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astroboots · 4 years ago

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Versus Chapter Four

Warnings: angst, swearing, anxiety, PTSD.

Word count: 5755 words

Summary: When Dave York is assigned with a name on his list to take care of, one that hits a bit too close to home for Frankie, yours, it forces him to tap into a dark part of him that was supposed to be a closed chapter of his life.

CO-WRITTEN WITH @thirstworldproblemss

Chapters {01} {02} {03} | Series Masterlist | Masterlist & Tag List

The wall clock is stuck at 04:40. It’s been that way for the last three appointments Frankie’s been here.

For a broken clock, it still ticks with a deafening noise in the emptiness of the waiting room that drives Frankie mad. It takes everything within him to not walk over, across the waiting room, reach up and fix it. The only thing stopping him is that if he does, his therapist is definitely going to mark him down as irredeemably crazy. Frankie doesn’t want that, because Frankie likes Dr. Alvarez.

He likes her enough to keep coming back every Monday. Enough to actually talk to her, and tell her things that matter. Things like, how he can’t sleep at night; how his anxiety gnaws into his organs; how he misses you even though he knows the healthy thing is to move on.

Sometimes he hates it. Hates how much he has to share in order to get better.

Like how he is going to have to tell her about what happened last night. He squeezes and unsqueezes his palms against his thigh, already rehearsing the inevitable scene that will unfold when he gets into Dr Alvarez room. Mentally preparing himself for the surgical probe of questions that he knows is coming:

Did the two of you talk before you got physically intimate?

Did you consider how this might affect Mireya?

Have you talked about what’s going to happen next?

And he is going to have to answer each of those questions with shame burning hot in his cheeks.

No.

He doesn’t want that reality check.

Delusional as it may be, he wants to hold onto the childish hope that maybe what happened last night was a sign that there could still be a you and him. Doesn’t want or need a professional affirmation that he is objectively wrong to hope.

Tearing his eyes away from the taunting broken clock, he searches for a distraction. The waiting room is sparsely decorated, with a few moth-eaten chairs and not much else. The listless receptionist is chewing bubblegum while watching Fox News’ coverage on a lawyer who was strangled in her hotel room in Miami. Grim. The receptionist is so caught up that she hadn’t even noticed Frankie when he walked in, she never does. The building could be on fire, and she wouldn’t notice.

There's another man in the waiting room today, which is surprising because of the last six months worth of Mondays--the entire time he's been coming here--it's always been just Frankie and the receptionist.

Frankie had asked about this once. Dr. Alvarez, had explained that since most of her patients are former vets, she always leaves an hour between bookings. She’d found that vets are often prone to embarrassment of needing to seek help, or consumed by guilt of taking up resources when others are in a much worse shape than themselves. Sometimes, they’re a combination of both. (He had to resist every anxious instinct in him to not interpret the last part as a subtle jab at himself).

The man sits across from him. Neatly dressed in a fitted suit, slicked-shine shoes, with the shiny enamel of the American flag pinned to his lapel.

“Marines?” The man asks.

Crap.

Frankie must’ve appraised him for longer than appropriate if the man is trying to make conversation with him. And he knows before it’s even begun that it’s going to end up being the same conversation he always ends up having with those who have served in the military.

When did you serve?

Where were you deployed?

How’s your nightmares?

When Frankie’s asked these questions he always has to lie. Never tells people he was in Delta. Considering that to this day, the military doesn't officially acknowledge the division’s missions, it would be in poor taste. Instead Frankie gives the man the rehearsed answer, “Army, a small tenant unit at Fort Bragg.”

The man flashes him a smile that looks plastered on. He is friendly enough. But there’s something unsettling about him. Frankie can’t quite put his finger over what it is. He chalks it up to his military nerves. Always trained to be suspicious and observant of any abnormalities. But in real life some people are just odd and socially awkward. It doesn’t make them the enemy. Just people.

“What did you do?” the man asks.

“Helicopter pilot.”

There’s a whistle of appreciation. It's loud in the empty waiting room, too sharp for Frankie’s ears.

“You must’ve been smart. How long were you a pilot for?”

“I got my licence in 09.”

“So you were a pilot before Pontius then.”

Frankie pulls down the bill of his cap, uncomfortable with the praise for his pilot experience when he doesn’t even fly anymore.

“I’m as experienced as any pilot in the military is supposed to be.”

He really wasn’t setting out to have a conversation in the waiting room of his therapist, and definitely not one about his military past. The best course is to reroute the conversation.

“What about yourself?” Frankie asks.

“Former Marines. I work for the government now.”

“Do you enjoy it?”

The man hasn’t stopped smiling this entire time. But at the mention of his work, the corners of his mouth twist and contort, into something that is slightly unsettling. Frankie can’t put his finger over why that is.

“It’s work. You’re not supposed to enjoy work. That’s what the money's for. I didn’t exactly enjoy the work in the Marines either. I don’t think any one of us really did. Except for the few crazies, who really should be locked up in jail.”

As the man talks, Frankie can feel the man appraising him from the dirt of his boots to the wrinkle in his cap. It makes him want to wipe off the dirt, smooth out his cap.

It is enough to summon that all too familiar intuition of impending danger that has every nerve inside of him humming like live electrical wires. The high frequency pitch in his head, warning him this man is a threat. It takes everything Frankie has to snuff it out. To remind himself, it’s just survival instincts gone haywire.

“Did you enjoy taking lives while you were in the army?”

Frankie tenses, as though the man had struck him. “No,” he answers.

The man smiles wider at that, and fuck that unsettles Frankie.

“The thing I dislike the most about this job is all the travelling,” the man says. “The case I’m dealing with now at work is causing me a lot of grief. I’m supposed to be tracking down these retired Delta Force operatives that went rogue.”

All Frankie hears is Delta and rogue. It’s like his heart and time stops ticking altogether at once. Fuck.

The man’s still looking at him and Frankie swallows against the tight restriction building in his throat. Swallows it all down, the paranoia, the red flashing alarm. Logically he knows the man isn’t talking about him. He’s not the only DELTA Force operative that has ever gone “rogue”. You can’t spend millions of dollars training a man to kill, set him loose on the world and expect him to stop one day and be even remotely well adjusted. None of them are, they just pretend to be, and some do it better than others.

“Oh?” Frankie forces out with his best attempt at pretending to be that, well adjusted. But fuck, he sounds like someone already on death row.

“I’ve been on the road constantly the last couple of months. It’s like a heist movie following their tracks. Has me flying to Colombia then the Bahamas and Miami. I’ve barely even seen my family the past month.” He pauses, eyes honed in on Frankie. “You got any family?”

Frankie hesitates. He thinks of Mireya. He thinks of you. He thinks of how even though he has no real reason to, his instincts tell him that he absolutely does not want to mention either of you to this man. So he lies. “No, no close family.”

“That’s a shame. Family’s a good support system. I think that’s what went wrong in this case. These men, the five of them, didn't have much of a support system when they left the military and became civilians practically overnight. One was divorced before he even retired. The other three had no dependents or spouses.”

There’s something wrong here. Actually wrong. That’s not just in Frankie’s head. A former marine. A government operative should not be telling him any of this.

“Are you allowed to share this information with me?” Frankie asks.

“It's fine.”

“Isn’t this classified?”

The man doesn’t seem to hear him. “Only one of them was married with a young baby. But even he got divorced. You see it all the time. Career soldiers who return home and don’t know what to do with themselves. They lose their homes. Their wives. Lose their place in the world. It’s really unfortunate.”

