take you out.

Not that you want him to be affected by that, or you in general, though.

Your phone lights up with a text from an unsaved number: im hear, r yu coming down or shuld i com up? You shut it off and stuff it into your purse, deciding it's best to keep a man waiting anyway; he’ll appreciate your presence even more once you finally give him it.

Besides, you’ve yet to answer Bucky’s question.

“I’d tell you but I’m too sober to stomach you yelling ‘Heaven to Betsy!’ and giving me a lecture on your medieval dating ethics.”

You earn a genuine laugh, in which his knees bend a little and his head is thrown back, while his vibranium hand winds up splayed across his midriff. The sun is setting beyond the window, lingering shades of orange warmth frame a heavenly glow around Bucky, highlighting a slight curl in his hair and the piercing blue of his eyes. The view is uncomfortably pleasant, so you bring the bottle back to your lips and turn your head away, suddenly utterly fascinated with the eggshell colouring of the kitchen cupboards.

“I think there’s a leak under the sink,” the comment is absentminded, a meager attempt at steering your mind away from the man and his mixing bowl.

Bucky ignores it and drags you right back to the actual topic at hand.

“That’s funny,” there’s a shuffle of tin behind you. You glance back around to find him smoothing batter into the cake mold, wooden spoon clasped in metal fingers spreading the mix evenly. You’ve never noticed how good Bucky is at spreading things. “Cause I swear I remember Sam mentioning something about the last guy moaning his own name in your ear.”

Beer shoots to the back of your throat.

In a spurt of coughing, amidst the burning pain of the carbonated liquid dripping out your nose, you hurry over to the sink. Mouth dropped open in a dry heave, you lean into the basin and try to minimize the mess you make in search of a breath. Heat envelops you from behind and a pair of sock-clad feet come into view next to your maroon heels. You briefly register the cool brush of metal against the back of your neck as he tries to tidy back your hair and, while you appreciate the action, you can’t help note how completely unnecessary it is. Too distracted to care, your attention shoots straight to the weight of his flesh hand pressing into your lower back. Heavy, warm, large, it pollutes your mind with the knowledge of how it feels to have him soothe your skin — even if there is a layer of silk in the way.

The moment air returns to your lungs, you shoot up straight and ache to step away from him and his wandering-to-all-the-wrong-places hands. The battle against his touch is mute, not even one percent of his strength is put behind the way he grips your forearms and turns you to face him.

Bucky’s eyes scan over you, studying your features. You swallow back whatever feeling brings salivation to your mouth. His thumb reaches towards his own and you watch, transfixed, as a pink tongue darts out to greet it, licking a stripe over the pad of it. A splash of cake batter stains his ring finger. You swallow back more saliva; confusingly, your mouth feels drier than ever. Only when he delicately presses his thumb beneath your eye and swipes over your waterline do you realise you’re teary-eyed.

“See how clumsy you are?” There’s a chastising lilt to his voice that sends blood rushing to your face, and then immediately back down to the overwhelmingly empty space between your legs. “Can’t even swallow properly without ruining your mascara.”

You need distance.

You need to move.

You need to leave.

“He’s here!” The words are almost a gasp as you turn out of his hold. The weight of his gaze trails over your legs as you rush around the kitchen island, fishing your keys out of your purse and rambling out the nerves he’s summoned. “Okay, there’s some leftover pasta in the fridge if you’re hungry, and you’re welcome to the beers if you get thirsty. Big remote turns on the TV, the little one changes the channel. Behave and take care of the place while I’m away, okay?”

“Quit talking to me like I’m some kind of guard dog,” he complains as you pull open the front door and cross one foot over the threshold to safety.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” You cheer back, trailing the door behind you as you go. “I wasn’t aware you were going to start contributing rent, I’ll send you my bank details.”

With that, the apartment door slams shut and you head out for a date in which three things will happen: you’ll flirt, you’ll fuck, and you won’t think about your roommate.

Only one of those things ends up happening.

It’s not from lack of an offer that you wind up taking a cab back to your apartment. Your date had been nice… enough. He complimented your outfit, took a sufficient amount of interest in you, and he even bought you flowers — of course, he’d accidentally left them in his parent’s home. Where he lived. In the basement.

And the thing is, you’re not shallow. Time’s are tough, the economy sucks, and the world is still adjusting to the sudden return to half its population post-Blip. So you were more than game to play sneak-me-into-your-bed-without-waking-your-parents, but, as the pair of you waited on a taxi to arrive, his hand found your waist and your treacherous mind noticed something it shouldn’t.

Bucky’s hand was larger. And warmer. And more welcomed against your skin.

Sick to your stomach by your own thoughts, your night ended with you tip-toeing past the familiar figure sleeping on your couch — definitely not pausing to take in the sheer width of his naked shoulders dangling half-off the cushion — and crawling into bed alone, belly full of Thai and mind full of Winter.

When morning comes, the bedroom door creaks as you pry it open, a fist rubbing sleep out your eye and a yawn announcing your arrival.

“Did you eat my ice cream?” Bucky calls out from somewhere, voice muffled and full of accusation.

Despite barely finishing a glass of wine the night before, there’s a throbbing pain beginning in your temples and souring your already bitter mood.

“Wow, good morning to you too,” you stumble more than walk over to the kitchen, in search of the salvation of ice cold water.

That’s where you find him: laid out on his back, grey sweatpants clinging to bent knees, with everything from his shoulders up inside the open cabinet beneath the sink. His arms are inside too, tinkering away at something above his face.

“Good morning. Did you eat my ice cream?” If ever a thing such as a verbal eyeroll were to exist, Bucky would be doing it. From the lack of seeing his eyes, there’s every chance he is literally rolling them.

Your journey toward the fridge is interrupted by the troubling sight of a glass full of water, a plate hosting a slice of lemon sponge cake, and two miscellaneous white pills that anyone who suffers the unusually cruel punishment of a menstrual cycle is likely familiar with. A post-it note with your name written neatly across it sits next to the unexpected care package.

“So what if I did?” The painkillers go down effortlessly, though there’s a lingering chemical taste that has you gulping down an extra sip of water. “What are you doing, anyway?”

“I paid for it!” For all his outrage, he doesn’t care enough to poke his head out as he chastises you. “You said there was a leak, so I’m checking your pipes. I’m quite good with my hands, you know.”

Is he dense, or is he saying this shit on purpose? The double entendre in his words is glaring, yet you haven’t the confidence nor the will-power to address it, to poke the proverbial bear out of fear. Fear of him scolding your dirty mind, or fear of him doubling down on his suggestive wordplay, you’re not quite sure.

You choose to steer clear of the topic and, more importantly, the unexpected twinge in your chest in response to Bucky’s unrequested help.

“And I paid for the freezer you left it in, the electricity that kept it frozen, and the apartment you live in,” you don’t intend to sound so snappy, like a sulking child fighting against their own self-confessed crimes. “So I think you can spare me some goddamn ice cream.”

You’ve taken to joining Bucky on the floor, sitting across from him, cross-legged and back pressed against the cabinets that surround the kitchen island. In your lap lies the slice of cake, a mouthful already missing and melting its tangy sweetness onto your tongue. You almost moan, but it’s unclear whether the sugary treat just tastes that good or the visual of the soldier laid out on his back and tinkering away beneath your sink is just so stimulating.

If you mention the strange noise your car’s engine has been making recently, would he fix that too? You can already picture him slicked in sweat and oil, hands on his hips as he stands over the opened hood and assesses whatever the damage is. You’d have to watch over the whole thing, of course — not out of your own self-interest but on the off chance something goes wrong and Bucky needs help taking off his oil-stained shirt, or pants, or-

“Your date was that good, huh?” You almost jump out of your skin when he speaks.

“He bragged to me about how he and his college roommates used to play pool,” the pause in your sentences seems to capture Bucky’s attention, coaxing him out from beneath the sink. “Using a shotgun instead of cues.”

As he sits up, elbows finding rest upon his knees, you can’t help but note the five-o’clock shadow he’s sporting. For reasons that have nothing to do with the fraying seams of your sanity, you need him to shave.

To Bucky’s credit, he doesn’t laugh. Yes, his lips glitch somewhere between a cheeky grin and a serious frown, but he does not outright laugh like you expect him to. Instead, he nods down at the half-eaten cake and tilts his head — an unspoken question, is it good?, that only weakens his argument about not being a guard-dog. Between the puppy-dog blue eyes and the yearning for approval, you half expect him to sprout a tail and start panting.

Scratch that last thought, actually. Bucky and panting should not coexist in a sentence together, nevermind in your imagination.

“Mind feeding me a bite?” Yes, actually, you would mind, but one glance at his fingertips stained in whatever-the-hell is going on with your sink leaves you no choice but to tear off a corner.

Bringing the piece of cake to meet his awaiting mouth, you brace yourself for the tentative scrape of teeth stealing it out of your hold. The delicate brush of his lips enveloping your fingers throws you off your axis, and the challenge in his eyes as they hold contact with your own has your thighs involuntarily squeezing themselves together.

For a moment, you swear you catch him glance down at your lips.

Then you remember the health insurance your job provides does not cover the cost of being institutionalised, so you stop hallucinating and come back to reality where Bucky Barnes is not so much a flirt as he is a pest, a stray animal abandoned at your doorstep by a friend who decided to take advantage of your good-natured heart.

“Can you give me the exact phrasing your date used to describe this shotgun-pool?” The soldier is gone in the blink of an eye, flat on his back again and continuing his attempt to seal the leak.

“Why?”

“I’m making this list,” he says, and he must shift his hands higher above his head because suddenly the soft cotton of his white shirt has ridden up his torso, presenting your eyes with a golden platter of sun-warmed skin. “I’m calling it ‘the manchild files’.”

“That’s not even funny,” neither is the way he inches deeper into the cabinet, exposing not only the glaringly white tan-line delineating where the band of his boxers should be resting but also the beginning dark curls of a happy trail. 

“Well ‘the stupid files’ sounds so simple, I was worried you’d try to jump into bed with it.”

“Are you seriously about to slut-shame me in my own fucking kitchen?” Whilst slutting yourself out on my floor like your name is Mike and you’re about to show me some magic? is the quiet part you don’t say aloud.

“I’m critical but I’m not hypocritical,” there he does again with that verbal eye-roll. “I wasn’t exactly the image of celibacy when I was your age-”

“Yay, more grandpa lore!” Your interruption earns you a nudge from his leg, but you know it made him laugh because his shoulders gently shake.

“I’m not slut-shaming you, I’m taste-shaming. I swear, being useless must be the precursor to having a chance with you.”

“It is not!” You gasp, yet you’re hardly surprised — Bucky’s not exactly subtle in his disapproval of the men you date.

If there is anything to be thankful for, it’s the alleviation that comes with Bucky shimmying out from the sink again, happy trail redressed and a hand diving into the pocket of his sweatpants. With a dramatic clearing of his throat, he brings his phone up to his face and starts reciting.

“After being told you have a nut allergy, Carter B. said Wait, like, you’re allergic to cum?” You’d always known showing him how to use the notes app would come back to bite you in the ass somehow. “Tommy L. walked into a lampost because he got distracted… watching a squirrel run up a tree. You almost got stood up by Steve K. because he accidentally locked himself inside his own car. Lee B. asked you-”

“Bucky B. is about to lose his other arm if he doesn’t shut up.”

“I rest my case,” and he still has the nerve to open his mouth, awaiting another bite of cake.

You cave with no fight and give it to him.

Because you’re a nice person, not because you want to feel his mouth on you again.

Something cool drips onto the bottom of your naked thighs after Bucky reaches over you and grabs at the glass of water, stealing an obnoxiously large gulp; or is it just exaggerated by your stare zeroing in on the way his Adam’s apple bobs as he drinks?

A thought pops into your mind.

“Did you leave these on the counter because you expected me to be hungover?” Your tone is inoffensive, and unoffended, a simple curiosity you need answered.

“You have a headache, right?”

“Uh-huh,” your eyes narrow skeptically.

“Yeah, I figured you would,” Bucky takes another sip, more condensation trickling down onto your legs. “You always have one after eating Thai food.”

Something inside of you stops.

Your heart, or your lungs, or your mind. Your goddamn liver, for all you know.

This is not supposed to be happening. Bucky is not supposed to fix things just because you mentioned it, once in passing and as a scapegoat from focusing too much on him. And he certainly isn’t supposed to notice things, useless little factoids that not even you know about yourself until he brings them to light. Hell, he’s not even supposed to still be here, sleeping on your couch and criticising your love life.

When the thing inside of you clicks back into place and starts again, a new weight rests atop your conscience.

Maybe it’s not so bad having a roommate, having Bucky be that roommate. Maybe you’re starting to get used to coming home to the smell of baked vanilla and the signature grouchy look he wears as he asks you about your day, about how your co-worker pissed you off, about why you’re home later than usual and not wearing a jacket out in the cold of winter.

“By the way,” he’s calling out from beneath the sink again. “You’ll be happy to know I’m touring an apartment next week.”

“Oh.” The bite you just took turns sour in your mouth. You struggle to swallow it down. “That’s great. Finally! You’re going, and I’m staying here, and I’ll have my apartment back to myself. That’s… Great. It’s great!”

No, really, it’s great.

“You’re joking,” a palm on your lower back guides you to the right, just in time to avoid being trampled beneath a cart.

“I wish,” you say, and saunter over to some colourful packaging that’s captured your eye.

After a moment of inspecting the product in hand from every angle, you put it back on the shelf.

“Let me get this straight,” Bucky pushes the cart along behind you, grabbing that same colourful packaging and dropping it in with the rest of the groceries. “You lean through his window, kiss him goodbye on the cheek and then he just… What, crashed his car?”

“Into a wall with street art of a cliff painted on it,” as you add the most important detail, laughter is already bubbling up your throat. “He literally crashed his car into a cliff without even getting to switch out of first gear!”

The pair of you make up quite the sight.

An entire morning of tiptoeing through the limbo of delirium, after an entire night spent trying to block out the relentless banging from the upstairs neighbours. The door to your bedroom crawled open some time past four and there was Bucky, head poking through the space and looking rather pleased to find you wide awake — despite his claims of just wanting to make sure you were asleep.

Seated on opposite ends of the couch, both of you found a quiet solace in the other’s inability to sleep. While a movie marathon played over the TV, the sex marathon above continued. When exhaustion took claim of your body, you drifted off with your arms resting on the armchair and your head resting on your arms. You awoke atop a pillow and beneath a blanket, legs stretched out over the couch and Bucky curled up on the floor by your feet — like any good guard dog would be.

After a botched attempt to sneak past the soldier, only to have him scare the living daylights out of you by grabbing your ankle as you tried to step over him, you both came to the shocking realisation that the fridge was void of any food.

Which brings you to here: standing in aisle 7, laughing an ache into your ribs over yet another one of your failed dates, with a half-filled cart and matching bags forming under your tired eyes.

“I think it’s time we had an intervention about where you’re finding these men,” Bucky says that last word like it's covered in poison, burning his tongue on the way out.

“They find me!” You say, as he reaches for the box of strawberries you just put down. “As generous as I am, do you want to maybe slow down on how much shit you load into our cart?”

His hand freezes, the box of red fruit clasped in a confusingly delicate grip of vibranium fingers

“You picked it up,” his tone is riddled with confusion. “Don’t you want them?”

“Contrary to popular belief, I’m not made of money.”

“Okay?” He replies, like it’s the most irrelevant piece of information you’ve ever given him — and you once spent an hour ranting to him about the inefficiency of the ink cartridges in your office’s printer. “I’m paying, so do you want it or not?”

“Since when do you have money? Did your pension finally come through? I mean… You are old enough. Also, aren’t you literally a vet?”

 “You managed to say all that in one breath, yet you failed to answer a yes or no question.”

A bubble of silence surrounds you both. Bucky blinks, slowly, exaggeratedly. It’s the perfect opportunity to stare at his face and notice the five o'clock shadow has grown. A gruff ‘excuse me’, followed by a man shoving between you both to grab some strawberries, pops the bubble.

Without a word, you snatch the box and place it in the cart.

Half-way up the fruit aisle, Bucky gets the genius idea to open his mouth again: “You wanna know what my theory is?”

“Nope,” you say, popping the p and glancing back at him over your shoulder. “But you’re going to tell me anyway.”

He looks vexingly domestic like this, wearing a sweater and pushing your shopping around. Thoughts betray you, wandering off into dangerous territory as they begin to question how others perceive you from the outside.

What do strangers see: two roommates that quarrel like it’s a biological need, or a couple doing their weekly shop? Two strangers forced together by a circumstance named Sam Wilson, or two lovers unwilling to voice that the metal container between them is too much distance?

“I think you date idiots because they’re idiots.”

“Gee whiz, grandpa, that’s so insightful. I sure do hope I’m as wise as you when I’m your age, but I’ll probably just be dead.” You feel the cart meet your back in a gentle bump, a non-verbal warning to cut the teasing.

“Dating those incompetent men, it’s like…” he pauses, searching for the right words, and plucks a bunch of bananas from your hand, dropping them in with your mounting pile of fruit. “Jumping out of a plane! You get the thrill of falling but, the moment something a little too real and solid appears on the horizon, you pull out the parachute and, that’s it, you’re safe. No danger of falling flat on your face and getting your feelings hurt.”

“I don’t know when you last jumped out of a plane-”

“Remember that Karli situation a few months ago?”

“But not ejecting your parachute leads to a little more than just falling flat on your face.”

“So my metaphor isn't perfect,” Bucky trails off, eyes staring past you and mind lost in thought. You follow his line of sight and find a couple at the end of the aisle, hands intertwined and smiling at each other like they’re the only two people in the world. An unnamed emotion tugs at the soldier’s lips, but he won’t let it take over his stoic features. “But you get my point. If you were actually looking for something serious, you’d date someone better than those men.”

Unprompted and unwarranted, his words spear your heart.

Memories replay in your head, a kaleidoscope of the featureless faces you let take you out, dine you, wine you, kiss you. A handful of immeasurables: how many times you’ve brushed off mispronounced versions of your name, how many excuses you’ve made for the way they talk to you, how many times you’ve lowered your own standards to help a man feel desired. In your wake lies a graveyard of failed relationships, with no proper funeral nor mourning.

You swallow back the lump in your throat.

“Okay, psychoanalysing me aside, what’s left on the list?” You ask, making your way round to Bucky’s side of the cart.

“Well, I still need to write down Jeff G.’s cliff accident.”

“The other list.” You watch as he struggles to fish out the scrap of paper from his pocket.

“Eggs, pasta, feta, toilet roll,” his brows are furled, his eyes are glaring, and with each item he lists off, his words grow more unsure. “Grapefruit? Your handwriting is shit.”

“I was in a rush!”

“And sitting on a jack-hammer?”

“Gimme that,” you snatch the list, he yields it with no protest. As you scan over the scribbled ink, a frustrating truth comes to light. Bucky’s right, your handwriting is shit. “Is grapefruit even in season?”

“Huh,” it’s the sound of hollow amusement.

“What?”

“Just…” His presence looms over you, infecting your senses with the woodsy smell of his cologne and the arduous heat that radiates off of him. When he nods his head to the right, scoffing out a laugh and poking his tongue into his cheek, you find yourself wrestling between temptations of slapping him or pulling him closer. “You really don’t notice what’s right in front of you, do you?”

Lo and behold, on the right side of the aisle, grapefruits.

You make it through the rest of the shopping list in relative silence, with the occasional side-comment from the super soldier that either rouses a grin onto your lips or has your eyes rolling in faux disagreement. Little by little, you peruse the aisles and fill the cart; and, when Bucky picks out the only ice cream flavour void of nuts, you bite your tongue and choose to say nothing.

“I forgot to ask,” you finally speak, standing in the self-checkout zone and struggling to find something to do with your fidgety hands as Bucky scans each item — you insisted on helping and he insisted he’d get it done quicker alone. “How did the apartment viewing go?”

“Oh. Fine,” you grimace as he says your least favourite f word. “The current lease isn’t up yet, so you’re stuck with me a little longer.”

Are you supposed to feel this relieved?

In theory, you were never supposed to feel anything in regards to Bucky Barnes. In practice, it’s a lot more complicated, a pendulum that seems to swing in constant motion between red hot aggravation and red hot something else you refuse to give a name.

All you know is there are times where you wonder if his back is okay sleeping on the couch, and you contemplate asking him to come meet you during your lunch breaks, and you crave to have the anxious shake in your leg quelled by his daily check-in calls whenever he and Sam go off on another misadventure. Whatever reason lies behind your behaviour, the familiarity of ignorant bliss tempts you away from seeking the answer.

Besides, Bucky will be leaving soon. He’ll no longer be your roommate and you’ll both fall out of whatever routine convenience has forced upon you both.

A series of beeps capture your attention.

At the epicentre of the noise stands an elderly woman, grey hair pristinely curled and an outfit that screams Sunday-bests, struggling with the check-out machine. With no employee in sight and no do-gooder fellow customer stepping out of their way to help, the woman’s distress grows with each beep the machine makes at her.

Knuckles brush down your arm, and there’s Bucky at your side, waiting for you to pay him any mind.

“You mind handling the rest?” He asks, in that softly-spoken tone of his that would make anyone feel like swooning. Maybe that’s why it takes you a few moments to notice the wallet he’s holding out to you. “Cash is in the back pocket. I’ll be a few minutes, okay? Just finish bagging everything, leave the carrying to me.”

There’s no time to get a single word out before you’re staring at the back of his head and watching as he makes his way over to the elderly woman.

For every item you scan, you sneak a glance. The butter beeps onto the screen, and you peek how Bucky has effortlessly become the woman’s personal helper. You pass the strawberries through and reward yourself with the sight of Bucky’s cheeky grin — with the way the elderly lady laughs and swats at his arm, you can only assume he’s made some flirtatious comment. Clicking on the option to pay cash, you nearly give yourself whiplash as you turn to watch them again, Bucky’s just about finishing bagging her groceries while the woman opens her shopping-trolley bag.

Waiting on the receipt to print, your reflection stares back at you on the self-checkout screen: a hue of endearment glowing off your features. The smile quickly melts off your face when you realise that he… Oh no.

Bucky is charming.

Part of you has always known he was handsome — you’re stubborn, not blind — yet the sight of him now, all dashing smiles and twinkling eyes playing rescuer to a woman who, despite the difference in their physical ageing, is closer to his own age than you, it troubles you. The acid burn in your throat is not a manifestation of jealousy, no; it’s the queasy feeling of knowing you’ve never looked across at a date, caught him in a moment of content, and felt the unyielding desire to be the reason behind it.

Someone clears their throat beside you, a man with a wrinkle in his forehead and an agitated look upon his face, so you quickly excuse yourself and, with plastic handles digging into your fingers, you approach Bucky and the elderly lady.

Upon noticing you, Bucky’s quick to tug the bags out your grip, a scolding already falling off his tongue: “I told you to leave these to me.”

“Yeah, well, Mr. Frowny-Magoo over there didn’t appreciate me hogging up the cashier,” the comment is meant as nothing more than a lighthearted joke, yet you swear you see something shift in the soldier’s stance, his shoulders tensing and his jaw clenching as he glances back at the stranger.

Fortunately, the elderly woman interrupts whatever he’s contemplating doing to him.

“Она твоя жена?(Is she your wife?)” She’s looking between you both expectantly, speaking words you don’t understand. “У нее лицо ангела. (She has the face of an angel.)”

Whatever she says, it clearly has an effect on Bucky. His head turns to the side, to you, and a visible softness overcomes his gaze as it traces over your face. His shoulders are relaxing, his jaw is unclenching, and he’s switching the bags over to his metal hand, renewing his grip and freeing up the hand that now hangs right by yours, knuckles gracing over your own in a way that feels like a dare, a challenge, a temptation to lace your fingers together.

You clench your fist shut.

“Я знаю. (I know.)” He says, eyes lingering on you a few moments longer than necessary, before he’s back to smiling at the elderly woman.

Halfway home and doubling your pace to keep up with his effortless stroll, curiosity finally gets the better of you.

“What did she say back there, that lady you helped?”

A stranger rushes past you both, phone glued to their ear and stressing down the speaker. Bucky takes grip of your arm and tugs you closer to him.

“Do you spend your time getting bumped into when I’m not around?” His fingers give your arm a squeeze before releasing you. “And, if you must know, she said I was the most handsome man she’s ever seen.”

Little force is put behind the shove you give his shoulder.

You’re too busy agonising over how much you agree with her.

Bucky leaves.

Not forever, but three weeks away on some stealth mission with Sam sure begins to feel like it.

It happens on a Friday. After the week from hell at work, a friend’s mid-week engagement party, and the unexpected downpour of rain during the journey home, you walk into an unlit apartment and a note stuck to the fridge.

Sam needs me. Be safe, don’t bring strangers home. B. 

The batch of freshly baked cinnamon rolls sweeten your night up, at least.

There’s a quiet that always seems to blanket the house whenever you lose Bucky to missions.

Before he was dumped on your front door, you’d been used to living alone and the peaceful silence that came with it. Independence, the ability to need no one and want nothing, a trait of yours that once brought pride, now brings you nothing but the static sound of a muted television and the hum of the microwave spinning a meal fit for one.

Mornings become a ritual of waking later yet leaving earlier, no one is there to distract you from drinking your coffee. Though the workload is the same, somehow the slow drag of hours still finds a way to pass quicker than ever, the revolving doors of the office building spit you back out onto the streets of New York before you’re fully ready. Your evenings waste away, starved of noise and company, while you run out of shows to watch and books to read, and count the hours down until all that silence becomes necessary for your eyes to close and your mind to rest.

It’s when darkness rules over the sky and the hour is a single digit that the phone finally rings. A blocked number, untraceable, pulling you out the hands of sleep and filling your room with the noise of your ringtone. He never speaks first, not until there’s an echo down the line of your own sleep stained ‘hello?’.

“You can go back to sleep now.”

You never stay on the line long enough to find out how quickly he hangs up after he speaks. Because it’s only ever meant to be a way to let you know he’s safe, alive, somewhere out there doing who-knows-what and stopping who-knows-who. It’s just an unrequested favour he’s granted you, after the incident in which both he and Sam fell-off the grid for five days and you were nearly rounding up a search party. He’s not missed a call since, once a day while he’s away.

So, when he doesn’t call, it’s only natural that you worry.

The alarm bell rings when you wake up to birds chirping, sun spilling through the crack between the curtains, and not a single missed call nor voicemail awaiting you.

It’s Saturday and there’s no work to occupy your mind, so you force down a bagel, toss a tote bag onto your shoulder, and head out to the local market. But there’s no joy in perusing fruit stands without a six foot soldier trailing your heels and muttering to himself about how exotic fruit has gotten, and how ‘back in my day you had your apples, your oranges, and your pears.’

You wind up home by noon, and the dwelling begins to grow, still no call.

There’s a weight on your chest, and a balloon of anxiety that grows in your throat, and an unwarranted agitation burning at your skin as you read over his note again, still very much stuck to the fridge and taunting you — Be safe, says a man who clearly can’t take his own advice. 

Then, why should you?

You agree to go on a date, one you’ve been dancing around agreeing to for a few weeks yet reach for it the moment you decide you’re not pleased with the way Bucky’s lack of a call is ruining your well-earned free time.

And, hey, the guy’s not a complete loser this time. On paper, at least. He’s handsome, tall, and an athlete — ex-athlete, really, but you don’t bother to point that out while he talks about the gymnastic studio he runs. Most importantly, he’s eager to call a cab and get you home, screw Bucky’s warning. If you want to bring a stranger into your home, you’ll do it. 

Brooding, uncalling soldier be damned!

After stumbling through the dark of your apartment into your bedroom, and fumbling with your bra long enough for you to grow tired and just take it off yourself, you and Mister Gymnast tumble into the sheets for a performance so lacklustre, it warrants taking all his medals away. At least your date seems to enjoy himself, spilling onto your stomach and falling asleep the minute his head hits the pillows.

“I finished,” last you checked, he hadn't even started.

You lie awake, staring at the ceiling, and try to will the phone to ring. Encased by a stranger’s snoring and a guilty feeling, you let Lady Sleep whisk you away. When your eyes open next, morning has broken and you’re alone in bed with a remnant trace of warmth on the sheets. But the silence is finally gone.

Beyond your door you hear the faint thud of footsteps, the ding of the fridge being opened, the whistle of the kettle. You almost trip in your rush to get dressed, and nearly rip the hinges off the door as you tear it open. Then the smile falls from your face.

“You’re up!” Everyone’s favourite gymnast is there to greet you, a mug in hand as he goes to pull you in for a kiss. The way you swerve is automatic, unplanned, leaving his lips to land on your cheek. “Uhh, I was hoping you’d sleep a little longer, I wanted to bring you breakfast in bed but-”

“He couldn’t figure out how to boil the kettle.”

And there’s Bucky, leaning back against the kitchen counter with his arms crossed over his chest and a smug look on his face. Aside from the butterfly stitches above his left brow, he looks unharmed. Fine, even. Dressed in all black, with a t-shirt that’s hugging his frame a little too tightly for your liking, the double-combo of his dog-tags and vibranium arm on display. Perfectly safe for a man who couldn’t call.

