#Home on the range reference

[reddogf13]

momma needs a drink.

they know their mother wouldn't leave. she'd never abandon them. but some strange lady keeps taking her away.

since the girls were adopted. their new imprinting takes a couple extra steps.

[galactic-feelins]

You may have noticed, but I like playing with concepts involving the multiverse. Be it the space between, or the infinite realms, or any other title you may grant it! The multiverse is vast and infinite, with everything that can exist and all those variations. Hell, the whole point of World Hoppers (whenever I finally get around to making/sharing that) is that no one can control the infinite. Yet, in Danny Phantom ghost king aus, it seems like he’s supposed to be in charge of the infinite realms, as if one world wasn't already too much to handle.

Anyway this is to say I like to think the various ghost kings only have jurisdiction over limited territories, which may imply they need an annual meeting to reestablish boarders to account for worlds/realms drifting around. If anyone wants context behind the specific scenario I had in mind drawing this, please let me know, but the point of this was just having fun drawing other people’s ghost kings:

Seen here from left to right is @wanologic’s College AU, @pineconewithapencil’s design from This post, and @jackalspine’s crown cage situation :3

Note that I got permission from Pinecone to absolutely wing it on what the rest of this design might look like, seeing as they don’t have a full design to reference from. Pine’s final design may be entirely different than what’s shown here, but I’d say I’m good at working off of vibes like this.

I haven’t done much style imitation before, and honestly this was fun! I learned some things and got a new trick for drawing ice and gem-like things! Trying to figure out how things are made is fun and interesting, but most of the difference here comes down to coloring styles as my own habits bled through the line art process a lot.

[rhythmmortis]

thinking of you and sending one billion hugs

thinking of you back and returning one billion hugs....... i have just been on a train for 5 hours and slowly but surely entering psychic combat with chomsky's government and binding theory. we got invisible pronouns up in this bitch

[ghostly-whiskey]

simon riley who you "meet" through a program where you can send care packages to soldiers. you don't think much of it at first, just a simple package with a few necessities and treats. and along with that, a short, but genuine and handwritten letter thanking the unknown soldier to you for their service.

and when you go to retrieve your mail a few weeks later after getting home from work, brows furrowing together as you shuffle through the stack of envelopes.

bill. another bill. advertisement. paycheck. handwritten addressed envelope from 'ghost'.

your brain doesn't even connect the dots until you are inside, fingers gently picking at the envelope until your able to drag a finger through the seal to open it. a simple piece of what looks like notebook paper is pulled from inside. unfolding it, eyes quickly scan the letter to get an idea what it's about.

you've done plenty of care packages before. never did you get a personalized thank you letter back, so, this was a first. the letter starting off by thank you for the package and that he enjoyed the items, especially the "sweet treats". the two words put in quotations as he referred to what you referred to them as in your own letter. your own brain cringing slightly as you remember what you wrote.

again, thank you for all that you do and enjoy the sweet treats!

and while you expected the letter to end after thanking you, it didn't. additional lines asking about you. the sets of questions ranging from asking how long have you been doing the care packages to general questions about yourself. then, at the very end, after signing off as 'ghost', you couldn't help but notice the chicken scratch of handwriting that added:

p.s. you don't need to respond back if you don't want to, just figured it be nice to get something back in return. thanks again.

[bokunoheros]

TAGS/WARNINGS: reader is gender neutral but afab (keigo does talk ab making you a mommy tho, and you refer to yourself as his girlfriend once), reader is a civilian, this is pre-war, reader and keigo are dating, no lube no protection (all night all day), baby trapping lowk????, idk he nonconsensually cums in you and then proposes (you accept tho), creampies, cockwarming, kinda lazy ending?? idgaf GENRE: smut SUMMARY: it’s the start of mating season and keigo had just saved a mother and her child at work today, so it’s only natural for him to come home with the overwhelming need to knock you up. WORD COUNT: 2.6K 🦊’s A/N: keigo they could Never make me hate you…. anyway hope yall enjoy this fr

     not only was today the first day of his rut, meaning his last day of hero work until the spring was over, but he had also gone out of his way to save a mother and her crying child while off-duty. he’d been heading home after an eventful and tiring patrol when he ran into them being threatened by a petty mugger—nothing he couldn’t handle, especially after the day he’d had, but he can imagine having a gun pointed to your face must be scary to an untrained civilian. now, he was brimming over with emotions, barely keeping his cool as he walks through the threshold of your shared home, slamming the door loudly behind him, wings all puffed up and ruffled.

     “keigo? honey, what’s wron—” you’re suddenly cut off by a small flurry of his feathers sweeping you off your feet and carrying you from the kitchen towards where he stood in the living room, in the process of stepping out of his boots and shrugging his jacket off. you’re immediately taken aback by his serious demeanor and you open your mouth to say something, except that no words come out. what should you say?

     “how was your day..?” you ask tentatively after a brief moment of silence. 

     rather than verbally answering you, he lets out a long, drawn out sigh and shakes his head — a response you’re unfamiliar with. usually, he isn’t afraid to yap for at least fifteen minutes about how his day went, what happened, and sometimes even the people or fellow pros he talked to! so for him to remain silent…. well, it’s safe to say you’re starting to get worried. 

     had you done something wrong? was today exceptionally challenging? your heart rate increases as your anxious thoughts swirl around in your foggy mind, and you don’t know where to go from here.

     keigo knew what to do, though; he knew exactly how to relieve this stress.

     taking a step in your direction, he narrows his eyes, intense, predatory gaze locked onto yours, and suddenly, he’s leaning in for a kiss as he backs you up against the nearest wall. 

     the way he kisses you is controlled and barely put together, and you can tell he’s on edge, like he’s about to snap, so you say what you think he needs to hear.

     “you can rough me up a bit, kei, i promise i won’t break.”

     his eyes fly open at your words before narrowing as he nods before leaning back in with much more passion and any restraint right out the window. but he himself has said it before, he’s awful—he has no self-control; something that rang especially true when it came to you. 

     he’s spent whole evenings with his head buried between your thighs, eating you out until you’re crying and begging him to stop, saying it hurts, it hurts!, to which he always asks you for just one more. “one more” never meant one more, of course—keigo was greedy in this sense. he could never seem to get enough of you, always wanting more, more, more. if he could, he’d devour you whole, make you his entirely, and—that’s exactly what he was going to do tonight. he had been planning to propose for a while now, anyway. he had a ring and everything! he’d.. just been working up the courage to ask. so, then what better way than by deciding to knock you up on a whim. 

     well, …was it really a whim if he had fantasized about it before? the two of you had been dating since the summer of last year, meaning you haven’t seen him during his ruts yet, and, while he’s mentioned it briefly in the past, he didn’t actually expect to last this long with you so he never divulged the details of it—not because he wasn’t in love with you, but because he gave up on the dating scene because he’s always the one being dumped for being so. so. !!!! outwardly nonchalant about most things! or being married to his work, whatever they meant by that; he only worked so hard so he could have a future to relax in! no one ever seemed to understand that…. until he met you.

     something just clicked between the two of you upon your first meeting—you were probably the most interesting person hawks had ever saved, be it your quirk, your personality and mannerisms, or even something as simple as a remark you had made in the five something minutes it took to save you; he found himself unable to get you out of his head for days afterwards, eventually causing him to seek you out to ask a bewildered you on a date—just one, he had originally said.  

     you said yes immediately for a multitude of reasons—he was fine as fuck, he’d literally saved your life the other day, not to mention he was witty, and spoke his mind, too—something keigo hadn’t been expecting. he knew all of the above things, and yet, found himself somewhat nervous as he handed you a bouquet of pale red carnations, red camellias, and baby’s breath. he’d stayed up all night researching flower language and symbolism, deciding on the perfect ones to give to you, as he knew it was rude to show up to somebody’s house empty-handed, and, also, because… he’d never really felt this way about anyone before. there was something so magnetic between the two of you….

     but that’s enough reminiscing—he needs to be in the present moment, needs to focus on fucking you so good you go braindead on his dick, focus on cumming so deep in you, there’s no way you couldn’t not be pregnant with his child. keigo understood that having children as the number two pro hero would be no easy feat, but he thinks with you by his side, he can do anything. 

     sliding his tongue over the seam of your lips, one gloved hand comes up to squish your cheeks enough to force your lips to part for him and he easily slips the wet muscle into your mouth, taking his time sliding it along the insides of your cheeks, the grooves of your teeth, and the roof of your mouth, carefully exploring every inch and committing it to memory (as if he hadn’t already). 

     meanwhile, his other hand settles on your hip, massaging it lightly for a moment before his grip quickly tightens and he’s coaxing your tongue out of your mouth and into his as he begins to suck on it.

     “mmh,” you hum pleasantly, starting to drool as you let keigo decide how to use you in order to relieve his stress. 

     “missed ya t’day, dove,” he murmurs against your lips before nipping at your tongue and you feel your heart flutter. what had gotten into him? you weren’t necessarily complaining, but you still felt a little worried about him if you were being totally honest.

     keigo, sensing your unease, slowly pulls away from the kiss to ask if something was wrong, just for you to deflect the question back onto him. 

     “‘m fine, it was just a long day is all,” he tells you in earnest, leaving out the part about the beginning of his rut. “need’a feel you s’bad, though,” he breathes out, moving to kiss you again; tilting his head, he slots his lips back over yours, and it feels like he’s going to eat you alive. and, truthfully, he just might.

     before you even realize what he’s doing, he’s picking you up, wrapping your legs around his narrow waist, and carrying you into the bedroom where he’s pinning you to the mattress, wings spread wide for you to admire as you look up at him. you’re sure his words held a bit of truth to them, but he was behaving a little oddly for reasons you couldn’t put together yet. 

     him being a horny little shit wasn’t the unusual bit, but rather, his upbeat demeanor was nowhere to be found—even if it was an act almost all the time, it still felt weird to see him so serious looking.

     “kei…”

     “shh, stop worrying, sweets,” he shushes you, leaning in for another hungry kiss. you oblige him of course, parting your lips and poking your tongue out to meet his as you close your eyes

     his large wings create an almost dome around the two of you, shutting out the world, only leaving room for the two of you, and not another soul. 

     perhaps it would be best to sit back, relax, and let your boyfriend play with you… so that’s exactly what you do, settling fully onto the soft bed and wrapping your arms around his neck to pull him in closer—something that had him smirking against your soft lips. 

     it’s not long before you’re both naked, having grown too hot for the unnecessary layers separating your bare bodies, and soon, you suddenly have a pillow tucked under your hips, keeping them at an angle—something that confuses you.

     “keigo?”

     “just relax, dove.”

     he leans in closer, bringing his lips to yours as his one hand grasps at your hip, blunt nails (that he has to trim daily, mind you, lest they grow into talons) digging into the tender flesh there while his other grabs at his leaky cock, tapping it against your clit a couple times before lining it up with your slit and slowly pushing in, doing his best to show restraint and not bottom out in one fluid motion. you both groan at the feeling, the stretch so deep you almost feel nauseous.

     bringing two fingers down to your pulsing clit, he rubs semi-rough circles against the little bud, trying his hardest not to overwhelm you, but needing to hurry up and get you off so he can stuff you full of his cum.

     “mmmh,” you moan quietly as he focuses on working you up to your first orgasm out of many for the long night he had planned for you.

     it’s not long before you’re cumming with a cry and suddenly, keigo’s got his dick lined up with your slick little hole, easing himself in as he bites his bottom lip, trying not to whimper. 

     “fuuuck, you’re so tight, sweets,” he groans, rocking his hips into your, unkempt pubes brushing against your neatly trimmed ones. 

     your hands come up to wrap around his neck in an attempt to pull him closer, before you’re tugging at his wings, and you feel his dick twitch inside you.

     “don’t,” is all he’s able to get out, burying his face in the crook of your neck, where he begins sucking and biting at the skin there. 

     “why not?” you grin like an idiot, already knowing the answer. you knew damn well just how sensitive keigo’s wings were—already having had this discussion when you first started having sex and you went to grab at them for the first time.

     “don’t ask stupid questions when you know the answer, dove,” he warns.

     you, ever the brat, decide to start stroking on his wings, and you feel his hips stutter and teeth sink into the column of your throat. 

     “nngh–!” you whine, tugging on the bright red feathers. keigo moans loudly at this, and quickly grabs the backs of your thighs to fold you in half and start fuckin’ pounding into you—his thrusts are fast and sloppy, and the sound of wet skin slapping against wet skin turns you on even more, pussy drooling around his dick.

     it doesn’t take long before keigo’s cumming deep inside you without warning, something that has your eyes flying open. 

     “k–keigo–! y– you just— you..!” the words aren’t there as panic begins to settle in. something you had both agreed on before you started fucking was that even if you did it raw, he had to pull out—kids were a big no for the both of you.

     but here was your boyfriend, fucking you throughout his orgasm and working his way up to a second as he looks down at you with a gaze so intense, you feel small beneath him. 

     tugging at his wings again, you cry out his name as he fucks his cum into you, just for him to ignore your pathetic mewls and pleas.

     “k– kei—!”

     “gonna knock y’up so good—g’nna— fuck— g’nna make you a mommy—”

     your face flushes deeply at his words—is this what had gotten into him? the urge to breed you? knock you up?

     “f–fuck!” you pull at his wings, rolling your hips upwards as best you can as he desperately ruts into you. this triggers keigo’s second orgasm, his pelvis pressing flush against yours as he cums hard. 

     “nngh—! hnnmg—fuck,” keigo moans as his hips still while he spills another load deep within you. “shit— y’feel so fuckin’ good, baby—” 

     this continues for what seems like ever, but in reality is maybe fifteen minutes of your boyfriend fucking into you until he physically can’t cum anymore, until tears are running down his cheeks from how overstimulated he is, and he’s collapsing on top of you with a tired sigh.

     “k–keigo— we— we can’t—” can’t what? “‘m gonna get pregnant— y’gotta let me get up,” you try to say, shoving at his chest; but it was no use, he was dead weight. 

     “good,” he says breathlessly, nuzzling his face into your neck. 

     “n–no! not good! i— we’re only dating! what would the media think if they found out the number two pro hero went and knocked his girlfriend up?!” your concern is genuine, but also stems from selfish reasons. you’re sure the reporters would hound you the moment they caught a whiff of something fishy, and—

     “then marry me.” his words are so serious sounding that they immediately break you out of your own mind and your eyes go wide with shock and awe. had he seriously just. proposed?! while still being balls deep in you!? 

     “huh!?” you sound just as caught off guard as you look, and keigo cranes his neck up to look at you, expression the most serious you’d ever seen it. …okay, so he obviously wasn’t joking around, but, but–!

     “you heard me. …i’d been meaning to get you a ring for a little while now, but couldn’t find one i thought you might like, so…..” his cheeks are flushed and face sweaty, hair sticking to his forehead as he gazes at you so tenderly, your heart can’t help but feel full.

     “i— keigo, i…” he waits patiently as you fumble with your words. “yes,” finally falls from your lips, a grin tugging at the corners of them.

      unable to say anything else, you cup his cheeks with both hands and press kisses all over his handsome face before you slot your lips over his and lean in slowly, almost teasingly.

     keigo, ever impatient, leans in to close the gap, one large hand coming to cradle the back of your head as his hips twitch and he pushes further into you, causing the disgusting amount of cum stuffed in your cunt to form a creamy ring around the base of his cock, and drip down to your puckered asshole. after that, it doesn’t take much longer for keigo to fuck you both to sleep.

     and that’s how you found yourself in the exact same position one year later, having put your first child to bed no less than an hour ago, with your now husband pinning you to your shared mattress, talking about how he wants a second kid—how beautiful you looked pregnant the first time, and how he’d love to see you like that again. so, he makes it happen. and then one more time after that.

return to KINKTOBER | PRO HERO M.LIST

[cherrygarcia-07]

Absolutely no pressure, babes. Writing should be fun, not stressful!

What thoughts do you have about say…early seasons Spencer being completely whipped for his girlfriend? He has absolutely no idea how he landed this really awesome gal, but there she is, his beautiful girl, who wants to listen to him, spend time with him.

Serendipity // Spencer Reid☕️

Thank you so much for my first request🥺 your support means so much! I got a little carried away, this is definitely more elaborate than what you asked, I hope you like it anyway but lmk if you want anything a little more playful and light and I can totally give that a go too!

Synopsis: Spencer Reid has never looked for love, believing it was simply just not in the cards for him. That was until you stumbled into his life, changing his perceptive on life- and on himself.