Not him, the man isn’t talking about Frankie. The young baby isn’t Mireya, the divorce—No. It’s just his paranoia getting the better of him. It’s got to be.

”What did they do that would have the government investigating them?”

His smile turns cruel, and it tells Frankie that he’s been dumb enough to have taken the bait.

“It’s a crazy story,” the man starts. “You have these five Delta soldiers, who travel all the way to Colombia to rob a mansion.”

Fuck.

There’s no denying it now. This man is talking about him. About Lorea. About the $250 million they stole from Lorea’s mansion. Alarm pings out to every one of his limbs all at once until his face feels numb.

“The owner of that mansion just so happens to be a Colombian drug lord. He kept millions of dollars locked in a vault in his house.”

Not a vault. Inside the walls of the fucking house.

“No one knows exactly how much, but it is estimated to be at least a hundred million.”

His vision flattens and his heartbeat both accelerates and slows all at once, pumping out thick syrup blood that clogs in his veins. It’s like he’s on Candid Camera. Except instead of a smiling TV host, the door will be busted down by a SWAT team to handcuff him and take him into custody. Any second now. Frankie’s eyes stay on the door—nothing.

Instead, the man keeps going.

“A drug lord is hardly someone I have sympathies with, but still being burnt alive in your house alongside your bodyguards is not the way I would want to go. They covered their tracks pretty well. It took me ages to track down the local militia operative who procured a MI-8 for them. Told me these men brought two vans worth of money zipped up in duffle bags.”

There is no recognition in the man’s eyes. Still that bland, dead eyed expression in his insistent smile. But he knows. The man knows exactly who Frankie is. What he’s done.

“Still, there was no sign of the money anywhere. Been tracking suspicious large transactions for months and months, and then— a few months ago, someone in this town bought a huge multi-million mansion, paid full in cash. Some kid working at J.P Morgan stole some paperwork that led us to the name of their offshore lawyer. Turns out they set up a family trust of $5 million.”

Something switches in Frankie from amber to red and adrenaline takes over. The old instincts of calm nerves and a quiet mind in a danger zone returns to him. If this man is a threat, a hostile, then Frankie knows how to handle that. It’s the civilian part he never had a good handle on.

“Are you here to arrest them?” Frankie asks, and it actually sounds casual this time.

“We both know that’s not how this works. Arresting them means paperwork and due process. They’re Delta. It'd be a fucking media circus. Bring down the wrong sort of attention. But the man they robbed did not just hold drug money. He also held money for a lot of other interested parties with powerful connections, and military operators in those parts of the world. Parties who are all keen to have their investment back. I’m here because my employer likes things to be handled in private.”

The man leans back in his chair, tapping his fingers against the arm of the chair in slow beats. The pace of a beating heart.

“50 million. That’s what they put in and that’s what they want back. If that money comes back, this story ends here.”

Frankie’s eyes drags up to the man’s face. There’s no expression there. Bland and cold, just a blank canvas. It finally clicks what is so unsettling about him. The man’s bored. Disinterested even.

“What if they don’t have the money anymore?” Frankie asks.

“That depends. Are they going to tell us where the money can be found?”

The smell of burnt paper lingers in Frankie’s memory. There’s a broken part of his brain that wants to laugh at the irony. He kept that fucking note in his sock drawer for three years for god knows what reason and now when it could do some good it’s gone.

“It’s at the bottom of a ravine in Peru.”

The man chuckles, but it is completely humourless, like he's mocking the idea that laughter is supposed to be an expression of joy.

“You have to realize how implausible that sounds.”

“You can take it or leave it,” Frankie answers.

The man doesn’t like that, there is irritation creasing between the man’s brows now. “Are you telling me they’re not giving up the money willingly?”

“They can’t give you something they don't have.”

There is a contempt in the man’s eyes, accusing Frankie of what is clearly the real crime for this man, not one of theft, but of being a fucking inconvenience.

He pauses.

“Elton Drive 1920.”

The blood rushes to Frankie’s ears and roars with such pandemonium, he’s sure he must’ve gone deaf.

“Your ex wife lives there, with your daughter Mireya Camilla Morales. She’s four this year, and she’s about to start pre-kindergarten at St. Mary’s.”

The man takes a deliberate pause, and they both understand the veiled threat that’s unspoken. It makes the soldier in Frankie want to leap out of his chair and snap the man’s neck clean from his shoulder.

“I’m not an unreasonable person,” he continues, voice still blank. “I don’t get a kick out of this. I just have a job to do. You return the cash, and your part of this nightmare goes away. We’ll pretend none of this ever happened.”

The man pauses for a few seconds, like he’s giving Frankie a chance to respond. Frankie doesn’t.

Then there’s a sharp pinging noise from the man’s coat, and he fishes out his phone and glances at the screen. “Last chance. It’s the eleventh hour,” he says, like it’s an announcement on a game show.

Franke still doesn’t answer him.

With a weary shake of his head like the man is a disappointed mother, (fuck that annoys Frankie), the man rises to his feet. He dusts off his coat. There’s a sneer of disgust at the dirt from the chair. An expression that all of this is beneath him.

“Just remember, Morales,” he says, cold eyes pinning Frankie’s, “you were offered a choice.”

The man walks towards the exit at a leisurely pace, unbothered, not glancing back even once. Frankie is left sitting there unsure if the whole interaction was a fever-dream.

There’s a voice in the distance calling his name, but it sounds like it’s being spoken underwater. It’s repeated several times, before Frankie can drag himself out of the tides. The sensation of water filling and burning his lungs. He can’t breathe.

“Mr. Morales? Doctor Alvarez will see you now.”

The carpet underneath him sinks, dissolving under the sole of his boots. This isn’t real. Can't be real... Can't... Fuck

“I'm sorry, something's come up. A family emergency," he barely makes out.

His body isn’t his own anymore. Even as he’s standing in the reception staring at the door, he isn’t seeing the familiar exit. His hand tightens into a bruising fist at his side, hard enough for nails to dig into his skin, but the tip of his fingers are numb. He’s getting up to his feet, with no sensation of weight or ground beneath him as he starts to walk. One feet in front of the other.

The next thing he knows, Frankie's standing on the stoop outside Dr Alvarez' office and scrambling for his non-existent sidearm, with no memory of leaving the office. He realizes that he's pressed up against the side of the doorway under the overhang, scanning the opposing building for snipers. Shit. Shit. Heart thrumming with the pace of a gatling gun. But there’s no gunfire here. Just the sound of lazy traffic and cars honking from a distance.

He has to get himself under control. This is Florida, he reminds himself. Home; not enemy territory. There’s no threat here, except there clearly is. Fuck. He scans the street, looking for the man from the waiting room, but he’s nowhere to be seen. This early, there’s only a few civilians on the sidewalk. A mother pushing a stroller across the parking lot, a young teenager walking a dog on the other side of the street.

Frankie pulls his keys from his pocket. Makes himself straighten up away from the wall and walk out onto the sidewalk. The back of his neck prickles, but he keeps going. He has to get to his truck. Has to get to you and Mireya.

Never has 100 yards felt so long, worse even than hostile territory because at least there he’d had his team at his back. Now it’s just him, alone and unarmed and exposed, flinching every time a car goes by. He gets to the truck, and manages to jam the key into the lock despite the tremor of his hand. Unlocks it. Opens the door, and climbs in, letting out a shaky breath when it closes behind him, and jams the key in the ignition. The rumble of the engine and the feel of the steering wheel under his hands calms him somewhat. He realizes he’s already breathing in the calming rhythm his therapist taught him.