Your date laughs and sheepishly scratches the back of his head before you get the chance to speak.

“Your brother was kind enough to help me.” It’s unclear who laughs first: Bucky or you. “What’s so funny?”

“Oh, nothing, nothing, just…” Bucky says, shaking the laughter away with a nod of his head. “In what world do me and her look related?”

“Wait, if you’re not her brother then, are you-” Fifty shades of horror spill over the gymnast’s face, his head darting between looking over at Bucky and back at you. “Holy shit, is he your boyfriend?”

“Husband, actually,” the soldier’s all too quick-witted, pushing off the counter and reaching for a mug of brewing coffee. “But don’t worry, we’re open. What do you think of our kitchen lights, by the way? My wife here likes them dim.”

Dumb as he is, your date tilts his head up to inspect the light fixtures.

“Oh, they’re nice!”

That does it for you.

“Bucky, shut up!” You snap, finger pointed over at the menace who’s biting back a smirk and stirring away at his mug, face as innocent as sin. Is this some twisted version of revenge, a punishment for bringing a stranger home? You’d prefer the punishment to be a little more… hands on. Preferably in the form of your slapping that twinkle out of his eyes. “He is not my boyfriend, or my husband. He is the bum that lives on my couch.”

“You see how she treats me, Vince?”

“It’s Lance,” the gymna- Lance corrects him.

Moving towards the kitchen, your eyes check over your roommate once more, as though they expect some previously unseen injury to make an appearance on his skin. Come the end of your search, you’re left looking into a face that is sporting a split brow and a cruel level of entertainment from the situation at hand.

There’s a relief to having him back, and it’s wrestling with the exasperating emotions a single missed call conjured up.

“What are you doing here, anyway? Aren’t you and Sam still meant to be… I don’t know, on a homoerotic getaway, fighting crime?” The questions fire out of you as you slip into one of the island’s stools.

“We finished early,” Bucky appears by your side as though from thin air, hand clasping the back of your seat and pushing you in closer to the counter top.

“Aww, don’t worry, big boy, it happens to the best of you,” you tease, an empathetic pat against his shoulder.

The mockery backfires when you notice his brows shoot up and his stare shifts towards your date, who’s too busy trying to open the sugar jar to notice the dig at his own sexual inabilities.

Wait, when exactly did Bucky get home?

“How do you take your coffee?” One-Thrust-Lance asks you over his shoulder.

Before you can answer, a cup is nudged into your grasp and Bucky looks over you with triumph, metal fingers reaching out to drag over a plate of freshly-baked cookies. The smell of warm vanilla pairs well with the soft musk of his cologne, your eyes nearly roll back inhaling it.

“Mmm,” one sip of your coffee is all you need to know it’s perfect, made exactly to your taste. “Coffee and baked goods… I knew I kept you around for a reason.”

In lieu of any verbal response, the soldier takes to dunking one of the cookies into your mug before stealing a bite out of it. You watch as he chews on the sweet treat, head nodding in approval at his own skills. After he dips a second time, you expect him to take another bite, only to find him offering the chocolate chip goodness up to your mouth. Two eyes, blue as any winter, stare encouragingly while you sink your teeth into the cookie.

Heaven couldn’t taste any sweeter, you think, as the perfect blend of coffee stained dough and the sharpness of the dark chips flood your tastebuds. 

“So messy,” Bucky tuts quietly, his right hand grabbing a steady hold of your chin while his thumb swipes away the crumbs dusting the corner of your mouth.

That thing inside of you stops again as you watch him bring his hand up to his own mouth, a pink tongue poking out to lick his thumb clean.

Arousal thrums through your blood, a pulsing rhythm that spreads straight to your clit. A squeeze of your thighs brings momentary reprieve, yet the ache fights back with renewed force, drying up your throat and knocking the sense right out of you.

Squirming where you sit, your legs switch position until one foot finds itself tucked beneath the opposite thigh, the heel of it sitting perfectly against your clothed core. You find no mercy, no chance to roll your hips forward in search of the balm only friction will bring to your burning skin. Instead there’s simply Bucky, eyes trailing down the length of you and settling on your short-clad legs. As though his behaviour is not cruel enough, he wets his bottom lip with his tongue

“You like that?” More than you’ll ever know, you almost scream until the logical side of your brain takes the wheel again and you notice him pointing down at the half-eaten cookie. Of course he’s enquiring about his baking skills, what else would this scrambled-egg-for-brains senior citizen be talking about? “Are you gonna make me wait all day for an answer?”

Something smashes behind Bucky, just in time to startle away the racy thoughts from your mind.

“My bad!” Your date — who you damn near forgot was even here — is apologising, bending at the waist and trying his best to collect the fractured pieces of a mug off the floor. “Where do you guys keep your dustpan?” 

Bucky pushes away from the island counter, taking the smell of his cologne with him; if you weren’t fully back to your rational senses, you’d miss it.

“I’ll get it, Vince, you just stand there and look pretty.”

“Okay!” Lance, it seems, is just as eager to please the ex-assassin as you almost were a moment ago.

You decide you need to move, to stand up, to stretch your legs. This has nothing to do with the lingering effect of Bucky’s antics, nor the damp patch gathering against your panties.

Slipping off the kitchen stool, you work on chugging down gulps of coffee with every intention of dumping the empty mug into the sink, dashing to your bedroom, and conjuring up the best plan you can come up with to get not only yourself, but also the trash you brought in with you last night out of the apartment and away from an infuriating roommate.

Something on the floor derails you, however, dragging you away from the path to sanctuary. The tiniest red petal, lonesome and neglected upon the cold tile. Three steps over, and there’s another petal. One step until the next petal. You follow the breadcrumb trail all the way over to the garbage can where, with one gentle push of a button, the lid opens up to reveal the unexpected, thrown away like a dirty secret.

A crumpled bouquet of roses.

Everywhere you turn, there’s tension.

In your neck, from sleeping at an unfavourable angle. Within your stomach, where a queasy feeling keeps threatening to spew your guts out onto the bathroom floor. Between you and Bucky, a foreign energy that’s grown over the course of this last week, during which you’ve been avoiding eye contact and his stare is full of accusation.

Retracing your steps, they take you back to the moment Lance left the apartment and you found yourself drowning in Bucky’s company for the first time in weeks. He was barely half-way through poking fun at the choices you made in his absence — most of his focus being on the blubbering fool you brought into your bed — when your patience ran thin and snapped.

Now here you are, bearing the consequence of your own short temper, wiping lipstick off your teeth whilst mentally preparing yourself to go on a second date, planned sheerly out of spite and the need to prove a point.

Poor Lance is none the wiser to his role as pawn in your game of ‘Screw You, Barnes!’.

“Everything okay in there?” Think of the devil and he shall knock on the bathroom door, apparently. “Thought you had your big date at seven.”

The gymnast’s text thread stares back at you, a wall of grey bubbles. You have to swallow down the lump in your throat to speak, “He’s not answering my calls.”

“You’ve been stood up? By that loser?” There’s every chance your storm of emotions is impeding you from thinking straight, but you swear you almost hear a hint of disbelief in Bucky’s voice. Disgust, even.

There’s no point dwelling on the thought.

After a quick wash of your hands, you pry the door open and watch as the soldier leaning against it nearly topples forward before catching himself against the frame. He’s entirely too close for comfort, close enough for you to notice the different shades of blue in his eyes.

“Maybe he broke his phone?” The lack of assurance in your voice has you cringing, the fear of being called out suddenly doubling.

Bucky scoffs, arms crossing over his chest.

“More likely he forgot to charge it.”

Is that what happened to him? Is that why he left you to dwell in the dark over his whereabouts and wellbeing, rendering the usual distraction of a night-time companion useless? Only for you to find him the following morning, right as rain and as annoying as ever, standing in the kitchen and casting judgement-filled glances at your overnight guest?

Thinking about it, about him, brings on an onslaught of anger you’re not willing to address. Not right now.

“Shut up!” It comes across as less independent girlboss and more petulant child, but you’re too busy noticing how firm his chest feels under your palms as you push past him out of the bathroom to care.

Prying open the freezer, you hear the soft click of the toilet door closing. Good, you think, he’s gone away. Out of sight, out of mind. Even if it is only for the short time it takes him to do his business.

That time ends up being even shorter than expected, for only minutes after you’ve dug your spoon into the creamy, frozen goodness of vanilla fudge, the object of both your fascination and your torture is making his way towards the kitchen.

“Didn’t I tell you to stop eating my ice cream?”

“Didn’t I tell you to move out?” Mouth full of vanilla, you shoot him a toothy grin and relish in the grimace it earns you.

Satisfaction melts away when Bucky invades your personal space, metal arm reaching over head and pulling open a cupboard.

“Don’t do that,” you swat at the vibranium bicep, a futile fight that simply makes you all too aware of how smooth it feels beneath your fingertips.

“Do what?” Brain of a caveman, Bucky continues his rustling through the cabinet behind you, features as stoic as a rock as though he’s none the wiser to how your chests brush against one another with each exhale.

“That,” another swat at his arm, though this time he yields. The space between you doesn’t grow, however. It worsens, his attention fully falling onto you now. “Reaching over me like you can’t just ask me to move.”

“Fine, if it really bothers you that much,” are the last words you hear before you’re airborne, two hands squeezing at your hips and moving you two steps over and out of the way.

The soldier doesn’t struggle, not even for a moment, the serum that’s altered his DNA leaving him primed and ready to manoeuvre the most steadfast of objects. Manhandle them, too. Pick them up, turn them over, pin them down, make them scream… Objects, of course, or those big, bad guys he and Sam are always chasing after.

The anger in you is renewed, burning brighter than a star ready to die. You shove his hands off of you and secure another step of distance between you.

“Well aren’t you a ray of sunshine today.” With the rate he’s going at, one would think the soldier makes a living out of deepening the frown on your face. “Is this princess’ first time being stood up?”

You’d slap him, right here and now, if it didn’t mean moving closer and touching his skin; the current top two of your ‘Things To Not Do’ list.

Luckily, the tub of ice cream sits just within reach and your eager fingers take grip of it, sliding it over the counter towards yourself. A mouthful of coolness precedes the burning question on your tongue, “Why didn’t you call?”

“Are you serious?” Now he’s the one scowling and taking a step closer.

“Deadly,” you dig the spoon back into the carton. “Now answer the question.”

“You’re pissy with me for not calling, meanwhile I’m the one who came home to some asshole in your bed?”

He’s moving closer. You try to step backwards.

“Yeah, well, if you’d called like you were supposed to, I wouldn’t have ended up with said asshole.”

Bucky’s eyes narrow, “Oh, so now it’s my fault that you date degenerates?”

The cackle that escapes you could break the soundbarrier.

“Wow! Everybody, give it up for another original dig at my love-life from James Buchanan Barnes!” Voice dripping with seven layers of venomous sarcasm, you give three slow claps of your hands. The cynical smile that overcomes your face feels borderline deranged, something plucked right out of a horror movie. “Okay, yeah, I date losers! Happy? Jesus Christ, Bucky, what do you expect me to do? It’s not exactly like there’s anyone else lining up to date me.”

“I am!” His voice is raised, his eyes are wide, his chest is heaving. “Maybe I’m the biggest idiot, rushing home last week to surprise you. Even brought you flowers.  I just… Fuck!”

You don’t move, don’t blink, don’t breathe.

Bucky runs a hand through his hair, knuckles going white as he pulls on the tresses.

There it is again in his eyes, the accusation.

Even though he’s shaking his head, he steps closer.

The kitchen counter is right behind you, there’s nowhere for you to run.

The heels on your feet almost give out beneath you, you try to steady yourself with your hands.

Bucky has other plans and grips both your forearms.

“I am,” he repeats, softer. Slower. The icy exterior of accusation melts away to reveal vulnerability.

A hand meets your cheek and holds you like you are glass, breakable beneath his touch. Your heart’s in your throat, and there’s a current of electricity running down to your toes, and that neglected hunger in your loins creeps in again. His eyes search your face, while his thumb gently swipes over your bottom lip, prying it out an involuntary capture from your teeth.

It’s unclear who reaches for who first, whether he dips and takes possession of your mouth, or you grab him by the collar of his shirt and lay your claim over him. In a matter of seconds, a tentative press of lips against lips divulges into loss of breath, tongues in mouths, and fevered kisses.

The soldier kisses with starvation, like he has walked through the desert of loneliness and at last stumbled upon an oasis, like a bee seeking every last drop of nectar from a flower dying off with the spring, like a body clings to sleep in the throes of exhaustion. It’s a necessity, a human need, a matter of survival to keep your lips interlocked.

The hand on your face holds you steady as he tilts himself deeper into the kiss. Noses brush against the swells of cheeks, eyelids rest close, feet shuffle closer in search of eradicating the crevice of distance between you two. Metal fingers curl around the nape of your neck, a gesture you reciprocate while your spare hand lays flat-palmed against his beating chest. One of his legs winds up between yours and, as he shifts weight from one foot to another, there’s the faintest relief of friction against your cunt and a whine gets caught between your throat and Bucky’s eager mouth.

Despite how you chase his lips, he pulls back and grants you the sight of pure endearment.

“Look at you, whining already. Where’s all that fire gone?” It’s practically a whisper, spoken with fascination. “Or were you just needing Old Bucky to touch you, huh?”

Second-hand embarrassment burns the tips of your ears, while your own unspoken agreement to his question has your stomach twisting up. Survival instincts, that have never been much of a friend, scream at you to flee this feeling, to throw away Pandora’s box before you risk fully opening it and having it consume you.

Bucky intercepts your attempt to push out of his arms.

“Ah, ah, get back here. Not done kissing you,” his words divulge into a barely coherent mumble as he reconnects your lips.

Beneath the heat of his kiss, the discomfort in your chest turns to ashes. Because, while instinct tells you to run from danger, this is Bucky.

Bucky who fixes cupboard hinges, and sleeps with both eyes on the door. Bucky who carries all the shopping, and holds every door. Bucky who calls to hear your voice while he’s away endangering his life, and brings home the silliest trinkets he finds on missions. Bucky who wakes you when you miss your alarm, and knows if you’ve had a bad day simply from looking at your face.

How could you possibly be in danger when it comes to him?

While you’re overcome with epiphany, he’s taken to tracing his lips over the slope of your jaw and mouthing at the skin of your neck. It’s when he lifts you up onto the kitchen counter that your wandering mind is reeled back in, to the physical present where your legs rest on either side of the soldier and the prized possession of vanilla fudge once again sits within reaching distance.

“Are you stealing my ice cream right now?” His lips tickle your collarbone as he speaks, barely  a moment after you’ve scooped the spoon into your mouth.

“I’m warm, and it's melting,” his head pops up just in time to accept the spoonful of vanilla you deliver. There’s a glow in his eyes, one that has you questioning if it's been there all along or if it's a consequence of touching your skin. “Don’t want it to go to waste.”

His mouth is on yours again, a rush of three chaste kisses seared against you before he replies, “Then let’s cool you down.”

At a teasingly slow pace, you feel his fingers tug down your dress’ straps, leaving the silky fabric to slip down your frame and pool around your hips. Under the golden hue of the kitchen lights, his gaze studies your bare skin like it's a work of art, an eighth wonder of the world, the greatest poem never written woven into it. Yet it still manages to pale against the face that overcomes him as he removes a final layer of lace.

Unlike Vince, he has no trouble removing your bra.

“So responsive,” he talks as though only his ears are meant to hear it, his vibranium palm gently taking hold of your left breast and rolling the hardening nipple between two fingers. 

He’s studying your reaction, bewildered by the goosebumps spreading over your flesh.

When was the last time he truly touched another person? Weeks, months, years, decades? The thought of his hands on a faceless shape makes you sick. First with envy, and then with hypocrisy, an amalgamation of all the men you’ve taken to bed flashing before your eyes. But none of them ever touched you like you were porcelain, and none of them looked at you like you held the key to eternal pleasure. None of them were Bucky.

A chill runs down your spine and a gasp rips out your chest as Bucky swipes the spoon over your skin, leaving a trail of ice cream atop your right breast for his tongue to follow. He plants a garden of kisses along the swell of your chest before pulling away to give the left side equal treatment, another creamy river along your skin for him to clean up.

Moving at their own volition, your hips grind gently against his steady figure as Bucky coats your nipple in vanilla, moaning into your chest as he lays claim over you with his mouth. Spoiling you in his kisses, the soldier begins to yearn for friction, meeting the careful roll of your hips with his own.

Your hand finds his hair and his stare meets yours, intense and all-consuming as he releases your nipple with a scrape of his teeth. You want to soothe his kiss-swollen lips but they’re already wrapping themselves around your other breast, not even patient enough to lather you in the vanilla goodness this time.

Instead, the coldness on your skin stems from metal fingers, perched on your thigh and creeping up the length of it, inch by tormenting inch. A hesitant hand wraps around a vibranium wrist, tightening its grip before you begin guiding his touch inwards, upwards, to where you need it most. Bucky's stronger, more resistant, and holds off your interceptance, left hand continuing its intended path beneath the skirt of your dress and grabbing hold of your naked waist.

He’s everywhere, all over you. Mouthing at your chest, gripping at your hip, rutting into your pussy. The sweet drag of his bulge over your clothed core sires a wet patch against your thong and has your fingers tugging on the roots of his hair, winning you the hair-raising hum of a groan against your breast.

Desperate to feel more, you renew your efforts to lead his hand to the space between your legs and are met with a shake of his head.

“No,” he mutters, and robs you of a hand beneath your dress, using it instead to cradle your jaw while his lips skim over the shell of your ear. “Wanna feel you.”

The warmth of flesh brands your thigh, Bucky’s right arm now leading the charge beneath the silky fabric. With bated breath, you brace yourself against his strong chest and try not to squirm in anticipation of his touch. With one final squeeze at your inner thigh, the soldier’s hand engulfs your clothed cunt and his breath cracks in your ear, a strangled out, feral noise that has your toes curling.

“She’s so wet, darling,” his voice has you delirious, breathy against your ear. His fingers flex against your pussy and a moan catches in your throat. “You gonna let me touch her?”

Something about the way he’s speaking to you, the words he’s choosing, makes you want to fall apart. Your sex-life has always been liberal, you know what it is to have a man’s hands all over you, trying to take ownership of parts of you he thinks belong to him. Men who take, and take, and take, until there is nothing left of you to give, and not once do they care to win your favour, to plead for permission. But Bucky…

“Please, say I can touch her, wanna give her what she needs,” he’s pleading for it, begging for you — wrecked and desperate, breath run ragged from no more than the relief of rolling his groin against your thigh. “Promise I’ll be real sweat, make you feel good.”

Too caught up in his own head, he doesn’t notice you nodding, until you’re granting him salvation verbally, “Touch me, Bucky.”

He doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t waste time on taking off your underwear, just moves it to the side and drags the tip of his fingers down the inseam of your pussy. You hear it, more than you feel it, the moment he touches your opening, a sharp inhale at your ear telling you he’s exactly where he wants to be.

As his middle finger slips in, it’s hard to tell which of you reacts louder, both a mess of guttural moans. Once it's fully sheathed within you, he curls it and presses against your soaked walls, grinning against your skin at the reaction it coaxes out of you.

“Don’t hold back,” he chastises you as you bite back another pathetic whimper, a second finger slipping into you. “Let me hear what I’m doing to you.”

He must have a magic touch, you’re sure of it. Thick fingers that fuck into you at a steady pace, curling and teasing at that world-bending spot inside you, while his thumb makes itself useful against your clit, a firm force for your bucking hips to grind up into while you chase the pleasure he’s unleashing on you. In a matter of minutes, the room is alive with your melodic moans, Bucky’s endless hums of approval, and the damn-right embarrassingly loud squelch of him fingering your drooling cunt.

You make the mistake of letting your eyes slip shut, relinquishing yourself to the way he touches you with the rough hands of a soldier yet the delicate stroke of a musician playing his favourite instrument. He must feel the shift in you, for he’s instantly prying his face away from your neck and tightening the metal grip on your jaw, fingertips digging into squished cheeks.

“Look at me,” his words are both a command and a plea. An order you follow and a prayer you answer, eyelashes fluttering open to find his face in front of your own. His lips are a hard line, his brows furrowed in disapproval, and there’s a vein threatening to split down the middle of his forehead, but his eyes. His eyes are affection incarnate, two pools of lust and worship that pose no threat of drowning. “Do you want to cum?”

Never has a more needless question been asked. 

You nod into the force of his vibranium hand, but that’s not what he wants, frown deepening.

“Say it,” needy, helpless, spoken like he’s the one on the brink of ecstasy. “Please.”

“Bucky,” it feels good to say his name like this, brain melting into mush and heart racing in your chest. “I want you to let me cum.”

“Let you?” He’s offended by the word, fingers burying impossibly deeper inside of you while he continues to stare you down. “I beg of you.”

No warning precedes the coil in you snapping. The muscles in your core tense, your back arches into his broad figure, your pussy squeezes at Bucky’s fingers with a death grip. He guides you through it, ignoring the cramp in his wrist in favour of continuing to fuck his hand into you, a smile finally cracking over his face as he watches you fall apart atop the counter, nothing but Bucky, Bucky, Bucky surrounding you.

He tries to give you reprieve, a moment to breathe and savour the buzz in your veins, the hand around your jaw shifting to stroke at your cheek while the hand between your legs soothes you with featherlight touches.

You don’t let him, hand pawing down his torso and gripping at the belt of his jeans, delighting in the familiar clang of a buckle being undone, nimble digits that tear leather out its loop and tug down his zipper. Bucky’s bringing his lips back against yours just as you palm at his bulge, his tongue licking into your mouth when you finally release him from the confines of his boxers.

Fingers coated in your own slick grip at your thigh while the soldier makes it his mission to steal your breath, rendering you blind to the sight of his cock. But you can feel it. The weight of it in your hand, the burn of want ingrained in his skin. The width of it, and the length of it, and the perfectly mushroomed tip that has him keening into your touch as your pointer finger drags over the head.

“Is this what I do to you?” Still lost in the maze of your orgasm, you manage to gain back crumbs of your usual confidence watching Bucky fall mute. When he merely nods, you play him at his own game, fingers back in his hair and forcing him to look you in the eye. “Say it.”

He doesn’t.

He says something much better.

“D’you even realise how many nights I’ve laid on that fucking couch, hard as a rock and willing you to come out your room?”

“That’s your generation's problem, you know?” You whisper teasingly, incapable of fighting off your own laughter. “You swear more than you breathe.”

“C’mere,” he’s rolling his eyes and pulling you in, kissing you like it’s been a milenia and not a minute, hand nudging yours out the way to take a hold of himself.

Your teeth graze over his tongue as he drags the head of his cock through your folds, and he groans into your mouth before pulling back. Resting his forehead against yours, he’s teasing you both as his tip brushes over your hole before continuing its rutt up, bumping against your sensitive clit.

A wicked voice takes control of your mouth.

“Lance would have fucked me by now.”

“Vince would have cum by now, too,” he’s still rocking his hips, no sense of urgency behind the way he soaks himself in you.

Meanwhile, you’re a handful of seconds away from screaming at him to just stick it in already.

“You- Oh!” Prayers answered, hallelujah, his cock finally sinks into you. It’s a shallow thrust, barely more than the tip before he’s retreating, yet it's enough to mess with your head. “You heard us?”

“Unfortunately,” and he means it, the most subtle of pouts forming on his lips before he feeds himself a little deeper into your pussy. “I’m not great when it comes to timing.”

“I only slept with Lance because you-” Right on cue, he fucks into you even deeper and your words dissappear before they can reach your tongue.

“New rule,” a hand rests on your knee and encourages you to spread your legs wider. “No speaking another man’s name when you’re in bed with me.”

“Technically, this is the kitchen counter-” The bastard does it again, cuts you off with his dick — if it didn’t feel so damn good, you’d slap him.

He’s bottomed out at last, buried himself fully in your cunt. Hands snake around your waist, one palm flattening against your lower back while the other rests a little further up and guides your spine to arch into him, closer, like there’s anymore space left between you to devour.

His pace is still slow, teasing. A toe-curling drag of his cock out of you, letting you feel every ridge and vein before his hips promptly snap back into you and send your eyes rolling back, your head falling back — and smacking loudly against the cupboard door behind you.

Bucky freezes, one hand quick to cradle the back of your skull while his eyes scan over you.

“Jesus, doll, you okay?” 

“Please don’t stop,” you plead, ridiculously unfazed by the faint ache when you’ve got him inside of you.

Even though he rolls his eyes, he complies.

“Might have just given you a concussion and all you care about is getting fucked?” He asks, like you could possibly care about anything else when his arms are hooking themselves under your knees and rucking you up off the counter, away from any rogue cupboard that means you harm.

If anything, you’ll gladly shoulder the burden of any possible injury, if it means being granted the sight of his biceps tensing as he effortlessly stands there and fucks you down onto him. Were you in any sane state of mind, you wouldn’t think it, but god bless that super soldier serum.

“You can give me a cockcussion for all I care,” head perched on his shoulder, you watch your nails sink into the fabric of his shirt and wish it would disappear and gift you the naked view of his back.

“Adding that to the list,” he whispers against your forehead, pressing a kiss against it.

Legs bent at the knee, you watch how, with one particularly deep thrust, they bounce at either side of him and one of your heels clatters to the floor.

The room pivots as Bucky turns, you still in his arms and your ankles locked behind his back. At first, you believe he’s aiming to move things into the bedroom, where the only thing your head will be hitting is the mattress when he lays you down. He proves you wrong, however, the cold press of marble against you once more as he settles you down onto the kitchen island.

Much to your chagrin, he slips out of you, cock now sitting pretty against his clothed abdomen and glistening with the sheen of your essence. In the blink of an eye, the soldier is sinking to his knees, metal finger reaching back for your fallen shoe.

The scene plays out like something stripped right out of a morally dubious, low quality pornography retelling of Cinderella, in which Prince Charming has his dick out, Cinderella’s gown is half-way off, and the infamous glass slipper is just a pair of heels you bought on sale.

Bucky is delicate and slow, mouth tickling at your inner knee as he secures the shoe in place. He rests back on his haunches and fully takes in the sight of you, perched upon the counter, hands splayed out on marble, a tangle of silk around your waist, lips parted in search of steady breathing.

There’s an intensity to his gaze, burrowing itself beneath your skin and becoming part of your bloodstream, spreading throughout your body. It makes you want to hide, flee like you do best, but Bucky has other plans.

“The shoes stay on, but this,” Bucky’s fingertips tug lightly on the hem of your dress, exposing a sliver of new skin. “I need this gone. Am I allowed to take it off?”

There he goes again, face the model of innocence while he asks for permission to your body. If you weren’t already dripping against your panties, you would be now. Luckily, he doesn’t push you to verbalise your agreement this time, more than eager to comply the moment you nod your head.

You wiggle your hips as he pulls the fabric out from beneath you, his grip snagging on the waistband of your thong and dragging it away alongside the dress. When your ass cheeks press back down onto the cool of the counter, reality hits you like a freight-train: you’re completely nude, with Bucky on his knees before you, in the middle of the kitchen.

“Buck,” the y of his nickname disappears as you feel him peppering kisses of your leg, inching that little bit higher each press of his mouth. Squeezing your eyes shut, you try to remember where your rational thoughts are stored, conjuring up images of friends, of Sam sitting at this very surface. “I don’t think we should… I mean, people eat off this counter!”

“Don’t worry,” reaching the threshold of your thigh, his kisses seem to speed up, that sauve and composed exterior chipping away to reveal a man who no longer wants to take his time with you. “I intend to eat.”

No sooner than the words reach your ears, Bucky swipes his tongue up your pussy and any fight left in you melts away as you turn to putty beneath his touch, soft and malleable, willing to sit there and take whatever he wants to give.

Give, he most certainly does. Lips latch onto your clit, hands hold your squirming hips in place, tongue dances over your most delicate areas before dipping into your entrance. He drinks from you like you’re the sweetest honey, the richest of red wines, the Holy Grail promising an eternal youth to a man whose time was stolen from him.

“You should see her, doll,” there’s a rasp in Bucky’s voice, a feral undertone to the growl that rests in the back of his throat. One hand tugs his shirt off while the other snakes between your legs, two fingers spreading your lips open in an obscene gesture that has you clamping down on your bottom lip. “She’s drooling for me, all pretty and wet.”

Dropping both your legs over his shoulders, he tugs you right to the edge of the counter and dives back in. You feel his nose bump against your clit and your hand grabs onto your thigh, nails piercing into flesh as your mouth sings a whined symphony.

Vibranium curls around your wrist, prying harm away from your own skin and silently imploring you to hurt him instead, nestling your fingers back into his hair. He’s renewing his effort, a touch that’s more determined than ever to make you fall apart, on his knees and worshipping the altar of your body — fealty and devotion seared into each lap of his tongue, each brush of his lips, each stroke of his fingers.

Who are you to reject his piety? You welcome it, with closed fist and glassy eyes. The soldier shudders — a full-body shiver that shakes down his spine — as the point of your heel digs into his back and your fingers squeeze at his scalp, no mercy shown as you lose yourself in the throes of lust.

