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missdynamighttt · 2 months ago

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happy birthday to the love of my life, katsuki bakugo. hope he enjoys his gift for his easter birthday: his favorite little bunny.

it had started with a birthday plan. well—technically a birthday easter plan. the odds of katsuki bakugo’s birthday landing on easter sunday weren’t high, but fate had a sense of humor. and you? you had a sense of drama.

you’d already given him gifts for his birthday. his letter—handwritten, sealed with a kiss, full of sharp sarcasm wrapped around soft, sappy sentiment you’d never admit out loud.

he read it quietly, sitting on the edge of the bed, thumb brushing over your kiss mark at the bottom. his brows furrowed in that way they always did when he was feeling too much but didn’t want to show it.

“you’re such a damn brat,” he muttered, voice thick, eyes refusing to meet yours. “but… you write good shit.”

“don’t cry, tough guy.”

he didn’t look up, just folded the letter carefully—too carefully—and tucked it into his nightstand drawer like it was something fragile. precious.

“shut up,” he said, voice rough. “you’re lucky i like your dumb handwriting. even if it looks like a drunk squirrel tried to learn cursive and gave up halfway.”

“aww. that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“don’t push it.”

he reached out, grabbed the front of your shirt, and yanked you into a rough, lingering kiss that left no room for misinterpretation. when he finally pulled back, his forehead rested against yours.

“best fuckin’ letter i’ve ever gotten,” he murmured, low and soft like a secret.

a few small gifts were scattered on the dresser: limited edition all might merch, a new hoodie he’d been eyeing for a while (that he absolutely knew you were going to steal), and that spicy snack mix he always hoarded like a dragon with gold.

he stood there, arms crossed, doing his best to look unimpressed, but the way his ears turned a little red gave him away.

he eyed the merch first, holding the figure up with a raised brow. “…you been stalkin’ my browser history or somethin’?”

you grinned. “nah. just love you enough to pay attention.”

he shot you a look—equal parts flustered and fond. “tch. hoodie’s mine. you’re just gonna steal this in two days.”

“i give it one,” you said sweetly.

he looked at you, eyes soft but unreadable. “still wearin’ it anyway.” then he found the snack mix. “you didn’t eat any, right?”

you gasped, mock offended. “i would never.”

still, he leaned down and kissed your cheek before grabbing the snack mix and tearing it open immediately.

the cake? well, it was slightly lopsided, the frosting uneven, but it was made with love—and caramel with cinnamon. he didn’t say much when he ate it, just grunted, grabbed a fork, and took a second slice without a word.

you hovered awkwardly nearby. “so… good?”

he chewed slowly, gave you a deadpan look. “tastes like love and poor frosting skills.”

“rude.”

he grinned, leaned over, and pressed a sweet kiss to your temple. “still the best fuckin’ cake i’ve had in years.”

“you say that every time.”

“yeah,” he said, mouth full. “and i fuckin’ mean it every time.”

now, though, it was time for the real present.

so when he walked into your shared bedroom after a long morning of birthday messages and half-assed hero paperwork, the last thing he expected was you, perched pretty on the bed.

pink bunny ears twitching with every little movement you made. a tight, pastel one-piece hugging your every curve. sheer stockings accentuating your thighs, and a fluffy little tail pinned to your lower back like a gift-wrapped tease.

katsuki stood by the edge of the bed, arms crossed, expression unreadable as he took you in.

you sat perched on the bed, legs crossed, every bit the picture of flirty confidence. your gaze was locked on his, unapologetic.

“happy birthday, katsuki,” you purred, lips curling into a sly smile.

his crimson eyes dragged over you slowly, deliberately, his tongue running over his teeth before he finally spoke. “the fuck is this?”

“what’s it look like, hm?” you stretched out, back arching just enough to show off your curves. “figured i’d... hop into something special for you.”

his jaw ticked. “you think you’re funny, huh?”

“a little,” you admitted, shifting onto your hands and knees, crawling toward him at the edge of the bed.

his eyes darkened as you closed the distance, your hands sliding up his chest when you reached for him, kneeling in front of him. “thought you’d like a cute little bunny to play with, birthday boy."

katsuki exhaled sharply through his nose, grabbing your chin between his fingers, tilting your head up so you were forced to meet his gaze.

“you know what happens to dumb little bunnies who tease too much?”

you swallowed, trying to keep your confidence, even as the heat in his gaze sent shivers down your spine. “they get spoiled rotten?”

“wrong. they get fucked.”

a thrill shot through you, heat pooling in your stomach as he crowded closer, his other hand slipping down to grab your ass, giving it a firm squeeze.

“bet you thought you were bein’ cute, puttin’ this on. bet you thought i’d let you bounce around and tease me all night.”

you let out a breathless giggle. “bunnies do like to bounce…

his fingers trailed down your back, playing with the delicate ribbon lacing up your tail before giving it a sharp tug. you gasped, gripping his shoulders to steady yourself.

“that so?” his lips brushed against your ear. “then let’s see how long you last when i really make you bounce.”

he took you in—your ridiculously boner-inducing ensemble, the way your chest rose and fell a little faster, the anticipation in your eyes. then, with slow precision, he sat down on the edge of the bed and patted his thigh.

"come here," he ordered, voice thick with authority.

you swallowed, your body already thrumming with heat as you climbed onto his lap. his hands settled on your waist, thumbs stroking your skin through the sheer fabric of your stockings. he let you hover there, deliberately drawing out the moment, making you feel the power shift between you.

"go on," katsuki murmured, his lips brushing against your jaw as he guided your hips to settle against him. the heat of him pressed against you, even through the layers between you.

your breath hitched as he held you there, letting you feel just how hard he was, how much he wanted you. his grip was firm, unwavering, making it clear that he was in control even as he let you take the lead.

he shifted, leaning back to watch you straddling his lap. his hands slid down, gripping your hips, guiding you to grind against him—slow, deliberate, teasing. the heat between you was undeniable, the layers of fabric doing little to hide just how affected you both were.

you whimpered, trying to tug your bodysuit aside, reaching for the bulge pressing up against your core. but his hands stopped you, fingers curling around your wrist.

“uh-uh,” he hummed. “not yet. little bunnies gotta hump first.”

you whined softly, frustration bubbling to the surface as you squirmed in his lap. “katsuki, please—”

“please, what?” he cut you off, voice sharp, mocking. “please fuck you already?”

you nodded desperately, biting your lip.

he scoffed, his expression darkening as his hand shot up to tangle in your hair, yanking your head back just enough to expose your throat.

“i said hump,” he growled. “that needy little cunt doesn’t get filled until you earn it.”

you tried to slow, to catch your breath, but his hands were relentless, grinding your hips against the hard line of his cock beneath you.

his fingers dig in as he helped you move. every time you tried to slow down, his hands tightened, forcing you to keep up, forcing you to take it.

you barely had time to catch your breath before katsuki pulled you forward, burying his face between your tits.

“fuck, you’re soft,” he groaned, tugging the fabric away before his mouth latches onto one of your nipples, sucking hard.

you gasped, back arching as heat shot straight between your legs. his teeth grazed your sensitive skin before his tongue soothed over it, his other hand coming up to knead your other breast.

you tried to keep moving, to keep bouncing, but between his hands gripping you and his mouth marking you up, your body was giving out, shaking from the overwhelming pleasure.

“k-katsuki—” you gasped, hands tangling in his hair, tugging.

he growled against your skin, pulling back just enough to meet your gaze, his lips glistening. his smirk was feral, eyes burning with satisfaction.

“hm? thought you liked to bounce?” his fingers dug deeper into your thighs, a warning. “or do i gotta fuck you like the greedy little thing you are?”

you whimpered, hips bucking desperately along with a nod. he laughed, licking a stripe up your chest before capturing your nipple between his teeth again.

“that’s it,” he praised, voice strained. “knew you’d look so fuckin’ good like this.”

you sobbed, rolling your hips, desperate for more, and he grinned like he’d won. you weren’t sure how long he made you keep going, but by the time he finally took the reins, you knew you were fucked.

“aww, poor thing,” he cooed mockingly, pressing a hot kiss to your throat before nipping at your skin. “tired already? guess i better take over before my little bunny gets too worn out, huh?"

before you could respond, he shifted, one arm wrapping tight around your waist as the other yanked your bodysuit to the side, finally giving you what you’d been aching for.

the thick head of his cock pressed against your dripping entrance, teasing, pushing just enough to make your breath catch.

nails digging into his shoulders, your legs trembling as he eased inside—slow and torturous, filling you inch by inch until your walls clenched around him.

katsuki groaned through gritted teeth, holding you still for a second, letting the stretch overwhelm you. then his eyes flicked up to your face, and that familiar, dark grin curved his lips.

“you wanted to be a cute little bunny, huh?” katsuki grunted, fingers digging into your hips, guiding you as you bounced on his cock. “bunnies fuck like crazy, y’know that? they go at it all night long.”

you could barely respond, your moans breaking into gasps as he thrust up to meet you, driving deeper, harder, forcing you to take him to the hilt every time.

“c’mon, sweetheart,” he taunted, voice thick with amusement. his fingers dug in as he guided you, making sure you didn’t slow down. “thought bunnies were supposed to be full of energy.”

you whined, gripping onto his shoulders for support, trying to keep up with the brutal pace he was setting.

each bounce forced his cock deeper, the obscene sound of your bodies slapping together filling the room. you whimpered, legs shaking as he controlled your pace, refusing to let you fall back into lazy movements.

he leaned forward, breath hot against your ear. “put on the ears, shake your ass, act like a toy—and now you’re surprised i’m treatin’ you like one?”

you sobbed, clutching at him, body trembling from the overwhelming mix of pain, pleasure, and the pure, filthy thrill of being used exactly how you wanted.

“good fuckin’ girl,” he rasped, slamming up into you harder.

your moans were broken, breathless, every movement sending sparks of pleasure up your spine. your hands clutched at his shoulders, desperate for something to hold onto as he thrust up to meet you, filling you so deep it made your head spin.

your head fell against his shoulder, body shuddering as pleasure built higher, hotter. his arms wrapped around you, keeping you flush against him as he took control, lifting you just to slam you back down, hitting that spot that made your vision blur.

every time your pace faltered, he’d lift his hips, thrusting up into you so deep it stole the breath from your lungs. a whimper slipped from your lips, fingers digging into his chest as you tried to keep up, but he wasn’t making it easy.

“what if i fill you up, huh? make sure this bunny knows her fuckin’ place?”

he suddenly slammed you down onto him, making you cry out, and he groaned low in his throat. your nails raked down his back as another wave of pleasure crashed over you, but he wasn’t letting up—not when you looked so fucked-out and desperate.

“gotta train you better,” he muttered against your skin, his smirk widening when you clenched around him. “bunnies are supposed to breed, aren’t they?”

you let out a broken moan, body shuddering, and he laughed breathlessly, one hand slipping down between your bodies to rub tight circles against your clit.

he was gripping your waist before flipping you in one fluid motion, pressing you down into the sheets. his breath was hot against your ear as he settled behind you, caging you in.

“aww, don’t tell me you’re tappin’ out already?” he cooed, tilting his head. “and here i was thinkin’ i’d finally get to see you breed like a proper bunny.”

heat shot through you at his words, making you clench around him, and katsuki groaned, his grip on you tightening.

“oh? you like that?” his grin widened. “shit, maybe you are just a dumb little bunny in heat.”

you gasped, nails dragging down his back, and his hips suddenly snapping up to meet yours, driving deeper, harder—sending sparks of pleasure up your spine.

katsuki didn’t give you a second to breathe. toes curling against the sheets, your vision blurring as he fucked into you harder. the slap of skin echoed through the room, punctuated by your gasps and his low, hungry groans.

“that needy little pussy’s fuckin’ leaking,” he growled, dragging his fingers through your slick before pressing them against your clit in tight, punishing circles. “soaked through that slutty little costume, too.”

you choked on another moan, face buried in his chest as your body shuddered, everything building—tight, unbearable, right on the edge.

“gonna cum like a dumb bunny while i fuck you full? huh?” he taunted, pulling your head closer by the ears on your head and forcing your back to arch deeper.

“yes, yes, katsuki, please—” you sobbed.

“beg for it. tell me what you fuckin’ want.”

“i want you to—want you to cum inside, need it, need it so bad, katsu—”

“yeah?” his thrusts faltered for only a second, a low, wicked groan slipping from his throat. “wanna be bred, huh? wanna be my filthy little bunny full of cum?”

you cried out, so close it hurt. “yes! please—please, fill me up—”

his grip tightened on your hips as he slammed into you one final time, deep, brutal, until you screamed his name. your body convulsed, pleasure crashing through you as you clenched around him, falling apart.

“take it. every fuckin’ drop.”

katsuki growled low, and then he was spilling inside you, hot and thick, hips jerking with each pulse. he buried his cock twitching deep inside you as he spilled hot, thick spurts into your clenching walls.

you whimpered as you felt it, the heat of him flooding you, dripping out before he’d even pulled out.

katsuki didn’t let go right away. he held you there, impaled and filled, his breath ragged against your shoulder. he stayed pressed against your chest, panting, one hand stroking slowly down your side as the other cradled your hip with surprising gentleness.

“shit,” he muttered against your skin, lips brushing your shoulder as his breath slowed. “fuckin’ hell..”

you snorted, too tired to do more than flop your face into the sheets. “that what you wished for when you blew out the candles?”

he chuckled—an honest-to-god laugh rumbling from his chest as he finally eased out of you, warm stickiness following in the wake.

“didn’t know i could wish for somethin’ i already had.”

“wow. look at you. getting soft in your old age.”

“twenty-six is not old,” he grumbled, but the faint blush on his ears betrayed him.

you hummed teasingly. “sure, grandpa.”

katsuki shot you a warning look, but instead of snapping back, his hand came up to card through your hair, bunny ears askew and all, his fingers surprisingly gentle.

“so... did the costume make the top ten birthday presents list, or…?”

katsuki huffed out something between a laugh and a groan, finally pulling out of you slowly, both of you flinching a little at the oversensitivity.

you felt the mess between your thighs instantly—sticky and warm, dripping down your skin—and you shivered at the loss of him.

his hands never left your body as he shifted you gently onto your back, reaching for the nearby towel he’d tossed on the nightstand earlier—because of course he was prepared, even if he pretended not to be.

“top three,” he muttered, wiping you down carefully. “right after the cake and that dumbass letter that made me feel shit.”

you flopped onto your back with a dramatic sigh, a smile tugging at your lips. “didn’t think birthday boys had to do cleanup.”

he shot you a look as he gently dabbed between your thighs, taking his time, making sure you were comfortable. “birthday boy’s the one who ruined you, so yeah—he fuckin’ does.”

you smiled, soft and real this time. “you’re getting sappy in your old age.”

he tossed the towel aside and climbed back onto the bed, settling beside you, pulling you into his chest like it was instinct. “yeah, well, turns out its not too bad when i’ve got a stubborn, sexy weirdo wearin’ bunny ears for me.”

you laughed against his collarbone. “you’re lucky i love you.”

katsuki kissed the top of your head, nose brushing against your ear. “nah. i’m lucky you’re mine.”

“and i’m lucky you’re easy to distract with cake and tits. y’know, i was actually gonna jump out of a giant egg and yell ‘surprise!’ but i figured you’d actually murder me.”

“you’re not wrong,” he said, arm tightening around you. “and you look better in that stupid bunny suit anyway.”

“careful, that almost sounded like a compliment.”

“say that again and you’re spendin’ next year’s birthday with a vibrator and a guilt trip.”

“worth it.”

he glared at you before he stripped you, hands moving with familiar precision as he pulled off the bunny ears, the one-piece, and the stockings that had barely survived his earlier onslaught.

without a word, he grabbed one of his old t-shirts and slid it over your head, the fabric swallowing you up, before he joined you under the blankets.

you felt his gaze on you, warm and intense, and you looked up at him, brow arched. “what?”

he stared at you for a long moment, his expression softening as he took in every detail of you—maybe still a little in awe, maybe still a little surprised at the way you fit against him. his fingers lightly brushed your hair away from your face.

"god, i love you. so fuckin’ much, baby.”

your heart did somersaults. but you nuzzled in closer to him.

“i love you too, old man.”

“tch. shut up and go to sleep,” he grumbled, brushing a kiss over your cheek.

but as you started to drift, wrapped in his warmth and the lingering high of everything, he murmured, barely audible:

“best fuckin’ birthday ever.”

‎‧₊˚✧[ it's me, kia ! ]✧˚₊‧ ｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ｡ﾟ ‎‧₊˚✧[ more of katsuki ! ]✧˚₊‧

⋆˚࿔ kia's note ˚⋆ AHHH HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY MAN 💗💗 omgomg i apologize for the blogs i couldnt tag, blog name wouldnt come up for some reason😭😭 I HOPE YOU GUYS ENJOYED THO 😝😝 please consider this my 4k special lmao (its only fitting sinces it 4/20 and shi), instead breeding kink with katsuki is 5k special!! would like to thank this request (one of the few first requests i had when i started this account), hope this fulfilled your request somehow!! 💗💗

⋆˚࿔ tags ˚⋆ @kodzubaby @akiii143 @mindless-existence1 @dollyfetti @st4ntwic3 @skylermiller1 @sugarcubepop @jazzywazzy859 @jealousmartini @kksmush @2elusional @ch3rryjampi3 @happinessisabutterflie @thirstygorl @zennypiee @kiansss @dullcets @kirishimasboobs @jo8920 @vrtualghoulz @inlovewjay @grim-reapers-wife @just0jordyn @ettesxythia @quixtic @whorecityyy @izayanara @valeriannnnnn @hanako-0kun @lmaolmaolmao @raining4food

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godmadeaterribleerror · 5 months ago

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It's Been Calling Me

Main Masterlist - Bucky Masterlist

Read on A03!

Tags: Bucky Barnes/Female Reader, light angst, shameless smut (oral f receiving, p in v sex), fluff, soulmates, dreams, told over many years, no use of y/n

Summary/Warnings: You've had these… dreams. Strange, realistic, detailed dreams of the same man, almost your whole life. But they're just dreams. You've been so sure, for so long, that they're just dreams.

So sure, until you're not.

Author's Note: I love this one. I love using fake Marvel science logic. I love putting sad men in situations where they can't escape love. I love semi-linear storytelling. Enjoy!

Word Count: 10.9k

“I get… dreams.” You mumble, staring at an odd point over Dr. Raynor’s head. It’s always better than looking her in the eyes. “They’re weird.”

“The very nature of dreams is to be strange.” You can see the shrug of Raynor’s shoulders, hear the neural expression that must be on her face. “Although if you feel they’re worthy of note-“

“They are.”

Raynor hums. She’s probably raising her brows. You still won’t look.

“You sound quite certain of that.”

“I am.” You tuck your knees up to your chest, frowning at the air. “It’s- They’re not new.”

“Ah.” Raynor pauses, then says your name. In the gentle but firm therapist way that you really hate. It makes you feel like a child. “This conversation may be easier if you would look at me.”

“No thanks, I’m-“

She says your name again. A little harsher. “We’ve discussed this. You’re here of your own volition-“

“That’s not true.” You mutter. “Court-ordered isn’t volition.”

“Well you could’ve chosen the inpatient ward.” Raynor’s shrugging again. “Look at me.”

You let out a long breath, and meet her gaze. You’d been right. She was raising her brows.

“Good work.” She gives you a tight-lipped smile and small nod of approval. “Tell me about these dreams.”

It takes a minute to find the words. Not because you don’t have them, but because you’d never expected to use them. You’ve rehearsed them in the mirror a million times, but they always sounded insane, and you didn’t need another reason to be called crazy.

“I’ve had them my whole life.” It’s easiest to start there. “But it’s- they’ve changed. Over time.”

“Changed how?”

“It’s hard to explain-“

“Try.”

You scowl. “I am trying, Christina, but there’s kind of a lot to say-“

Raynor sighs, giving you the patented look of disapproval that you might hate more than how she says your name. “How about telling me when they started. Is that do-able?”

It takes a long, deep breath, but you nod. “I was- I think I was ten. I fell asleep, and it was the first dream I’d ever had. The first one that I remembered when I woke up. It was…” You swallow, and there’s a sting in your nails as you rip more skin away. “Really vivid.”

——

This isn’t your body. It’s too big, too tall, and you’re not nearly strong enough to rip a door off its hinges. This body is sprinting across ice without ever breaking pace or falling flat with a crunch. You can’t even walk up stairs without tripping over thin air.

But this doesn’t really feel like a body at all. It feels like a shell, or tool. Hollow and pressed down, moving so mechanically you’d think it was a machine if you couldn’t hear its heartbeat in your ears. There’s a lot of pain in it. Strangely numb pain, as if the owner of this body doesn’t allow himself to dwell on it, shuttering it off to the side as he moves.

You’re pretty sure it's a he. There’s hair in your eyes, but men can have long hair, and when the body’s arms swing into view they’re big and muscular. You’re also pretty sure there’s something between your legs that wasn’t there when you went to sleep.

And you can feel him. Very, very deep in your head, he’s bellowing and scraping at his own scalp. He feels like a caged animal, but this is his body. He’s roaring things that are more like feral sounds than actual words, and every time he gets loud enough for you to make out a real voice something clamps down on your skull—his skull—and it all goes quiet.

You can see another man in your line of vision. He’s on his knees, trembling and begging, but the noise is muffled and static. As if there’s a filter pushing anything coherent out of your head.

A gloved fist that’s attached to your body—but not yours to control—reaches out and grabs the man by his throat. It squeezes.

He’s desperate. Locked down and furious, the ‘he’ who you’re possessing is almost pleading with himself to stop.

But he doesn’t.

And there’s a sickening snap that will echo in your ears for a long time after you wake up.

——

Raynor’s looking at you like you’re insane. You don’t love it.

“Did you…” She pauses, scanning over you with a small frown. “Did you see the hand?”

You blink at her. “Yeah, I just said-“

“Without the glove.” She clarifies. “The one that snapped the man’s neck. Did you ever see it without the glove.”

It’s an oddly specific question. And she seems to be looking for a certain answer, because in all your time of working with Raynor she’s never looked so obviously invested in a story.

“Not for a while.” You keep your words slow, watching her wearily. “He always wore the gloves. And when he didn’t, he wouldn’t look at his hands-“

Raynor frowns. “So how did you know he wasn’t wearing the gloves?”

“Because he knew.” You shrug. “I lived in his brain like, every night.”

“Every-“

“Night, yeah. That’s what I fucking said.”

Raynor hums, and you think she’s going to grab the notebook to write something along the lines of patient has lost her goddamn mind, but she just keeps staring at you. “You said you didn’t see the hand for a while. When did you see it?”

“When I was sixteen. The first time the dreams changed.”

“Changed from-“

“Being in his head.” You pull your lip between your teeth, weighing how much you want to reveal. Too much feels like a violation of his privacy, even if they’re your dreams. He’s a private guy, it took you years to get him to tell you anything, and if you’ve realized turns out to be the truth, you don’t want to ruin anything. “It’s- it was about six years of seeing everything through his eyes-“

“Everything?”

You wish Raynor would stop saying the word every like that. Like it’s a lie.

“All the murders.” You mutter. “There were a lot of murders.”

Raynor nods for you to continue, and you have to take a long, steadying breath.

“One night I went to sleep and he was… attacking some blond guy. We couldn’t really see his face. Then I fell asleep the next night, and it was different.”

——

You can see him. You’ve never seen him before.

He’d never looked in a mirror, or described himself in his head for you like he’s a Wattpad character. He’s only ever been a body that moves out of your will, and a pained voice deep in your brain that didn’t seemed thrilled with what was happening either.

But you’re not in his head, or his body. You’re standing in a bathroom—in your own body, wearing the same clothing you’d been wearing when you’d crawled into bed—and looking at him.

He’s a lot more attractive than you’d anticipated. And you’d anticipated attractive. You’d built an image in your head of your imaginary dream assassin, basing it purely on a level of hotness that would justify all the murders he’d been up to. It had been a little fucked up, but you’d also been so goddamn sure he wasn’t real. That this was just a really odd and worrying coping mechanism for all the messed up shit in your real life.

But he seems pretty fucking real right now. And almost impossibly handsome. Strong features that look like they’d been carved from marble, an almost hulking frame that’s somehow bigger when you’re looking at it from outside, and tangled, greasy hair that’s really working with the whole tortured expression on his face.

Because he does not look okay.

He’s gripping the sink and glowering at himself, scanning over his own face like he recognizes it less than you do. He’s bent like there’s a weight on his shoulders he doesn’t know how to shake off, and that’s impressive, because you’ve seen him pick up a car.

The porcelain of the sink cracks, and he flinches back, looking between his hands and the rubble with wide eyes.

His eyes are blue. A really pretty blue. You’d always thought blue eyes were overrated—big whoop, you’re more sensitive to light—but there’s something silver in this man’s eyes that you really love. It feels like a deep storm you’d like to chase.

He’s really pretty.

He doesn’t seem like the type of guy who would like being called pretty, but he is. In a natural and powerful way. Like something heavenly that’s burned through the atmosphere in a dreadful fall.

Pretty face, pretty eyes, pretty hands-

Metal hand.

One metal hand.

——

Raynor looks worried now. You wish she’d go back to thinking you’re just batshit crazy.

“Do you-” she clears her throat, sitting a little taller in her chair. “His name. Did you ever learn his name?”

It’s your turn to raise your brows. “Does that matter?”

“Yes.”

It’s a flat, tense answer. It makes something coil in your throat.

“I-“ You rub your own calves, soothing yourself in the careful way you’ve always practiced. “I didn’t, for a while-“

Raynor says your name, her tone short and clipped. “Stop telling me something didn’t happen for a while. If I ask a question, it’s because I need to know the answer. Not the buildup.”

You frown. “Need to know?”

“It’s…” Raynor sighs. “It is very important that you give me a name.”

“Why?”

“Therapist reasons.”

You give her a flat look. “That’s not a real thing.”

“Yes, it is. Name.”

“If you need the name,” you say, raising your chin slightly. “You have to sit through my for a while.”

Raynor gives you a look of disbelief, shaking her head and muttering something that sounds like God, I can’t take two of them, before raising her voice. “Fine. What was for a while.”

“I couldn’t talk to him.” You explain. “For like, two years after I got out of his brain, he still couldn’t see me. When I tried to talk to him it was like I was in a- sort of a one-way mirror? And it’s not like he was just walking around telling the air I’m Bucky-“

“Bucky?” Raynor looks downright distressed. “His name was-“

“It’s Bucky.”

He still is. He’s not a was, Bucky is.

That’s part of the problem.

“And how-“ Raynor swallows. “How did you learn this?”

“He told me.”

——

This is new. You’re not on a street or in a half-empty apartment—the two places you’ve grown most accustomed to seeing in your sleep—but in a field. A very big field with huts and brush and goats.

There are a truly staggering amount of goats.

And there he is. His hair isn’t greasy and unkempt anymore, but looks almost soft, pulled back in a half-up half-down situation that makes him look clean. His metal arm is gone, but he doesn’t seem that bothered by it. He’s standing taller than before, like the weight you’ve grown used to seeing finally has begun to lift.

His outfit is new too. It looks like something traditional and well-made, rather than the off-brand baseball hats—you too are a big fan of the American baseball team, the ‘Doggers’—and shitty polyester t-shirts.

You’re taking him and scenery in, trying to place where your brain could’ve possibly taken you this time, when he does something you’d never expected.

He turns and looks at you.

Not through you. Not around you. Not in your general direction.

At you.

He can fucking see you.

“Hello?”

You’ve heard him speak before, a few times. His voice has always been low and gruff and heavy.

It’s smooth and richer now. You don’t know if that’s because it’s directed at you—setting off small sparks over your ribs—or in relation to that vanished weight, but you like it. It suits him better.

“Hi.” You whisper, your body frozen in place as he moves forward.

He’s right in front of you. Staring at you.

He’s always gotten prettier every time you’ve seen him. This is different.

This is knocking the air out of your lungs with just the sight of him, because there’s a light in his eyes you’ve never seen before, and it makes something deep inside of you glow.

“I’m, uh, I’m Bucky.”

He holds out his hand, and you tilt your head at him.

“That’s a weird name.”

He blinks at you, his hand still frozen in the air. “I guess, yeah. Never thought about it. It’s just a nickname.”

“Oh.” That makes more sense. “Sorry. That’s- I just never thought you as- never mind.”

Bucky frowns at you, opening his mouth—likely ask you what you mean by that—but you say your name and shake his hand because he gets the chance.

He has a nice hand. It warm, and calloused, and fits really well in yours.

“Why can you see me?” You blurt, and there goes any pretense of containing the truth.

Bucky frowns at you. “Should I… Not be able to see you?”

“You’ve never seen me before.”

“Before? What do you mean-“

“It’s- It’s weird. And complicated.”

He just stares at you, waiting for you to continue.

You’re holding his gaze. You’ve never held anyone’s gaze before.

It’s kind of electrifying.

“I’ve dreamt about you before.” You mumble. “And you’ve never seen me.”

“About me?”

He doesn’t sound like he believes you. You get that. It’s not really a reasonable or believable statement.

“Yeah. But you had two arms. And there weren’t goats.”

Bucky nods slowly, and seems to reach a conclusion in his brain that you don’t get to be privy to.

It’s enough for him though. Because he gives you a small, almost nervous and apologetic smile.

“Do you wanna, uh, do you wanna meet the goats?”

You blink at him. You’d expected more questions, or some doubt. But he’s just looking at you, something in his pretty blue eyes almost hopeful.

“Are they...” You trail off, glancing at the goats over his shoulder. “Your goats?”

“They’re community goats.” He shrugs. “But Shuri says connection with life will help my recovery, and I don’t really want to connect with people.” His voice lowers, and it sounds like he’s mostly talking to himself. “They don’t really like connecting with me.”

You don’t know who the fuck Shuri is, but you nod anyway. “So goats?”

He gives you another odd look, like he’d expected you to say something else.

“Yeah. Goats.”

“Did you name them?”

He frowns. “They’re goats. They don’t need names.”

You click your tongue, shaking your head. “Wrong. Everything needs a name. I named my car, and my phone.”

“You named your phone?”

“Yep.” You grin at him, and it’s a wide, teasing grin you haven’t given anyone in years. “Bertha.”

“That’s…” Bucky’s still staring at you–he seems to do that a lot—but there’s something like amusement in his eyes. “Bertha is not a good name.”

“Better than Bucky.”

He chuckles at that, and it’s a beautiful sound. Deep and heavy, like a bass drum in your chest.

It’s the sort of thing that could be addicting, if you’re not careful. Worse, it’s the sort of thing you wouldn’t mind being addicted to.

“You’re kinda mean, doll.”

“Yep.” You shrug, ignoring how ‘doll’ makes you feel fuzzy in your gut. “And I’ll be meaner if you don’t let me name your goats.”

He hums, scanning you over with an intensity in his eyes that reminds you of that storm you’d see all those years ago in the bathroom. This time, you’d like to do a little more than chase it.

You think it could be really easy to get wrecked by it.

“Will you come back if I let you name them?”

He keeps saying things you don’t expect. Of course you’ll come back. You don’t have a choice.

But you nod, crossing your arms over your chest.

“Only if you promise to actually use the names.”

He nods, giving you another smile. “Deal.”

———

“Did you ever learn his last name?”

You shake your head. “I never asked. He mentioned his real name was James at one point, but then I asked why he was called ‘Bucky’ and we got off topic.”

“One… point?” Raynor’s words are slow, and you’ve really never seen her looked lost like this before. You’d be proud of yourself if it wasn’t a bad sign. “Exactly how frequently did these dreams occur?”

———

“You’re back!”

Bucky looks genuinely happy to see you. He does every night. The same surprised joy in his voice, shock always written over his face like it’s truly odd and lovely to see you here.

Like you’re not here every night, for three to four hours, standing in his little hut and wandering the fields.

You’ve worked out that you’ve put him in Africa. Wakanda specifically, likely because you’d seen it all over the news and it seemed pretty interesting. Shuri was the princess, and the guy T’challa Bucky had mentioned a few times was the King. You’d almost certainly heard their names during all those UN conferences—the ones you put on in the background just to hear some noise that wasn’t ringing in your ears—and your brain had just decided to run with it.

At least, you think it’s just your brain. You’ve always assumed this was all in your brain, because this feels like the exact kind of fucked up shit your brain would pull. And Bucky never aged. He’d never really changed, for six years. He’d had just been another way to cope for the longest time, but now—as you actually get to know him—he seems dangerously like a real person.

He looks like he broods less than when you see him hunched over a toilet or glowering at his reflection in a window. His appearance has started to shift in a way it never really had.

The metal arm has permanently departed. He seems fond of keeping his hair out of eyes, and his wardrobe finally has diversity. He talks to you, and he has a personality. An adorable, grumpy, endearing personality that would play into your idea of ‘made up in your brain’ if he couldn’t be so annoying.

He stares. He grunts a lot. He doesn’t get any of your references. If you made up an imaginary dream man to feel more loved, he would like all the things you like and hate all the things you hate.

But he doesn’t.

And it always draws you in further, because he truly does seem like just a perfectly insufferable asshole.

That’s cruel. He’d been right. You could be mean.

He never seemed to mind.

And he’s more like a dog anyway. One that escaped the pound and follows you around, not even bothering to beg for scraps because you offer them with a grin.

You like his company. You like his voice. You like that he’s annoying and you like more that it’s your exact type of annoying.

You like that he’s really fucking hot, and get hotter every time you visit.

You mostly just like him.

“Of course I’m back.” You shrug, kicking a rock with the tip of your foot, watching it bounce through the dirt. “I’m always back.”

“Yeah. So far.” You see Bucky shrug in your periphery, and when you look up, he’s staring again. “Could change.”