Pairing: early seasons glasses! spencer x reader

Genre: deep fluff

Word Count: 3k

Notes/Tags: bees as a catalyst for love because why the hell not, infodumping as flirting, talks about constellations (from me? shocker), lot of references to spencer’s past bullying & home life, hes down BAD bad he literally studies what to do on a date, princess and the frog reference at the end just pretend it didn’t come out in 2009 okay <3

masterlist

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Spencer Reid had always been a man of science, not of superstitions or of coincidences of the universe. While he found stories fascinating, to him that’s all they were- stories. He believed in facts and numbers, things that were tangible and real and he never indulged in any kind of magic of destiny. That was until he met you. No amount of research, no book he threw himself into or study he conducted could ever account for just how he ended up with you. He wrecked his brain trying to calculate the statistical probability of this happening and how you could have appeared right when he needed you, but for once in his life he was stumped.

He’d never been one to look for love. It wasn’t that he didn’t want it, in fact he felt it like a rock in his chest where his heart should be, heavy and aching behind his ribs as it yearned for what it thought it could never be. It was simply something Spencer believed just wasn’t meant for him. He’d never seen himself in the happy faces of couples he passed on the street, he never related to the dreamy, put-together romantic leads he’d seen in movies, rather he saw himself in isolation. In solitude. A lone star with no constellation. He was there, that much he knew, and he twinkled in his own way, but not in any way that drew attention. Just enough to show that he was alive, just evidence that he existed up there too. He had no connections around him, no story to be told and no greater picture that he was a part of. He felt more like a torch imitating a star, a false light that didn’t dazzle quite as authentically as it searched the dark for what it needed rather than just resting in what it had. Spencer had made his peace with this though- at least he thought he had. After all, the stories behind the constellations are just myths. They’re simply just things humanity had attached meaning to with no real science or history behind them, and he truly believed that.

That’s why you were so baffling to him.

It started with a bee, of all things. It was Spencer’s turn to do the coffee run for the team in the middle of a local case, his steps weighing beneath him with exhaustion despite it being the middle of the day as he dragged himself to the door of the café. He had just wrapped his fingers around the door handle and was gathering the little energy left in him to swing it open when a sudden scream rang out behind him, jolting him awake as he dropped his hand and spun to face the noise. On edge from the case, his mind rattled through a thousand dire possibilities as he mentally prepared to jump into action. What his eyes landed on, however, wasn’t any kind of crash or violent attack like he had feared, but rather a girl… swatting a bee. The panicked lump in his throat cleared as he caught his breath and watched you flail your arms in the air as you continued squealing, coffee flying out of the small hole in the top of your takeaway cup in every direction. Deciding to put you out of your misery, as it was still his duty to protect no matter how small the stakes, he took a step closer and with one heroic wave of his arm the bee was gone.

There was a feeling he couldn’t quite place somewhere deep in his chest as he took in your expression; big dazed eyes flooding with relief as they watched the culprit flew away; soft cheeks painted pink in the aftermath of the chaos; and lips parted ever so delicately as small puffs of air escaped them, before they spread into a brilliant grin that took over your whole face. Laughing lightly, you reached out and gently held his arm to grab his attention, not realising you’d had it the whole time.

“Thank you so much. You saved my life there.” Your voice chirped, though he barely registered it through the flustered rush of blood pounding in his ears.

Spencer looked down to where your hand still rested on his arm. Usually this was the part where he would recoil, politely but firmly snatching his arm back as he mumbled something about germs and bacteria and pathogens. But he didn’t pull away. Why didn’t he pull away? A beat of awkward silence passed as he stuttered internally, trying to get his mouth to cooperate with his brain as he failed to tear his gaze away from your eyes.

“It was a drone.” He groaned at himself in his head. Respond normally, idiot his brain yelled.

For a second, your brow furrowed as you bit your lip in thought. “I’m sorry?”

“It, uh-“ He stammered, painfully aware that your hand was still on his arm. “It was a drone. A male bee. It wouldn’t have hurt you.”

Nice going he cursed himself. Spencer held his breath as he braced himself for the inevitable reaction he was all too familiar with; the awkward hum as the other person pulled away, the barely masked grimace on their face at his compulsive need to drop facts at any given moment, and finally one of the many variations of ‘I’m running late, I better get going” among other excuses to stop talking to him. Except it never came.

Instead, you tilted your head to the side curiously, a thoughtful look on your face as you stared at the space in the air where the bee had been just moments ago. You were still touching him.

“Do male bees not sting or something?” You asked, the genuine interest in your voice taking Spencer by surprise.

He almost wasn’t sure what to do. If he wasn’t used to people actually listening to him when he rambled, someone asking him for even more information was practically unheard of.

“They can’t sting,” he begun, a mix of confidence and excitement at your interest bubbling up in his words, “stingers aren’t compatible with their anatomy. The stinger is essentially a modified ovipositor so it only exists on the female bees so they can lay their eggs. The stinger also isn’t needed for male bees for any defensive purposes since they have no role in defending the hive either so, uh.” His voice trailed off as he cleared his throat, his confidence dipping as he realised how much he was speaking. “Yeah, perfectly harmless.”

He sheepishly met your gaze once again, still half expecting to find that disinterested, disapproving look in your eyes. You finally pulled your hand away from his arm and oddly, Spencer found himself mourning your warmth through his sleeve and shocked himself with how much he wished you would reach for him again.

“That’s actually good to know.” His heart raced as you flashed a grin at him. “I’ve always been terrified of bees. That little fight you saw just now is a regular thing for me.” You replied with a giggle so sweet Spencer thought he should bottle it and pour it in his coffee- if he ever remembers to go in and get it.

“It’s a pretty common phobia, but actually bees have a lot of positive symbolism that contradicts people’s connotations about them.” His felt his phone buzz in his pocket. He ignored it.

“Oh yeah? Like what?” Spencer noted the way your fingers drummed against the coffee cup in your hands, realising you had your drink already and there was really no reason for you to be here anymore. You were choosing to be here with him. For a moment, he felt like he’d had the breath knocked out of him and he felt his heart beat so hard behind his shirt he worried it would break out.

“Most commonly, they’re associated with hard work and community but in a lot of cultures they also represent prosperity and the circle of life. In ancient cultures they even believed bees to be of divine wisdom and they were seen as a symbol of guidance.” His cadence was suddenly a lot livelier, much more sure of itself as it evened out and strayed from the quiet shake of his words earlier.

“A symbol of guidance?” You repeated, not so subtly eyeing him up and down, adoring the nerdy way his glasses slipped down his nose as he spoke. “Maybe that’s what that bee was doing here today.”

There was a flirty undertone to your voice, not that Spencer noticed. Girls never flirted with him, or at least he convinced himself they didn’t. He’d spent far too much time on the receiving end of older girls in school pretending to like him for their own amusement and so he’d stopped looking for the signs entirely until they just began to pass him by.

“What do you mean?” He asked quizzically, his head tilting like a puppies in confusion.

“It guided you to me.”

His phone began ringing again- no doubt the team wondering where their coffees were, but he couldn’t even hear it over the ringing in his ears.

“Do you need to get that…?” You trailed off, trying to catch his name.

“Spencer.” He managed to croak out eventually. “And no- well I probably should actually, but it can wait.”

His doe eyes were blown wide, his mouth hanging open like a fish in a stunned state you didn’t yet know you would grow to love. You bumped his arm in a playful manner, holding back a smirk when his still dazed eyes darted between your face and your hand on his arm once again.

“Give me another one before you go, another nice bee thing.” You smiled softly, staring up at him through your lashes, and the invitation to teach again pulled him back to reality as he snapped into action instantly.

“This isn’t necessarily anything to do with bees themselves but have you heard of the Beehive Cluster?” He smiled fondly when you shook your head. “It’s a cluster of around a thousand stars within the Cancer constellation- described by Ptolemy as a nebulous mass. It’s named after its resemblance to a beehive, both in shape and in symbolism- the stars together in harmony like the bees.”

“That sounds beautiful, Spencer. You know a lot about the stars?” He nodded eagerly, but not smug. More like a man who was passionate about what he knew and was eternally grateful to have someone to share it with. “Well you’ll have to take me stargazing some time, it looks like I’ve got a lot to learn. What do you think?”

It was as if he’d been hypnotised, your proposal like the magic word that snapped his confidence back like elastic as his jaw dropped again immediately and he became a stuttering mess right there in front of you.

Spencer had a lot of explaining to do when he arrived back at the BAU empty handed.

Fast forward a few unfathomable months down the line and here he was, somehow lying beside you in bed watching the moonlight drape over your sleeping frame like the blanket wrapped around your waist. A heavy but pleasant feeling tugged at his consciousness, unsure whether it was from the late hour blinking on the clock or the love-drunk haze he always seemed to be in around you (though he would happily bet on the latter).

Afraid to touch you and disturb your sleep, Spencer let his eyes wander over you lovingly. His breath hitched with admiration as if it was his first time looking at you, overwhelmed and quite frankly astounded at the fact you were even here. With him. He gazed over your hands -your soft, gentle hands that pushed his glasses back up his nose with a touch so delicate against his face that he forgot about every hand that ever struck him there; your doting, attentive hands that buttoned his cardigans each morning when he was rushing too much to care about it himself; your tender, caring hands that combed through his hair as he cried into your shoulder after a case that hit him particularly hard. He let out a shuddering breath, his trance travelling to your lips, parted in your sleep and rosy like a cherub’s. Those same lips that harboured your sweet voice and that flashed your heavenly smile his way and made him weak. Those lips that reassured him that he was the only thing that mattered when he felt he was the only thing that didn’t. Finally, with bated breath, his focus shifted to your eyes that shone like the north star. His Polaris. His guiding light home, always waiting in the dark with open arms for him to fall into whenever he was lost. Those enchanting eyes that saw the beauty in everything- that somehow saw it in him.

Spencer was someone who valued his privacy and he had tried to keep the relationship to himself for a while, but working with a team of profilers and the fact he wore his heart on his sleeve meant it didn’t last very long. Before your first date he had shown up to work a little fancier than usual, like a child on their first day of school, knowing he would have to meet you straight from the office. Derek had immediately caught onto his gelled back hair and elaborate tie, embroidered with a sea of stars, and had thrown a few teasing comments his way along with his signature brotherly smirk. Gideon in a fatherly manner had straightened his tie for him before he left, patting him on the back and holding back a proud smile. The next day, when the grin Spencer wore pulled at his lips so hard it may as well have been stitched in place, his walls came crashing down and he told the team everything.

Spencer would never admit it but he’d studied beforehand, scouring the library for anything and everything even remotely romance related. As it turns out, being years below your peers your whole life doesn’t really open any doors in the dating world, often leaving him tuning out his emotions over a solitary game of chess, but he was determined to do everything he could to learn to be the perfect gentleman for you. At the restaurant, he pulled your chair out for you before seating himself closest to the door to protect you from the breeze whenever it swung open. Afterwards he walked you home, lingering close enough to breathe in the intoxicating smell of your perfume but refusing to touch you uninvited lest you think that was all he wanted from you.

Eventually, you approached your front door and you stopped for a moment, turning your head up towards the blackening sky, the stars not quite poking their pretty little heads out yet.

“What’s the matter?” Spencer asked, concerned as you sported a slight pout.

“I wanted you to show me the Beehive Cluster.” You sighed, dropping your gaze to the floor, a crease appearing between your brows that he found himself wishing he could kiss away, touched that you’d even remembered what he’d told you.

Your head snapped back up as he reached into his pocket, pulling out a notepad and pen with a small smile. You watched, confused as he frantically scribbled in silence, not daring to speak incase you burst the focused bubble he was in. After a moment, he glanced back up at you with a bashful expression, shyly holding out the piece of paper, now torn from the book.

“Until next time.” He said softly, barely audible but impactful nonetheless. Heart melting, you took in the scribbled illustration of the cluster on the page, fingers delicately tracing the ink like it was sacred.

That same drawing now lived framed on the nightstand beside where you slept, lit up by the moonlight creeping in through the curtains. The memory played over in Spencer’s mind on loop and he thought about waking you, overcome with the urge to pepper your face with a thousand kisses for every painful memory of his past you’d overwritten. For every girl that had asked him out as a joke; for every boy that made him feel inferior; for every time he had refused to let himself believe he could be in love, there was a countless amount of new memories with you. From his understanding of the world, love had always looked like something that left you in pieces more often than it put you back together. Love looked like a broken home and a broken family. Like something that only worked out in fiction and sometimes not even then. Love was a forbidden fruit hanging illuminated in an artificial light that looked just real enough to trick people into taking a bite, punishing those who dared think they were deserving of it. What he never even dreamed was that love could look just like this. Like sci-fi movie nights curled up together on the couch wearing matching mis-matched socks, or like quiet evenings spent comfortably side by side saying nothing but feeling everything. Truthfully, he never knew love could look like you.

All this time, Spencer believed it was his place in the universe to sit alone and observe, twinkling humbly from his place in the dark. He believed he was simply meant to tell the stories, not be part of one himself. Little did he know his place was beside you, his Evangeline, in a harmonious beehive all his own.

Spencer Reid had always been a man of science. But that night, as you lay beside him, he thought about the old mythological beliefs that bees were once divine messengers between mortals and the Gods- and he thought that maybe he believed it. Tears pricked his eyes as he leaned in and pressed a feather light kiss to your forehead and he found himself thanking that serendipitous bee that day for bringing him everything he didn’t know he was missing.

-

[elodieunderglass]

Horses are often referred to as prey animals, but what are their natural predators?

Any large grassland predator in the biome, including humans! This is an interesting question, though, because it takes in the axes of time and space. "Wild" horses, the ancestor of domestic horses, are currently extremely rare. The only existing ones in a wild state are Przewalski's horses, also called the Takhi or Mongolian Wild Horses, which live on the Mongolian steppe. Their "natural predators" in that environment would include wolves and snow leopards (which are themselves endangered). However, it isn't an entirely natural setup; they were reintroduced to their native habitat after becoming essentially extinct, through an incredibly complex and fascinating recovery project. In the spacetime pocket in which Earth has wild horses, that's the current state of play: wild horses live in Mongolia and are occasionally eaten by wolves, but are being preserved fiercely for the benefit of humanity.

Meanwhile, we do have things like Dartmoor ponies in England and mustangs in North America and Brumbies in Australia. Dartmoor ponies aren't eaten by anything and are considered feral in the sense that they're domestic animals that live wild, but more or less on purpose, with the moor being treated as a common for keeping ponies on, and the nominal owners can just grab one if they want one at any time. Mustangs are accidental colonists of the American West. They are preyed on by wolves, cougars, and other local large predators, but are not wild. they are feral because they're all descendants of European horses and honestly, if we aren't being sentimental about it, they're invasive.

North America has not had a native population of horses since humans arrived on the continent. The facts are often associated. It is commonly held that humans, upon arriving in America, ate the native horses all up. The typical line goes that "when the first humans populated North America, they were so greedy and invasive that they overhunted most of the local large mammals to extinction". but I personally - and in an unhinged I'm-allowed-to-randomly-hold-ONE-fringe-belief-that-I-Made-up-Myself way - don't like that narrative, and there might be evidence in oral myths indicating that First Nations people at least remembered contact with horses prior to European colonisation. At any rate, there aren't wild horses on that side of the planet any more. The mustang - the most classic "wild horse" in imagination - is not wild, but is currently preyed on by everything that WOULD have eaten the OG native horses of America, minus the large predators that have gone extinct since then (sabre-toothed tigers). Whether mustangs are a nice reintroduction that adds a missing element of Horf to the landscape, or agents of ecological devastation, is kind of up in the air. But they are regularly and routinely preyed upon by the same "natural predators" as the wild cousins would have been, albeit in lower numbers. Take-home message: to visualise how interactions of wild horses with predators and the environment would have looked, mustangs are a very good model.

Going back to the "time" element, human interaction has really decreased a lot of the "natural predators" of horses; they were once preyed on by a larger variety, diversity, and number of animals. In the pocket of spacetime when wild horses were common and had a large range, there also used to be a lot more things like hyenas in Europe and Asia. Here's a diagram showing the "prey animals" and "predators" of Pleistocene Europe. Horses are on the bottom shelf on the far right, at a lower opacity, to show they're "prey animals". You can see that there was a greater diversity of predator types, while today there are usually just Your Local Wolf and Your Local Big Cat.