When you cum, a silent scream rips through your chest and a burning-too-bright white light turns you blind. He doesn’t let up, tongue still buried in your convulsing walls as your thighs clamp around his head and your feet kick at his back, shoes flying elsewhere into the kitchen. He pays none of it any mind, content to prolong your orgasm for as long as you’ll allow him, slowly rising off his knees with two hands pinning you back against the counter while he continues to feast on your pleasure.

“Ja-mes,” a fractured call of his name is all it takes for him to stop, pupils more black than blue as they stare down at the picture you paint atop the counter: teary-eyes, swollen lips, heaving chest.

He’s hardly the image of composure either, red lines along the expanse of his back, hair a tousled mess, the scruff on his face covered in a sheen of your juices. And, yet, never have you wanted to kiss him so bad.

All you manage, after minutes of floating atop the cloud of your peak, is a cheeky grin and a comment that makes him roll his eyes: “For a fossil, you’re pretty kinky.”

“War camps aren’t exactly known for being fun,” as he speaks, he slowly lowers your legs off his shoulder. “You find ways to keep yourself entertained.”

“Bet you were quite the pleaser, huh?” Trying your best to play it cool, you lay your head fully back on the counter and stare up  at the ceiling, praying he doesn’t notice the hypocritical pit forming in your stomach as you listen to your own words. “Probably had all the prettiest nurses fighting over who gets to tend to your poor, aching, throbbing co-”

“Jealousy looks cute on you,” he interrupts, amused, as his hands soothe over your hips.

“I’m not jealous!” You exclaim, barely believing yourself.

One hand reaching out for him, you watch your fingers intertwine with the prosthetic digits and let him tug you back up, chest to chest when his hand finds your cheek.

“I was,” his confession is crooned whilst staring right into your eyes, the tiniest up-turn to his mouth. “Everytime you walked out the door to go date a new loser.”

“Who knew,” your voice is as gentle as his own, nonchalant as a finger dances down the well-defined muscles of his abdomen and elicits a groan out of him. “All along I had my own loser at home.”

Bucky opts for silence as your hand reaches his groin and pays no mind to his cock, red-tipped and leaking, flushed against his stomach. You’re more interested in his jeans — in removing them, to be exact. It doesn’t take much, a sharp tug at the hem before they’re slipping off, meeting restraint as they cling to his muscled thighs and implore him to finish the job on your behalf, shucking them off blindly to where the rest of your clothes lie.

You must have saved a village in a past life to be rewarded with the view of a completely nude Bucky Barnes, skin stained by lust and laced with gold beneath the kitchen light. You must have saved the rest of the world, too, to watch how his eyes roll back and his mouth falls slack when you take his length in hand and give one slow pump of your wrist, releasing it just to watch it slap back against his abdomen.

As you reach for his dick again, his hand secures itself around your own and guides it up and down the length of it. Once, twice, thrice, till he’s breathing heavily and dripping in pre-cum.

“You must be close,” a statement you make with his own bodily reaction as evidence to back it up, yet there’s still room for doubt — to what extent does that soldier serum interfere with him?

“Put me back down on my knees and I’ll cum to the taste of you,” the soldier certainly makes a tempting offer, one that it almost pains you to refuse.

Almost, if you hadn’t already felt the sweet stretch of him inside you.

“Pretty sure putting you back down on your knees might be considered elder abuse, ole buddy.”

“My age may be a hundred and six but-”

“Exactly my point.”

“But my body isn’t,” he’s using that stare of his, the one Sam always warns you about, while  you’re full-on cheesing, a rush of adrenaline shooting through your veins as you wind him up.

“Remind me, who threw their back out a few weeks ago pulling a tray of muffins out the oven?”

His flesh hand grips behind one of your knees and tugs you right to the edge of the counter, while his left one, still clasped over your own, drags his tip over your folds.

“I don’t remember hearing you complain when you drunkenly ate half the tray and then threw up over the rest,” admittedly, not one of your proudest moments.

“Shut up and fuck me, Barnes.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Just like that, you’re drowning in him again, gasping for breath as you lose yourself in a flood of lust. Bottomed out, stuffing you full, Bucky barely graces your pussy with the chance to adjust to his stretch once more before he’s moving, the sweet graze of every inch being dragged along your sensitive walls.

Your nerves are still reeling from his mouth, a quiet hum of electric pleasure reawakened by his throbbing cock and his vulgar mouth.

“She fits me like a fucking glove,” his hands are pawing at your waist, your breast, your face, never in one place for too long as he begins to settle into a rhythm of thrusts. “Doing so good for me, darling.”

The softness put into his term of endearment births an ache in your chest, one that will accept no medicine other than your arms around his neck and his lips on yours. Mouths tangled in kisses and sweat dripping down your skin, Bucky halts — your hips pressed together, the swell of his balls resting right against your swollen cunt, the head of his cock resting right against your sweet spot — and grinds.

Slow, deliberate, delicious. You whine into his mouth and feel how he swallows it, feasts on your ecstasy with a willing tongue, and a smiling mouth, and possessive teeth that tug at your lip as he pulls back. He stretches out the feeling, grinding a second time as your noses bump against one another.

“Bucky,” his name is an anchor, a paperweight, something to ground you amidst the floaty feeling of being two orgasms deep with a third approaching any time now.

“I know,” he says, and you believe him. Believe that he knows, that he’s known, that he always knows when it comes to you.

You lay your head to rest upon on his left shoulder when he returns to chasing a high between your thighs, a renewed vigor behind each thrust that has your hips rolling to meet his and your nails raking over the straining muscles of his back.

“I lied,” an unprompted confession stumbles out his mouth, fingers flexing into their grip on your waist. “About the apartment viewing. I didn’t go.”

“Bucky,” is all you can manage, branded into his skin with a kiss along his neck.

“Is that all you can say? Huh?” His voice carries a teasing lilt, paired to perfection with the pad of his thumb rubbing at your clit. “I’m giving pivotal revelations here, and you’re just gonna reply with that?”

Another echo of his name, walls fluttering around his dick.

“Bucky, Bucky,” he’s mocking you, a torturer’s laugh as he moans his name into your ear. “Keep going, you sound so pathetic it’s almost cute.”

Beyond words and beyond sense, you give in to the weight of his palm splaying against your stomach and guiding your back down onto the island. The soldier hooks your legs over his elbows, deepening the angle that his cock fucks into you, and you swear you see stars dance along the kitchen ceiling.

A hand smooths over your gut and you look back at Bucky to find adoration in his eyes.

“You see that?” You almost want to cry when his movement switches back to a slow drag — innnnn and outtttt — until you notice it: the smallest hint of movement beneath your flesh, a subtle visual of the outline of his tip bulging against your skin from inside you. “See how full she is, how good I’m making her feel?”

Pressing your hand against it, you can’t help but giggle as you feel him poke at your palm, only to fall back into a puddle of incoherent noises when he keeps pushing at that sweet spot, over and over. Harder and faster with each draw back of his hips, you feel rivulets of your own arousal roll down your ass and onto the marble, tainting the counter forevermore in the sins the soldier commits against you, the sins you welcome with open legs.

You’re near the edge again, and he feels it, pushing you closer and closer as he slowly spirals into a mess of phrases that barely begin before he’s cutting them off with something new.

“Don’t deserve this-” He catches himself, rips the insecurity in his voice out by the roots. “C’mon, let me see it one more time. Need to see you fall apart.”

“Want you to fall apart too,” you manage to beg, unwilling to watch him hold back or pull out before he finishes. “Please!”

Like any good soldier, he obeys.

Crashing over you like a wave, he’s doubled-over by the waist and sandwiching you between the counter and him. You feel him spill into you, hot ropes of cum painting your walls white as a third crescendo washes over your body.

Both of you seek out the other as his thrusts grow languid and your walls spasm, milking him for every last drop he’s got. When your mouths meet, it’s less of a kiss and more of you simply breathing into the other, exchanging air and body heat.

“So,” you croak eventually, exhausted and spent atop the counter yet completely unwilling to relinquish him from blanketing you. “Are you gonna do that every time I steal your ice cream?

Somewhere between jello-ed legs and cold compresses, you wind up in bed.

Skin clammy, lips swollen, lust satiated, you practically melt into the buttery softness of your bed sheets as Bucky lays you down. Despite how you’re still basking in the glow of your third and final orgasm, the soldier seems to think, for a second, you can handle another.

With gentle hands prying open your thighs and a curious tongue diving in for a second helping, licking up the dribble of his own cum spilling out your hole, he’s quick to be corrected when you roll away from his touch with a whine and a plea, “think I might actually die if you make me cum again, Buck.”

He’s unbothered by the rejection, wholly embracing it as he curls up behind you and snakes his arms over your naked skin. It’s you who drags the sheet up and over you both, turning in his arms to plant your head on his chest. His heart races beneath it, but you hold off on teasing — your own isn't any better.

“Sam’s going to kill me,” you whisper out into the room, when moonlight is peeking through your curtains and both of your heartbeats have calmed down.

“I’m sorry,” you feel him shift beneath your head and, though you can’t fully see him, you feel that blue gaze land on you. “Have I not made it clear enough what name you should be saying in bed?”

“There’s a serious chance I’ll die and you’re thinking with your dick,” he squirms as you pinch at his nipple. “You’re no better than the men on your list, Barnes.”

Silence floats back in between you for a moment, peaceful as the slow stroke of his fingers dancing up your spine.

“Why would Sam kill you?” He pauses, hand pressing a little harder down against a knot in your shoulder.  “He knows you have a crazy guard dog.”

Your crazy guard dog just pressed a kiss against your forehead, how frightening.

“He made me swear I wouldn’t get involved with you. He said you weren’t in the headspace for a relationship, that you needed to focus on inner peace first.”

“Turns out inner peace is being inside of you,” you pinch at his nipple again. This time, he doesn’t run from it. This time, you almost swear you hear a little moan creep up his throat. “So, Wilson’s to blame? I can get behind that.”

“To blame for what?”

His hand’s now running up and down the back of your arm, leaving goosebumps wherever its tender touch goes. 

“Why it took you so long to jump my bones.”

“You think I jumped your-” Your head rises off his chest and you stare into the navy darkness of the room, trying to make a concrete shape out where you see shadows of his face. “Wait, so these past few weeks, I’ve not been hallucinating? You’ve been… flirting?”

“It’s been more than a couple weeks, sweetheart,” Bucky seems to have no problem finding you in the dark, hand cupping your cheek and dragging you up to press a chaste kiss against your mouth. “You don’t seriously think I waited until morning to check that sink without hoping to be caught, do you?”

“So you were slutting yourself out on the kitchen floor!”

“Think the kitchen’s seen worse,” worse might be the understatement of the century.

Clothes still lay discarded, counters unwiped, ice cream completely melted. Cleaning you up had been the soldier’s only priority, and you weren’t in the mood or the mindstate to argue with him on that.

A fingertip tickles down the slope of your nose.

“Stop fighting it, you’re tired,” you hear him whisper.

“I want to hear more about your desperate efforts to get my attention,” it’s nothing but a weak protest.

“We have all the time in the world for that. Sleep,” you don’t hesitate to comply when Bucky’s hand presses you back down against the warmth of his chest. “You’re going to need it. Our upstairs neighbours still need a taste of their own medicine.”

+ extra hyde ! · 70% of this fic is just dialogue, these two losers would not stfu! · writing banter + sexual tension feels more exposing than writing literal porn. · lore accurate photo of me whenever bucky barnes exists:

[quinnophile]

last train home.

pairing. bucky barnes x fem!reader mcu timeline. thunderbolts + tfatws flashbacks synopsis. hours after the void swallows half of new york city, bucky barnes finds himself breaking his #1 rule: don't show up at your door. warnings. no use of y/n, ex!reader, exes to ???, angst, suggestive, hurt with comfort that is proceeded by more hurt, pining, bucky is lowkey down bad and pathetic, descriptions of bruises, injuries, and choking (not the sexy kind, unfortunately), bucky is also kinda serving stalker realness (but its okay bc he's hot and in love), flashbacks via bucky's time in the void. thunderbolts spoilers!!! word count. 4k. hyde’s input. thunderbolts reawakened something dormant in me and threw me back into trenches i thought i'd clawed my way out of. idk if this can even be considered a serious fic because i wrote this like it was the ramblings of a madwoman, i can't even lie. no editing, we die like real (dumb) men. in true me fashion, i already have two more parts planned for this couple, including eventual sloppy sad smut bc why write about a man if i don't get to whore him out? read on ao3.

Bucky knows he shouldn’t be here.

Knows that his will not be a welcome face.

Knows that he’s around two years and a sincere apology too late.

The hour is late, the dials of his wristwatch already encroaching on midnight. The city’s starless sky is a darkness that pales in comparison to the heavy shadow he’d watched infect Manhattan earlier. A void of pain too many had vanished beneath, before he and his ragtag team of false heroes had no choice but to dive into it, one last ditched effort at bringing back the light. The madness truly began when the darkness spat them back out onto the chaos of the streets.

The relief of seeing the sun. The shamble of a press conference. The new Avengers. 

And all he could think about was making it to this street. This door. You.

Bucky wishes he could say that the last time he saw you was last week, struggling beneath the weight of grocery bags. But that’s no longer true, because the last time he saw you was merely a few hours ago, trapped inside a time loop of his own making, his own memories, his own pain.

The room was colder than he remembered as he stepped in through a balcony door, sheer curtains billowing around him as a storm gathered outside.

At first, he wasn’t sure what memory this was, what new room he’d stepped into. All Bucky knew was he had made his way through the hell of Hydra’s experimentations, picked himself up from those traintracks, let himself soak in the scene of fighting Steve. Whatever haunted him in this bedroom of silence and sin, he was sure he could move through it and make his way to the door on the opposite side. Until a figure stirred beneath the sheets and he found himself frozen at the end of the bed.

Because there you were, eyes closed and head buried in the warmth of his own chest, blissfully unaware of the waking nightmare that awaited you.

He’s not used to crossing this street.

Not anymore.

Nowadays, his place is somewhere just across from you, two steps behind and a head hung low in hopes that you don’t notice him. Because he knows that it’s wrong, and he knows there are boundaries that have been drawn, but he just can’t seem to fall asleep at night if he doesn’t hop off that train a few stops early just to watch you come home safe.

He hadn’t meant to make it a habit. At first, it was just routine, muscle memory. He spent months making his way home to you, he needed more than a few weeks to get used to his new commute. But then he got in his own head, found himself sat in a train cart, knee bouncing out his stress as his mind tortured him with all the what ifs and nonexistent threats you could encounter on your way home alone. Who else could he trust but his own eyes to watch over you? So he let himself indulge, wander out from the subway below just in time to watch you turn a corner. Told himself it was okay, so long as he kept his distance. So long as he only observed, even when it killed him. The days it would rain and he’d fight the urge to shelter you beneath his umbrella. The times he’d notice a smiling stranger getting too close for comfort and remind himself it was no longer his place to ward them off with an arm around your waist. The way he’d catch the polished shine of a necklace resting at the base of your neck and suddenly remember why he could no longer call you his.

He should have noticed sooner. How the room smelt of your delicate perfume. How remnants of your clothes lay strewn across carpeted floors. How the scene before him was plucked perfectly from that trip.

A getaway of his own doing, heart swollen with a little more pride than he’d care to admit over simply figuring out how to book a vacation online. There was no real rhyme or reason for it, no birthday to celebrate or anniversary to commemorate. Bucky had simply felt happy. Blissfully, wholly, perfectly happy, for the first time in too long. In retrospect, that should have been the first warning sign.

But those razor sharp senses of his seemed to go blunt with the brightness of your smile, the tenderness of your kiss, the warmth of your voice. He believed you made him good. Made him right. Made him whole. He’d never stopped to wonder what he made you.

Until he made you hurt.

He’s standing outside your door.

Time seems irrelevant when everything is the same as he remembers it.

The lopsided apartment number. The faded welcome mat outside the door. The chipping paint you insist you don’t mind, all in the hopes of stopping Bucky from chewing out your landlord about another thing that needs fixing. Suddenly, it’s like he can feel the weight of your key in his pocket, waiting for him to fish it out and welcome himself home to the smell of burning incense and the taste of your skin.

His heart’s beating a little faster now. Maybe he shouldn’t have come. Maybe he should start learning to leave well enough alone. Maybe he should be trying to move on. But how can he move on with a life you made him want to live?

He’s fought battles, drawn blood, turned to dust and come back again. Yet this is a bridge he cannot seem to cross: knocking on your door.

All Bucky had registered back then was the soul-crushing weight of waking up to find what he’d done. Standing at the edge of the bed, a voyeur to his own harm, The Void granted him a full perspective of the events.

It began with muttering, foreign words falling from his sleeping lips. Then his head tossed, his leg twitched, his voice raised. You, eyes blinking away sleep and limbs untangling from his, woken up suddenly to his heart racing beneath you. He watched you watch the other him, a few seconds of his nightmarish sleeping, before finally you did what you thought was best, what any caring person would do if their partner was being haunted in their sleep.

You whispered his name, soothed a palm over his cheek, coaxed him out of whatever hell he was trapped in. But when his eyelids snapped open, there was no summer sky or calming river living in the iris but a steely blue, winter cold.

Metal clutched at your throat.

“James?”

Echoes of a past life sing in his ears as he feels himself freeze. His gaze meets the ground, where he spots an open door and a familiar pair of fluffy slippers, looking a little worse for wear than he remembers them being on that Christmas morning, sitting across from you with a stiff jaw and nervous eyes, watching you pull apart layers of wrapping paper. Now time has left its mark on them and Bucky can’t help but wonder how much longer until you replace them with something newer, something softer, something that’ll bring more comfort to your aching feet as you slip into them after a long day at the firm.

The firm. Your workplace. Two blocks down from the building that once stood as a symbol for everything Steve and the rest of the Avengers — the real Avengers — had achieved, a home still haunted by its previous owners whose footsteps Valentina expected him to tread over. 

Bucky had stopped believing in God somewhere between the torture and the war against genocidal aliens but as that cloud of darkness rolled over the Manhattan skyline, vanishing people into shadows, he caught himself praying to someone, something, anything that you were okay. That you’d caught a stomach bug or the flu and had called in sick. That you’d been called out of state, sent to work elsewhere on a client’s case. That you’d been anywhere but trapped beneath the weight of The Void’s darkness; lonely, and scared, and reliving the cruelest memories your mind could conjure. 

But as he finally looks at you, your face says it all. The troubled eyes, the weary smile, the trembling hands. The Void may have spat you back out alongside the rest of the city — he may have been able to save you from the looping pain, at least — but it left its mark all over you, whispers of fear still clinging to your skin.

Like a wave meets the shore, he crashes over you.

At first, Bucky couldn’t watch.

Eyes squeezed shut, back turned on the scene taking place upon the bed, he tried to block it all out. But then a door slammed, his eyes reopened, and the memory had started all over again. Your head on his chest, his tossing and turning. You waking him up, his hand around your neck. With an ache in his bones, he forced himself to bear witness.

To the way he looked right at you like you were a stranger, a threat, a mission. To the way the metal twisted and screamed as he tightened his grip. To the way your hand found his face. Not to scratch, not to push, not to fight back. But to mollify, the warmth of your palm resting on his icy cheek, tender in your touch even as he robbed you of breath.

And then he snapped out of it. Came to his senses. Ripped himself away from you and stumbled out the bed, hands — metal and flesh — scrambling for the scattered pieces of the same clothes he’d let you peel off of him only hours before, your eyes alive with the buzz of too much wine and his cheeks burning from too much sun and you. Undressing like every layer was an offense, just one more obstacle getting in the way as you both tumbled back into the hotel bed.

You are hesitant.

Arms glued to your side, you stand frozen in the unexpected embrace. He can’t find it in himself to blame you, not when he thinks of how scared you must feel with a weapon wound around your body once more, holding you close to him. The action is not only protective but possessive, too. An antidote to an unwarranted need that took root in his chest the moment he returned to the mania of Manhattan, freshly haunted by a visceral unpresent presence, desperate to confirm with more than just a glance from across a street that you were home. That you were safe. That you were here, even if he shouldn’t be. 

Bucky just needs you to give him a moment. A second. To feel the slow rise of your chest against his, and to take in the fading scent of your perfume, and to caress his right hand over the back of your head. To hold you like he still has any right to your heart. Then he can go. Pull away, set you free, stagger back to his apartment. Collapse onto the familiar comforts of creaking floorboards, muster up the guts to return Sam’s fourteen missed calls and sink into a different layer of guilt to distract himself from the fact you’re not sleeping beside him, breathing beside him. That you haven’t been his for two years, no matter how much he’s still yours.

He pulls in a deep breath, tightens his arms around your frame, prepares himself for the inevitability of him pulling away and feeling the much deserved sting of your hand slapping his cheek and your voice spewing venomous words.

Any minute now, he’ll let go.

“Bucky…” it’s barely a whisper, but he hears it — feels it, as the ice in your bones thaws away and you melt into his embrace.

How could he possibly let go?

Bucky remembered struggling to breathe.

Ignoring your weak calls of his name, he dressed himself with so much haste half the buttons on his shirt remained undone. On the bed, you choked on heavy breaths of air, tears welling like the threat of an incoming downpour that was sure to drown him further beneath waves of guilt, shame, hatred. The vibranium virus attached to his left side seemed to mock him as he struggled to pull on his shoes, too blinded by panic to notice your approaching figure.

Bucky grabbed for the door and you grabbed for him, fingers almost curling around the wrist of his metal arm. He flinched out of your reach, head spinning round to take in the sight of you now at his side, shielded beneath bedsheets from the exposing light of the moon. His gaze flickered to your neck, replaying memories of where his mouth had laid claim over your skin and painted you in shades of his love. How many hours would it take for them to fade beneath the mold of his fingers, for the things Bucky hated most about himself to viscerally terrorise him as a bruise upon his most darling delicate?

You tried to reach for him, again. All he could manage was a quiet, “don’t.”

He never meant to slam the door as he left.

“Are you okay?”

He’s no stranger to late night fantasies, the inconsequential thoughts of an idealised life he’s free to play out when sleep eludes him, buds of anxious worry beginning to bloom within his chest. Before, all his what ifs and if onlys projected him back in time, where no draft came knocking at his door or any serum distorted his DNA. Then he met you and, gradually, his pining for the past morphed into dreaming of a future. All the possible firsts of your relationship: first date, first kiss, first holiday, first anniversary. He could relearn the world, reintroduce himself to the possibility of normality. He pondered moving, trading the city for a quieter life, where weekends would be reserved for exchanging body heat beneath the blankets of a bed he’d build for you, and Sunday gatherings with Sam and the rest of the Wilson’s.

Then, the dreams faded to grey, along with the rest of his world.

The past no longer enticed him, and a future seemed pointless without you. All that was left for him was to agonise, stare at his living room ceiling and watch the atrocities he’d committed play on repeat. The Starks’ car, Yori’s son, your neck. With therapy came amends, a booklet of names his conscience needed him to confront with an apology. Yours never made the cut. Because it wasn’t the Winter Soldier that had hurt you, it was him. No amount of therapised language intended to distance him from the harm would be a good enough excuse to lay at your feet, so he stayed away, kept his distance.

Not once had he fantasised he would be breaking no-contact like this.

“A little confused and contemplating why I’m still living in this city after years of it being a breeding ground for supernatural and extraterrestrial attacks, but I’m fine,” you reply at last, trailing off with a laugh that catches on your throat and breaks into a hiccup.

There’s a shake in your voice that nearly has him pulling back but your arms stop him, hold him closer. You shuffle your feet between his own and burrow your face away, out of sight, in the crook of his neck. A layer of ash still stains him, powder remnants of the rubble that had fallen during The Void's attack, but you don’t seem to care.

“I saw you on the news, Buck. Are you okay?”

The relationship was over in a matter of days.

You slept through the train ride home, leaving him with nothing but passing fields and troubled thoughts. Once back in the city, he carried your bags in his left hand while the fingers of his right one threaded with yours. You did most of the talking, comments of where you two could holiday next, if he’d spoken to Sam recently, and how your mother had mentioned in passing that you should bring Bucky with you next time you visit. The silence arrived as you both reached your front door, one glance at the bruise around your neck enough to let him know this was the end of the line.

An inbox of missed calls and unread texts later, he dropped your apartment key through the letterbox.

He blinked and suddenly the scene had reset, your lonesome frame crawling back onto the bed once more, fading away into two figures curled around one another beneath the sheets. Bucky watched it all unravel. And, when the door slammed and your tears fell, he watched it start again. Over and over, he watched himself poison the safe haven you made for him, pushing you away and rebuilding that wall around himself. Over and over, he watched you reach for him, a silent plea in your eyes begging him to stay.

He never did.

It was only when he joined you on the bed — after the other him had slammed the door — and pulled you into his longing embrace, mouth kissing apologies against your forehead as you drifted off to sleep, that the cycle came to a stop. One moment, he was holding some version of you for the first time in years, and, in the next, The Void sent him falling through the ceiling of an old Hydra lab.

He landed in the leather chair with a thud and, as a familiar device closed in around his head, he wished he was back in that hotel room, watching your heart break before his eyes, if only to see you a little longer.

With reluctance, he pulls back.

Not because he no longer needs to hold you, feel you breathing safely against him. But he needs to see you. Properly, as something more than a distant shape across the street. Inches apart now, the hole in his chest seems to scream it’s not close enough. When your eyes meet his and a tear slides down your face, not even Sentry could stop him from reaching up to catch it.

Comfort fills his soul as he feels your hand lay itself atop his own, holding it in place against your cheek. Your eyes slip shut and a sigh slips past your lips. Bucky can’t help but lean in, eyes shutting out the world around you. His forehead finds rest against yours, a gentle pressure against skin that feels more intimate than any kiss he could ever give. “Tell me you’re okay, Bucky,” a delicate whisper that possesses no threat to the quiet that surrounds you both.

For a moment, there is peace. Hope. Time has passed, his life has changed, and, while he’s no symbol of sanity, he saved people today — strangers. Bucky Barnes is officially a hero. An Avenger. So maybe things can be different. And maybe he can ask to take up space in your life again, to be part of your mornings and your evenings, your everyday. He can make amends and make you his.

Something meows and tears him out of his daydream.

A blur of white fur moves cautiously inside your apartment, weaving through a few house plants atop a shoe rack. But that isn’t what leaves him feeling foolish, feeling sick, feeling like he’s been sucker punched in the chest. It’s the pair of shoes carelessly discarded on the floor, shrugged off by someone too impatient to put them away if it means spending another moment away from you — Bucky would know, he used to do the same.

A pair of men’s shoes. “I should-” go, he can’t bring himself to say it. He doesn’t want to leave. “Don’t wanna miss the train.”

“James,” his name is a plea on your tongue, a question he’s forgotten how to answer.

“I’m sorry,” for hurting you, for not moving on, for showing up at your door. “I just needed to see you.”

The first step is still the hardest.

As the thought passes through him, a sense of deja vu comes over him. This hallway, your doorway. Turning his back on you, telling himself that it’s better this way. No matter how much it kills him, he can live with the pain of knowing you’ll be safer with someone else. Someone who was born at the right time, and has done all the right things in life that lead them to being rewarded with you. It’s best he goes, before that someone comes looking for you.

He can’t stomach the thought of seeing you with somebody else.

“For someone so good at the fight, you sure do love to choose flight,” your voice is soft yet he hears a bite of anger, a sprinkle of resentment. “Or is walking away a special trick you only use when it comes to me?”

“Don’t do that,” he turns back around to face you, and regrets it the moment he notices more tears threatening to spill. His hand itches to wipe them all away. “Don’t make it seem like leaving you was something I chose to do.”

“But you did!”

“Only because I had to!” Bucky never means to raise his voice, not at you. Things clearly haven’t changed enough for him to stop hurting you when he swears he won’t.  “You know what I did to you.”

With a challenge on your face, your arms cross over your chest and you pop your hip out, leaning your body against the doorframe. “What exactly did you do, James?”

“I…” torture of the tongue, he needs to compose himself before he can say it. “I hurt you. With the same hand they gave me when they made me a weapon.”

“Except you didn’t. The Wakandans gave you that arm when they needed another hero on the battlefield.”

A pause, where anything but silence passes between you. “And I hurt you with it all the same.”

“You leaving me like I meant nothing hurt far more than whatever happened in that hotel room.”

“Meant nothing? Me leaving was because I lov-”

“I’ve just taken on a big case, they’ll be expecting me early in the office,” you’ve already got the door in your hand, half closed as your body retreats back into the safety of your apartment, away from the danger of Bucky’s confession. “You should go, James. Catch that train.”

Unlike him, you don’t slam doors.

He doesn’t bother returning to the subway, the time on his phone tells him all he needs to know. He’s missed that last train, and he’s not in the mood to figure out which line will get him closest to his apartment. He’ll just walk, and listen to the voicemail his phone claims Alexei has left in his inbox.

“Winter Soldier! Bucky! We all are drinking, to celebrate team’s first big win. You must join, we can talk more about being co-captains of The Thunderbolts-” “That is not our name, Alexei,” Yelena cuts him off faintly in the background.

Bucky shouldn’t have come home.

Back in the apartment, a sob is forced down.