Four, Seven, Eight.

Inhale through his nose for a count of four. Hold his breath for a count of seven. Exhale for a count of eight.

It doesn’t help.

He makes a note of the time as he pulls away from the curb: 09:04.

It usually takes about 25 minutes to get to the house from here, but he should be able to cut it to 18 if he takes the back roads. He has never been more thankful for the military paranoia that made him plot out the fastest routes to and from the places you and Mireya are most often.

Frankie tears his phone out of his pocket, balancing it on his knee so he can unlock it, and hits your name--still first on the list of common contacts--and then the button to put it on speaker. “C’mon, baby, pick up,” he mutters under his breath, listening to the phone ring -- four -- five -- six rings, and then it goes to voicemail, and Frankie swears. Your voice fills the car, calm, if not a little bit stressed as you tell him that you can’t come to the phone right now. “Please leave a message.” “Hey, it’s me… uh… Frankie,” he starts, trying to sound normal. Doesn’t want to worry you with his panic. “Can you-- can you call me back when you get this? Soon, please. It’s… uh… it’s urgent.”

He hangs up, trying to fight another rising wave of panic. Counts his breaths as he hangs up and then dials again, trying to match them to the rings that sound too loud in the cabin of his truck.

Six rings, and then voicemail again. He doesn’t bother to leave another message. Just hangs up and dials again.

Six rings; voicemail. Again.

Six rings; voicemail.

And shit, this is just wasting time. The sickening terror wells up in his stomach tells him this is pointless, but he can’t help thinking that if he just calls just one more time maybe you’ll answer.

Six rings. Voicemail.

Disjointedly he wonders if he'll ever hear you speak to him again, but he will. Of course he will.

09:07. He’s still 15 minutes away. Fuck. Just one more time

Distracted by his phone, Frankie doesn’t see the red light ahead. Nearly plows into the car in front of him before years of instinct have him slamming on the breaks. His phone goes flying off his knee and onto the floor, still ringing, and Frankie scrambles for it frantically, unwilling to lose his last possible connection to you.

This is every nightmare that’s ever had him waking up in cold sweat in the middle of the night come to life, in the most mangled Frankenstein abomination possible. He finally gets his hand around his phone just as voicemail picks up and your cheerful voice rings out in the cab. The car behind him honks, and Frankie jumps, cracking his head on the underside of the dash, before he manages to get upright in his seat again. The lights green, the cars ahead of him already gone, crossing the intersections. Frankie jams his foot down on the gas, and the truck lurches forward. His head throbs. Your voice is asking him to leave a message. Frankie knows better than this. Has been trained better than this.

09:09 - 13 minutes

He makes himself scan his surroundings. The cars on the road around him. There’s a white car several cars back that he thinks has been there for a while. Is he being tailed? No, it’s making a left at the intersection. Two cars ahead of him on the road, but there’s a passing lane coming up.

His phone beeps, signalling the end of the recording. “Voicemail saved. Press 3 to send or 6 to delete and re-record.” He punches 6 and ends the call. His finger hovers over your name again, but this is getting him fucking nowhere. What he needs is backup.

His team. He needs to call the team.

Benny first. His apartment is only 23 minutes aways and they can rendezvous at your house. He taps the contact to call, but it goes straight to voicemail. “FUCK!”

He listens to Benny’s stupid jokey message, and leaves a quick message, “It’s Fish. Sitrep: FUBAR. Call me ASAP, Benjamin.”

With a strained curse, he ends the call. Since it went straight to voicemail, Benny’s probably training. There’s no reception at the gym, and God knows how long it’ll be until he’s free. If Frankie’s unlucky and caught him at the start of a training session, Benny could be out of contact for hours. Hours that you don’t have.

Pulling up his contacts on the screen, he scrolls over the list by muscle memory until he stops. His finger hovers over Pope’s name. Hesitates for seconds he cannot afford, then scrolls past it. Not now.

09:11, 11 minutes

He bypasses Will’s number. That phone is at Benny’s apartment for safekeeping while Will is playing Mother Theresa with the Peace Corps. There’s no point in trying to get him. He’d only be speaking to an operator; Will’s out of contact. Can’t be reached for days at a time–sometimes weeks.

Another red light. Jesus fucking Christ.

There’s no one ahead of him, and for a moment Frankie considers running it, but the cross traffic is already moving. He stops. He waits. Fingers squeezing and releasing on the steering wheel as he scans the cars around him. There’s a little kid in a carseat in the backseat of the station wagon next to him. The little boy waves when he sees Frankie looking at him, just like Mireya likes to do. Mireya. Fuck. Panic threatens to squeeze his throat shut.

You and Mireya are going to be alright. You have to be, or he might as well go home and eat a bullet from his service revolver because you’re the only two things left in his life that are worth shit.

09: 14, 8 minutes. The light turns green, and Frankie slams on the gas. He doesn’t know what he’s thinking when he dials your number again. Because of course there’s not going to be any answer. It rings twice, and this time, he hangs up before it goes to voicemail. He can’t keep doing this, calling you and wasting time. He knows better. He needs his goddamn team.

Frankie scrolls down his contacts with a trembling thumb. The text whirs by with such speed it blurs before his eyes, despite his 20/20 sight. It doesn’t register with him what he’s doing as his thumb presses down on the dial button. Not even when he hears the automated voice tell him that the number he is trying to reach has been disconnected. Then Frankie’s staring at the contact name flashing on his screen.

Redfly.

And realization sits there like a sharp splinter wedged into his chest. There is no fucking team. Not any more. Frankie’s on his own.

And so are you.

5 minutes.

He’s going too fast. Makes himself ease off of the gas until the needle falls back within 5 mph of the speed limit. The traffic outside is too slow, everything around him, every car, every traffic sign that goes by trickling like cloy sticky syrup. But he can’t go any faster. Can’t afford to get pulled over. Not now.

Still 5 minutes. The steering wheel creaks under his grip.

He dials you again, even though he knows you won’t answer. Counts the rings. Listens to your voice. Doesn’t leave a message.

09:18, 4 fucking minutes.

And again. Six rings, and then your voice fills the cab. You ask him to leave a message, and this time he finds himself answering.

“I’m coming, baby. Just hold on. I’m… fuck.” He sucks in a sharp breath and tries to level his voice. His panicked thoughts spilling out onto your voicemail as though you might actually be able to hear him and respond.

“I hope this is all just a false alarm, but, shit. I…” Frankie swallows hard, voice hoarse as he confesses, “I fucked up, baby, just like always. A serious fuck-up. And I might’ve brought something bad down on you and Mireya, but I’m gonna do whatever it takes to keep the two of you safe. Whatever it takes, baby. I promise, because I…. Fuck. I can’t lose the two of you. I know…. I know that you’re not mine to lose anymore, but I can’t… I…. You have to know that I’ve never stopped lov--”

Beeeeeeeep.

The voicemail system cuts him off before he can finish the declaration, and Frankie swears under his breath. He hits the button to end the call and huffs out a pained laugh that’s perilously close to a sob. A day late and a dollar short. Story of his goddamn life.

But it’s the truth. Unsaid or not. He’s never stopped loving you.

His eyes sting with something that feels humiliating close to tears. It’s all such a goddamned joke. Dragging his eyes from traffic to the dashboard he hones in on the sharp red digits.