“Won’t change.” You counter, giving him a pointed look. “Sorry, Buck. You’re stuck here until I die.”

That’s the first time you’ve called him Buck. He tenses for a moment, seems to shake something physically off his body, and nods slowly.

“Should I be worried about you dying?”

“Not right now, no.” You hum. Another rock gets kicked. “Death doesn’t agree with me.”

He chuckles. “Don’t think it agrees with anyone, doll-“

“Shut up.” Third rock. This one hits a goat, and you cringe slightly. “Shit. Sorry, Bubble McBubbleface-“

“Bubs will be.” Bucky rolls his eyes, moving to your side. He’s standing really close. You can almost feel a phantom heat from his body. “And I still can’t believe you talked me into that name. I had to tell the king of the damn country that his goat was named Bubble McBubbleface.”

You giggle, and Bucky shoots you a glare.

“You think that’s funny? I had to like pretend it was my idea,” he grumbles your name, and you always like how he says it. Like it’s some sort of answer. “I had to look the council of elders in the eyes and tell them that Bubble McBubbleface got Lady Gaga pregnant-“

Your eyes widen. “You let the goats get pregnant?”

“Course I let them get pregnant, doll.”

“But-“

He gives you a dry, amused look. “Would you rather I interfere? You want me to cockblock Bubs?”

You blink at him. “You know what cockblock means?”

Your brain had given him the personality of an eighty-year-old man. You don’t know why, but you stopped asking questions like “why” and “what” a long time ago. You just know that he shouldn’t know what cockblock means, for consistency.

“Of course I know what it means. You taught it to me.” He winks at you, and you’re pretty sure you’re flushing.

This is meant to be a dream. You shouldn’t be able to flush, or feel a little flutter and hum in your heart, or something molten in your gut when he leans a little further forward to grin down at you.

This seems less like a dream every night.

You’d be worried about that if you had the energy, or foresight, or care.

“Are goats births gross?” You ask, and he chuckles again. The sound has started to inflict a sort of high on your brain, and every color in this dreamworld seems brighter.

“They’re fucking disgusting.” He leans a little further down. You have to stare at his nose to pretend the proximity isn’t going to make your fall over. “But if you let me show you one in here, I’ll let you name the babies out there.”

You nod kind of stupidly, the whole world shifts into a barn—goat births are disgusting, but Bucky gets a look of intense focus you’d like to see re-aimed in your direction—and four months later Bucky tells you little Oz The Great and Powerful, Donald Duck, and Pants McPantsface have been welcomed into the world.

———

“So you’d see him in… Wakanda.” Raynor takes another long breath. If you didn’t think it would make everything worse, you’d tell her to try some deep breathing exercises. “Did the location ever change? Did you witness any more of those murders from before?”

You feel something spark in your chest like an electric wire, and you sit a little taller. You haven’t seen Bucky kill anyone since you’d been trapped in his brain. He’s a good man. And, as far as Raynor knows, a figment of your imagination. She has no right to fucking imply-

“It’s important that I know,” she says slowly, and you think your oddly blinding and righteous anger had been painted all over your face. “So I better understand what’s been happening to you. Please,” she says your name, leaning somehow further forward in her seat. “Answer my questions.”

You nod, letting out a slow exhale. “No murders. But he did start coming into my brain.”

Raynor frowns at you. “Was he not always-“

“Not like this.”

———

“This is new.”

You whip around, taking a stumbling step back that would’ve landed you on the floor, had Bucky not looped his one arm around your waist.

“Hey, doll. Pleasure seeing you-“ He frowns, glancing around your apartment. “Where the hell am I?”

You don’t answer, only reaching up to touch his face. His beard is soft. His hair is softer. When you trace the line of his nose it does feel like a nose, and when you poke his cheek it seems pretty cheek-like-

“What, uh,” Bucky say your name, scanning over your face with concern. “What’s happening here.”

“You’re not supposed to be here.” You whisper, poking his cheek again. Just to be sure. “You’ve never been here before.”

“Yeah, figured that one out myself-“

“No.” You shake your head, placing one hand on his chest. It fits well there, slotting right over muscle and warm skin. Every part of him seems to fit perfectly against you, and you’ve never been this close before, but you don’t have any urge to move away. “You don’t get it, Bucky. You’ve never been here. It’s been ten years, and you’ve never been here.”

“I know, doll. Doesn’t seem like there’s much to-“ He pauses, giving you an odd look. “Ten years?”

“Yeah.” You mumble. There’s not much else to say.

He just stares at you, and shakes his head slightly. “Huh. You gonna tell me where I am?”

“My apartment.”

“Your-“ He starts slightly, but you never shake in his arms. “You live in this place?”

You nod, and he pulls you to your feet, scanning over your home.

The silence wraps around your heart and lungs, and the room is spinning slightly. You’re asleep. You’re pretty fucking sure you’re asleep. You locked the door, turned off the lights, and crawled into bed, so you’re asleep. Bucky’s never been here before, but he’s not really here because this is a dream and he’s not real.

You think.

You wouldn’t bet on that anymore, though.

And nothing has ever been as important as Bucky liking your room, because the longer he just scans over the space around you the more your skin heats, the more your eyes blur, the more your throat constricts and your heart aches and pounds-

“It’s very… you.” He finally says, and every bit of nerve vanishes into the air.

He’s right. You’ve been very deliberate in making sure your home is yours.

And you’re not sure why you bothered worrying at all. He fits here, just as well as he fits in every other part of you.

“Can I get the grand tour?” He raises his brows, and you nod, leading him through your space, making jokes and feeling your heart do a little flip and spin whenever he chuckles.

And things always do change. Frequently out in the real world, and carefully and easily in here.

And at least with Bucky, the change seems adaptive. You grow, he grows with you, until you’re twined and rooted into each other, and every color in this dreamscape is so vivid it’s the only thing that still tells you:

None of this is real.

———

“It was split after that.” You say. ”Half the dreams in Wakanda, half in New York.”

You’re watching Raynor carefully. Still on the edge of her seat, legs braced like she’s ready for a fight, a tight expression on her face that Bucky calls the moose in headlights expression.

———

“You got that moose expression again, doll.”

You frown at him. “Stop calling it that, it’s just my face-“

“No. Your normal face has a dimple here, and your brows rest like that.”

He’s touching you as he explains, moving your features to match his words. You’d smack his hand away if his touch wasn’t soothing and flaring all at once. If you didn’t really love the idea of him looking at you long enough to know exactly how to adjust your face, and how to be right about it.

“But it’s not like that now.” He finishes, giving you a pointed look. “You got moose-face.”

You wrinkle your nose at him. “Moose-face is worse, Bucky. And it’s still not a real thing-“

“Yeah it is. Most people got a moose face.” He shrugs. He’s staring again. It’s taking a lot of effort not to melt forward into him. “Tight expression. Like a deer in headlights, but they think they’re too good to be in the headlights. They’re gonna go down fighting.”

“Oh.” You tilt your head, giving him a sickly-sweet smile. “Can I see your moose face?”

“I don’t have a moose face-“

“Liar.” You poke his ribs, narrowing your eyes. “You said everyone has one-“

“I said ‘most people.’” Bucky shrugs. “Moose face means you’re gonna get hit, you just don’t believe it yet. I know how to not get hit.”

“Sounds like something someone with a moose-face would say.”

He chuckles. You’re sitting down, and you’re going to fall over. “No luck, doll. I got other faces, but no moose face.” He frowns at the air. “Never could afford to have one.”

There’s suddenly something heavier in his eyes, and it makes your whole body feel wired and heavy. It’s suffocating and crushing and rotten, and it’s just an expression but everything feels worse when you see it—when his shoulders hunch and his face becomes set like stone, just like all those years ago in the bathroom—so it needs to stop right now.

“What about a wolf face?”

Bucky blinks at you. “What.”

“You said no moose face.” You cross your arms, raising your chin slightly. “Do you have a wolf face?”

“I don’t know what that is-“

“So suddenly you’re the only one who’s allowed to make up expressions?”

You hold is gaze for a long second—you’ve gotten really good at doing that, but only when you’re dreaming of Bucky—until his lips twitch slightly.

And everything feels alright again.

———

“How much of New York appeared in your… dreams? Was is like Wakanda, where you wandered?”

You frown at the air. Raynor’s indulging in this, but not like you’d hoped. Not shutting you down or telling you that you’re crazy. You’d really hoped to hear some validation that you were just plain crazy.

“Not really. I mean, there was one night where we were at my job, a few at the coffee shop I usually go to, and maybe like, five at the park, but we were mostly my apartment when I was showing him stuff.”

“And what did you-“ Raynor’s whole body tenses, and the last part of her question is pushed through her teeth. “What did you show Bucky?”

You flush, your gaze dropping down to your hands. “Stuff. In my apartment.”

———

You don’t know exactly what gives. What straw completely desolates every single bone in your body, and ends with you here.

Maybe it was that you’d finally mentioned all the murders, and you’d never seem him look horrified before, but the sight has dislodged something along your ribs that hadn’t mended until he let you move his head to your lap. Stroking his hair as he stared at you, telling him about your day.

Maybe it’s that you always tell him about your day. That this—whatever this is—has shifted from trading teasing comments and trying to learn about each other, into pure and comfortable understanding, and now that’s how most nights are spent.

Bucky’s reports are short. The goats are being goats—that’s all they know how to do—he doesn’t like a song someone tried to make him listen to because it’s too loud, and Shuri brought him some food that made his face feel like it was going to fall off, but in a good way. You pretty sure he only gives them because you insist upon it, but he always puffs out his chest a little at the end, when you smile at him and start to tell him everything you can remember about your own day.

Maybe it’s how he always hangs onto your every word. Like it’s gospel or scripture, and to do anything but listen and watch would be a higher sin than any blood you’ve imagined on his hands.

And maybe that’s it.

Maybe it’s how you really don’t believe it anymore, when you remind yourself that he’s not real. That he’s just a figment of your mind, manifested to evolve as you do and always be exactly what you need.

You still tell yourself the lie, night after night.

But you’re certain it’s a lie. That Bucky is just like that. Meant to be here, with you, the exact same way you’re supposed to be wherever he is.

And now you’re here.

You’d started it. You’d slammed your mouth to his, and he hadn’t moved. There had been a brief moment where you’d been worried you’d made a mistake, but the second you’d tried to push back on his chest and apologize, he’d kicked into gear.

And wet dreams are supposed to be hazy. Cast in a misting light and more of a halo that brings your body high than an actual, nameable feeling.

But you can really feel this.

And it’s heaven.

You’d expected Bucky to kiss slowly. Deliberately. It’s how you’d always seen him move and speak, and you hadn’t been against the idea of being kissed in a methodical and careful way.

You’ve never been happier to be wrong.

Bucky kisses you like you’re air and water and every good thing in the world. All passion and spit and burning desire, where you can feel every bit of want in his movements. His mouth is demanding as he traces his tongue over your teeth and groans your name down your throat, his arm snaking around your waist to hold you steady against his chest. When his knee presses between your thighs you have to wrap your arms around his neck for balance, and it’s all you can do to return ever bit of want he throws at you as he walks to backwards to your mattress.

It takes effort to pry your mouth from Bucky’s. He doesn’t want you to go, even a few inches, and when you start to palm him through his pants—smiling against his lips and squeezing his bulge in a silent request—he hisses against your lips.

“You-“ He groans, nipping at your lower lip as you smile, repeating the movement. “You don’t- Shit, doll, you don’t know what you’re doing to me-“

You hum, bumping your nose with his and swaying in his hold. “Maybe. I’d like to do more.”

Bucky chuckles, and the sound rolls right into your core. “Think you could take more, sweetheart? Cause I’ve been a gentleman, but if more is on the table-“

It’s easy to cut him off with a heavy, deep kiss that has him half growling down your throat and his hips jerking against your movements.

“Want more.” You whisper, combing your free hand through his hair and trying to pull yourself impossibly closer. “Want you.”

Bucky tenses against you, and when you lean back to meet his eyes he’s staring again. Looking at you like you’re glowing, kneading your skin under his hand like he’s checking that you’re not going to vanish.

“You want me.” He mutters, scanning over your flushed face. “You sure about-“

“Yes.” You nod, giving him a small, soft smile. “Only if you do, obviou-“

Bucky cuts you off with another bruising kiss, and before you know what’s happening he’s lowering you onto the mattress, kneeling between your legs, and shoving your thighs apart with a wolf-like grin.

You don’t know when you ended up naked. You can’t really care though, because Bucky shoves his face right into your pussy, and your mind empties of all thoughts that aren’t his name.

It’s another point in favor of this being a dream. Bucky’s mouth against your cunt feels so amazingly real—licking and biting and eating you out like he’s been starved for a hundred years—but this has to be a dream, because no real man has ever made you feel this good. He knows every single way the plunge his tongue in and out of your pussy until you’re squeezing your thighs around his head and tugging at his hair, and his beard scrapes and tickles at your thighs in a way that’s driving you out of your mind, and fuck, he keeps moving his attention to nip at your clit, sucking it between his lips and letting his teeth graze against you, and-

“Bucky-“ You moan, grinding shameless into his face, trying hopelessly to remain upright with one hand, your fingers fisted into the sheets below you. “Please- I’m gonna- Fuck, I’m so close-“

He growls against you, flatting his tongue against your clit and squeezing his hand on your thigh, and that does it. You cum with a scream of his name, warmth washing over your body as your knees clamp around him and your eyes roll back in your head.

He’s ruined you. All Bucky did was eat you out in a dream, and you’re panting and flushed and drunk on him. You don’t know how you’ll manage to move on from this in real life.

You don’t really care. Not as Bucky runs his hand over your dripping, fluttering cunt with a look of open awe on his face, presses a kiss right over your clit that makes your hips jerk, and moves to his feet.

He’s naked now too.

And he’s perfect.

His cock is big and thick, standing at proud attention and jerking slightly as you run a hand up his thighs, your fingers trailing over his balls and a little drool falling out of your lips as you lean to take him in your mouth-

Bucky’s hand tangles in your hair, pulling you back to meet his eyes.

He looks just as wrecked as you feel. Chest heaving and eyes blown with lust. You’re going to lose your mind.

“Bucky-“

“Not now.” He mutters, pulling you a little further back. “Need to be inside of you, doll. Please.”

You’d have to be insane to say no.

You crawl back on the mattress, spreading your legs in silence invitation, and something hot and powerful flashes in his eyes as he takes you in.

“You-“

“I’m sure.” You squirm in the sheets, running your hand between your legs and starting to rub your clit in slow, strong circles. “God, I’m so fucking sure, please-“

He’s shockingly fast for such a large man. It might be the whole dream thing, but you barely register him moving to kneel over you, swatting your hand away with a darkened gaze a set jaw.

“I do that,” he grunts, running two fingers up and down your cunt, smirking at you high whine. “Legs open, doll, want to see how wet I’m making you.”

You nod, falling flat on your back, and pour all your focus into his order. “Fuck, Bucky-“ He shoves the fingers into your pussy, and your back arches off the bed. “Shit- I- Please-“

“You want my cock?” He drawls your name, and you can only nod dumbly at the ceiling. “Come on, tell me you want it-“

“Want it,” you gasp, hugging your body as he starts to pump his finger, crooking them at the exact right spot deep inside of you. “Fuck, Bucky, you said- You said you’d fuck me-“

He clicks his tongue. “I said I’d be inside of you-“

“But- But I want you to fuck me.” You start to roll your hips as his pace picks up. “Please, Bucky-“

You whine as his fingers vanish, leaving you clenching around only the air, but it’s a short-lived pain.

Bucky slams into you with one thrust, and you’d been wrong again.

He hadn’t ruined you. He’s destroyed you.

You’ve never been so full in your life. You’ve never been fucked like this in your life. With a fervor that should be painful, but just makes you feel wanted. Cared for. Bucky’s every thrust is brutal and rough, and his mouth on yours is that same feral kiss from before, but he’s pressed his body over yours like he’s trying to shield you from the world, and he’s groaning your name down your throat like it’s a hymn.

You’d say his name too, if you could remember how to speak. But Bucky’s hitting every right spot deep in your pussy, and you’re so high the world is just color and light and Bucky, and when he starts to suck and kiss a line down your throat, along your collarbone, and over your tits, you’re sure you’re going to fly out of your skin.

Then he takes your nipple into his mouth, and the sound you make is almost inhuman. Your release crashes over you like a wave, Bucky groans against your breast as you squeeze around his cock, and a burning warmth coats your thighs and cunt as he cums with a roar.

You make a small noise of content as Bucky pulls out, kissing a soft line back up your jaw before dropping his brow to yours and letting out a long, slow breath.

“That was…” He trails off, moving his hand to hold your hips, drawing firm patterns with his thumb that might drive you out of your mind.

“Yeah.” You whisper. “It was.”

He nods, and neither of you move for a really long time. Usually you’ve woken up by now, but no part of you is eager to go, eager to leave where there’s still a little buzz in your heart from the pleasure, where you can feel a perfect ache between your legs and you’re so happily trapped under the warmth of Bucky’s body-

Happy.

You’re happy.

This isn’t real, but under Bucky’s body you’re safe and warm and happy. And you don’t want to go.

Almost as if he can read your mind, Bucky clears his throat.

“Thank you.” He mutters, his breath hot and soft over your ear. “Needed this.” There a long pause, and his hand squeezes on your hips. “Needed you. And I know it’s dumb to thank you, because-“

“It’s not.” You cut him off with a kiss to his neck, rubbing your hand up and down his back. “And I needed you too.”

He lets out a dry laugh that you don’t understand, but doesn’t push on it. Just kisses your brow and rolls onto his back, taking you with him and clinging to you like you’re a tether to something a little more important than just a dream.

And you really don’t know why he’d laughed.

You do need him. You’re growing more and more certain every night that you need Bucky more than you need anything in real life. That he’s more than anyone else, and that he maybe, possibly, could be real.

He feels real, beneath you with a calloused hand squeezing at your skin and your finger tracing over the scars near his arm.

He sounds real, when you finally ask why he only has one arm, and he takes a very long breath but mutters that he fell off a train. When he tells you that bad people found him, and he wasn’t really the best guy either, for a really long time.

He tastes real when you kiss him for comfort, and smells real when you bury your face in his neck as he continues.

You know he’s not telling you everything, but you also know he’s not lying.

And you really do know that, in some strange and impossible way, this might be real.

———

“I see.” Raynor swallows, and she won’t stop staring at you. “Did those, ah, occurrences happen again?”

You nod, staring at your hands. “Pretty much every time after.” A smile tugs at your lips. “One time we used the barn.”

“I-“ Raynor sighs. “Understood. How long, exactly, did this continue?”

“They never stopped, not until-“ Your nails dig into your skin, and a heavy stone lodges itself in your throat. “The, uh, the blip.”

———

These have been the worst five years of your life. And they haven’t been amazing for anyone, but no one else has to feel this like you do.

And that’s selfish. A little narcissistic. Incredibly crude.

But it doesn’t make it any less true.

Because everyone lost people. Everyone watched loved ones vanish right in front of them, witnessed the world fall and crumble around them as half of humanity vanished, and got left in the rubble to pick up the pieces.

But no one else seems to feel this. Nobody else seems to be falling apart at the seams from nothing at all like you are. Because Bucky was probably never real. But he’s gone.

And you don’t know how to move on.

It’s odd to grieve a dream. It makes living impossible. You go to all the support groups and listen to everyone share their own pain, and it makes your heart ache for them but nothing in you ever seems to heal. It’s as if a piece of you had been ripped out and ground to ash, and mending over it would be blasphemous. You don’t want to fix it. You need to, because this is no way to exist, but it feels wrong every time you try. As if even your body can’t just admit he’s gone, and you need to keep going. But everything feels artificial. Every breath is mechanical, and every beat of your heart feels shallow and deliberate, like it’s only doing just enough to keep you alive.

What’s worse is that you can’t tell anyone why you’ve become a sunken, hollow shell. You’d sound insane. You’re already not winning any points in the sound of mind department, and you do have a record, so if you went to one of the countless therapists who have been making their living off of everyone’s loss and said ‘see, doctor, the person I loved only existed in my dreams, but he vanished with the snap and now it feels like I’ve been cleaved in half’, you’d be locked up in an asylum.

You hate that you’re only realizing it now. That the overwhelming sense of warmth and peace you felt in your dreams with Bucky was love. That you’d fallen in love with a piece of your own mind. You’d basically fallen in love with your reflection. Your annoying, handsome, grumpy reflection that you’d rip your spine out of your body to reshape it back into his form, to bring him back to your side.

And the dreams still happen. He’s just not there, and it’s the worst thing in the fucking universe. You keep coming back to a forest, and there’s a little ash that’s always drifting around in the air, that feels really important.

It all always feels like more than just Bucky being gone. It feels like you’ve missed a train, or taken a wrong turn, and lost a key that double as a compass, and now you’re stranded at the bottom of the ocean.

Alone.

You’ve spent your whole life with only yourself to rely on, but you’ve never felt more alone.

———

“And after the blip?”

“He came back.” You’re going to cry. You really hate crying in front of Raynor—she always tells you it’s going to be okay, and you fucking know that—but you can’t stop it. Because Bucky really did come back, and it’s still the best thing that ever happened to you.

———

During the past five years, your sleep has gotten fucked. You get about four hours a night, because that’s just long enough to keep you functional but too short to allow you to appear in the forest.

So it took a while to pass out. You’d curled up in your bed, drank tea, done yoga, followed every ‘how to fall asleep fast’ internet guide until your eyes drooped, and you were gone.

When the dream takes shape around you, you’re not in the forest, but in a sleek, hospital-like room that you don’t recognize.

And he’s there.

Bucky’s right fucking there.

You make a small, choked sound, and his eyes shoot to yours in an instant.

He’s moving in a second. Half launching across the room to grab you before your knees give out, holding you to his chest as you cling to his shirt and press your face into his neck.

“Hey,” he mutters your name, and you can hear the low horror in it. He’s putting together why you’re crying. Why you’re scratching at his neck and trying to half climb up his body. “You’re alright. It’s all good, doll, everything’s good now-“

You cut him off with a long, heavy kiss, and his hand moves to cup your head.

He has two hands again. You don’t really care why.

Because Bucky’s rubbing circles on the skin of your waist, and letting you cry without making a big fucking deal about it, and nothing mended. Nothing’s ever mended. You’ve been a little fucking broken for a long time, with or without Bucky. But it had been a kind of broken that had folded and shaped with him, and when he’d been gone it was like half your organs had been frozen and crumbled in your body.

But he’s back. And you feel real again.

———

There’s a long silence in the air, and you know what’s coming. The question. You’ve known she’s going to ask it the whole time—you’d honestly expected it a lot sooner—and you’ve been prepared. You have a very long speech about how Bucky had changed again—short hair, kept the new arm, appearing in his own, mostly empty apartment and trading the Wakandan clothing for jeans and jackets—and that he’d told you how much he hated some guy named John.

He’d said he despised the asshole. That he was everything Steve had hated—you’d had a pretty good idea who Steve was, based on context and a theory but you hadn’t be quite ready to it yet—and nothing sounded better than punching his lights out.

And you’re ready to explain that you’d had the news on in the background, a few words had broken from static background noise, and your whole world had shifted. John Walker had been announced as the new Captain America, they’d run a stupid little fluff piece on the life of Steve Rogers, and there was Bucky. Captain America’s best friend and ally, the assumed cause of that whole the Avengers are breaking up thing, and the former Winter Solider.

You’d mostly stared at the screen for a really long time as everything feel into place—you’d looked him up after, and it was a little embarrassing it had taken you this long given that he has a Wikipedia page—before calling Raynor, and preparing for the question.

But when she asks it, your mind goes blank, and all you can’t think to say is the truth.

“May I ask,” Raynor says carefully. ”Why are you only discussing this now?”

“Because he’s real.”

———

Bucky has dreams. Not nightmares.

Dreams.

He dreams about Her. She’s the only constant in his life, the only solace and purely good thing he knows, and She’s not even damn real.

Bucky’s pretty sure She’s not real. It wouldn’t make any sense for Her to be real. He’d spent most of the years assuming that She was simply a result of him being able to dream again, a trick of his mind that was both a comfort and a torture, because he needed those dreams—needed Her, in a strange way that lived in his chest and was soft on his skin—more than he’d ever needed anything, but they also reminded him of what he’d never have.

A life in a simple apartment, filled with his own presence in a way that was easy. He always loved that about Her apartment. How everywhere he looked, She was there. The colors and furniture and posters and trinkets on the shelves all screamed Her, and no one could ever replicate that if they tried.

He didn’t know how to do that anywhere. How to just be him in a way that didn’t feel like something was strangling him. His apartment was barren. Every time he spoke it felt like he should be apologize immediately after, because barely anyone seemed to like him, let alone want to hear him.

Bucky understood that. He wasn’t exactly his own biggest fan, and the only time there was no part of him trying to escape his own body was when he was asleep, and She was at his side.

He liked being himself with Her. It was simple, and natural, and never a labor. She never flinched away from him—She seemed to like being close to him—and Bucky never really wanted to wake up. Part of him always hoped that this time, when he fell asleep and She appeared once more, he’d wake up in Her apartment, and it would all be real.

A very small part of him needed this—needed Her—to be real. It would be really amazing if She was real. It wasn’t something he deserved to ask for, to plead with the universe about, but he did. He kept trying to come up with reasons She could be real.

She felt real, in his dreams. She spoke and acted like a person, and not a doll or shell his brain may have created to get him through his de-programming. She was always saying things and making references he didn’t get until she explained them, things he was certain he hadn’t heard in passing. She was way prettier than anyone Bucky had ever seen, which would contribute to Her being only a dream if he wasn’t so certain that he simply wasn’t that creative.

He could imagine a pretty girl.

He couldn’t imagine Her.

Smart and funny and gorgeous, fitting against him like She’d been molded to, teasing him in ways he’d never thought of and kind to him ways he couldn’t be kind to himself.

She was never disgusted by the arm, and Bucky was sure that—if She was only a part of his mind given shape—she would know about the whole Winter Soldier thing. But he’d had to explain all he could to Her, and when he’d left certain, darker parts out She hadn’t said but that’s not the truth, is it, James.

She seemed to like Bucky. That was the most concrete proof he had that She had to somehow be real. Nobody liked him. Not in to raw, unrelenting way She did.

So She had to be real.

Bucky really hoped, against all odds, that she was real.

It would fix a lot of problems if She was real. Sam kept trying to get him to date, and he didn’t want to. He always felt like he was betraying Her. It wasn’t sustainable or logical, but logic didn’t really matter here, because Bucky’s gut would wither and his hands would curl into fists every time he had to try and flirt with another woman. They didn’t fit against him as well as She did. Their teasing would either bite too hard or not bite at all, and the night would end with Bucky falling back into Her arms.

He asked Shuri—very vaguely, he didn’t want his brain to be poked and prodded again—what reoccurring dreams could mean.

“Reoccurring?” She’d frowned at him over the video call. “You’ll have to clarify, reoccurring can mean many things.”

“Uh,” Bucky had swallowed, glancing at his mattress across the room. “A dream you have every night. And it could change, but it’s always the same person in it?”

Shuri had given him an odd look. “Have you been having a dream like that?”

“No.” His answer had been too fast. He needed to keep it together if he was going to sell this. “Sam has. He mentioned that he kept seeing some lady in his dreams, and she felt real but he’d never met her before. Thought I’d do him a favor and ask about it.”

It wasn’t the best lie he’d ever told, if Shuri look of doubt had been any indication. But she bit, and kept moving.

“Well, it looks as if Sam,” she’d given him a pointed look, and Bucky had forced his face to remain completely neutral. “Has found his soulmate.”

Bucky had stared at her for a really long time. His vision had blurred, there had been a ringing in his ears, and time had seemed to still as Shuri’s words sank in.

Soulmate.

“I thought, uh,” Bucky had cleared his throat, his voice a little hoarse. “Soulmates aren’t real-“

“Of course they’re real.” Shuri had shrugged. “Soulmate is an archaic term for two brains that emit the exact same neuroelectricity, their nerve paths aligning completely. Often they will have differing personalities and lives, but the tie of the biology will link them in sleep, and they will experience incredibly vivid lucid dreams. Like this video conference, but if our minds and bodies were built to fall in love with each other. It is rare, but not impossible.”

Bucky had frowned. “But I- uh, Sam said he’s only had these dreams about four years-“

“Sam’s brain underwent severe rewiring and torment.” Shuri’s voice had been dry, her expression flat. “He would do well to remember that his connection may have been slightly mauled, and only after a certain genius princess fixed him would he have been able to reciprocate the bond fully.”

Oh.

The first time Bucky had appeared in Her apartment, She had said ten years. When She’d appeared to him for the very first time, She’d said she’d dreamt of him before.

Bucky had assumed that had been another way his brain was comforting him. Telling him he could be the type of person a pretty girl like Her dreamed about.

But when he thought about it—clenched his jaw and drew up the heavier, blood-stained memories of the Soldier—there had sometimes been someone in his body with him. Not the Soldier, but the third presence that wasn’t hostile. Wasn’t really foreign. Just was.

“Could the-“ Bucky had swallowed, watching Shuri carefully as he spoke. “Sam said he could sometimes feel the gal while he was awake. Is that a thing that could happen?”

“If Sam was not himself, and the soulmate was not of full maturity, yes.”

Bucky had felt himself pale. “What do you mean, full maturity-“

“You are a hundred years old, Mr. Barnes.” Shuri had raised her brows, and all pretense of Sam had dropped. “There would have naturally been a point where your soulmate was a child, as that is how most people begin their lives. It is likely that you were still under the control of Hydra in your soulmate’s youth, and she would have only been a growing presence in your mind until she was a full person, and you were no longer only the shell of a man I met after my father’s death.”

“So she- Would she have seen what I did? As the Solider?”

He knew She had. She’d told him She had.

Bucky still didn’t want it to be true.

Shuri had given him a sympathetic look. “Unfortunately, yes. She would have. But if she is what you say, she is a perfect match to you in every way. She will not care what you were before, under the control of Hydra.”

“But-“

“It is not something worth protesting, Bucky.” Shuri had sighed, leaning a little closer to the camera. “This is not something that can be severed or changed, so please do not bother to ask. And remember that she is real. Her own person, with her own pain. I would recommend you attempt to find her, but that is something you will have to decide for yourself.”

And now he was here. Staring at the dark screen where Shuri’s face had been moments before, his head still spinning around the word.

Soulmate.

She’d made is sound scientific. Possible. Bucky could have a soulmate.

He didn’t deserve a soulmate. Not one he’d likely trapped in his mind, forced to witness the brutal atrocities he’d committed as the Winter Solider.

And he wanted to find Her. Bucky wanted to touch Her and kiss her and keep her longer than just the night. To wake up and see Her next to him, tangible and all his.

He’d liked the idea of something being his in a way that wasn’t a curse. In a way he could throw his all right back to Her, and she’d catch it.

But there was still the sour, molding feeling over his heart that—since She was real, and probably had Her own issues to deal with—She wouldn’t want him in her life. Not Her real life, where everything was more complicate than just them in a literal dream.

He shouldn’t find Her. She’d be better off without him. Bucky would do nothing but make Her life more complicated, and he could get through this know that She was real and safe, far away from him but still haunting his dreams in the best way possible.

He was so lost in his head he misses the first phone call. And the second one.

It was the third one that got his attention—buzzing and ringing on the table next to his computer, Dr. Raynor flashing across the screen—and the fourth one he actually managed to pick up.

Bucky didn’t bother to hide the tension in his voice when he spoke. He really didn’t have the time or energy for this, not right now. “Doc, I’m not due back for another four days-“

“I’m aware, James, I keep a calendar.” Raynor sighed through the speaker, and Bucky had never heard her sound so tense. It was a little concerning. “However, I am going to have to request you come in today. It’s an emergency.”

He scowled. “What emergency, I haven’t done anything emergency worthy-“

“It’s not only about you.” Raynor snapped. “And I’m changing it from a request to an order. Office in twenty minutes.” There was a long pause, and then a whispered, “Please.”

That wasn’t good.

“Did I get in trouble?” Bucky asked, his grip on the phone tightening. “Cause I’ve been following all the stupid rules, and if Sam says I did something he’s just being a dramatic dick-“

Raynor sighed, and Bucky could picture the thin look of exhaustion on her face. “You are not in trouble, James. It’s not- I can’t explain over the phone. It may be better for you to see.”

“See what?”

“Just come to the fucking office.”

Bucky blinked, and the line went dead.

Raynor couldn’t make him go. But he also had never heard her swear like that. Or order him to come in before an appointment.

He was a little curious. And it wasn’t like he had anything else to do today but drown in the knowledge of what Shuri had told him, trying to work out how he’d face Her tonight.

So he went to the office. Chances are it was nothing. Bucky couldn’t imagine it would be something. He spent the whole ride trying to think of an idea, came up blank, and decided that Sam had mentioned something to Raynor about how Bucky had been brooding more than usual, and he was just going to have to explain the whole I’m not brooding, I’m just sick of Sam’s blind date bullshit and also maybe have a soulmate thing. Then he’s kick Sam’s ass, and everything would be fine.

Bucky entered to office with a whole speech ready. His chin raised high and his arms crossed, because he was already having a very weird and complex day, and he didn’t need this.

All the words were knocked out of him the moment he opened the door, glanced around the room, and saw who was on the couch.

Her.

In person.

Very, very real, and in Raynor’s office, and here.

Raynor said Her name. The name Bucky knew Her by, and her last name.

It was a nice last name. Barnes would suit Her better, but the idea that she was real enough to have a last name was already bringing Bucky to his knees, so he’d have to save that thought for later.

“Meet James Barnes.” Raynor was probably looking between them. Bucky couldn’t be sure though, because he couldn’t stop staring at Her.