The tears just keep coming, all you can do is surrender yourself to them, head leaned back against the door, some part of you hoping he’ll come back.

His hair is longer, new bruises mark his skin, yet the way he looks at you — like you are a sin he must atone for — is still the same.

“Was that Bucky I just heard? If yes, let me give him a piece of my mind and save ourselves a whole load of paperwork- Hey, you good?”

You pull in a breath and wipe both hands over your face before forcing a smile towards your guest.

“I’m fine, Sam,” you almost trip over his shoes in your haste to walk back into the living room. “Now come on, we have a lot of work to do if you’re serious about suing the Avengers.”

+ extra hyde !

· finished this instead of working on one of my final essays... priorities!

· idk if it anyone wants it but i'm working on a part 2, and trust i intend to not uphold the sambucky divorce from the post-credit scene

· if you're reading this and thinking "this doesn't look like the aemond fic update hyde's supposed to be posting" i'm sorry, i swear i'll be doing my best to post the next part soon! don't hate me!

[quinnophile]

I am SO excited for the Remmick fic you just posted a teaser about. I love me some monster fucking in a church 😍

Tysm! I'm kicking my feet and giggling as I read this 💖 as someone who was raised Catholic, lemme just say, God ain't forgiving me for this one...

[quinnophile]

As if It’s Heaven’s Gate

one-shot

Remmick x fem!reader

summary: You take a job as a live-in nurse for the town’s most infamous recluse—Remmick, the strange, soft-spoken man hidden away in a rotting Victorian farmhouse no one dares approach. Locals warn you not to touch him. Not to linger after dark. But when you meet him, he’s all big eyes and broken manners, trembling hands and gold chain glinting at his throat. Touch-starved, tender, and ruinously ancient. He flinches when you reach for him—and sobs when you don’t. You drop to your knees, and he forgets the taste of blood. He’s already yours before you ever put your mouth on him.

wc: 8.5k

a/n: holy 2k followers batman!! I wanna thank everyone for the outpouring of love and support my work has gotten over the last month, truly insane, still processing, gonna release something soon as a massive thank you <333 based off this post, I'm sure I'm not the first but I haven't come across any fic of reader going down on Remmick yet and I have a great need to suck that man's dick until his stomach caves in like a Capri-sun (someone revoke my internet access) so here we are. Thank you to @ddlydevotion for finding my photo refs. Dedicated to Sam @matrixfangs for not only beta reading this but also requesting I incorporate Jack's cross tattoo into one of my fics!! title from the song too sweet by hozier.

warnings: vampirism, oral sex (m!receiving), d/s dynamic, begging, spit kink, hair pulling, praise kink, humiliation kink (soft), drool, overstimulation, ruined man behavior, touch starvation, religious imagery, cross kink?, control kink, sub!remmick, somniloquy, emotional degradation (tender), slight dacryphilia, mildly unhinged reader, dark romance, southern gothic atmosphere, implied violence, implied murder (offscreen)

I am doing away with my tag list because it's getting a little long so I recommend turning on notifications if you don't wanna miss when I post c:

likes, comments, and reblogs always appreciated, enjoy!!

The bus wheezed like it was exhaling its last breath, sputtering to a stop in the middle of nowhere. Dust kicked up around its wheels as the brakes hissed and the door creaked open with a reluctant sigh.

You stepped off into the heat—that heavy, wet Southern heat that sticks to your skin like tacky glue, curling into your clothes and dragging its teeth across the back of your neck.

The sun hung fat and merciless in a sky bleached bone-white, cicadas crying loud enough to shake the treetops. Sweat bloomed across your collarbone before your boots even hit the dirt.

It wasn’t real pavement, not out here. Just cracked-red earth, dry and crumbling, veined with weeds and the roots of things too stubborn to die. The main road—if you could call it that—was lined with rusted fence posts, bowed under the weight of creeping kudzu and wire that hadn’t held anything in years.

The town itself looked like it had been forgotten in a drawer: sun-wilted storefronts with paint peeling off in strips, glass windows clouded with grime, and a gas station that hadn’t changed its prices since Prohibition.

A man with no teeth watched you from a bench outside a bait shop. A girl gnawed a peach in the shade of a feed store awning, juice dripping down her wrist as she stared without blinking.

No one smiled. No one welcomed you. Just silence and the shrill, electric whine of summer bugs, loud as a curse.

You adjusted your grip on the suitcase handle—leather, secondhand, the clasp a little loose—and stepped forward, your boots crunching on gravel as the bus hissed again and pulled away behind you. The sudden stillness in its absence made your ears ring. Somewhere down the road, a dog barked once, then went quiet.

The driver who’d agreed to take you the last few miles was late. Or not coming. You checked the watch on your wrist—scratched crystal, the hour hand a little jittery—and waited. The skin on your shoulders prickled. Not from the heat. From the eyes.

They were still staring.

A woman in a gingham dress crossed herself. Didn’t stop walking. Didn’t look at you twice.

Then a voice—cracked with age and smoke, coming from just over your shoulder—broke the thick, humid quiet: “That house got ghosts in it.”

You turned. It was the man from the bench, leaning forward now, elbows on his knees, eyes milky with cataracts. He spat to the side, aimed like he’d done it a thousand times before.

“He don’t come to town. Don’t let him touch you, honey.”

Before you could ask what the hell that meant, the groan of old suspension and rattling chains cut through the air.

A pickup truck, wheezing like the bus, pulled up in a cloud of red dust. Faded forest green with rust eating away the sides and a crooked license plate hanging on by one bolt. The man driving it looked as old as the truck—tan leather skin, yellowed shirt, a straw hat pulled low.

He didn’t say your name. Just nodded once. Like he already knew.

You climbed in beside him, the vinyl seat burning hot through your skirt. Neither of you spoke. The ride out of town was long and winding, lined with cypress trees and fields that had gone to seed. Every now and then, the man would spit out the window. You watched the land unravel into nothing—just swaying grass, rusted scarecrows, and buzzards perched on telephone wires.

Then, after what felt like forever, the truck crested a hill.

And there it was.

The house.

Aging Victorian farmhouse, two stories tall, white paint weathered to the color of bone. Porch bowed in the middle like a snapped spine. Shutters hanging off their hinges. The front door was so dark it looked like a hole punched through the front of the house. Vines crept up the sides like veins, crawling toward the chimneys and windows like they wanted to choke it. Or hold it down.

The iron gates at the front were rusted and tall, still latched shut. You could make out glass-paned windows that looked hollow, staring out at the road like eyes that hadn’t blinked in years.

The man parked, killed the engine, and didn’t move. You stepped out. Shut the door behind you. He didn’t offer to help with the suitcase. Just lit a cigarette, slow and deliberate.

“He sleeps durin’ the day. House is yours ‘til sundown. Don’t linger on the porch.”

You waited for more.

He didn’t offer it.

He put the truck in gear and reversed down the dirt road without another word, vanishing behind the veil of oak and kudzu until there was nothing but eerie birdsong and your own breath.

The wind kicked up. Dry. Hot. Mean. The house creaked—just once. Like it had been holding its breath too.

And then…the front door groaned open.

The open door breathed out a draft of air—cool and heavy, smelling of cedarwood, old paper, and something vaguely sweet, like dried flowers pressed between book pages. It curled around your ankles like mist.

You stepped forward. The porch groaned beneath your feet, boards soft with age, and for one heart-pounding moment you thought the whole thing might give. But it held. Just barely. The screen door had been ripped clean off its hinges long ago. The wooden door itself was open wide now, dark as pitch inside.

You crossed the threshold. The world behind you dropped away like a curtain falling shut.

The house swallowed sound. Swallowed light. It was dim and old in the way caves are old—cooler than it had any right to be, shadows pooling like ink in the corners. Lace curtains yellowed with age hung limp at the windows. The wallpaper had peeled back in strips, revealing ribs of rotting wood beneath. A hallway stretched long ahead of you, lined with crooked picture frames and closed doors.

Your hand skimmed the wall, trying to find your balance. The place felt like it was holding its breath.

Then you saw him.

He stepped out of the parlor like he wasn’t used to being seen, like he expected to vanish the moment your eyes landed on him.

Remmick.

And he was…nothing like you expected.

Not some grizzled recluse with wild hair and yellow teeth, not a hissing, skeletal shut-in like the townsfolk seemed to imagine. No. He was—

Broad.

His shoulders were built like a man who used to work with his hands, chest thick under the open collar of a blue-and-white pinstriped button-up, the sleeves messily rolled to his elbows. Beneath it, a threadbare white wife-beater clung to his torso like second skin. His jeans were dark, faded, worn at the knees, and he was barefoot—toes pale, dust smudged across the tops of his feet, like he hadn’t stepped outside in years.

His hair was short and messy, soft-looking, brown with uneven bangs that fell just above his brows in a way that felt almost boyish, almost accidental. Not styled. Just…unbothered. Untamed. Like he’d dragged his fingers through it and given up halfway.

And then his eyes.

Blue. Too blue. Not sky-blue. Not ocean-blue. The blue of cracked porcelain. The kind of blue that shouldn’t exist in nature. They looked almost glassy, as if someone had painted them on too carefully.

You didn’t know that they were artificial, not yet, like a predator blending in with its surroundings to fool the naive prey. That the real eyes were red as flame and waiting underneath.

But even so, you felt it.

Something inhuman. Something primordial.

You didn’t know what you were seeing. But you knew it wasn’t just a man and yet—you weren’t scared.

He froze when he saw you. Like he’d walked into a memory.

His mouth parted slightly. His hands hung at his sides, rough-knuckled, long-fingered. One of them twitched, just once, like he meant to lift it—and then stopped. Like the very thought of touching was…too much.

His voice came slow, thick. Raspy from disuse. “Evenin’.”

You blinked. “Hi.”

That same hand moved to scratch the back of his neck—awkward, almost boyish. He ducked his head slightly, eyes flitting away from yours. His lips pressed together like he wasn’t sure whether or not to smile, and then decided against it.

“I, uh…I didn’t expect you so soon.”

There was a tremble in his voice, barely there beneath the deep drawl. But it was there. Not nervous. Not quite. Just…unused. He sounded like someone who didn’t speak unless he had to. Someone who had been silent for too long.

You stepped forward, instinctive. He flinched.

It was subtle—just a twitch of his shoulder, the stiffening of his posture, a faint shift backward—but your body caught it. Your eyes caught it. His eyes never left you.

“I’m your nurse,” you said softly, giving your name, your voice feather-light.

He nodded. Still didn’t move closer.

There was a thin gold chain around his neck, peeking out from beneath his collar. It caught the faint light from the window and glinted, just for a second, brushing against the pale hollow of his throat when he leaned forward slightly. Like it had weight. Like it mattered.

You took a breath, trying to read him. He was watching you the way a starving man watches a feast. Not greedy. Not desperate.

Haunted.

Like he was talking to someone who no longer walked this mortal coil.

“Where should I…?” you asked, fingers curling slightly around the strap of your bag.

He startled. “Oh. Right. Room’s upstairs. I, uh—” he hesitated, scratched at his forearm where the button-up had slipped back just far enough to reveal the edge of a vein that looked darker than it should—“I ain’t had company in a while.”

“How long?” you asked.

He blinked at you. Like the question hadn’t occurred to him before.

Then, just as softly, with a note of old sorrow so quiet you nearly missed it, he answered:

“Too long.”

He turned, shoulders shifting beneath the thin cotton of his shirt, and motioned for you to follow. He didn’t offer to carry your bag. Not out of rudeness—it was something else. A hesitation that clung to him like sweat in the air.

The hallway creaked under your steps, your boots heavy against the worn floorboards. His bare feet moved near-silent, just the soft pad of skin on old wood. Dust stirred where he passed, curling like smoke in his wake. You watched the muscles move beneath his shirt—the way the thin material clung to his back, the curve of his shoulders, the faint outline of his spine shifting when he turned a corner. You could almost imagine him once being a laborer, maybe a carpenter, with those thick forearms and that sunken posture—like he hadn’t stood tall in years.

He didn’t look back at you until he reached the stairs.

“They’re steep,” he warned, voice low, accent thickening just a touch like the words were sticking to his tongue. “House wasn’t built for comfort. Not anymore.”

You followed him anyway.

The staircase was narrow and curved, wood darkened by age and use. The banister wobbled when you touched it. His hand hovered near the wall as he climbed, but he didn’t steady himself on anything—as if he was afraid to touch the house too long.

The landing opened into a hallway lit only by a single cracked window. Dust motes danced in the beam of sunlight, and Remmick avoided it completely, skirting the edge like a shadow. You didn’t think much of it. Just heat, maybe. Or habit.

He stopped in front of a door at the far end. It was plain—faded green paint, iron handle gone dull with rust. He opened it for you but didn’t step inside.

“Room’s clean,” he said, still not meeting your eyes. “Did it myself this mornin’.”

You peered in.

Small, but tidy. The bed was old but made, white sheets tucked tight. There was a vanity with a tarnished mirror, a small closet door that hung slightly crooked, and a bedside table with a worn oil lamp and what looked like a book left behind years ago. A hand towel had been folded and left on the pillow.

“You didn’t have to do that,” you murmured.

“I did,” he said simply. Then, quieter: “Didn’t want you thinkin’ I’d leave it…unfit.”

He stood there, barefoot and awkward, hands half-curled at his sides like he didn’t know what to do with them. His bangs had fallen deeper over his eyes, hiding them. But you saw the shape of them behind the strands—wide, almost deer-like.

He looked like he didn’t know whether to apologize for being alive or thank you for showing up.

You stepped inside. Set your bag down. When you turned to speak again, he was already halfway down the hall.

He hadn’t made a sound.

Later, after you’d unpacked and washed your face in the cracked porcelain basin, you made your way down to the kitchen, following the faint clatter of dishware. You paused at the doorway.

He stood at the sink, back to you, sleeves rolled higher now—his forearms dusted in pale hair, thick with muscle, the veins just barely raised under the skin. The gold chain shifted at his throat as he rinsed out an old tin mug. He didn’t seem to notice you.

The light from the window cut across the floor, a bright bar of late-afternoon sun. It stopped just inches from where he stood, and he didn’t cross it. His toes curled against the edge like it was a line he couldn’t breach.

You finally spoke. “Do you want any help?”

He jumped.

Not violently—just a twitch. His shoulders drew in, spine straightening, as if your voice had reached into him and plucked something loose.

Then he slowly turned. His eyes—still too blue—met yours, and for a second you thought he looked guilty. Like he’d been caught doing something shameful.

“No,” he said, swallowing. “But…thank you.”

You stepped forward anyway.

He froze. Again.

“I’m just getting a glass,” you said, brushing past him, your fingers grazing the inside of his forearm by accident—just a whisper of skin against skin.

He flinched. Actually flinched. Not hard. Not violently. But enough to feel like a blow. You pulled back, brows furrowing.

“I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s fine,” he said quickly, voice hushed and low and cracking like dry wood underfoot. “You ain’t done nothin’ wrong.”

You turned your head, studied him.

“Do you not like to be touched?”

A pause.

He looked down at the floor. His hands opened and closed once.

“I just…ain’t used to it, is all.”

Not used to it. Not anymore. Not in a long, long time.

You felt something tighten in your chest then, strange and aching. A tether drawing taut. You didn’t know what had happened to him. Why the town feared him. Why the sunlight seemed to singe the air around him. Why his voice trembled when you spoke too softly.

But you did know this:

He was alone.

And he had been alone for a very, very long time.

The glass was cloudy. Not dirty—just old, like everything else in this house. When you turned the tap, the pipes groaned in protest before surrendering a stream of lukewarm water. You sipped, then leaned against the counter, your eyes sliding back to him.

Remmick hadn’t moved.

Still by the sink, shoulder just shy of that stripe of sunlight, arms stiff at his sides like he didn’t know how to stand. The water dripped from the mug he held. A single droplet clung to the edge of his knuckle and then slid down, curling over his wrist.

He stared at the floor. At your boots. At anything except you.

“You live here alone?” you asked.

His head tilted slightly, as though the question had startled him. He nodded.

“For how long?”

A beat.

“…Long.”

He didn’t elaborate. Just that one syllable, spoken like a stone dropped into a well. No echo. No follow-up.

You took another sip. “Locals said you don’t like company.”

His lip twitched—almost a smile, but not quite. It was more like…a ghost of a smirk, something he might’ve worn naturally once, long ago, before it fell out of practice.

“I reckon they said worse’n that.”

“They said not to let you touch me.”

That made him flinch for real.

A sharp intake of breath, his spine straightening, knuckles whitening around the tin cup. He didn’t look at you. Didn’t speak. But the shame bled off him like heat, pouring into the space between you until the air turned too thick to breathe.

You waited.

And when he still didn’t say anything, you set your glass down with a quiet clink and asked gently:

“Why would they say that?”

He looked at you then.

Really looked.

Eyes wide. Blue. Too blue. Glassy in the way that porcelain is glassy—shiny and fragile and false. A color that didn’t feel real, not on a living thing. His brow was furrowed like the question pained him.

“…They scared,” he said softly. “Always been. But fear makes folks say things that ain’t...whole.”

“Is it not true?”

His throat bobbed. That thin gold chain moved with the motion, catching what little light the room offered. His jaw tensed, a tick pulsing just beneath the skin. When he finally spoke, it was so quiet you almost missed it.

“I don’t hurt people who don’t deserve it.”

He said it like it was a rule, not a defense. Something sacred. Something self-imposed and unshakable.

“I didn’t think you did,” you murmured.

That made him pause. Head tilted again. Studying you like you were a puzzle with too many pieces.

“Then why’d you come?”

You gave a small shrug. “They said you needed help.”

“And you believed ‘em?”

“I believe you now.”

That silenced him.

He set the tin mug down gently, almost reverently. The sound was soft. Barely there. Like he’d learned to be careful with his strength. Or maybe he was just scared of breaking things.

“I ain’t had a nurse before,” he said. “Didn’t think I needed one.”

“Well,” you said, tone light, “I’m here now.”

Another pause.

He nodded, still not smiling. Just…accepting. Resigned. Like he’d already decided you were temporary.

A flicker of something passed behind his eyes then. Regret. Fear. Hunger. You couldn’t tell. But it made you step closer. And again—he moved back. Just a step. Not far. Not fast. But enough.

Like your nearness singed. You didn’t take it personally. You were starting to understand: it wasn’t you he didn’t trust. It was himself.

“Can I ask your name?” you said, after a beat.

He blinked. Then, slowly, he answered:

“…Remmick.”

You repeated it once, soft. Let it settle. His breath hitched. And just for a second—less than a breath, less than a blink—his eyes flashed red.

Bright. Brief. Burning.

Gone just as fast.

You didn’t say anything. You weren’t even sure you’d seen it. But he turned away like he had something to hide.

“I’ll, uh…be out on the porch. If you need me.” His voice cracked again. “Dinner’s in the oven.”

“Remmick.”

He stilled.

“Thank you.”

His hand touched the doorframe. Just the tips of his fingers. Then he left without looking back, the gold chain glinting once over the curve of his collarbone as he slipped into the shadows again.

You didn’t know what you’d just seen. But you knew you weren’t afraid. Not of him. And not of whatever was buried beneath those woeful eyes.

The dining room was crooked.

The long table—mahogany once, now dulled and water-stained—sat slightly uneven, legs warped from heat and time. One chair at the end had been worn smooth with use. The others were still draped in white sheets, untouched, forgotten. The chandelier above was dust-choked, only one bulb flickering faintly. Shadows wavered across the ceiling like they were alive.

Remmick was already seated when you stepped in, spine stiff, hands folded neatly in his lap. Not touching the silverware. Not even looking at the plate in front of him. A modest meal—roasted potatoes, black-eyed peas, cornbread—steamed in a careful arrangement across two plates, though yours was a little fuller.

He’d set it out like it was a ritual. Like it mattered. His eyes jumped to yours the moment you crossed the threshold. That same stare—wide, dark in the low light, too big for his face—gave him the look of something puppyish, soft in a way that didn’t match the rest of him.

“I hope it’s alright,” he said quickly, words too fast, too eager. “I cooked it this mornin’. Tried to keep it warm without dryin’ it out.”

You slid into the chair across from him. “It smells good.”

His shoulders relaxed a fraction, like a wire had gone slack. “Ain’t had much reason to cook for two.”

You took a bite, slowly. It was simple—salt, butter, heat. No herbs. No flair. But it was made with care. You could taste that.

Across from you, Remmick didn’t eat. He watched you instead.

You didn’t comment on it at first, but when you finally glanced up, fork paused midair, he looked away too quickly. A flicker of red threatened behind his lashes—gone before you could be sure.

“You’re not hungry?” you asked gently.

He hesitated. “Not for that.”

You blinked.

He flinched. “I mean—nothin’ wrong with it. I just—I don’t eat much. Not lately.”

You let it go. For now.

The silence that followed wasn’t hostile, but it wasn’t easy either. It strained under its own weight. Not tension between you, but the kind that comes when someone’s forgotten how to be in a room with another person. He kept shifting in his seat—shoulders tight, hands flexing slightly in his lap, like he had to remind himself to stay still.

You tried again.

“So…you’ve lived here a long time?”

He nodded. “Since before the war.”

“Which one?”

His lips twitched. “Exactly.”

You huffed a soft laugh. “Do you ever leave?”

Another long pause. He looked down at the table, fingers tracing the edge of a scratch in the wood.

“I used to,” he said. “Town was smaller then. Or maybe it just felt that way.”

“You don’t go anymore?”

“I scare folks.” He said it plainly. No self-pity. Just fact. “And I don’t…do well in the sun.”

You watched the way he said it—carefully. Intentionally vague. Like he was testing how much he could say without scaring you off.

“I noticed,” you murmured.

His eyes lifted again. In the dim lighting, they looked almost black, shadows swallowing all the unnatural blue. The wide shape of them gave him a look so innocent it was disarming—a big-eyed, vulnerable softness, like a boy too shy to ask for what he needed.

“I’m not scared of you,” you added.

He swallowed hard. The gold chain at his collarbone shifted.

“You should be,” he said softly. “But I’m glad you’re not.”

The food sat cooling between you.

You noticed he kept glancing at your hands—how they moved, how they curled around your fork, how they pressed briefly to your chest when you swallowed water. He didn’t leer. Didn’t ogle. But he watched with the intensity of someone who’d gone without touch so long, he’d forgotten what warmth looked like.

“Do you miss it?” you asked.

He looked up sharply. “Miss what?”

“Conversation. Company.”

He blinked like you’d hit him.

“Yes,” he said. Just that. No hesitation. Voice cracking around the edge.

Then, quieter:

“I try not to. But yes.”

You sat with that for a beat.

“I could talk more,” you offered, a faint smile tugging at your mouth. “Or less. If you’d rather quiet.”

He shook his head, too fast. “No—no, I like it. I…I like your voice.”

You blinked. Your cheeks went warm.

He blinked too, startled at himself. “Shit—I mean—not like that. Just. It’s nice. I ain’t heard anything like it in…”

He trailed off. His ears had gone pink.

You laughed gently. “You’re a little out of practice, huh?”

“I’m fuckin’ terrible,” he muttered, half to himself. Then, with a glance at you: “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” you said. “It’s nice. You’re…nice.”

He stared at you like he didn’t know what to do with that word. And then, without warning, a loud creak echoed from somewhere deeper in the house. The pipes moaned. The lights flickered.

You jumped.

Remmick didn’t move. But the red flashed again in his eyes—just for a blink, just enough to raise the hairs on your arms.

“Old house,” he murmured.

“Right.”

But he was staring down the hallway now, like he heard something you couldn’t. His jaw clenched. One hand curled tight against his knee, as if fighting the urge to stand.

“Is it safe?” you asked, your voice dipping instinctively into something wary.

His eyes cut to yours.

And something about the way he looked at you then—those big, dark, wide eyes still soft as a dog’s, still scared to ask too much—made your breath catch.

“With me?” he said.

A beat.

Then, softer:

“Always.”

The house changed at night.

It didn’t creak. It breathed—slow and hollow, like the walls had lungs of their own. The old wood carried footsteps in strange directions. Voices turned inward. Time unspooled.

You lay in bed, still dressed, still wired, the heat slick on the back of your neck. The lamp on your bedside table cast a low, amber glow across the ceiling. Somewhere outside, a whippoorwill called once and went quiet.

The room smelled like lavender soap and old cotton. The fan in the corner ticked every fifth rotation. You hadn’t seen Remmick since dinner.

He hadn’t said goodnight. Not that you blamed him.

He’d looked like he wanted to linger. Like his legs didn’t quite want to carry him away. But something in him—something knotted deep—had yanked him back into the dark, like a leash.

Still, you thought of him as you lay there. The way his eyes kept dropping to your hands. The way his voice cracked when he spoke too kindly. The way he watched you like he hadn’t watched another soul in decades—and didn’t know if he was allowed to.

You didn’t mean to doze. But the silence folded over you like a sheet.

And then—

You heard it.

Low. Fragile. Muffled.

A sound curling up through the floorboards.

You blinked awake, heart ticking faster, every hair on your arms rising before your mind even caught up. You sat up slowly. The fan ticked again.

And again, that sound.

A moan.

Male. Soft. Throaty.

Followed by something rougher. Shaped by a tongue and a mouth. Words.

You slid from the bed, bare feet ghosting over the cool floor. Pressed your palm to the wall. Leaned close.

The voice—Remmick’s voice—was speaking. But not English. Something old. It came in broken fragments. Whispered. Half-strangled. And aching.

“A chuisle…mo chuisle, mo chroí…”

(My pulse…my pulse, my heart…)

The wood under your fingers thrummed.

“Táid mo lámha ag crith…Dia, tá brón orm…”

(My hands are shaking…God, I’m sorry…)

A sound followed—wet. Guttural. Like he’d tried to breathe through a sob and swallowed it.

You stepped back, heart rabbiting, heat pooling low in your belly—not from fear, but from something else.

The need in that voice. The loneliness. The way the words clung to his throat like they hurt coming out.

And then—

A moan. Sharp. Broken open.

“Lig dom é a mhothú… lig dom tú a mhothú…”

(Let me feel it…let me feel you…)

You were rooted to the floor, bare toes curling against the wood as something bloomed low in your abdomen—hot and needy and shameful in its intensity. Your thighs pressed together before you even realized you’d done it.

He sounded desperate. Not sexual—not entirely. But starved. Ragged.

Destroyed.

Like he was begging for something he didn’t think he deserved to have, not even in sleep.

“Tá tú anseo…tá tú fíor…ná fág mé…”

(You’re here…you’re real…don’t leave me…)

The words were choked now. Slurred. Drenched in a broken kind of longing. You didn’t mean to press your palm flat against the wall. Didn’t mean to close your eyes.

Didn’t mean to whisper: “I’m here.”

But you did.

And somehow, the sounds stopped. Not abruptly. Just…slowed. Faded.

As if he'd heard you.

As if, wherever he was in that dream, the presence of you at the wall soothed something raw and ancient inside him.

The air stilled. No more moaning. No more whispers. Only quiet. You stood there for a moment longer, breath shallow, chest tight. Then turned back to the bed.

And as you crawled beneath the covers, something inside you whispered—

He wasn’t dreaming of just anyone. He was dreaming of you.

You didn’t sleep long.

When you woke again, the air was different. Thicker.

Your body was heavy with it, sunk into the mattress, heart drumming in your ears like you were already in motion. The fan had stopped ticking. The lamp had gone out. A soft glow slanted in through the hallway—a light left on downstairs, maybe. Or—

No.

Someone had turned it on.

You sat up slowly. The floorboards creaked outside your door. Once. Twice. A pause. Then a knock. Soft. Barely there.

Your stomach flipped.

“Yeah?” you called, voice still sleep-rough, soft enough that he could ignore it if he needed to.

But he didn’t. The door opened a crack. And there he was.

Remmick.

Still barefoot.

Still dressed the same—pinstriped button-up wrinkled from sleep, sleeves rolled to the elbows, suspenders hanging loose at his sides. His hair was mussed now, falling harder into his face, and his chest rose and fell beneath the thin white wife-beater like he’d climbed stairs too fast. Or hadn’t been breathing right since sundown.

He didn’t cross the threshold. Not at first.

He stood there like a man unsure of his place in the world—a broad shadow outlined in gold from the hallway light, wide-eyed and fidgeting, arms at his sides like he didn’t trust himself to lift them.

“Sorry,” he said, voice raw. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t.”

He hesitated.

Then: “Can I…?”

He didn’t finish the sentence. But his eyes flicked toward the inside of the room—dark and private and unthreatening—and you understood.

You nodded once. “Yeah.”

He stepped in.

Carefully. Like the floor might bite him.

The door shut behind him with a click that echoed louder than it should have. He stood near the dresser, eyes darting—not in panic, but like he was looking for something to anchor himself to. His fingers worried the hem of his sleeve. His shoulders were hunched, defensive, vulnerable despite the width of them.

His eyes—dark in this light, wide and glassy—looked almost wet. Puppyish. Devastating.

“I heard you,” you said quietly. “Last night.”

He stiffened.

“I didn’t mean to,” you added. “I just…couldn’t sleep.”

His jaw flexed. His throat bobbed. He didn’t look at you.

“You were speaking in another language.”