But this diagram puts "people" as "prey animals" - and humans are traditionally The Natural Predators of horses. Looking at that diagram, you can see that the common, smallish-but-not-too-small herd animal, whose defenses are Having Friends and Being Fast, is a delicious-looking proposition. The spectacular depictions of cave horses in Lascaux are showing our kin, but they're also showing our food.

There is a very important Middle Pleistocene site at a lake in Germany called Schöningen 13II-4, with hominin remains dating back to 300,000 years ago (!!!!!) and it's called the Spear Horizon (for the incredibly well-preserved evidence of spears) but a common nickname is the Horse Butchery Site. One of the most ancient preservations of hominin behaviour, culture, skill, tool-making - their/our priorities, their/our methodology, their/our view of the world - is a narrative of eating horse meat. And the hominins at the Horse Butchery Site did it in a way that seems quite rapacious. Entire family groups of horses, coming to the lake to drink, would be butchered at once: Persistent predators: Zooarchaeological evidence for specialized horse hunting at Schöningen 13II-4 - ScienceDirect It seems like the hominins were killing a lot of horses and not using a lot of the meat, because they wanted fat, and horses don't have much of that.

At any rate, human-shaped people and horse-shaped horses have a very, VERY long history of us eating them. WE are their natural predators. And it makes sense. Humans and Equines are all social animals of relatively small sizes and have interacted with each other for an extremely long time. We have observed them, we know them, we grew up together. For quite a lot of that history, we had a simple relationship; we ate them. Now we much prefer to ride them.

Horses have not entirely forgotten this, but appear to have largely forgiven it.

[animalphotorefs]

New Species Added: Basselope!

It's time to finally to announce a secret I've been keeping for weeks: the addition of an incredibly elusive animal to the repository collection!

Meet the basselope: a rare species that was thought to be extinct until a last surviving individual was rediscovered in 1986. Thanks to some incredible breeding successes in the subsequent years, the basselope population rebounded successfully. Now found in all continents but Antartica, modern basselopes have proven to be a highly adaptable species, and populations in different regions display a wide range of phenotypic variability.

Meet.... the basselope!

Basselope, while not domesticated, regularly choose to den in human homes. The North American population has a particular fondness for couches.

The "jungle" phenotype has lost their antlers over time, likely due to ease of movement through dense plants and vines. They are known for their habit of swinging their ears through the air as they move: while the origin of this behavior is unknown, it's theorized this adaptation may be both a form of enhanced thermoregulation and a way of communicating with conspecifics.

One isolated population of basselope has begun to shed their antlers seasonally, and they have begun a new annual tradition of posing against a backdrop of their previous year's accomplishments.

One of the most elusive morphs is the "arctic" basselope. Despite sharing a range with other basselope populations - which is not all that far north - they're known for developing a strikingly colored and oddly jingly winter coat. The genes responsible for this seasonal color expression are as of yet unknown.

More super-rare, never-before-seen basselope photos can be found here!

Artists creating derivative or transformative works (without AI) have blanket permission from the basselopes to use these and all photos of them in the repository as references, including for works that will/may be sold.

The Animal Photo Reference Repository is an independent, permanently open-access project and funded entirely by donations, which allows me the creative freedom to have way, way too much fun on April 1st.

A big thank you to Chef, Olive, Olive the second, Frannie, Annie, Sunny, Rupert, and Turbo for their patience with the antlers; and equal gratitude to their humans @somethingrother, @painted-bees, @wildfaeworld, @stinkybrowndogs, Jenny, Anne, and Sara for playing along!

[reneesghostinthelivingroom]

Make Her Happy

|| Sevika x fem!mother!reader

|| Warnings; reader's sore and exhausted, reader has a daughter named Laye, Sevika soft for reader and daughter, Sevika referred to as 'Seviki' by Laye, brief swearing, brief hint at sex

|| Summary; reader gets home from work, but she's exhausted when her daughter and Sevika come to greet her.

Requests closed!