She was moving to Her feet, and seeing Her in person was somehow even better. She was sharper around the edges, and more colorful in small, bright ways, and nothing about Her felt like it could ever slip between Bucky’s fingers.

She wasn’t mist. She wasn’t an illusion, or a coping mechanism.

She was real.

Walking towards him with wide eyes and an open mouth, reaching a hand up to poke at his face. Tracing his nose and running fingers over his cheekbones, Her eyes never leaving his.

Bucky caught Her hand right as it brushed over his lips, and She made the prettiest gasp he’d ever heard.

“You’re real.” He said, because it was all he could think of. Nothing about this was a dream. Bucky would not have a dream where Raynor was watching him restrain himself from kissing Her until she collapsed in his arms.

“I’m real.” She whispered, and Her voice was better in real life too. “You’re here.”

He nodded. “I’m here.” He paused, scanning over Her open features. “Don’t think I’m going anywhere, doll.”

Her face split into a wide smile, all teeth and light and joy. For Bucky.

There was adoration on Her face, and it was all for Bucky.

“Good.” Her smile grew, Her fingers tangling with his metal ones. “Because I’m not either.”

End Note: Save me Bucky Barnes raising goats. Bucky Barnes raising goats, save me.

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moonstruckme · 10 months ago

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Thawing Out

summary: You and Sirius are in dire need of a new coach just weeks before the Olympics. Remus is a former figure skating prodigy forced to retire after a career-ending injury. Though it's not smooth skating right away, those stiff Olympic village beds are dying to be broken in.

collab with @ellecdc

cw: modern au, chronic pain

poly!wolfstar x fem!reader ♡ 1.3k words

Remus still wakes before dark every morning. It’s automatic, an urgency and excitement that thrums through him like an old instinct, born from years of his alarm clock rousing him at this time. The rink is always at its best right now, when they’ve just finished resurfacing the ice and no one else is around. It was Remus’ favorite time to practice.

Now, he has a new reason to get up. His hip clicks as he does it, so he starts his day with a couple of proactive painkillers. If he really wanted to be proactive he would stretch like he’s supposed to, but there’s no time and Remus doesn’t feel like it. He’ll pay his toll for the negligence later.

The webpage of his Airbnb boasted a five-minute walk to the rink, but with his hip it takes Remus seven. It’s like an odd sort of muscle memory, an old routine from another life that feels as bitter as it does comfortable. He heads out early to give himself some cushion. The streets are empty but for bakers and baristas, the first hints of dawn tinging the sky a deep blue. When he turns a corner and the rink comes into view, the absence of his bag hanging from his shoulder is a phantom ache.

The front doors are locked but the side one staff uses isn’t, the Zamboni driver already inside. Remus lets himself in, makes a cup of tea from the hot water dispenser they leave out when concessions are closed, plants himself on a bench, and waits.

And waits.

Remus has nearly nodded off when two pairs of shoes come bounding up to him. Well, one pair bounds. The other drags.

“Hi, sorry we’re late.” You’re breathless and hauling a sullen-looking boy along behind you by the hand, but you manage a smile when Remus looks up at you. “I had to run over and get him out of bed. It’s good to meet you!”

You hold out your untethered hand. Remus might normally stand to take it, but he no longer feels like doing you the courtesy. Your grip is firm and warm.

“You were supposed to be here at six,” he says.

You wince. “I know. Sorry, Sirius is really not a morning person.”

Remus thinks that he might put more stock into your apologies if you looked a tad more contrite. As it is, your countenance is almost cheery, a fizzy eagerness about you as you look between him and the ice like you can’t wait to get out on it.

In stark contrast, the ill-tempered boy behind you seems not to have a clue where he is. He looks rumpled and disoriented, squinting in the rink’s fluorescent light.

“Then why didn’t you pick another time?” Remus asks.

He hadn’t realized he was still looking at Sirius, or that the other boy could talk, so it’s a surprise when he answers. “Wasn’t my bloody idea.”

By the way you grin, Remus wonders if you’ve even heard the obvious bitterness in your partner’s tone, or whether it’s gone straight over your head.

“I like the rink better early,” you explain. “No one else ever comes before the hockey practice starts at nine, and they’ll have just finished resurfacing the ice.”

Begrudgingly, Remus nods. “I always preferred it about now, too.”

He realizes immediately that his agreement was a mistake, because your smile grows into something far too brilliant for the early hour. Christ, what has he gotten himself into? There’s you, starry-eyed and effervescing all over the place, and your partner, who looks more inclined to fall asleep on your shoulder than put on his skates.

And this is the pair skating duo Remus is supposed to take to the Olympics.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

“Watch that back foot!” Remus shouts across the ice.

Sirius doesn’t look happy about it, but he corrects the placement of his skate, transitioning smoothly into the next synced turn.

“Good,” Remus murmurs to himself.

Once Sirius got out on the ice and woke up a bit, he was good. He skates with the technical proficiency of someone who’s been in the sport since before they started primary school, and the intuitive artistry of someone who loves it. You’re much the same, though your virtuosity and obvious competence are consistently undercut by hesitation, the grace of your movements interrupted when you second-guess yourself. But these—technical prowess paired with devotion—are the basics of what makes a good figure skater. You’ll have to be flawless if you want to do well at the Olympics.

And Remus has found many flaws.

“No, no—shit!” Remus stands as you fall out of your jump again, catching yourself on your forearms. “You’re still under-rotating! Come on!”

Sirius snarls a quick “Hey!” over his shoulder before turning his back on Remus, going to help you up. He speaks to you quietly, checking you over as you stand. Remus seethes.

He has no clue why he’s been called out here to coach a pair. Remus doesn’t know pairs, has never been a part of one. He was a solo skater. And frankly, it makes him wary that what’s supposed to be the best skating pair in Britain has asked him, a former solo skater who’s been isolated from the figure skating community in general for the past two years, to coach them. But Remus does know figure skating. And he knows when skaters are making stupid mistakes behind their skill level.

“What aren’t you understanding?” asks Remus as you skate back to the edge of the rink. He really wants to know. “It’s simple. You can do this.” He knows he could have. As easy as breathing, and he would kill to have the chance again.

“What the fuck is your problem?”

Sirius’ glare is sharp as knives. He steps off the ice before you can, positioning himself between you and Remus. Your lips purse with a knowing sort of apprehension.

“Sirius…”

“No, you don’t talk to her like that,” Sirius spits. “It was a tiny mistake.”

Remus raises his eyebrows, incredulous. “I’m trying to help her! It was a giant mistake, with a simple fix. You ought to be telling her the same, unless you’re okay with your partner snapping her ankle weeks out from competition.”

“None of that means you get to fucking yell at her! Who do you think you are?”

“Okay—”

“I’m her coach,” says Remus, voice rising, “and—”

“Then coach her! Maybe if you’d give some actual fucking feedback instead of just nitpicking—”

“Okay!” Your shout cuts through the space, echoing in the empty rink and silencing the other two. “That’s enough.”

You haul Sirius back by his shoulder. Your grip doesn’t look severe enough to move him, but he goes, stepping back to your side. His eyes never leave Remus’.

Your own gaze jumps between both boys, that same spark he’d seen in you earlier burning with a different light.

“Let’s call it for today,” you say firmly. “Okay? We’ll try again tomorrow.”

Neither boy speaks, though Remus nods. It seems to be taking all of Sirius’ willpower to bite his tongue. He gets the impression it isn’t something he succeeds at often, so Remus isn’t ashamed to say that it brings him a perverse sort of joy to see it now. His tiny bit of smugness fizzles out, though, when your eyes land on him. There’s something desolate in your expression that’s a salient deviation from how you’d looked at him before. Remus has the sinking feeling that he’s disappointed you. It’s more distressing than he can account for.

“We’ll be here on time tomorrow,” you say in that same steady tone. “And my jump, I’ll work on it.”

Remus nods again. You return it, and when you turn to leave, you drag Sirius after you by his shirtsleeve, picking up your bags along your way. Remus’ mouth feels dry. His lips are chapped, his fingertips hurt from the cold, and the sight of your skates sinking into the rubbery floor makes his hip ache terribly.

It’s only once you’re nearly out of earshot that he manages to mumble, “Thank you.”

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zedleaked · 9 days ago

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[[Geez Louise!]] WHAT YEAR IS IT? AM I BACK IN THE [21st]??? I'VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT THESE LONG NOSED FREAKS AGAIN SINCE I FOUND OUT THEY HAD NEW THINGS TO SAY LET'S TAKE A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE AND TALK ABOUT SPAM AND HIS COWORKERS!

NEW CHAPTER 4 ADDISON INTERACTIONS:

LET'S START WITH THE [NEO] [NEW]: IN CHAPTER 4 THE ADDISONS GET NEW DIALOGUE! EACH TIME YOU REENTER THEIR AREA, THE ADDISONS AT THEIR BOOTH CHANGE! HERE'S A COLLECTION OF THOSE INTERACTIONS.

STARTING WITH: PINK AND ORANGE... WHO COULD THAT PINK FELLA BE POSSIBLY REFERRING TO...

NEXT UP: ORANGE AND YELLOW! I THINK YOU MIGHT WANT TO RECONSIDER THAT ONE, YELLOW. + MISTAKE ME IF I'M WRONG BUT THIS IS THE FIRST TIME WE'VE SEEN YELLOW ADDISON'S FRONT SPRITE IN GAME! YOU COULD ONLY FIND THEIR BACK SPRITE BACK IN THE TRASHZONE [WHICH WE WILL TALK ABOUT LATER]

NOW: YELLOW AND BLUE! FUNNY THAT YELLOW IS THE ONE TALKING ABOUT TEA BECAUSE PINK IS THE TEA VENDOR... ALSO BLUE'S DIALOGUE OK MAN.

BLUE AND PINK: THIS ONE IS PROBABLY MY FAVOURITE #HUGYOURSELF IF YOU COULDN'T TELL BY MY SCRIBBLES, THERE ARE A FEW SUBTLE REFERENCES TO SPAMTON/HIS DIALOGUE WHEN YOU SPEAK WITH THE ADDISONS BUT WHATEVER COULD THIS MEAN?! ARE MY KIDS SAFE?! HOW ABOUT WE DIAL IT BACK A LITTLE...

SPAMTON AND HIS "FRIENDS":

THE YEAR IS [2021] DELTARUNE CHAPTER 2 JUST CAME OUT, HOW TIME FLIES!!! [[Oh god, it's so far back]]. YOU MEET THIS ODD SPAMTON GUY, AND HE'S SHAPING UP TO BE QUITE THE CHARACTER! YOU ASK HIM ABOUT HIS HISTORY, HIS FRIENDS BUT...

THIS IS ALL HE HAS TO SAY. HE DOESN'T NEED THEM.

ASKING THE ADDISONS ABOUT SPAMTON:

CLEARLY, THE PAST IS FAR, FAR BEHIND HIM. BUT YOU CAN'T HELP BUT BE NOSY [HAHA]. THESE ADDISON FELLAS AROUND TOWN SEEM TO RESEMBLE THE GUY QUITE A BIT, WHY DON'T WE ASK THEM INSTEAD?

...STILL, VAGUE RADIO SILENCE. FOR WHATEVER REASON THEY DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT HIM.

THEY MUST'VE KNOWN EACH OTHER, RIGHT? THERE'S NO WAY THEY DON'T. HECK, HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THIS MANNEQUIN THEY LUG AROUND EVERYWHERE THAT BEARS AN UNCANNY RESEMBLANCE TO SPAMTON? NOT ONLY THAT IT LOOKS MORE AND MORE LIKE HIM THE MORE TIME PASSES DO THEY MISS HIM?

SPAMTON HIMSELF ALSO SEEMS TO REACT TO THE MANNEQUIN, IF YOU TRY TO GO THROUGH WITH HIS DEAL AND HAVE IT ON YOU, HE DOES NOTABLY LESS DAMAGE TO YOU... DOES HE RECOGNISE IT?

NOT ONLY THAT, YOU CAN ATTEMPT TO PUT SPAMTON HIMSELF INSIDE IT, HOWEVER, HE DOESN'T LET IT HAPPEN.

SPAMTON NEO:

SO, WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU PUSH EVERYONE TO THEIR LIMITS? COMPLETELY [FREEZE] EVERYONE WITH YOUR DISPLAY? WELL, WHEN SPAMTON ACHIEVES HIS [NEO] FORM HE SAYS THIS: JUST THE IDEA OF CALLING FOR HELP, CALLING OUT FOR THOSE WHO DO NOT CARE FOR YOU, IT MAKES HIM SICK.

HE TALKS ABOUT MUTTERING YOUR LOST FRIENDS NAMES AT THE BOTTOM OF A DUMPSTER, VERY OBVIOUS PROJECTION... AND IT MATCHES UP WITH WHAT HE SAYS IN HIS INTRODUCTION TOO... HIS FRIENDS ABANDONING HIM [FOR THE SLIME] HIS SALES GOING DOWN THE [DRAIN] LIVING IN A GODDAMN GARBAGE CAN.

TRASHZONE EPILOGUE:

...BUT... WHAT IF YOU WANTED... MORE?

HEAD OVER TO YOUR LOCAL [TRASH HEAP] AND FIND...

THE ADDISONS, WILLING TO SHARE ALL THAT THEY KNOW.

SPAMTON WAS AN ADDISON LIKE THEM BACK IN THE DAY, JUST UNFORTUNATE. THERE SEEMS TO BE A LITTLE SYMPATHY THERE, AT LEAST ON YELLOW'S PART.

THEY GATHER HERE AFTER YOUR FIGHT WITH SPAMTON NEO, BY THE WAY. THERE SEEM TO BE NO OTHER TRIGGERS FOR THIS INTERACTION OTHER THAN FIGHTING HIM. HOW DID THEY KNOW? DID YOUR CURIOUS QUERIES ABOUT THEIR OLD CO-WORKER LEAD THEM TO THE GARBAGE TO... REMINISCE?

A BLUE ADDISON REVEALS THAT SPAMTON AND THE REST OF THE ADDISONS WOULD MEET UP AT THE CYBER GRILL [I WISH THIS WAS A PLACE YOU COULD VISIT IN GAME],, SPAMTON WOULD FANTASIZE ABOUT MAKING IT BIG ONE DAY,, THIS SUGGESTS THEY WERE ALL CLOSE AT ONE POINT, HANGING OUT, HAVING FUN...

THE ORANGE ADDISON TALKS ABOUT HOW SPAMTON CONTACTED A CERTAIN SOMEONE. THIS PERSON MUST'VE BEEN GIVING HIM PLENTY OF ADVICE BECAUSE SPAMTON WOULDN'T GET OFF THE PHONE. THIS ALSO SHOWS HOW EVEN THE ADDISONS THEMSELVES SUSPECT THAT THIS PHONE CALL MAY HAVE BEEN SUPERNATURAL

THE PINK ADDISON TALKS ABOUT SPAMTON'S SUDDEN RISE IN SUCCESS, HOW HIS SEEMINGLY EFFORTLESS POPULARITY MADE EVERYONE JEALOUS, TO THE POINT OF LEAVING HIM, NOT VISITING HIM AT THE GRILL BECAUSE WELL... HE'S RICH AND DIDN'T NEED THEM ANYMORE... RIGHT?

THE OTHER YELLOW ADDISON PIPES ON ABOUT ALL OF HIS SUCCESSFUL DEALS- [WHAT IS *HE* DOING THERE]- BUT... EVENTUALLY THOSE ALL SLIPPED THROUGH, ALL CAME CRASHING DOWN ON HIM IN AN INSTANT... ALMOST LIKE WHATEVER WAS HELPING HIM JUST... ABANDONED HIM TOO.

...SPAMTON HAD TO GET EVICTED FROM THE MANSION, THROW AWAY EVERYTHING HE HAD BUILT UP. WHEN ONE OF THE BLUE ADDISONS WENT TO FIND HIM... AND THEY WERE MET WITH WAS A PHONE LEFT OFF IT'S HANDLE... AND WHEN THEY PUT THE PHONE UP TO THEIR EAR... THEY GOT NOTHING BUT GARBAGE NOISE.

SPAMTON AND THE ADDISONS NEVER FAIL TO DESTROY ME, THEY WERE A HUGE PART OF MY ART BACK IN THE DAY. I TRULY BELIEVE THEM ABANDONING SPAMTON OUT OF JEALOUSY WAS THE BEGINNING OF THAT MAN'S UNDOING. THEY COULDN'T EVEN BEGIN TO COMPREHEND THE CONSEQUENCES. THE TOTAL BITTERNESS THAT GREW IN THAT PUPPET AFTER THEIR BETRAYAL, THAT LEAD HIM ON THE PATH TO ABSOLUTE WICKEDNESS. IF HE HAD AT LEAST *ONE* OF THEM TO FALL ONTO AFTER HIS MARKET CRASH MAYBE THINGS WOULD HAVE BEEN DIFFERENT.

BUT HE MADE TOO MANY ENEMIES.

HIS EGO WAS TOO BIG.

SPAMTON'S FATE:

ONE OF THE LAST TIMES THE ADDISONS DIRECTLY MENTION SPAMTON IS IN THE SPAMTON SWEEPSTAKES, I AM LIKE 90% SURE THIS IS ONE OF THE ADDISONS SPEAKING HERE. THEIR JEALOUSY EXPRESSED AT THE BEGINNING, THEIR WANT TO HAVE WHAT HE HAD... I FEEL THAT'S A CLEAR SIGN AS TO WHO WROTE THIS

THEY SEEM TO HAVE THEIR REASONS TO VOTE FOR EITHER SIDE, CONSIDERING THEMSELVES ONE OF THE DECIDERS OF SPAMTON'S FATE ALONG WITH US. FOR SILENCE, THEY SAY THAT MAYBE SOMEONE ELSE DESERVES THE FAME MORE THAN HIM. FOR FREEDOM, THEY ACKNOWLEDGE THEIR TREATMENT OF SPAMTON...

CONCLUSION:

THE ADDISONS, MUCH LIKE SPAMTON HIMSELF, HAVE PUT THE PAST BEHIND THEM, REFUSING TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE MAN AND EVEN IF THEY DO, THEY DIVERT THE CONVERSATION QUICKLY... COMPARED TO TENNA, WHO COPES BY LOUDLY EXPRESSING HIS HATRED, TENNA IS MUCH MORE ATTACHED TO THE PAST THAN THE ADS.

NOWADAYS, THEY SEEM TO BE USING SPAMTON'S OLD PHRASES, AS SHOWN IN THE CHAPTER 4 CASTLE TOWN DIALOGUE... NOW THAT MOST OF THEM HAVE LIKELY MOVED ON FROM HIM, THEY'VE BEEN TRYING TO USE HIS TRICKS IN AN ATTEMPT TO GAIN SUCCESS LIKE HE DID. EVEN TAKING A JOB FOR TENNA.

THESE GUYS MEANT A LOT TO ME WHEN I WAS YOUNGER IT MADE ME JUMP WHEN I SAW THEM IN CHAPTER 4 THE TRAGEDY OF THE ADDISONS NEVER FAILS TO MAKE MY HEART HURT AND REMIND ME OF OLDER TIMES... THANKS FOR READING MY THREAD ABOUT THEM, I HOPE THIS MADE YOU LIKE THEM JUST A LITTLE MORE... <3

#deltarune #deltarune spoilers #spamton #spamton g spamton #the addisons #addisons #addisons deltarune #deltarune addisons #idk man help #blue addison #pink addison #orange addison #yellow addison #tenna #tenna deltarune #mr ant tenna #He is there a little so I'm tagging him idlkr idk man. almost midnight #Zed's art

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ozzgin · 1 year ago

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okay, hear me out: mean girl!reader x nerdy/sub!yandere

nerd!yan who gets bullied by you all the time, with harsh name calling and forcing him to do your homework.

nerd!yan who grows intrigued with you. you’re so confident, so pretty, so cool! how can he not like you?

nerd!yan who’s slowly growing more obsessed. his breath hitches whenever you loom over him with that annoyingly hot smirk of yours, calling him such mean, degrading names

nerd!yan who gets jealous whenever he sees you targeting someone else. you can’t bully them!! you should pay attention to him and only him. oh well, he’ll just have to eliminate the competition, so you can go back to “tormenting” him again.

nerd!yan who’s really such a pervert! he followed you home and was pleasuring himself to your scent that lingered on your clothing… such dirty behaviour!

mean girl!reader who returns home to find one of her classmates in her bedroom, and how can she not smile at the sight? he’s so pretty, such a cute little plaything…

mean girl!reader who had always been aware of nerd!yan’s obsessive tendencies, and played along. but now that he’s been caught red handed…

mean girl!reader who degrades poor nerd!yan for being such a disgusting pervert, but submits to nerd!yan’s fantasies anyway. she plays with him, leaving harsh love bites and scratches over his soft skin, reducing him to a moaning, whiney mess.

nerd!yan who’s basically your pet now, obediently following you throughout school, happily accepting all your orders, no matter how demeaning or gross they are.

people who even dare look your way with romantic interest? they get disposed of in…well, let’s just say, messy. oh, but not that nerd!yan will ever let you see it happen! your precious, beautiful eyes should be shielded from such violent acts. but if you ever ask… tilt your head playfully with a soft smile and ask him to let you watch, he might.

tldr; mean girl and a nerdy yandere that are both equally toxic for each other

have an awesome day!! I would really like to see you write a concept like this <3

-Ash

Nerd!Loser!Yandere x Mean Girl!Bully!Reader

They say being in the right relationship motivates you to strive for the best version of yourself. Sometimes, the opposite is true. What happens when your soulmate brings out your most depraved self? Content: female reader, mildly NSFW, obsessive behavior, violence, bullying, loser is meant in a loving way, yandere consents to everything

You really aren't that bad of a person. Or at least you weren't before you met the odd man you now call your boyfriend. How did it all begin? For the sake of full disclosure, alright, you have always been somewhat on the mean side. A little too sarcastic, a little too blunt, perhaps a little too harsh. You don't like soft people and have little patience for their stumbling attempts. But, you can hold your tongue as long as it doesn't involve you.

The meeting, at least from your point of view, was entirely accidental. Despite just starting your university year, your charisma had quickly gained you enough friends and acquaintances to have a stable sample of potential group partners. Except for one class. One single missing person, and you were asked to include a name you didn't recognize. Some young man who almost never showed up to class.

Oh, but he did. He was there for every lecture, for every seminar. His, and yours. His first encounter with you was not what most would call romantic. On day one he'd gotten lost. The crowded halls, the new environment, the noise, the smell, everything overwhelmed him, and he found himself wandering in a panic, until at last he bumped into you. The impact sent him straight onto the ground, books pathetically spilling from his trembling arms. You, on the other hand, remained standing as if nothing happened. "Pull yourself together, dumbass", you hissed through your teeth, looking into his eyes for one brief moment before moving on to your friends: "You have to give it to them straight, otherwise they'll think we're still in high school and someone will hold their hand all the time. It's embarrassing! Grown adults!"

He can't remember anything else from that day. Only your voice, your expression, your stance. Somehow, for whatever reason, that "dumbass" went straight to his heart. To think you'd look after him, a complete stranger. You were right, he needed to recollect himself and figure it out. Something even his own mother omitted to mention.

How he wished he could be like you. The way professors relied on you for discussions, the way your friends flocked for advice. But see, he knew you were faking most of it. That overly sweet smile and exaggerated politeness, all of it was a mask you'd learned to wear at any time. It only came off when dealing with people like him. There was a certain pride in that fact: he'd seen the real you. Not your "friends".

The more he thought about it, the more plagued by need he became. The need to hear you speak to him again, in that raw, unfiltered voice, with that disgusted glare piercing through his entire being. Thus, he did his best - as per your advice - to find another opportunity. The group work. One glance at him was enough for you to remember: "Ah, fuck, you're that dumbass from first day", you whined in frustration. Instant arousal.

And so, your unusual partnership began to develop. Or rather, your game of tormentor versus tormented. (Un)Paid actors and nothing more. It didn't take you long to notice his strange reaction to your verbal aggressions, almost as if the man relished in your ruthlessness. He seemed to know exactly what buttons to press in order to anger you. In return, you decided to see how far you could go until he'd finally cave in. From insults, to flicking him in the forehead, shoving him against the wall, ordering him around like a collared dog. You had your suspicions, but it all culminated when you went over to his little dorm room for a final project review. You'd gotten so upset - what did he even do? - that you pushed him hard into the ground and straddled him, holding onto the collar of his jacket and shouting profanities. A horrified grimace struck his face, and you froze. Have you gone too far? Was he finally going to ask that you stop, and put this strange charade behind? "P-please give me a moment, I..." he panted, frantically trying to move you aside. "I need to take care of myself. I'm so sorry." You hesitantly stood up and noticed the obvious erection in his pants.

You have a strange effect on him. He is not incapable; he knows it very well. And yet, the temptation is too great: to pretend, to exaggerate, to fail, anything to have you take the lead and lovingly scold him in the process. "What do you mean you're too anxious to present your part? Christ, you're useless. Utterly, completely useless." He can't wait to pleasure himself later to the memory of your words. Truly addicting. He doesn't mind being a doormat if it's your feet keeping him down. You bring out his most pathetic, perverted, deplorable self.

The same can be said about you. You've never been this mean to anyone. You hadn't even intended to reach this point, yet something keeps riling you up. Maybe it's his pleading pout whenever he's being reprimanded. The hooded, lustful eyes gazing up at you submissively and waiting for the next burning whip of your tongue. He brings out the worst in you and he loves every second of it.

You unlock the door and march into the bedroom (you've since moved in together). Without a warning, you grip his chin tightly and give the man a firm tug, forcing him to pay attention. "You did something, didn't you? I was supposed to meet with a classmate for coffee and he vanished without a trace. Won't answer my texts or calls." He shakes his head in denial at first, wide innocent eyes glistening in fear. Ah, he can't help it. His lips curl in a crooked grin. He's been caught. You shove two fingers in his mouth, and without delay he twirls his tongue around them hungrily. "What a psychotic bitch you are. You want to be the only one, huh? Is that what it is about?" Between the slurps and the whimpers, you can discern a hurried nod.

#yandere #yandere x reader #yandere x darling #yandere x you #yandere nerd #yandere loser #yandere headcanons #yandere imagines #yandere imagine #yandere scenarios #male yandere #male yandere x reader #yandere oc x reader #yandere male #tw yandere #female reader #obsessive love

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hedwig221b · 2 months ago

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I'm looking for some Sterek with soft Derek and happy endings. You know, the perfect mushy read after something dark and angst-ridden.

Okay, settle in for Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts time

Physical Touch by mybestfriendsarebooks

Scott has noticed that Derek isn't big on physical affection. Scott and the others had made peace with that and knew when not to push or back away quickly. One person seems to be the exception. Scott notices the progression of this affection over the years.

The Words You Speak by isthatbloodonhisshirt (wasterella)

Stiles just stared at her. “Derek’s a Werewolf, why the hell would he be in the hospital?” Melissa gave him an odd look, then turned to Scott for help, who looked just as lost. At least it wasn’t another one of Stiles’ oblivious moments, though considering Scott’s IQ, it wasn’t exactly hard to be down at his level. Melissa turned back to Stiles, still looking confused. “Whenever Derek has a bad day, he always goes to the postnatal ward at the hospital. He likes being around all the babies, and he’s actually really good with them. The women up there love him, he can get the crying ones to stop in a second. Not sure if it’s a wolf thing or a Derek thing, but it’s very sweet.” Derek did what now? “Did you both not know this?” Melissa turned to include Scott in her inquiry. “He’s been doing this for well over a year, I figured you knew.”

Ain't Nothing so Good as the Cake and Eating it by sofonisba_found

Derek thinks he's doing alright in life, with his family at his side and a job he loves. Despite his family's concerns he remains adamant that he doesn't need a mate, afraid to take the risk of letting anyone close enough to try to hurt his family again. That is until he realizes that his true mate has been right under his nose for years, and that now through his inaction he may lose him.

what a big heart i have (better to love you with) by crazyassmurdererwall (smartalli)

Stiles has a massive thing for Derek Hale. This is not news. Stiles, after all, has been carrying a torch for Derek ever since they bumped into each other at a taco cart at the start of his freshman year. But what is news? With no hope of ever capturing Derek’s attention, Stiles is thinking it might be time to let that torch go. Try to let it burn out. (Derek might have something to say about that.)

Three Lost Kids, Two Minute Noodles and One Hot Mate. by MysticEdge

Stiles is leaving a local store and he notices a toddler wandering the parking lot by himself. worried for the childs safety he rushes to him to discover the child had wandered away from his mother’s mini van. Doors are wide open. Upon closer inspection looks like there are 2 more kids in the car crying because the mother is laying face down in the back. Like she passed out after putting 2 of the 3 kids in the car. Frantic he calls his father while checking to see if the mother is breathing. The mother is Laura Hale. No Hale fire, Derek is still weary with people as Kate attempted to set the fire but was thwarted. Stiles meets Derek for the first time when he’s called to the hospital for Laura and the children.

Little Promises by crossroadswrite

Derek doesn’t really know what happened. He just knows there was a lady and she was pretty but she was also really mean and she was trying to hurt his friends. “Holy fuck,” Erica mutters and is harshly shushed by Isaac. “Don’t swear in front of the kid.” “It’s not a kid,” Erica counters. “It’s just-“ “Derek?”

You Fit Me Better by Rena

Five times Stiles and Derek ended up wearing each others clothes on accident, and one time it's deliberate.

Of Puppy Piles and Sugar Dreams by StarShineForMe

In which Isaac and Scott get de-aged, the pack must learn to bond and protect their own, and Derek ("Dewek!") and Stiles ("Sti-ewes!") are mates…even if it takes them forever and two toddlers to realize it. “Oh, God.” Stiles buries his face in his hands, water dripping down his wrists. “What? What’s wrong? Are you okay?” Derek whips out a towel, wrapping it around Stiles’ forearms, pulling them away from Stiles’ body so he can look them over. “I’m fine,” Stiles says, a little blankly. Erica and Boyd have set Issac and Scott back onto the floor, tickling them both into fits of giggles. He huffs out a noise that’s not quite a whimper, not quite a laugh. “Just wondering when the hell I ended up in my very own episode of ‘Teen Mom’.”

Have I entered an alternate universe or did you really just crack a smile for me? by isthatbloodonhisshirt (wasterella)

So if his dad hadn’t been the one to come home and get him into bed properly, and was now making him breakfast, then who…? Seriously, his embarrassment level couldn’t get any lower at this point. It was bad enough to imagine it was his dad, but to know Scott had come to take care of him was worse. But not nearly as bad as the absolute horror and astronomical levels of embarrassment when Stiles walked into the kitchen and found Derek at the stove making French toast. Because of course it was Derek. If someone was going to see Stiles naked and passed out cold on his bed, why wouldn’t it be Derek? His long-time crush and provider of fap material? Sure, why not, life wasn’t horrible enough yet, might as well make it downright dreadful!

The by kaistrex (weishen)

Snippets of the lives of four-year-old Derek and baby Stiles as they grow up together.

Finding Home by captaintinymite (augopher)

To teach them a lesson, a pair of mischievous pixies hit Derek and Stiles with a spell that makes them six years old again. Neither of them remembers anything about their lives beyond that age. What happens when the pair of them become immediate friends and declare that when they grow up they will get married? Will they remember anything when the spell wears off?

A Slight Problem by kaistrex (weishen)

The Hale family dog takes a shine to seven-year-old Stiles.

Are You the One? by Venrajade

Derek's sister works for a television network with a dating show that claims that they are able to find someone's True Mate. Cora steals a scent sample from Derek and matches him to an Omega applying to the show with a 99% chance of them being mates. Which means Derek is now a reality dating show star. Shit.

Sometimes Not Seeing Is Believing by FeelingFredly

Stiles gave him a lopsided grin. “I wouldn’t poison you, Der.” His grin turned sharp and sharklike. “At least not much. I just need to test it on you to make sure it will work on other weres.” Derek snorted. “And you didn’t think Peter would be a better target for your experiments?” That got him a shrugged shoulder. “He offered, but I didn’t think it was a good idea.” ---or that time when an invisibility potion helped Derek see things a lot more clearly.

Slugs, and Snails, and Puppy Dog Tails by yodasyoyo

kid!Derek being super taken with kid!Stiles. And their interactions.

We're Like Milo and Otis by tabbytabbytabby

Stiles and Derek meet each other before they can even talk. With Claudia being the Hale family Emissary, Stiles spends most of his time with the Hales. Stiles and Derek are immediately inseparable. Stiles learns early on that his magic reacts to Derek more than anyone else and because of that he is able to shift into a fox and go on adventures with Derek. Those adventures aren't always safe but one thing is certain, they'll always look out for each other.

Five Times Stiles Needed A Crash Course On Wolfy Behavior and the One Time He Figured Shit Out by 1lostone

Pretty much what it says on the tin. Written for hungrylikethewolfie (ladyblahblah) who had a bad day and requested possessive!Derek and Oblivious!Stiles.

Lying (By Omission) by redezon

College fic where Stiles has an adorable girlfriend. Only ‘D’ isn’t adorable. Or his girlfriend. Or: Five times people talk about Stiles’s mysterious significant other, and one time they actually see them.

and i'll just keep on stumblin' (right now it feels too humblin') by dee_lirious

Derek Hale is pretty much the worst person in the world to hypothetically develop a crush on, being a murder suspect, a dangerous werewolf, a weirdo who stalks people from the treeline, and also living in a train car, Jesus Christ. (In response to jennova's prompt: Five times Stiles tries to make Derek smile and one time he succeeds but doesn’t notice because kissing or something.)

Loud Love

There wasn’t a single moment when they weren’t touching. They didn’t notice anyone — obsessed with each other, they were blind to all jealousy. The circle of one another’s arms encapsulated their world. Close, tight, inseparable. They didn’t care if someone watched them, both lost in each other, entrapped.