“Gaelic,” he muttered, almost like he was ashamed of it. “From…before.”

“Before what?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he stepped closer. His hand twitched at his side.

“I didn’t know I was talkin’,” he said. “I don’t—usually.”

“You sounded upset.”

“I was.”

You waited.

Then, just above a whisper:

“I was dreamin’ of you.”

The room tilted. Your breath caught.

He raised his eyes then—still that soft, drowning dark, still wide like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to say your name, let alone admit this.

“I know it ain’t right,” he murmured, voice hoarse, almost breaking. “But I’ve been here so long. Been quiet so long. And then you—” His breath hitched. “You come in here like you’re made of light. Like you belong. And I don’t know what to do with that.”

You stood slowly.

He didn’t move. He watched you with that same broken hunger, like he’d already decided you were too good for him, but couldn’t stop himself from needing you anyway.

“You’re shaking,” you said.

He glanced down. His hands were trembling. You stepped closer. He didn’t flinch this time.

But he didn’t touch you either. Just stood there—shoulders tight, breath shallow, like if he touched you, you’d vanish.

“I ain’t touched anyone in so long,” he whispered. “And I keep thinkin’ about what they said. About me. About my hands. That I ruin things.”

You reached up, slowly, brushing your fingertips just above his collarbone—where the thin gold chain clung to his skin.

He gasped like it burned. You didn’t pull away.

“You didn’t ruin this.”

His eyes fluttered shut. His lip trembled. A sound caught in his throat—half a sob, half a moan—as he leaned forward, forehead just barely grazing yours.

“Tell me not to,” he whispered. “Tell me to leave, and I will. But if you don’t—if you don’t say it—I swear to God, I’m gonna fall to my knees.”

The air between you crackled.

And his voice dropped, Irish blooming up from the roots of him like something ancient and helpless:

“Cuir do lámha orm…ná tabhair uaim thú…”

(Put your hands on me…don’t take yourself away from me…)

You didn’t speak at first. Didn’t move either.

Just breathed—slow and even, like you were the calm center of a storm, and he was every desperate gust of wind trying to press against your skin.

Remmick stood there, trembling. Not from fear. From need. It curled off him like steam, thick and desperate, clinging to the air between you. His pupils were wide, swallowing the color of his irises until they looked nearly black, and his lips parted like he wanted to say more, to beg, to confess—but didn’t know how to start.

You reached for him.

He gasped—actually gasped—when your fingers slid up the open placket of his button-up, brushing the edge of his white ribbed wife-beater. You felt the tremor through him, all the way down. His chest was warm and solid, rising and falling like he was trying not to pant.

Your hands smoothed over his shoulders, palms splaying against the thick muscle hidden beneath soft cotton. And then, softly—gently, like it was a kindness—you pushed him.

He let you.

Without resistance, without question, he backed up until the backs of his knees hit the edge of the bed, and then he sank down like he didn’t know how to carry his own weight anymore. He sat there, breath shallow, eyes wide and wet and locked on you like you were the moon and he hadn’t seen the sky in a hundred years.

You stood between his knees. Tilted his chin up with just two fingers under his jaw.

“Hands to yourself,” you ordered, soft yet firm.

His breath hitched. His fingers dug into the comforter on either side of him, white-knuckled and obedient.

You watched the way he fought his own instinct—fought it like it pained him. He wanted to touch you. God, did he want to. It rolled off him in waves. His thighs were tense, knees spread wide, shirt wrinkled where your hands had touched him. He looked wrecked already.

“Y-you sure?” he asked, voice cracking like shaky glass under the burgeoning weight of desperation.

“I didn’t ask for your hands,” you said. “Not yet.”

His throat bobbed. The gold chain swayed at the base of his throat as he nodded—once, sharp, frantic.

“Okay,” he breathed. “Okay, I—yeah, I can do that. I’ll be good.”

You smiled, slow and soft and wicked.

“I know you will.”

He whimpered. Actually whimpered. A soft, strangled sound pulled from the depths of him, one he didn’t seem prepared for.

His hair had fallen over his brow again, mussed and curling faintly with sweat at his temples. You brushed it back, deliberately slow. He didn’t lean into the touch—he melted under it. His lashes fluttered. His lips parted.

“You’ve really gone this long?” you murmured, thumb stroking the sharp line of his trembling cheekbone.

His voice was barely audible.

“Thirteen hundred years.”

You blinked. He looked away, ashamed.

“I feed when I have to,” he said, “but touch? Mouths? Skin? That kinda closeness?” He shook his head, jaw tight. “Not since—fuck. Before the plague hit London.”

You stared at him, stunned.

“You’re starved.”

He looked back at you with those wide, dark, pleading eyes, red bleeding into his pupils like a fresh laceration, like a man who's learned to lick his wounds clean in silence finally cracking open wide and letting you see the most vulnerable parts of him.

“I’m starvin’.”

You nodded, slow and understanding, letting your hand fall away from his face.

“Then sit still, Remmick,” you murmured, hushed, like you were afraid to shatter the silence. “And let me feed you.”

His breath shuddered out of him like you’d punched it from his lungs. His hands curled tighter in the sheets. His voice was hoarse, shaking, with the faintest Irish crack as he whispered:

“A ghrá…táim i do lámha…”

(My love…I’m in your hands…)

You stayed standing between his knees, just looking at him, because even if you didn't know what those words meant, you could feel them carve into your soul like a brand.

And Remmick—God help him—let you. Didn’t dare breathe too deep, didn’t dare move a single muscle. He was shaking with it. With restraint. With want. With that terrible, ancient hunger not just for blood, but for closeness, for skin-on-skin, for the obscene luxury of being touched.

Your fingers reached for him. He twitched.

Not in fear. In anticipation. His lips parted, a fine strand of spit hanging off one corner, catching in the gold glow of the hallway light behind you. It glistened, trailing down toward his chin before pooling at the dip beneath his lower lip—thick, warm, a little foamy, and wholly instinctual. His breath came in short, shallow bursts now, as if his body was preparing for something it didn’t fully understand.

You slid his suspenders off the broad slope of his shoulders first, snapping one against his pec, feeling arousal pool into your cunt like molten hot lava when he whimpers at the pleasant sting of it, letting the thin scraps of fabric fall down beside his hips.

Then you undid the first button of his shirt. Then the next. And the next. Slow. Deliberate. Never breaking eye contact.

Remmick’s eyes were huge in the dark—dark and shiny, wide like a dog waiting to be called forward, like he’d sink his teeth into the floor just for a word from you. Sweat pearled at his temples. His thighs spread slightly wider beneath you as the shirt parted open.

His chest was beautiful. Scarred, but beautiful—pale muscle threaded with faint blue veins, the sort that spoke of long nights and longer hunger. His skin was cool beneath your fingertips, though you could feel the heat roiling beneath it, just under the surface.

But what drew your eye—what made you pause—was the tattoo.

On his left ribcage, inked into him like a brand, was a budded cross—old, faded, the lines a little blurred from age but unmistakable. A Christian cross, yes—but older, rougher, like it had been carved into him by a trembling hand in candlelight.

You stared.

He followed your gaze, and his throat worked, the motion making his chain jump slightly against his collarbones.

“I got that when I still thought it’d save me,” he whispered, voice tight.

You dropped to your knees. He whimpered.

No contact yet—just the sound of your body lowering between his thighs, the shift in the room, the weight of your presence pressing into the cradle of his hips. He tipped his head back against the edge of the bed, more thick drool sliding from the corner of his mouth, breath now shallow, frantic, like he was trying not to choke on his own spit.

You leaned forward. Pressed your mouth to the edge of the cross.

He hissed.

You kissed it. Then licked—tongue flattening over the cool ink, tracing it reverently, slowly. He trembled beneath you like a man being sanctified and defiled all at once.

The irony rolled off your tongue with every stroke.

A man like this—older than gunpowder, older than the books that tried to define him—wearing a cross close to his heart like it still meant salvation.

You dragged your lips lower.

Down his ribs. Over the ridges of muscle. To the soft trail of hair starting just below his navel—a dark, fine line that disappeared beneath the waistband of his jeans.

You licked that too. Just once. Teasing.

Following the path slowly, like you were on your knees at an altar, taking your time with worship. His happy trail twitched under your tongue.

Above you, Remmick made a noise that wasn’t a moan or a sob but something shattered between the two.

More drool slipped from his lips now—foamy, thick, sliding down his chin, catching on the curve of his neck and the edge of that trembling gold chain. He didn’t wipe it. Couldn’t. You’d told him not to touch.

His voice broke apart.

“I c-can’t take it,” he choked. “I swear to God, I’m gonna come just from you lookin’ at me like that—just from that tongue—fuck, darlin’, please.”

You looked up at him.

Still on your knees. Still reverent. And said, with quiet finality, “Good.”

You reached for his belt.

His breath caught—sharply, like the sound a deer makes when it hears the snap of a twig too close behind it. But he didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. Just stared down at you with those wide, wet eyes, black in the low light, pupils blown to the edge. His chest rose and fell like he was sprinting through mud.

The leather was worn, soft from age and use, the buckle cool in your fingers.

You took your time.

Slowly, purposefully, you undid the clasp, the soft clink of metal loud in the hush of the room. He whimpered, his thighs tensing beneath you, and more drool spilled from the corner of his mouth—thick, glistening, sliding down his chin

“Stay still,” you reminded him, voice silk-wrapped steel.

He nodded, a jerky, miserable little movement, and you swore his lower lip quivered. You dragged the zipper down, each tooth catching slightly, the sound sharp and intimate.

And then—finally—you pulled him free.

Your breath hitched.

He was hard. Painfully so. Flushed deep red at the tip, already leaking, the slit glossy and wet. He twitched in your hand, a thick vein pulsing along the underside, and his thighs quivered like he could barely keep himself grounded.

“Jesus,” you whispered.

Remmick gave a breathless, broken laugh, chin tilted back as he struggled not to move. His hands were fists in the sheets now, white-knuckled, his gold chain trembling across his throat with every shallow breath.

“I—fuck, I’m sorry,” he gasped. “I can’t stop—fuck, it’s so much—”

You looked up at him as you gave him the first stroke.

Just one.

Slow.

Base to tip, twisting your palm, watching his mouth fall open wider—thick drool spilling freely now, down his neck, dampening the edge of his shirt. He looked utterly destroyed already.

“Does it feel good?” you asked, your voice soft, cruel with how gently you said it.

He nodded frantically.

“Use your words.”

His head lolled forward. His voice was wrecked. “Feels like heaven,” he groaned. “Oh God, sugar, I cain’t—I cain’t believe—”

You didn’t let him finish.

You leaned forward, licking up the length of him, tongue flat, slow, letting his taste settle warm and heavy on your tongue—salt and skin and something a little coppery, something distinctly him, something old. He sobbed. Actually sobbed, chest hiccuping, thighs jerking just slightly before he caught himself and moaned through clenched teeth.

Your mouth wrapped around the head. He cried out.

No words now. Just a strangled sound ripped from his throat, and more drool frothed at the corners of his lips. He looked dazed—eyes rolling back, lashes fluttering. His hips bucked once—a reflex—and immediately stilled like he was terrified to move again without permission.

You pulled back just enough to speak, saliva stringing between your lips and his flushed cock.

“I told you,” you whispered. “Hands to yourself.”

His voice came out wrecked, breathless.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Then your mouth was back on him.

You took him deeper this time—slow, tight suction, twisting your wrist around what you couldn’t take yet—and the way he howled, you’d have thought he’d been starved in every way a man could be. Which, of course, he had. Thirteen hundred years of this. Denied. Suppressed. Begged away.

His thighs trembled. His belly tensed. And still he didn’t move. Didn’t touch. Didn’t dare.

You sucked harder.

He broke.

“Fuck—fuck, I’m gonna—darlin’, I—I can’t—oh, please, please, I’m so sorry—”

He was crying.

Not just drool now—actual tears, shining in his lashes, streaking down his flushed face as you sucked him through it, as he jerked and shook and whimpered out your name like it was a hymn.

He came with a sob, hips barely stuttering forward as his whole body went taut, his cock pulsing against your tongue, spilling hot down your throat in waves, thick and heavy and so much you almost gagged on it.

He was loud.

Pathetic.

Perfect.

When you finally pulled off, he was slumped forward—a wrecked, shivering mess, his lips bitten red and his chain soaked through with spit and sweat. His chest heaved. His thighs twitched.

You sat back on your heels, wiped your mouth slowly.

“Still with me?” you asked.

He nodded, weakly. “I ain’t ever lettin’ you leave.”

He collapsed.

Not fell—melted. Like every bone in him had turned to syrup and grief, his body slumping forward, catching on the edge of the bed before slipping down to the floor.

Boneless.

His cheek pressed to the old wood, hair clinging to his forehead, the buttons of his half-undone shirt twisted beneath him. He was drenched—sweat slicked across his chest and ribs, his pale skin kissed pink from effort, a shine of drool still slicking his chin, clinging to the corners of his mouth like foam. His gold chain was crooked now, stuck against the sweat-damp hollow of his throat.

You rose slowly to your knees, then leaned forward—not to comfort him, not yet—but to press your lips to that chain.

Right at the dip of his collarbones. He gasped. Like it burned. Like your mouth was fire and he’d been craving the flame.

His eyes fluttered open—glass-wet, dazed, the whites shot red, his lips trembling from overstimulation. He looked wrecked. Used. Holy.

And still. Still, he tried.

One shaking hand rose, dragging along the edge of your thigh—hesitant, aching, reverent. His fingers brushed your hip like he was praying through it.

“Lemme touch you,” he breathed. “Please. Let me—wanna make you feel good—want your taste on my tongue, sugar, please—”

You caught his wrist mid-rise. Firm. Final. His breath hitched. His mouth parted. But he didn’t resist. Didn’t fight. You leaned in close, until your mouth was at his ear, and whispered—

“You don’t get to yet.”

His eyes fluttered. His breath caught.

“You’re gonna learn to wait.”

A tremble rolled through him, from head to toe. His hand fell away, limp at his side. And then he nodded.

Small. Shaky. Utterly obedient.

“Yes, ma’am,” he breathed. “I’ll wait. I’ll wait, I swear.”

You ran your fingers through his hair, gently now, and he whimpered at the touch.

“Look at you,” you murmured.

He did. Glassy-eyed. Pathetic. So fucking into it.

His tongue darted out across his lower lip, catching more of the drool clinging there, and he looked at you like he’d fall on his knees all over again if you so much as told him to.

“Did I do good?” he asked, voice so small, so needy it nearly broke something open in your chest.

You smiled.

And whispered, “You were perfect.”

He didn’t get up. Didn’t even try.

Just curled in beside your legs like a dog, bare chest heaving, forehead pressed to your knee, as if your body alone could tether him to the earth. His arms folded in at his chest, drawn tight like he didn’t trust them not to reach for you again.

You stayed still. Let him have it. Let him exist in the aftermath—his breath still catching, his sweat-soaked hair plastered to his brow, drool drying tacky at the corners of his mouth, his jeans half undone around his hips, completely forgotten. He looked small down there, despite the size of him. Small and wrecked.

He murmured against your thigh—words so soft you almost missed them, lips brushing the fabric of your skirt like a confession:

“Didn’t know it could feel like that…”

You glanced down.

His eyes were closed, lashes wet. His lips parted as he pressed the side of his face closer to your leg, as if nearness was the only thing keeping him from coming apart again.

“Didn’t know I could feel like that.”

You stroked his hair gently. He shivered.

“I ain’t been held like this since…” He swallowed. “Since before.”

You waited. Then, with a sigh that hitched in his throat, he said:

“Before I stopped bein’ a man and started bein’ a thing.”

Your fingers paused at his temple.

But he nuzzled into your knee like he hadn’t said something awful. Like he hadn’t peeled that truth out of himself and bled it onto your lap.

“I remember what it was like,” he whispered. “Before I turned. Before the hunger. Before all that silence got in me and stayed.”

Another pause.

“I used to think about what it’d be like, y’know? Fallin’ apart for someone. Just crackin’ open. Bein’ touched like I was human.”

He sighed again.

“Didn’t think it’d ever happen.”

Your hand returned to his hair, soft strokes over the messy bangs sticking to his forehead.

He let out a low, contented whine.

“Felt you on my tongue before I ever tasted you,” he breathed, voice thick and syrup-slow. “In my dreams. In my fuckin’ bones.”

His fingers brushed the floor. Not reaching. Just hovering.

“Tell me you won’t go,” he whispered.

You didn’t say anything. But you didn’t move. And that was enough.

He breathed deep then, nose brushing your thigh, the gold chain glinting dully in the light. His body slackened further, weight pooling against you like he meant to stay right there forever—a crumpled thing collared in sweat, salt, and shame, held together only by the sound of your breath and the soft drag of your fingers through his hair.

“I’m ruined now,” he said sleepily. “You know that, don’t you?”

You smiled faintly.

“Good.”

He whimpered again. A sound so low and lovely it curled down your spine and planted itself deep in your stomach.

And then he sighed—the sound of someone finally coming home—and nuzzled in deeper at your thigh.

[quinnophile]

forgive me father, for I have sinned (teaser)

this fic has not yet been posted!

pairing. remmick x fem!reader

synopsis. in a coastal town riddled with grief and quiet unrest, Remmick, a shipwright with a haunted past, unexpectedly finds solace in the presence of a young woman suffocating under the weight of her father's iron grip - you. What begins as flirtation in flickering candlelight grows into something deeper; stolen moments at the docks, shared songs, and the burning desire to escape a life neither of them chose.

warnings. human + vampire Remmick, pwp, angst, pining, sacrilegious acts, hierophilia, indecent acts within the Lord's house, parental abuse, religious trauma, irish historical accuracy, virgin!reader, monster fucking smut (oral- f receiving, fingering, possible praise, possessiveness, biting, blood play?, dirty talk, dubcon, piv, inexperienced, ). this is set before and during the events of the film!

word count. 10k. + ( predicted )

author's note. this fic is in no way meant to sympathise with Remmick's character in the film. Ya girl is just horny for some Irish vampire. Other than that, I hope you will enjoy my first shot at smut!

there is no smut in this teaser, but plenty to come. these are just a few different selected scenes <3

The voice drifted out like smoke through a cracked window. He could see her now - no, you - half-shadowed in the soft lampglow outside the door, dancing between tables and grinning at the locals as you sang like you owned the very walls around you.

The pub throbbed with the sound of it; boots stomping in time, hands clapping, the chorus echoing back at you from drunk and sober mouths alike. Your voice had a rasp like old whiskey, but it soared, pure and strange and beautiful, like something holy in the middle of all that sin.

“Remmick?” Eoin nudged him. “You alright?”

He didn’t answer.

You bumped your shoulder lightly against his. “So? Any other tunes hiding in that haunted soul of yours?”

He gave a sly smirk. “You mean aside from the ones I hum while sobbing over gravestones and broken dreams?”

You gasped dramatically. “Christ alive, play something cheerful before I throw myself into the Liffey.”

With a chuckle, he struck a chord - a brighter one this time - and began to play a lively reel. His fingers danced along the strings, strumming a rhythm that skipped across the stones like sunlight on water.

You stood without warning, arms thrown wide, and began to twirl, barefoot now, having kicked your boots off without him noticing. Your laughter rang out like wind chimes as you spun around him, skirt flaring with every step.

Remmick watched, spellbound. Still playing, yes, but barely keeping time as you danced around him like the world didn’t hurt, like there were no bruises or pasts or sorrow or fathers.

“Oh, the summer time is coming,” you sang, your voice soaring again, this time more joyful. Less haunting. “And the trees are sweetly bloomin’…”

He joined in, picking up the melody, and the two of you sang into the wind; laughing between verses, forgetting the hour, the pain, the things unsaid.

For a little while, it was just joy, raw, and beautiful. You couldn’t remember the last time you had felt this happy. 

Then came the Sunday.

Rain clung to the air in a damp, stubborn mist, and the chapel smelled of old stone and wet wool. You were seated in the second pew, your hands folded in practiced piety, but your heart - as always - felt elsewhere.

Your father stood at the pulpit, stern and stony, preaching fire and forgiveness in equal measure. His voice echoed under the vaulted ceiling as he led the congregation in the “Our Father,” eyes closed, cadence sharp.

You exhaled and joined in, lips moving from memory. The words tasted strange in your mouth. Too clean.

“Our Father, who art in heaven…”

And then, warmth.

A presence slid into the pew beside you, unannounced and wholly impossible. A voice joined yours, a beat behind, low and lilting and full of mischief.

“…Hallowed be thy name…”

You opened one eye.

Remmick.

[quinnophile]

please stop i am obsessed 🥹🥵🎀

Mercy Made Flesh

one-shot

Remmick x fem!reader

summary: In the heat-choked hush of the Mississippi Delta, you answer a knock you swore would never come. Remmick—unaging, unholy, unforgettable—returns to collect what was promised. What follows is not romance, but ritual. A slow, sensual surrender to a hunger older than the Trinity itself.

wc: 13.1k

a/n: Listen. I didn’t mean to simp for Vampire Jack O’Connell—but here we are. I make no apologies for letting Remmick bite first and ask questions never. Thank you to my bestie Nat (@kayharrisons) for beta reading and hyping me up, without her this fic wouldn't exist, everyone say thank you Nat!

warnings: vampirism, southern gothic erotica, blood drinking as intimacy, canon-typical violence, explicit sexual content, oral sex (f!receiving), first time, bloodplay, biting, marking, monsterfucking (soft edition), religious imagery, devotion as obsession, gothic horror vibes, worship kink, consent affirmed, begging, dirty talk, gentle ruin, haunting eroticism, power imbalance, slow seduction, soul-binding, immortal x mortal, he wants to keep her forever, she lets him, fem!reader, second person pov, 1930s mississippi delta, house that breathes, you will be fed upon emotionally & literally

tags: @xhoneymoonx134

likes, comments, and reblogs appreciated! please enjoy

Mississippi Delta, 1938

The heat hadn’t broken in days.

Not even after sunset, when the sky turned the color of old bruises and the crickets started singing like they were being paid to. It was the kind of heat that soaked into the floorboards, that crept beneath your thin cotton slip and clung to your back like sweat-slicked hands. The air was syrupy, heavy with magnolia and something murkier—soil, maybe. River water. Something that made you itch beneath your skin.

Your cottage sat just outside the edge of town, past the schoolhouse where you spent your days sorting through ledgers and lesson plans that no one but you ever really seemed to care about. It was modest—two rooms and a porch, set back behind a crumbling white-picket fence and swallowed by trees that whispered in the dark. A little sanctuary tucked into the Delta, surrounded by cornfields, creeks, and ghosts.

The kind of place a person could disappear if they wanted to. The kind of place someone could find you…if they were patient enough.

You stood in front of the sink, rinsing out a chipped enamel cup, your hands moving automatically. The oil lamp on the kitchen table flickered with each breath of wind slipping through the cracks in the warped window frame. A cicada screamed in the distance, then another, and then the whole world was humming in chorus.

And beneath it—beneath the cicadas, and the wind, and the nightbirds—you felt something shift.

A quiet. Too quiet.

You turned your head. Listened harder.

Nothing.

Not even the frogs.

Your hand paused in the dishwater. Fingers trembling just a little. It wasn’t like you to be spooked by the dark. You’d grown up in it. Learned to make friends with shadows. Learned not to flinch when things moved just out of sight.

But this?

This was different.

It was as if the night was holding its breath.

And then—

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Not loud. Not frantic. But final.

Your body went stiff. The cup slipped beneath the water and bumped the side of the basin with a hollow clink.

No one ever came this far out after sundown. No one but—

You shook your head, almost hard enough to rattle something loose.

No.

He was gone. That part of your life was buried.

You made sure of it.

Still, your bare feet moved toward the door like they weren’t yours. Soft against the creaky wood. Slow. You reached for the small revolver you kept in the drawer beside the door frame, thumbed the hammer back.

Your hand rested on the knob.

Another knock. This time, softer.

Almost...polite.

The porch light had been dead for weeks, so you couldn’t see who was waiting on the other side. But the air—something in the air—told you.

It was him.

You didn’t answer. Not right away.

You stood there with your palm flat against the rough wood, your forehead nearly touching it too—eyes shut, breath shallow. The air on the other side didn’t stir like it should’ve. No footfalls creaking the porch. No shuffle of boots on sun-bleached planks. Just stillness. Waiting.

And underneath your ribs, something began to ache. Something you hadn’t let yourself feel in years.

You didn’t know his name, not back then. You only knew his eyes—gold in the shadows. Red when caught in the light. Like a firelight in the dark. Like a blood red moon through stained-glass windows.

And his voice. Low. Dragging vowels like syrup. A Southern accent that didn’t come from any map you’d ever seen—older than towns, older than state lines. A voice that had told you, seven years ago, with impossible calm:

"You’ll know when it’s time."

You knew. Your hands trembled against your sides. But you didn’t back away. Some part of you knew how useless running would be.

The knob beneath your hand felt cold. Too cold for Mississippi in August.

You turned it.

The door opened slow, hinges whining like they were trying to warn you. You stepped back instinctively—just one step—and then he was there.

Remmick.

Still tall, still lean in that devastating way—like his body was carved from something hard and mean, but shaped to tempt. He wore a crisp white shirt rolled to the elbows, suspenders hanging loose from his hips, and trousers that looked far too clean for a man who walked through the dirt. His hair was messy in that intentional way, brown and swept back like he’d been running hands through it all night. Stubble lined his sharp jaw, catching the lamplight just so.

But it was his face that rooted you to the floor. That hollowed out your breath.

Still young. Still wrong.

Not a wrinkle, not a scar. Not a mark of time. He hadn’t aged a day.

And his eyes—oh, God, his eyes.

They caught the lamp behind you and lit up red, bright and glinting, like the embers of a dying fire. Not human. Not even pretending.

"Hello, dove."

His voice curled into your bones like cigarette smoke. You didn’t answer. You couldn’t.

You hated how your body reacted.

Hated that you could still feel it—like something old and molten stirring between your thighs, a flicker of the same heat you’d felt that night in the alley, back when you were too desperate to care what kind of creature answered your prayer.

He looked you over once. Not with hunger. With certainty. Like he already knew how this would end. Like he already owned you.

"You remember, don’t you?" he asked.

"I came to collect."

And your voice—when it finally came—was little more than a whisper.

"You can’t be real."

That smile. That slight twitch at the corner of his mouth. Wolfish. Slow.

"You promised."

You wanted to shut the door. Slam it. Deadbolt it. But your hand didn’t move.

Remmick didn’t step forward, not yet. He stood just outside the threshold, framed by night and cypress trees and the distant flicker of heat lightning beyond the fields. The air around him pulsed with something old—older than the land, older than you, older than anything you could name.

He tilted his head the way animals do, watching you, letting the silence thicken like molasses between you.

"Still living out here all on your own," he murmured, gaze drifting over your shoulders, into the small, tidy kitchen behind you. "Hung your laundry on the line this morning. Blue dress, lace hem. Favorite one, ain’t it?"

Your stomach clenched. That dress hadn’t seen a neighbor’s eye all week.

"You've been watching me," you said, your voice low, unsure if it was accusation or realization.

"I’ve been waiting," he said. "Not the same thing."

You swallowed hard. Your breath caught in your throat like a thorn. The wind shifted, and you caught the faintest trace of something—dried tobacco, smoke, rain-soaked dirt, and beneath it, the iron-sweet tinge of blood.

Not fresh. Not violent. Just…present. Like it lived in him.

"I paid my debt," you whispered.

"No, you survived it," he said, stepping up onto the first board of the porch. The wood didn’t creak beneath his weight. "And that’s only half the bargain."

He still hadn’t crossed the threshold.

The stories came back to you, the ones whispered by old women with trembling hands and ash crosses pressed to their doorways—vampires couldn’t enter unless invited. But you hadn’t invited him, not this time.

"You don’t have permission," you said.

He smiled, eyes flashing red again.

"You gave it, seven years ago."

Your breath hitched.

"I was a girl," you said.

"You were desperate," he corrected. "And honest. Desperation makes people honest in ways they can’t be twice. You knew what you were offering me, even if you didn’t understand it. Your promise had teeth."

The wind pushed against your back, as if urging you forward.

Remmick stepped closer, just enough for the shadows to kiss the line of his throat, the hollow of his collarbone. His voice dropped, intimate now—dragging across your skin like a fingertip behind the ear.

"You asked for a miracle. I gave it to you. And now I’m here for what’s mine."

Your heart thudded violently in your chest.

"I didn’t think you’d come."

"That’s the thing about monsters, dove." He leaned down, lips almost grazing the curve of your jaw. "We always do."

And then—

He stepped back.

The wind stopped.

The night fell quiet again, like the world had paused just to watch what you’d do next.

"I’ll wait out here till you’re ready," he said, turning toward the swing on your porch and settling into it like he had all the time in the world. "But don’t make me knock twice. Wouldn’t be polite."

The swing groaned beneath him as it rocked gently, back and forth.

You stood there frozen in the doorway, one bare foot still inside the house, the other brushing the edge of the porch.

You’d made a promise.

And he was here to keep it.

The door stayed open. Just enough for the night to reach inside.

You didn’t move.