Started; November 14th

Finished; November 14th

Request; Sevika x reader with a child

~~~

Living in Zaun wasn't easy. Especially when you had a child to take care of. At least you weren't alone anymore. It'd been years since the child's father left, barely even staying around for the delivery. Not that you cared. He was a piece of shit, anyway. And besides. You had someone who was a million times better than he'd ever been; Sevika. She kept you safe. She helped take care of your daughter, Laye. It was adorable. Watching someone as terrifying, muscular and tall as Sevika was play with a child.

You'd just gotten back home after a long shift down at one of the bars. Every muscle in your body was screaming for rest. Work wasn't easy, it never was. But it was one of the better jobs in this dump. "I'm home!" Your voice rang out through the apartment. Having gotten it with Sevika's benefits (aka Silco), it was nice. As nice as any place could be in Zaun. You heard the movement first. Before seeing your six year old daughter come running to you, followed by Sevika's large figure. Her head just barely missed the ceiling. With her being 6'1.

"Momma!!" Your daughter jumped into your arms and you grunted, holding her close with a sigh. Kissing her forehead that she rested on your shoulder.

"Hi, baby." You murmured, idly stroking her back. "Were you good for Sevika?" You asked, Sevika didn't miss the exhaustion in your tone. Or the way your face scrunched up when you daughter jumped in your arms. She couldn't help feeling impressed by you. Being able to work long days in a crowded, rowdy bar and then come home and have to be a mother to your daughter. Not getting much rest between it all. Definitely didn't sound easy. Especially since she now knew what parenting was like, having gotten to experience it with Laye.

"Yeah!!" Laye smiled, snuggling up to you. Completely nose blind to the bar smell that lingered on your clothes. As it did every day when you got home. You looked up to Sevika for confirmation and she gave a subtle nod. The soft look in her eyes was more than enough to convince you, she didn't even need to nod.

"That's good." You sighed quietly, placing a quick kiss to Laye's cheek. Getting a giggle out of her. You knew with your exhaustion, you wouldn't be able to stand and hold her at the same time. Laye was getting a little too big for that. Sevika seemed to notice, wondering why you were on the ground for so long before she put it together. Sevika bent down to one knee, non prosthetic arm gently touching Laye's back. There was a gentleness to her that wasn't often seen by anyone. You loved having the privilege to see it.

"Laye, let's let your mother rest." Sevika's voice comes out with a husk to it, but gentler than her usual tone. Obviously not wanting to give Laye any reason to be upset or fear her. However there was still a sense of command to it. Trying to get the little girl away. Even if just for a moment so you could get in.

"Noooo!" Laye whined, burying herself into you. You frowned a bit and tried not to immediately hold her. It was hard not to just wrap your arms around her and hold her tight. You knew Sevika was right; cause you desperately needed a moment.

Sevika's eye twitched and you knew she was trying not to let her emotions get the best of her. Reminding herself that this was a kid, not some punk that she could yell at. Plus she wasn't just any kid. She was your kid.

"Baby..." You took a moment to think on it. What could convince her to let go of you? "Hey, you got that new tea set. Right? How about you see if Sevika will play with you?" You suggested, which seemed to get your daughter to just light up. Meanwhile Sevika's eyes widened when she looked at you. You could tell she wasn't overly thrilled, the soft red of her cheeks giving her embarrassment away. You tried not to laugh, giving her a silent promise that you would make it up to her later.. she caved at that. Knowing exactly the kind of promise you had in store.

"We could have a tea party!! Wait but Seviki you no have a dress." The girl pouted at 'Seviki', which was what Laye had taken to calling Sevika. Sevika gritted her teeth, realizing she would have to figure out a solution so your daughter was happy. The things she does for you...

"Uh.." Sevika looked around the room, spotting a blanket and walking over. It wasn't super colourful or anything but she could make it work. She wrapped the blanket around herself in a way that covered her chest but left her shoulders out. "How's this? You can pretend it is a dress."

Laye's eyes lit up and she giggled," okay!!! You look silly, Seviki." She laughed. Sevika rolled her eyes and gave you a look before walking to the dining room with your daughter. You held back a laugh, trying desperately not to laugh at your poor girlfriend who looked utterly unhappy. Her in that blanket though was absolutely adorable. The blanket barely went past her knees, as it was meant to cover you. Not her. And you can tell behind all the grumpiness, she really did like hanging out with Laye. Otherwise she wouldn't have put in the effort to make her happy.

[furioussouls]

LADS boys accidentally making you cry

with [chubby reader]

[chubby reader, don't like it, don't read]

warnings: chubby gen! reader, slight angst, slight mention of injuries (not through the boys), reader and boys sometimes have a similar dynamic as with MC(but it‘s not mc), insecurities, a little overdramatic in some parts

Disclaimer: these characters belong to the game "love and deepspace" by InFold. All lore references and worldbuilding belong solely to them.

Requested by a sweet anon :3

(also, I made the situations not that angsty because I feel like the boys wouldn't do anything that would make you cry really badly)

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Xavier:

• he accidentally made you cry when you got injured. He really didn't mean to, but he was so worried about you and snapped at you. Your nonchalant attitude scared him because why don't you care more about your health?

You limped next to Xavier, who wrapped his arm around your shoulder to support you enough that you'd be able to walk. Blood ran down your face and Xavier's musculuar arm was a supportive crutch throughout your little walk. You were careless during the fight, you really were. It was nobody's fault, since everbody has their off days, but Xavier was furious.

"Easy", Xavier's firm voice rang out as he carefully helped you sit down on a bench. He knelt infront of you and his warm hands tenderly smoothed over the healthy side of your head after he wiped the trail of blood away on the other side with his thumb. You wrapped your arms around your chubby torso to keep yourself warm enough to stop the chills raking through your body. Eventhough, the chills probably had something to do with the adrenaline leaving your body according to the sharp pain throbbing in your head. You winced and Xavier's eyes snapped to you.

"Where else does it hurt? Your leg?", his large hands gently smoothed over your thick leg and you hissed out in pain and nodded.

Xavier's jaw clenched and he exhaled deeply. "You didn't focus enough today. This could've been prevented." You nodded and sighed "Yeah, yeah. I know." Xavier's sky blue eyes squinted and a deep line formed between his brows.

"So why didn't you?", he asked persistently and inspected your leg with a deep frown, his usual soft voice stern and serious.

"Xavier, is this necessary? It's not like I did it on purpose", you mumbled out and tried to breathe through the pain. The throbbing in your head got worse with every single one of Xavier's question and you were beginning to feel the effect of walking on an injured leg.

"No. You can't slack off. Not during the fights. If you're feeling down or not up to it, don't go on the mission. This could've ended even worse than it did if I weren't there to back you up", he hissed out in frustration and gently pressed a handkerchief to the wound on your head.

"I know, Xavier. You're not telling me anything I don't know."

"Are you sure?"

You opened your eyes and felt your eyes burn. You usually wouldn't cry because of this, especially because you know Xavier cares deeply about you, but the combination of your throbbing head, your hurt leg and the remains of the adrenaline made you very susceptible to your emotions right now. Big tears ran down your soft cheeks and you hiccuped sadly until it turned into a fullblown cry. You really didn't mean to, but you just wanted to go home to bed right now, and didn't want to justify anything to Xavier. "Well sorry, we can't all be great and perfect like you." Your voice broke at the end because of another sob.

Xavier, who was busy tending to your leg looked up at you in shock. His eyes widened and the angry expression on his face faded. Xavier's jaw dropped and his breath hitched as he jumped up immediately, his hand still pressing against the wound on your head.

"No, I'm sorry. I'm really really sorry. Please, don't cry. I didn't mean to imply that you were incompetent. I really didn't. I was just so worried and you didn't care about your injuries. Please don't cry, hm?" His voice was soft and frantic and he gently cupped your cheek. His eyebrows furrowed in concern and he bit his pink lip. Xavier's eyes turned into a soft glossy tone as he sat and watched you cry your heart out(more out of exhaustion and pain than actual sadness, to be honest).

"I'm really sorry. You're in pain and I've just been mean to you this whole time. That wasn't okay of me. I'm so so sorry."

You nodded and sniffed pathetically and his face melted into an expression of utter smittenness and he very softly nudged your head toward his chest, his arms wrapped around your soft body and his warm hand smoothed over the rolls of your back and he gripped you tightly as gently comforted you. "It's okay, let it out. I'm sorry."

After you got proper medical attention and some sleep, the situation was already forgotten for you, but Xavier didn't forget and his heart will always squeeze painfully at the reminder of making you cry. He never raised his voice at you in general, but whenever he gets upset he remembers the moment in which you were hurt and instead of comforting you, he made you cry out of sadness. Sometimes he sheds a few tears himself at the thought.

Zayne:

• Zayne made you cry after a slight argument about his own health and well- being. It takes a lot for Zayne to make you cry because he's such a caring and gentle man and never raised his voice at you.

You walked into the house that Zayne and you shared and sighed when you noticed that Zayne wasn't home yet again. He was working overtime again. Of course, you knew that Zayne's job was stressful. You knew he carried a lot of responsibility and a heavy burden on his shoulders as a doctor. His main goal was to help people, but you were frustrated that he seemed so careless about his own wellbeing.

Zayne returned a few hours later to you sitting on the couch. You were waiting for him and had tea and a light snack prepared for him when he returned. He sighed in appreciation when he saw you and the tension drained from his shoulders. He shrugged off the jacket and sat down next to you, the exhaustion etched onto his gorgeous face. You gently cupped his cheek and Zayne's eyes closed as he exhaled blissfully. He loved coming home to you and hugging your curvy body, which was adorned in your favourite oversized shirt.

Zayne took a sip of his tea when you spoke up "Honey, I think you should take the weekend off. You look like a walking corpse."

Zayne nodded in exhaustion and rubbed his temple "Yes, I know, but I can't just drop everything. My patients need to be tended to."

You hummed understandly. "Yeah, Zayne. I understand that, but you aren't the only Doctor at Akso hospital. Your patients won't feel better if you work yourself to death."

Zayne knows you're right. He really does. But he just can't bring himself to outright agree with you. Caring for patients was his job after all. His nostrils flared in frustration and your hand started rubbing his back.

"Yes, thank you. I'm aware. But you don't know the amount of people that depend on me so maybe could we stop talking about this? It's not helpul, especially so late at night." His usual soft voice was firmer today and your hand halted over his back.

"When else are we supposed to talk if not late at night? Are you there at any other time during the day? I won't act like your job isn't tough. You work a lot. That's okay. I knew that before I got into a relationship with you, but I won't let you manipulate yourself into believing that you overworking yourself is right. 'Cause it's not. But I'm also not going to take the role of your nagging spouse. Do what you feel is right. Finish your tea and come to bed, I'll go lay down so you can decompress." Frustrated tears ran down your round cheeks and you stood up and walked into your bedroom, leaving Zayne behind.

A wave of guilt ran down Zayne's body, his exhaustion long forgotten. He sighed and buried his face in his scarred hands. Zayne didn't mean to make you feel like that; like an annoyig nagging spouse, he's so grateful for your love and now he's made you cry. A ball of dread spread from his chest and Zayne sprung up and followed you into your shared room. He knocked three times and opened the door uncertainly. You laid on your side, your back turned to him. He slowly crawled into bed and wrapped his arms around your soft and warm body. Zayne's nose was buried deeply in your shoulder and he inhaled shakingly.

"I'm so sorry, my dear. You did not deserve my anger, at all. I'm the luckiest man alive, having somebody like you worry over me. You're right, of course you are. I've been working myself to the bone and damaging our relationship. I'm so so sorry."

You sniffed and gently and put your hands over his ice cold ones; intertwining all digits with each other. "I'm just worried abot you. You don't care about yourself at all, eventhough you're the one telling me not to be reckless with my health."

"I know you are. And you're right. I'm really sorry. I'll take a week off and we can spend time together. How does that sound?", he asked softly and cuddled farther into you.

"That sounds nice but it won't help your wellbeing in general if you're just taking a break now and afterwards return to your old habits", you told him gently and he nodded. "You're right. I will work on it. I don't want to be that type of husband that makes their spouse feel bad for worrying over him. You can’t believe how grateful I am for you. I love you so much. Please, trust me.", he promised and kissed your hand. You chuckled and pat his head. "Sounds good, now shut up and go sleep." Zayne nodded obediently and kissed your shoulder.

Rafayel:

• Rafayel made you cry because of his stupid jokes.

You stood next to Rafayel as he scribbled randomly on his big canvas with his expensive paint. You looked at Rafayel in disbelief "Do you not earn enough money for a two dollar sketchbook?"

The side of Rafayel's plump mouth tugged up and he tutted sarcastically "Hmm, why would I do that when I could use my paints and canvases of quality?". You shook your head and grumbled out "Rich people make me sick."

Rafayel laughed loudly and continued painting. He drew ab exaggerated cute chibi version of you in your favourite colour; it was very round and sweet, you smiled but a tiny sensation of unease pricked at your chest. Rafayel never draws you in an attractive or beautiful way, he always drew you in a very exaggerated way. And of course, you were round. You were round, cute, attractive and sexy. It's not an insult to be seen as chubby or fat, and you knew Rafayel loves your body and the body of other chubby people as well, but when he was teasing you, it was always about the roundness of your body, which means that in some shape or form Rafayel thinks of your body as an insult.

You swallowed and crossed your arms over your chest. Tears pricked in your eyes but you blinked them away as Rafayel continued to paint. He turned to you with a big grin, which immediately faded when he saw your slightly wet eyes. "Hey, cutie? What's going on?", Rafayel cooed softly and cupped your face softly, his face concerned.

"It's just, I don't know. It’s not a big deal, but I feel like you don't like my body as much as you pretend you do. You say you love it but then when you're trying to tease me, it's always about my body and nothing else. I don't like it, because it kinda feels as if you secretly do see my body as something that you can make fun of. I don't know. You never exaggerate the body when you draw skinny people." You say and shrug your shoulders. You kept your gaze fixed on Rafayel's painting for a few seconds and then turned to face Rafayel, a few persistent tears dripped down your face.

Rafayel's jaw dropped and his purple eyes were wide. He shook his head and very softly wiped your tears away. "I'm so sorry. I had no idea that it would come across that way. I love your body, I really do. I dont tease you with things I don’t like about you, because there’s nothing I don’t like. I love everything about you. I tease you with things I like the most about you. Your body, your laugh and your smile. I love all of these things about you, so much. I can't believe I made you feel like that all this time. Why didn't you speak up sooner? You should've thrown things at me and pulled at my hair if you thought I was teasing you about your body." Rafayel rambled frantically, his hands smoothing over his purple hair nervously.

You snorted "You're teasing me with the things you like about my body? Seriously? Am I supposed to believe that?"

Rafayel nodded with wide blown eyes "I thought you knew! That's why I kept going with it. I had no idea it came across differently to you, my love. I didn' mean to hurt you at all, oh my god." He wrapped his arms quickly around your body and whispered deep apologies into your hair. You cuddled against his chest and his lip wobbled at the knowledge that he made you cry. After resting in his warm embrace for a long time, you thought about what Rafayel said and then remembered a moment in which Rafayel cuddled with your newborn niece.

'"Oh my goodness, cutie. Look at her! She's so cute. I'm gonna faint." You looked Rafayel and chuckled, his heart eyes widened at the babies coo and he gently picked her up. "Look at her, she's so round. Have you ever seen a rounder baby? You're perfect, so perfect. Such a cute little baby", he cooed and nuzzled the belly of the baby.'

You tenderly smiled against Rafayel's chest at the thought and stepped back from him. His eyebrows were furrowed and he bit his lip worriedly, he wanted to start apologising again, but you interrupted him "So, I basically only have to listen to your teasing to know what you like most about me?", you grinned at him and Rafayel blushed but nodded.

"Yes, I hope you shoot me in the face for making you cry and think I don't like your body." he mumbled miserably and dramatically let his head fall on your shoulder. You chuckled and ruffled his hair.

Sylus:

• he made you cry due to a misunderstanding , that’s all it was.

You were talking to your colleague. The two of you were assigned to do a project together and have been working together for a week now. In the past few days, you saw a few glimpses of black in the corner of your eye. You could not believe it. He couldn't trust you around another man for one week? After you finished your work for the day, you walked out of the house and saw Mephisto waiting for you. You walked over to him, your fists clenched and picked him up.

"Did your daddy send you to spy on me?", you asked him and gently stroked over his feathers. Mephisto cawed softly and you let him go. He flew home and you followed him. This seriously had to stop. Both of you were grown adults. You didn't want somebody to spy after you because they didn't trust you with another man. Even if you loved Sylus very much.

You reached Sylus' home and walked through the doors. Sylus sat on the couch. He turned to you and his face split into a big grin, his red eyes shining brightly. Sylus' face dropped when he saw your unamused expression which was combined by you crossing your arms deliciously over your ample chest.

"Did something happen?", he asked you in his deep voice, his eyebrows furrowed together in concern. Sylus rose from the couch and smoothly walked over to you.

"Why are you asking? Shouldn't you know everything already?", you asked him pointedly and nodded toward Mephisto.

Sylus raised an eyebrow and tilted his head. "What happened?"

You sighed and tears of frustration pricked your eyes. You weren't necessarily sad, but yes it hurt when your partner showed his obvious distrust in you. Sylus' eyes widened and he immediately stepped forward and cupped your face. "It hurts that you don't trust me. I mean, seriously Sylus. Mephisto has never followed me before but the one time I have to work with a colleague he's there every day? Is that the kind of relationship we have?", you asked him, your voice wobbly.

Sylus, who still held your precious face dearly in between his hands shook his head insistently and softly wiped your tears away with his soft thumbs. "No, sweetie. That's not it at all. I trust you entirely and unconditionally. I'm not jealous at all. I was worried about you, my dear. Your colleague was involved in some criminal activities, and I was scared he was going to try hurting you. I know you can take care of yourself if something were to happen I want to be there for you. I'm sorry that I made you doubt my trust in you." Sylus lifted your hands and pressed a few tender kisses to the back of your hand.

"Oh", you sniffed. Sylus chuckled softly and wrapped you up in his warm embrace.

"Oh, my darling. I'm sorry I upset you. You're breaking my heart." Sylus tenderly gripped you and rubbed soothingly over your back.

"Don't apologise. I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions-", Sylus shook his head and interrupted you. "And I should've told you before."

You chuckled wetly and Sylus kept his arms tightly wrapped around your body. His heart squeezed when he saw your hurt face. Let him spoil you a bit in the next few days, he feels horrible and wants to make it up to you.

Caleb:

• Caleb made you cry when you first noticed the "difference" between your old Caleb and this one.