09:20. He’s almost there. Just two more minutes.

Get your shit together Morales. You don’t have time for this.

Doesn’t have time to sit and stew in his emotions.

Frankie turns onto your street, eyes scanning automatically for anything out of the ordinary, but there’s nothing. Just the same cars as always, parked in the usual places.

Mrs Ramirez is out walking her dog, and turns to wave and smile at Frankie as he passes. He makes himself raise a hand and return the gesture. His attempt at a smile twitches and pulls oddly at his face, and he drops it as soon as she turns away.

The house finally comes into view, the wedge blue so much brighter in the daylight, but he makes himself keep scanning the street, doesn’t let himself look too closely until he’s finally able to pull into the driveway.

He takes in the house as he throws the truck into park. The lights aren’t on but he can see into the kitchen window from outside.

Jabbing uncooperative fingers at the seat belt release button, it finally springs free. He opens the car door. Makes his way across the lawn even though every muscle feels dead and numb. Then he’s standing on the front door steps.

Reaching into his pocket, the only set of keys he finds are the ones to his apartment, not home.

And fuck, Frankie wishes now that he had taken the keys last night when you had placed them in his hand. Right now, he wishes a lot of things about last night.

He knocks, but there is no reply, only a hollow knock that seems to echo inside the house and back at him.

In his impatience, he grabs at the door handle, and it gives way. Ice is in his veins. You never, ever leave the door unlocked.

He calls out your name, and all he hears is his own voice. Unsteady with a simmering fear he’s not going to allow himself to feel yet, he steps inside. With each empty room, the rising sense of déjà vu tastes like bile in his throat.

Empty hallway.

Empty bedroom.

Empty nursery.

Until he’s standing by himself in the living room of an empty house again. Rooted to the same spot when he came back home from Colombia. Feet over the threshold overlooking the space.

Everything is still and calm. There are no signs of struggle or intrusion. If he didn’t know better, it’s like you’ve up and left home again. It makes for the same picture. The oversized armchair, with a throw blanket. The sunlight from the morning sun streaking across the books on the shelf. The large dining table looming across the emptiness of the room. The dead quiet telling him, everything’s fucked.

Three years ago he was certain that with everything he’d lived through up until that point, coming home to find the house empty was the worst moment of his entire life.

He was wrong. Adrenaline burns slow and heavy. Molten lead that scalds with the realization that this is the worst moment of his life.

This is his fault.

Fuck, this is all his fault.

It burns.

Like he’d been force fed a gallon of gasoline and someone lit a match, shoving it into his mouth to swallow.

There’s nothing left for him, and he only has himself to blame, just like last time.

There’s a small click coming from the bookcase, and then the door at the bottom slants open. His heart stops in that long overstretched second, and it doesn’t beat again, until he sees the nub of a small nose peeking out, her round cheeks and big brown eyes staring back at him with a bright smile.

“What took you so long, Daddy?”

Feet leaping forward, his body moves with brute instinct. He doesn’t even register tearing off the door by its hinges. Not until he’s pulled her into his arms, a tight press of her small body to him. Doesn’t realize how hard he’s squeezing her until he hears her yelp out like an alarmed puppy, and he makes himself ease up.

Mireya’s there, right in front of him. Soft and warm against his chest. Real, not just a figment conjured by his mind. He hasn’t cracked. She’s actually here.

“Mireya, What were you doing in there?”

Mireya is looking at him with wide confused eyes, still wincing from his tight hold. “Mommy told me to.”

Her tone is quiet, the cheer gone, as if worried she’d done something wrong. Frankie realizes that his tone is off. His voice clawed with cold anger in a way that she’s never heard from him before. Gentle, he reminds himself.

He can’t do this in front of Mireya. Never, in front of Mireya.

Breathe.

“Princesa.” He combs an unsteady hand into her curls in a comforting gesture with the endearment. Ignoring the sharp grind of panic in his ears. Soft, calm, don’t scare her.

“Where’s mom?” he asks.

That worried expression is still in her eyes, seeing through him, clear as glass for all his ugliness. Frankie swears he can see it, his own daughter looking at him like the hideous monster he is.

"Sweetheart, where's your mom?" he repeats.

She curls into his chest, hiding her face from him. “Mommy woke me up to play hide and seek,” she says, her small hands fisting into his shirt. “She said I should only come out when you got here.”

You hid her.

“Did I do something wrong, Daddy?”

“No, baby,” he says, running a shaking hand over her hair. “You did just right. You did just what your mom said to do. You were very brave.”

And so were you. His brave, clever girl— fuck. Not his. Not anymore. And he’d hoped—but shit… It doesn’t matter what he hoped. You’re not here. Fucked over by his bad choices one more fucking time. Maybe for the last time...

The grinding in his ears stops, like sound itself has ceased to exist. Frankie’s eyes are glued to the open door of the cabinet and he can feel it. Feel the remaining fear and horror in him solidify into something else. The familiar anger and clarity of purpose that has been trained into him that he will never be rid of. It is always there, lingering at the fraying edges of his mind, waiting to take over.

He lifts Mireya and turns away, as though he can escape that part of himself. Stares blindly out over the living room until his eyes catch on something out of place. There's a folded white piece of paper pressed under a half-full cup of coffee on the dining table.

Unfolding the note, he recognizes your familiar handwriting. Except it’s entirely lacking of its usual sharpness, a little wobbly around the edges—shakey. Five handwritten words on a scrap of white paper that permanently sear themselves into the back of his eyelids.

‘You were offered a choice.’

~* to be continued *~

Dedications: To @thirstworldproblemss who wrote this entire breathtaking and adrenaline filled car chase scene that had me on the edge of my fucking scene!!!!

And now a few words to our sponsor beloved clown sister:

Thank you for listening to me day and night, through my delirious, half coherent ramblings about how I don't know how to make this work. To my even more delicious and less coherent ramblings about how horny thots.

Thank you for not blocking me when I harass you with the out of tune singing of karaoke cat—

Thank you for being the best human being and my friend that I get to talk to everyday.

🤡simply 💖her 🤡

A/N: Guys I know this took fucking forever and truth to be told I have no damned excuse cause this was already written by the time chapter 3 was finished and it's barely undergone any changes 😂😂😂

A hearty-ass thank you goes out to @miceandpens who came up with the harrowing idea at the end about the note (I both love and fear her a bit now in all honesty).

Thank you in particular to 🌈anon, -🐼- anon, and @beautyagegoodnesssize for checking in and reminding me that I need to get this thing posted and off my wip folder.

#cici writes #pedro pascal #pedro pascal x you #pedro pascal character fic #triple frontier fanfic #triple frontier fics #triple frontier #frankie morales #frankie morales x you #frankie morales fanfiction #francisco morales #francisco morales x reader #versus asks

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phoenixfire-thewizardgoddess · 4 months ago

Text

Ooooh, you know who died in the 1970s? HUSK.

That could have been a really sweet but mindblowing conversation over the bar one evening, as they're all unwinding from the hype of battle several hours back. No one feels ready to slip into bed yet, the place feels... too new, too big.

It's lovely but it's not yet... home.

And it feels like they need to be near people for just a bit longer. Make sure everyone's still alive and kicking, even if its for love/hate/if i can see you you're not doing evil nonsense reasons.

Angel mentions that the pentagram looks even prettier tonight, knowing they'd won... and laughs at the absurdity of finding something like that beautiful. The red that permeates everything was a nightmare mostly, and it doubled as the portal from Heaven.