[masterlist link]

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goldenlikedayl1ght · 4 months ago

Text

what is this feeling? | m. murdock

MAJOR DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT!!!!!

a/n: here's my swing at an angsty but cute daredevil born again fic!! hope y'all like it, i think it's alright although the pacing is kinda meh, but. oh well! i like it so i hope you do too. enjoy!! warnings: uhm. SPOILERS FOR DDBA!!!!!!!!!! please head that warning!! lots of fighting, yearning, enemies to lovers, matt is mean and has a moment where he yells at her. then theres a lot of hurt/comfort, lots of softness, a bit of making out. i dunno it's what i got! lots of cursing, strange office behavior, matt and reader have an odd dynamic, kinda implied age gap? wordcount: 3.8k summary: you're pretty sure your boss hates you. pairing: dd:ba!matt murdock x reader now playing: what is this feeling? - wicked "what is this feeling?/fervid as a flame?/does it have a name?/yes/loathing/unadulterated loathing."

All Matt does is mope.

It annoys Kirsten deeply.

He was the one who wanted to open this firm with her, after..

Well, everything.

Maybe mope is the wrong word. Matt’s not moping, he’s mourning.

Mourning everything, even the things Kirsten doesn’t know about—Mourning Foggy, mourning Daredevil, mourning the relationship he had with Karen, mourning the firm.. Mourning the life he had. Mourning the person he had become.

So Matt throws everything he has into Murdock & McDuffie, because he’s not Daredevil anymore. He’s not anyone’s friend. What else is there?

But it’s starting to have a negative impact on his work.

Because all he does is work! All he does is talk to clients, do paperwork, talk in court, and mourn. He’s beginning to slip. He’s not sleeping, he’s barely eating. His work is suffering because of it, and Kirsten has not come this far to let Matt falter like this.

She knows he’s grieving. She knows he misses Foggy. Misses his entire life. But she knows this isn’t sustainable.

So, she hires you.

You’re a twenty something year old English Major, fresh out of college, with.. no real idea of what you want to do. And no job.

Kirsten, a family friend, tells you her new law firm needs an office assistant. The pay’s pretty good, she tells you, and the office is pretty. All you must do is get Mr. Murdock to his appointments.

Get him coffee.

Tell him a joke.

Ignore how he ignores you.

You show up to your first day of work with a bright smile, a donut for your new boss, and ambition.

Kirsten opens Matt’s door without knocking, smiling as she steps in.

“Who’s this?” he wonders.

“Our new office assistant,” You try to ignore the frown that tugs at his lips when he finds this out.

You hold out your hand to him, giving him your name. He doesn’t stand from his chair when he shakes your hand.

“Well, I’ll leave you two to talk, I have a meeting with a client,” And before either of you can say anything, Kirsten is gone.

“Listen, I—”

“I brought you a donut,” You offer. Matt smiles a bit, but you can tell it’s forced.

“Thank you. You’re sweet, but..” he hesitates. “I don’t really need a secretary.”

“I’m not your secretary; I’m the office assistant.” Matt raises his eyebrows, and you feel your face flush. “Fine, Kirsten hired me to be your secretary, but she did hire me. I want to work here—For you.”

“I’m sure Kirsten has lots of things for you to worry about that aren’t me.” He promises.

You glance down to the small donut box you’re holding in your hand. Then, you place it on his slightly messy desk.

“Well, I’ll be right outside if you need anything.”

Matt doubts that he will, but he forces a smile in your direction anyways.

Silence. Schedules. Phone calls. More silence.

Weeks pass like this.

You’re beginning to feel like you don’t deserve to be paid for this, half the time you just sit around doing crosswords or sudoku until Kirsten can come up with something for you to do.

You wait for Mr. Murdock to notice you like a puppy, always glancing over to his office.

You think he might hate you. He’s never outright said as much, but he acts like it. The coffee you make causes him to grimace. The research you do is never good enough. And Kirsten does her best, pestering Matt to engage and giving you things to do..

But there’s only so much she can do. So, there are some days where you sit around writing ideas and brainstorming, always thinking about writing.

After two weeks, you’re yet to start using your free time to write on the side.. But after a particularly bad Wednesday morning..

You were just there to take notes at the firm’s general morning meeting. You want to get down anything important, hating all the nervous energy you have. You’re ignoring the way Matt’s thigh feels against yours.

Then, Matt leans over to you, and whispers against your ear, sending a chill down your spine,

“You know, you don’t really need to be here, I can get my notes from someone else—”

From down the table, you hear giggles, and you glance over to see two of the younger, more annoying new attorneys laughing and whispering to each other, all while looking at you and Matt.

Something snaps inside of you.

What the fuck was this, High School?

Why do you tolerate this bullshit?

You nod, turning your head towards Matt.

“You’re right. I don’t need to be here.” Then, with a quiet, ‘excuse me’, you pick up your things, stare straight ahead and go to your desk.

The meeting room goes kind of quiet, every one of them wondering if this was the epiphany you needed, to stop letting yourself be pushed around so often.

Meanwhile, your brain is committed to one thought:

Don’t cry, Don’t cry, Don’t cry—

You manage to make it to your desk, turn your head away from your colleagues, before the tears finally fall. You wipe them quickly and inhale and exhale slowly.

So everyone thinks you’re a fucking pushover who’s just letting Matt hate you so intensely, so what?

You take a deep breath in.

You exhale.

You open Linkedin and update your resume, before browsing for jobs. You apply to one or two.

You do this all day. You don’t get up from your desk, you don’t bring Mr. Murdock coffee, you don’t ask Kirsten what you can do for her, you don’t even respond when Matt asks you if you want anything from his thai food place, his treat.

You do some work, because you’re afraid of getting fired, but you just scribble down emails and addresses and pros and cons of staying, and you focus intensely at the task at hand.

You don’t even hear his footsteps as he approaches, all you hear is—

“Boo!”

You jump, gripping the arms of your swivel chair. You quickly spin around to be met with Matt. Anger burns within you.

“What the hell is your problem?!” You glare.

Matt laughs.

“What? I scared you?”

“Oh, fuck off,” You spit, and then you cover your mouth, your eyes wide. You’re mortified!

Matt just smiles and offers you the bag of, admittedly delicious smelling, thai food.

“You know, I like you better when you don’t let people walk all over you. It’s a better look.” He hums, and you take the food.

“..Thanks.”

“No problem.” He pauses, “But this doesn’t mean I need a secretary, I can still do all my own work,”

“Yeah, I figured as much.” You say bitterly.

“What’re you doing, anyways?”

You don’t hesitate to respond because he deserves this—

“Looking at job listings.” He pauses, as if caught off guard by your honesty.

“Maybe you should stick around, things’ll get easier.” He taps his cane on the ground, and you try to name the emotion inside you.

“Maybe.” Is all you respond before you turn back to your desk and start working.

After that, you hold no reserves about spending the hours that Matt ignores you writing. And you, of course, hear no objections from him.

After that, you and Matt are not quite.. enemies.. Well, you never were, but.. things aren’t as hostile as they were before. Occasionally, He’ll listen to you when you give input on a client. Occasionally, he’ll ask you if you want any coffee from the place down the street.

This is the closest the two of you get to a love language or a back and forth—Coffee and notes.

One day, you decide to clean his office while he’s out.

It’s an innocent gesture—Something to try and convince him that you can be useful, when given the opportunity!

You start by taking out the trash, making sure not to mess with any important documents. You note how barren his office is—Compared to your desk full of trinkets, at least. You suppose it makes sense, for a blind man not to concern himself with decorating.

You hang his scarf on a hook on the wall, noting the soft texture.

You don’t even mean to find it.

You just pick it up off his desk, and you’re reading it before you can stop yourself.

The picture on the card depicts a blonde man with a kind smile, handsome, too.

‘In loving memory of Franklin Nelson’ is as far as you get when the door swings open, and Matt is standing in the doorway to the office.

“Oh! Sorry—I was just trying to clean up before you got back from your meeting and—

“What are you holding?” You suspect he already knows based off how he asks, but you’re not sure how. Maybe it’s that important to him, but you’ve noticed that he knows things, weird things. But you have no time to think about that now.

“I found it on your desk,” You hold it out to him and as soon as his finger runs over the braille on the card, you watch his shoulders tense. “I’m so sorry, I just—”

“Never touch this!” He snaps, and you stop, taken aback. “Never ever touch this, do you realize how important this is? What would’ve happened if you lost it or threw it out?!” He steps towards you as he raises his voice, “This isn’t for you! Never come into my office without permission again, and never fucking touch this, do you understand?!” He yells, and when you don’t answer, he yells louder—“Do you understand me?!”

Silence.

Then, a whimper escapes your lips as you cover your mouth, tears already running down your face. You quickly place the card back on the desk, before speed walking out of his office, hot, thick tears running down your face.

You’re so fucked, you think. You’re going to get fired. As if you hadn’t spent weeks getting paid to do practically nothing, you’re absolutely going to get fired now. Maybe you should just quit, save yourself the embarrassment, or, maybe you can get on your hands and knees—Absolutely beg Matt to forgive you.

You feel awful. You had heard bits and pieces of what had happened to the man on the card, of how it affected Matt. How they were best friends. How they had their own firm together. How that was destroyed in a matter of minutes.

And sure, Matt’s been a dick to you for a while now, but you have an intense empathy for him. You couldn’t even imagine how he feels.

You grab your jacket and your bag, and then you walk straight back to your apartment. You assume you’re fired. But instead of worrying about it or applying to more jobs, You open a big bottle of wine and sit with the record player on. You keep thinking about how fucked you are.

You fall asleep on your couch, still in your work clothes.

You wake up to your phone buzzing and the sun in your eyes. You glance at the caller ID, only to find.. Kirsten calling you. Probably to chew you out.

“Hello..?” You answer hesitantly, your head pounding.

“Hey, where are you? You’re usually here an hour ago,” You glance at the time. You’re not late, but you’re chronically early. “Everything okay?”

“Uh,” Then, it hits you.

Kirsten isn’t calling to chew you out. So, that means..

Matt didn’t fire you. He didn’t even tell her.

“Sorry,” You finally answer, “I slept through my alarm, but I’ll be there soon.” You tell her. You two say goodbye, and then, you take a second to breath, then, make a plan.

First, you chug a bottle of water, along with a dosage of ibuprofen. Then, you hop in the shower and change, before grabbing your things and making your into the office. Everyone continues what they’re doing, business as usual. You say nothing to anyone as you settle in. You feel crazy, like you’re not in on some joke.

Then, as you’re shuffling around, Matt appears in the door of his office. He calls your name. You jump, tightening your grip on your chair.

“Can we talk a second?”

“Uh, sure.” Your heartbeat is loud, thumping quickly.

You make it into his office and sit on a chair in front of his desk, as he leans against the desk next to you.

Then, he leans back to the desk and picks something up. Then, he hands it to you—and relief washes over you as you realize it’s a coffee.

You take it.

“Thank you.” You say genuinely, talking a long sip of coffee.

“Two splenda and half n half, right?”

You glance up at him.

“How do you know my coffee order?”

“Despite what you think, I pay attention.” He reveals. You feel silly.

You open your mouth to begin,

“I’m so—”

He holds up a hand, a quiet command to be quiet. Closing your mouth and waiting for him to speak is your first reaction, and you’re not sure how to feel about it.

“I’m sorry.” He breathes in, “I’ve been a dick to you, and last night I took it too far. You were just being kind and you didn’t know.”

“I shouldn’t have tried to push your boundaries,” You offer. He shakes his head.

“I’ve been mean every day since we first met. You don’t deserve that.” He inhales, “I’ve been such a dick because I’ve been.. stuck and stubborn, because the guy on the prayer card.. He was a..” Matt’s jaw clenches and he tilts his head away from you.

You don’t need Matt to finish. His grief, his love for Franklin Nelson, whoever he was, has outlived him. And it radiates off him in this moment.

“Can I ask you a question?” Your voice is quiet. Matt just nods. “And you can’t laugh at me or tell me I’m being an idiot, or—Whatever, you just have to answer.”

Matt’s lips just twinge up, only a bit.

“Mhm?”

A beat.

“..Can I give you a hug?” You wonder, and he just nods, and before his head is able to pick back up, your arms are wrapped around him. You squeeze tightly, and Matt returns your embrace. Your hand gently rubs his back as Matt lets himself be held for the firs time.. in, well, months.

The two of you stay like this for a while, before you pull away. Your hands come up to cup his face, wiping his tears from his face, resisting the urge to pull off his glasses to dry his eyes.

When his tears stall, you finally break the silence.

“Are you gonna be okay if I go back to work? I can stay here if you want me, but—”

“No.” He shakes his head, “Go ahead, go back to work. But, can I tell you a secret?”

“Hm?”

“Now that you’re my new secretary, I’m gonna have to whip you into shape,” He teases.

You pull away, swatting his chest lightly before grabbing your coffee.

“I hate you. Don’t bother me.” You joke back.

“I do really need the case notes on the Jason family and I need to know when my first meeting is,” He says as you walk out the door.

“10 am. I’ll get you the notes in five minutes, tops.”

Matt smiles as he goes back to his seat and begins to search for his headphones.

“Thank you, kid,”

“Oh, I hate that.” You call back.

Matt just laughs.

Yeah, maybe you’ll stick around for a couple more weeks. Just to see.

It happens slowly at first.

You’re hesitant to engage with each other, suddenly not used to this.

His foot nudges against yours under the table at meetings. Sometimes on accident. Most of the time on purpose.

You bring him a breakfast sandwich.

He listens as you cry to him about an annoying witness you were assisting.

He touches your arm. You ignore a familiar, unnamed feeling.

You’re not sure when exactly you start to fall in love with him. But once you do, you find it impossible to stop.

You begin to fall asleep thinking about him whisking you away. Maybe just downtown. Maybe just to his office with the blinds closed and the door locked. Maybe to Scotland, to a castle where the two of you become the finest rulers in the land.

You find yourself just staring at him, and you’re right back to waiting for him like a lost puppy. You suppose there are worse fates than this.

Really, it’s not that bad.

You can just be a hopeless puppy following him around for the rest of your life. That’ll be fine. You tell yourself you’ll be fine.

Just ignore the way your stomach turns as Kirsten talks near your desk, just yapping about a date she went on, and then, out of nowhere, she asks,

“So what’re you looking for?”

“Huh?” You wonder, not fully paying attention.

“If you could go on a date with the perfect person, what would they be like?”

Your reaction is instantaneous. It’s instinctual. It’s incriminating.

Your head picks up, and your eyes lock onto Matt from across the office. He’s just shuffling through some old documents, but the way he focuses so intensely, a smile creeps up on your face before you can stop it.

When you realize what you’ve done, your eyes go wide, and you realize that Kirsten has followed your eyeline.

She starts to laugh.

“I knew it!”

“No, no! Kirsten,” You say, your voice now wobbly, “Kirsten, listen, you cannot say anything, you don’t know anything, just—” You’re panicking, because if Kirsten has found you out, your secret is no longer safe. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what? Don’t tell Matt you—”

“Shhhut up!” You whine, your hands covering your face. Fuck, fuck, fuck!

You’re so fucked.

Why do you keep thinking that in this office?

“Why? What would be so bad about—”

“I swear to god,”

“You won’t even let me say it out loud!” She laughs, and you feel pathetic.

“No, I won’t!”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m just going to ignore it.”

“What?! Why?!”

“Because he has spent the past couple of months being mean to me and we’re only now starting to be nice to each other, I highly doubt he wants anything to do with me.”

“You know there’s this old saying,”

“I’m so sick of this conversation.” You grumble as you stand, gathering your things, and placing the list of Matt’s meetings on the top of it, preparing to make your way to his office.

“You’ll never know unless you try.” She finishes. You look to her. Then, you glance back to Matt.

“Just promise me you won’t say anything.”

“Promise me you will.”

You don’t respond, but you do knock on Matt’s door before you enter. Despite his apology and the relationship you’ve been developing, his words still ring in your head—Don’t come into his office without permission.

He answers, so you go in, and immediately, something in you relaxes.

“Hey, sweetheart,” You pretend he’s being more than friendly, “What’s up?”

“Uh,” You breath out, “I got your meeting schedule.” You offer him, and he smiles.

“Thanks. Did you get my email about the expert witness for the Doyle trial?”

“Yeah, I did. I’ll keep an eye out for a follow up. Don’t forget, it’s that intern, Sarah’s birthday, so say happy birthday.” You remind.

“Oh, right. Sarah.. She’s.. the one with the crush on me? She giggles every time I enter a room?”

You furrow your eyebrows.

“Yeah, I guess she does have a bit of a crush on you. Are you.. going to do anything about that?” You ask, as if you’re not brimming with jealousy.

He laughs.

“No, no. Date a coworker? It would get.. messy.” He blushes like he speaks from experience.

“Oh.” You attempt to hide your disappointment. You don’t do a very good job. “Okay, let me know if you need anything.” You smile weakly and turn to leave.

You stop in the doorway. You turn back to him.

“You would date me though, right?”

His head picks up immediately. He smiles a bit.

“What exactly are you asking me?”

“I’m your coworker, sure, but.. you’d date me, right?” You wonder.

His grin widens.

“Are you asking me out on a date?” He wonders, and gets up from his spot at his desk, taking a few steps towards you. You meet him in the middle, your hands coming out to smooth his tie.

“Do you want me to be asking you on a date?”

“As long as it’s not out to Chinese, I just had that last night.” He responds, and you roll your eyes with affection.

“Italian?”

“Overrated for a first date.”

“French?”

“No, I’m Irish, actually.”

“Oh my god, Matthew.”

“Okay, okay. Thai?”

“Perfect.” Of course, You don’t care where you get dinner. You just want to get dinner with him.

And you almost kiss him, right then and there, but you tell yourself that in front of all your coworkers? In this office with these giant offices?

“Let’s go right after work. We can leave together, around six?” He asks, and you can’t help but smile.

“Perfect.” You repeat.

By five forty-five, your last coworker to leave heads out, leaving just you and Matthew waiting for six. At five fifty, you pull your jacket on.

At five fifty-three, Matt comes out of his office, and smiles to you.

“Ready to go?”

“Ready.” You smile, and Matt holds out his arm, quietly asking you to guide him. You happily take it, and begin to ask, “Thai, right? Could I toss in sushi as an option or—”

You don’t get to finish your sentence, because Matt leans his case next to your desk, before cupping your face with his free hand, and pressing his lips against yours, finally doing what he had been craving for months.

You tense at first, then you melt into the kiss, your hands wrapping around his tie before pulling him closer. It comes naturally to you, and you’re beginning to wonder why you waited so long to do this.

He deepens the kiss and for a moment before pulling away, his lips brushing against yours.

“Do you know how badly I want to skip dinner and take you right back to my apartment?”

“Why don’t you?”

“Because you’re the best thing that’s happened to me in months, I don’t.. I don’t want to ruin it. I don’t want to even risk it..” he confesses, “So I want to take you out to a nice dinner, kiss you until you’re unable to think.. Then take you back to my apartment.”

You breath out deeply.

“One more kiss, and then we’ll go,”

Matt answers by kissing you again, his hands going to gently nudge you against your desk, unable to stop kissing you.

But, he hears no objections from you.

#matt murdock #matt murdock x you #matt murdock x y/n #daredevil #matt murdock fic #daredevil fanfiction #daredevil fic #matt murdock fluff #matt murdock x reader #daredevil: born again #dd:ba #daredevil spoilers #dd:ba spoilers

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luveline · 1 year ago

Text

𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐟𝐚𝐮𝐥𝐭, 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 | 𝐚𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐧 𝐡𝐨𝐭𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐞𝐫

When someone hurts you, you and Aaron both need time to get better, and to put things right. fem, 8k

cw canon typical violence, graphic scenes and imagery of assault/battery, recovery, mentions of being sick, issues eating. established relationship, lots of angst and comfort, hotch being vulnerable, jack being sweet

˚‧꒰ა ✮ ໒꒱‧˚

You lay backward over the luxurious stretch of the couch and sigh as your spine gives a sharp crick. Your head feels heavy after a long shower, your arms ache from a day at work, but the feeling of soft cotton on your legs deters any moping.

I hope these are more comfortable, his note read, a white post it note stuck to a boutique bag. You wrap an arm around your waist remembering how Aaron’s message had made you feel: spoiled, and considered.

You’d mentioned in passing that all your pyjamas are old and rough as a consequence, thought nothing of it, and promptly forgot about the conversation entirely.

When Aaron finally comes home tonight, you’re going to give him a proper thank you. You can imagine his reaction to such a thing, his smile as he says it’s no problem, his eyes shuttering closed as you press a kiss to his cheek. You hadn’t realised how prevalent affection would become in your life after meeting him, but everything he does inspires love. Awful, soft, marshmallowy love where he looks at you and you want to sit in his lap.

You slide your phone up your chest lazily and click the button on the side to light the display. Aaron hasn’t claimed to know when he’ll be home tonight. All he’d said was to let yourself in.

It’s odd but not the worst thing in the world to be alone in his apartment. There’s less and less free space each time you visit as Jack begins to outgrow his and his fathers lodgings, but there’s never a stain or bad smell, the Hotchner apartment feels homey. You’re excited whenever you’re invited to spend the night with them.

Maybe some time soon he’ll ask you to move in, or better, to marry him. You’re not a hundred percent sure how you feel about marriage, about being someone’s wife, but there’s a great well of pleasure to be found in the idea that Aaron would want to marry you. He makes you feel loved already in a hundred different ways but the ring might be nice, like a symbol to signify how much you mean to him.

You rest your hand across your eyes. It’s silly to think of. Sillier to want so soon. You’ve been together for just under a year, and you have no false hopes about rushing into the future, but it’s certainly a future you want with him (and with Jack, too). He’s taking things slowly for a hundred different reasons but he loves you, and gifts like your new pyjamas cement that. He really listens to you.

Your phone rings a moment later.

You smile at the screen. It’s nice to be in love with someone who loves you too.

“Hey,” Aaron says when you answer, his voice warm even through the phone, “I didn’t think you’d answer.”

“How come?” You sit up with a little start.

“It’s getting late, honey. I called Jess and Jack was already gone.” He doesn’t say anything further.

“Are you okay?”

“I wanted to hear your voice, I think.”

“Well, where are you?” You struggle to envision him speaking saccharinely like this where his colleagues could hear him. He’s nice to you often, but he’s a reserved man.

“I’m just,” —a crunching sound of metal, the trunk of his car closing— “about to get in the car. I’ll be home before ten. Can I have you until then?”

“I don’t see any reason to say no. But do you think you could come home a little faster? I have a crick in my neck.”

“And you want me to fix that?”

“You always fix my neck.”

“How have you done it?” There’s a sound you assume to be the car door closing, but you can’t hear anything beyond that.

“I have bad posture.”

“You have perfect posture.”

“No, it’s quite bad.”

He laughs loudly. It took some time to draw the humour from him but he isn’t as stony as you’d think, and for a while he didn’t have much worth laughing for, anyways. Whenever you hear it, you try to prompt it twice.

“You don’t have to lie to me, Aaron, it’s just like when you said my weird rash wasn’t weird.”

He laughs again, to your pleasure. “It wasn’t weird, it was a heat rash, I promise. You act like you’ve never seen heat rash.”

“One of us goes to hot cities all the time and one of us lives permanently in Virginia.”

“What are you talking about? Virginia’s far from cold. You’re being argumentative, I can see your smile in my head. I’m never going to fix your crick if you keep acting like that.”

“No, don’t be like that,” you laugh, tipping back into the cushions. “You’re always such a sore loser.”

“What did I lose?”

You can tell from his tone that you’ve promised yourself one of those hugs that borders on a straight jacket tightness, his face tucked into your neck as he asks you to repeat yourself. What did I lose? he’ll ask again, kissing your chin, the line of your jaw. Tell me clearly.

“It hurts,” you say honestly, “please don’t be mad. I really need one.”

“I’m not mad… I’m going under the overpass, my signal might cut out.”

“Okie dokie. Hey, did you eat? I can make you something for when you get home. I got groceries.”

“I’m not hungry, but you can make yourself hot cocoa, and I’ll drink it when I get there,” he says.

“Or I could make us both some?”

“It’s much more fun if I drink yours before you can, honey. You know that—”

You pause in the quiet, then hear a quick beeping. You pull your phone from your ear and find the call disconnected.

Cruel overpass, you think.

Sure he’ll call you back, you take your phone into his kitchen and set about finding all the things you’ll need for hot cocoa. One mug, because you should hate when he forces you to share, but you love the feeling of his fingers on yours as he takes it and the thankful kiss he dots on your cheek.

The kettle is uncomplicated. You toy with the stovetop, set the kettle on the burner, and let the temperature rise. It begins whistling lightly a mere thirty seconds later.

You click your phone on again. He’ll have passed through the tunnel now and will be calling you back any minute. You stare at the phone, hoping to summon him, slouched over the counter with the tin of cocoa powder by your fingers. The kettle whines with growing heat, but cool air kisses your back.

Goosebumps rise. Up and down the lengths of your arms, the back of your neck—

A sudden chill.

The lack of air comes before the hand, the pain a rush, a burst to be away from. Leather on your neck creaking without sympathy as a hand tightens and drags your body back against something hard.

Not Aaron. Your scream comes strangled under cruel fingers as you fight to move forward again, straight for the burner, the kettle shoved across the burner grate and exploding with scalding water, heat of the burner kissing your chest— you scream, only it’s worse than a scream, sound from the deepest part of you forcing itself past the heat at your neck as you try to fling yourself away from the pain.

You fall with a hard clout. “Stay still!” comes out enraged against the back of your neck. You drop to your knees, the pain lighting flaring up your chest, your gaze frantic as you search for a flame that isn’t there. You’re not on fire, you’re crawling and then scampering up into a standing position when the heavy weight drops itself on you again and smashes your face into the floor.

All your fight leaves you. Your ears ring. Your panic wanes but the pain stays alert in your mouth.

A hand grabs you by the back of the head and drives your face into the ground. It’s like light in your eyes and your nose, the brunt of it, the crack of your bone and the hot trickle of blood that swiftly follows. You gurgle in pain, spluttering and gagging against the linoleum, waiting for Aaron to turn you over and say sorry. It’s an accident.

Blood drains from your nose in spurts to match your racing pulse, so much blood you can see your eyes reflected in the dark stretch of it. Water drips down the front of the stove, your breath aches and begs, and your attacker takes a measured breath.

He flips you over. You can’t slide away, there’s nothing left in you, your head a second body as he raises something.

Your phone rings on the counter.

“Please, don’t,” you plead with a sob.

You pass out as the pain connects. Just as quickly as it started, your body takes the reins.

—

There’s a strange darkness waiting for you. Like waking before your alarm and stealing those last minutes, body aching, not wanting to get up and face the day. Aaron gets up early every morning, sometimes as early as four AM, and whenever you get up with him your eyes hurt for hours.

Nothing, nothing, nothing.

Hey, hey, I think your boyfriend’s coming.

What will he make of my handiwork?

You didn’t stay awake long enough for that one, did you? But you’re waking up now.

The pain is enough to wake you up again, a hot drag down the side of you to your hip and in. You aren’t aware of the sounds you make, but you can hear them. Your panicked squealing as the heat presses further and further in. Your crying, and your whispering, “Stop, stop.”

“There’s handsome,” the dark voice says. “I’ve gotta go hide somewhere, does he carry after hours? I think I’ll find out.”

“Oh,” you say, feeling sickly. You attempt to curl into yourself, when did you turn onto your back? “No,” you mumble, lips wet with something hot.

“Honey?” a voice asks.

“Honey,” you repeat, woozy again, darkness falling in all over again, where it stays.

Honey, are you in here?

—

The window behind Aaron’s shoulder is cold. Rain patters fast like floods, thunder occasionally chewing through clouds, and Jack Hotchner cries sluggish tears into his dad’s shoulder.

Aaron has his eyes closed. They’ve been at this for a while. “Shh, shh shh, buddy,” he says softly, patting the bottom of Jack’s back. He’d sway him back and forth if his arms weren’t about to fall off.

Jack squirms closer, no room left between them.

“I know it’s scary,” Aaron says.

Jack just cries. This approach of quiet support isn’t working; Jack isn’t a baby that needs to be put to sleep, he’s a panicking little kid, and Aaron needs to change gears. He ushers him away from his chest and crosses his arm behind Jack’s back. Careful, he shifts Jack’s weight to free his other arm and brings his fingers up to the silky brown hair dropping onto Jack’s forehead.

“She’s okay,” Aaron says, stroking Jack’s hair. His little forehead is clammy. “She’s not hurting. I know it looks scary, honey, but… she’s just resting.”

Jack looks him in the eyes. “Her face.”

“I know.” He nods emphatically. “It’s hard to see. Blood isn’t nice. You don’t have to see her again today, not if it’s too scary.”

Jack lifts a hand to Aaron’s face. Clumsy but with clear attempts to be careful, he wipes at the skin under Aaron’s eye. Aaron bites back a smile.

“I look tired,” he says.

“Yeah.” Jack brings his hand back to wipe his eyes. He sobs as he does it. Aaron can’t describe the ache it gives him to see it.

“Buddy, I’ll do it. Let me wipe your face. I can do it.”

Jack drops his hands. Aaron turns his hand and wipes the smudge of Jack’s tears from hot cheeks, testing the waters with a little smile.

“I couldn’t see you under all those tears.”

Jack does a little smile back. “Yes you can.”

“I couldn’t! But now I’ve wiped all your face I can see you again. You’re handsome, did we know that?”

Jack giggles. He sniffles, and he presses his palm to Aaron’s neck. “I don’t want her to be sad, dad.”

“She’s going to be sad, because something scary happened, but it’s okay. I’m gonna take care of her.”

Aaron would offer to take him home, but they can’t go home. They may not go home for a long time —the team is still trying to work out how someone made it into the apartment without alerting the building’s security or Aaron’s internal system. And then escaped again without Aaron’s notice. Until then, Aaron has to make a decision about a safe house, for himself, Jack, and Jess, though she's extremely unreceptive to the idea.

Aaron has to look after Jack, and he needs to take care of you.

“What do you think, bud?” he asks, cupping Jack’s head in his hand. “Do you want to go home?”

“You said I can give her a hug.”

“If it’s too scary, we don’t have to. I don’t want you to get upset again.”

“I’m not scared. I want to give her the hug,” he says.

Aaron pulls him in for a hug of his own. “Okay, buddy. Just try to think of it like this. She’s where she needs to be to get better. Everybody here is looking after her. She’ll be okay soon.”

Aaron looks over Jack’s head down the hospital hallway. It’s a quiet ward, and here between the main ward doors and the hallway that leads down to the individual rooms there’s complete silence. Night is approaching quickly again, and with it comes Aaron’s panic. Your head turned into a puddle, your face lax of expression in the dark. He can’t stop finding the women he loves bloody and on their backs.

“Ready?” he murmurs. “Can you walk with me? My arms are tired.”

“Yeah.”

Aaron puts Jack down gently onto his feet. He neatens his hair, chucking him under the chin as he goes to see his smile. He’s so pretty, like Haley was, with shiny eyes. He’s a beautiful kid. Aaron takes his hand and together they make their way down the hallway to your room.

You’re sleeping.

Aaron herds Jack through the door and to the plastic covered chair by your side, where he lifts him up and sits him down. He stays between you both. Jack isn’t scared of you, just the blood, but he wants to show Jack that he’s going to protect him from anything he needs protecting from. He also desperately wants to touch you, and reassure himself that you’re still breathing.

He looks for your hand. Your pinky finger is splinted, but he can take it with care, give the palm of it a squeeze.

The blood matted in your hair has finally been washed away after a turbulent day, as well as the staining that marred your face. Your nose is broken, and looks it, the bruises so fierce your eyes have turned puffy and your top lip has inflamed. There are second degree burns in multiple places but most affectedly on your chest. There’s a stab wound at your hip, allegedly done with a small blade. It nicked your small intestine. The bandages laid over you are a lump under your hospital gown.

Aaron looks at you, and he feels a passionate disdain for himself. He wishes he could… be someone else. Someone who doesn’t have such a deep connection to a job that hurts the people around him, over and over. Haley used to say he was obsessed with being the hero, but this doesn’t feel heroic.

“Do you wanna give her your cuddle?” he asks softly.

Jack stays sitting.

He’ll have to give it to you himself. Careful, Aaron leans down over your prone body and presses a half kiss to your ear, the only place that won’t hurt.

You have an IV drip going into your arm, painkillers, an ECG monitor to the left. The room is white but busy, you’re a burst of colour against it all, your cuts and bruises, the evidence of violence he can’t remove. Aaron’s tired. He perches on the gap of bed by your leg and holds your hand, turning to Jack, who watches with a frown.

“She’s sleeping,” Aaron says.

“When can she come home?”

“In a few days.” He feels the pad of your hand, terrified of your broken finger but needing to hold a part of you.

“Why is she sleeping all day?”

Traumatic experiences are exhausting. “I think she might want to be alone, so she sleeps.”

“Should we go?”

Aaron shakes his head. “I think we should stay. When she wakes up again she’ll be happy to see us, because we’re not strangers.”

“We’re family,” Jack says. He’d liked that, when the nurse asked you how Aaron was related to you. Family only.

“We’re her family,” Aaron agrees.

If he somehow miraculously fell out of love with you, you’d still be family to them. You’ve given so much of your heart since you met them. Aaron wants everything you have to give.

You wake in a slow, slow upheaval. It takes effort on your part, the opening of sore eyes, the dreary decision to face your pain. Your hand jumps in his but relaxes when he shushes you, your slimmer fingers stilling under his rubbing thumb. For a split second, you keep your gaze half-lidded, jaw soft, like you’ve been indulging in a stolen nap.

Then your breath catches and you screw your eyes tightly.