"I believe everyone that wants to hurt you should die." Caleb's firm voice called out. His face was emotionless and and his hand softly stroked over your squishy cheek, his nose softly buried in your hair.

Unease settled in your stomach. Not only did you have to go through the process of mourning Caleb, but now he's also not the boy you remembered. Hes more stern, the softness on his face had disappeared. He says things that the Caleb from the past would never have said and you felt a deep hole in your chest. The part of your chest that was filled by nostalgia, fondness and happiness is now an empty void.

You looked up at Caleb and shook your head. "No. No, my Caleb wouldn't-".

"I wouldn't, what?", Caleb interrupted you softly and stroked over your cheek. "You think I wouldn't have changed even a little bit? After all of this? But also, what makes you so sure I didn't think exactly the same way back then?" he hummed softly and he gently rubbed his cheek on the top of your head.

Caleb let you go and took a step back. He lifted his hand to stroke over your head and you involuntarily flinched. Tears streamed down your cheek. Your mind was reeling and your emotions were a complicated wreck and you sobbed out and looked at the ground, trying to contain your feelings and stop the tears.

You saw him take a few steps back and your eyes snapped up at him. Caleb's emotionless face dropped into one of shock. His eyes were wide, his mouth agape and he shook his head.

"No. You're not scared of me. You aren't, right? Please tell me you aren't. You still know who I am. I am not dangerous to you. Never." Caleb's voice broke at the end and he consistently shook his head. Fat tears rolled down your cheeks and Caleb took quick steps forward and wrapped his arms around your familiar perfect rounded body. His strong arms gripped your body and you buried your face in his chest.

"Shh, it's okay. I'm here. I'm here and I won't leave you. I will never hurt you. I'm sorry for leaving. It's still me, please don't cry anymore. I love you so much."

Caleb softly brushed your tears away, the same that he did in the past and you slowly calmed down.

It took you both a bit of time to get used to this new dynamic between the two of you. It took a lot of love and patience from Caleb, who had to build the trust back up between the two of you. Sometimes you still can't believe that Caleb is back and that you mourned a person, who came back to you. Even if he's a bit different.

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚⋆ ˚｡⋆୨⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚⋆ ˚｡⋆

A/n: I'm not happy with this at all, but I'm sick and trying to take my mind off it, so let me know what you think!

[doyoulikethissong-poll]

David Bowie - Space Oddity 1969

"Space Oddity" is a song by the English singer-songwriter David Bowie. It was first released on 11 July 1969 as a 7-inch single, then as the opening track of his second studio album, David Bowie. It is a tale about a fictional astronaut named Major Tom; its title and subject matter were partly inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Bowie's feelings of alienation at that point in his career. Its sound departed from the music hall of his debut album to psychedelic folk inspired by the Bee Gees; it was one of the most musically complex compositions he had written up to that point. "Space Oddity" is considered one of Bowie's finest recordings and remains one of his most popular songs. It has appeared in numerous "best-of" lists, including the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll". It was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2018.

The label rush-released the single to capitalise on the Apollo 11 Moon mission, which was launched five days later. According to Bowie: "It was picked up by British television and used as the background music for the landing itself in Britain … Though I'm sure they really weren't listening to the lyric at all; it wasn't a pleasant thing to juxtapose against a moon landing. Of course, I was overjoyed that they did." Upon realising the dark lyrics, the BBC ceased playing it until the Apollo 11 crew safely returned home. It initially sold poorly but soon reached number five in the UK, becoming Bowie's first and only chart hit for another three years. Reissues became Bowie's first US hit in 1972, and his first UK number one in 1975. Bowie revisited the Major Tom character in later singles, notably the sequel song "Ashes to Ashes" (1980).

A range of artists have covered "Space Oddity" and others have released songs that reference Major Tom or develop the story of "Space Oddity". In May 2013, the Canadian astronaut and artist Chris Hadfield, commander of Expedition 35 to the International Space Station (ISS), recorded a video of "Space Oddity" while stationed on the ISS that went viral and generated media coverage. It was the first music video to be recorded in space. In the video, filmed towards the end of Hadfield's time on the ISS, Hadfield sang and played guitar while floating around the space station. On Earth, Joe Corcoran produced and mixed the backing track with a piano arrangement by the multi-instrumentalist Emm Gryner, who worked with Bowie during his 1999–2000 concert tours. The lyrics were somewhat altered; rather than losing communication with Ground Control and being lost in space as a result, Major Tom receives his orders to land and does so safely, reflecting Hadfield's imminent return from his final mission to the ISS. The song also mentions the Soyuz spacecraft that Hadfield travelled in. Hadfield announced the video on his Twitter account: "With deference to the genius of David Bowie, here's Space Oddity, recorded on Station. A last glimpse of the World." Bowie's social media team responded to the video, tweeting back to Hadfield, "Hallo Spaceboy …", and later called the cover "possibly the most poignant version of the song ever created".

Hadfield's performance was the subject of a piece by Glenn Fleishman in The Economist on 22 May 2013 analyzing the legal implications of publicly performing a copyrighted work of music while in Earth orbit. "Space Oddity" is the only song of Bowie's for which he did not own the copyright; his publisher granted Hadfield a one-year licence to the song. When the one-year licence expired on 13 May 2014, the official video was taken offline despite Bowie's explicit wishes for the publisher to grant Hadfield a licence at no charge to record the song and produce the video. Following negotiations, the video was restored to Youtube on 2 November 2014 with a two-year licence agreement.

"Space Oddity" received a total of 86,5% yes votes! Previous David Bowie polls: #33 "I'm Afraid of Americans", #235 "Life on Mars?" (and original artist of #118 "The Man Who Sold the World")

[thyme-in-a-bubble]

beauty and the beast

a/n: ahhh here it is! february's poll fic! hope you all enjoy the twisted tale it became!

polls for this fic: 1 | 2 | 3 

summary: sucking in a breath, he stared down at you before stating firmly, “…I want to be human again. No matter the cost…” 

warnings: beast/werewolf!bucky barnes x reader, smut, dark content, noncon/dubcon, fairytale retelling, soulmate au, prisoner x captive, predator x prey, monsterfucking, magical castle (except it's alive in the sense that bucky can control it because of the curse), violence, references to murder, bondage, dirty talk, size difference, size kink, belly bulge, gaping, manhandling, knotting, overstimulation, oral, squirting, multiple orgasms, penetrative sex, unprotected sex, creampie 

word count: 3505

∼ gentle reminder that feedback, but especially reblogs are the way you support writers on here ∽

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Your lungs burned as you dashed through the cold castle, your cloak billowing behind you as you tried to navigate the dark halls. 

But as you whipped your head around in your frantic search, your eyes caught sight of a dusty portrait on the wall that stunned you to your very core and momentarily caused you to forget about the vital matters at hand. 

Though scratched up by angry streaks, you still recognised the face that the painting portrayed. Although you had never met him, it was still the visage of the very man who had haunted your dreams for as long as you could remember. You’d never previously known if the man of noble birth had been real or just a figment of your imagination, though his tormented life, and the terrors he’d had to endure every month when the moon above became the prince’s master, had flickered in your mind almost every night.

A distant scream then rang out high up in the eastern tower and echoed through the castle till it found your ears and ripped you away from your discovery. 

Darting down the dim hall and up a winding stone staircase, you soon found the elderly man you’d left your little village to find, bolted and locked away in a freezing cell.

“Papa!” you cried out as you lunged forward and grasped the iron bars dividing you both. 

Achingly pushing himself up to his feet, he scurried closer and gasped, “what are you doing here?” his eyes as big as saucers. 

“Getting you home,” you felt a tear roll down your cheek before your fingers brushed over your father’s knobbly ones, “oh, papa, how did this happen?” 

“No, darling, listen to me, you must leave here at once, it isn’t safe,” he urged in a hushed tone as his eyes darted to the shadows behind you, “go! Run away before he finds you!” 

“Who?” you asked, but before your dad could be the one to fill you in, a low growl rumbled throughout the space. Spinning around, you glanced around the darkness, “who’s there?”

“Oh no…” your father whimpered, “he’s back…”

Keeping a hand clutched over your dad’s, you sucked in a deep breath and yelled, “let my father go!”

“The very least that thief deserves is to rot in a cell,” a deep voice chilled your bones, though your wild eyes still couldn’t find the source. 

“Thief?” you panted, “no, he would never–, it has to be a misunderstanding–”

“He stole a rose,” a trickle ran down your spine as you recalled what flower you had requested for your father to bring back home for you, “it was this sentence or death.”

“You truly demand a life for a rose?” your eyes continued to dart through the darkness. 

“Please, darling–,” your dad begged you to stop, though you swiftly cut his efforts short. 

“Let me take his place,” you pleaded. Keeping your gaze twisted away, you flinched as your father’s protests seeped through the metal bars, “I was the one who asked for the flower, so I should be the one taking the penance.” 

A low snarl rumbled in the night as the unseen figure thought it over, though as he did, he shifted just enough for you to make out the faint silhouette of him, huge and hulking, unlike any man you’d ever seen before. 

But instead of offering you his verdict in words, he instead, by some mystical means beyond your comprehension, unlocked the cell door by his sheer will. 

As it creaked open with a loud groan, you rushed in and threw your arms around your father. 

“I can’t let you do this,” he stated, pulling back from the hug. 

“It’s going to be alright,” you tried to assure him, though tears still streamed down your face, “I love you.” 

“No, darling, no–,” he continued to protest, before a massive arm suddenly reached out of the shadows and snatched up your father by the scruff of his neck, “ah!” the old man screamed as his captor dragged him out of the cell.

“Don’t hurt him!” you tried to follow, but the iron door was slammed shut in your face, “please!”

Halting at your words for but a moment as the broad figure began to accent the stone steps, pulling your father after him like a burlap sack, he muttered in a low tone, “silly peasant girl…” the moonlight streaming in from one of the small windows caught and illuminated him just enough for you to discover that he wasn’t a human at all, “you should have just run away when you had the chance…” 

Curled up in the corner of the cold cell, you shivered violently as you hugged your knees even closer to your chest, though swiftly jumped as you suddenly heard a pair of heavy footsteps stomping up the winding staircase. 

As you scurried to crawl even further away from the dungeon door, the towering beast appeared once again on the other side. 

“Eat,” he growled after he’d kicked a plate in through the sliver of space at the bottom of the door. 

Your stare only flickered down at the stale bread and the tankard of water for a mere moment before it darted back up to the monster before you. 

“Who are you?” you gathered the courage to ask, “what are you?” though the beast didn’t bother entertaining your questions, only grumbled quietly before he shifted back towards the steps, “please,” you called after him, “I’m already your prisoner, what harm could a few questions do?”

Stopping in his tracks, he let out a heavy sigh, “more than you’d think,” before he disappeared from your sight. 

A painful gasp filled up your lungs as you snapped awake, swiftly shooting up to a sitting position. 

It had seemed so real… the careful seduction honeyed enough to make your core throb even now, to the loss of control and blind rage that swiftly followed each disappointment…

Though you knew it just to be a figment of your imagination, you still trembled at the possibility of it being true. Princesses, more than you could recall, had all, one by one, been taken to this castle. The gentle side of the beast that he had granted them each the privilege of witnessing nearly scared you with how efficiently it had not only wooed them, but also had made your own heart confused for even but a moment. 

Though after he had carried them off to bed and made love to them in a manner you could quite literally only dream about, something, unbeknownst to you, would cease to take a hold, a failure that each time would cause the monster to snap, and in the mindless frenzy, he would accidentally take the royal’s lives, each and every time. 

Panting as you tried to calm your rapid pulse, your weary eyes finally noticed the shadow lurking on the other side of your cell. 

“Are you gonna kill me like you did with all of those princesses?” you hesitantly asked in a hushed tone. 

Shifting his weight, he slowly tilted closer and uttered darkly, “how do you know about that?” 

“Are you?” you insisted, “because then you might as well just get it over with instead of drawing it out–”

“No!” he roared, “you’re no good use to me dead,” his beastly head then tilted, “but if that’s what you wish, then…”

Sucking in a breath, your stare stayed glued on him before you muttered, “depends on what you’re planning to do with me…” 

“Well, since you don’t have any blue blood running through your veins, you aren’t what I need. But perhaps I can still find some use of you. Maybe, if one day you change,” or more like break, “forget about that meaningless life you had before and grow loyal to me, then you could live out the rest of your days as my servant, assist me with whatever I may require.”

“Like getting you more royals to murder? I won’t help you with that,” you dared to stand your ground, “is that also what happened to the man in the paintings downstairs, the ones that are all scratched up? Did you kill him too, just to have his castle?”

Your words caused the creature’s features to get muddled as he then blinked, “I didn’t–…” swallowing hard, his jaw clenched before he continued, “he’s not dead, not yet at least. Though I fear he doesn’t have much time left.” 

“Can I see him?” you heard your own heartbeat thump in your ears, “I know it sounds crazy, but I think I might, some way, somehow, be able to help him.”

Staring back at you, the monster then uttered, “…you’re staring at him,” causing you to seize up in shock before you slowly heard him say, “prince James Barnes,” he introduced himself, though with a hesitancy as if the memory of his own name had begun to fade away, “though everyone always used to just call me Bucky.” 

Scarcely breathing, you uttered, “what happened to you?” 

Averting his gaze, he began to explain, “…I’ve always had this affliction, ever since I was but a child, each time the moon would stand full and proud in the night sky, I would change, lose control… I was young and dumb… hunted the wrong doe…” he uttered, though the way he phrased it made you think he wasn’t speaking of a deer at all, “so now, instead, I am cursed to live like this each day that doesn’t bear the same full moon I used to fear, slowly losing my myself with every month that passes, becoming less human and forgetting about those ways… if I do not break the curse before the next eclipse, then I will be stuck like this forever,” he shared before he added with a growl, “so, yes, I would greatly appreciate it if you helped me find some more royals since I am running out of time.” 

“That’s what you need to break the curse? A princess?”

“Not just any princess,” his head slowly shook from side to side, “the day that spell was cast, it was prophesied that she would be the only one who could save me. So, she became linked to me. But, perhaps out of fear, or greed, or something else, her kingdom hid her away from even themselves,” he exhaled, “and I still haven’t been able to find her, no matter where I look–…” his sentence then melted away as you shifted slightly and the sleeve of your dress dropped down just a tad from where the hem had been resting on your shoulder. In the low light, the beast spotted just the very crescent of the birthmark that was now visible, poking out of your neckline “…what is that?” he whispered before willing the door, that kept you both separated, to swing open. 

You stumbled back as he slowly strode in, “what is what?” 

“That,” he then ripped down your sleeve, the seams slightly tearing from the force. Petrified, you didn’t move an inch as he stared at the moon-like shape on your skin, “…you’re–…” his breath sounded ragged as he pieced the mystery together, “you’re her…” his eyes then flickered up to find your own. 

“I’m–,” your breath got caught in your throat, “sorry?” 

“I can’t believe it’s really you,” he breathed, “you came to me,” the corners of his lips faintly twisted at his spellbound amazement, “you finally came to me.” 

“I came here to free my father,” you swiftly corrected him. 

“Your Highness, that thief wasn’t your kin. Did you truly not know?” he uttered, “don’t worry, I will never lie to you as they did, you have my word.”

“I thought I was your prisoner, and now you want to–, what, love me?” 

Sucking in a breath, he stared down at you before stating firmly, “…I want to be human again. No matter the cost…” 

Your eyes then flickered towards the cell door he’d left agape, and before you could even weigh out the odds, you seized the opportunity and darted out. 

“What are you–, no, no!” he roared from behind you before you heard his thunderous steps nip at your heels. 

Running down the stairs, you nearly slipped countless of times before you reached the bottom. As you stormed through the castle as fast as your freezing feet could take you, screeches cut through your panting as all manner of furniture, large and small, magically came soaring through the air in attempts at slowing you down or blocking your path. 

“Stop!” you heard him behind you, though didn’t have the courage to glance back to discover how close he was as he chased you and continued to fling items towards you at his will, only narrowly missing your form, “you will not escape, not when I finally have you!” 

But when you finally reached the bottom of the grand staircase that led down into the entrance hall, eyes glued to the exit, Bucky then lunged down the latter half of the steps and tackled you to the ground. 

Wind knocked clean out of your lungs, your body ached from the collision. The stone floor was cold beneath you as his weight pinned you down against it. 

“You really shouldn’t have done that…” he panted in your ear, his laboured breath causing your hair to rustle, “I was gonna be all nice and gentle with you, just as I was with the other princesses, but I can’t have you slipping away again.”

His hulking form then peeled away from you, though only to seize your hips swiftly enough for escape to never be an option. Yanking you up off the ground till your bottom was propped up high, yet your upper half stayed plastered to the floor, his wide hands raked over your frame before a claw caught onto the fabric of your dress. 

Once your clothing was ripped to shreds and scattered across the castle’s entryway, his grasp encircled your hips as his thumbs stretched out to spread you open for him. 

Your toes curled as he then began to lap at your core, tickling your clit till your cunt couldn’t help but leak for him. The beastly tongue was long and just as strong as the other muscles in Bucky’s body, making you quiver as it greedily explored your holes. 

But when the cursed prince’s patience ran thin, he didn’t hesitate to let himself straighten up behind you and nudge his length against your core. Without even catching a glance of it, the sear weight of his girth as he briefly tapped it against your glossy folds sent a shiver down your spine. As he buried his monstrous cock inside of you, instantly bullying it much further than you thought plausible, your mind went blank as your body struggled to accommodate for his inhuman size. 

Fear swiftly magnified within you at the thought that he might break you, since that was what it felt like as he split you open.

“O-oh shit, little one…” he groaned as he tried to draw back out, though when only the tip of him remained, your tightness clung around the bulbous head too fiercely to let it escape. A yelp bubbled out of you as he had to put his might into it, letting out a grunt as he forced himself out with an audible pop, watching as your poor pussy gaped for a second before achingly clenching around nothing. 

When he sank back into you, the ruthless rhythm he then initiated caused your body to shake violently beneath him as his rough thrusts were too intense for what your form was used to.  

“Quit fucking squirming, princess,” each word was punctuated by a buck as he mercilessly drove his fat cock into you, “fucking take it or I’ll just eat you instead.”

On the next thrust that rocked your body, your wobbly knees finally gave out, though the drop barely affected the monster’s pace as he only followed and blanketed you with his form. 

Weakly, your fingers shakily snaked up above your head before they began to claw at the ground in a hopeless attempt at crawling away.