Might as well admire the craftsmanship of a knife as it struck at your throat.

'The lack of stars can make things quite droll', Alastor agrees, absently. 'Intriguing that you can miss something as simple as moonlight.'

'Hmm, some nights Me'n'Molly - my twin- we'd make up stories about what was up there. Like, the moon must be huge and it just hung there all bright and shiny at night, and the stars winked at you like they had some fun secrets to share. Helped to make us feel like there was more than just... the Family. You know? Like no matter what happened to us there was a whole world out there to escape to."

In an uncharacteristic moment of sharing, Alastor adds, "Indeed, as a young child I... often needed the fleeting moonbeams to assist my way in the bayou, evading my-... hmmm, a family member who thought only of violence no matter the reason. It always seemed quite helpful in showing where not to tread..." and deepened the shadows one could stand in as someone blundered past."

Oh. Husk finds himself glancing down at the grinning shade on the floor, curling about Alastor's lower legs. That... explained a bit, actually. The former overlord glances at Alastor and realises that the Boss may not have even flagged just how much he'd given away with that statement. Ah, let him have it. Husk knew they all had skeletons in the closet, best not to go jiggling the handle.

Angel's hand hovered over Alastor's arm in some sort of sympathy, but didn't make contact. "Yeah, Smiles... my old man was a bastard like that too. Thats why me'n'Mols were always dreaming of escape... always wondering if there was some magical city under the sea, or deep in a rainforest, or up on the moon we could get to and hide in. Never worked out though."

"...is he down here?" Alastor asks, head tilting too sharply. The bartender's ear flicked, intrigued by the implied offer; hells, he'd help too, if Boss would allow it, didn't even need to go yanking Husk's chain, neither.

"He... yeah. That's how I wound up with Val in the first place. Ran into my fuckin' dad and needed rescue, some of Val's workers stepped in to help cause I was near a club he owned... and then, well, the moth got me." Angel grumbled bitterly. Husk took his empty glass and slid something new back. "Thanks Whiskers. You ever... you ever dream of being somewhere else?"

"Not the moon, no. Though there were a lotta kid's stories about it being made of cheese and all which sounded like a bad time for the lactose intolerant. But there were times I wished I could live somewhere else..." Husker replied, resting his forearms upon the bartop. "Though... all this talk reminds me of the day they launched old Apollo 11. I saw it on the television, everyone stopped that day, just to watch... all the adults in their office buildings and kids in their classrooms crowding the televisions. Those that had 'em, of course, others ran to shopfronts to See the big moment. And then of course, they televised the moment Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon itself, which broke all previous ratings metrics. One small step for man and all that. One of the craziest things to witness... just didn't feel real."

He's snapped out of his reverie by the clear shock blasting across the room, and the sharp warble of confused radio burble from the boss.

"You're shitting me!" Angel gasped, all four hands on the bar as if bracing himself for the 'gotcha!' of a prank well sprung.

"…no, I don't believe Husker was one for imaginative lies." Alastor narrows his eyes, trying to process the idea of the moon that used to light his path through the bayou now bearing human footprints. "Exceptionally talented at cards, at chance and misdirection and reading people... but not one for elaborate tales of fantasy. "

"Hey, look, don't believe me if you want but... how did you not know, Legs? Don't you use the internet and all? And you, Al... didn't Vox ever mention it? I'm sure the bastard must've been one of the presenters 'round that time?" Husk replies in disbelief. How could they NOT know?

"Er, yeah... but it's not like I ever googled 'did someone put a human on the moon' at any point like, that never crossed my mind. Here we could, cause of the magic and shit, but there? Toasters were new. Radios and television had just gone mainstream! how the FUCK did they get someone up there?" Angel tugs at his own hair in shocked surprise, pupils blown from the revelation.

"And you simply can't trust anything those Vees allow on their systems, in anycase!" Alastor rallies, his hand comes up and aborts the movement quickly as Husk narrows his eyes. This would be the part where Al would twirl his cane, to make a point. His theatrical ass couldn't help himself sometimes... so where was it?

Before he can ask, Lucifer swoops past. Literally. Alighting by them all with a gust of oddly apple-scented wind.

"You talking about the moon? Hah, it's not the most exciting planet we put in this solar system, but I was proud of it. One of the first things Uriel ever made, and I gave them a hand because they were sooooooo nervous! The joy on their faces when it first caught the sunlight... er, I don't think humans can conceptualise of how it looked, they have about fourty-seven mouths, but they were smiling like a nebulae!" He beams, reminding them all accidentally how ancient and powerful he was.

There was a brief moment where several mortal minds attempted to imagine that, and got the stirrings of a sharp headache instead.

"Wait you made the MOON?" Husk asks, quirking an eyebrow. "The fuckin' MOON?!"

"Hold up, other planets? How many of 'em are there?" Angel interjects, mouth mildly agape. His father hadn't really cared for anything outside of the city, so the kids in the household unfortunately had a limited curriculum. "Dad... he burned the book we stole from the library, it was about space. Saw something about Mars and Mercury, and a big planet, but most of it was charcoal after he tossed it into the fireplace... all I know it started with a J. And there was a spot they think, like a big storm... saw it through one of those big lenses in the new science buildings at the local university. Always wanted to go see through it."

"Jupiter." Lucifer replies, his expression softening momentarily. He, also, loved learning... and had been denied by his father. "There's 9... technically there were ten but humans decided to be ridiculous and classify Pluto as a dwarf planet because it wasn't big enough by their definition." He automatically whirls on Alastor, and points menacingly. "DO NOT."

"Why I was only going to say that humanity, much like heavenly divininity, seem to discard and discount things as too small for note... when perhaps they should have changed the metric."

Lucifer frowns. "Hold on, that was too nice. Are you dying? Did you get a concussion?"

Alastor rolls his eyes. "Why, little majesty, I was simply saving us all from the inevitable 'size doesn't matter it's how you use it' reference our dear Angel here has spring-loaded on his tongue at all times. If you want to hear it, I'm sure he will oblige."

Angel, for his part, sinked lasciviously. "Y'know what else I got spring-loaded on this obliging tongue, majesty?"

Husk let his head drop to the bartop, incoherent mumbling escaped.

"Oh do cheer up Husker, " Alastor chides. "You chose to adore the arachnid, you deal with his ridiculousness and lewd affectations."

"Oooh, you want my lewd affectations aimed at you Deer Daddy?" Angel flutters his eyelids, and laughed as Alastor rolls his eyes right into radio dials and back again. "Yeah, yeah... ah, fuck... ya face is hilarious when I pull this. But... seriously Short King, can you... tell us a bit about space? If you got a minute? Don't have to be now."

Lucifer seems... taken aback. Just the merest hint of tears in his eyes, as if no one has ever asked him to share his knowledge, or something. Husk and Angel and Alastor, all used to reading people in their own ways, feel something akin to sympathy pang through them. One of them pointedly stabs the sensation like an errant pest, and pretends no such emotion ever occurred. Not for the little monarch, he had too many bones to pick with the former angel.

"Of course I can... if you don't mind if I get side tracked? I can ramble, and it annoys people sometimes..." the King shrinks into himself slightly. His wings curl inward, and the desire to provide comfort alights in many a long-dead heart.

Of all of them, it is Alastor who offers a response. "Whyever would that matter? Half the fun of sharing information is trapping the audience in place as you do so, your lowness. You literally have the power to make people listen, don't tell me you've not used it?"

It's more goading than motivational, but it works. There's a brief flicker of hellfire at those temples.