“You’re okay,” he says, quietly, and not as lightly as he means to, “you’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay,” in quick succession.

“Hurts,” you say, and gasp, a whine stuck in your throat.

He doesn’t know what to do. Jack shouldn’t watch this but he can’t leave you alone. “It’s okay,” he says, holding your wrist to stop it climbing up your bruised face.

You were worse the first time you woke up. Catatonic, then sobbing. You mumble and whimper now, pain threading goosebumps down your arms.

“It hurts too much,” you say. A sob falls out of you like you’ve been ripped open.

Aaron doesn’t think, but an instinct sparks. The pain, to hit you right out of the gate like this, to make you say something like that when you’ve always always made your problems small, must be torture. It must feel new and sudden all over again.

Aaron checks that Jack is alright and leaves the room. He looks down one hallway and then the other, but there’s no nurse around —he races to the reception desk and begs the two nurses there for help with you, “She’s in intense pain,” he says, grasping the desk.

The nurse he’s more familiar with clears her throat. “Mr. Hotchner, she’s already had enough motrin for two people at your request, she really shouldn’t need–”

“Pain is just as important to treat as the injury.”

A second nurse puts her salad down with raised brows. “Do you want to overdose her?”

“Excuse me?”

Aaron has always seen himself as a gentleman, but the argument that ensues is tricky to navigate while remaining respectful, and he’s no closer to better treatment for you by the end of it. He gives each nurse a disapproving glower and takes his phone from his pocket, turning on the spot, ready to call whoever it is he needs to call for a second opinion. He’s not gonna listen to you cry when there’s no need.

He pushes the door open with the phone still clutched in his other hand. Jack’s climbed onto your bed. He cuddles your face, sitting by your pillows and bent over you protectively.

Aaron lets out a breath.

“It’s okay,” he says, his arm behind your head and his arm on your shoulder. “W’gonna take care of you.”

“I know,” you say, crying without sound, shaking under his arms.

His cheek smushes against your forehead. Your eyes are closed and your face braced for contact Jack doesn’t make, careful not to hurt you as he rubs his cheek into your skin. Your blankets are falling off of you from the squirming and your bruises shine with tears in the light, but Jack has calmed you down some.

Aaron shouldn’t have left Jack with you. He’s been so scatterbrained since he found you when he should be the opposite, but Jack is doing better than Aaron managed alone.

“I’m sorry for crying,” you say slowly. “I’m hurting, but it’s not bad. I’m okay.”

“That’s good. You have a big scratch on your face, and bruises.”

“I know.”

“Dad says you have a bruise on your tummy too.”

“I got lots of bruises, but it’s okay. Don’t worry about me.” You bring your hand up injured and uncaring to rub his leg. “You’re being a really brave boy, thank you.”

A tear rolls down your cheek.

“It’s teamwork,” Jack says. “I hug you and you hug me.”

“Is that what you want? You want a hug?”

“I want to go home,” he says, hugging you harder.

You grasp his arm loosely where it’s just under your chin. “Jack, can you move your arm?” you whisper.

Your breath comes quickly, but Jack moves his arm away from your bruised neck and you try to calm yourself down.

Aaron jolts himself back into action. “Sweetheart,” he says, rushing to sit Jack back and give you more space. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

He watches. Not sure what to say. Not sure saying anything is wise. You squint at him through your lashes, eyes opening slowly, your mouth a line pressed hard to stop from crying.

“I think it's time for Jack to go home,” he suggests gently.

“Yeah,” you say, eyes swimming with tears.

“No.” Jack squeezes your head again, to your panic.

“Jack, buddy, please don’t touch her neck,” Aaron says, grabbing Jack from your pillow.

He erupts into tears again. Frantic and vying for you, Aaron tries to calm him and he kicks against his chest, tears turning to disgruntled sobs at not getting what he wants. You wince, pressing your face completely into the pillow.

Aaron carries Jack from your room, phone in hand.

—

Is she breathing? Can she talk?

I don’t– I don’t know, I don’t– She’s breathing. Honey, can you hear me? I don’t know what to stop. I don’t know where it’s all coming from.

Where’s the worst of the blood?

It’s everywhere.

Abdominal? Chest?

I can’t tell. I can’t tell.

Mr. Hotchner, you can’t panic. Does she have a chest wound?

Yes. Yes, but–

Is she conscious? How’s her pulse? Be ready to start chest compressions.

Honey, can you hear me?

Your name said clearly.

“Hey, can you hear me?”

“Yes,” you murmur.

“If you need a minute, that’s okay.”

You cover your mouth with your hand. Emily Prentiss has a soft voice like your boyfriend’s when she wants to have it. She’s never spoken to you like this, none of his colleagues have, but since the incident, everybody treats you like you’re made of glass.

Cognitive interviews are meant to happen immediately after an accident, but you weren’t up for company. Aaron promised this would be on your terms, that Emily is the most practised, and that she’s reaped the most information from them than the rest of the team. So far, it’s worked to drag bad memories to the surface.

“Maybe we should start from the beginning.”

There isn’t a beginning. There’s just conversation. Aaron’s hand on your heart and his shaky voice, so unlike him.

“Okay.”

Emily reaches for your hand. She smiles, and her nice features get nicer. That’s another thing they all share, good looks. “Okay. What did you notice, in the kitchen? It’ll help if you close your eyes,” she reminds you.

You close your eyes.

“What stuck out?”

“Nothing,” you murmur. “I’ve been in there lots of times, and nothing ever changes.”

“Nothing? Not even the drawings on the fridge?”

“Jack’s particular about his best work, even if I think they should all be on display.”

Emily’s voice turns to a shard of itself. “What did you do? Can you take me through it step by step? Make yourself a cup of hot chocolate.”

“I never got that far.”

“What did you do?”

“I filled the kettle.”

“What kettle?”

You don’t understand the need for specificity, but you answer. “Aaron got it for me, when he… he told me he loved me, and when we got home he’d bought me a kettle and a bunch of stuff to make my being there easier. The kettle, because… he said something about superheated water. How the microwave can be dangerous, and this would be easier than a pan.”

“Alright. Okay, and what did you do after that?”

“I put the kettle on the stove.” You lit the burner, and heat kissed your palm, and suddenly the room had felt cold. “I got goosebumps.”

“When?”

“The kettle started to whistle, and it was cold.”

“And then–”

“Then he grabbed me.”

“Yeah,” Emily says softly.

You touch your nose. “I tried… He didn’t feel like a person. He didn’t feel like someone I was fighting, it was just painful.”

“Like he was quick on his feet?”

“He was silent. I didn’t hear him until I made him fall.”

“How big did he feel?”

Your stomach churns. Big. He’d felt big.

Where’s the worst of the blood?

“He said he was going to hide,” you remember.

“He said that? He said ‘hide’?

“Yeah. And he asked me if Aaron carries after hours.”

“When was this?”

It’s a headache. You try to remember more, because that’s what they need right now. If you ever want to go home, if you want Jack to go home, you need to remember more. The BAU are good, but nobody can make a map out of slivers.

“That was at the end,” you say.

“After he stabbed you?”

You wince. “Yes. After.”

“You’re doing so good,” she praises, “I just want to fill in the gaps.”

“I can’t remember. I was unconscious.”

“When Hotch found you?”

“No, before.”

“Before?” she asks.

You’re sick of sitting there with your eyes closed. Sick of your hands shaking with nowhere to hide them, and sick of feeling sick, your nausea as present as the stinging pain of your burned wrist against your sleeve each time you move.

You open your eyes and look around the conference room for something interesting. How nice would it be to think of something else for a few minutes?

“He called it handiwork when he cut me. Asked if I thought Aaron would like it,” you say, bordering monotonous as your gaze fizzles, unfocused, across the room.

“Okay, Y/N. Okay. I know you’re tired.” She reaches for your hands to squeeze at the same time. “You did really well. Any details at all are details we can use to find him.”

You’re not in the mood for talking anymore. Tears burn your eyes, waiting for a blink to set them loose.

“I want to see Aaron,” you confess quietly.

“I’ll find him for you.” Emily stands but bends, the dark of her hair a contrast to her pale face. She’s lovely, and her hand is gentle on yours. “Are you okay? Can I get you something to eat?”

So Aaron’s not keeping that to himself. “I want to see him, please.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

This is a horrible room. It’s not their fault, but the big white board is tacked with bad photos of grisly cases —currently your own. You stare at a photograph of your blood in the kitchen and don’t know what to do. Should you look away? You hadn’t realised you bled so much.

You turn your chair toward the door. Emily looks back as she leaves and smiles at you softly, but your eyes are already moving to the smaller dry erase board by the doorway. It’s ‘Hotch’s turn to clean up on Thursdays. How strange that they make the boss clean the conference room.

You can picture him picking up coffee cups and wiping down the table. You can always picture Aaron.

You can see him hovering over you, his hand pressed to the bloody mess of your hip to stop the blood.

“It’s okay,” you whisper to yourself, wanting to break from the memory, following Aaron’s example. “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.” You repeat it into your hands, head tilting down. You sink until your knuckles touch your knees.

That’s all he says when you panic. He’ll say it over and over again until you can breathe right. I have you, I have you, you’re okay.

He’s much quieter this time. You hear his footsteps, his familiar gait, your head pounding too hard to move. Aaron makes a sound between a sigh and a hum, like he’s saying a sorry hello as he kneels in front of you. His hand takes your face, rubs softly over your ear.

“My head’s just hurting,” you murmur.

He doesn’t respond. You sit together for some time as your mind races with bad memories, your fear a rush of goosebumps down the lengths of your arms and thighs. It’s hard not to think about what happened, mostly because you’re still a walking bruise, your stitches sting when you move, the blisters on your chest ache, all of it inescapable. But it’s your anxiety that plagues you most. You’re in a constant state of dread.

You had no idea someone could hurt you as badly as they had until it happened, and now you’re desperate not to be hurt again.

“You have to look after me,” you say eventually, throat sore with how awful it feels to say.

“Yes, I do.”

“Please don’t let me get hurt again.”

Total silence. You sniffle at his lack of an answer, only slightly comforted by his hands at your wrists now, pulling them from your face. “Let’s sit up,” he says, standing himself. “Come on, let’s sit up. You shouldn’t be putting so much pressure on your abdomen.”

You lean back and everything aches like a stretch after a long run or a bad night’s sleep.

Aaron pulls a chair next to yours. When he sits, your knees are pressed in between one another’s thighs, so close he could hug you. You might need one. He’s given you a ridiculous amount of them each day, some for him and some for you.

He has with him a takeout box and a bottle of water.

“Here,” he says, popping the seal of the drink. “Three sips.”

You feel like crying, but you drink. He opens the takeout box to reveal a normal looking sandwich already cut into two halves, but he takes a plastic knife from his pocket, peels away the wrapping, and cuts the sandwich again into quarters.

“I’m gonna be sick,” you say.

“No, you’re not. You won’t be.” He presses the sandwich flat with his hands and holds it to you until you take it. “Please, Y/N. You only have to eat what you can.”

“I don’t want it.”

“Please.”

“Did Emily tell you about my interview?”

He reaches for your thigh. Mildly unlike him when you aren’t at home. You assume it to be a tether for your sake. “No. Is there something you think I should know?”

“I don’t want to say it again.”

“Then you don’t have to. Someone will tell me when I get back.”

You pinch the fluffy bread in your hands, eyeing wearily at the wet insides. “Can I come with you?”

“You’re having trouble in the cognitive interviews, you won’t want to hear what we have to say.”

You split the sandwich in half again, watching as salad and mayonnaise ooze from the bread.

“If you don’t eat, you won’t get better,” he says, a touch stern.

“I can’t eat when you won’t let me come with you.”

“I’m not the only person capable of protecting you. I…” He circles your wrist before you can make a mess. “Can you please eat it?”

You take a bite to appease him, your stomach roiling, food wet and cold on your tongue. You eat the whole quarter queasily, a lump at the back of your throat begging you to stop.

Aaron takes an empty hand and rubs it tenderly. “Thank you,” he says, that rubbing turned more forceful, his hand journeying to your elbow and back again.

It’s sweet how attuned he is to your needing his touch, but mortifying. This entire experience had been embarrassing from start to end. Couldn’t defend yourself, can’t get to grips with it, and can’t keep anything down. Aaron looks at you and your bruises and you wonder if he’s seeing you with blood matted in your hair, or hearing you beg for him to get you something stronger. All you’d wanted was a sedative.

“I’m far from the only person capable of protecting you,” he says.

“You saved me,” you say. You mean it in every sense of the world.

“…This is my fault.”

“I want to be with you,” you say honestly. “I don’t feel okay by myself right now, I just need you, or I feel so sick I wish that I died.” The anxiety is marrow deep.

Aaron looks gutted. “Don’t say that.” His hand goes back to yours, back to tenderness. “I know you're scared.”

“Then why won’t you listen?” you ask weakly.

“I’m listening to you,” he says, his tone a dulcet, pleasing softness you’ve never ever heard before, “I need you to be safe, and I need Jack to be safe, and I can’t do that while he’s still out there.” His brows pinch together, agonised. “I’m sorry you’re scared. I didn’t protect you. But I won’t let anything happen to you again.

“I love you. Please believe that I’m doing what’s best for you right now.”

You turn your head away. He cups your cheek regardless.

“I love you,” he says again.

“I know.”

“No, I love you.”

He’s saying sorry.

“I love you,” you mumble back.

“How are you feeling? Is anything hurting more? Weeping?”

Your eyes are heavy at his touch. “You only looked at me a couple of hours ago.”

“Alright. Can I kiss you? I need to go.”

You don’t answer. Aaron kisses your chin, your jawline, the type of roving, teasing kisses he’d give as he squeezed your sides, only he doesn’t squeeze you, he can’t without hurting you. His hand hesitates just above your deepest wound.

His bright kiss works to spark a modicum of life back into you. Not a lot, but enough. It was likely his intention, some quick prodding kisses to remind you of something happy between you both.

You curl your fingers over his hand and turn your face for a chaste peck. He smiles, the curve of his lips evident and relieving against yours.

“Someone will take you back to the safe house, okay? Give Jack a kiss for me,” he says.

You nod. Aaron strokes your cheek.

—

Your assailant could have killed you while you were vulnerable, but he didn’t. “He assumes he’ll have another chance,” Emily surmises.

“That’s cocky,” JJ mutters.

“It’s telling,” Aaron says. “But he won’t.”

The coaching has been extensive. You, sick, a breath from tears and hurting, your shoulders in his hands and his grip too tight. If someone tells you I’m dead, you wait. If Morgan tells you I’m dead, you ask Rossi. If he says I’m dead, you ask Emily. You can’t believe the first thing someone says. No one is going to move you from this safe house to another without seeing me first. If I do get hurt, you and Jack will be moved separately. You will always get my confirmation before you’re moved.

I’m not gullible, you’d said, wincing at his sharp tone.

It’s not about that. People will lie, and they will lie well. They will talk their way into the house if you let them. You can’t let them.

I won’t.

He’s racing against a countdown, because no matter what he says, what you know, or how many agents wait outside your house, sometimes it’s a force of will.

Foyet didn’t need much more than that.

He admittedly feels on surer footing knowing where you are. The decision to guard you without putting you in WITSEC is aching and scary but better, too. He knows where you are. He can be there in ten minutes. No guessing games, but no hiding for you either.

Your dread is taking over everything you do. Today’s the first day since you came home almost two weeks ago that you could function without a live-in nurse or Jess there to look after Jack, and already he’s worried, because he’d convinced you total honesty was what’s best for the both of you, and so your texts are candid.

One an hour for his sake, more if you're up to it.

Threw up my beta blockers. Jack misses you, he wants to make you a Lego boat and fishing rod, but I’m not sure how to do it. Please make sure you eat dinner.

Your next message makes him smile, thankfully. I’m kidding about the dinner thing. Ha. I had one of those gels you got for me, and Jack wants fries, so I’m making waffle fries.

He texts back quickly. Eat dinner. Please tell Jack I miss him too, and don’t worry about the boat, he’ll work it out. Then, feeling awful, he adds, I love you

Aaron should go home. He’d feel better if he knew he was there to help you keep your medication down, but if he leaves… He knows his team will give you everything they have, but he has more. He can fix this.

He can’t fix this, god, his head hurts badly. You’re covered in cuts and bruises and burns and he thinks he can make up for that? You’ve been brutalised. Aaron can’t believe this is happening again.

He rubs his brow.

“You okay?” Emily asks.

When he looks up, JJ is gone.

“I’m fine.”

“It’s okay if you’re not.”

He’s not fine, but he knows what she’s asking. “I’m okay enough to do this,” he says.

It’s hard not to confuse you with memory, your hurting similar to his own, your situation one that he’s already lived. Haley will haunt him for life. It doesn’t usually feel as punishing as he fears he deserves: he gets to remember the best parts of her everyday. He sees her in Jack all the time. He sees her in you, occasionally —you’ll touch his hair or rub his arm like she would’ve done, and it doesn’t make him miss her any more than he does, he’s not in the business of wishing you weren’t yourself, he loves you, but he remembers her. Aaron remembers how he failed her every day.

He can’t fail you, too.

“Is it ever easy?” Emily asks.

Aaron looks around for a bottle of water. “Is what?”

“Being in love.”

He thinks about it. “I must make it look hard.”

She laughs softly. “Sometimes, yeah.”

Maybe that’s not fair, then, to you. For him to make it seem difficult to love you. To fail to correct Emily when she asks.

He chooses his words carefully. “Loving her is the easiest thing in the world. But… I continue to work a job I know makes me hard to love in return.” And that puts you in danger.

It doesn’t feel wrong to be sincere. Perhaps it’s easier with Emily. She saw so much of him during Foyet, and she’s family, truly. He can tell her how intense it’s felt.

“Well, it doesn’t seem hard for her,” Emily says.

He shakes his head.

She continues regardless, “Even during her cognitive, she mentioned the first time you told her you loved her. When it was over she wanted to see you over anything else.”

But I put her here, he wants to say. Or doesn’t want to say at all, but instead knows with surety.

“She can’t eat if I’m not home,” he says. What a thing to do to someone. “It’s my fault.”

Emily smiles, hair slipping off of her shoulder as her expression turns to playfulness. “I think you’re seeing it all wrong. Something bad happened to her, and you’re so safe to her that you make it better when you’re with her. That’s not fault, Hotch. Just love.”

He turns his attention back to the board without another word.

—

When the day comes, when they find the man who hurt you, you’re sitting at home with Jack Hotchner in your lap. You’re laughing at his laughing, cartoon fish on the TV, and Aaron’s got a gun in his hand fifty miles away. You both giggle, nearly in hysterics as the safe house living room glows pink and red, Jack’s favourite character swimming hurriedly across the screen, as Aaron negotiates the arrest.

Usually capable of mediation, Aaron finds his patience completely unravelled. He offers the UnSub two choices: he surrenders now, immediately, and he keeps his life, or he deliberates and Aaron kills him.

He has reason to believe the UnSub will try again, of course. Will keep hurting you until it sticks.

He goes home satisfied.

“Dad’s home!” you say excitedly, your movie long finished, your thighs numb and stitches stinging where Jack has leaned against you. You encourage him off of you as the front door closes, the cold air from outside rushing in.

“Honey?” Aaron calls.

“Yeah!” You stumble into a standing position, sure you look about as disgusting as you have since the situation began, promptly sitting back down as head rush hits.

Jack races for the door, meeting Aaron in the hallway with a whoosh. “Hey!”

“Hi, buddy, what are you doing?”

“We watched Finding Nemo,” Jack says, “and now I’m hugging you, duh.”

“Duh. Well, I need to talk to Y/N for five minutes. Can you wash your hands for dinner?”

“Yeah.”

“You okay?” he asks.

“I’m fine.”

You hear the sound of a light kiss, and then Jack rockets across the hallway and up the stairs. Aaron walks into the doorway, tie still knotted but with no suit jacket, and you know what he’s going to say before he says it. He wears a strange expression.

“You got him?” you ask.

He puts a white bag on the coffee table, looking down at you fondly. “I got him.”

“How did you find him?”

He crouches down in front of you. He’s so careful to be harmless to you now, so tentative. “You’re not the only woman he hurt. We dealt with him in the past. From the information you gave Emily during your interview, and the information he left behind, we found him… If you weren’t as brave as you are, I couldn’t have kept you and Jack safe.” He holds your knee. “Thank you.”

You stare at him. Staring, wondering what he means. “Brave?”

“Brave.”

“I’m a coward.”

He shakes his head. “No. You’re not.”

All you've done for days is cry and throw up and bleed, literally. You’ve ruined clothes and sheets, thrown up in his lap, terrified and aching. Each time was met with the same gentleness. A kiss on the cheek, or a hand rubbing your back. Is that bravery? You feel like a baby.

Aaron’s brow is relaxed. He takes your two legs into his hands, and he looks at you with a reverence that leaves you breathless.

“You’re hurt forever because of me,” he says quietly, you strain to hear him, “because of who I am, and what I choose to be.”

“How can you say that? It’s not your fault.”

“It wouldn’t have happened to you if I hadn’t missed his MO the first time.”

“You’re not putting the knife in anyone’s hand,” you argue.

“But it keeps happening.”

His hair shines dark and wet. It must be raining outside, the safe house walls are thick, the windows shuttered permanently, you haven’t heard a peep. You stroke it back from his forehead.

“Remember… when we first got together, and you told me you were sorry for how hard being with you could be. And I said it was okay, that it wasn’t hard, and you said it would be?”

“I remember,” he says, practically mouths.

“I was so afraid when...” You swallow roughly. “I still am. But not– not of you. Not of what you can do. When you told me it was going to be hard, I thought, well, it’s worth it, because I really liked you then and I love you now.” Tears collect in your eyes. Safe. I’m safe. “And you look after me, so– so–”

You stop as your voice turns to glass, worried you’ll make a fool of yourself and cry in his hands.

“I didn’t want this for you,” he says.

“Nobody wants this. Bad things happen to everyone, but who has someone like you to look after them?”

He breathes out heavily. “Please… don’t cry.”

You wipe your cheeks, taking a lengthy pause before you say, “I’m okay now.”

He looks at you in silence.

“Come and sit with me,” you say, scrubbing your cheeks, hot tears cooling on the backs of your hands. “Your knees.”

He actually smiles. It changes his entire face. “What about my knees?”

Aaron sits on the couch next to you atop Jack’s blanket, a bag of pretzels tipping between your leg and his. You attempt to rake his damp hair into submission as his fingers run against your thighs, fishing for pretzels to put back into the bag.

You’d like for him to grab you and kiss you harshly, give you one of his straight jacket hugs, some roughhousing, but you won’t get that from him until you're better, and even then, it’s up in the air. So much has changed.

But not everything.

“I love you,” you murmur, fingertips scratching down behind his ear to the back of his head.

He turns to you, sagging with relief and exhaustion. “Kiss?” he asks quietly.

You nod. He holds your cheek, and you close your eyes at the same time for a kiss. It’s not a lot, but you have time. He can give you another one when you’re both better recovered.

He pulls away. You open your eyes, finding his closed, his face downturned. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“Was Jack good?”

“Jack’s always good.”

“Did the nurse have anything to say about your chest?”

“She said it’s healing okay. That I need to use, uh, scar patches when they start to scab.”

“I can get those.”

“I know, I knew you would.”

He gathers you up for a hug. For a moment, you think he’ll move on, that the end of your nightmare will kill his remorse, but he breathes in, nose wedged against your cheek.

“Do you think that tonight, we could pretend it didn’t happen?” You’d like to just sit with him, press your hand to his chest and doze. It’s the first night in a while that you’ll feel completely.

“Yeah. I can do that.” He hugs you rather tightly. “Do you want to see your present?” he asks, relaxing his grip.

“My present?”

He grabs the bag on the coffee table and places it in your lap. “I’m worried it’ll remind you of bad memories, but I wanted you to have nice things then, and I still do.”

In the bag, there’s a pair of pyjamas. Very different to the ones you’d been wearing when you were attacked, they were girly and sweet, soft in your hands, these are sturdy. Still soft, but thick. The shirt is short-sleeved and the pants cuffed at the ankles, a hoodie tucked underneath them, and a packet of minky socks.

“Thank you,” you say.

Thanks for everything, for saving you twice, for taking care of you at your worst, and for wanting you to have something comfortable to wear at the end of it. To have experienced an abjectly cruel battering will leave its marks in your forever, but you meant what you told him. He looks after you, and you love him.

He kisses your shoulder. “You don't need to say that.”

He doesn’t add anything else, his nose pressed to your shoulder, his hand on your hip. Whatever goes unsaid can be felt in the other’s touch.

˚‧꒰ა ✮ ໒꒱‧˚

thank u for reading!! it’s been a long time since I wrote a fic for hotch and it’s hard to write him being vulnerable but I hope this is alright anyways and that you enjoyed :D please consider reblogging if you did enjoy it (cos that way my fics get shown to more people <3) ❤️

#aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner x you #aaron hotchner x y/n #aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner fic #aaron hotchner oneshot #aaron hotchner drabble #aaron hotchner imagine #aaron hotchner fanfic #aaron hotchner fanfiction #hotch x reader #hotch #hotch x you #hotch blurb #hotch drabble #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfic

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bloomzone · 5 months ago

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2025 : #11 - 6% Mentality : why u are holding urself back ?

✒️..It’s January . You’re all fired up about your New Year’s resolutions, right? “This is my year,” u say. “I’ll lose the weight, make the money, start the business, crush my goals.” But BFR : By the time February rolls around, you’re back to your old habits. Your gym membership is collecting dust, that diet is long gone, and that academic cb idea is still just a thought in your head. You’ve been here before iiikr

🏷️[ inspiration: dr.Michelle Robbins refers to her study of 1,000 people, showing that 94% gave up on their resolutions by February but how the 6% managed to succeed ?]

So 94% of people will abandon their goals before they even get started. Let me repeat that 94%. The odds are stacked against you, but there’s a small group—just 6%—who will do the work, face the grind, and get what they want. What separates them from the rest? They know the truth, and they do it even when they don’t feel like it.

Let me give u truth. If you want to be part of the 6%, you need to change how you think, act, and approach your goals. u need to stop being weak.

ONE take charge or shut up.

Your brain is not your friend. It’s a coward. Your brain wants comfort, safety, and the easy way out. Every time you try to do something hard—like losing weight, hitting the gym, or getting out of debt—your brain will whisper, “You deserve a break. Skip the gym. You’ll start tomorrow. One donut won’t hurt.”The reality is that tomorrow never comes. And if you keep listening to your brain, you'll never see any change. The 6%? They don’t listen to their excuses. They take charge. They override their feelings. They don’t give a damn about comfort or instant gratification—they’re thinking about where they want to be a year from now.

You need to make a choice: Are you going to let your feelings control you? Or are you going to start controlling your feelings? Take charge. You don’t want it bad enough if you keep letting your brain win.

Two get specific or quit.

Enough with the vague promises. “I’ll work out more.” “I’ll eat healthier.” Bullshit. That’s not a goal—that’s a wish. You might as well wish on a star and hope things magically change.The 6% know that vague goals don’t work. They get specific. Instead of saying, “I’ll lose weight,” they say, “I’ll eat 1,800 calories a day and hit the gym for 30 minutes every morning at 7 AM.” Instead of saying, “I want to be a high achiever,” they say, “I’ll study 2h and rest for 30 min until I get it” ..Your brain loves specifics. It’s easy to stay motivated when you know exactly what to do. But when you’re vague, you have no idea where you’re going, and no one gets anywhere with no direction.

You need to stop with the “I’ll try” and start with “I will.” If you can’t commit to specifics, then stop whining about why things aren’t working. You get what you decide to get, not what you wish for.

Three focus on the 10

You’re busy. I get it. WE ARE IN A SOCIETY WHERE EVERYONE IS BUSY..You’ve got a million things on your to-do list. But guess what? Most of that stuff doesn’t matter. You’re wasting time on things that don’t move the needle. “Check emails. Scroll Instagram. Clean your room.” Sure, they make you feel productive, but they don’t move you closer to your goals.You need to stop being busy and start being effective. The 6% know how to focus. They don’t waste time on trivial shit. They get to work on the 10s—the things that actually matter. If your goal is to get in shape, that means working out. It doesn’t mean cleaning your kitchen or sending one more email. If your goal is for example become an academic weapon is not watching how to study for exam in the last night ..

Get real with yourself pookie Stop pretending you’re busy. Look at your list. What’s the ONE thing that moves you closer to your goal? Do that first. The rest? It can wait. If it’s not a 10, don’t waste your time on it.

Forth small steps big results.

Let’s not sugarcoat this: If you want to succeed, you have to make sacrifices. There’s no shortcut. But the thing most people don’t get that You don’t need to change everything at once. You don’t need to completely overhaul your life. Start small.Take one step at a time. If you’re trying to lose weight, drink one glass of water before every meal. That’s it. But don’t stop there. Once that becomes easy, add something else: Maybe you walk 10 minutes every day. Or swap out soda for water.

The 6% get it: Small actions snowball. They build momentum. You don’t have to be perfect. You just have to show up consistently.

The Challenge: 30 Days of Realness.

Pick one goal. ONE. And commit to it for the next 30 days. No excuses. Write it down. Be specific. Take charge. Get rid of all the distractions and focus on what matters. Every single day, make progress—even if it’s just a little.But if you’re not serious about this, don’t bother. If you’re not willing to do what it takes—if you’re too busy making excuses—then stop pretending you want to change. The 6% don’t have time for excuses. They do the work, even when it’s hard, even when they don’t feel like it.believe in urself and be disciplined !!

So, get off your ass, stop whining, and start doing. Because if you keep playing the same game, you’re going to keep getting the same results. But if you’re ready to be part of the 6%? You better bring your A-game. And you better be real with yourself.

@bloomzone 📇

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pomefioredove · 1 year ago

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So idk if I'm requesting in the right place. But I would love a twst scenario with a yuu that just says all their intrusive thoughts. Like just out of NOWHERE, as they reach for a water bottle hanging out with the first years they go.

“I robbed a house back home”

Or when Azul tries cornering them with the twins for something they just blankly turn to Floyd going.

“duck off you look like you can't steer a shopping cart”

But feel free to do it with whoever you want and if you don't want to do mine that's perfectly fine and I hope you have a great day :)

certainly!!

summary: reader who speaks all their impulsive thoughts type of post: headcanons characters: heartslabyul, octavinelle, scarabia, diasomnia additional info: platonic or romantic, reader isn't specified to be yuu, reader is gender neutral author's note: for some reason I had the hardest time thinking up new nonsense, so many of these dialogue lines are from lewis carroll poems, which I have a wonderful nostalgia for. check those out as well!

Ace and Deuce are pretty much used to you saying whatever's at the top of your mind... with no filter

so used to it that it barely even registers with them anymore

whenever it's quiet, they can expect you to come out with some incomprehensible nonsense.

if you didn't, they'd probably ask what's wrong

"I robbed a house back home,"

"Yeah, okay,"

Riddle, on the other hand, gets frustrated alarmingly fast

despite running an entire dorm based on nonsensical rules, he has a low tolerance for outside nonsense

and... well, despite his name, he's not really a fan of riddles

Trey matches your energy immediately

no joke. he doesn't even bat an eye

"I eat plastic,"

"hm. sometimes I eat muffin wrappers,"

honestly, sometimes his tangents get even weirder than yours

Cater probably wasn't listening very closely when you first started going off, or maybe he's just become accustomed to riddles, though the next time you say something he just thinks it's cute

might use your "thoughtful anecdotes" as a caption for his next post

would it be surprising if I were to say Azul is used to randomness?

Floyd has a tendency to say the strangest things out of nowhere, after all, and the sea itself can be a surprising place

he does not, however, appreciate how you keep speaking in tongues when he's trying to have serious business conversations with you

(seriously, how hard can it be to swindle one person?!)

"Please, just talk normally,"

"But the mome raths outgrabe!"

he doesn't know what that means, but it sounds like an insult

...and then will refuse to converse with you again until you're in a "better mood" (in his own words)

Jade, on the other hand, finds you quite fascinating

he keeps a little notepad on him just to jot down the things you say. why? you can't imagine. he just finds it interesting, you suppose

"'Twas brilling..."

"Really? How interesting. Go on,"

Floyd isn't really paying much attention

your funny words amuse him at best and annoy him at worse

if you ever find yourself in a bad place with the octotrio, you can just say something like:

"You look like you can't steer a shopping cart,"

and Floyd will take actual offense to that, and just straight up leave

(much to Azul's dismay)

Kalim adds on right away

and keeps going

and keeps going... and keeps going...

"How doth the little crocodile improve his shining tail..."

"Oh, I know! He pours waters on every shining scale,"

at one point Jamil has to pull you aside and beg you not to encourage him

"No promises!" is your answer

Kalim even buys a parrot to add onto the fun

it becomes a three-person (or two-person-and-a-bird?) act

...even if you're not really doing it on purpose

Jamil is who ends up taking care of the parrot while it squawks your old nonsense thoughts, though

he likes the parrot much better than either of you

Malleus will entertain you based on his own curiosity

none of his other human classmates speak in such odd and puzzling words, so he knows it's a "you" thing

might try to solve them if they sound like riddles

but he mostly just thinks they're cute

"O, oysters, come and walk with us,"

"How interesting... I do wonder where you come up with all this,"

Sebek will listen to you because Malleus does, and Silver has enough nonsense to deal with as it is. will definitely fall asleep while you're talking to him

Lilia responds in like terms

meow at him? he'll meow back

in fact, he'll meow at you every time he sees you until you say something else to capture his curiosity

might go ahead and start speaking to you in tongues before you even say anything

he just thinks you're neat!