“Where do you think you’re going, huh?” one of his massive palms came down over the back of your head to shove you back down against the floor, holding you there as his glance then flickered to the curtains close by. Jaggedly, the fabric then fluttered alive and came flying through the air to obey his wish. Slithering over, they first tangled themselves around both your wrists, yanking them up high till your arms were completely stretched out against the floor, before another curtain then slipped around your torso, just beneath the swell of your tits, to keep you that much further trapped. 

Slamming his dick even further inside of you, he tried to ram the bulbous knot at the base of his cock inside of your warmth, but no matter how hard he thrust, it just wouldn’t pop in. Though as he kept up his efforts, it kept on hitting your puffy pearl at every failed attempt, soon rendering you to gush around his fat girth as he continued to rut into you till you were crying out at the overstimulation. 

Pinned down and mind melted, your blurry vision found the painting on the wall of Bucky’s true form, the very prince you had dreamt about your whole life and put up on some pedestal as someone to yearn for. Though as you stared at the portrait, it was then that you noticed his eyes, and you finally began to lose yourself. They were the only thing that hadn’t changed about the beast that still buried himself inside of you. Eyes that you had previously fallen in love with… eyes that you perhaps still were in love with… 

Suddenly, the curtains around you tightened before you were flipped all the way around. Head spinning, you blinked up at Bucky as he pushed himself back till he was kneeling between your trembling legs. Your chest rose and fell rapidly as he grasped your hips and lifted them up off the ground, rubbing your drooling pussy messily against his leaking tip before his hardness caught your entrance and he slipped back in. 

Sinking you down onto him, a low groan of elation rumbled in his throat as his big knot finally popped inside. His thick fingers dented your hips as his efforts paused for a moment as he let himself revel in the sensation of your cunt clenching around all of him.

As his movements picked back up again, lewd and sloppy pops sounded each time he fucked his knot in and out of you, repeatedly making you take it and stretch your tiny hole out for him. 

As your eyes drifted down, they caught sight of just how intimidating his size truly was, for if you had seen it before, there would have been no way in hell you would have thought your body was capable of taking it. 

Your messy cream stained his knot as he continued to bring you down against him, fucking you as if you were just a toy in his grasp. It was then that you spotted the bulge that appeared in your belly, though it still took you a moment to realise that it was the thrusting imprint of his jarring size, visible for all to witness. It was so staggeringly pronounced that it caused you to unravel once more for him, your squirt that leaked around his cock only caused the beast to grow more feral and snap his hips up to meet your own each time he drove your body down against him. 

His heavy balls slapped against your slick skin as he repeatedly bumped against your sore cervix, nearly piecing his way through it as he brought you down one last time before he finally tumbled over the edge himself, pumping you full of so much cum that it began to leak out of your stuffed hole before he was even finished. 

And then, while he was panting above you and still plugging up your poor pussy, a bright light appeared and set his body aflame in an ethereal glow. 

You had to narrow your eyes to a squint as the beast’s visage began to melt away before you, till he wasn’t a beast no more, and only the man of your dreams remained hovering above you. 

Staring down at his hands with wide eyes, Bucky turned his palms a couple of times before he gasped, “it worked! I can’t believe it actually–, I’m human again!” before his teary vision found you below him, “and all because of you! You–, oh…” he then melted down against you, a bright smile shining on his face as he uttered, “thank you,” and worshipingly pressed his lips to your skin. 

© 2025 thyme-in-a-bubble 

[formulaonecrumbs]

I love your Lando series with the home videos and I was wondering if you could do something similar with Oscar but maybe instead of you looking after Lando Oscar’s looking after you. 

my big brother best friend 👫

older brother!Oscar Piastri x reader

summary: reader has a bad day and calls her comfort person, her big brother, oscar.

warnings: NONE ONLY FLUFF

A/N: i’m hoping this is what u meant, like u wanted an older brother version of osc? iddkkkk i had fun writing this one tho. i wanna see oscar with his sisters so bad. also pls tell me someone got the reference in the title :/ ANYWAYS LOVE U MY BABIIIEESSSS ❤️

༻ ❤︎︎ ༺

she doesn’t mean to cry on the phone.

honestly, she hadn’t even meant to call him.

it had just been one of those days—where everything that could go wrong does, but not in big, dramatic ways. it’s the kind of day that chips away at you in tiny, sharp little pieces until you’re left holding nothing but frustration and the urge to crawl into bed and not come out. she hadn’t wanted to bother anyone.

especially not oscar, who was always busy and halfway across the world and doing important things like driving actual formula 1 cars and representing big sponsors and being a grown-up. but when the final bell rang and she was walking out of school, shoulders tight and eyes stinging, her fingers had moved before her brain could stop them.

he picked up on the third ring.

“hey, you okay?”

and that was it.

the second she heard his voice—calm and familiar and soft in that particular way he reserved only for her—everything cracked open. she didn’t sob, not really. it wasn’t dramatic or loud. but her voice wobbled, and a choked little breath escaped, and she didn’t say anything for a solid ten seconds.

but oscar didn’t rush her. didn’t say anything except: “where are you right now?”

and twenty minutes later, he was pulling up in front of her school in a car that definitely wasn’t his usual. low-key, nothing flashy, the kind of thing you rent when you’re just trying to blend in. she blinked at him through the window, startled—because she hadn’t expected him to come. not really. not in person. not like this.

he just gave her a small smile and nodded toward the passenger side.

she didn’t ask questions. she just climbed in.

he didn’t say anything right away. just reached over and gently tugged her seatbelt into place, like he used to do when she was small and too lazy to do it herself. then he sat back, hands relaxed on the wheel, and said, “you feel like maccas? or maybe ice cream?”

her voice was small. “can we do both?”

he glanced at her and grinned. “what kind of question is that? of course we can.”

she smiled, barely. her uniform still felt stiff and itchy, and her bag weighed heavier than usual on her lap, like it was carrying every bad moment from the day in its seams. but the second oscar pulled away from the curb, she felt her shoulders drop just a little.

the silence between them wasn’t awkward. it never had been. they were the kind of siblings who could sit in a room for hours without talking and still feel like everything was okay. so he didn’t push. didn’t ask her what was wrong or why she sounded so broken on the phone. he just turned up the music to a quiet hum, kept the heat on low, and drove.

the mcdonald’s drive-thru wasn’t far, and by the time they reached the second window, she had both a large fries and a mcflurry in her lap, plus a chicken nuggets box open between them. oscar pulled into a quiet lot around the corner and parked under a big tree, the branches bare and tapping lightly against the roof like the wind was trying to say something.

she didn’t start talking until she was halfway through her fries.

“i bombed my english essay,” she said, not looking at him. “like, properly bombed it. and mrs. harvey was so… disappointed. like i could hear it in her voice, and then she just kept saying how she ‘expected better’ and how i ‘wasn’t applying myself.’ and then after class, these two girls said i only got into school because of your name and because we’re ‘well-connected’ or whatever. i didn’t even know what to say.”

she stopped, fries forgotten in her hand.

“i wasn’t even trying to cry,” she added quickly, her voice wobbling again. “i didn’t want to. it just… came out.”

oscar didn’t say anything for a second. then he reached over and plucked one of her fries.

“you want me to go full scary big brother and start showing up at your school like a menace?”

she let out a short, startled laugh. “no.”

“because i’ll do it,” he said seriously, but there was a smile tugging at his mouth. “i’ll show up in a full race suit. visor down. just point me to the mean girls and let me handle it.”

“you’d get arrested.”

“worth it.”

she finally turned to look at him. her eyes were a little glassy, and there was a red mark near her nose from rubbing it too much. she looked younger than she had that morning, like the day had knocked her back a few years. but there was something else too—something warm and safe in her face, like just being in that car with him had given her space to breathe again.

“you didn’t have to come,” she said quietly. “you’re only in the uk for like, two days.”

“yeah, and you called.”

she stared at him. “i didn’t even say anything.”

“you didn’t have to.” he leaned back against the seat, his hand still resting casually on the steering wheel. “i know your voice. i know when it’s good and when it’s not. and if it’s not, then i’m coming. doesn’t matter where i am.”

she didn’t answer right away. she just looked at her mcflurry, then back at him, and then leaned across the console to wrap her arms around his shoulders. it wasn’t a graceful hug—her fries nearly tipped and she banged her elbow into the gear stick—but he didn’t care. he just hugged her back and squeezed gently like he knew exactly how much she needed it.

“thank you,” she said into his hoodie.

he smiled into her hair. “you’re welcome.”

and then, because she was still hugging him and because he could tell she needed something to distract her brain from spiraling again, he said, “also, smarties is the worst mcflurry flavor and you’re wrong for liking it.”

she gasped and pulled back like he’d committed treason. “you take that back.”

“never. oreo supremacy.”

“you’re literally the worst.”

“and yet, i bought you fries.”

she rolled her eyes, but she was smiling now—really smiling. the kind that lit up her whole face. and when he dropped her off at home an hour later, she turned to him at the door and said, “you’ll always pick up when i call, right?”

oscar didn’t even hesitate.

“every time.”

THE END :>

[navybrat817]

Hold You Tight: Part 16

Pairing: Club Owner!Bucky Barnes x Female Reader

Fic Summary: The owner of The 107th wants you to be his girl whether you like it or not.

Part 15 | Series Masterlist | Part 17

Chapter Word Count: Over 5.4k

Chapter Summary: Bucky tries to pull you closer when you want to pull away, and someone else in your life my not take no for an answer.

Chapter Warnings: DARK AU, arguing, tension, slight harassment, kissing, reference to stalking, inner turmoil, manipulation, Bucky Barnes (he's a warning, okay?), more warnings to come.

A/N: More Hold You Tight! Thank you for sticking with me! Bucky edit by the beautiful @nixakimbo ❤️ Beta read by the lovely @whisperlullaby but any and all mistakes are my own. Divider by the talented @firefly-graphics. Please follow @navybrat817-sideblog new fics and notifications. Comments, reblogs, feedback are loved and appreciated!

Bucky traded lazy kisses with you as your tears slowed, and you had no idea if it was his mouth that had your heart pounding and the crushing weight of everything that surrounded him. It was so much to unpack. Every encounter with him seemed to be that way. Something blindsided you or suffocated you, but you hadn't been at all prepared for what he just shared. And how could you? He didn't keep photos of his mother around, and you hadn't gone poking around online.

Would you have found out the truth if you had?

He followed your lips when you pulled away. “It’s okay,” he whispered, pulling you back in.

It wasn’t okay. Nothing was okay. Though it partially made sense now why he was moving so fast. He believed if he met you then that you would've fallen in love and been together to this day. Because he didn't seek you out then and lost so much time, he was packing everything into a rushed time span. Dating, meeting his friends, getting you into his place. He was moving things along at an accelerated speed, and you were barely keeping up with the ride.

“No.” The muffled word against his lips somehow rang out loud and clear enough for him to stop, but you put a hand on his chest in case he tried to lean in again. “Why are you punishing me?”

His eyes rounded. “You think I’m punishing you? Jesus, why would you think that?”

“Because of how you went about all of this. I know you were desperate, and I get the drive behind some of your actions now,�� you said, which you refused to excuse. You got it but couldn’t excuse it. “Your response of ‘where’s the fun in that?’ when I said you couldn’t just ask me out like a normal person? You almost seemed to delight in intimidating me. Why?”

If you saved his mom, why do this?

“I didn’t delight in that. I played it wrong,” he admitted in a quiet voice, surprising you. “I approached it like…”

“Like everything else in your life where you have everyone under your thumb through fear. You did the same thing to me.” You laughed just a little. “In a way, it worked because I’m officially afraid to try to leave you.”

Had things blossomed between you two organically, you’d like to believe that things would’ve been better. Healthy. There was always the chance that a relationship might’ve come to an end because life was like that. But if he frightened you enough to stay forever, he’d never have to worry. The stars would still align as far as he was concerned.

“I don’t want you to fear me or what we have,” he whispered, reaching for you as you scooted back.

“What we have? Tell me, do you think your mom would be proud of your actions to obtain me or ashamed?” You couldn’t believe that was the kind of man she raised, to put fear into the heart of the person he supposedly loved.

He flinched. Actually flinched. You might as well have raised a hand to him. “She…” He swallowed. “She would’ve wanted us together.”

“Like this? By you not giving me a choice?” you asked, pushing yourself up. “I need to go home.” There would be no getting through to him and this revelation was doing your head in. One cup of coffee wasn't enough either.

He got up to follow you. “Why are you rushing off?”

“I have a shift today, and I have to go home and shower,” you said, grabbing some of your things. “Don’t worry about dropping me off. I’ll get a cab.”

“What? No, you-”

“You put money in my account, so it’s not like I have to worry about paying for it. And it’s not like I’ll be alone either since you’ll have me followed whether I want it or not,” you said as a matter of fact.

“You’re putting a wall up,” he said, frowning as you grabbed your phone charger before he could. “Don’t shut me out, please.”

“I’m not shutting you out. I’m trying to process the gigantic bombshell you dropped on me,” you said, stopping to look at him when he grabbed your arm. “Bucky-”

“This has been a lot, all of it, but we can’t go back and change it, and you know I can’t let you go because we’re meant to be together,” he said, his eyes searching yours. “You feel it. I know you do.”

How many times would he say that until you agreed? “Just because you think fate stepped in-”

“Fate brought you into my club, but I gave it a much-needed push to bring us together after leaving things to chance for so long,” he said, tugging you closer and putting his other hand on your cheek. “You can’t tell me you don’t care about me in some capacity. You’re just afraid to admit it because it isn’t conventional in your eyes, but you don’t have to be afraid of how you feel.”

How could you truly fall in love with him when he orchestrated everything from the start? “Feelings or not you’re still going to force me to move in with you soon, and that scares me,” you said. Your wings would forever be clipped.

“We should’ve been living together and married by now,” he argued, keeping a tight hold on you. “I know I’m making you move in sooner than you want, but beyond safety it’ll give us a chance to really know each other before we get married.”

Talk of marriage had your heart thudding. The man would probably force you to marry him sooner than you wanted. “You said you already know everything about me,” you said. At least he thought he knew you. The vision of you he built up in his mind scared you, too. He couldn’t keep you on that pedestal.

“But you don’t fully know me yet, and I don’t know what it’s like to live with you. The experience will bring us closer together.” His smile was full of hope. “We can read together, do movie nights, dance in the kitchen.”

“Bucky-”

“We can exercise together, in and out of bed,” he continued, your breath hitching as he rubbed his nose against yours. “Don’t you already feel closer to me now that you know we're meant to be?”

A quick knock on the door followed by a long one saved you from answering. “It isn't check-out time, is it?”

“No. That would be Ray,” Bucky headed to the door and kept you back a small distance before he answered. The man really was protective, wasn't he?

“I’m sorry to intrude,” Ray said, giving you a polite nod before he leaned in and whispered something to Bucky. Whatever was said to him made his face harden. The entire change in his demeanor worried you.

“Kotyonok, let’s get your bag and get you back to your place so you can get ready for work,” he suggested, his smile tight.

“What’s the matter?” you asked.

“I’ll tell you later,” he answered, kissing your forehead. “And before we go, I know you suggested taking a cab, but please let Ray take you back to your place. It would make me feel better.”

The hint of a plea in his voice and the look in Ray’s eyes kept you from protesting. “Fine, Ray can take me home. Just give me a second to change out of these pajamas,” you said, a bit surprised that Bucky wasn’t offering to take you home himself. “But you are going to tell me later what’s going on, right?” you asked.

“I will, but I need some answers myself first. Get changed. I’ll get your bag,” he said, gently guiding you to the bathroom so you could change and officially ending that conversation.

Ray was still by the entry door once you came out, looking a bit stiffer than usual, too. You stole a glance at Bucky as the three of you headed to the elevator, catching the anger etched in his features as he gripped your bag handle tight enough that you thought it would rip. They were leaving you in the dark about something. You weren’t sure if you could take any other bombshells.

“Ray may need to pick you up from work instead of me, but I’ll message you if that’s the case,” Bucky said, fixing his hair in the elevator reflection. “And… we may need to talk about your girls’ day out.”

“What about it?” you asked, already knowing where he was going with this.

“If you can cancel or reschedule it,” he replied.

You stared hard at him. Where was that coming from? “No, it's tomorrow, and I’m not cancelling or rescheduling. And don’t you dare use Zemo as an excuse to get your way,” you snapped. Even if it was a valid reason, you didn’t want to hear it.

His jaw clenched, but he looked sad as he glanced at you. “I just don’t know if it’s a good idea.”

“We talked about this. If it’s a safety issue, Ray agreed that someone could watch out for me. That should keep me safe,” you reminded him. You’d be fine. “Right, Ray?”

The blonde stared straight ahead. “That isn’t my decision,” he said apologetically.

Your shoulders slumped. For a short time, you thought he could be on your side or at least help give you some slack. “Right. Because you don't get to make decisions, and neither do I. You’re a bodyguard, I’m just a doll,” you said, looking straight ahead, too, and pulling your hand back when Bucky tried to take it. “Please, don’t.”

“Kotyonok…” Bucky sighed as the door opened. You marched out, not waiting for either of them. “Wait.”

You headed straight for the desk, feeling sadder when you didn’t see Natasha. “Checking out, please,” you said, sliding the room card over to the woman standing there.

“Of course. I hope you enjoyed your stay.” She looked behind you likely at Bucky before giving you a smile. “Ms. Romanoff also wanted to remind you that you have a place here if you need one.”

“I’m sure I’ll take her up on that soon,” you said, turning your head to glare at Bucky. While his expression was stoic, his eyes told you he didn’t want you to be upset with him. “And make sure she adds an inconvenience fee to the damaged wall bill. She’ll know what I mean.”

“I’ll be sure to do that,” she smiled. “Take care.”

Bucky was hot on your heel and you didn't make it two steps out the door before he had a hand on you. “You’re upset with me. Putting up more of that wall.”

You didn't speak until Ray walked past you to get his car. “You’re trying to get me to cancel my day out with my friends, after you went through the whole charade of buying me a new dress for it and everything. And after what you told me about your mom.” You took a breath to try to calm down. “Yeah, I’m upset, and yeah, you’re supplying me with the very bricks to build that wall.”

“I said we may need to talk about it, I didn’t flat out say you weren’t going,” he corrected you. He might as well have. “I know it means a lot to you, but-”

You held a hand up. “No. There are no ‘buts’ in this. For all you keep taking from me, I don’t ask for much. I really don't,” you stated. In fact, you’ve shown lots of restraint. “Who knows how many moments I’ll get like this with my friends once you move me in.” He wasn’t about to take this small thing from you after everything.

He titled his head. “You think I’ll keep you from them?”