"Not everyone wants to force their opinion on people!"

"Again, whyever not? Which foolish creature told someone like you, an odd little ancient thing that I suspect could talk for decades without pause on a favoured topic, to be still and silent? And moreover, why on earth or any of the other planes... did you bother to listen?"

"I-... what? Seriously, did you get a concussion?"

Alastor laughed. "Husker here is a former overlord, little ruler, and I am a current one. When we want to say something, people are made to listen... and you, the actual Devil, king of Hell's 7 Rings and unfortunately the best line of defence we have against Heaven despite his duck obsession, are the one cringing back with chains of self-doubt? Even when asked to expound on a topic we are actively interested in?"

"...you are?" The spark is back, and there's a faint glow about him. Like you could see the angel he once was, it moved under the skin he now wore, the hardened facade. "Normally when I talk about fun stuff I can see people's epxressions go blank, sort of... fade out, like they're physically there but have mentally wandered away. I do that too, soemtimes... but that's because this form is so small. Cosmically, I mean. This body is like... trying to put the sun into a salt shaker, and expecting only little bits of power to escape, to offset the pressure."

"Is there anything that can help?" Angel asks, intrigued but compassionate. He feels things getting too sentimental and adds, with a flirty grin, "I'm always available to help expend some energy, ya Highness."

Husk thwaps him with his tail, and Angel laughs.

"That's... generous... but if I let any of my Self out like that, it'd be-... wait, do you know what a solar flare is? Because it would be like that. It's why I create things all the time, easiest way to expel the energy without hurting anyone."

"Ah, that explains the ducks, then. I assume the reason we aren't drowning in them all is because this is only the most recent iteration of your energy release?" Alastor asks, folding onto a barstool. Again, his hands twitch as if to toy with his cane, and Husk clocks it again as he slings a teatowel over his shoulder. The Sovereign overlord is frowning around his smile now, struck by a dour thought. "Actually, sire... I'm wondering something about said ducks."

"No, I was wondering if the power you imbued the ducks with could be... extracted, in any way? One or two or ten might not be enough to cause a threat to the general population, but if the energy in them could be harnessed, then perhaps someone could even one day amass enough to rival dear Charlotte." Alastor said, there was something in his gaze.

"...the why of them? Because its simple, I just think they're fun." Lucifer shrugs, and his shoulders curl forwards again before the devil consciously pushes them back. Who had taught this all powerful creature such shame around his hobbies? Intriguing. Exploitable.

Husk sent a pointed glare at the back of Boss's head, and one ear twitched.

"Why, want it for yourself, bellhop?" Lucifer scowls at him, and Husk cringes, seeing the way those ears flicker. Whatever message was being conveyed had been returned to sender unread.

"No." Alastor ground out, and then clamed himself. "I am pointing out that it seems like that would be a glaring security breach in hell, if someone who was seeking power and had access to your little offcasts, could do so. They would pose a threat to possibly even yourself, but certainly Charlotte. Are you able to destroy the ducks or whatever you have created? Or would that cause magical backlash?"

Lucifer seemed to be picking something up. "I can destroy them. It's like... uh... haircuts? Once it leaves me, its benign and can be dissolved into atoms... is atoms what the humans are down to now? I think you might have found out about quarks... hah, the irony of dissolving my ducks into quarks..."

"Ah, a failsafe option then. Excellent." Alastor mutters, and Husk is really looking at the overlord then. What did this guy know?

"...is someone trying to do what you suggested?" Lucifer asked, looking back upon them all with eyes that bled red. It felt like a soundwave moving through you at a concert, like an xray that wriggled through each and every atom on the way past, as he turned it upon the gathered sinners. "...ah, well, if that is who you are referring to, then perhaps you are right to worry. I'm hoping this is a sick prank, because otherwise I'm going to be very angry... and Charlotte will be devastated."

"Surely you wouldn't tell her, sire?" Alastor throws back, and Husk can tell that the other is rattled at the revelation that the King had Seen what was hidden. "It would only hurt her. Something we're all actively attempting to avoid for now, especially in the wake of the lost snake fellow."

"Sir Pentious." Angel and Husk intoned, slightly angry at Alastor for forgetting his name.

"Ah, yes... Pentious. He's not forgettable, I just can never seem to hold onto his name, for some reason, and he was always insisting we'd fought dozens of times but... I simply don't recall anything outside the animosity at the hotel." Alastor waved off potential amnesia with an airy laugh as the studio audience chimed in to add body.

"Wait, you actually did fight him, with me, once." Husk frowned. "You and Vox were still partners, before the moth... Pentious was testing out that giant mech suit thing of his, and he knocked out one of your broadcast towers. I thought you were gonna eat him... but you just kind of toyed with him for a bit until the robot part was scrap metal and had me drop him home."

Alastor's eyes flicker with static, and a grating kssshhhtttz of static filled the air before a radio dial clicking off sounded. "Why, no, I genuinely don't recall! Hah!" He turns back to the King. "Now, little majesty, would you mind telling our associate Angel about the stars? And if Husker and I should just so happen to listen in, why, that should be a bonus, hmmm?"

Lucifer blinked. "Er, what? I can do that... but we're going to talk about that later."

Whirling around, Lucifer launched himself up to the ceiling and snapped his fingers with a joyous laugh. Instantly the room dimmed, a blinding array of celestial bodies appeared in the air and gently rotated around Lucifer, who hung within the sun-like orb at the centre. In the distance, nebulae and distant planets could be glimpsed.

The barstools melted into a sofa with enough height to allow the long-legged Angel and Alastor to be seated comfortably. Husk was similarly provided seating, behind the bar, much to his amusement.

"This, is SOL, your sun and one of my favourite stars. I helped set it ablaze myself with my brother Michael!" Lucifer explained, hovering around it, listing off facts about the celestial body and explaining how it worked. Tiny solar flares arched outward and this delighted the former archangel as he spoke about them at length.

Eventually, he moved on to tiny Mercury, pulling the small orb from its orbit and bringing it down to them as the king extolled interesting fact about Gabriel's first attempt at a planet. "There WAS supposed to be water there, but... it got too hot, and it evaporated. Poor Gabe was crushed, because he'd had fun plans for it. Mars was also one of his, but Dad stepped in to give him some help forming it... there's some fun little surprises hidden on THAT planet for the humans to find!"

Lucifer switched out planets and even passed around Mars for them to hold. Angel startled to find red dust on his fingers, and Lucifer winked at him.

"Don't worry, there's no giant sinner fingerprints on the planet... it's just a wellmade enchantment! Oooh, speaking of well-made, did you know the humans have sent little robots to explore Mars? They call this little guy ROVER and he sings Happy Birthday to himself once a year!" Lucifer manifests what was lkely supposed to be a replica, but apparently seemed to be the Rover itself. "Ah... fuck. Hang on."

One sleep deprived tech at NASA had QUITE THE DAY reviewing footage from the Rover, and trying to work out if someone had hacked the feed to prank him as several inhuman creatures were seen staring in horrified fascination at the Rover for about 3 seconds before the feed returned to Mars' barren surfaces.

"Hah, let's not mention that little fuck-up to Heaven..." Lucifer laughed, nervously. "What was I saying? Oh yeah, so there was water on this planet too, and we put some-..."

Angel and Husk interjected with questions on occasion. Alastor really just seemed to be listening, though knowing the guy he could be listening to his own internal radio station and nodding at the right intervals. He did show some sign of delight when Lucifer got to Earth's moon... even sized it up to something around soccer ball shape, before passing it around.