#twisted wonderland x reader #twst x reader #riddle rosehearts x reader #trey clover x reader #cater diamond x reader #ace trappola x reader #deuce spade x reader #azul ashengrotto x reader #jade leech x reader #floyd leech x reader #kalim al asim x reader #jamil viper x reader #kinda...#malleus draconia x reader #lilia vanrouge x reader

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gghostwriter · 30 days ago

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Hold Onto You

Spencer ruminates about his relationship—their past, present, and hopefully future

Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader Tags: Fluff w.c: 1.49k a/n: Feeling highly rusty but the only way out of a writer’s block is through. A huge thank you to emme (@thegloryofliterature) for being my draft reader and for being one of the few moots i run to when a fic idea comes. Comments and reblogs are highly appreciated! 💗 masterlist

The grandfather clock tucked in the little corner of the newly renovated living space struck 1 am. Candles littered in various table tops, its’ wick flickering close to exhaustion, wax melted all around.

Its’ occupants, the owners and their guests, were murmuring their goodbyes, some slurring their words compared to the others. Penelope Garcia, a fine example, was flushed from the copious red wine and with her kitten heels dangling from her fingertips, leaned against the protective arms of one sober Derek Morgan.

“We had a great time,” JJ smiled at the couple, her cheeks a shade of strawberry pink from the alcohol consumed.

“The new place also looks great,” Emily nodded before one corner of her lips quirked up into a smirk. “Which we all know is mainly due to your taste rather than Spencer’s.”

You giggled as Spencer let his indignation known.

“You’re all welcome back anytime, truly,” your left bare hand finding solace on your boyfriend’s chest.

Morgan chuckled. “We might just take you up—”

Penelope squirmed in his arms, her manicured hands reaching across the threshold to squeeze yours once more.

“You’re so so—” she lengthened the vowel, hiccuping in between. “—sweet. I could just eat you up—”

“Garcia!” Spencer groaned.

“—but I won’t cause boy genius won’t allow me to,” she pouted.

“And that’s our cue. Good night you two and thanks again for tonight,” Morgan tilted his head to address the youngest member of the team in jest. “Reid, don’t do anything I won’t do, alright?”

They all laughed at his reddening cheeks.

Saying their farewells, the couple watched as the four step onto the awaiting elevator. Once the lift started their descend down, they shut their own door and settled into the abrupt silence of the apartment.

Spencer watched as his girlfriend of four years burst into giggles, shoulders shaking from the act.

With shiny eyes meeting his, “I had fun tonight, really.”

Any remnants of trepidation from tonight flushed clean from his system, as if the elation shone on your face was all he need to feel all was right in the world.

It was an emotion he wrangled with still, no matter how many years had passed. Spencer knew the statistics of FBI agents in correlation to keeping a relationship alive, the odds were stacked against their favor.

He didn’t need to look far, his supervisor was an illustrious example of flourishing in his career but floundering in his personal.

So when Spencer started this relationship, his shoulders would tense up from every phone call that took him away from you, as if this case would be the one to break the camel’s back. Or as if this one or the next coming would cause him to turn from being a partner for an incredible woman to being a single entity, alone, missing what he once had.

He hadn’t told you his worst dreams while away for a case. How he’d hear your melodic laughter in a hazy crowded room, familiar but no longer his, eyes tracking your beauty and smiles in the arms of another man.

Spencer would wake up drenched from sweat and heart trying to beat out of his chest to the sweet reality where you’re still his and not once well-known stranger just inches out of his orbit.

He vividly remembers the first time he merged his world with yours at an annual gathering at Rossi’s mansion where he meekly asked, in private of course, if he could bring a plus one.

The senior agent squinted his eyes in return, possibly analyzing any signs that could have pointed to this moment, before breaking into a smile, nodding, and patting his back with a warm chuckle.

But for tonight, he had felt nervous and if he was being honest with himself, afraid that this moment would finally scare you away from the chaotic fold of his life.

A fold he was on the verge of including you in for longer—for as long as you’d allow him to.

“I had fun too,” he breathed out, a soft smile settling on his face. “Even when I had to listen to Morgan detail how much of a klutz I was during the early days.”

You took his hand into yours, rhythmically squeezing as you pulled him to the messy dining table. “Well, I for one thought it was cute—” the tips of your nose scrunching adorably. “—falling into a pool and getting kissed by a celebrity, just wow Spence, not everyone has that type of first kiss.”

The tips of his ears turned a brighter shade of red, mind desperately trying to string along words for defense.

Not waiting for his feeble attempt to contradict your teasing, you flitted around the table, gathering a series of plates as you went, skipping and side-stepping as if you were dancing to your own music.

He watched as the hem of your floral skirt softly swayed, entrancing him to blindly follow your lead. A moth to an ever bright burning flame.

He hovered behind you, caging you in, and the little space in between your bodies turning into static.

Spencer placed his warm hands your waist, the soft fabric and the skin underneath giving way to his grip, thumb running circles on the sliver of exposed skin beneath your blouse.

You giggled, sending vibrations to his chest and tingles to his ears, as he placed a constellation of kisses on your cheeks, trailing down to the soft arch on your neck.

“If I could consider our first kiss as my first, I would,” he whispered against your skin.

“Your eidetic memory begs to differ, love.”

He huffed, lips quirking to a pout. “It’s the thought that counts, wouldn’t it?”

You hummed under your breath, agreeing with his sentiment.

His fingertips slowly traced its way to your own, caressing a trail that pebbled the skin underneath his feather light touch. Running your intertwined fingers under the streaming water before turning it off, Spencer gently tugged you towards the center of the kitchen.

Unobscured by any furniture, he tucked you safely under his chin, softly humming a song ever so familiar and swayed with you under the dimming orange glow of candlelights.

The silence, heady from emotion, cocooned the two lovers in its embrace. Your choice of perfume, reminding him of rain against a night pavement, wafted through his sense, lulling his heartbeat to a baseline.

Spencer had spent numerous nights, watching you in deep sleep beside him, wondering if all the roads he hadn’t taken would still lead him to this—to you.

Were you the absolute destination of his otherwise convoluted life? The crystal clear pond at the end of a sweltering desert or an angel sent down by the heavens to one of its heavily wounded soldier or perhaps the absolute answer to his own mathematical and theoretical question called purpose?

If he had made just one mistake, would he still be here, waltzing with you at early in the morning, surrounded by dirty dishes and empty wine bottles on the counter top and no soul awake to watch their phantoms dance as one?

He squeezed your waist three times reassuringly, reminiscing the highs, middles, and lows you had stuck through beside him.

His recovery from a gunshot wound, how you took time away from work just to make sure he got back to his own two feet. Mundane runs to the grocery store with a golden tint in his memory, making him feel like a little kid experiencing a taste of freedom and Emily’s death on the hands of Doyle, regardless of how untrue it was and the almost relapse from his festering emotions of being called a genius, for being too smart but still being too late to save her.

He wanted everything life would throw at him with your presence right beside him. The warmth of you, your steady hand clutching his, and your eyes sparkling from trust and belief you both would make it through.

Spencer wanted the connection with you to never be severed and for your story to continue on like an epic revisited by generations to come.

When he was young and still naive, he’d wonder if happily ever after truly existed or if was just a jaded author’s hopeful wish to create one in this bleak struggle of life.

But here, with you in his arms, the neurons in his brain all echo an affirmative, that it does exist.

And it exists right here with you.

A definite ending.

A happy ever after.

So when he closes his eyes and places a litany of kisses on you forehead, he imagines your left hand, enclosed in his, wearing two rings—one of them now still safely hidden in his sock drawer and the other, a simple gold band linking to his own imaginary, and a white picket fence with high pitched squeals and laughter echoing from its’ ever green backyard.

Comments and reblogs are highly appreciated!

#spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid fic #criminal minds fanfic #criminal minds fic #criminal minds fanfiction #spencer reid x fem!reader #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x yn #spencer reid x self insert #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid x you #spencer reid oneshot #spencer reid one shot #dr spencer reid imagine #spencer reid imagine #criminal minds imagine

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gav-san · 20 days ago

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Soul Shanked 2/4

Main Masterlist Here

One Piece Masterlist

Soul Shanked Masterlist

Chapter Title: Screaming, Glowing, and Other Signs of Affection Length: 7.5 K+

Previous/Next

Taglist: @wontknowbetter, @sleepydang @flav1a0 @pleasantkittenpersona @heartsforseo

The call was arranged through a cautious web of intermediaries.

Neutral waters.

Strict conditions.

No ships within ten miles.

No weapons drawn.

Just a snail line.

Shanks.

Boa Hancock.

Simple. Respectful. Diplomatic.

It went to hell in less than a minute.

The snail’s eyes narrowed.

It began with Shanks, trying his best not to set fire to anything.

Shanks, leaning casually over the transponder snail. “First of all, thank you for not killing the messenger. Or the snail. Probably not in that order.”

Boa Hancock’s voice came in sharp, cold, and bore no idiots.

“You have sixty seconds.”

A nod. A title. A silence thick enough to choke a Sea King. He cleared his throat.

“I have… a respectful-”

Then Hancock tilted her head, cut him off and said, “So. You’re the reason.”

Shanks raised a brow. “Reason for what?”

“For her disgrace. For her distraction. For her embarrassment before the Rayleigh man-creature, who no women with honor should have to endure.”

He blinked. “…What?”

“You don’t deserve to know.”

“I—look, I’m not here to start a fight-.”

“She’s sighing,” Hancock snapped, voice curling with venom. “Do you know what that means?”

Shanks hesitated. “That she’s, uh… tired?”

“It means you live on borrowed time.”

Shanks fumbled. “Look, I just wanted to suggest—ask, really—if we might arrange a brief, nonviolent, non-magical meeting to discuss the soulmark situation and maybe the implications of a shared destiny and whether—”

“So you can hex her again?”

“Uh. No?” He said hopefully.

She hissed.

He pulled at his collar. “I wasn’t even trying to seduce her. I would just like to introduce myself-.”

“That’s seduction.”

“It was an observation!”

“Your mere existence cursed her.”

“I prefer the term fate-adjacent inconvenience—”

A chair was thrown. A snail near-departed the world.

Somewhere, someone screamed and dropped a fruit basket.

“If you come within five miles of Amazon Lily,” Boa Hancok threatened, voice suddenly calm in that terrifying way, “I will consider it an act of war.”

Benn Beckman lit a cigarette with the air of a man who’d seen this coming from miles away. “Well,” he muttered, “there it is.”

Shanks blinked. “Wait, really?”

“You’ll be turned to stone. Your ship will be turned to stone. Your entire crew’s bad decisions will be turned to stone.”

Benn sipped his coffee. “She’s not bluffing.”

Shanks whispered, “Yeah, but she’s kinda poetic about it, right?”

He raised his hand, forgetting no one could see him.

“Okay, okay. No visits. No Red Force docking. What about just sending her my letters—?”

“That’s what the last snail tried. I drowned it.”

“…Right.”

He inhaled slowly, then tried one last card—his most sincere, tragic, lovesick voice.

“I just want to see her. Can’t you respect that I’m actually asking? Not just taking? It’s a real show of my goodwill to not do what I want.”

Silence.

Boa Hancock’s voice came low, cold, and deeply done with this entire reality.

“You will stay far, far away.”

Another chair flew. Another snail screamed. The line cut.

The Red Force snail sagged like it had aged ten years. So did Shanks.

Benn didn’t look up. “Forty-two seconds.”

A new record.

Diplomacy, Red-Haired style. Cutting edge.

The snail shuddered.

Benn gave it rum.

“Ya know,” Yasopp popped his head in. “She didn’t technically say no.”

Lucky Roux strolled in with snacks. “That’s a maybe.”

Benn groaned. “That’s what threats indicate!”

Yasopp clapped him on the shoulder. “Come on, Captain. You’ve had worse odds.”

“How romantic!” someone yelled from the hallway.

“Raise a toast!” another called. “To cursed proximity and mutual scarring!”

“Send her flowers!” Howling Gab shouted. “Or a fruit basket! No—send a plague fruit. That’s more personal.”

“Write her a poem!” Rockstar added. “A sexy one! About tattoos and destiny and… ships!”

Maybe I should write a poem,” Shanks muttered. “A love poem-”

“Then let us ghostwrite it,” Yasopp offered solemnly. “With our hearts. And zero grammar.”

Benn slumped lower in his chair.

“We could just-” Shanks mused thoughtfully. “Casually pass by. Just to say hi. Not to start a national disaster, but just-”

The crew erupted into cheers again, banging mugs on walls, stomping boots, one of them breaking out a lute.

Benn groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Do none of you know what implied means?”

The snail slowly slid off the table in despair.

Hancock stood at the lookout tower, eyes locked on the distant red speck bobbing on the sea.

The Red Force.

Six miles out.

Exactly.

He was flaunting it.

That red-haired menace with the audacity—the gall—to romance her envoy. Her sweet, rational, paperwork-loving envoy. The only one she trusted not to fall for pirates, buy cursed trinkets, or accidentally spark soul bonds in foreign ports.

And now he was hovering like a lovesick plague just out of cannon range.

Her fingers curled around her glaive.

“He’s lingering like a disease.”

Behind her, Sandersonia peered through a spyglass. “He brought snacks. And a banner.”

“A banner?”

“It says, ‘Just Talk?’ There’s a heart. And glitter.”

“How-“ Hancock’s grip tightened. “He dares.”

“Also, I think the rotund one is waving at us. Politely, with meat.”

Hancock’s eye twitched.

Sandersonia cleared her throat. “The mutual subject of this siege still doesn’t know, Empress. But she’s going to see the ship at one point. And the banners.”

“Then keep her away,” Hancock snapped. “Distract her with scrolls. Put her in the archive pit. Chain her to a filing cabinet.”

“She likes the archive pit.”

“Then put snacks in there. Seal the doors.”

“She’s going to realize at some point there’s a blockade forming around her.”

Hancock’s jaw clenched. “She is too gentle. Too trusting. She doesn’t understand what it means when an Emperor starts loitering.”

Sandersonia squinted again. “He’s sending up flares now. They spell out: ‘Soulmarks Are Valid.’”

Hancock roared and kicked the spyglass off the tower.

Exactly Six Miles Offshore, The Red Force bobbed gently on the sea, anchored just beyond the invisible line of death Boa Hancock had carved into the ocean with pure reputation.

Shanks stood at the prow, wind in his hair, cloak fluttering like a dashing hero awaiting his damsel. He may have also said this thought aloud.

Eyes on the mist-veiled cliffs of Amazon Lily.

He wasn’t smiling. Not right now.

“She’s there,” he said softly. “I can feel her. The mark… It’s warmer.”

Benn Beckman didn’t even look up from his book. “You know she probably thinks that’s an allergic reaction.”

“Then I’ll bring the itch cream.”

“If you set one foot closer, the Empress will personally drop-kick you into the Calm Belt.” Benn drawled, probably wishing he had opted to stay with Rayleigh to shit-talk his captain.

Shanks grinned faintly. “She said five miles. I gave her six.”

“Magnanimous,” Benn muttered.

“Suicidal,” Lucky Roux agreed, polishing his gun.

Yasopp leaned over the rail with a spyglass. “Oho. Someone’s on the eastern ridge.”

Shanks perked up. “Is it her?”

“No. Big hair. Might be the angry one. She’s holding a cannon.”

“Ah.” He clasped his hands over his heart. “She watches over her. Fierce loyalty. Beautiful.”

“She’s aiming,” Yasopp added.

Benn flipped a page. “You should move.”

“I brought flowers this time,” Shanks said, proudly gesturing to a sad bouquet taped to a barrel. “Symbolic. Elegant.”

“It’s duct-taped. Fancy.” Yassop chimed in.

“They’re handpicked,” Shanks said proudly.

“It’s seaweed.” Benn took a long sip of rum.

“They floated toward me, Benn. That’s fate.” A warning shot blasted past the mast, shearing off a flag. “That was a love tap.” He continued to explain. “Very in line with Amazon Lily customs.”

Benn didn’t look up. “She’s angry. Which means she’s feeling cornered.”

“Howling Gab is writing your will,” Lucky Roux said.

“He left a blank space for ‘Cause of Death,’” Limejuice chimed in, “So far we’ve got: ‘shot,’ ‘stoned,’ ‘emotionally vaporized,’ and ‘hugged too hard by an oversized snake.’”

“She won’t let them kill me,” Shanks said firmly. “Boa’s got too much sense to try.”

Pause.

“…Right?” he asked, suddenly unsure.

No one answered. Even the snail turned away.

Shanks, undeterred, stood with windswept nobility and a death wish.

Somewhere behind him, someone was playing a sad violin. Possibly ironically.

“My soulmate is thinking about me,” he whispered, slightly in denial. “Probably.”

“She’s thinking about vaporizing you,” Benn corrected. “Which happens to also be my train of thought.”

Yasopp lowered his spyglass. “She’s probably looking at you. That’s half the battle.”

Lucky Roux nodded. “Eyeballs mean emotional investment.”

“Exactly,” Shanks said, emboldened. “We’ve moved from apathy to murderous intent. That’s progress.”

“Truly the language of love,” Benn muttered.

Rockstar came charging up the steps, carrying what looked like a flaming bottle. “Captain! I made you a message bottle full of poetry and highly flammable hope.”

Shanks took it with reverence. “You’re a true romantic.”

Benn blinked. “That’s lamp oil.”

“Her love will light the way,” Shanks said solemnly, shaking it slightly. It sloshed with danger.

Howling Gab raised a flag they’d painted that morning: a stick-figure drawing of a heart, a sword, and a very buff woman holding hands with a pirate.

“We’re ready to deliver your declaration of affection via cannon,” He said proudly. “Non-lethal. Probably.”

“Or a glider,” Yasopp suggested. “We could strap him to a glider. Drop him right in her courtyard like a flaming love letter.”

Benn lowered his book. “Do any of you want to survive this?”

“We believe in love, Benn,” Lucky Roux said with the serene righteousness of a man who once wooed someone with pickled fish and a smile.

Shanks turned to face his men, eyes shining. “Thank you for standing with me. For understanding that soulmarks are not a joke—they’re destiny. They’re poetry written on the body by fate itself.”

“You’re gonna die,” Benn said flatly.

Shanks nodded. “But romantically.”

The crew roared in approval.

You sat on your bed, staring at your palm, which had once again started to glow—just faintly—through wraps, salves, and what you were pretty sure had been mayonnaise at one point.

It wasn’t just heat anymore.

It was pulling.

A strange sort of tug in your chest. Longing. Recognition. Like someone had whispered your name from across the sea with pirate breath and questionable intentions.

You pressed your fingers to your chest, unsettled.

The name hadn’t faded.

Not with the cleansing herbs.

Not with the tea rituals.

Not even with the salt baths, venom rubs, or Boa’s “spiritual aura suppression treatments,” which had escalated from polite chants to full-body scroll assaults.

And now?

Now it wasn’t just glowing. It was like a living, breathing curse.. The name, the one you refused to say aloud, was blooming like a smug little sun tattooed into your soul.

And at this point, it was easier to lie and say you were “healing.” The venom baths were liable to dissolve your hand off, but you doubted they would fundamentally turn off the soul-bonding shenanigans. You’d rather not lose a hand to test it.

A bird cawed next to your window, startling you.

Then another.

Then a whole flock took off at once, wheeling into the sky like something had spooked them. The breeze shifted and carried a strange scent.

Rum.

The kind aged in oak and poor decisions.

Below, you could hear the quiet metallic shhhhink of whetstones dragging across blades. The warriors were sharpening their spears again, murmuring under their breath:

“It’s happening again.”

That was concerning.

What was more concerning was the click of your bedroom door locking.

From the outside.

You stared at it for a long moment. Then slowly turned toward the window.

“Suspicious,” you muttered.

Ten minutes later, you’d scaled the palace wall, bypassed two guards, and climbed barefoot to the cliffside above the cove—heart racing, trying to clear your head.

That was when you saw it.

The ship.

Massive. Gaudy. Flying a black flag stamped with a skull slashed three times, mounted on crossed swords.

Anchored.

Waiting.

You blinked. Rubbed your eyes.

Still there.

Lurking off the coast like a very patient, very stupidly romantic predator.

Like a lovesick shark.

“Oh no,” you whispered.

It all clicked—the breakfast tray. The oddly compelling stack of logistics reports. The suspicious silence from Hancock all morning. The sudden interest in locking you in closets.

They were distracting you.

She was stalling.

Because Hancock knew something you refused to admit. She knew the second you saw that flag, you’d start spiraling into self-sacrificing, chaotic decision-making.

Which was precisely what you did.

You bolted.

Straight down the cliffside, crashing through underbrush and startled birds, mud on your shins and panic in your throat. You burst out of the trees, barefoot and wild-eyed—

And skidded to a halt directly in front of a fully armed war council.

Dozens of warriors stood on the beach, spears ready, faces grim.

Boa Hancock didn’t look at you.

She just said, coolly, “She escaped the closet.”

One of the generals muttered, “I told you we needed two locks.”

Another sighed. “Too late now.”

Then the lookout shouted, “They’re lowering a rowboat!”

And you could already hear male laughter. Familiar. Infuriating.

The war council turned in eerie unison.

Every general, elder, and captain was already in formation, weapons gleaming and eyes narrowed—except for one warrior, who had her hands on her hips and was giving you the flat look of someone who definitely tried to lock you in that damn closet.

Boa Hancock stood in the center, resplendent and furious. Her arms were crossed, her foot tapping. “I told you to stay inside.”

“I thought there was a bird emergency!” you blurted. “And then someone lured me with spreadsheets! I thought it was a fiscal summit!”

There was a long pause. Someone coughed. Another warrior muttered, “She did look excited about the logistics…”

Behind you, the wind shifted.

The scent of salt and citrus hit first. Then the rum. Then the distant sound of a man laughing; loud, warm, and terribly familiar, like you had heard it in a dream.

Your heart stuttered. Then bloomed with an involuntary rush of warmth.

So did your hand.

You looked down. Glowing. Again.

“No,” You muttered, rubbing at it like that would help. “No, no, no—don’t you dare start glowing right now.”

It only pulsed brighter.

Across the beach, the warriors bristled. Spears lifted. Murmurs rippled through the ranks.

And at the center of it all stood Boa Hancock.

Unmoving. Immaculate. Glaive sunk into the sand like a declaration of war. Or a promise.

She didn’t look at you at first. Just stared out at the distant ship, jaw tight.

You stared too.

At the ship.

At your hand.

Back at Hancock.

She closed her eyes for one long, brittle second and exhaled through her nose like someone forcibly swallowing rage.

“…Damn it,” she said, quiet and sharp.

You stomped up beside her, heart doing awful things inside your chest.

“So that’s absolutely his ship.”

“Yes.”

You blinked furiously. “But it can’t be.”

“It is,” Hancock said flatly.

“But the reports said he was headed toward Elbaph—”

“He redirected.”

You bit your lip, hands clenched at your sides, your glowing palm betraying you like a snitch with a crush.

“So, an Emperor of the Seas is just sitting offshore and lets the pressure of a diplomatic crisis reel me in?!” You cried out. “And you didn’t tell me?”

There was a long pause.

Then Marigold, gently, “To be fair… that’s very respectful. For an Emperor of the Sea.”

“Very romantic,” Sandersonia added dreamily. “He hasn’t even fired a single cannon today.”

You whipped around to stare at them, scandalized.

“How long has he been here??? He shouldn’t be firing cannons! We’re not at war!”

Hancock didn’t move. “We will be if he sets one foot on this island.”

Nyoka chimed in, “He sent snacks. They floated over in a barrel. There was a note. It was spelled wrong but… earnest.”

You swore, pacing a trench into the sand.

“You couldn’t have told me?!”

“I’m not about to let any man, especially a Red-Haired Emperor, march in and lay claim to one of mine,” Hancock snapped, rounding on you like thunder in heels. “Least of all you.”

Another warrior jogged up, scroll in hand.

“He’s six miles offshore. Exactly. Won’t move. He’s built a fruit altar on the deck. Burned incense. Possibly praying.”

“To me?!” you croaked.

“He’s courting you via ship blockade,” Sandersonia declared proudly, as if you’d won a festival prize.

You groaned, dragging your hands down your face.

I asked you to tell me if something happened!”

“I did tell you,” Hancock said dryly. “I told you it was nonsense. Then he arrives, and that damn mark started glowing. Then you started glowing. And now he’s glowing. With emotional instability and extremely questionable poetry.”

You froze. “Oh god. He wrote poetry?”

“We intercepted a bottle,” Nyoka said with all the gravity of a funeral dirge. “It was labeled ‘Private: Feelings Inside.’”

“You read it?!”

“Of course. We’re not savages. It was terrible. But intense. He rhymed ‘eternal’ with ‘infernal.’”

You staggered. “I am being emotionally besieged by a Yonko.”

The mark on your palm flared.

Hancock’s eyes sharpened. “He’s thinking about you again.”

You spun. “How can you possibly tell?!”

“Because I want to punch a palm tree,” She hissed. “And that usually means a man is somehow involved.”

A low horn echoed across the water.

“They’re cat-calling via Den Den speaker,” someone shouted.

You turned to your Empress in horror.

“Empress Boa. Please. I cannot let him harass the whole island just because-”

“I will die on this beach before that ginger demon sets foot near you,” Hancock vowed, tightening her grip on her glaive. “And if he tries to wave another treaty shaped like a love letter, I’m setting it—and him—on fire.”

“Boa-”

“I am warning you,” she snapped. “Go. Inside. Before that sea rodent gets dramatic and sends a singing snail. ”

You blinked, breath catching. “He wouldn’t.”

A scout came sprinting up, pale and trembling. “He did. It’s rehearsing.”

You nearly sobbed.

Hancock’s expression softened. Just a hair. “I care about you. I’m protecting you. Clearly, fate wants to feed you to that man like bait. But I won’t let it.”

You stood frozen, a tragic statue of disbelief and humiliation.

“And if you don’t go inside this second,” she added, raising her voice, “I will personally drag you by your glowing hand and lock you in the archives.”

That was enough.

You nodded, half-choking on a laugh that felt far too close to a breakdown, and turned for the temple.

Behind you, someone activated the anti-longboat net launcher.

And another Kuja warrior lovingly etched the words “For Love Prevention Only” into the side of her spear.

“Scope.”

Shanks held out his hand without so much as a glance.

Lucky Roux passed the spyglass with the reverence of someone performing a sacred rite. There were no words, just understanding.

Benn Beckman stood behind them, taking a long, unimpressed sip of rum. It was his second bottle of the day.

“You sure this is a good idea?” he asked.

“She’s my soulmate,” Shanks murmured. “I haven’t even seen her up close. She ran before I set foot on shore. That’s not rejection. That’s heartbreak.”

“That’s a restraining order waiting to happen,” Benn muttered.

Shanks lifted the spyglass, scanning the shoreline with a romantic intensity that made everyone nearby deeply uncomfortable.

Sand.

Warriors.

Tall woman in purple. Boa Hancock, looking like she was about to end civilization with a swing of her glaive.

And then—

There.

Middle of the beach.

Hair wild. Pacing fast, sharp little loops in the sand like she was preparing to cast a curse. Hands flailing. Voice raised. Possibly yelling at the ocean. Possibly yelling at fate.

She screamed.

A seagull screamed too.

Both of them sounded equally offended.

She threw a hand at the sky like she was trying to banish destiny.

And somehow, across miles of sea and layers of denial, he felt it.

That tug.

That sudden, painful warmth.

The unmistakable pull of the red thread—buzzing with Haki and something worse. Something terrifying.

Hope.

Ah, so it was you.

Finally.

You rubbed your palm like it stung, oblivious to how much he could see. You were glowing.

Not just literally.

Emotionally.

Also, yes—literally.

Shanks lowered the scope slowly, like he’d just witnessed a divine moment.

“…She’s beautiful.”

“She’s actively threatening our ship,” Benn said, not looking up from his book.

Shanks smiled, soft-eyed and helpless. “She’s everything.”

“God help me,” Benn muttered, turning the page.

Lucky Roux leaned in. “She looks like she eats pirates for breakfast.”

“She does,” Yasopp chimed in, chewing dried squid. “I read about it. Headlines don’t lie.”

“I love that,” Shanks sighed, clasping the spyglass like it was a holy relic.

Benn finally looked up. “And what, exactly, is the plan?”

Shanks straightened, noble and unhinged. “I give her a token of my love. A rose. A letter. A seashell with a poorly carved limerick.”

“Then what?”

“She sees it. She reads it. She understands.”

“Understands what?”

“That we’re destiny,” Shanks said, already drifting into a sea-shanty cadence like he was narrating a tragic opera.

“You’re going to die,” Benn said flatly.

“Hopefully,” Shanks confirmed with pride. “Between her thighs.”

Roux leaned toward Yasopp. “He’s got that tone again.”

“Yup,” Yasopp nodded. “Dinghy time.”

Later that evening, Shanks stood beside what could only be described as the world’s most suspicious dinghy—small, creaky, and held together with optimism and bad decisions. He slung a rope over his shoulder like he’d done this sort of thing a hundred times.

He had not.

Benn didn’t even glance up from the flask he now drank from, like it was morphine. “You’re going to get turned to stone.”

“If I don’t fall off a cliff first,” Shanks said brightly, adjusting a rose no one told him to bring and definitely didn’t need.

Yasopp leaned over the side of the Red Force, squinting. “Or eaten by a snake. Or stabbed by a spear. Or exploded by feelings. Pretty sure she had at least three knives when she started yelling at the moon.”

“I’m begging you to stop,” Benn muttered. “You’re trespassing. Spiritually, emotionally, and frankly? Offensively.”

“I’m visiting,” Shanks replied, tucking a rose behind his ear with the self-assurance of a man who believed florals had diplomatic immunity. “Respectfully. Romantically.”

“You’re an Emperor of the Sea. That’s not visiting. That’s looming.”

“It’s not like I’m invading,” Shanks offered, shrugging one arm like that helped.

“You are. You literally count as a natural disaster on most naval charts.”

“A one-armed natural disaster,” Shanks corrected cheerfully.

“Semantics,” Benn growled. “You saw this woman for eight seconds and she screamed at the sky like God owed her rent.”

“Best eight seconds of my life,” Shanks said dreamily.

Lucky Roux gave him a thumbs-up. “If she turns you to stone, we’ll sell tickets.”

“We already printed merch,” Yasopp added. “We got merch. First batch says ‘Love Ruined My Life and All I Got Was This Shirt.”

Shanks saluted, pushing off with dramatic flair. “Tell the boys that Benn warned me, and I didn’t listen. Again.”

The dinghy groaned like it wanted no part of this.

But still, he rowed.

One glowing hand on the oar.

Flower behind his ear.

Prepared to scale cliffs, dodge spears, get hit with righteous feminine fury, and maybe—just maybe—win the heart of a woman who’d already started sharpening something in his general direction.

You couldn’t sleep.

Your hair was still damp from a bath that did nothing to soothe the burn in your palm. You sat on the balcony, brushing it out, watching the moonlight spill over the thick, lush gardens below—gardens that ended in a sheer drop into the sea.

The comb offered some comfort. Familiar. Ritual. Something drilled into you as a child.

The mark on your hand pulsed again—not painful, but alive. Buzzing faintly, like something across the sea was thinking too loudly about you.

You were just about to head back inside when you heard it.

A soft crunch in the garden below.

Your comb froze in place.

Then… a sneeze.

You crept to the edge of the balcony and looked down.

A man stood in your courtyard.

An actual man.

Shirt open, one hand resting lazily on his hip, the other raised in a casual wave. The moon hit his hair just right—brilliant red, windblown, absurd. And he was smiling. Like this was a social call.

That was red hair. His hair.

You had assumed Shanks—the Red-Haired Shanks—would be some grotesque brute. Bald. Scarred. Unpleasant.

Instead, a sun-browned pirate in a long black cloak stood in your moonlit garden like he’d stepped straight out of a bard’s fever dream. And worse—he was in sandals.

Scandalous.

You gaped.

You stared at the cliffs behind him, heart pounding.

Because there were only two ways into this garden: through the palace tunnels… or by scaling the cliff face of Amazon Lily—jagged, vertical, and lined with blades.

He had done the latter. In the dark. With one arm.

And sandals.

You nearly screamed. If you weren’t already frozen in rage and secondhand embarrassment, you would have.

He beamed up at you. “Hi.”

His voice echoed up, low and warm. The kind of deep that didn’t belong in your garden.

You flailed, dropping your comb. “This is sacred land! Men die here! Like, professionally! Do you want to die?”

“Not really,” he said, unbothered. “Just wanted to meet you. Properly.”

You ducked behind the balcony wall, hyperventilating.

Of course.

Of course, fate gave you a soulmate who scaled cliffs like a goat, smiled like a myth, and showed up personally to ruin your peace.

“You okay up there?”

You popped back up, scowling. “Go away!”

“No.”

“I’m not emotionally stable enough for this today.”

Shanks scratched the back of his neck, awkwardly sheepish for someone who regularly punches sea gods.

“Your name showed up on me. Felt rude not to meet the person it belonged to.”

You stared at him like he’d confessed to eating cursed fruit on a dare.

“That’s not romantic. That’s a curse.”

He grinned—of course he did.

“I like curses. Especially the ones with attitude problems and dangerously pretty eyes.”

You pointed at him with the force of a divine warning.

“Back. Up. I bite when overwhelmed.”

“So do I,” he said brightly. “Should we match?”

You shrieked and hurled a potted orchid at his head.

He dodged with far too much grace for a man who’d just scaled a death cliff and trespassed into your solitude. Worse, he looked pleased about it, like he enjoyed being violently welcomed.

“How the hell did you climb that cliff? With one arm?”

He flashed a grin. The kind that made knees wobble and reputations suffer.

“Want a demonstration?”

Your jaw dropped. “You look like someone who causes problems professionally.”

He actually laughed. Loud, unbothered, sinful.

You turned on your heel, grabbed your sword—mostly for comfort—and then peeked back over your shoulder.