Your body stood still but your mind wandered—back to that night in the alley, to the smell of blood and piss and riverwater, your knees soaked in your brother’s lifeblood as you screamed for help that never came. Except it did. It came in the shape of a man who didn’t breathe, didn’t blink, didn’t make promises the way mortals did.

It came in the shape of him.

You thought time would wash it away. That the years would smooth the edges of his voice in your memory, dull the sharpness of his presence. But now, with him just outside your door, it all returned like a fever dream—hot, all-consuming, too real to outrun.

You turned away from the threshold, slowly, carefully, as if the floor might cave in under you. Your hands trembled as you reached for the oil lamp on the table, adjusting the flame lower until it flickered like a dying heartbeat.

The silence behind you dragged, deep and waiting. He didn’t speak again. Didn’t call for you.

He didn’t have to.

You moved through the house in slow circles. Touching things. Straightening them. Folding a dishcloth. Setting a book back on the shelf, even though you’d already read it twice. You tried to pretend you weren’t thinking about the man on your porch. But the heat of him pressed against the back of your mind like a hand.

You could feel him out there. Not just physically—but in you, somehow. Like the air had shifted around his shape, and the longer he lingered, the more your body remembered what it had felt like to stand in front of something not quite human and still want.

You passed the mirror in the hallway and paused.

Your reflection looked undone. Not in the way your hair had fallen from its pin, or the flush across your cheeks, but deeper—like something inside you had been cracked open. You touched your own throat, right where you imagined his mouth might go.

No bite.

Not yet.

But you swore you could feel phantom teeth.

You went back to the door, holding your breath, and looked at him through the screen.

He hadn’t moved. He sat on the swing, one leg stretched out, the other bent lazily beneath him, arms slung across the backrest like he’d always belonged there. A cigarette burned between two fingers, the tip flaring orange as he dragged from it. The scent of it hit you—rich, earthy, and somehow foreign, like something imported from a place no longer on the map.

He didn’t look at you right away.

Then, slowly, he did.

Red eyes caught yours.

He smiled, small and slow, like he was reading a page of you he’d already memorized.

"Thought you’d shut the door by now," he said.

"I should have," you answered.

"But you didn’t."

His voice curled into the quiet.

You stepped out onto the porch, barefoot, the boards warm beneath your soles. He didn’t move to greet you. He didn’t rise. He just watched you walk toward him like he’d been watching in dreams you never remembered having.

The swing groaned as you sat down beside him, a careful space between you.

His shoulder brushed yours.

You stared straight ahead, out into the night. A mist was beginning to rise off the distant fields. The moon hung low and orange like a wound in the sky.

Somewhere in the bayou, a whippoorwill called, long and mournful.

"How long have you been watching me?" you asked.

"Since before you knew to look."

"Why now?"

He turned toward you. His voice was velvet-wrapped iron.

"Because now…you’re ripe for the pickin’.”

You didn’t remember falling asleep.

One moment you were on the porch beside him, listening to the slow groan of the swing and the way the crickets held their breath when he exhaled, the next you were waking in your bed, the sheets tangled around your legs like they were trying to hold you down.

The house was too quiet.

No birdsong. No creak of the windmill out back. No rustle of the sycamores that scraped against your bedroom window on stormy nights.

Just stillness.

And scent.

It clung to the cotton of your nightdress. Tobacco smoke, sweat, rain. Him.

You sat up slowly, pressing your hand to your chest. Your heart thudded like it was trying to remember who it belonged to. The lamp beside your bed had burned down to a stub. A trickle of wax curled like a vein down the side of the glass.

Your mouth tasted like smoke and guilt. Your thighs ached in that low, humming way—though you couldn’t say why. Nothing had happened. Not really.

But something had changed.

You felt it under your skin, in the place where blood meets breath.

The floor was cool under your feet as you moved. You didn’t dress. Just pulled a robe over your slip and stepped into the hallway. The house felt heavier than usual, thick with the ghost of his presence. Every corner held a whisper. Every shadow a shape.

You opened the front door.

The porch was empty.

The swing still rocked gently, as if someone had only just stood up from it.

A folded piece of paper lay on the top step, weighted down by a smooth river stone.

You picked it up with trembling hands.

Come.

That was all it said. One word. But it rang through your bones like gospel. Like a vow.

You looked out across the field. A narrow dirt road stretched beyond the tree line, overgrown but clear. You’d never dared follow it. That road didn’t belong to you.

It belonged to him.

And now…so did you.

You didn’t bring anything with you.

Not a suitcase. Not a shawl. Not a Bible tucked under your arm for comfort.

Just yourself.

And the road.

The hem of your slip was already damp by the time you reached the edge of the field. Dew clung to your ankles like cold fingers, and the earth was soft beneath your feet—fresh from last night’s storm, the kind that never really breaks the heat, only deepens it. The moon had gone down, but the sky was beginning to bruise with that blue-black ink that comes before sunrise. Everything smelled like wet grass, magnolia, and the faint rot of old wood.

The path curved, narrowing as it passed through trees that leaned in too close. Their branches kissed above you like they were whispering secrets into each other’s leaves. Spanish moss hung like veils from the oaks, dripping silver in the fading dark. It made the world feel smaller. Quieter. As if you were walking into something sacred—or something doomed.

A crow cawed once in the distance. Sharp. Hollow. You didn’t flinch.

There was no sound of wheels. No car waiting. Just the road and the fog and the promise you'd made.

And then you saw it.

The house.

Tucked deep in the grove, half-swallowed by vines and time, it rose like a memory from the earth. A decaying plantation, left to rot in the wet belly of the Delta. Its bones were still beautiful—white columns streaked with black mildew, a grand porch that sagged like a mouth missing teeth, shuttered windows with iron latches rusted shut. Ivy grew up the sides like it was trying to strangle the place. Or maybe protect it.

You stood there at the edge of the clearing, breath caught in your throat.

He’d brought you here.

Or maybe he’d always been here. Waiting. Dreaming of the moment you’d return to him without even knowing it.

A shape moved behind one of the upstairs curtains. Quick. Barely there.

You didn’t run.

Your bare foot found the first step.

It groaned like it recognized you.

The door was already open.

Not wide—just enough for you to know it had been waiting.

And you stepped inside.

The air inside was colder.

Not the kind of cold that came from breeze or shade—but from stillness, from the absence of sun and time. A hush so thick it felt like you were walking underwater. Like the house had held its breath for decades and only now began to exhale.

Dust spiraled in the faint light seeping through fractured windows, casting soft halos through the dark. The wooden floor beneath your feet was warped and groaning, but clean. Not in any natural sense—there was no broom that had touched these boards. No polish or soap.

But it had been kept.

The air didn’t smell like rot or mildew. It smelled like cedar. Like old leather. And deeper beneath that, like him.

He hadn’t lit any lamps.

Just the fireplace, burning low, glowing embers pulsing orange-red at the back of a cavernous hearth. The flame danced shadows across the faded wallpaper, peeling in long strips like dead skin. A high-backed chair faced the fire, velvet blackened from age, its silhouette looming like something alive.

You swallowed, lips dry, and stepped further in.

Your voice didn’t carry. It didn’t even try.

Remmick was nowhere in sight.

But he was here.

You could feel him in the walls, in the way the house seemed to lean closer with every step you took.

You passed through the parlor, past a dusty grand piano with one ivory key cracked down the middle. Past oil portraits too old to make out, their eyes blurred with time. Past a single vase of dried wildflowers, colorless now, but carefully arranged.

You paused in the doorway to the drawing room, your hand resting lightly on the frame.

A whisper of air moved behind you.

Then—

A hand.

Not grabbing. Not harsh. Just the light press of fingers against the small of your back, palm flat and warm through the thin cotton of your slip.

You froze.

He was behind you.

So close you could feel his breath at your neck. Not warm, not cold—just present. Like wind through a crack in the door. Like the memory of a touch before it lands.

His voice was low, close to your ear.

"You came."

You didn’t answer.

"You always would have."

You wanted to say no. Wanted to deny it. But you stood there trembling under his hand, your heartbeat so loud you were sure he could hear it.

Maybe that was why he smiled.

He stepped around you slowly, letting his fingers graze the side of your waist as he moved. His eyes glinted red in the firelight, catching on you like a flame drawn to dry kindling.

He looked at you like he was already undressing you.

Not your clothes—your will.

And it was already unraveling.

You’d suspected he wasn’t born of this soil.

Not just because of the way he moved—like he didn’t quite belong to gravity—but because of the way he spoke. Like time hadn’t worn the edges off his words the way it had with everyone else. His voice curled around vowels like smoke curling through keyholes. Rich and low, but laced with something older. Something foreign. Something that made the hair at the nape of your neck rise when he spoke too softly, too close.

He didn’t speak like a man from the Delta.

He spoke like something older than it.

Older than the country. Maybe older than God.

Remmick stopped in front of you, lit only by firelight.

His eyes had dulled from red to something deeper—like old garnet held to a candle. His shirt was open at the collar now, suspenders hanging slack, the buttons on his sleeves rolled to his elbows. His forearms were dusted with faint scars that looked like they had stories. His skin was pale in the glow, but not lifeless. He looked like marble warmed by touch.

He studied you for a long time.

You weren’t sure if it was your face he was reading, or something beneath it. Something you couldn’t hide.

"You look just like your mother," he said finally.

Your breath caught.

"You knew her?"

A soft smirk curled at the corner of his mouth.

"I’ve known a lot of people, dove. I just never forget the ones with your blood."

You didn’t ask what he meant. Not yet.

There was something heavy in his tone—something laced with memory that stretched back far further than it should. You had guessed, years ago, in the sleepless weeks after that alleyway miracle, that he was not new to this world. That his youth was a trick of the skin. A lie worn like a mask.

You’d read every folklore book you could get your hands on. Every whisper of vampire lore scratched into the margins of ledgers, stuffed between church hymnals, scribbled on the backs of newspapers.

Some said they aged. Slowly. Elegantly.

Others said they didn’t age at all. That they existed outside time. Beyond it.

You didn’t know how old Remmick was.

But something in your bones told you the truth.

Five hundred. Six hundred, maybe more.

A man who remembered empires. A man who had watched cities rise and burn. Who had danced in plague-slick ballrooms and kissed queens before they were beheaded. A man who had lived so long that names no longer mattered. Only debts. And blood.

And you’d given him both.

He stepped closer now, slow and deliberate.

"Yer heart’s gallopin’ like it thinks I’m here to take it."

You flinched. Not because he was wrong. But because he was right.

"You said you didn’t want my blood," you whispered.

"I don’t." He tilted his head. "Not yet."

"Then what do you want?"

His smile didn’t reach his eyes.

"You."

He said it like it was a simple thing. Like the rain wanting the river. Like the grave wanting the body.

You swallowed hard.

"Why me?"

His gaze dragged down your frame, unhurried, like a man admiring a painting he’d stolen once and hidden from the world.

"Because you belong to me. You gave yourself freely. No bargain’s ever tasted so sweet."

Your throat tightened.

"I didn’t know what I was agreeing to."

"You did," he said, softly now, stepping close enough that his chest nearly brushed yours. "You knew. Your soul knew. Even if your head didn’t catch up."

You opened your mouth to protest, to say something, anything that would push back this slow suffocation of certainty—

But his hand came up to your jaw. Fingers feather-light. Not forcing. Just holding. Just there.

"And you’ve been thinkin’ about me ever since," he said.

Not a question. A statement.

You didn’t answer.

He leaned in, his breath ghosting over your cheek, his voice a rasp against your ear.

"You dream of me, don’t you?"

Your hands trembled at your sides.

"I don’t—"

"You wake wet. Ache in your belly. You don’t know why. But I do."

You let your eyes fall shut, shame burning behind them like fire.

"Fuckin’ knew it," he murmured, almost reverent. "You smell like want, dove. You always have.”

His hand didn’t move. It just stayed there at your jaw, thumb ghosting slow along the hollow beneath your cheekbone. A touch so gentle it made your knees ache. Because it wasn’t the roughness that undid you—it was the restraint.

He could’ve taken.

He didn’t.

Not yet.

His gaze held yours, slow and unblinking, red still smoldering in the center of his irises like the dying core of a flame that refused to go out.

"Say it," he murmured.

Your lips parted, but nothing came.

"I can smell it," he said, voice low, rich as molasses. "Your shame. Your want. You’ve been livin’ like a nun with a beast inside her, and no one knows but me."

You hated how your breath stuttered. Hated more that your thighs pressed together when he said it.

"Why do you talk like that," you whispered, barely able to get the words out, "like you already know what I’m feeling?"

His fingers slid down, grazing the side of your neck, stopping just before the pulse thudding there.

"Because I do."

"That’s not fair."

He smiled, slow and crooked, nothing kind in it.

"No, dove. It ain’t."

You hated him.

You hated how beautiful he was in this light, sleeves rolled, veins prominent in his arms, shirt hanging open just enough to show the faint line of a scar that trailed beneath his collarbone. A body shaped by time, not by vanity. Not perfect. Just true. Like someone carved him for a purpose and let the flaws stay because they made him real.

He looked like sin and the sermon that came after.

Remmick moved closer. You didn’t retreat.

His hand flattened over your sternum now, right above your heartbeat, the warmth of him pressing through the cotton of your slip like it meant to seep in. He leaned down, mouth near yours, not kissing, just breathing.

"You gave yourself to me once," he said. "I’m only here to collect the rest."

"You saved my brother."

"I saved you. You just didn’t know it yet."

A shiver rippled down your spine.

His hand moved lower, skimming the curve of your ribs, hovering just at the soft flare of your waist. You could feel the heat rolling off him like smoke from a coalbed. His body didn’t radiate warmth the way a man’s should—but something older. Wilder. Like the earth’s own breath in summer. Like the hush of a storm right before it split the sky.

"And if I tell you no?" you asked, barely more than a breath.

His eyes flicked to yours, unreadable.

"I’ll wait."

You weren’t expecting that.

He smiled again, this time softer, almost cruel in its patience.

"I’ve waited centuries for sweeter things than you. But that don’t mean I won’t keep my hands on you ‘til you change your mind."

"You think I will?"

"You already have."

Your chest rose sharply, breath stung with heat.

"You think this is love?"

He laughed, low and dangerous, the sound curling around your ribs.

"No," he said. "This is hunger. Love comes later."

Then his mouth brushed your jaw—not a kiss, just the graze of lips against skin—and every nerve in your body arched to meet it.

Your knees buckled, barely.

He caught your waist in one hand, steadying you with maddening ease.

"I’m gonna ruin you," he whispered against your throat, his nose dragging lightly along your skin. "But I’ll be so gentle the first time you’ll beg me to do it again."

And God help you—

You wanted him to.

The house didn’t sleep.

Not the way houses were meant to.

It breathed.

The walls exhaled heat and memory, the floors creaked even when no one stepped, and somewhere in the rafters above your room, something paced slowly back and forth, back and forth, like a beast too restless to settle. The kind of place built with its own pulse.

You’d spent the rest of the night—if you could call it that—in a room that wasn’t yours, wearing nothing but a cotton shift and your silence. You hadn’t asked for anything. He hadn’t offered.

The room was spare but not cruel. A basin with a water pitcher. A four-poster bed draped in a netting veil to keep out the bugs—or the ghosts. The mattress was soft. The sheets smelled faintly of cedar, firewood, and something else you didn’t recognize.

Him.

You didn’t undress. You lay on top of the blanket, fingers threaded together over your belly, the thrum of your heartbeat like a second mouth behind your ribs.

Your door had no lock. Just a handle that squeaked if turned. And you hated how many times your eyes flicked toward it. Waiting. Wanting.

But he never came.

And somehow, that was worse.

Morning broke soft and gray through the slatted shutters. The sun didn’t quite reach the corners of the room, and the light that filtered in was the color of dust and river fog.

When you finally stepped out barefoot into the hall, the house was already awake.

There was a scent in the air—coffee. Burned sugar. The faintest curl of cinnamon. Something sizzling in a skillet somewhere.

You followed it.

The kitchen was enormous, all brick hearth and cast iron and a long scarred table in the center with mismatched chairs pushed in unevenly. A window hung open, letting in a breath of swamp air that rustled the lace curtain and kissed your ankles.

Remmick stood at the stove with his back to you, sleeves still rolled to the elbow, suspenders crossed low over his back. His shirt was half-unbuttoned and clung to his sides with the cling of heat and skin. He moved like he didn’t hear you enter.

You knew he had.

He reached for the pan with a towel over his palm and flipped something in the cast iron with a deft flick of the wrist.

"Hope you like sweet," he said, voice thick with morning. "Ain’t got much else."

You didn’t speak. Just stood there in the doorway like a ghost he’d conjured and forgotten about.

He turned.

God help you.

Even like this, barefoot, collar open, hair mussed from sleep or maybe just time—he looked unreal. Like a sin someone had tried to scrub out of scripture but couldn’t quite forget.

"Sleep alright?" he asked.

You gave a small nod.

He looked at you a moment longer. Then—

"Sit down, dove."

You moved toward the table.

His voice followed you, lazy but pointed.

"That’s the wrong chair."

You paused.

He nodded to one at the head of the table—old, high-backed, carved with curling vines and symbols you didn’t recognize.

"That one’s yours now."

You hesitated, then lowered yourself into it slowly. The wood groaned under your weight. The air in the kitchen felt thicker now, tighter.

He brought the plate to you himself.

Two slices of skillet cornbread, golden and glistening with syrup. A few wild strawberries sliced and sugared. A smear of butter melting slow at the center like a pulse.

He set the plate in front of you with a quiet care that felt almost obscene.

"You ain’t gotta eat," he said, leaning against the table beside your chair. "But I like watchin’ you do it."

You picked up the fork.

His eyes stayed on your mouth.

The cornbread was still warm.

Steam curled from it like breath from parted lips. The syrup pooled thick at the edges, dripping off the edge of your fork in slow, amber ribbons. It stuck to your fingers when you touched it. Sweet. Sticky. Sensual.

You brought the first bite to your mouth, slow.

Remmick didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. His eyes tracked the motion like a starving man watching someone else’s feast.

The bite landed soft on your tongue—golden crisp on the outside, warm and tender in the middle, butter melting into every pore. It was perfect. Unreasonably so. And somehow you hated that even more. Because nothing about this should’ve tasted good. Not with him watching you like that. Not with your body still humming from the memory of his voice against your skin.

But you swallowed.

And he smiled.

"Good girl," he murmured.

You froze. The fork paused just above the plate.

"You don’t get to say things like that," you whispered.

"Why not?"

Your fingers tightened around the handle.

"Because it sounds like you earned it."

He chuckled, low and easy. A slow roll of thunder in his chest.

"Think I did. Think I earned every fuckin’ word after draggin’ you out that night and lettin’ you walk away without layin’ a hand on you."

You looked up sharply, heat crawling up your neck.

"You shouldn’t have touched me."

"I didn’t," he said. "But I wanted to. Still do."

Your breath caught.

His knuckles brushed the edge of your plate, slow, casual, like he had all the time in the world to make you squirm.

"And I know you want me to," he added, voice low enough that it coiled under your ribs and settled somewhere molten in your belly.

You pushed the plate away.

He didn’t flinch. Just reached forward and dragged it back in front of you like you hadn’t moved it at all.

"You eat," he said, gentler now. "You need it. House takes more from you than it gives."

You glanced around the kitchen, suddenly uneasy.

"You talk about it like it’s alive."

He gave a slow nod.

"It is. In a way."

"How?"

He looked down at your plate, then back at you.

"You’ll see."

You pushed another bite past your lips, slower this time, aware of the weight of his gaze with every chew, every swallow. You didn’t know why you obeyed. Maybe it was easier than defying him. Maybe it was because some part of you wanted him to keep watching.

When the plate was clean, he reached out and caught your wrist before you could stand.

Not hard. Not even firm. Just…inevitable.

"You full?" he asked, his voice all smoke and sin.

You nodded.

His eyes darkened.

"Then I’ll have my taste next."

Your breath lodged sharp in your throat.

He said it like it meant nothing. Like asking for your pulse was no more intimate than asking for your hand. But there was a glint in his eye—red barely flickering now, but still there—and it told you everything.

He was done pretending.

You didn’t move. Not right away.

His fingers were still wrapped around your wrist, light but unyielding, the pad of his thumb grazing the fragile skin where your pulse drummed loud and frantic. Like it wanted to leap out of your veins and spill into his mouth.

You swallowed hard.

"You said you didn’t want blood."

"I don’t."

"Then what do you want?"

"You."

You watched him now, trying to make sense of what you wanted.

And what terrified you was this—

You didn’t want to run.

You wanted to know how it would feel.

To give something he couldn’t take without permission.

To see if your body could handle the worship of a mouth like his.

Remmick’s other hand came up slow, brushing hair from your cheek, his knuckles rough and reverent.

"You said I smelled like want," you whispered.

"You do."

"What do you smell like?"

He leaned in, mouth near your throat again, his nose dragging along your skin, slow, as if he were drawing in the scent of your soul.

"Rot. Hunger. Regret," he said. "Old things that don’t die right."

You shivered.

"And still I want you," you breathed.

He pulled back just enough to look you in the eyes.

"That’s the worst part, ain’t it?"

You didn’t answer.

Because he was right.

His hand slid down to your elbow, then lower, tracing the curve of your waist through the thin fabric. His touch was warm now, or maybe your body had just given up trying to tell the difference between threat and thrill.

He guided you up from the chair.

Didn’t yank. Didn’t drag.

Just stood and took your hand like a dance was beginning.

"Come with me," he said.

"Where?"

"Somewhere I can kneel."

Your heart stuttered.

He led you through the house, down the long hallway past doorways that watched like eyes. The floor groaned underfoot, the air thickening around your shoulders as he brought you deeper into the home’s belly. You passed portraits whose paint had faded to shadows, velvet drapes drawn tight, mirrors that refused to hold your reflection quite right.

The door at the end of the hall was already open.

Inside, the room was dark.

Just one candle lit, flickering low in a glass jar, its light catching the edges of something silver beside the bed. An old bowl. A cloth. A pair of gloves, yellowed from time.

A ritual.

Not violent.

Intimate.

Remmick turned toward you, his face bare in the soft light. He looked younger. More human. And somehow more dangerous for it.

"Sit," he said.

You sat.

He knelt.

And then his hands found your knees.

His hands rested on your knees like they belonged there. Not demanding. Not prying. Just there. Anchored. Reverent.

The candlelight licked up his jaw, catching in the hollows of his cheeks, the deep shadow beneath his throat. He didn’t look like a man. He looked like a story told by firelight—half-worshipped, half-feared. A sinner in the shape of a saint. Or maybe the other way around.

His thumbs made a slow pass over the inside of your thighs, just above the knee. Barely pressure. Barely touch. The kind of contact that made your breath feel too loud in your chest.

"Yer too quiet," he murmured.

"I don’t know what to say," you whispered back.

His gaze lifted, locking with yours, and in that moment the whole room seemed to still.

"Ya ain’t gotta say a damn thing," he said. "You just need to stay right there and let me show ya what I mean when I say I don’t want yer blood."

Your lips parted, but no sound came.

He leaned in, slow as honey in the heat, until his mouth hovered just above your knee. Then lower. His breath ghosted over your skin, warm and maddening.

You didn’t realize you were holding your breath until he pressed a single kiss just above the bone.

Your lungs stuttered.

His lips trailed higher.

Another kiss.

Then another.

Each one higher than the last, until your legs opened on instinct, until you felt the hem of your slip being eased upward by hands that moved with worshipful patience. Like he wasn’t just undressing you—he was peeling back a veil. Unwrapping something sacred.

"You ever had someone kneel for ya?" he asked, voice rough now. Thicker.

You shook your head.

He smiled like he already knew the answer.

"Good. Let me be the first."

He kissed the inside of your thigh like it meant something. Like you meant something. Like your skin wasn’t just skin, but a prayer he intended to answer with his mouth.

The air was too hot. Your thoughts slid loose from the edges of your mind. All you could do was breathe and feel.

He looked up at you once more, red eyes burning low, and said—

"You gave yerself to me. Let me taste what I already own."

And then he bowed his head, mouth meeting the softest part of you, and the rest of the world disappeared.

His mouth touched you like he’d been dreaming of it for years. Like he’d earned it.

No rush. No hunger. Just that first velvet press of his lips against the tender center of you, reverent and slow, like a kiss to a wound or a confession. He moaned, low and guttural, into your skin—and the sound of it vibrated up through your spine.

He parted you with his thumbs, just enough to taste you deeper. His tongue slipped between folds already slick and aching, and he groaned again, this time with something like gratitude.

"Sweet as I fuckin’ knew you’d be," he rasped, voice hot against your core.

Your hands gripped the edge of the chair. Wood bit into your palms. Your head tipped back, eyes fluttering shut as your thighs trembled around his shoulders.

He didn’t stop.

He licked you with patience, with purpose, like he was reading scripture written between your legs—each flick of his tongue slow and deliberate, every pass perfectly placed, building pressure inside you with maddening precision.

And all the while, he watched you.

When your head dropped forward, you found him staring up at you. Red eyes glowing low, heavy-lidded, mouth glistening, jaw tense with restraint. He looked ruined by the taste of you.

"Look at me," he said. "Wanna see you fall apart on my tongue."

Your breath hitched, hips rocking forward on instinct, chasing his mouth. He growled low and deep in his chest, gripping your thighs tighter.

"That’s it, dove," he murmured. "Don’t run from it. Give it to me."

He flattened his tongue and dragged it slow, then circled the swollen peak of your clit with the tip, teasing you to the edge and pulling back just before it broke.

You whined. Desperate.

He smirked against your cunt.

"You want it?" he asked, voice thick. "Say it."

Your lips barely formed the word—"Please."

He hummed in approval.

Then he devoured you.

No more teasing. No more pacing. Just his mouth fully locked on you, tongue relentless now, lips sealing around your clit while two fingers slid into you with that obscene, perfect pressure that made your body jolt.

You cried out, gasping, your thighs tightening around his head as the world tipped sideways.

"That’s it," he groaned, curling his fingers just right. "Cum f’r me, girl. Let me taste what’s mine."

And when it hit—

It hit like a fever. Like lightning. Like your soul cracked in half and bled straight into his mouth.

You broke with a cry, hips bucking, your fingers tangled in his hair as wave after wave crashed through you.

He didn’t stop. Not until your thighs twitched and your breath came in ragged little sobs, not until your body went limp in his hands.

Then, finally—finally—he pulled back.

His lips were wet. His eyes were feral. And he looked at you like a man who’d just fed.

"You’re fuckin’ divine," he whispered. "And I ain’t even started ruinin’ you yet."

The room pulsed with quiet. The candle flickered low, flame swaying as if it too had held its breath through your unraveling.

Your body felt boneless. Glazed in sweat. Your pulse echoed everywhere—in your wrists, your throat, between your legs where he’d buried his mouth like a man sent to worship. You weren’t sure how long it had been since you’d spoken. Since you’d breathed without shaking.

Remmick still knelt.

His hands were on your thighs, thumbs drawing idle circles into your skin like he couldn’t bear to stop touching you. His head was bowed slightly, but his eyes were on you—watchful, reverent, hungry in a way that had nothing to do with the softness between your legs and everything to do with something older. Something darker.

He looked drunk on you.

You opened your mouth to speak, but your voice caught on the edge of a sigh.

He beat you to it.

"Reckon you know what’s comin’ next," he murmured.

You didn’t answer.

He rose from his knees in one slow, unhurried motion. There was a heaviness to him now, a tension rolling just beneath his skin, like a dam about to split. He reached up with one hand and wiped the corner of his mouth with the back of it—then licked the taste from his thumb like it was honey off the comb.

You watched, breath held tight in your chest.

He stepped closer. You stayed seated, knees still parted, your slip pushed up indecently high, but you didn’t fix it. Didn’t move at all. The heat between your legs hadn’t faded. If anything, it curled deeper now, thicker, laced with something close to fear but not quite.

He stopped in front of you.

Tilted his head slightly.

"How’s yer heart?"

You blinked.

"It’s…fast," you whispered.

He smiled slow. Not mocking. Not soft either.

"Good. I want it fast."

Your throat tightened.

"Why?"

He leaned in, hands bracing on either side of your chair, body boxing you in without touching.

"‘Cause I want yer blood screamin’ for me when I take it."

Your breath caught somewhere between your ribs.

He didn’t touch you yet—didn’t need to. The weight of his body, caging you in without a single finger laid, made your skin flush from your chest to your knees. Every inch of you throbbed with awareness. Of him. Of your own pulse. Of the air cooling the places he’d worshiped with his mouth not moments before.

You swallowed.

"You said you’d wait," you whispered.

He nodded once, slowly, his eyes never leaving yours.

"I did. And I have. But yer body’s already beggin’ for me. Ain’t it?"

You hated that he was right. That he could feel it somehow. Not just see the tremble in your thighs or the way your lips parted when he leaned closer—but that he could feel it in the air, like scent, like vibration.

You lifted your chin, barely.

"I’m not scared."

He chuckled low, and it rumbled through your bones.

"Good. But I don’t need ya scared, dove. I need ya open."

He raised one hand then, slow as scripture, and brushed his knuckles along the column of your throat. Just a whisper of contact, a ghost’s touch. Your head tilted for him without thinking, baring your neck.