Husk, unable to fight the desire in the back of his brain, put a tongue on the surface. He considered it. "...good news, not cheese."

Angel's snort was delightful.

"Hey! As my father once said to me, 'Please don't go licking celestial objects!'" Lucifer interjected, taking the moon back and making a show of theatrically wiping it off on his shirt. He tosses it at Alastor, "That goes double for you, Bambi."

"Sire, how can you show such little faith in me? As this is neither screaming, breathing nor bleeding, why would I ever be tempted to take a bite?" His expression was fantastically malicious, but husk roleld his eyes, talk about sticking to the bit. The deer did toy with the moon in his hands. "...what caused the crators?"

"Asteroids, mostly. Like, big chunks of rock that hurtle through space, because there's no gravity in space to help slow them down anything you toss up there stays at that speed and in that direction until it hits something." Lucifer's expression soured. "We discovered that when Raphael accidentally took out two planets and ended the dinosaurs whilst skipping asteroids, actually. Everyone got a talking to for that one."

"Hmmm, I don't suppose you'd find time to show us what they really looked like, would you? There's quite the debate about if they were shrink-wrapped lizards or, perhaps, took after rotund birds." Alastor mutters absently, and catches himself. Perhaps he was more tired than he thought. "Rosie has been staunchly intrigued by the creatures for decades, ever since seeing a skeleton in a museum as a girl, I understand. If you would be open to sharing information about them, she would be most obliged."

"Careful sinner, last time I was asked to talk about those creatures at length I didn't stop for at least a week. Thankfully the goetia in question had drunk enough coffee to fell a Sin, and was able to stay awake through the majority but I doubt anyone here has that tolerance." Lucifer teases, and he is markedly more relaxed than when he started. He seemed to exude a glow og joy when he was in his element, just sharing information even with sinners, whom he appeared to despise.

"...do not, under any circumstances, make such a statement to dear Rosie or she shall take it as a challenge. Wrangling her Overlord form when she is overstimulated and sleep-deprived can be quite the chore..."

"Ain't you like, top dog of the overlords?" Angel narrows his eyes at Alastor.

"He means... without hurting her. Al and Rosie are like fucked up siblings, he wouldn't raise a hand to her and she won't eviscerate him. But he's right, trying to get her to calm down like that, without the option of force, can be pretty damn difficult. Her whole Bigger form has way too many teeth, gives me a headache just looking at it sometimes." Husk shudders.

"Hey, actually, anyone need to get a drink or go to the bathroom or the other physical things you guys do?" Lucifer asked, his hat on the floor as he flips upside down in mid air, batting playfully at the little blue and green orb they'd lived on all their lives. "No? Okay, well, here's one you might be familiar with - Earth. Check out this little number!"

He cracks it in half to show off the layers inside, listing off what each one was and how it worked with the enthusiasm of a PHD student going through their passion project thesis. this orb, too, was passed around like show and tell in the class.

A smart-ass radio host may have allowed a singular refrain of 'has the whole world, in his hands' to fade in and out as the other sinners passed it around. The Earth was last seen snatched from the hands of an enamoured Angel Dust by a giggling Niffty, who scuttled out the door at alarming speeds.

"She. is. Terrifying. Where the fuck did you find her, bellhop?" Lucifer stares after the little creature.

"Quite the story, for another time, and Niffty present." Alastor waves it away. "Do you require the Earth returned? I can summon her back or send poppets to un-hah-earth where she is hiding in the vents...?"

"No, no its an illusion... it'll be fine. So, Jupiter, the not-star of the show and big sibling to earth!" Lucifer continues, showing off the markedly larger orb to everyone in the immediate vicinity. He enlarges it to point out interesting facts, and then pulls over Venus to compare the two. Apaprently they had a similar design but hidden interests under the dense layers of toxic storms.

And that was how several sinners learned things about those planets, and what was on them, several centuries before humans on earth ever would. The king made them swear not to share that information if they got summoned, which wasn't an everyday issue but... some of the overlords tended to get called on occasion. He still hasn't worked out how that keeps happening... the goetia were one thing, but the Sovereign Overlords?

Ah well. Lucifer then immediately pivots to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, he LOVES the damn things and breaks down their differences in truly intense detail. Angel peppers in questions, enthralled. Husk has to fight an innate impulse to bat at the orbs rotating slowly past him regularly. Damned cat brain.

The rings of the planet were fascinating, and felt oddly gritty when handled, as Lucifer explained how they were made. He'd been consulted on this one, but it was all Sera and Michael, Saturn.

Uranus and Neptune were paired, he'd explained, pulling them over, and showing off the little details. Even Alastor was intrigued at the possibility of ice on Neptune, implying some level of water... and the potential for life to occur.

Lucifer spoke about how, just the year before on Earth, a satellite probe had gone past Pluto and taken photos of the surface! That it took many years and countless reams of paper covered in mathematics to facilitate such a feat, and he was so very oddly proud of humanity for it. He didn't say the words, but the pride in humanity's innate curiosity seemed to 'fill his cup' as they say, to see them use their free will for Good.

It was cold to the touch, but nowhere near as icy as Pluto.

Lucifer took a deep breath as he got to that planet, his little project on the side... had meant it to be a moon but got too excited and made it a tad oversized. The others had been exasperated, apparently.

"Unfortunately, humans did decide it was a Dwarf Planet, and demoted it. But I think it's amazing. This would be the time for a size joke, sinners, if you have one ready... but I still love the silly little ball of ice. If I had my way we would have tried to colonise it with sentient temperature-resistent flora..."

Husk and Angel glanced at one another, trying to imagine what that could even look like. They'd already seen things beyond human imagining today, really put into perspective the concept of creativity when it came to immortal, nearly all-powerful beings with infinite possibility at their core.

Lucifer glanced down at them, offering Pluto over. "Really? Not one single crack at my height, Bambi? You're either learning restraint, are enamoured by my storytelling, or you're dead..."

Husk can't help but huff out a laugh.

"Anyway, this tenth planet, I called it..." the thing that came out of Lucifer's mouth wasn't quite a word, but it was beautiful. Like the chiming of a bell you could feel filling your heart with warmth, rather than hear. That was a super weird sensation to explain. "But... humans can't detect it yet. Technically it was a back-up in case asteroids took out one of the others, so it's phase-locked, technically there for gravitational reasons, but also not physically there if searched for by non-angelic means."

Lucifer hands over the impossible orb. Schrodinger's planet, if you will.

Angel's eyes go wide as he looks at something no one else would likely know about for centuries. "This is insane, ya majesty... I... you've got so much in that head a yours and I think you just made my afterlife with all this. I never... I never thought I'd get to know about the stars, not now. And not then neither. It's... It's silly of me, I know."

"It ain't." Husk assured, at the same moment a startled Lucifer said, "No it's not! The endless curiosity and compassion of humanity was what I gave you with Free Will... just because you're here doesn't mean it died off."

There was a split second as it seemed the King was having an Epiphany moment, and you could see the sweeping grin on his features. So very, very undeniably Charlie in that moment. "Oh, I get it... I see what Char-Char is trying to do. You do have the capacity for change, because it never left!"

Husk tenses for shit to go sideways, at least a round of sarcastic audience applause... and stiffens further when nothing is forthcoming. He glances past the overwhelmed spider to see Alastor appears to be sleeping, head resting on his chin.