He was still smiling. Leaning casually on a boulder like he hadn’t just crawled up from certain death to flirt with you.

Uninvited.

Unbothered.

Unreasonably attractive.

You stared at him, sword half-raised. He winked.

“Let me get this straight,” you said, slow and flat. “You’re an Emperor of the Sea. One of the most dangerous men alive. You command a legendary crew. Your bounty is over five billion—”

He winced, rubbing the back of his neck.

“It’s a little… performative. Marine dramatics. You know how they are.”

You stared. “Not as dramatic as scaling a cliff just to watch a woman brush her hair.”

He grinned like you'd paid him a compliment.

“I have priorities.”

“You have issues.”

He stepped forward slightly, cocking his head. “Says the woman who threw an orchid at me.”

“It was ceremonial.”

“It missed.”

“Unfortunately.”

His grin widened like you’d just given him permission to keep being a menace. The breeze caught his cloak, and his hair shimmered in the sun like firelight—because of course it did. Nature was clearly conspiring with his ego.

“Just for a minute,” he said, voice low and maddeningly sincere. “You were glowing. Felt rude not to admire the most beautiful woman in the world.”

You squinted at him, deeply unimpressed. “They said you were charming.”

He tilted his head, eyes sparkling. “Was that a compliment or a warning?”

“Warning.”

He pressed a hand to his chest like you’d wounded him. “Ouch.”

“Good.”

He smiled wider.

You hated how good it looked on him.

He stepped forward slowly, like a man approaching something wild—something that might bolt or bite.

You growled low in your throat and leveled your sword at his chest.

“I’m harmless,” he said gently, voice velvet-soft and far too dangerous. “Unless you’re paper. Or a treaty.”

“You’re trespassing.”

He raised his single hand, palm open in mock surrender. "For a good cause. I did try diplomacy first.”

You frowned. He didn’t feel like a threat.

He felt strange, like the ghost of music you hadn’t heard in years. Familiar in a way that made your grip tighten instead of ease.

“I just wanted to see you.”

You didn’t lower your sword.

But you didn’t strike, either.

And his eyes said he noticed.

He looked at you like you weren’t a prize or a trophy.

Just something rare.

Something real.

“I wasn’t expecting you to be so…” His voice trailed off, softer now. Then a quiet smile. “So beautiful.”

You blinked.

Your hand pulsed—warm where the mark sat like a secret.

And you hated that your first thought was: He sounds sincere.

“Stop talking,” you snapped, too fast.

“Why?” he asked, brows lifting.

“Because you’re charming.”

He winced like you’d accused him of a crime. “I’m trying really hard not to be.” “Try harder.”

A beat of silence. Then, with that unmistakable glint—

“You’re staring at my hair.”

“I’m not.”

“You were.”

“It’s unnatural.”

“Most people say it’s striking.”

“Most people aren’t trained to spot pirate illusions.”

His grin widened. “Then why stare?”

“I wasn’t.”

“You were.”

“You look like someone who fell into a fire at birth.”

He laughed—loud, shameless, real. The sound hit you like a warm wave. Unfair. Unwelcome. Comforting in a way it shouldn’t be.

He took another step forward.

“Want to touch it?” he asked, far too casual for someone actively being threatened with steel.

“Excuse me?”

“My hair,” he said smoothly. “Go on. Satisfy your curiosity.”

“I’m not curious.”

“You sure? Could be your only chance to ruffle an Emperor’s hair.”

You blinked. Just once. He caught it, of course he did.

“You like the color.”

“I do not.”

(You did. Obviously. You hated that you did.)

“You stared at it.”

“I stare at all dangerous things. Fires. Shipwrecks. Rabid dogs.”

He chuckled. “You’ve got excellent taste in disasters.”

Then he stepped closer—too close. Cloak rippling. Hair catching the wind like it had a flair for theater. It fell over one eye, casually criminal.

You tried not to look. You failed.

“…How is it that red?”

He smiled—slow, knowing, just short of obscene.

“Want to find out?”

You narrowed your eyes. “No.”

“Sure you don’t want to touch it?” he coaxed, voice dropping to just above a whisper. “I’ll even stand on my tippy-toes for you.”

“No.”

“You looked at it like it owed you money.”

“That’s not how debt works—”

“Here. One touch.” He leaned in just enough, resting his elbow against the edge of the balcony, hair temptingly within reach. “Just to say you did. Brave warrior and all that.”

It wasn’t fair.

His hair looked… expensive. Like it had never known hardship. Like it was washed in melted sunsets and smugness. The kind of red silk nobles begged pirates not to steal.

It was shockingly clean for a male creature.

And worse—it looked soft.

Too soft.

Your fingers twitched.

You hated yourself a little.

One touch. Just to disprove the rumors.

You leaned in—just a little—fingers outstretched.

You brushed the tips of his hair—

Warm. Silken. Alive.

And then—

Your palm burned.

His chest lit up in response, symbols flaring like ink set aflame. You jerked back, gasping, but too late.

The marks on your skin spiraled outward, curling and fusing, mirrored between you.

Chains. Rings.

A single word, seared in fire across both your bodies:

BOUND.

Silence.

You stared.

He stared.

“…Well,” Shanks said softly, still breathless, eyes locked on yours. “That escalated beautifully.”

You yanked your hand back so fast you nearly toppled over the balcony.

Below, Shanks staggered a half-step, his hand pressed flat over the glowing mark on his chest. His expression wasn’t afraid. Just stunned. Like something sacred had touched him.

Like you had.

You were already gasping, heart hammering, voice rising with panic.

“What—what was that?! What did you do?! What did I do?!”

He looked up at you with a grin, but not his usual grin. This one was softer. Slower. Unarmed.

Not cocky. Not smug. Warm.

It sat wrong on his pirate face. Too sincere. Too open.

Like he’d waited years just to see if you felt exactly like this.

Wonderstruck.

You backed up a step.

Your voice cracked.

“What. Did. You. Do?”

He had the nerve to look pleased.

“It’s a harmless little side effect. Of, you know—full contact,” he said cheerfully, like you hadn’t caught fire together. “Didn’t realize it was a real thing myself. But I’m not disappointed.”

“What side effect?” you growled.

He held up two fingers, casual as ever. “One: we now match. Fashionable, right?”

You drew your sword.

He gave you a sheepish little shrug. The kind that screamed, ‘please don’t stab me, I’m cute.’

Then you took a single step back—

And a sharp tug snapped through your chest, like someone had lassoed your ribcage and yanked hard.

You gasped, hand flying to your sternum. “Ow—what the hell—?!”

“Yeah,” he winced sympathetically. “That’s the part I maybe forgot to mention.”

You stared at him. Horrified. Betrayed. Mildly nauseated.

And just as you opened your mouth to yell again—

He crouched.

And sprang.

He landed gracefully on your balcony like some unholy cross between a pirate, a cat, and a romantic liability. No rope. No warning.

This man had no respect for doors, boundaries, or your rapidly unraveling sense of reality.

“We can’t be more than ten feet apart now,” he said brightly, still holding his chest like he’d just won a prize at a festival. “Think of it as… spatially enforced bonding.”

You blinked.

Then screamed.

Not a gasp. Not a squeak. A full-body, soul-shaking scream that echoed through the trees, reverberated off the cliffs, and probably startled Neptune himself.

Birds scattered. A baby wailed. Somewhere in the distance, a goat keeled over.

Shanks flinched—not from fear. Just from sheer decibel shock.

Later, he’d describe it as “kind of adorable… in a deeply traumatized way.”

You backed away, waving your glowing hand like you could physically fling the situation off your body. “NOPE. No. No, no. Undo it. Take it back. Rewind the curse!”

“It’s not a curse,” Shanks said gently.

You jabbed a finger at the burning sigil on your palm. “THIS SAYS OTHERWISE.”

“…Okay, fair.”

Then you ran.

You bolted like the forest owed you sanctuary.

Slammed through your room, flung open the inner doors, and sprinted straight for the far wall like you could physically outrun a magical contract.

You made it twelve feet.

Then—snap.

A vicious pull ripped through your chest like a tether gone taut. You were yanked clean off your feet, flung backward like a ragdoll of denial, and hit the floor in a heap of limbs, curses, and existential despair.

You lay there, gasping. Dazed. Emotionally concussed.

And of course—of course—Shanks was already there, crouched beside you like this was just another Tuesday.

“Hey—hey, easy now. You can’t pull that hard,” he said gently, like you hadn’t just been magically body-slammed. “Ten feet. That’s the limit. Think of it like… a soul bungee cord.”

You blinked up at him, flat on your back, eyes wide with horror.

“You’re a magical anchor,” you wheezed.

He laughed—hard. Couldn’t help it. You could see it in the way his shoulders shook.

“That’s… not how most people introduce themselves to their soulmates,” he said between wheezes. “But I respect the poetry.”

You glared.

He offered a hand.

You slapped it away.

So, naturally, the idiot pivoted to drama.

He placed a hand over his chest, straightened, and gave you a half-bow so theatrical it could’ve summoned fog.

“I’m Shanks. Captain of the Red Force. Emperor of the Sea.”

He winked.

“And, apparently… yours.”

You stared at him.

Still on the floor. Still glowing. Still cursed.

“Hancock is going to kill you,” you whispered.

Shanks smiled like a man halfway through composing the sea shanty about his own death. “That’s fair.”

The doors slammed open like the wrath of heaven descending.

“WHERE IS HE?!”

There she was.

Boa Hancock. Empress. Warlord. Fury in heels.

Glaive in hand. Hair swirling despite the absolute absence of wind. Eyes locked on Shanks with the focused intent of a woman ready to obliterate his entire bloodline from existence.

She lunged.

You didn’t even have time to blink.

She was on him in a flash, striking like vengeance forged into flesh.

Shanks didn’t move.

His Haki surged—quiet, ancient, coiling. It cracked the stone beneath his feet, winding around him like a leviathan that didn’t need to scream to remind the world it ruled.

Hancock froze mid-swing.

Her glaive trembled in her grip. Her fury did not.

“You dare trespass. Touch her. Curse her with your filth?” Her voice was low. Lethal. “I will turn you to stone.”

She unleashed her power like a tidal wave.

And…

Nothing.

Hancock faltered. Just slightly.

You stared. Hancock stared. Shanks raised an eyebrow, like someone had just complimented his shoes.

“…Huh,” he muttered, glancing at his very much still-flesh hands. “Still flesh.”

“You—” Her expression twisted, fury barely contained. “You should have crumbled.”

“Sorry,” he said, scratching his head. “Guess you’re just not my type.”

Your mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

“You—she—you resisted her?!”

“I didn’t resist anything,” he said simply. Then looked at you. “I’m just already cursed.”

Your soulmark flared—bright and traitorous.

Hancock’s eyes narrowed. She looked between you, then back again, lip curling. “So. That’s what it is.”

“Apparently,” you muttered, utterly humiliated.

“I hate it,” she snapped. “You can’t even be turned to stone like a normal intruder.”

Shanks shrugged. “That’s the price of loyalty, I guess.”

“Loyalty?!” you barked. “You broke into my room!”

“True,” he said, with a sage nod. “But I didn’t touch anything. Not even the pillow I caught. I’m house-trained. Rayleigh made sure.”

Silence.

Complete, nuclear silence.

Even the torches dimmed, like they no longer wished to witness this plane of existence.

You slapped a hand over your face. “Oh gods…”

Hancock’s eye twitched. She looked dangerously close to achieving spiritual enlightenment through pure, concentrated fury.

Then—with the elegance of a queen and the rage of a continent—she inhaled deeply through her nose.

“I will have you physically removed,” she said coldly. “I will punt you back to your ship myself.”

Shanks gave her the most maddeningly polite smile ever committed to sin.

“I wouldn’t recommend that.”

“Why not?!” Hancock hissed.

He looked at her.

Then at you.

Then back again, resting his arm on his hip.

“Because for the first two weeks, if soulmates are forced more than ten feet apart…” He raised his brows. “We snap back together.”

A stunned beat.

Then—he added, almost delicately:

“And if one of us dies…” A faint smile curved his mouth. “We both do.”

Chaos. Utter, spiraling, gods-abandon-us chaos.

Hancock shrieked.

You screamed—again—because clearly once wasn’t enough.

Marigold hit the floor like a sack of emotional potatoes.

Sandersonia shouted, “He’s bluffing!”

But the royal scrollkeeper, pale and trembling, whispered, “Actually… that is in the old texts…”

What followed was an operatic mix of shouting, cursing, veiled threats, open threats, and Hancock attempting to vaporize Shanks with nothing but the fury in her pupils.

Eventually, after what might generously be called negotiations, a compromise was reached:

The rules:

Shanks was not to leave Amazon Lily.

You were not to be closer than nine feet to him.

The two of you would be: • Chaperoned by the most humorless guards Hancock could assign • Forbidden from sharing rooms, blankets, baths, or “soul-binding gazes” • Monitored for “suspicious behavior,” especially hand-holding, hair-touching, or prolonged smiling, and definitely no shared pillows.

No soulmark glowing in front of palace staff, because it was “sending the wrong message.”

And under no circumstances was Shanks to call you “his.” Not “his soulmate,” not “his problem,” not “his little sunbeam.” Ever again.

He immediately broke that last one. Twice. With flourish.

Marigold, still woozy, swore the snake hissed in Morse code for “kill him anyway.”

Hancock paced like a war god forced to sit through a dinner party.

“I want it annulled,” she snapped. “Broken. Banished. I don’t care if we have to summon an elder sea witch—I want this bond severed.”

“Respectfully,” said the royal scrollkeeper, who had not blinked in twenty minutes, “doing so within the first cycle would, ah… implode her soul.”

“She’ll regenerate,” Hancock growled.

“I won’t,” you whispered.

Hancock narrowed her eyes at you. “You should’ve stabbed him on sight.”

“I tried!” you cried, gesturing wildly.

The next morning, you sat in the garden, hand still glowing faintly.

Shanks sat beside you.

Nine feet away.

Hands folded politely.

He glanced at you and said, voice soft, almost reverent:

“So… this is a very romantic start, don’t you think?”

You threw a fruit at his face.

He caught it.

Still smiling.

The Den Den Mushi aboard the Red Force clicked to life, glowing softly in the moonlight as the ship bobbed six miles off the coast of Amazon Lily.

Benn Beckman answered with the sigh of a man far too old to be cleaning up another diplomatic incident. Pipe lit. Rum nearby. Resigned dread in his bones.

“Red-Hair?”

Static.

“Hey, good news. I’m not dead.”

Around the deck, the crew froze mid-motion.

The card game stopped. One of the dice rolled off the table and hit the deck with an ominous clack.

Yasopp muttered, “Oh no.”

Lucky Roux sat up slowly, eyes wide. “Oh oh hoooo!”

Benn rubbed his face with one hand. “Define ‘not dead.’”

“I’m technically alive. Emotionally? Unclear. Spiritually? Debatable.”

“Where are you?”

A pause.

“…Inside the palace.”

Benn stared at the snail. “Inside the palace. Of Amazon Lily. The one guarded by an Empress who turns men to stone.”

“Right, her,” Shanks chirped. “Funny story—”

“Shanks.”

“Yeah?”

“What did you do?”

Another pause. Then:

“…Got cursed. Bonded. Technically trespassed. Accidentally soulmated the Empress’s favorite.”

Silence.

Then—

“GOT WHAT?!” came the collective scream from the rest of the crew, echoing across the deck.

Yasopp buried his face in his hands. “This is going to be worse than the time with the nuns, isn’t it?”

“Worse than the treasure priestess,” Limejuice leaned in to say, all smiles.

Lucky Roo froze mid-bite, a meat skewer dangling from his mouth.

Benn exhaled slowly. “Okay. That’s… not bad.”

“Also,” Shanks continued, voice drifting in with just the slightest edge of guilt, “I’ll be staying here for about two weeks.”

Silence.

“YOU WHAT?”

“Are you kidnapped?!”

“Do we need to launch a rescue?!”

“Wait—are you finally getting married?!”

“Don’t tell me she actually touched you—”

“She did,” Shanks said, pure smug. “My hair. We immediately bound.”

The crew lost it.

Yasopp howled. “HE WEAPONIZED THE HAIR!”

Lucky Roux spun in a slow, delighted circle, humming something dangerously close to a wedding chant. Someone near the helm shouted, “Call the tailor!”

“Of course she likes my hair!” Shanks called over the rising din, beaming like a man personally blessed by the gods of delusion. “Who doesn’t?!”

Benn groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose like he was physically restraining a migraine. “You soul-bonded with a woman who ran from your name, weaponized your ego, and now you’re stranded on an island full of elite warrior women who all have kill orders with your face on them. For two weeks.”

There was a heavy pause.

Then Shanks, utterly unbothered and clearly thriving, shrugged and said, “Best vacation I’ve ever had.”

Benn didn’t look up. Just took a slow drag from his pipe and asked flatly, “So how’d you convince Hancock not to split you in half and roast you over ceremonial fire?”

“Ten feet apart or we die,” Shanks chirped, like he was announcing the weather.

Benn slowly lowered his head to the table and let it rest there. “Gods save me from romantics.”

“Technically,” Yasopp added from the side, “that makes him the most successful trespasser in Amazon Lily history.”

“I’m not trespassing,” Shanks called helpfully. “I’m emotionally docked.”

Benn groaned louder.

On deck, pirates placed bets and hollered like it was festival night. Bets hit the floor. Someone pointed at the stars and swore they saw a constellation shaped like a wedding bouquet. At least three were already arguing odds on whether Hancock would personally chuck Shanks into the ocean before sunrise, or delegate it to one of her taller sisters.

Through it all, Shanks just waited.

Calm. Quiet. Still smiling like a man who’d accidentally touched a stove and decided it was fate.

Finally, Benn spoke again, lower now. Serious.

“…You good with this?”

Shanks leaned against the receiver, voice dropping into something softer. Less pirate. More man.

“You should see her, mate,” he murmured. “She’s everything.”

Benn didn’t answer right away.

He just lit another pipe, slow and heavy, like a man preparing to witness the most romantic shipwreck in history.

“…We’ll hold position. Two weeks. Maybe sail to port. Drink your funeral early.”

“Thanks, Benn.”

“Try not to die, Captain.”

“No promises.”

#gav story #shanks x reader #one piece shanks x reader #one piece #red haired shanks #akagami no shanks #a comedy of errors #Beckman is tired

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mariacallous · 7 months ago

Text

Not long after the November election, new members of Congress gather for a couple of weeks of orientation. Consistent with that tradition, Sarah McBride, a Delaware Democrat, made the short trip from Wilmington to D.C. to meet with her fellow first-termers. At a hotel in the capital, she learned about the lottery for office space, how to assemble a staff, and the intricacies of the legislative process. As the first transgender member of Congress in history, she also experienced an orientation in naked aggression. Within days of her arrival, Nancy Mace, a Republican from South Carolina, introduced a resolution that would restrict access to all “single-sex facilities” on Capitol Hill to those of the “corresponding biological sex.” In other words, Mace sought a bathroom bill—and made clear that she “absolutely” intended it as a reaction to McBride.

“I’m not going to stand for a man, you know, someone with a penis, in the women’s locker room,” Mace, who had claimed to be “pro-transgender rights” as recently as last year, said of her new proposal. She also added an odd, pseudo-feminist twist: “It’s offensive that a man in a skirt thinks that he’s my equal.” Mace found support among Republicans, including Speaker Mike Johnson and Marjorie Taylor Greene, who, according to Politico, told colleagues that she would fight McBride were the two of them ever to meet in a women’s bathroom on the Hill.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was among those who leapt to McBride’s defense, calling the bill “disgusting.” McBride, for her part, refused to take the bait, saying that she would “follow the rules as outlined by Speaker Johnson, even if I disagree with them.”

McBride was born in Wilmington; her father was a lawyer and her mother a high-school guidance counselor. At American University, she was active in Democratic politics and worked on Beau Biden’s campaign for Delaware attorney general. In her senior year, she served as student-body president, and ended her term by publishing a moving coming-out article for the Eagle, the A.U. paper, called “The Real Me.”

McBride had been hesitant to acknowledge her trans identity, she explained, because that might prevent her from pursuing a career in politics. “I wrestled with the idea that my dream and my identity seemed mutually exclusive; I had to pick,” she wrote. In the end, she realized that she would have to embrace both: “My life was passing me by, and I was done wasting it as someone I wasn’t.”

In 2020, McBride was elected to the Delaware State Senate. And this November she was elected to the United States House. At the start of our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, she seemed determined to keep her cool, despite the insult she had just suffered. “I think in many ways I got a fuller orientation this week, where I actually got to see not just the nuts and bolts of Congress,” she said drily, “but also some of the performance of Congress, too.”

Well, let’s talk about that. Nancy Mace, one of your colleagues now, immediately came forward and decided that this would be a good time, a perfect time, to introduce a bathroom bill, all directed at you. How did you take this piece of what can only be called aggression?

I always knew that there would be some members of the Republican caucus who would seek to use my service representing the greatest state in the Union in Congress as an opportunity for them to distract from the fact that they have absolutely no real policy solutions for the issues that actually plague this country. And, in some cases, to grab headlines themselves. I was not surprised that there was an effort to politicize an issue that no one truly cares about—what bathroom I use. I did think that it might wait until January. It happened a little earlier than I anticipated. I was still getting lost in the tunnels of the Capitol when we got the news that this was coming.

What was your first reaction to it?

“Here we go.” Throughout the campaign, I really focussed my campaign on my record in the Delaware General Assembly: of passing paid leave, expanding access to health care, and the kitchen-table issues that I know keep voters across Delaware up at night that I will be working on in Congress, like lowering the cost of housing, health care, and child care. But, as I got questions about the added responsibilities that sometimes come with being a first, the first thing I would always say is that I know that the only way I can do right by any community I’m a part of is to quite simply be the best member of Congress for Delaware that I can be, to be an effective member working on all of the issues that matter.

When I was watching this play out on television, reading about it, in the past week or two, I looked up how the first Black member of Congress was received, Hiram Revels. This is in the nineteenth century. He was treated with a great deal more respect than you were. I understand your desire to be poised about this, and straightforward, and to move the issues to the issues you ran on. But I wonder what your emotional reaction was to what you could only have taken as an enormous gesture of deep disrespect.

Look, I’m human, and it never feels good to be used as an opportunity to get headlines. It never feels good to have people talk about deeply personal things. I think I knew what I was signing up for, though; I know what the Republican Party in this country, in Congress, has become.

Which is what?

A party that is more interested in performance art and being professional provocateurs than being serious legislators and a serious governing party. I think they have come to the conclusion that they are able to get enough votes if they occasionally throw red meat to folks, because that red meat might satiate what is an authentic crisis of hope that I think people across this country face right now.

I think we have to be crystal clear in calling them out on what they are doing, and pull the curtain back to really dull the effect that these manufactured culture wars have on the American voter. Some people do receive this red meat, and it resonates with them—it makes them feel better, but it doesn’t actually address the real pain in their lives. And I think we should be calling that out and obviously modelling an approach to governing that genuinely solves the real problems that people are facing that create a level of insecurity and fear that allows for culture wars to satiate at least something instantaneously.

But I truly believe that if we solve problems, if we are serious, people respond. I’ve seen that in Delaware as we have passed paid leave, raised the minimum wage. Voters here in Delaware are sort of bucking this national trend. We’ve expanded our majorities both in 2022 and 2024 in the Delaware General Assembly, I believe, as a byproduct of a record of results that voters are responding to, and a message focussed on kitchen-table issues and economic issues. And it’s allowed us to not only expand our majorities but to break through the culture wars that the Republican Party has pursued. Because we’re in Delaware, in the Philadelphia media market—we are getting those anti-trans Trump ads pumped into our state like we were in Pennsylvania. And yet, despite that, running on a message of paid leave, higher minimum wage, union protections, a trans candidate not only won here in Delaware but actually outperformed every major Democrat running for major office in Delaware statewide.

And yet the notorious ads that ended with “Kamala Harris is for they/them, President Trump is for you”—ads that were oriented around anti-trans sentiment—not only did they occur, they worked. Certainly, they worked in the interpretation of not only the Republicans but the press at large. They ran them over and over again and poured millions of dollars into them.

So, first off, I think there are two things. One, this country is still entering into a conversation about trans people. This country still is at a Trans 101 spot. And one of the things I think Democrats have to be more mindful of is that leaders should always be out in front of public opinion, but, in order to foster change in public opinion, we’ve got to be within arm’s distance of the public so that we can pull them along with us. If we get too out ahead of it, we lose our grip and we’re unable to pull the public with us.

Is that what’s responsible for your calm in talking about this? I remember very well that Barack Obama, when he was running for State Senate in Illinois, got a questionnaire, and one of the questions was “Are you for gay marriage?” He didn’t say yes. Now, everything I know about Barack Obama tells me that, at that time, a clear “no” was not his real sentiment, but that he didn’t want to get too far out ahead, for political reasons. He clearly changed later on. Is that part of your calculus in the way you talk about this? Because Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez answered Nancy Mace in much more vitriolic terms.

I think there is a space for diversity of messengers and a diversity of message. I would never presume what was in Barack Obama’s heart and mind on the issue of marriage equality. Many people authentically evolved. What we do know is that, as the movement for marriage equality moved forward, the most effective messengers for marriage were not same-sex couples, were not parents of same-sex couples or kids of same-sex couples. The most effective messengers for marriage equality were those who evolved. And they were effective because they gave a permission structure to people who had not yet gotten there that it was O.K. to be uncomfortable, it was O.K. to be on the other side of the issue. You weren’t a bad person; you weren’t wrong.

My motto has always been: I’ll extend grace so long as people demonstrate growth. But that is a two-way street. And I think that we are shooting ourselves in the foot, as people who believe in progress, when we create no incentive for people to grow, because they perceive that they will be permanently guilty for having been wrong. We create no space for them to grow by extending no grace for them to actually walk there. I think one of the reasons why we see people pushed into their respective corners is because you say something that’s deemed problematic, and you are immediately hounded by one side and immediately embraced by the other side. Human nature is to—when faced with that degree of extreme binary reactions—go to the people who are validating you instantaneously. We unintentionally actually push people further and further into their own corners and into their negative opinion by responding with a degree of condemnation and vitriol that creates no incentive and space for them to grow.

But I actually want to say something on those ads, because you did say the key sentence in that ad. It wasn’t the surgery point, it wasn’t the undocumented-immigrant point, it wasn’t the trans point, it was the concept in that line that Kamala Harris, according to the ad, was for a small group of people, and Donald Trump was there for “you.” The lesson of this moment, of this last week, is that we should be flipping that script. Because that’s the authentic thing—Kamala Harris was for everyone. And Democrats are for everyone. And every single time Republicans focus in on a small vulnerable group of people, not only are they trying to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions—not only are they trying to employ the politics of misdirection, to move your attention away from the fact that in that same moment they’re trying to pick the pocket of American workers, undermine union protections, and fleece seniors by privatizing Medicare through the back door—but every bit of time and energy that is diverted to attack trans people, that diverts the attention of the federal government away toward attacking trans people, is time and energy that is not being spent on you. It’s time and attention that’s not being spent on raising your wages or improving your benefits or lowering the cost of living. These attacks have costs. Republicans are focussed on attacking a small group of people, and we are here to actually address the issues that you care about.

You’ve now had a week with your new colleagues, and I wonder what kind of support, or the opposite, you felt in your orientation sessions after Nancy Mace made the statement she did.

I have been overwhelmed and heartened by the love and the support of my Democratic colleagues. It was stunning. I got to Washington, and I’m at orientation. I’m grateful that I had a week before all of this started, because I had a week to just marvel at the fact that I was there. I had a week to marvel at the fact that I am serving in a body that Abraham Lincoln served in. One of the first nights we were there, we gathered in Statuary Hall, which is the Old Hall of the House, which is where Abraham Lincoln served. And then, after we gathered there, we walked onto the floor of the United States House of Representatives, where they moved in 1857, just before the Civil War broke out. And we sat in the chairs and I thought, This is the space where the Thirteenth Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment were passed. This is the space where women got the right to vote. This is the space, these are the chairs. This is the job of the people who voted to pass the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. And you feel this awesome responsibility, not just to deliver on the tangible policies for the constituents you serve in that moment, but you also feel that deep responsibility as you realize that you are one of a little more than five hundred people who have the responsibility to be stewards of a democracy—of the longest ongoing democracy in the world. That is an awe-inspiring responsibility.

I’m really grateful that I had that opportunity. But what was made that much more meaningful was that in that second week, as all of this noise happened—as I continued to be focussed on the actual work that I was there to do—the love and the support that came in from my Democratic colleagues really reinforced what I had already been hearing, which is that that caucus is a family.

And what about the Republican side? Did you get any support from there?

Yes. Look, there was a lot unsaid, but there was kindness and clear intentionality to say, “Welcome to Congress. It’s wonderful to serve with you.” That was quite a contrast to some of the other behavior we saw that week.

People actually coming up to you from the Republican side and embracing you in one way or another?

Yes. Staff and members.

The Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, released a statement that said all single-sex facilities are for people of that “biological” sex. You responded to this on X, formerly Twitter (it’s interesting that you’re still on Twitter!), by calling this a distraction and saying that you’ll follow the rules as outlined by Johnson. But what do you say to people in the trans community who think you didn’t go far enough?

I understand that, at a moment where you are scared, you want to see someone fight. I understand that when you are a first, there are a lot of people who never dreamed that something like this would be possible, who are living on that journey with you. And so they feel very deeply the experience of discrimination. They feel very viscerally the experience of disrespect. I think what I would say is, This was not done to bar me from restrooms. This was done to invite me to take the bait and to fight. I am maintaining my power by turning the other cheek and doing what I promised Delawareans I would do, which is to focus on the job in front of me. Yes, when that calls for me to defend my L.G.B.T.Q. constituents, I will do that; when it calls on me to defend workers in my state, I will do that; when it calls on me to defend retirees in my state, I will do that. But I should not be the issue.

You must have anticipated, if not this, then something like it. And of course you are a first, a historical first. Do you face a lot of threats?

I think one of the problems in our politics right now is the level of toxicity has resulted in far too many people seeking to solve political disputes not at the ballot box but through violence. I am certainly not alone in Congress in having to think through that. I think it’s very early. There have been moments throughout my life where I have had to be cognizant. I’ve never had a job where I have not received death threats. Literally, I have never had a job—even when I was in my first, junior-level position.

How do you handle them?

Well, fortunately, we’ve got great law enforcement here in Delaware that I have worked with over the course of this campaign and throughout my time in the State Senate. Look, one of the things that I grappled with when I decided to run for this position is the risk that comes with being a first at this level. Even though I didn’t run to be a first, there’s obviously risk that comes with it. And there was a moment where I almost didn’t do it. Because of the fear.

Tell me about that. Was it a specific incident or just a generalized fear?

There were some rumors about what some far-right-wing groups might try to do, should I run.

When did this come up?

This was before I announced. There was a lot of speculation about me running.

So what within you allowed you to make the leap and declare yourself a candidate for Congress?

A couple of things. First off, I think that we delude ourselves into thinking that people don’t take these types of steps without fear. People aren’t fearless. Bravery only comes into play when you face those fears, when you pursue something despite the fears. I really do believe that we are at an inflection point where we need a politics of grace in this country if we are going to have any chance at not only restoring our capacity to have a national dialogue, which is fundamentally necessary in a democracy, but actually making government work better. I genuinely felt like I had something to contribute in that respect. I think I know how to get things done. I know how to legislate.

But you’re going to have to embody grace—and there’s every sign that you already do—but with a President who says, publicly, something like this: “Your kid goes to school and a few days later comes home with an operation.” That’s the President of the United States, come January 20th. How do you combat that, and all that’s behind it, and embody grace?

I think a couple of things, and I think this extends beyond Donald Trump. So I’m going to step back a little bit. I think Democrats struggle with extending one of our basic principles—which is that no one is their worst act, no one is their worst belief—to people on the other side of the political divide. I’m not talking about Donald Trump right now. I’m talking about Republicans. The question here is not how do I demonstrate grace in the face of Donald Trump; it’s how do I demonstrate grace in a world where people that I work with—where even people that I represent—hold positions and beliefs about who I am that are personally hurtful, potentially.

I think all of us need to do a better job of seeing the humanity of people on the other side of the aisle. Because I think what happens in this country right now is: The left says to the right, “What do you know about pain, white straight man? My pain is real, as an L.G.B.T.Q. person.” And the right says to the left, “What do you know about pain, college-educated, cosmopolitan élite? My pain is real, in a post-industrial community ravaged by the opioid crisis.” And I know that, when I am upset, the worst thing that someone can say to me, even if it is said with the best of intentions, is “It’s not as bad as you think.” Any therapist will tell you that the first step to healing is to have your pain seen and validated. And I think all of us have to do a better job of recognizing that people don’t have to be right in our mind for what they’re facing to be wrong. And people don’t have to be right in our minds for us to try to right that wrong. That comes down to sort of a core recognition that every single person is more than just one thing about them. And every single person is more than even beliefs that might personally hurt many other people. And the other thing I’ll say on that is to a similar point: early on in my career, I went viral for something.

Do you remember what it was?

Ironically enough, I was an advocate. It was a selfie in a bathroom in North Carolina that I was technically barred from being in.

I see.

The vitriol that came back to me as a twentysomething-year-old was so dehumanizing and so cruel and so mean. It was the closest in my life that I have ever been to suicide becoming a rational thought. I wasn’t suicidal, but it was the first moment where I just went, I want to end this miserable experience.

What was coming at you?