“Part of me thinks you will, yes. Because as soon as I think that there’s hope, the second I think that we could be closer together while you loosen the reins, you say or do something that puts me back in your full control,” you said. He had to see that. “And every time you do that, like you are right now, it makes me want to push you away.”

“And you can push all you want, but I’ll just pull you closer,” he smiled, making you huff when he actually did so. “I’m not afraid to let you burn me.”

“You keep saying that. Give me a match or a lighter and we’ll test that theory,” you said. He burst out laughing, the sound loud in the morning air as your eyes widened. “Why are you laughing?” you asked incredulously. How could he laugh when you were still worked up?

“Because even arguing with you makes me happy,” he sincerely stated. “And now all I want to do is find a way to put a smile back on your face.”

You exhaled. He was so in love with the idea of a relationship with you that arguments appealed to him? Anyone else would've walked away by now.

“You’re infuriating,” you whispered when he touched the corner of your mouth and made it twitch in a small smile. “Impossible.”

“I know,” he whispered back, running a hand through his hair. “Listen, you’re tired and you’re overwhelmed, which is completely my fault. Am I right?”

“Yes,” you sighed. He hit it right on the nose.

“And maybe I was rash in suggesting that you cancel your plans, but I need to take care of a couple things before we discuss that more,” he said, leading you to Ray's car before you could protest. “You just have a good shift, okay?”

He was placating you now, and it was sadly working. “Fine,” you said, touching his hand, the metal one. “I don’t think I said so earlier, but thank you for finally telling me the truth,” you said, calmer than you were moments before. He should've told you from the start, but it couldn't have been easy reopening old wounds regarding his dad.

His gaze softened. “Thank you for letting me.”

“And whatever Ray told you or whatever’s going on, just breathe, okay?” you begged.

He took a deep breath. “I’ll just think of you and it’ll help,” he said, adding in a low voice as he pulled you against him. “And this.”

This was nothing like the slow, languid kisses from minutes ago. This was dominant, claiming, threatening to rob you of the air in your lungs, like he wanted you to feed your own breath into him. He either forgot Ray was there, or he simply didn’t care.

By the time Bucky stopped kissing you and helped you into the car, you didn’t want to look either of them in the eye.

“I love you,” he whispered, kissing your temple and shutting the door as your heart flip flopped. God, he was insufferable. Confusing. Obsessed.

“You're certainly keeping him on his toes,” Ray said, not driving off until he made sure Bucky was in his vehicle, too.

“Someone has to,” you said, staring out the window. “I’m going with my friends tomorrow. I don't care if he makes you drag me back,” you said. Unless your life was in some sort of immediate danger, there was no reason for you to skip out on meeting up with the girls.

“So you’re aware, the suggestion of you moving your day out has nothing to do with wanting to control you. He’s upset because of the news I delivered and he wants to keep you close,” Ray explained, making you feel a little bad.

“So, that news was the reason why you both changed your tune, and you can't tell me what that news is,” you guessed. If you were in some sort of danger though, surely Bucky would’ve said so. “He told me about his mom. How I saved her.”

Silence filled the vehicle. “So, you know the truth,” he said after a minute, his voice neutral. “Are you okay?”

“I’m trying to be,” you answered carefully. You really were.

“That’s all you can do,” he said before adding under his breath, “No good deed goes unpunished.”

You snorted. “I guess I'm living breathing proof of that.” It was ironic how an act of kindness put you on this path. “And as much as I don't like to wish pain upon people, I hope Bucky's dad got whatever he deserved.”

Winnie, from the short time you knew her, was nothing but wonderful. Bucky said the dahlia painting in his office served as a reminder that he would never do to you what his dad did to his mom. He would never set you up to take the fall for anyone else, wouldn’t let someone else hurt you if he could help it. He would forever stand by you.

Was pushing him away doing you any good?

“He did,” Ray promised you. “And I say with complete sincerity that I hope today is very uneventful for you after the time you've had.”

Your nose scrunched as you laughed. “So do I, Ray. So do I.”

Ray was kind enough to wait outside of your place as you showered and got ready for work, and didn't push you to talk more before he dropped you off at the shop. He was even kind enough to stop so you could get another cup of coffee. It helped improve your mood.

“There she is!” Kate smiled when you walked in. “Little miss not-so-single anymore.”

“Hey,” you giggled before you paused. “I didn't know you were working today. Did you switch shifts with someone?”

“God, the schedule’s all messed up. Mrs. Crandle called out for some business thing-”

“Business thing?” you asked, your brows pinched. She hardly ever took time off for things like vacation let alone a business thing without informing her staff.

“Yeah, I’m not really sure about all the details, but Lorraine ended up switching the whole schedule around. Mya’s coming in later, and I had to come in early, and your shift’s ending early.”

“What?” you frowned, checking the schedule to make sure. She was right. Your shift today was almost cut in half. “Would’ve been nice to get a text or something.”

The assistant manager wasn't bad to work with, but she could be a little forgetful with things like that. If Bucky hadn't just put money in your account, you may have been more upset over having half a shift cut. After the night and morning you had though, maybe an afternoon off wouldn't be so bad.

“She probably forgot since you were coming in at your normal time. Who knows?” Kate shrugged. “You know, I half expected Clark to be here waiting for you. Seemed really eager to see you yesterday.”

“Yeah, about that.” You looked toward the door, your body tense in anticipation even though he wasn't there. “Why did you tell him I was working today?”

“He’s kind of a regular, and I didn't really think about it. Then Mrs. Crandle brought up your boyfriend and…” Her face fell as she stopped cutting stems, which made you feel bad when she glanced your way. “Crap, I did something wrong, didn't I?”

You weren’t about to go into specifics regarding your personal situation. “I just don’t want customers to know when my shifts are unless I’m specifically working on an order or event for them, okay?” you said, hoping she understood that it was a general request.

Bucky was not getting in your head about your safety.

“Okay, as long as you aren’t mad,” she said. You gave her a smile to assure her that you were okay. “So, tell me about your new boyfriend.”

You filled her in as much as you could to make it sound believable, just like you had with Addison. Like her and Mrs. Crandle, Kate was excited for you. And they would never know the full truth.

As your shift went on, you were surprised you hadn't heard much from Bucky. It was for the best though. He was clearly dealing with something. As much as you didn't want to defend him in your mind, it had taken a lot for him to talk about his parents. To show you some of the damage done to his body. It was a vulnerable moment. Did you owe it to him to be vulnerable, too?

Wait, why did you owe him anything?

“Heading out?” Kate asked once your shift was up.

“Yeah,” you replied, glancing at your phone. You wondered if you should text Bucky before you decided against it. You'd let him know once you got to your place that you wouldn't need a ride. “Just call me if you need me to come back in.”

“Don’t worry about that. Enjoy the rest of your day!” she smiled.

Satisfied when you didn't see Bucky or Ray’s car waiting for you either, you decided to take a walk. It was a nice day, and you needed the fresh air. You hoped the weather was nice for the winery. You’d have to take photos to look back on what was going to be a fun time.

“Hey!” you heard someone shout after a few minutes of walking.

You stopped when you spotted Clark waving at you from the other side of the street. You barely waved back before he joined you. “Hey. What are you doing here?”

“Oh, I was just in the neighborhood,” he smiled, pushing his glasses up. “You done working already?”

“Yep,” you said, adjusting your bag. “And I should really-”

“Could we talk for a minute?” he asked.

You hesitated before nodding. “Sure,” you said, falling in step beside him.

“You know, I actually went to the shop to buy you flowers yesterday. I was going to buy you some roses,” he smiled.

Oh, God. “You were?”

“Yeah, but you weren’t there and… It doesn’t matter,” he smiled, shoving his hands in his pockets. “But I was thinking… Maybe we could grab a coffee sometime? My treat.”

The hopeful look in his eyes made a pit form in your stomach. “Clark, I’m seeing someone,” you said, his blue eyes dimming. Hadn’t Kate said that Mrs. Crandle brought up that you were in a relationship? “It’s fairly new, and I don’t want to mess things up,” you explained, though he wasn’t owed an explanation.

“I didn’t want to believe it,” he mumbled, kicking a small rock on the sidewalk. “Well, if it’s fairly new, I'm sure you can get coffee with other people.”

“Get coffee with people? Yes. But this kind of sounds like a date, and I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’m sorry,” you said. That would feel like cheating even if you didn't consider it a date, and you weren't that kind of person.

“Then we won’t call it a date,” he grinned.

Maybe you were feeling paranoid, but there was something weird behind his smile. “You just got out of a relationship, and I don’t want to send mixed signals by agreeing to go with you.”

His smile shook a bit. “It's just a coffee.”

“Is it?” The longer he stared, the more odd things felt, and you didn’t like it. “Listen, when you find someone else to give flowers to I’d be happy to pick some out for you.”

“I don't understand.” He laughed, but it sounded bitter. “You’ve always been nice to me.”

“Well, yeah. You’ve always been kind, too, when you come into the shop.”

“Too nice for someone like Bucky Barnes,” he muttered, his smile disappearing completely.

You gaped at him, almost faltering in your step. “What did you just say?”

“I said you’re too nice for someone like Bucky Barnes,” he said louder, his ire clear as day. “You think I don’t know about his reputation? He’s dangerous, and you’re too good for him.”

“How do you know I’m dating him?” you asked. And what did he know about his reputation?

He was quiet for a moment. “Mrs. Crandle said his name, and she has no idea what kind of man he is,” he said, making you feel uneasy. “I don’t think you do either.”

Oh, you knew plenty. “I appreciate your concern, really, but it’s nothing for you to worry about.”

“Well, I do. And I just don’t see why we can’t have one cup of coffee together,” he said, flashing a smile again. “It’ll be fun.”

“Because you know I’m seeing someone,” you said. He knew it before he bumped into you, but was still pushing for you to go with him. “And I also kind of make it a rule not to date customers,” you added, stopping when you got to your building. You walked faster than you thought.

“Well, rules should have exceptions, right? And if Bucky cared so much, where is he? Why wasn’t he waiting to pick you up and take you home?” he pressed, his eyes narrowing when you dug into your purse. “Maybe he doesn’t care about you as much as you think.”

Your next breath came out shaky. He hadn’t raised his voice at you, but you didn’t appreciate the third degree, or the implication that Bucky didn’t care. “Because he’s a busy man who sometimes works both days and nights. I don’t expect him to drop everything just to take me home.”

“If you took a chance on me, you’d never have to worry about things like that.”

You were starting to feel nauseous. “Well, sometimes I like the quiet after the bustle of the shop, so walking helps me decompress. And I can't take a chance on you when I’m seeing someone else.” Why was he being so pushy?

He took a small step closer. “You know, it’s dangerous to walk home alone.”

You took a step back, your keys between your fingers. “You’re right about that,” you agreed. The only reason you did so today was to take back a little control, which didn’t seem so smart now.

“I can start walking you home if you want,” he smiled, towering over you. Was he always so imposing? “When’s your next shift?”

You managed a smile in return, but it was extremely forced. “Clark, that’s really not necessary, but thank you for the offer. Enjoy the rest of your day.”

He gently took your arm when you turned toward the door, worry crawling up your spine when his hand tightened a fraction. You suddenly wish you had Bucky or Ray around. “I really don’t mind.”

“My boyfriend will mind, and I’m sure you can understand that. So it’s a no on the coffee and the walks home,” you said gently but firmly, pulling your arm back and rubbing the spot where Clark grabbed you. He wasn’t listening. It somehow felt worse than Bucky and you couldn’t pinpoint why. Was it because Clark tried to act nice? “It’s been a long few days, and I’m going to get some rest. Have a nice day, okay?”

His eyes narrowed again, but it was his chilling smile that unnerved you. “I’m sure I'll see you again soon. We’ll have to get that coffee,” he said, walking off before you could say another word.

You rushed into the building once he was out of sight, your hands shaking. It may have been from the confrontation or the combination of everything. Maybe Clark was just lonely and latched on a bit because you were nice. Hadn't Bucky done something similar?

But if Clark wanted to see you, why hadn't he just gone into the shop if he knew you were working?

Double checking your locks once you were in your apartment, you took a breath and stared at your phone once you sat down. You had to talk to Bucky. He answered within a few seconds of you calling.

“Kotyonok, is everything okay?” he asked, sounding both happy and concerned to hear from you.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?” you asked, hearing a few other men speaking in the background.

“Because you’re calling me and not texting. And you sound a little off. What’s wrong?”

“Everything’s fine,” you lied. How did he recognize that you felt off? “I just wanted you to know that the assistant manager changed my shift, so I went home early.”

“Wait, you’re already home?” he asked. The background noise suddenly stopped. “Did you get a cab? Please tell me you didn’t walk back to your place.”

“…Fine, I won’t tell you that.”

Bucky let out an impressive string of curse words as you pulled the phone away from your ear. “That’s not safe. You know it isn’t,” he hissed, but you knew he wasn’t actually angry with you. Just the situation. And bumping into Clark today and Zemo the day before, he had a bit of a point. “You did that on purpose, didn’t you? Because I said it may not be a good idea to go out with your friends.”

You closed your eyes. He was not going to make you feel bad. “I just needed a breather, okay? And I made it home just fine.”

“But did you? How do I know someone didn’t follow you?” he asked. Clark’s face flashed in your mind when you stayed quiet. “…Kotyonok, did someone follow you?”

“No one followed me that I know of,” you said. You really didn't have any idea. “But… I did bump into Clark. He was in the neighborhood.”

“Clark? That guy from the shop who tried to give you flowers just happened to be in your neighborhood when I wasn't around?” he asked, fury seeping into his tone as you winced.

“I… I’m sure it was a coincidence,” you said. Placating him in this wasn’t going to work, but you had to try.

“That isn’t a fucking coincidence and we both know it. Did he say anything? Try anything?”

You shut your eyes. It would be like ripping off a band-aid. “He asked me to go get a cup of coffee with him, but I told him I was seeing someone.”

He chuckled humorlessly. “He asked you out?” he asked, making you shift in your seat. “Why the fuck do I not have a file on him yet?!” he snapped at someone in the background.

“I’m working on it, boss!” you heard someone promise. “Should I call-”

“No. I’ll call him myself,” Bucky growled.

Who was he talking about? “Bucky, it’s okay. The guy asked me out and I said no,” you assured him. You weren't going to go out with Clark. “I’m sure women throw themselves at you every day and you turn them down.”

“They don't ‘bump’ into me in my neighborhood. And had you told me you were leaving early, I could’ve made sure this guy didn’t go anywhere near you. I don’t even want him near your shop until I know more about him,” he said, his anger not lessening. “If he tries anything, I will tear him apart piece by fucking piece,” he promised you, the intensity in his tone making your throat go dry.

“That isn’t necessary,” you whispered.

He sighed. “Why would you deliberately put yourself in a spot like this just to prove a point? Be pissed at me, I can take that, but do not risk your safety,” he said, adding in a quieter voice, “I couldn’t take it if something happened to you.”

You bit the inside of your cheek, hating how guilty you felt, how worried he sounded on your behalf. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to worry you,” you said. It was stubborn and dumb on your part, and now you were afraid that Bucky really would try to cancel your day out tomorrow. You couldn’t let him. “I’ll make it up to you, okay?”

“Make it up to me?” he asked. That seemed to get his attention. “How are you going to do that?”

“I’ll…” you began, steadying yourself. Natasha said you had power, and maybe you’d have to test that sooner than you expected. “Stay at your place tonight.”

You could hear a pin drop from the quiet. “You’ll stay the night?” he asked, his voice moving like lava through your veins.

“Yes,” you whispered, hammering the nail in the coffin.

“Give me two hours and I'll come get you,” he said, his voice strained, eager. “Be ready.”

“I will be.”

God, you hoped you knew what you were doing.

Oh, Clark. He's a problem now, isn't he? What do we think Ray told Bucky? And what's going to happen when you spend the night? Love and thanks for reading! ❤️

Masterlist ⚓ Bucky Barnes Masterlist ⚓ Ko-Fi

[evansbuckle]

Mechanic!SingleDad!Bucky Barnes AU.

This is my first time writing a fic since like 2021, but I haven't been able to get this out of my head for the entire day, so please, enjoy. Likes & reblogs are always appreciated <3

Word Count: At least 20 for sureeeee!

Warnings: There's brief swearing, brief mentions of death and parental abandonment. Reader is referred to as y/n, with she/her pronouns, and has curly hair. Bucky's a dad? I'm pretending I know how cars work + bad grammar (i have a creative writing degree and still can't tell if the full stop goes after a speech mark or before)

masterlist link part two part three part four part five part six

Grease, Part One.

It was one thing to have a car breakdown on you. It was another thing for it to happen at half eleven. In the evening. Outside a garage. That was shut. 

“C’mon don’t do this to me, man,” I begged the car as I hit the steering wheel, and tried the engine again to no prevail, “I’m gonna sell you, I swear.” 

I looked at the garage my car broke down outside of, eyes narrowing in on the “CLOSED” sign on the door. I could see a faint light inside, and there was a nagging in the back of my head that drove me to knock on the door. It was barely thirty seconds before a greased up man opened the door. 

“We’re closed.” He gruffed out, wiping his hands on what looked like a vest.

“I know, and I swear I usually wouldn’t do this but my car just stopped and I don’t really know what’s wrong with it and I’m here, and please?”

“What are you asking me to do exactly?” The man asked, amused.

“Well, realistically what can you do with it right now?”

“I can push it into the garage and ask you to come back in the morning, where I’ll be able to tell you what’s wrong with it.”

“Are you serious?” I looked at him with a level of shock in my eyes that he clearly wasn’t expecting, as he sort of grimaced at me, like he was uncomfortable. 

“Nine in the morning.” His tone was stone-cold, so I thanked him again, gave him my car key, got my bag and left, walking home. It didn’t take long to get back to my apartment, twenty minutes, ten if you run because it’s the middle of the night and you’re scared. I was greeted by a series of barks and leg rubs as I walked in, leaning down to pet the giant dog that was at my feet, “Hi Cheryl.” 

It didn’t take long to get ready for bed either, I speed-ran feeding the dog, getting changed and brushing my teeth, not really wanting to waste time considering I had work in the morning. As I lied in bed, I couldn’t stop thinking about the man who opened the door.

I didn’t realise I’d fallen asleep until my alarm rang, signalling it was time to get ready for work. I walked into my kitchen to the smell of my coffee machine doing Gods work, and the dog asleep on the floor. I reached over to pet her head as I poured myself a cup, downing it almost instantly. It wasn’t nice when drank all at once, but the energy boost was always welcome. I brushed my teeth, got changed, fed Cheryl, and left for work. 

Opening shifts at the coffee shop were always my favourites. Me on my own, and the music I choose, having a slow hour before the day. I opened the cafe, letting the few early-waking elderly come in and order their usual pots of tea and pastries, taking my time with them. The time flew by, as it often does when old ladies are recounting their youth to you, and I left my coworkers on their own to go see a man about a car. 

*

The bell above the door gave away my presence as I walked into the garage, the smell of grease and petrol almost knocking me clean out. I scan around the room before I see the brunette from last night, making my way over to him. 

“Uh, hi,” I said, awkwardly waiting for him to turn round.

“Oh,” he checked his watch, “right on time.” All I could think to do was nod at him, waiting expectedly. 

He cleared his throat before carrying on, “so, the problem is your engine. Can’t tell the main cause, but it seems like it overheated. You also need your brake belt replaced.”