"Right here," he murmured. "Right where it beats loudest. That’s where I wanna taste ya."

You shivered.

He bent down, mouth near your pulse. His breath was warm, slow, drawn in like he was savoring you already.

"I ain’t gonna hurt ya," he said. "Not unless you want it."

Your fingers twisted in your lap.

"Will it—" you started, but the question got tangled.

He smiled against your skin.

"Will it feel good?"

You said nothing.

"You already know."

You did.

Because everything with him did. Every word. Every look. Every touch. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t holy. But it was real. It lived under your skin like rot and root and ruin.

You nodded once.

"Then take it."

Remmick stilled.

And then his lips pressed to your throat. Not with hunger. With reverence. Like a blessing.

"That’s my girl," he breathed.

And then he bit.

It wasn’t pain.

It was pressure, first.

A deep, aching pull that bloomed just beneath the skin, right where his mouth latched onto you. His lips sealed tight around your throat, and then—sharpness. Two points sinking in like teeth through silk. Like sin through flesh.

You gasped.

Not from fear. Not even from the sting. But from the rush.

Heat burst behind your eyes, white and sudden and dizzying. Your hands flew to his shoulders, clinging, grounding, anchoring you to something real while your mind drifted into something else—something otherworldly.

The pull came next.

A steady rhythm, slow and patient, like he was sipping you instead of drinking. Like he had all the time in the world. You could feel it, the way your blood left you in waves, not violent, not greedy—just…intimate. Like giving. Like surrender.

He groaned low against your neck, the sound vibrating through your bones.

"Fuck, you taste like sunlight," he rasped against your skin, voice thick with hunger and awe. "Like everythin’ warm I thought I’d forgotten."

Your head tipped further, offering him more.

You didn’t know when your legs opened wider, or when your hips rocked forward just to feel more of him. But his body shifted instinctively, meeting yours with a growl, his hand gripping your thigh now, possessive and unrelenting.

Your pulse faltered. Not from weakness, but from pleasure. From the unbearable knowing that he was inside you now, in the most ancient way. That your body had opened to him, and your blood had welcomed him.

Your moan was breathless.

"Remmick—"

He shushed you, mouth never leaving your throat.

"Don’t speak, dove. Just feel."

And you did.

You felt every lick. Every pull. Every sacred claim. You felt his tongue soothe where his fangs pierced, his hand slide higher along your thigh, his knee pushing between your legs until your breath stuttered out of you in something like a sob.

It was too much. It was not enough.

And when he finally pulled back, slow and reluctant, your blood on his lips like a mark, like a vow, he stared at you like you were holy.

Like he hadn’t fed on you.

Like he’d prayed.

The room was quiet, but your body wasn’t.

You felt every beat of your heart echo in the hollow where his mouth had been. A slow, reverent throb that pulsed through your neck, your chest, your thighs. It was like something had been lit beneath your skin, and now it smoldered there—glowing, aching, changed.

Remmick’s breath was uneven. His lips were stained red, parted just slightly, his jaw slack with something like awe. The burn of your blood still shimmered in his eyes, brighter now. Alive.

He looked undone.

And yet his hands were steady as he reached up, cupped your jaw in both palms, and tilted your face toward him. His thumb swept across your cheekbone like you might vanish if he didn’t touch you just right.

"You alright?" he asked, voice quieter now, roughened at the edges like a match just struck.

You nodded, though your limbs still trembled.

"I feel…" you swallowed, the word too small for what bloomed in your chest, "…warm."

He laughed, soft and almost bitter, and leaned his forehead against yours.

"You should. You’re inside me now. Every drop of you."

The words rooted somewhere deep. You didn’t flinch. Didn’t pull away. You could still feel the heat of his mouth, the bite, the pleasure that followed. It wasn’t just lust. It wasn’t just surrender. It was something older. Something binding.

"Does it hurt?" you asked, your fingers brushing the side of his neck, the line of his collarbone slick with sweat.

He looked at you like you’d asked the wrong question.

"Hurt?" he echoed. "Dove, it’s ecstasy."

You stared at him.

"You mean for you?"

He shook his head once.

"For us."

Then he pulled back just enough to look at you—really look. His gaze swept your features like he was committing them to memory. As if this moment, this very breath, was something sacred. His fingers moved to your throat again, this time to the place just above the bite, and he pressed lightly.

"You’ll bruise here," he said. "Won’t fade for a while."

"Will it heal?"

"Eventually."

"Do you want it to?"

His mouth curved, slow and wicked.

"No," he said. "I want the world to see what’s mine."

And before you could reply—before the heat in your belly could cool or your mind could gather itself—he kissed you.

Not soft.

Not careful.

His mouth claimed you like he’d already been inside you a thousand times and wanted to do it a thousand more. He kissed you like a man starving. Like a creature who’d gone too long without flesh, and now that he had it, he wasn’t letting go.

You tasted your own blood on his tongue.

And it tasted like forever.

The house knew.

It breathed deeper now. Its wood swelled, its walls sighed, its floorboards creaked in time with your heartbeat—as though it had taken you in too, accepted your offering, and now it wanted to keep you just like he did. Not as a guest. Not as a lover.

As a belonging.

Remmick hadn’t let you go.

Not when the kiss ended. Not when your blood slowed in his mouth. Not when your knees gave and your body folded forward into him. His arms had caught you like he knew the shape of your collapse. Like he’d been waiting for it. Like he’d never let you fall anywhere but into him.

He carried you now, one arm beneath your legs, the other braced around your back, his chest solid against yours.

"Don’t reckon you’re walkin’ after all that," he muttered, gaze fixed ahead, voice gone syrup-slow and thick with something possessive.

You didn’t argue. You couldn’t.

Your head rested against the place where his heart should’ve beat. But it was quiet there. Not lifeless—just other.

He carried you past rooms you hadn’t seen. A library, long abandoned, lined with crooked books and a grandfather clock that had no hands. A parlor soaked in velvet and silence. A door nailed shut from the outside, something heavy breathing behind it.

You didn’t ask.

He didn’t explain.

The room he took you to was nothing like the others.

It wasn’t grand.

It was personal.

The windows here were narrow and high, soft light slanting through the dusty glass in thin gold ribbons. The bed was simple but large, the sheets dark, the frame iron-wrought and worn smooth by time. A single cross hung above the headboard—but it had been turned upside down.

He set you down like you were breakable. Sat you on the edge of the bed, knelt once more to remove the slip still clinging to your body, inch by inch, as if undressing you were a sacrament.

"Y’ever wonder why I picked you?" he asked, voice low as the hush between thunderclaps.

Your breath stilled.

"I thought it was the blood."

He shook his head, his hands pausing at your hips.

"Nah, dove. Blood’s blood. Yours sings, sure. But it ain’t why I chose."

He looked up then, red eyes gleaming in the half-light.

"You remind me of the last thing I ever loved before I died."

The words landed like a stone in still water.

They rippled outward. Slow. Wide. Deep.

You stared at him, breath shallow, your skin bare under his hands, your throat still warm from where he’d fed. The room held its silence like breath behind gritted teeth. Outside, somewhere beyond the high windows, something moved through the trees—branches bending, wind pushing low and humid across the land—but in here, it was only the two of you.

Only his voice.

Only your blood between his teeth.

"What…what was she like?" you asked.

His thumbs drew circles at your hips, but his eyes drifted, not unfocused—just distant. Remembering.

"She had a mouth like yours. Sharp. Didn’t know when to shut it. Always speakin’ when she should’ve stayed quiet." A smile ghosted across his lips. "God, I loved that. I loved that she ain’t feared me even when she should’ve."

He exhaled through his nose, slow.

"But she didn’t get to finish bein’ mine."

Your brows pulled.

"What happened to her?"

He looked back at you then, and the heat in his gaze returned—not hunger, not even desire, but something deeper. Possessive. Terrifying in its tenderness.

"They tore her from me. Burned her in a chapel. Said she was a witch on account’a what I’d given her."

Your heart dropped into your stomach.

"Remmick—"

"She didn’t scream," he said, voice rough. "Didn’t cry. Just looked at me like she knew I’d find her again. And I have."

You froze.

His hands slid higher, up your ribs, his palms reverent.

"I don’t believe in fate. Not really. But you—" he leaned in, lips brushing your jaw, voice low like a spell, "you make me wanna believe in things I ain’t allowed to have."

You whispered against the curl of his mouth.

"And what do you think I am?"

He kissed the hinge of your jaw.

"My penance," he said. "And my reward."

You shivered.

"You said you saved me."

He nodded.

"I did."

"Why?"

He pulled back just enough to meet your eyes, and his voice dropped to a near whisper.

"‘Cause I ain’t lettin’ another thing I love burn."

You didn’t realize you were crying until he touched your face.

Not with hunger, not with heat, but with the kind of softness that had no business living in a man like him. His thumb caught a tear on your cheek like he’d been waiting for it, like it meant something sacred.

"You ain’t her," he murmured. "But you feel like the same song in a different key."

His voice cracked a little at the edges, not enough to ruin the shape of it, just enough to prove that something in him still bled.

You reached up, fingers trembling, and cupped the side of his neck. The skin there was warmer now. Still inhuman, still not quite alive, but it held your heat like it didn’t want to give it back. You felt the ridges of old scars beneath your palm. The echo of stories not told.

"I don’t know what I’m becoming," you said.

He leaned into your hand, eyes half-lidded.

"You’re becomin’ mine."

Then he kissed you again—not like before. Not full of fire. But slow, like he had all the time in the world to learn the shape of your mouth. His lips moved over yours with a kind of tenderness that made your bones ache. A kind of reverence that said this is where I end and begin again.

When he pulled back, your breath followed him.

The room shifted.

You felt it. Like the house had exhaled too.

"Lie down," he said, voice softer than it had ever been. "Let me hold what I almost lost."

You obeyed.

You lay back against the sheets that smelled like him, like dust and dark and something unnameable. The iron bed creaked softly beneath you, and the candlelight trembled with the movement. He undressed with quiet purpose, shirt sliding from his shoulders, buttons undone by slow fingers, trousers falling away to bare the sharp planes of his body.

And when he climbed over you, it wasn’t to take.

It was to be taken.

Remmick hovered above you, breath warm at your lips, hands braced on either side of your head. He looked down at you like he was staring through time. Like you were something he'd pulled from the fire and decided to keep even if it burned him too.

You’re mine, he whispered, but didn’t say it aloud.

He didn’t have to.

His body said it.

His mouth said it.

And when he finally eased inside you, slow and steady, filling you inch by trembling inch—your soul said it too.

His body hovered just above yours, every inch of him trembling with a control you didn’t quite understand—until you looked into his eyes.

That red glow was dimmer now. No less powerful, but softened by something raw. Something reverent.

Not hunger.

Not lust.

Not even possession.

Devotion.

The kind that didn’t speak. The kind that buried itself in the bones and never left.

His hand slid down the side of your face, tracing the curve of your cheek, then the line of your jaw, calloused fingers lingering in the hollow of your throat where your heartbeat thudded wild and uneven.

"Still fast," he murmured, half to himself.

"You’re heavy," you whispered, not in protest, but in awe. Every breath you took was filled with him.

He smirked, the corner of his mouth twitching in that crooked, wicked way of his.

"Ain’t even layin’ on you yet."

You didn’t laugh. Couldn’t. Your body was stretched too tight, strung out with anticipation and need. Every inch of you burned.

He leaned down then, not to kiss you, but to breathe you in. His nose skimmed your cheek, the edge of your ear, the curve of your throat already marked by his bite. His hands traced your ribs, the sides of your waist, slow and steady, like he was trying to learn you by touch alone.

"You’re shakin'," he whispered, voice low, thick with something close to worship.

"So are you."

A pause.

Then softer—truthfully,

"Yeah."

He kissed the inside of your wrist, then the space between your breasts, then lower still—his lips reverent as they moved over your belly, your hipbone, the softest parts of you.

"You ever had someone take their time with you?" he asked, mouth against your skin.

You didn’t speak.

"Didn’t think so," he muttered. "Shame."

His hand slid between your thighs, spreading you again—not rushed, not greedy, just gentle. Like he knew he’d already had the taste of you and now he wanted the feel.

"Tell me if it’s too much," he said.

"It already is."

He looked up at you then, his face half-shadowed, half-lit, and something flickered in his eyes.

"Good."

His cock brushed against your entrance, hot and heavy, and you nearly arched off the bed at the first contact. Not even inside. Just there. Teasing. Pressed to the slick mess he'd made of you earlier with his mouth.

He groaned deep.

"Fuck, you feel like sin."

You reached for him, pulled him down by the back of his neck until your mouths were inches apart.

"Then sin with me."

He didn’t hesitate.

He began to press in—slow. Devastatingly slow. The head of his cock stretching you open with a care that felt like madness. His hands gripped your hips as if holding himself back took more strength than killing ever had.

He moved in inch by inch, his breath hitched, jaw tight, sweat beginning to bead at his temple.

"Shit—ya takin’ me so good, dove. Just like that."

You moaned. Your fingers dug into his back. You were full of him and not even halfway there.

"Remmick—"

"I gotcha," he whispered. "Ain’t gonna let you break."

But he was already breaking you. Gently. Thoroughly. Beautifully.

He filled you like he’d been made for the task.

No sharp thrusts. No hurried rhythm. Just the unbearable slowness of it. The stretch. The burn. The drag of his cock as he sank deeper, deeper, deeper into you until there was nothing left untouched. Until your body stopped bracing and started opening.

You clung to him—hands fisted in the fabric of his shirt that still clung to his back, damp with sweat. He hadn’t even undressed all the way. There was something obscene about it, something holy, too—the way he kept his shirt on like this wasn’t about bareness, it was about belonging.

"That’s it," he rasped against your throat. "There she is."

Your moan was caught between breath and prayer.

He buried himself to the hilt.

And still—he didn’t move.

His hips pressed flush to yours, his breath shaky against your skin as he held himself there, nestled so deep inside you it felt like you’d never known emptiness before now. Like everything that came before this moment had just been the ache of waiting to be filled.

"You feel that?" he whispered, voice thick, almost reverent. "Where I am inside ya?"

You nodded. Couldn’t find your voice.

His lips brushed the shell of your ear.

"Ain’t no leavin’ now. I’ll always be in ya. Even when I ain’t."

You whimpered.

Not from pain. From how true it felt.

He moved then—barely. Just a slow roll of his hips, a gentle retreat and return. It was enough to make your breath hitch, your body arch, your legs wrap tighter around him without thinking.

"That’s right, dove. Let me in. Let me have it."

You didn’t even know what it was anymore.

Your body?

Your blood?

Your soul?

You’d already given them all.

And still, he took more.

But not cruelly.

Like a man kissing the mouth of a well after years of thirst. Like a thief who knew how to make you feel grateful for the stealing.

He found a rhythm that made the air vanish from your lungs.

Slow. Deep. Measured. His hips grinding just right, dragging his cock against every place inside you that had never known such touch. Every stroke sang with heat. Every breath he took turned your name into something more than a sound.

"Fuck, I could stay in you forever," he groaned. "Like this. Warm. Tight. Mine."

You dug your nails into his shoulders, legs trembling.

"Please," you whispered, though you didn’t know what you were asking for.

He did.

"Beg me," he said, dragging his mouth down your neck, over the bite he’d left. "Beg me to make you come with my cock in you."

"Remmick—"

"Say it."

You were already gone. Already shaking. Already his.

"Make me come," you breathed. "Please—God, please—"

His smile was sinful.

And then he fucked you.

His rhythm shifted—no longer slow, no longer sacred.

It was worship in the way fire worships a forest. The kind that devours. The kind that remakes.

Remmick braced a hand behind your thigh, hitching your leg higher as he thrust harder, deeper, dragging guttural sounds from his chest that you felt before you heard. The bed groaned beneath you, iron frame clanging soft against the wall in time with his hips. But it was your body that made the noise that filled the room—the gasps, the breaking sighs, the high whimper of his name torn raw from your throat.

He kissed your jaw, your collarbone, your shoulder, not like he was trying to be sweet but like he needed to taste every inch he claimed.

"You feel me in your belly yet?" he growled, words hot against your skin.

You nodded frantically, tears pricking the corners of your eyes from the sheer force of sensation.

"Say it," he panted, each thrust brutal and beautiful.

"Yes—yes, I feel you, Remmick, I—"

"You gonna come f’r me like a good girl?"

"Yes."

"Say my fuckin’ name when you do."

His hand slid between your bodies, finding your clit like he’d owned it in another life, and the moment his fingers circled that aching bundle of nerves, your vision went white.

Your body seized around him.

The sound you made was raw, wrecked, something no one but him should ever hear.

He kept fucking you through it, hissing curses through his teeth, chasing his own high with the rhythm of a man who’d waited centuries for the perfect fit.

And then he broke.

With your name groaned low and reverent in your ear, he came deep inside you, hips stuttering, breath ragged, body shuddering with the force of it. You felt every throb of his cock inside you, every spill of heat, every ounce of him taking root.

For a long, suspended moment, he didn’t move.

Only the sound of your breaths tangled together.

Your sweat mixing.

Your bodies still joined.

"That’s it," he whispered hoarsely, pressing his forehead to yours. "That’s how I know you’re mine."

The house exhaled around you.

The candle sputtered in its jar, flame dancing low and crooked, like even it had been made breathless by what it had witnessed. Somewhere in the walls, the wood groaned—settling. Sighing. Accepting.

You didn’t move. Couldn’t.

Your body was a temple razed and rebuilt in a single night, still pulsing with the memory of his mouth, his weight, the stretch of him inside you like a secret only your bones would remember. Every nerve hummed low and soft beneath your skin, like your blood hadn’t figured out how to move without his rhythm guiding it.

Remmick stayed inside you.

His body was heavy atop yours, but not crushing. His head tucked into the curve of your neck, the same place he’d bitten, the same place he’d worshipped like it held some holy truth. His breath came slow and ragged, the rise and fall of his chest matching yours as if your lungs had struck the same pace without meaning to.

"Don’t move yet," he muttered, voice wrecked and hoarse. "Wanna stay here just a minute longer."

You let your hand drift through his hair, damp with sweat, curls sticking to his forehead. You carded through them lazily, mind blank, heart full.

He pressed a kiss to your throat. Then another, just above your collarbone.

"You still with me?" he asked, quieter now.

You nodded.

"Good," he murmured. "Didn’t mean to fuck the soul outta ya. Just…couldn’t help it."

You let out the softest laugh, and he smiled into your skin.

His hand slid down your side, tracing the curve of your waist, your hip, the spot where your thigh met his. His fingers moved slowly, not with lust, but with a kind of quiet awe.

"Y’know what you feel like?" he whispered.

"What?"

"Home."

The word struck something inside you. Something tender. Something deep.

He lifted his head then, just enough to look down at you. His eyes had faded from red to something darker, something richer—garnet in low light. The kind of color only seen in blood and wine and promises too old to be remembered by name.

"You still think this is just hunger?" he asked.

You blinked at him, dazed.

"It was never just hunger," he said. "Not with you."

The silence between you was warm now.

Not empty. Not tense. Just quiet, the kind that comes after thunder, when the storm’s rolled through and the trees are still deciding whether to stand or kneel.

You felt it in your limbs—heavy, humming, holy. The afterglow of something you didn’t have language for.

Remmick hadn’t moved far.

He still blanketed your body like a second skin, one arm braced beneath your shoulders, the other tracing idle shapes across your hip as if he were still mapping the terrain of you. His cock, softening but still nestled inside, pulsed faintly with the last of what he’d given you.

And he had given you something. Not just release. Not just blood. Something older. Something that whispered now in the place between your ribs.

You turned your head to look at him.

His gaze was already on you.

"What happens now?" you asked, barely above a whisper.

He didn’t answer right away.

Instead, he ran the back of his fingers along your cheekbone, down the side of your neck, pausing over the place where his mark had already begun to bruise.

"You askin’ what happens tonight," he murmured, "or what happens after?"

You blinked slowly. "Both."

He let out a breath through his nose, the sound tired but not cold.

"Tonight, I’ll hold you. Long as you’ll let me. Won’t leave this bed unless you beg me to. Might even make ya cry again, if you keep lookin’ at me like that."

You flushed, and he smiled.

"As for after…"

He looked past you then, toward the ceiling, like the truth was written in the beams.

"Ain’t never planned that far. Not with anyone. Just fed. Fucked. Moved on."

"But not with me."

His eyes snapped back to yours. Serious now.

"No, dove. Not with you."

You swallowed the knot rising in your throat.

"Why?"

His jaw flexed, tongue darting briefly across his lower lip before he answered.

"‘Cause I been alone too long. Lived too long. Thought I was too far gone to want anythin’ that didn’t bleed beneath me."

He leaned closer, forehead resting against yours, his next words no louder than a ghost’s sigh.

"But you—you made me want somethin’ tender. Somethin’ breakable."

"That doesn’t make sense."

"Don’t gotta. Nothin’ about you ever has. And yet here you are."

You let your eyes drift shut, just for a moment, and whispered into the stillness between your mouths.

"So I stay?"

He didn’t hesitate.

"You stay."

The candle had burned low.

Its glow flickered long shadows across the walls—your bodies painted in gold and blood-tinged bronze, limbs tangled in sheets that still clung with sweat and want. The house had quieted again, the way an animal settles when it knows its master is content. Outside, the wind threaded through the trees in soft moans, like the Delta herself was eavesdropping.

Neither of you spoke for a while. You didn’t need to.

Your fingers traced lazy patterns across Remmick’s chest—over his scars, the slope of muscle, the faint rise and fall beneath your palm. You still half-expected no heartbeat, but it was there, slow and stubborn, like he’d stolen it back just for you.

He watched you. One arm draped across your waist, his thumb stroking your bare back like you might fade if he stopped.

"You still ain’t askin’ the question you really wanna ask," he said, voice rough from silence and sleep.

You paused.

"What question is that?"

He tipped his head toward you, resting his chin on his knuckles.

"You wanna know if I turned you."

Your heart gave a traitorous flutter.

"And did you?"

He shook his head.

"Nah. Not yet."

"Why not?"

His fingers stilled. Then resumed.

"’Cause you ain’t asked me to."

You looked up at him sharply.

"Would you?"

A long beat passed. Then he nodded once.

"If it was you askin’. If it was real."

Your breath caught.

"And if I don’t?"

His gaze didn’t waver.

"Then I’ll stay with you. ‘Til you’re old. ‘Til your hands shake and your bones ache and your eyes stop lookin’ at me like I’m the only thing that ever made you feel alive."

Your throat tightened.

"That sounds awful."

He smiled, slow and aching.

"It sounds human."

You looked at him for a long time. At the man who had killed, who had bled you, who had tasted every part of you—body and soul—and still asked nothing unless you gave it.

"Would it hurt?"

His hand slid up, fingers curling beneath your jaw, tilting your face to his.

"It’d hurt," he said. "But not more than bein’ without you would."

The quiet stretched long and low.

His words hung in the space between your mouths like smoke—something sweet and terrible, something tasted before it was fully breathed in.

Your chest rose and fell against his slowly, and for a long time, you said nothing. You just listened. To the house settling around you. To the wind curling past the windows. To the steady thrum of blood still echoing faintly in your ears.

And beneath it all—

You heard memory.

It came soft at first. A shape, not a sound. The slick thud of your knees hitting the alley pavement. The scream you didn’t recognize as your own. Your brother’s blood, warm and fast, pumping between your fingers like water from a broken pipe. His mouth slack. His eyes wide.

You remembered screaming to the sky. Not to God.

Just up.

Because you knew He’d stopped listening.

And then—

He came.

Out of nothing. Out of dark.

You remembered the slow scrape of his boots on the gravel. The silhouette of him under the weak yellow glow of a flickering streetlamp. You remembered the quiet way he spoke.

"You want him to live?"

You didn’t answer with words. You just nodded, crying so hard you couldn’t breathe. And he’d knelt—right there in the blood—and laid his hand flat against your brother’s chest.

You never saw what he did. Only saw your brother’s eyes flutter. Only heard his breath return, sudden and wet.

And then he looked at you.

Not your brother.

Remmick.

He looked at you like he’d already taken something.

And he had.

Now, years later, lying in the hush of his house, your body still joined to his, you could still feel that moment thrumming beneath your skin. The moment when everything shifted. When your life became borrowed.

You looked up at him now, breathing steady, lips parted like a prayer just barely forming.

"I’ve already given you everything."

He shook his head.

"Not this."

He pressed two fingers to your chest, right over your heart.

"This is still yours."

"And you want it?"

He didn’t smile. Didn’t look away.

"I want it to keep beatin’. Forever. With mine."

You stared at him.

You thought about that alley. About your brother’s eyes opening again.

About how no one else came.

And you made your choice.

"Then take it."

Remmick stilled.

"Don’t say it unless you mean it, dove."

"I do."

His voice was barely more than a breath.

"You sure?"

You reached up, touched his face, fingers tracing the sharp line of his jaw.

"I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life."

His eyes shimmered—deep red now, alive with something wild and tender.

"Then I’ll make you eternal," he whispered. "And I’ll never let the world take you from me."

He didn’t rush.

Not now. Not with this.

Remmick looked at you like you were something rare—something holy—like he couldn’t believe you’d said it, even as your voice still echoed between the walls.

Then he moved.

Not with hunger. Not with heat.

With purpose.

He sat up, kneeling beside you on the bed, and pulled the sheet slowly down your body. His eyes drank you in again, but this time there was no heat in them. Just reverence. As if you were the altar, and he the sinner who’d finally been granted absolution.

"You sure you want this?" he asked one last time, voice soft, like the hush of water in a cathedral.

You nodded, throat tight.

"I want forever."

His jaw clenched. A tremble passed through him like he’d heard those words in another life and lost them before they were ever his.

He leaned down.

His hand cupped the back of your head, the other settled flat on your chest, palm over your heart.

"Close your eyes, dove."

You did.

And then—

You felt him.

His breath. His lips. The soft, cool press of his mouth against your neck. But he didn’t bite.

Not yet.

He kissed the mark he’d already left. Then higher. Then lower. Slow. Measured. Your body melted beneath him, your hands curling into the sheets.

And then—

A whisper against your skin.

"I’ll be gentle. But you’ll remember this forever."

And he sank his fangs in.

It wasn’t like the first time.

It wasn’t lust.

It wasn’t climax.

It was rebirth.

Pain bloomed sharp and bright—but only for a heartbeat. Then the warmth flooded in. Then the cold. Then the ache. Your pulse stuttered once, then surged. It was like drowning and being pulled to the surface at once. Like everything you’d ever been burned away and something older moved in to take its place.

He held you as it happened.

Cradled you like something delicate.

His mouth sealed over the wound, drinking slow, but not to feed. To anchor you. To tether you to him.

You felt yourself go limp. The world turned strange. Light and dark bled into each other. Your breath faded. Your heartbeat fluttered like wings against glass.

And then—

It stopped.

Silence.

Stillness.

And in the space where your heart had once beat…

You heard his.

Then—

Your eyes opened.

The world looked different.

Sharper.

Brighter.

Every shadow deeper. Every color richer. The candlelight burned gold-red and alive. The scent of the night air was so thick it choked you—smoke, soil, blood, him.

Remmick hovered above you, lips stained crimson, breathing hard like he’d just returned from war.

And when he looked at you—

You saw yourself reflected in his eyes.

He smiled.

"Welcome home, darlin’."

[quinnophile]

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐇𝐔𝐍𝐓 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐒𝐀𝐋𝐕𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 - 𝐕𝐈𝐈

pairing. emperor Geta x original character

synopsis. A honeymoon. Something usually so joyful, yet now makes Diana feel trapped in a completely different way. The Emperors seem to each be having problems of their own...

warnings. (general) violence, misogyny, infidelity, forced proximity, discussions of producing an heir, mental/physical abuse, forced marriage

word count. 4.5K

notes. *taps microphone* is this thing on? sorry for my absence, i swear i've been working on writing, just not this fic. I had to push through this chapter to get to what I really want to write, so buckle up, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

For the first time in what felt like forever, the empire seemed to feel the absence of one of its Emperors. 

Caracalla was nowhere to be found in the public eye. His generals, his senators, even his brother—none of them saw him. None of them heard from him. It was as if the crazed ruler had vanished. And in a way, he had. 

Because he was with her.

Diana had quickly learned the meaning of the honeymoon period—this strange, suffocating tradition in which a new wife was meant to spend her first month in seclusion with her husband, to indulge him, to devote herself to his pleasure and comfort. To be his and his alone.

She had braced herself for what that might mean. For what it might demand of her.

But what she hadn’t anticipated was this.

This… worship.

Caracalla adored her. Not just as a man loves a woman, but as a disciple worships a deity. Every moment was spent in her presence, every breath seemingly dedicated to her. He rarely let her out of his sight, as if the moment he did, she might disappear like a phantom.

“My star,” he whispered against her shoulder one evening, arms locked around her waist as they sat upon the lavish furs of their bed. He trailed his fingers up her bare arms, reverent. “My huntress.”

He left offerings at her feet—wildflowers, fresh fruit, jewels that glistened like stars. When she woke in the mornings, she would find him already watching her, his golden eyes tracing her features as if memorising her in every light, every shadow.