I mean just the level of online bullying and harassment. It was amazing to me that people—person after person—telling me to kill myself could actually hurt me. But it was an onslaught. And, again, I was twenty-five. I was new to all this, and I thought, Maybe I don’t have skin thick enough for this. I sort of went on a journey to understand the psychology of trolling and bullying. I think it was a “This American Life” podcast by a writer who talks a lot about her own weight and grapples with her own body image in a really public and vulnerable way, talking about the experience that she had writing about that hurt and getting outreach from one of her worst bullies and trolls online—someone who had created a Twitter account as her deceased father to troll her from—who opened up to her about what was motivating him. And, listening to that conversation, it really helped me internalize a truth that has allowed me to find balance and grace in the face of hatred or cruelty. And that was: Everyone deals with an insecurity. Everyone deals with something that society has told them that they should be ashamed of or that they should hide. And the thing about me is that I have taken that insecurity, that thing that society has said you should be ashamed of and you should keep quiet—and I’ve not only accepted it but I walk forward from a place of pride in it. Bullies see that. They see that individual agency and conquering my own fears and insecurities, and they’re jealous of that. That has allowed me to find compassion for folks who respond to me in sometimes the way that they do, to recognize that I hope, too, they can find the power to overcome whatever pain is plaguing them.

And so much so that when Nancy Mace made the comments that she did, and put forward the bill that she did—are you able to see it in those terms and not receive the attacks with the same despair that you did when you were in your twenties?

Yes. Yes.

That’s an enormous transformation.

I won’t say that it doesn’t hurt, but, yes, I am not distracted in the same way that I was.

“Distracted” is a small word for it. I mean, what you felt in your twenties must’ve been a lot worse than “distracted,” no?

Yeah. I am able to contextualize it and not feel the pain as much. Again, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt, but I am able to work through it.

How? That’s a very hard thing. Is it therapy? Is it maturation? Is it living in your skin ten years longer? What is it?

I think the last two: I think it’s maturation, and I think it’s just finding a confidence in myself that allows me not to internalize. I really do seek to find compassion for the people who are acting out, who say the things that they do, because that does help me. That does help me to try to see and understand where a person is coming from, even if the action itself explicitly or implicitly is not well-intentioned, even if it’s being done for cynical purposes—to try to understand that there’s still a person behind that and maybe there’s something in their life that has pushed them to engage in the way that they’re engaging.

In a certain number of weeks, you’re not only going to have to hear about Nancy Mace, you’re going to have to work with her. And you talk a lot about “working across the aisle,” which is a phrase that we hear from politicians all the time. This takes on new levels of meaning—“working across the aisle with Nancy Mace.” Can you do it?

Well, I look forward to working with colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle who are serious about the work that they’re doing. Who have disagreements with me, perhaps profound disagreements with me, but who are serious about getting things done.

For the first time in our conversation, I sense you’re reluctant to answer the question directly. With all respect.

I will work with anyone who’s willing to work with me. And I don’t know this individual member of Congress—I had barely heard of her before this. I will never say that anyone is beyond redemption.

I want to zoom out a bit now and talk about your own unique path to politics and congress. Your late husband, Andrew Cray, was an L.G.B.T.Q.+ health advocate and attorney. What kind of work did he focus on, and what of his legacy can be seen in your own political career and direction?

Andy was the kindest, smartest, and—this is very important for me in a partner—the goofiest person that I had ever met. Just a really good and decent person.

How did you meet?

We bumped into each other at a White House Pride reception during the fourth year of the Obama Administration, 2012. After that, he reached back out to me on social media, on Facebook, and he said that he thought we’d get along “swimmingly.” I thought, Who the hell in their twenties says the word “swimmingly”? But clearly someone I want to spend some time with. So we went out on a date, and I fell in love pretty quickly.

Was he already sick?

No. He was an attorney, as you mentioned, working on health policy, and he was actually working on the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. He was a brilliant mind, but also—and I think this goes back to our conversation about grace—he was so principled. I remember we had a debate once where he won me over—where we had a debate about whether it was appropriate to out anti-L.G.B.T.Q. politicians who were in the closet themselves. I was of the mind that their hypocrisy called on us to out them. And he was of the mind that the principle that we are fighting for—that everyone should be able to live their life fully and freely, be able to live their sexual orientation and gender identity, the way they see fit and the way they need to—if that is not an unbreakable first principle, then what is? And principles only matter when you have seemingly altruistic reasons to violate them. He was someone of just immense grace, principled grace.

He got sick about a year into our relationship. He developed a sore on his tongue and went in thinking it was just a benign growth. He had a little minor surgery to remove the benign growth, which was aborted in the middle of the procedure as they realized perhaps that it was something more. About a week later, he was diagnosed with oral cancer. It was a shock to both of us. I mean, we were both young invincibles, something that he had written about as he worked on the A.C.A., right? We never would’ve imagined that cancer would enter our lives in our mid-twenties, but we knew from the very start how lucky we were. He knew in particular, given his work, how lucky he was to have health insurance. And we were both very lucky to have flexibility with our jobs that allowed Andy to get care: a twelve-hour surgery that left him having to relearn how to talk, how to eat, how to breathe. I was lucky to be there by his side to care for him, to suction his tracheostomy tube, to tend to his wounds, to hold his hand through the absolute fear.

And then eventually, when his cancer turned out to be terminal, to be there by his side, to marry him, and to walk him to his passing, which happened a couple of days after we were fortunate enough to get married in our building. My brother, who’s a radiation oncologist, said to me, “I’ve seen a lot of people pass away from cancer. And one thing you should try to take stock of over the weeks ahead, as Andy’s health deteriorates, is that you are going to bear witness to acts of amazing grace that will fill your life.” And truly that grace and those miracles were everywhere. I think it has fundamentally shifted my perspective on the world and my ability to see that grace, to see beauty and tragedy, and to recognize that hope, as an emotion, only makes sense in the face of hardship.

In other words, you’re thinking about him all the time through this?

Yes. Yes.

And what does that do for you?

It makes me feel less alone in navigating this. It makes me feel more confident in what I’m doing and how I’m trying to go about this. There’s certainly things that I wish I could talk to him about and get his perspective on, but I try to take the lessons from our couple of years together and try to draw those lessons into action in this moment.

We began our conversation with you talking about how moved you were to be in the halls of Congress for the first time as a soon-to-be member, and seeing and sensing all that had happened in progressive terms, in liberatory terms, over time and in previous centuries. My guess is that this is not going to characterize the next two years for you in Congress. The Democratic Party, in large measure, will be fighting a rear-guard action against all kinds of initiatives by a Trump Presidency in a Republican Congress. How do you anticipate the coming next two years? What kind of role will the Democrats and you play? What will be your day-to-day life, do you think?

Well, there’s no question that we’ve got our work cut out for us. There’s no question that we’re going to have to push back on a lot of damaging and dangerous policies.

But, look, I think the biggest challenge for us is not that we understand that there’s a fight. And we will do the work. The challenge is going to be to summon the hope necessary to see that fight through. I think that one of the challenges that we have in this country right now, particularly for Democrats, is that, really since the nineteen-sixties, it has felt like if we simply work for it, if we vote for it, if we volunteer, if we share our stories, if we lift our voices, that we can then inevitably bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice. And we felt that, I think particularly, in 2008 and when we elected Barack Obama, and then A.C.A. passed, and marriage equality became a law of the land. It just felt like there was this sort of unfolding sense of great progress.

It feels different right now. It doesn’t feel like, if we simply work for it and fight for it, that change will come, that things will work out. We can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. But the other thing that I thought about, as I sat in that chair on the floor of the House, was about not only the elected officials that served there but all of the advocates and activists and citizens who lived through those different chapters in our country’s history. We have to recognize that that sense of inevitability with hard work that we felt twenty years ago, thirty years ago—that’s the exception in our country’s history. Every single previous generation of Americans has been called to conquer odds much greater than the ones that we’re facing right now. And they had every reason to believe that change would not come. They could not see the light at the end of the tunnel. Enslaved people in the eighteen-fifties had no reason to believe that an Emancipation Proclamation was on the horizon. Unemployed workers during the early days of the Great Depression had never heard of a New Deal. Patrons at the Stonewall Inn never knew of a country where they could live openly and authentically as themselves. And yet they persevered. They summoned their hope, they found that light, and ultimately they changed the world.

The narrative you describe is very, how do I put it—Obamian? It reminds me of Obama’s speech in Selma, the last one he gave there as President, about a kind of parade of American heroic advance. And when I talk to a lot of younger people in my office, in my life, in my family, they don’t all share the sense of determined hope that you do. There’s a good deal of depression—if not giving up, then a kind of sense that these are going to be very dark times to come. And with all the emergencies surrounding us, at home and abroad, and environmentally, it’s very hard to muster hope. As a politician, as a member of Congress, what do you tell them?

You cannot tell me that the reasons for hopelessness now are greater than the reasons for hopelessness of an enslaved person. You cannot tell me that the reasons for hopelessness now are greater than the insecurity and the fear of workers in the midst of the Great Depression, and a country that very easily could have fallen into totalitarianism and fascism, as many liberal democracies around the world were falling into that, in the early thirties.

Hope is not always an organic emotion. Sometimes we have to consciously find it and consciously summon it. And, yes, there are big challenges right now. Maybe those challenges are insurmountable. Maybe we will be, because of social media, incapable of restoring our capacity to have a national dialogue. Maybe because of the culture that we live in right now, we will no longer be able to have conversations across disagreement. Maybe because of unchecked wealth and corporate power, we won’t be able to conquer climate change. The list goes on. Maybe. But we would be the first generation of Americans to give up on this country, and we would be the first generation of Americans who were unable to find the path forward. And I just don’t believe that we are. And I certainly believe that we don’t have to be.

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moonlinos · 1 year ago

Text

Call my bluff, call you ‘babe’

♡ Pairing: Lee Minho × fem!reader

♡ Genre: Childhood friends to lovers, fluff

♡ CW: Implied smut, alcohol consumption. Twenty solid seconds of angst, but it doesn’t even really count. It’s just tooth-rotting fluff.

♡ Word count: 5.5k

♡ Synopsis: Minho has been your best friend since you two could barely form coherent sentences. He was there when your last baby tooth fell, he was there when you failed your high school exams, and he was there as you walked down the aisle.

♡ A/N: This was going to be just word-vomit fluff to make me cry, but I couldn’t control myself and before I knew it there were… so many words.

You were four years old when you met Minho. It was the first day of kindergarten, and you were assigned seats together. The entire day was spent with you chatting to every kid you could reach from your seat while Minho quietly sat painting and doodling by your side. You vaguely remember thinking he was odd and whining to your mom about how your seatmate was boring, and that was why he was the only kid in class you didn’t talk to. She smiled and told you maybe you should make an effort to talk to him. That same day, you racked your little brain for a reason why your seatmate might be so quiet and promptly decided that he was too shy to start a conversation himself. You then asked your mom if the fact that you didn’t talk to him might have made him sad, to which she hesitated, and that was enough to have your bottom lip wobbling.

You remember tears streaming down your cheeks as you frantically sobbed, inconsolable at the fact that your seatmate was sad and that it was partially because of you.

The next day, you asked if Minho would like to use your special glitter pens — you even told him you wouldn’t mind if he used your favorite colors. That was really all that was needed to plant the bud of friendship between you two.

Ever since that day, you two slowly became inseparable.

You attended the same elementary school after begging your parents, writing a very concise list of reasons why you two could not possibly be separated. Reasons such as the fact that Minho still didn’t know how to tie his shoelaces, so it would be dangerous for him to be alone in a new school. Or the fact that you were always losing your gloves, and Minho always carried an extra pair in his backpack just for you, so you would surely catch a cold if you didn’t have him beside you during winter.

All extremely valid reasons.

Minho began walking you home from school when you were both nine years old. He was often left alone due to his parents’ work schedules, which made him become the most street-smart kid in your class. You had to beg your mom for a week, but she ultimately caved in.

Your favorite thing to do on your way home was to stop randomly and doodle on the sidewalk with chalk, with Minho joining you in no time. You even had your favorite little sketching spot — right in front of a nice old lady’s flower shop, where you two would spend far too much time decorating her entrance pavement with flowers, rainbows, and smiley faces. She would later introduce herself to you, Ms. Kim, and would always thank you both with a flower of your choice. You always picked tulips, and Minho always picked daisies.

On one hazy winter day, you and Minho were eager to adorn the flower shop’s entrance with a new set of doodles since the ones you had done just yesterday got covered in snow. As you two did your best to dig through the piled-up snow with your gloved hands, you suddenly felt something hard slide down your throat. Your hands stilled, and you turned to look at Minho with wide eyes.

“What happened?” He asked. “Did you lose your glove in the snow this time?”

You shook your head frantically, careful not to swallow. “Teeth,” you simply said.

Minho looked at you like you were crazy, squinting his eyes as he studied your face. “What?”

You felt tears well up, and he immediately abandoned his mission of shuffling through the snow before pulling you into a big hug.

“Why are you crying? Don’t cry. I hate when you cry, I feel weird when you cry,” He said, but no tears left his worried eyes. Minho never cried, that was something you had learned a while back.

You, however, cried until Ms. Kim noticed you two from the window, cooing as she approached you two with a gentle smile. You tried your best to explain your predicament. Minho sat with you behind the wooden counter, holding your hand in his, the smell of flowers making everything feel less catastrophic than it did ten minutes earlier.

Ms. Kim explained that you had no reason to cry, as it was normal for kids to swallow their baby teeth. And you remember harshly shaking your head and explaining with a trembling voice that you hadn’t cried because of that. You had cried because that was your last baby tooth, which meant you were officially a grown-up. You didn’t want to be a grown-up. Minho wasn’t a grown-up yet, with his last baby tooth still holding on proudly in his gums. You didn’t want to be a grown-up all alone; it would be terrible and sad.

That afternoon, you two went home together in silence, your respective flowers clutched in your hands. Minho was never good with words. Sadness engulfed him because he couldn’t do enough to make his best friend smile again. What was the point of a best friend if they didn’t make you laugh when you were crying?

Minho walked into school the next day with a proud smile on his face before placing his last baby tooth on your desk. You eyed it curiously, brows furrowed.

“There, I took it off last night,” He simply said. “Now we’re gonna be grown-ups together.”

At eleven years old, your daily after-school video game appointments began.

You had just cut your hair short; a bob you thought looked cute on your favorite singer turned out to be cataclysmically unflattering on you. And, at eleven years old, it was earth-shattering and definitely the end of your life (despite what your mother told you).

You spent every second out in public with your hair hidden by a beanie, hoping it would distract people from your disastrous haircut.

Except it had the opposite effect.

One particular day at school, a boy came up to you simply to inform you that your head looked like a mushroom before running away, laughing with his friends. They were foolish words spoken by a foolish boy, but you were eleven. Once again, earth-shattering and the end of your life.

You avoided everyone the entire day — including Minho, whom you always talked to no matter your mood. You knew you wouldn’t be able to avoid him for much longer, seeing as he walked you home every day, so you simply prayed he wouldn’t notice your puffy eyes or that he at least hadn’t heard any of the other kids making unfunny jokes about your haircut.

After school, Minho sighed in feigned annoyance when you told him you had lost your gloves again before retrieving a pair from his backpack. Like a habit, you asked if he wanted to hang out at your house, although the answer was always unchanging.

“My mom’s baking a cake,” you told him. “We can play video games and then eat it together.”

Minho hummed in agreement, adjusting his backpack before grabbing your hand as you two began your daily walk to your house. It was something you always did, never walking anywhere without your hands clasped together. These past few months, however, this once ordinary gesture had begun making your heart beat faster. You didn’t understand why, and you would rather not think about it because every time you did, the words from your other friends would echo inside your head. Their stories about how they felt their hearts racing when their crush had hugged them or even looked their way, making you question if maybe…

But it couldn’t be. Minho was your best friend. How could he be your crush?

It was another one of those afternoons, your mom busily making you two sandwiches as you and Minho played New Super Mario Bros on your Wii under the blanket fort you always meticulously built. Minho had been acting weird all day — even weirder than you, who had to endure all the asinine jokes and hurtful words from your peers. As you completed the last level for the umpteenth time, saving Princess Peach, Minho all but threw his controller to the side. You turned to shoot him a questioning look, which went ignored as he rummaged through his backpack.

He retrieved a crumpled-up piece of paper, which he promptly gave to you.

You cocked your head, awaiting some sort of explanation, but Minho simply picked up his controller once more and hit play on the game.

Unfolding the paper, words greeted you in Minho’s messy handwriting.

YOUR HAIR LOOKS CUTE. STOP HIDING IT.

Your lips parted slightly, but before you could say anything to him, Minho reached out and snatched your beanie from your head. Your short hair and bangs cascaded onto your face, partially obscuring your view. But you could still make out his side profile, where a faint smile appeared on his lips.

After that, you two were silent for the rest of the day, eventually dozing off under the tent lulled by the sound of your mother’s hand mixer and Mario’s theme song. The sun eventually set outside the window, and you woke up to two plates of your mother’s cake waiting for you on the coffee table.

From that point on, your beanie was left forgotten inside your drawer.

You were fifteen when you realized that perhaps your feelings for Minho weren’t all that platonic after all.

It all started with a letter on Minho’s desk on a rainy Friday. October 25th, Minho’s birthday.

Minho’s quiet nature hadn’t changed one bit since you first sat beside him at four years old. He would rather die than start a conversation, rarely went out to the movies with your friend group and, most importantly, hated being the center of attention. That was why he told no one about his birthday since you two began high school this year. It was the subject of much debate among your little group of friends, with some bribing Minho with his favorite snacks or promising to do his assignments until college just for some sort of clue; a day, month, even the day of the week he was born.

But Minho never budged.

So, seeing a letter on his desk on the day of his birthday was odd, to say the least.

You arrived back to the classroom late after chatting to your friend from another class in the hallway, catching as Minho sat down with a puzzled look on his face and an open letter in his hands.

“What’s up?” You asked, sitting on the desk in front of him.

He looked up, thick glasses crooked from a dodgeball incident earlier that week. “Yumi found out it’s my birthday today,” He informed you, a bit too nonchalantly. “She organized a birthday party at her house tomorrow with our friends.”

You immediately took the letter, reading it and blanching at the words written in the girl’s pretty handwriting. She had found out Minho’s birthday by snooping around Facebook until she found his mother, who had a plethora of pictures of Minho on his previous birthdays. Not only that, the letter ended with a paragraph where she confessed her feelings to him — with all the clichés and dramatics only an adolescent crush could provide.

You still remember your first thoughts upon learning that information: Oh, Yumi. Of course a girl like her would do something like this.

You cringe at your words now, but at fifteen, you deemed no girl worthy of your best friend. Especially ‘girls like Yumi,’ who in your eyes all but threw herself at him. At the time, you thought you were looking out for the boy who was practically your brother. Now, you understand you were simply an insecure fifteen-year-old who allowed ugly, misogynistic thoughts to brew inside your mind out of fear of losing Minho. For your immature brain, every girl interested in Minho was an enemy because they could easily take him away from you.

And Minho had never reciprocated any girl’s feelings, always politely turning down the few confessions he had gotten during middle school. You were ready to berate Yumi, your brows immediately furrowing as your face contorted, but Minho beat you to it, speaking before you could utter a word.

“I know I should be mad, but isn’t it a little… cute?”

You couldn’t help but scoff, the sound escaping your lips like a burst of disbelief. You also couldn’t help how your hands began to tremble as your heart shot up to your throat.

“Cute?” You asked with the strongest voice you could muster. “You think her invading your privacy is cute?”

And Minho simply shrugged, tapping his fingers on his desk. “A little bit. I know you don’t really like her, but she’s part of our friend group,” He said, taking the letter from your shaky hands. “Plus, she’s always been nice to me, and she is cute.”

That was all you could physically bear to hear, excusing yourself from the conversation with the lie that your friend had called you from the classroom window before sprinting out into the hallway. As you continued walking, your palms grew clammy and your heart weighed heavily in your chest.

You felt tears well up in your eyes once you reached the stairs. Sitting on the steps, you cried into the cardigan of your ugly school uniform. You didn’t care that you would be scolded for skipping class; all you cared about was that your best friend was going to be taken from you.

After school, as you and Minho were about to exit the school gates — your hands tightly clasped together as they always were — Yumi appeared carrying a cake, the rest of your friends behind her as they all sang happy birthday.

Minho blew out the candles and made a wish. Everyone cheered as his best friend, Chan, shoved his face into the cake. Minho yelled at him, grumbling with glasses covered in white frosting, but ultimately laughing along. Yumi was quick to clean his face with a napkin, earning her a smile from Minho before he released your hand to gently squeeze her rosy cheeks.

You remained quiet, forcing out a smile and looking up at the sky every now and then so your tears wouldn’t fall.

All because Minho had let go of your hand.

Minho’s fifteenth birthday — that was the day you learned you could fool everyone else, but never yourself.

Your seventeenth summer was a drag.

Minho had just been broken up with a couple of months before, Yumi crying as she explained her parents wanted her to focus on her studies, and having a boyfriend was simply a distraction she couldn’t afford if she wanted to be a doctor someday. An unwilling participant in the entire situation, you sat awkwardly at the bus stop as she spoke.

You were ready to witness Minho cry for the first time in your life, maybe yell about how unfair her parents were being, but he simply pressed a kiss to her forehead just as your bus arrived.

Not much had changed when he began dating Yumi, with you learning that suppressing how you truly felt was worryingly easy. You still hung out with them, battling through their cuddles and kisses like a soldier on the front lines of a war. Never unscathed, but always strong. Nobody needed to know about how you cried into your mother’s arms almost every night before falling asleep.

The only change had been you and Minho’s daily gaming appointments. You two had since outgrown your video game phase, both now interested in diverging things that made it impossible for you to enjoy them together. You discovered your love for flowers went beyond doodling on the sidewalk in front of a flower shop, but Minho complained that growing flowers was too time-consuming, and he loved dancing, which you were far too uncoordinated and lazy to even try doing.

And so, you two settled for simply hanging out together at your house. Your room had easy access to the roof, which you two took full advantage of, setting up a permanent blanket fort where you would snuggle up with pillows and talk for hours after school.

That summer was no different, with Minho stretched out across the old mattress, watching the light pink sky slowly fade away as night set in while you two busied yourselves talking.

That was the day you finally gathered the courage to ask Minho about his breakup, desperate to understand why he had appeared so unfazed. After the one-year milestone of their relationship in February, you had begun to make peace with the fact that she would probably be around for a while.

Minho shrugged at your question, hands resting on his stomach while he gnawed on his bottom lip. He explained he was sure that he liked her, but it turned out he valued her as a friend much more than as a girlfriend.

You couldn’t help but scoff at the answer. You knew Minho better than you knew yourself at times, which was why you knew he was lying through his teeth.

“Why did you stay so long with her, then?” You questioned, the resentful lilt in your voice a bit too obvious. You cleared your throat before adding, “I mean, you surely didn’t act as just friends.”

“I guess I felt lonely before,” He explained. “I was selfish for staying with her, but I enjoyed having someone. Was especially nice after…” Minho trailed off, dismissively shaking his head, and you remember being close to throwing him off that roof as he kept being so damn enigmatic.

“After what?” You prodded, “Minho, I’m your best friend. What’s the point of us talking if you’re not gonna tell me the truth?”

He turned his head to look up at you, the darkening sky making his eyes gleam as if they held an entire galaxy of stars. You felt that familiar nervousness return.

“It was nice to not be so alone after so many years of pining after someone.”

You cocked your head to the side, and Minho had the gall to chuckle at your puzzled expression. You shook your head, mumbling to yourself that your conversation was pointless if he wouldn’t tell you the whole truth.

Lying next to him on the mattress with a sigh, you could feel the weight of Minho’s gaze on you. You couldn’t bring yourself to move.

You remember the moon was already high in the sky by the time one of you finally moved — Minho, who slowly inched his hand closer to yours before clasping it tightly in his. Despite your racing heart, you thought nothing of it. He was now single, so it wouldn’t be ludicrous to assume a habit you two had cultivated for many years would naturally return.

However, after some beats from your erratically racing heart, Minho’s fingers intertwined with yours. You had never done that before, always holding hands in a way that all but screamed platonic.

That night, with his thumb caressing your skin and his hand squeezing yours, Minho finally spoke the truth after so long.

“It’s you,” He said, tone nonchalant but voice audibly shaky. “Think I’ve been pining after you since I was nine and ripped my tooth out ‘cause I thought that’d make you stop being sad.”

You remember gasping quietly and his hand tightening around yours as the clock ticked and your silence remained. You remember finally mustering up the courage to turn to look at him and being met by an expression you had rarely seen on Minho’s face in the thirteen years you had known him — he was scared, wide eyes dancing around your face as if he looked for an answer in your features, his chapped lips parted slightly as if he was ready to backtrack the moment he saw any hint of doubt in your eyes.

You remember smiling at him and how his expression shifted into pure confusion. All it took was for him to finally have the nerve to hold your hand in the way he’d always wanted to, and for you to use his courage as a catalyst for your own. You remember how you closed the distance between you two and pressed your lips to his. You remember it feeling weird because you were kissing Minho, your best friend.

But you also remember it feeling right because you were kissing Minho, your best friend.

Your transition from being best friends to being in a relationship was easier than you had ever thought it would be — it was also slower than you could have ever imagined.

Minho never asked you out or confessed his feelings beyond what was said on the roof, and neither did you. It was a shared knowledge between you, a silent agreement that didn’t need words — at least for now. The little gestures and subtle changes left no doubt in your minds that you two were, in fact, no longer just friends — like how you began to always intertwine your fingers while holding hands, or how Minho would pull you onto his lap when you hung out with your friends, or how you would rest your head on his shoulder as he played with your hair during lunch break.

Your friends certainly had questions, the confusion written all over their faces easy to read like a book, but you both knew they also understood your relationship without you needing to make a big deal out of it.

You picked him up from dance class every weekend, sometimes arriving earlier just to catch a glimpse of him through the glass door, as Minho insisted he was too embarrassed to dance in front of you.

One day, thoroughly unprompted, he reached into his backpack as you two exited his dance academy and pulled out a yellow tulip. You had furrowed your brows at the sudden gesture, and Minho nonchalantly told you that planting your favorite flower was surprisingly easy. Since becoming teenagers, you had stopped going to Ms. Kim’s flower shop, and you had long forgotten about how you two used to have your own respective flowers back in the day.

It seemed Minho hadn’t forgotten.

That was one thing you had come to know about him only after you began dating. Although he seemed cold and distant on the outside — rarely communicating his feelings through words — Minho secretly kept a mental note of every little detail about the people he cared about, and he unfailingly found a way to communicate his feelings through actions. Such as promptly handing you a brand-new flower he had picked before you even had the chance to mourn your tulip as it began to wilt.

You, on the other hand, had always been the type of person to communicate through words; spoken, written, or read, which is how you began saving your best daisies from the small garden you created in your backyard and practicing your flower arrangement skills exclusively by making pretty bouquets you could gift to Minho (always with little notes hidden among the flowers).

Your once explicitly platonic roof dates also left no room for doubt, as making out under your usual tent became a hard-to-break habit. In fact, that was how your family found out about your relationship. You were eighteen, with graduation just around the corner, when your mother caught Minho kissing you as tears welled up in your eyes at the thought of having to be apart from him during college (although you both knew that would never be the case, as you always moved mountains simply to stay together).

Everything was slow-paced, and neither of you had any desire to rush anything. Once, Minho told you he had waited eight years to finally kiss you, and somehow, that anticipation was what had made it all the more special.

And so, your first proper date only happened six months after your first kiss, and your first fight only happened a year and a half into your relationship. Not to mention your first I love you, which had been a slip-up that happened only in your first year of college after a drunken night with Chan and Minho. Your head on his lap, your tulip nestled among his daisies in a pretty vase on the coffee table as Chan hummed along to some song that came from his phone. You felt as if your entire being was filled with pure gratitude at that moment, and the liquid courage that flowed through your veins only helped you mutter out how much you loved Minho.

He looked down at you, hands cupping your cheeks with a silly smile adorning his face, and simply answered, “Well, I love you more.”

Your carefree attitude toward your relationship was almost a contrast to the one you had with your friendship. You and Minho had met so young that you could never truly pinpoint when you had become such close friends. You always wondered if that was what led you two to be so easygoing with what most people rush into. Things happened when they were supposed to happen.

You remember one of Minho’s new friends, Changbin, asking something about your sex life at some party during freshman year, and you two nonchalantly answering that you didn’t really have one. Your friends’ shock was understandable, but you and Minho only laughed.

Things happened when they were supposed to happen.

It was Minho’s 21st birthday, when your flowers were no longer in bloom, but your love remained blossoming like it was mid-spring. He had, as always, vetoed any and every plan of a celebration suggested by your friends. He opted to stay in with you, cuddling under a blanket fort like you had been doing for so many years. Chan graciously offered to sleep at a friend’s dorm, leaving your small shared apartment just for you and Minho.

He hadn’t planned for anything to happen, and neither had you. You were simply lying together, watching the flickering of the candles you had set up around the coffee table, recounting the innumerable memories you shared when you suddenly felt the earnest, all-consuming need to have Minho as close as possible.

It was clumsy, both of you inexperienced and nervous. Your teeth crashed together and your hands gripped each other tightly, the realization of the intensity of your yearning becoming undeniable. At some point, the entire tent collapsed on top of you, and laughter filled the room for a brief moment before being replaced by your sighs and whispered moans.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was you and Minho.

Graduation day was a blur in your mind.

It had all started with Minho and Chan drunk at eleven a.m., offering you the awful-tasting omelet they had cooked in your cramped kitchen. They then went on to zone out for most of the ceremony after stumbling out of your apartment.

You approached Minho after he was done taking pictures and getting scolded by his family for being drunk on his graduation day, his mother giving you an apologetic look as you whisked him away.

“You’re stressed,” you pointed out.

“Yeah.”

“Me too,” you replied with a sigh, resting against a large tree far enough away from the hustle and bustle of recently graduated students and crying families. “So is Chan. Don’t think I’ve seen him this drunk since Jisung’s birthday party last year.”

Minho chuckled, shifting on his feet and toying with the fabric of his gown. You furrowed your brows; he only ever got fidgety when hiding something. You learned that for the first time when you were thirteen and he had to wait until your birthday to tell you he’d gotten you two tickets to see your favorite band, and again when he had to keep Chan’s then-girlfriend’s plans of asking him to move in together a secret.

“You’re not nervous ‘cause of graduation, are you?”

You remember the way he stilled almost immediately.

“We always tell each other the truth, right?” He asked.

You remember the way your whole world spun as he pulled out a small box from his pocket and how everything seemed to fade into a white mist that surrounded Minho like a spotlight as he proposed to you.

Your wedding was small — both because that was how you had wanted it to be and because of your lack of money for a proper party.

After graduating, Minho became a dance teacher at the academy he attended as a teen, teaching little kids who he said always reminded him of you two. You used the money your parents had saved for you to travel after college to buy the old flower shop that held so many memories from your childhood. Neither of you used your degrees, and neither of you made a lot of money, but you were overflowing with an infatuation for life and a love for each other so great that it made up for any silly inconvenience that dared to come up.

The ceremony was held at a local church — although neither of you was particularly religious, that was the cheapest place available. You opted to walk down the aisle together; hands clasped the way you used to do for many years while walking home from school. Minho held onto a daisy bouquet you made, while you held the single tulip he had picked out for you that day.

“I’m not good with words,” was how Minho began his vows, the glow of the fairy lights and candles adorning the church rendering his attempt at hiding his tears futile. That was the first time you had ever seen him cry in the twenty-one years you’d known him. “But I think that never mattered with you. You know me better than I know myself. Most times, I don’t even have to say a word, and you’ll still understand me. It’s been this way since we were four, and you understood why I was so quiet, and you still chose to be my friend. Thank you for understanding me, and thank you for allowing me to love you. Loving you is what I do best and look how lucky I am; I’ve been able to do it for my whole life.” He then shot you a grin, the back of his hand wiping away your tears. He ended his speech with a line that was so very Minho, thought up with sincerity but spoken primarily to make you smile. “You’ve always felt like home, and I can’t wait to feel that way until we’re both food for the worms to eat.”

You had never cried so much as you did on the day of your wedding — which was remarkable, seeing as you’d been a crier your whole life. You remember the irony of it all; Minho, who had never been good with words, telling you about his love with words that came from his heart and spilled from his lips without any rehearsal, while you were rendered speechless and too emotional to even attempt to form a coherent sentence.

Your wedding vow was a simple, choked-up, “Thank you for being my best friend, Minho.”

Minho carried you home from the church, with your cheeks flushing pink and his smile beaming as your friends made rice cascade around the two of you like snow. It turned out the boy who hated attention didn’t mind the spotlight so long as it meant showing off his love for you.

Your honeymoon was spent in your small house above your flower shop — which you named Daisy’s Tulips — where you cuddled under a blanket fort the entire day, only leaving the comfort of the pillows and fluffy covers well after midnight to adorn the sidewalk in front of your house in a brand new chalk drawing.

“Can you imagine if we never said anything?” Minho suddenly wondered aloud, his chuckle echoing through the quiet street. “We were both pretty good at hiding our feelings for so long.”

And you simply shook your head, painting a daisy with white chalk on the sidewalk. “Minho, I know you. You wouldn’t have let me keep pretending after finding out I liked you too.”

“Who says I would have found out?”

“You said it yourself,” you explained, “I know you better than you know yourself, and that’s reciprocal. You would’ve found out ‘cause I can never hide anything from you.”

And Minho smiled, taking your hand in his just as you were done with your drawing. Your gaze shifted toward him, and you admired the man he had become. From the shy little boy who sat beside you to the quiet teenager with thick glasses to the man he had grown into; you loved every version of Minho you had the privilege to meet throughout your life, and you were certain you would love every new version of him you came to know in the future as well.

“Of course you can’t,” he stated matter-of-factly. “I’m your best friend, aren’t I?” He asked with a grin, and you nodded. He then added, “Thank you for being my best friend.”

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