“Right, sure.” The far off look on my face must’ve given away my cluelessness as he carried on.

“I’m gonna replace your engine, because it short-circuited basically. Got too hot and broke which meant your car couldn’t start.”

I opened my mouth to reply before I felt a little hand poking my leg. I jumped a little, entirely focused on the man in front of me to notice the carbon copy of him, just with blonde curly hair, standing at my feet. 

“Hi! I’m Becky!” The little voice called out next to me. I crouched down next to her, “Hi Becky, I’m Y/N.” I offered my hand, she didn’t hesitate to take it in hers and give it a shake. “Wow, Becky, gotta say I think that’s the firmest handshake I’ve had in a while. You clearly mean business.” She nods at me, then runs over to the man in front as I stand back up. 

“Daddy, she’s got hair like me.” She whispered to him. The man looked up at me, taking in the curls on my head that I hadn’t bothered to try with today. He nods, “Yeah, sugar, she’s got curly hair like you.” She turned back to me, holding out a colouring book, “Do you wanna see my colouring? It’s princesses.” 

The man looks at me taken aback, “You can,” he says, “I’ve gotta fill out some paperwork for your car anyway.” 

Becky leads me into a little office in the back of the garage, the place covered in scribbly drawings, all signed “Rebecca Barnes” at the bottom. We sit on the floor and she flicks through the book, showing me her favourites.

“Becky, what’s your dads name?” I ask her while she points out a green unicorn. 

“Bucky.” She giggles.

“Yo-your dads name is Bucky? And he named you Becky?”

“Technically, I named her Rebecca. And my name is James,” Bucky smiles at his daughter from the doorframe he’s leaning on, “my middle name is Buchanan, so everyone calls me Bucky.”

I snort, “your middle name is Buchanan?”

“Don’t laugh,” he chuckles, “my parents were old fashioned.” I can’t help but let out the laugh building in my chest as I take in the attractive man standing a few feet away from us. Easily six foot, and covered in grease, it made sense he’d have a daughter by now. My thoughts weren’t finished fully forming before Becky runs off to another mechanic.

“She’s sweet,” I say, watching her potter about, “how old is she?”

“Too old,” he looked at her with a soft glimmer in his blue eyes, “she turns six in a couple months.” He turned back to me now, “you know she doesn’t take to strangers often. Usually takes her, like, three interactions with someone to warm up to them.”

There’s something warm blooming in me at the thought of this girl taking kindly to me and it makes me smile. “I used to work at a kindergarten, maybe that’s why.” He chuckles, a deep sound, raspy, “yeah maybe she can smell the teacher-vibe.”

He walks around me, going to sit at the desk, grabbing a form and quickly scribbling on it before standing in front of me again. “So, technically this was just a consultation, ‘cuz I didn’t do any actual work on it so I’m not charging you for this,” he thrusts the form toward me, “I do need you to fill this out though so I can start on it today. It’s just basics, phone number, email, all that.”

I nod at him, my face scrunching up at the price written at the bottom of the paper, and I don’t get a chance to voice myself before he interrupts. 

“It’s steep, I know. But we need to buy you a whole new engine.” 

“No I get it, it’s just, you know, it doesn’t make it any less scary.” I lean forward on the desk, filling out the rest of the form, handing him the paper. 

“It should be around a week, but I’ll keep you updated as I go.” 

“Thanks,” I say, looking him in the eyes “Not just for this but for taking it in last night, I think you literally saved my life.”

He chuckles again, “I don’t know if I’d go that far.” A faint blush creeps up on his cheeks. 

“I would Bucky, seriously. I think a lot of people would’ve just told me to fuck off and come back in the morning, so, thank you,” I turn around to start leaving, “you should come by Cafe Cloud sometime, have a coffee on me, you know, if you want.” 

I don’t give him a chance to reply, waving bye to Becky and walking back to work. 

*

Getting settled back into work was nothing short of horrid. Two machines broken, the register jammed, and the staff bathroom in  disarray. The next seven hours sped by, but not in the good way, in the way that left your head pounding and your feet burning. We were open still, but by now the crowds had gone, and the only people left were students who had their faces buried in laptops. The little bell above the drew my attention, as I watched Bucky walk up to the counter.

“Hey,” he said, voice rough, “I’m taking you up on that coffee if it still stands.”

“Course it does, what would you like?”

“Filter’s fine, thanks.”

I nod, “take a seat I’ll bring it out to you.”

It doesn’t take long for the filter to brew, and while it does I bring Bucky his cup and saucer, setting it down. While I grab the carafe, I grab him a blueberry muffin too. Filling up his coffee, I set the muffin down in front of him. 

“Oh I didn’t-”

“I know, but it’s end of day. It’s either give them away or throw them out. They’ll be getting some too,” I nod around to the other 3 people left in the cafe. “Shout if you want more.”

“Actually, I uh,” he starts, looking pained at the fact he’s speaking “I wondered if you wanted to sit with me, if you’re not busy or anything.”

“Sure, just give me a second.” I turn around and walk back behind the counter, pouring myself a cup and making sure my co-worker was okay on her own, before sitting down with Bucky. 

“I just, I don’t know, what I’m doing here actually.”

I raise my eyebrows at him, laughing at his facial expression, looking like he’d rather be anywhere but here.

“I wasn’t going to come, but then I thought, Becky’s at a friends for dinner, and I don’t really wanna sit at home on my own, so I’m here now and I’m blabbing your ear off.” He laughs a little at himself, taking a sip of his coffee, “Shit this is good, what the hell?”

I laugh at the change in his attitude as I watch him take another sip, “On your own? Becky’s mum not home?”

His face contorts into something unreadable while he splits the muffin in half, pushing one half to me, keeping the other for himself. “Ah no, she uhm, she’s not really around, anymore. Not for a while now.”

My face scrunches up at his revelation, “Damn, I’m sorry. Is she still with us?”

Bucky chokes on his coffee, “Yeah, yeah she’s still kickin’ somewhere. She just,” he shrugs, wiping at his mouth with a napkin, “decided she didn’t want anything to do with us so she left.” 

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“That must’ve been awful, I’m sorry.”

He shakes his head, “Honestly she’s been gone for longer than she was around. It feels a little like it’s always just been me and Becky against everything else.” His face lights up a little at the mention of his daughter, the corners of his mouth lifting into a smile. “I don’t think she really remembers her mum anyway, or at least she’s real good at pretending she doesn’t.” 

“How long has it been just you two?”

“About four years.”

I think for a second, “If Becky does remember her mum then it’s probably very little anyway. Don’t think kids really start having conscious thoughts until they’re about two. You tried asking her?”

He shakes his head no, and finishes off picking at his half of the muffin, “I keep meaning to, I just, I don’t want to make her sad, make her feel like she’s missing out on what other kids have, you know?” He looked at me then, his stormy-blue eyes looking mine. 

“I don’t think you’d make her sad, as long as you were careful about the reason why her mum left. As for the missing out, she’s going to feel like that anyway,” I hold my hands out in front of me at the horrified look on his face, “Maybe not now, and hell maybe I’m incredibly wrong and she’ll never feel like that, but when I was a teenager and I didn’t have my mum around, I was so jealous of my friends it was ridiculous.”

“Your ma leave you too?”

“Not voluntarily. She passed when I was about ten. So when I was a little older and discovering literally everything, it made me angry at the world, ‘cuz why did everyone else get a mum that lived but me? You know?” 

“I’m sorry, Y/N. I lost my parents too, a while ago. It’s not easy.”

I shake my head, “no it’s not, but my point is it’s probably going to happen to Becky too. I just wonder if it would be any consolation to her if you talked about her mum more. But again, it’s not really my place to say, so please, ignore me.”

By now the last of the customers had gone, and it was just me, Bucky and my coworker Morgan left in the place. Bucky and I had  spent the last two hours talking about nothing, and I ended the day feeling like I’d made a new friend, even if he was almost twenty years older than me. He sat and watched as Morgan and I closed, laughing here and there at our music choices and berating us when we got distracted. 

“Alright, I’m ready to go,” I say to Bucky, my work apron now off, bag on my shoulder.

He opens the door for me, letting me out first. 

“So, I’m up a couple blocks that way,” I point up the road. “It was nice to see you again, and please, come by anytime.” I start to walk off but I don’t get very far before a strong hand wraps around my arm, stopping me in my tracks. 

“What are you doing?” He asks, his eyebrows furrowed.

“Going home?”

“You’re walking?”

“Well my car is under your care so unless you’d like me to somersault home.”

“I’ll drive you.” 

Bucky doesn’t give me time to respond, placing one arm softly on my back, barely perceptible, as he guides me across the street to his jeep. He opens the passenger door, and gives me his hand as he helps me in, shutting the door and walking round to his side. I give him the address, and we drive off, but not before he grumbles about the part of town I’ve chosen to live in.

It takes us all of three minutes to drive back to my apartment.

“Do you wanna come up, for a glass of water or anything?”

“Yeah. That’d be nice.”

He opens my car door, letting me step out and walk us over to the building. I lead him up the stairs and down the hall to my door. I wince as I realise I’d forgotten about the St Bernard currently waiting for me.

“Any chance you’re scared of dogs?”

“Not at all. Why?”

I smile as sweetly as I can, opening the door and walking in to meet Cheryl, the dog currently jumping up and down at the sight of her owner. I pet her, holding her by the collar as Bucky shuts the door. 

“Bucky, meet Cheryl. Cheryl,” I kneel down, scratching behind her ears, “You be the good girl I know you are, this is Bucky, he’s no danger.”

Cheryl tentatively walks to Bucky, who’s holding his hand out for her to sniff and get used to. She sniffs for a few seconds, before flopping down onto her back, inviting Bucky to rub her belly. I laugh at her, but the sight of Cheryl getting along with Bucky makes my chest feel oddly warm. I go to pour him a glass of water and leave it on the kitchen island. 

“Hey sweet girl,” he talks to Cheryl, “You’re gorgeous aren’t you?” Cheryl barks playfully, 

“Yeah you are, attagirl.” He pets her head again before standing up and walking back over to me, taking a sip of the water.  

“Cheryl?”

There’s a sheepish smile on my face as I say, “I used to love Cheryl Cole. It felt right.”

He laughs then, the lines by his eyes evident when he does. He puts the glass of water down as he walks around the apartment, taking it in, the dog trailing behind him, tail wagging furiously.

It isn’t fancy, by any means. The kitchen and living room were right there when you walked in, and there was one bedroom and one bathroom. But after a few coats of a warm yellow paint, a few days of bookshelf building, and hours of various trinket organising, it had become home. 

Bucky stood by a shelf of records, taking his time looking through them. “Radiohead?” he scoffs playfully, rolling his eyes, “Let me guess, you’re a creep? A weirdo even?”

I can’t help but laugh at him, walking over to stand by his side. I take the vinyl out of his hands and put it back on the shelf, “leave me alone, I think they’re good. There are literal millions of people who agree with me.”

He turns to face me, arms crossed over his chest. “There are also millions of people doing crystal meth. That doesn’t make it good.” He laughs at my reaction then, tipping his head back and placing his hand on his stomach. 

When he finally composes himself, his gaze settles on my face. I physically watch his eyes as they take in all my features, from my hair to my eyes, to my nose, my lips. His gaze doesn’t drop any further, but it takes a while for him to look back into my eyes and when he does, his own have grown darker.

“I should go,” he says, clearing his throat. “It’s getting late and I still need to pick up Becky so,” his voice trails off as he walks to the door. 

He opens it, then turns around, “thank you for tonight, I needed that.” 

I offer him a smile as he leaves, and I move to lock my door. Cheryl runs up to me, panting and her tail wagging. I kneel down to give her a kiss, whispering to her “I think I may have just met your dad.”

[yukioos]

APOCALYPSE

SUMMARY: jayce talis x reader // after dealing with much criticism from heimerdinger and complaints from viktor about hextech, he finally walks home and ends his day peacefully lying on your chest.

AUTHORS NOTE: hi guys! i’m working on a viktor x vampire reader fic so that’ll probably come out this or next week. happy holidays, have a good day! this is 1.6k words

WARNINGS: not proofread, angst, jayce is going through a lot, depression, stress, anxiety, reader n jayce are married, pet names, reader is referred to as ‘mrs.’ and ‘wife’

jayce had to sit in a room and listen to heimerdinger criticize and critique his work for three hours. three whole hours were spent listening to him complain about hextech, and the professor wouldn’t let the scientist utter a single word. eventually, he just tuned out the sounds and words from the elder, and instead tried to think about you, his wife.

most of his days were spent thinking about you anyway. but sometimes your relationship would go through rough patches because of how little time jayce was at home. you understood he couldn’t be home all the time, he was a scientist, after all. the city of piltover heavily depended on him, and you knew this put major stress on the man.

sometimes he would become distant, and you would become worried for him and his health. days without hearing a word from your husband were common, you became accustomed to it. because of this, you cherished your days with him, and continue to do so whenever you encounter him.

jayce didn’t know how much of an impact he had on you by not being in your life as often as he wanted to. you were everything to him. you were the reason he did everything for piltover, it was all to protect you.

but he didn’t know how unhealthy it was for him to skip meals and hardly get any sleep just to keep the city safe. he knew the city wouldn’t be as developed without him, but he always felt the need to do better. when heimerdinger critiqued his work constantly, he began to feel overwhelmed and anxious with every step he took, in fear of not pleasing someone.

he once snapped at viktor for incorrectly solving a formula used for the hextech. unfortunately, he hadn’t noticed how agitated he had become because he was too focused. he began to hate himself more and more with every mistake he made and overworked himself past his limits.

as the days passed, you hardly heard from jayce. worry clouded your mind, and your heart raced quickly once your phone rang. you picked it up and glanced around your bedroom.

“um, hello?” you stuttered, seeing professor heimerdinger’s contact on the screen. you tilted your head and thought to yourself why the professor would be calling you at this time, at eleven at night.

“ah, mrs. talis! i wish we could speak on better terms, it is nice to speak to you again. however, eh, your husband has… collapsed. i was wondering if you could bring him back to your residence once we wake him up?” his chirpy voice seemed duller than usual, with a hint of dissatisfaction. he glanced at viktor, who gave him a halfhearted smile as he continued pacing around the room.

“wh— huh? i’ll pick him up but why has he passed out? i’m confused, professor, is he—”you began to ramble, overthinking all the scenarios that could have happened to your loved one. he hasn’t come home in days, you should’ve been at the academy with him. you should’ve been by his side, maybe this wouldn’t have happened if you were.

“please, mrs. talis, do not worry. i believe he hasn’t slept for a healthy amount of time, so he just passed out. no biggie, do not feel frightened for him. he is okay, he may just be… taking a power nap.” another voice is heard on the other end of the line, and the professor pauses, “ah, i apologize. i must leave now, as i have more work to do. please head over to the academy and pick him up. thank you, goodbye!” he replies, speeding up his words near the end of the call. he hangs up, leaving you with unanswered questions.

you slowly take the phone away from your ear and stare at the frame on your nightstand. it’s a photo of you and jayce getting married, and he looked as handsome as ever. tears were visible on both of your faces, mascara ran down your cheeks. it was the happiest day of both of your lives.

you really hoped he was okay.

when you arrived at the academy, you walked up to the professor’s lab, as you had studied there years ago. your heels clacked against the tiled floor, having to use a flashlight to see through the dark hallways. you gently knocked on the professor’s door and were met face-to-face with jayce’s lab partner, viktor.

“hello, mrs. talis. it is nice to meet you. as the professor also said, i wish it were under different circumstances.” he smiled and turned his head toward jayce, who ashamedly looked down at the ground. heimerdinger was gently speaking to him, but it seemed as if jayce wasn’t listening, like he was in his own headspace.

he had dark eyebags and had lost weight, his skin became more pale and ghostly. it was clear he wasn’t taking care of himself.

your eyebrows turned upwards, and you slowly approached your husband with worried eyes. heimerdinger cleared the path to him and nodded, permitting you to speak to him.

“jayce, sweetheart,” you mumbled, looking up at his form as he sat on the stool, you bent down so his eyes would look at yours. you brought your manicured hand up to his face and rubbed his cheek.

“we’re gonna go home, okay? you gotta take a break,” you persuaded, continuing to comfortingly rub his pale cheek. it was always one of the things that made him feel warm and cared for.

he nodded and mumbled an, “okay,” before slowly standing up and waiting for you to lead him outside. you gently placed your hand in his, and he weakly curled his larger hand around yours. you mouthed a ‘thank you’ to viktor and heimerdinger, then walked the path toward your shared house.

once the two of you arrived, jayce slipped his shoes off, and you did as well. you lead him up to your bedroom, where you suggested he’d properly sleep for at least eight hours.

the both of you slipped off your clothes and changed into comfortable ones, but what bothered you was that jayce hadn’t said a word since you brought him to the house. so when you dimmed the lights and laid on your side of the bed, you were surprised to see jayce hadn’t curled up into your side yet. he was normally a cuddle bug, but maybe he’s changed.

his eyes looked sullen as he stared at the ceiling. he sighed and turned his head towards you without a smile or word, staring deep into your soul, as if he was trying to tell you something.

you could guess what he was thinking, so you opened your arms up to him. he slowly moved to your side of the bed, and laid his body on yours. he let out a large sigh and perfectly laid his head on your chest. his breathing suddenly became more relaxed once you began to scratch his scalp, a gesture he loved ever since you two settled into a romantic relationship.

you began to feel cold drops of liquid on your chest, ones that you could only guess were tears. when you glanced down, you saw him biting his trembling lip. his body was shaking and holding onto you for dear life, and your heart broke at the sight. you would never want your husband to feel whatever he must’ve been feeling at that moment.

“jayce, baby, what’s wrong? i’m getting worried about you,” you mumbled, tilting his head up with your free hand. he began to let out sobs and whimpers, trying to hold them back but failing miserably. his walls broke down just at the caring words from his wife.

“‘m sorry ‘m not good enough,” he gasped, trying to take in more air. you and his mother always told him he was perfect, that he didn’t need fixing. hell, he even started telling others that, but he never would’ve believed he would’ve stopped thinking he was good enough for himself. his world came crashing down, all the stress plummeted to his heart, and in his lover’s arms.

“jayce, you’re perfect. you’re good enough for me, you’re good enough for the city, you should be good enough for yourself. you’re amazing, do you even know how much you’ve done for this city? you should be proud of yourself, honey!” you praised, causing his whimpers and sobs to become quieter, as he felt loved by your words.

“do you have an idea on how to not… dive into the headspace you’re in again?” you asked, wanting him to have control over the situation. maybe he would feel a bit better that way.

“can you make that decision for me?” he mumbled, not wanting to think too much. he just wanted to rest on your plush chest, with your warm arms trapping him in your hold.

you giggled, “mhm. how does a couple of days or a week off work sound? i’m sure the professor would let you have a break, baby. you need it.” you felt a smile and nod against your chest, and glanced down to see his almost asleep figure. his grip on your body became loose, even as his hand lingered on your thigh.

you were glad he was back home and safe. hopefully he would feel better and take it easy by the time he got back to working on the hextech.

even though he was almost asleep, you murmured soft praises to the man, including quiet ‘i love you’s,’ hoping it eased his mind. he fell asleep happy and peacefully in your arms, knowing he was loved and perfect in your eyes.