“Tell me what you desire,” he would murmur against her skin. “I will give you the world, Dea mea.”

And she would tell him. Small things, to start, such as certain exotic fruits in which to indulge in. He was eager to please, commanding the servants that what ever she asked for be brought to her, ensuring the quality was perfect himself before presenting them to her. 

And yet, despite his devotion, there was something deeper that lurked beneath. Something unpredictable.

Diana was beginning to learn that while Caracalla could be tender, his affection was volatile. It ran hot, all-consuming, but it was dangerous, too.

She saw it one afternoon, when a servant—a boy no older than fifteen—made a mistake.

It had been a simple thing. An accident.

Caracalla was already in a strange mood, with her grand request to explore the great city immediately being turned down, his reasoning having nothing to do with the desires of the flesh, but with his desire to protect her divinity. The boy had been refilling Dondus’ dish when his hands trembled, and the silver bowl clattered to the floor, scattering figs and honeyed dates across the marble. For a moment, all was still.

Then—

A sudden, sharp smack as Caracalla’s hand struck the boy’s face.

The air changed. Diana turned to look at him, and what she saw made her blood run cold.

His expression had darkened, his jaw locked tight. His golden eyes burned with something feral. The servant stumbled back, already trembling, already knowing he had sealed his fate.

“I should take your hands for this,” Caracalla said softly, too softly. “Would you like that?”

The boy fell to his knees, pressing his forehead to the cold floor. “Emperor, please—”

Caracalla didn’t hear him. Or if he did, he did not care.

“You would spill my Dondus’ food?” His voice rose, his hands curling into fists. “You would starve him?”

Diana had never seen a man so afraid as the servant kneeling before her husband. And then she realised… she was afraid, too.

She sucked in a breath, her fingers tightening around the small, furry body in her arms. Instinct had her shielding Dondus against her chest, as if somehow the monkey could shield her in return. It held on to her, clearly finding comfort in his hiding place.

Goblets scattered, plates smashed, food flew everywhere around them. Caracalla’s rage was like fire—it spread, uncontrollable, devouring everything in its path.

Diana could feel it. But she would not let it touch her.

She stood, slowly, carefully, and stepped between the boy and the emperor.

“My love,” she said, her voice steady, though her heart pounded.

Caracalla’s gaze snapped to her.

She did not flinch.

“You would maim one of your own,” she continued, tilting her head slightly. “Over spilled fruit?”

She watched the way his chest rose and fell, the way his fingers flexed at his sides.

He was considering it. Considering whether her words meant anything at all.

Dondus shifted in her hold, his tiny hands gripping the fabric of her dress, and something about the sight seemed to snap Caracalla’s focus. His gaze softened, flickering to the animal, then back to her.

He exhaled sharply. “Diana,” he murmured, as if remembering himself.

She took a step closer, raising a hand to his cheek. “You are married to a goddess, are you not?” she whispered, playing into his beliefs. “Would such a husband be so easily offended?”

Caracalla’s lips parted. His eyes searched hers, wild, frantic—then, slowly, his shoulders dropped. The fire inside him extinguished. The boy still knelt on the ground, barely breathing.

Diana turned to him, her tone even. “Clean the mess.”

The servant scrambled to obey, head down, hands shaking as he began gathering the food into his arms.

Caracalla exhaled again, dragging a hand through his hair before sinking back into his seat, his moment of wrath passing like a sudden gust of wind. Diana, still holding Dondus, sat beside him.

She felt his fingers brush over her wrist, tracing small circles over her pulse.

A silent apology.

She said nothing. Because as much as she wanted to believe she had tamed him, she knew better.

This was only the beginning.

———

For the first time in weeks, Diana would have the room to herself.

Caracalla had been called away for an important council meeting, something he had put off for as long as possible until even his most loyal advisors began to insist. He had left reluctantly, sulking like a child forced from his favorite game.

Diana had been unable to hide her amusement as she watched him frown, arms crossed, muttering under his breath about “pointless affairs” and “boring old men.”

“You are the emperor,” she had reminded him, lips twitching.

“Exactly. Which means I can do whatever I please.”

“And yet, here you are, leaving.”

He had playfully scowled at her, attacking her with a barrage of rough kisses.

She had only smiled, brushing her fingers lightly over his hand before he left. “I’ll be waiting for you when you return.”

It was not as if she had a choice.

And so, the day went on without him.

She sat curled on the chaise by the window, her cheek resting against the marble railing as she gazed out at the city.

Rome stretched beyond her, glittering under the evening sky, its streets humming with life. She watched the flickering torches, the people moving like restless waves, free to wander where they pleased.

She could not. The railings of the balcony were smooth beneath her fingertips, cool like iron bars, holding her in place. She had not left these rooms since the wedding night.

At first, she had not minded. Caracalla’s presence was consuming, overwhelming in a way that made time blur. He filled the space so completely that it was easy to forget how small her world had become. But now, in the quiet moments when he was gone, the weight of it pressed on her.

It was not unfamiliar—this caged feeling.

She had spent much of her life behind walls, tucked away, waiting. And yet, staring down at the city, she found herself aching to move. To walk through the streets. To breathe the same air as the people who called this place home.

But Caracalla would not allow it. She did not even need to ask to know that. The thought unsettled something in her, but before she could chase it further, the door creaked open.

Turning her head slightly, she glanced at Umbra’s emerging figure.

The woman had been tending to her since the wedding, quietly present in the mornings when she bathed, in the evenings when she dressed. She had a gentleness about her that Diana found oddly comforting, though she rarely spoke more than necessary.

Tonight, she carried fresh sheets, her arms full as she crossed the room toward the bed.

Diana watched absently as the woman pulled the old linens away, a daily routine now, working with quiet efficiency. It was only when Umbra hesitated that she took notice.

The servant’s hands had stilled over the sheets she had just removed.

Diana saw her brows pinch slightly, the faintest flicker of something in her expression—confusion, perhaps? Concern?

Umbra’s fingers smoothed over the fabric once, twice, her lips pressing into a thin line.

Diana shifted slightly. “What is it?”

The woman startled, blinking up at her. For a moment, she did not answer. Then, as if shaking something off, she quickly turned, moving to fold the sheets as if nothing had happened.

“It is nothing, my lady.”

Diana frowned. “You are concerned?”

Umbra shook her head, sending the girl a reassuring smile, though Diana did not miss the way she held the linens a little tighter against her chest.

The Empress let the silence stretch between them before saying lightly, “If you are worried about him, you do not need to be.” Umbra froze, just for a second. Diana offered a small smile. “I know he can be… difficult. But I am taking care of him.”

Umbra’s face did not change, but something in her eyes did. A shift, subtle but telling. She opened her mouth as if to say something, then stopped herself.

Diana tilted her head, watching her. The woman knew something. But she did not speak.

Instead, after a long pause, she lowered her gaze and resumed her work.

Diana decided to let it go. She turned back toward the window, running her fingers along the smooth marble railing.

A quiet sigh escaped her lips before she spoke again, softer this time. “I must ask you a favour.”

Umbra stilled, looking at her once more.

Diana did not turn, her eyes still fixed on the city. “A gift was given to me on my wedding night,” she said. “By Lady Lucilla.”

She finally glanced back, meeting Umbra’s gaze.

“I want it back… hidden from prying eyes.”

Umbra did not respond right away. Diana could see the hesitation in her, the careful consideration in the way she studied her face.

She did not ask why. She did not ask what it was. She only held Diana’s gaze for a long, unreadable moment—then, finally, nodded.

Diana smiled. “Thank you.” 

Umbra gathered the sheets in her arms, hesitating just slightly before she turned to leave.

And whatever had worried her before—whatever had made her pause—she did not speak of it again.

———

Caracalla stormed out of the meeting halls, rubbing his temples as if trying to physically rid himself of the headache the council had left him with.

Senators droned on and on about finances, military campaigns, the mood of the people—as if any of it mattered right now.

All he wanted was to return to Diana.

He exhaled sharply, rolling his shoulders, only to catch sight of his brother’s retreating figure. Geta had left the meeting hall with a quiet urgency, his stride quick, his face unreadable.

Caracalla watched him for a moment. It wasn’t unusual for Geta to avoid lingering after meetings, but there was something off about the way he moved. Something restless.

Curious, Caracalla asked a nearby guard if his brother often hurried away, now that he wasn’t around. The guard stayed solemn, careful with his next words as to not cause distress to his Emperor. 

Caracalla eventually found his brother in the gardens, standing among the statues, exactly where he had been told.

More specifically—standing before her.

Moonlight filtered through the trees, casting a silver glow over the statue’s chiseled form. Geta stood motionless before it, his face unreadable as he gazed upon the familiar figure.

Caracalla smirked, stepping forward. “Admiring my wife, brother?”

Geta turned at the sound of his voice, expression smooth as ever. “This one doesn’t talk back. It’s quite refreshing.”

Caracalla huffed a laugh, stepping beside him. “You always did like quiet things.”

“And you always did like ones that bite.” Geta’s eyes flickered to him, sharp with meaning.

Caracalla ignored it, leaning against the base of the statue, arms crossed. “What is it that’s caught your mind so deeply? I saw you sulking out of the meeting.”

Geta snorted. “I don’t sulk.”

“No? Then what do you call this?” He gestured vaguely to the way Geta stood, arms loose at his sides, expression drawn.

“I call it enjoying the peace, which you are so rudely interrupting.”

“You have missed me brother, admit it.” Caracalla grinned, nudging his brother’s arm.

Geta’s lips twitched, though his gaze remained on the statue. “Enjoying the married life, are you?”

Caracalla’s grin widened. “Beyond words. This past month has been wonderful.”

He hummed, amusement flickering across his face. “And how are the… duties of marriage?”

Caracalla scoffed, waving a dismissive hand. “You ask too many questions.”

“Only because I find it strange you’ve actually enjoyed your time in retreat. There must be a reason…” his brother’s tone was playful, though it was unusual for him to pry. “Surely you’ve given her time to breathe.”

Caracalla tilted his head. “What do you mean?”

“I hope you’re not stretching her too thin,” Geta continued, his voice laced with something unreadable. “I would like to see her again, after all.”

Something about the way he said it made Caracalla pause.

He studied his brother, but if there was any deeper meaning to his words, Geta’s expression did not betray it.

Caracalla shrugged it off, smirking. “Eager to talk to our goddess again, are you?”

Geta gave a tight-lipped smile. “Something like that.”

He exhaled, running a hand through his dishevelled hair. “Marriage is fantastic, brother. You should try it. Perhaps I should have you wed soon.”

At that, something in Geta’s expression flickered. His jaw tensed, though he did not respond immediately.

The younger of the two didn’t notice. He continued, lost in his own musings. “A good Roman wife. Perhaps one of the senator’s daughters. She wouldn’t be as special as mine, of course, but I could arrange it—”

“I think I’ll pass.” Geta’s voice was flat, his gaze once again on the statue.

Caracalla frowned. “Why? A man of your station should have a wife.”

“I think I am quite fine as I am.”

Caracalla sighed dramatically. “You say that now, but wait until you find a woman who completes you, who consumes your every thought, who—”

“Spare me,” Geta interrupted, rolling his eyes. “I fear I may start weeping from all this sentiment.”

Caracalla barked a laugh, squeezing his brother’s shoulder. “You’ve always been difficult.”

“And you’ve always been insufferable.”

Silence stretched between them, before Caracalla chuckled, clapping his brother on the back. Geta shook his head, but there was something lighter in his expression. Something reluctant but real.

Caracalla smirked, crossing his arms. “You’re in a rare mood tonight.”

Geta glanced at him. “And you,” he said, “seem happier than I’ve seen you in years.”

Caracalla blinked at that, caught off guard.

He opened his mouth to respond, but Geta was already stepping away, hands tucked behind his back.

“Try not to get lost in your fantasy, brother,” Geta said over his shoulder.

And then he was gone, leaving Caracalla alone beneath the watchful gaze of the goddess.

———

The last night of the honeymoon was a quiet one. A bittersweet stillness hung between them, heavy yet oddly comforting.

Diana sat upon the bed, bare save for the golden bracelets that adorned her wrists, her arms wrapped around Caracalla’s trembling form. His head rested in her lap, his breathing uneven, warm against her skin. She ran her fingers through his damp curls, soothing him as she always did.

This had happened before. Time and time again.

He would grow restless, desperate, working himself into a fevered state—only for it all to slip through his fingers like sand. And then, like now, she would cradle him.

She knew better than to speak. Any words of comfort would only bruise him further, and so she simply held him, pressing her fingers lightly into the muscles of his shoulders.

Slowly, his shaking eased.

Slowly, his breathing evened out.

She had grown accustomed to this. The way he clung to her like a child, the way he sighed so softly when she touched him just so.

His goddess, he called her.

Diana wondered if this was what goddesses were meant to do—soothe their worshippers, quiet their storms, become their refuge. She gazed down at him, at the rise and fall of his chest, at the faint crease between his brows even in sleep.

What was she meant for, if not this?

Was this her purpose?

Diana turned her eyes toward the ceiling, toward the heavens she did not hail from. She did not know who she was praying to—perhaps to the gods, perhaps to no one at all. But still, she prayed. And when she finally laid back, pulling the furs over them both, Caracalla’s arms instinctively tightened around her, his face nuzzling against her ribs.

Diana said nothing. She only let him hold her. And in the silence, sleep took her, too.

It was almost a relief when the night of her release arrived with such grandeur.

Diana had expected as much—Caracalla loved a spectacle, and what better way to mark the end of their honeymoon than with a feast in their honour?

She could not deny she was… excited.

A part of her, at least.

She had always been more comfortable in the quiet, but there was something intoxicating about stepping into a room and feeling every pair of eyes turn toward her.

Her husband paraded her into the great hall, his hand firm on her waist, his chest puffed with pride as if she were his grandest victory. And perhaps, in his mind, she was.

The hall was alive with music and laughter, the air thick with the scent of roasted meats and spiced wine. The nobles and senators in attendance erupted into applause as they entered, the sound filling the vast chamber.

Diana lifted her chin, keeping her expression composed, regal. She had learned how to do that well enough.

And then—

Her eyes landed on Geta. 

For a brief moment, the applause faded into nothing.

She knew this moment would come again. She had thought many times of how she would react the next time she saw him, still angry at his previous actions. Would she confront him, ignore him, act pleasant? And then, she grew angrier, more at herself and hating the fact that she had been thinking about him so much since their last encounter. 

He stood amongst the gathered nobles, his dark robes immaculate, his hands coming together in slow, measured claps. His gaze locked onto hers, and something flickered in his expression—something unreadable. Then, just as quickly, his lips curled into a knowing smirk, as if catching himself.

Diana exhaled softly, forcing herself to look away as Caracalla led her forward.

“Behold,” Caracalla’s voice rang out, dripping with triumph, “your Empress!”

The room erupted again, though Diana hardly heard it. Instead, she felt herself being pulled toward the throne.

No—three thrones.

There was now one for her.

“Do you like my gift?” Caracalla gestured toward it proudly. “It is only right,” he said, “that our divine huntress sits where she belongs—above all.”

Diana hesitated for only a fraction of a second before sinking into the central seat.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Geta shift slightly, his fingers idly tapping against the armrest of his own throne. When she turned her head, she found him watching her, an indecipherable look in his dark eyes.

A servant poured her wine, and she brought it to her lips, trying to ignore the slight haze creeping into her mind.

Everything felt distant. The laughter, the voices, the heat of the torches. She imagined she should feel powerful sitting here.

But instead, she only felt dazed.

Diana’s mind wandered as she swirled the wine in her goblet, staring down at the dark liquid as it rippled in the candlelight. She had barely touched it, feeling warm enough from the heat of the torches and the weight of her gown. Before her, the great hall pulsed with life.

Music swelled, strings and flutes weaving a melody that sent people twirling across the marble floor. The howling of nobles rang through the air, mixing with the clinking of goblets and the rhythmic pounding of the drums.

It was a vision of opulence, of celebration.

And yet—

Diana watched it all with a strange sense of detachment.

This was to be her life now. Seated above the masses, adored, revered, put on display like a divine relic.

Caracalla, ever eager, leaned toward her, plucking a glistening grape from a silver tray and pressing it gently to her lips. She parted them slightly, allowing him to feed her. The gesture was sweet in its own way, and she could see in his eyes that he delighted in it. The act of tending to her, playing with her, lavishing her with affection as if she were his most treasured possession.

And perhaps she was. His goddess, after all.

Diana chewed slowly, taking in the scene before her as Caracalla beamed. Something else caught her eye.

The concubines.

They lingered at the edges of the gathering, hovering like moths drawn to the flame of her husband’s presence. Their silken garments draped suggestively over their figures, their eyes never straying far from the emperor. She was not concerned by them.

Why would she be?

She had never known the depths of a man’s touch. She did not understand the pull of it, the hunger. To her, their presence was nothing more than an accepted part of palace life, like the guards who stood at attention, or the servants who flitted about with trays of delicacies.

Still, she could not help but notice something unsettling in the way they acted.

They giggled, they batted their lashes, they reached for Caracalla when he passed, brushing their fingers over his arms in ways that reminded her of the noblewomen who flirted with Geta.

It was that comparison that sent a slight unease creeping into her belly.

They behaved as subjects who wished to please. And Caracalla, even as he remained wholly fixated on Diana, did not send them away. He simply let them wait.

Diana did not dwell on it. She had no reason to. Instead, she smiled as Caracalla pressed another fruit to her lips, swallowing it down as the music carried on, filling the chamber with the sounds of revelry.

Soon however, her husband had momentarily turned his attention to a group of noblemen who clamoured for his favour, his raucous laughter carrying over the hall.

It was in this moment that another voice reached her ear.

“I see my dear sister has already grown tired of the festivities.”

Diana inhaled sharply before turning her head.

Geta.

He had drawn near, his voice lowered so that only she could hear him, clearly thought out. His usual teasing smirk graced his lips, though there was something softer in his gaze tonight.

She straightened her shoulders. “I am not tired, Emperor.”

Geta's smirk twitched, though there was a flicker of something in his expression. “No need for formalities. I would have expected to have moved past that given the current situation.”

“I thought so too,” she replied, voice unreadable.

There was a beat of silence.

Geta’s brows furrowed, and then it dawned on him. “You’re still angry with me.”

Diana said nothing, only lifting her goblet to her lips and taking a slow sip. But Geta knew.

Acacius.

His amusement dimmed slightly, and his gaze drifted toward the crowd, as if considering his next words carefully.

“Diana,” he said at last, voice quieter, more sincere. “I did not send him away to punish you.” Her grip on the goblet tightened. “I did what I thought was best for my brother,” he continued, his voice turning more serious now. “I know you may not see it that way, but I did not make the decision lightly.”

A concubine slithered up to his side, attempting to recapture his attention with a delicate hand on his arm. He barely seemed to notice her.

Diana did. And for some reason, it irked her. Perhaps because it reminded her of the ones that lingered around Caracalla. Perhaps because Geta was speaking to her with a sincerity that felt… unsettling.

“I am sorry,” he said finally.

It caught her off guard.

She turned fully to him, searching his face for any sign of insincerity, but she found none. And that was what confused her the most. Because she wanted to stay angry. She should stay angry.

Yet—

She exhaled, shaking her head lightly, forcing herself to maintain composure. “I do not know what to do with an apology from you,” she admitted.

Geta tilted his head slightly. “You could accept it?”

“I could,” she mused. “But what fun would that be?”

A breath of laughter escaped him, his usual ease returning. “There she is.”

Diana allowed herself a small smirk, though her mind still felt muddled. She did not know what to do with this man. With the conflicting thoughts that swirled inside her. Whatever this was, it was dangerous.

The moment did not last.

A sudden high-pitched screech shattered the air, jolting them both from their exchange. Dondus. The monkey, perched on top of Caracalla’s throne, flailed his small arms wildly, pointing toward the musicians.

Caracalla turned, grinning as if his pet had just shared some great wisdom with him. “Ah, Dondus demands we enjoy the music!”

And just like that, he reached for Diana, sweeping her into his grasp. She barely had time to react before he pulled her from her throne, leading her away from Geta and toward the open space where guests twirled and danced.

Geta watched them go. Watched as his brother wrapped an arm around her waist, as she was pulled further and further from him.

And despite himself, despite all the logical reasons why he should not care—

A bitter taste settled in his mouth.

[quinnophile]

I can request one shot with Fred Hechinger like one shot love at the first sight or cute date ♡

Of course! I really hope this does you justice as its my first request and sweet baby boi deserves all the love 🥲♡ Hope y'all enjoy and I'm open to new requests!

pairing. Fred Hechinger x reader

synopsis. You notice a stranger in distress at a train station

warnings. none, this is pure fluff ✨

word count. 1.7K

notes. this is my first oneshot, i hope you like it!

The first time you saw him, the world seemed to tilt just a little.

It was at the train station—one of those dreary, grey mornings where everything felt half-awake. The air was thick with the scent of rain and freshly brewed coffee, the sky a watercolour of soft blues and lingering mist. You had been fumbling with your bag and checking the time when suddenly, you noticed him a few feet away. He was shifting nervously on his feet, his hands jammed into his coat pockets. 

He looked lost. 

Not in a where’s-my-train kind of way, but in an I-didn’t-plan-for-this-moment way.

And then he looked at you.

It was quick, just a glance—but something about it sent a jolt through your body, like the static shock from a winter sweater. His blonde, slightly wavy hair framed his face, a few strands falling into his eyes, which were deep and unreadable. And when he smiled at you—uncertain, slightly lopsided—it was the kind of smile that made the world soften at the edges, like sunlight breaking through a storm.

A smile made its way to your face before you even realised it. “Everything okay?”

He blinked at you, clearly debating whether to play it cool or be honest. He went for a mix of both and failed miserably. “Uh—no. I mean, yes? Not really?” He huffed a small, nervous laugh, rubbing the back of his neck. “I kinda missed my train. And I’m just waiting for my brain to work properly again.”

You bit back a grin. “Rough morning?”

“You have no idea.” He gestured vaguely to his coat. “I spilled coffee on myself five minutes ago. Which also meant when I tried to clean myself up I missed the last train I needed to catch…” His eyes drifted over your figure, a pink tint painting his cheeks. “And now I think I’ve just embarrassed myself in front of a stranger.”

You tilted your head, finding his nervousness quite endearing. “I wouldn’t say embarrassed.”

“Really?” Absentmindedly searching through your bag, you pull out a pack of tissues, pulling one out of its plastic wrapper before holding it out to him. He slowly extended his arm to reach out for it, his fingers grazing your own ever so slightly. It felt like your heart skipped a beat. 

“Well.” You started, feeling a heat creeping up your neck as you watched him try and wipe some of the coffee off of himself. “It depends on what you say next.”

A flicker of amusement crossed his face. He straightened up a little, clearing his throat, clearly trying to recalibrate. “Alright, let me recover. Uh—what’s the most ridiculous fact you know off the top of your head?”

You raised an eyebrow at the unexpected question but played along. “Octopuses have three hearts.”

His expression brightened. “Solid fact. And now I’m even more nervous, because that was a really good answer and I have to follow it up.”

You laughed. “No pressure.”

“Okay, okay—I’ve got one. Did you know that Scotland has over 400 words for ‘snow’?”

You blinked. “Seriously?”

“Yep. ‘Sneesl’ means to start raining or snowing. ‘Feefle’ is a swirling snowstorm. And my personal favorite—‘skelf’—is a large snowflake.”

He struggled to keep his eyes on you, feeling his rambling was surely going to scare you off.  You instead stared at him for a second, a slow smile forming. “You just… had those ready?”

“I panic-learned them once for an audition. Never thought it’d come in handy, but here we are.” He was visibly more relaxed now, his earlier nerves melting into something boyish and warm upon realising you hadn’t tried to exit the conversation. “I’m Fred, by the way.”

You repeated the name in your head, testing how it felt. It suited him—soft around the edges, a little old-fashioned, but endearing.

Before you could respond, the announcement board dinged overhead, signalling the arrival of your train. You glanced at it, then back at him, hesitating. The moment felt too short—like a page turning before you had finished reading the sentence.

He must have felt it too because he quickly said, “Hey—uh—would you want to keep talking? Maybe sometime over coffee?” You hesitated, watching the train slowly come to a stop before you. “Or now… if you don’t have to catch it of course. I kinda need a new cup after spilling the last one.”

Although he was clearly nervous, you couldn’t help but melt at the confident toothy-grin he sent your way. You paused for only a moment before making a snap decision. “I could take the next one.”

He was instantly relieved. “Yeah?” He asked, almost in disbelief.

“Yeah.”

-

There was a small café inside the station, in which you both settled into a booth by the window. The rain had started again, painting the glass in soft, shimmering patterns, the station lights reflecting like constellations in a city sky. The conversation came easy, neither of you trying too hard, both still slightly aware of the way the universe had unexpectedly tossed you together. He was still a little nervous, but so were you. And that made it easier—meeting each other in the middle, both trying to act normal when really, something about this wasn’t normal at all.

Time slipped away unnoticed. You learned about Fred’s terrible luck with public transport and his impressive ability to remember useless trivia. He learned that you had a habit of taking detours just to see where they led. At some point, you casually mentioned that you were only heading into the city for the day, meeting a friend, but lived nearby.

You laughed with him as you exited the café, the announcement board once again reporting the arrival of the next train. Standing near the edge of the platform, you almost hesitated boarding it.

“Would it be okay if I asked to meet you again?” Fred asked, his voice soft yet hopeful.

You nodded, the fluttering sensation you had felt in your stomach intensifying as he held his hand out to help you step up onto the train. “I think I would like that.”

A shout from the security guard broke through the calm atmosphere, a sign the train was about to depart. Fred’s face suddenly fell.

“We never exchanged numbers.”

You froze, eyes widening. “Oh no.”

A beeping sound screeched through the calm atmosphere, a sign the doors were about to shut. For a moment, neither of you moved.

Then, with a frantic scramble, Fred fumbled for his phone while you tried to pull yours from your bag. But the moment was against the both of you—Fred had barely unlocked his screen when the doors began to close.

Panic flashed across his face. “Wait—”

The doors shut.

Your breath caught as you watched him, helplessly standing on the platform, his expression mirroring your own horror. Then, in a completely hopeless, dramatic move, he jogged after the train for a few feet, waving his arms before stopping with a defeated groan.

Moving to an empty seat, you laid back into it, pressing a hand to your forehead. That did not just happen.

Your day dragged after that. You met your friend, a little later than planned, but nothing felt as exciting as your unexpected morning. Your friend had asked what had happened, and you relived the wonderful morning as you tried to remember every detail. Upon the conclusion to your story, however, your friend took one look at your dazed expression, raised a brow and deadpanned.

“So let me get this straight… you met the love of your life at a train station, spent hours flirting over coffee, then both forgot to exchange number, and now he’s just - what - gone?” You cringed at this, hiding your head in your hands as the reality of it all hit you like a slap across the face. “Congrats! You’re officially the main character in a tragic rom-com.”

-

After that, as much as you tried, no conversation sparked the same kind of warmth. No moment felt as alive. The whole time, you kept replaying that missed opportunity in your mind, wondering how you had let it slip away.

Hours later, exhausted and disappointed, you boarded the train home. Slumping into a seat, you stared out at the dimming sky, still kicking yourself for not just stepping off of the train when you had the chance. The journey wasn’t long, and soon you were nearing the station, adjusting the strap on your shoulder to secure your bag.

And that’s when you saw him.

Fred was sitting on one of the old wooden benches, hands in his pockets, bouncing his knee as if he had been anxiously waiting a long time.

You blinked, not quite believing it. But then he looked up, spotted you through the train window, and grinned—the biggest, most relieved smile you had ever seen. His blonde hair was a little messier than before, as if he had run his hands through it a hundred times while waiting.

As you finally stepped onto the platform, he stood quickly, stuffing his hands deeper into his coat pockets. “I figured you’d have to come back here eventually,” he admitted, slightly breathless, like he couldn’t believe you were actually standing there. “Didn’t want to take any chances.”

Your chest felt light, a ridiculous, giddy warmth bubbling up inside. “Fred,” you said, shaking your head with a laugh. You were lost for words as you stared up into his shimmering green eyes. 

“I hoped it didn’t come across as creepy.” He laughed, looking down at his feet with that familiar pink tinge tainting his cheeks again. 

In a moment of boldness, you took a step closer to him. You could hear his sharp intake of breath as you stood up on your tip-toes, then gave him a soft kiss on his cheek.

“That might have been the most absurdly romantic thing anyone has ever done.” You smiled, setting yourself back down. You could almost feel the heat radiating off of him as his cheeks became redder. 

He rocked back on his heels, giving a small, nervous chuckle. “So… I guess I get a second chance to ask for your number now?”

You grinned, already pulling out your phone. “You absolutely do.”

[quinnophile]

Hi all, I'm wanting to work on my writing so I am open to oneshot requests! I'm happy to write about any character to do with Joseph Quinn Fred Hechinger, although if you have a specific character/person or universe in mind that I know of i would definitely consider it! (I am obsessed with a lot of people, currently everyone from Sinners, so be my guest!)