Lucifer notices as well. "Hah! Told him that it takes an over caffinated Goetia to outlast my ramblings! And he thinks he can manage my dinosaur talk, as if..."

"Well, I mean, to be fair to Smiles... it's been a weird day. He had to hold up that shield over the hotel and then when that fucker Adam broke it, he was forced to fight the guy." Angel interjects, feeling the need to defend the other. It was so weird seeing the guy sleeping with his smile in place... but, it also felt kinda peaceful too. Being trusted.

He reached out an elbow to nudge the bombastic boombox of an overlord as Lucifer sputtered.

"He did WHAT? When? I didn't see him at all, just Adam attacking Charlie which let me fight back." Lucifer frowned now. "Are you sure...?"

"Yes, we're sure. Nearly shit myself when I saw Adam smash in the shield... never seen anything break one of Boss's wards before, not even this one asshole goetia who thought he could start removing the sovereigns to stop them 'rising above their station'." Husk shrugged. "Got to have a piece of the guy's arm... they don't taste half-bird, you could really tell he was a pheasant under all that finery."

"Uh... guys?" Angel interjects, swallowing as he takes note of the wetness on his elbow. "Can we put the lights on? I don't think Smiles is okay..."

With a snap, and dual hisses of pain as light seared their retinas with unerring accuracy, Lucifer vanished the solar system. Immediately uncovering a whole other issue... dark, wet patches were marring the Overlord's attire in a very pointed slash from one shoulder to the opposing hip. Or what passed for it, on this lanky fucker.

"Oh... well, fuck." Angel summated, eloquently.

Husk scowled, "Should've guessed something was up when he disappeared... and I haven't seen his staff since the battle. Must be busted or he'd have it on him... kept going to play with it earlier, should've asked him about it. Fuck."

The shadow nearly takes Angel's hands off at hte wrist as he started unbuttoning the coat. "Whoa, spooky Jnr, settle down! We're trying to help!"

"Enough of that, time out for you." Lucifer snaps, and the shade is suddenly bound with glowing golden strands of something it couldn't escape. He rolls up his sleeves, setling back on the ground and tugging out a red feather. "Alright, you idiot, let's see how bad this is."

Angel peeled back the coat and shirt with urgent reluctance. He knew the deer wasn't a fan of being touched unless he initiated, Angel had eight eyes and a fantastic ability to people watch, he could see how the Overlord worked. As much as he wanted to help, this also felt... uncomfortably non-consensual.

He inhales sharply at the revealled mess. Carefully stitched taut with glowing threads, the damage appeared extensive, and hard to look at for too long.

"The good news is I can fix it, the bad news... is it's going to suck for both of us. Angel, refrain from the obvious joke if you can." Lucifer said, and directed them to move the overlord into a position where they could more easily restrain him.

The minute the King laid hands, shadow tendrils errupted to attempt to eviscerate, but Lucifer's wings combated the majority whilst the miniature monarch concentrated on doing... whatever that was. Husk was just about sitting on Alastor's legs at this point, leaning in. Angel had all six arms free and holding on for (heh) deer life.

Angel thinks he's uttering something soothing, but his own brain is blank right now as Lucifer managed to drag something that looked horrifically like golden razorwire from within Alastor's wound, and wind it about his own arm until it dug in... then dissipated. Lucifer sighed as it did so, and exhaled shakily.

In a swift movement, he snapped the stitches, waving them out of the flesh that gaped open sickeningly. Golden light began to glow at both ends of the wound, and the heat in the room increased as it slowly moved down the length of the injury towards the midsection. Alastor thrashed, not conscious enough to scream but the radios went haywire around them.

Angel grabbed the Overlord's head to hold the guy still, with a pair of hands, as Husk... draped himself a little further up the deer's body and began to purr rhythmically. Angel nearly let go, in his surprise.

"Hang on, bellhop, just a bit longer... it's okay..." the King mumbled, clearly balancing out the need to Help with the power he was able to safely channel into a sinner body.

"Dad, stop!" Charlie shouts, skidding into the room in her nightclothes, a spear-wielding Vaggie behind her. "What are you doing?!"

"Char, wait, he's helping!" Angel shouts back, no free hands to ward them off. "Just... oh thank fuck that's over with, I feel like such an asshole pinning him for that."

Alastor went slack in their hold as the searing angelic healing finally subsided, the wound closed. Lucifer was panting a little. He clearly hadn't needed to use that little trick in some time.

The radios clicked off all throughout the hotel.

"...what happened?" Charlie looked at Husk, then Angel, then her father.

Vaggie had straightened, her eye critically assessing the situation. "I'd say Adam happened, hun. Remember how the shield broke? Fucker went straight towards Al on the roof..."

Charlie tugged at her own hair, eyes still raw from the loss of Pentious. "I knew I should've looked harder! I just thought... I mean, he's always so capable..."

"But he faced down the First Man without angelic steel, even someone with his power isn't able to kill him permanently without that." Husk offered, sitting up as if he hadn't just been a purring emotional support animal for a guy he claimed to hate.

"Wait, I thought he had a weapon?" Vaggie frowned, mentally running through the faces she'd handed out the weaponry to. "...no, he let Niffty have it. Actually, she grabbed it after he pointed at it. Why didn't he pick it up?"

Husk coughed into a hand, "Allergy, probably..."

"The deal, then? I can see it interlaced with some other commands." Lucifer is staring at the Sinner's throat with red eyes, clearly reading something. "Some of it's obscured but... nope, he's an idiot, a very weirdly brave one but an idiot nonetheless. What chance does anyone in hell have of killing someone like Adam without even an Angelic toothpick? Did you know about this, Char Char?"

Only then does Lucifer register the frightened, horrified expressions adorning husk and Angel's face as Charlie's own crumples into confusion.

"The... what? I have a deal with him, but its for a favour, nothing that can be used to hurt anyone. Please don't hurt him for that, Dad!" Charlie pleads, and throws Lucifer off balance.

"You have a what now?"

"A Favour. It was about the angelic steel... he told me, and said he could help me get an army if I made a deal with it. I-... Dad, please, I don't think he's all that bad... I offered him my soul and he declined it." She's rambling panicking, and it's clear which side of the genetics that came from, because his Majesty is starting to freak out as well.

His eyes snap red, and clearly traces the chain between them, lips moving as he read the terms. The shoulders unclench.

"Okay, okay, that's fine... I just have to work out if he asked for it for himself, or was asked to ask for it. But we'll need him conscious for that... and I don't think we'll get anywhere tonight." He yawns, and that little white face splits open farther than any would espect and shows off an almost eldritch form before snapping shut. "I think we all need a nap. It's been a long day."

He frowns down at his hand, and then brightens. "Oh, nearly forgot!" Lucifer places the red feather on Alastor's nearest wrist and it flickers into a thin red band with a flickering array of golden symbols. "That should stop soemone shadowing away or being summoned in the interim."

"Wait, Dad, what?"

"Long story, see I was telling these three about the solar system and when I got to the tenth planet, I thought the bellhop had fallen asleep but he'd just misplaced most of his blood, and then-..."

"No, the deal part."

"Oh, he seems to have one with your mother. Not sure what that's about but it looks messy, the terms aren't weighted right... and I feel like she might be up to more than I expected. But we can ask him in the morning, for now... I'm going to conjure somewhere soft to sleep. Removing grace always gives me a headache."

"Wh-..."

"Yeah toots, let's deal with it, no pun intended, after some shut-eye." Angel yawns, and flops back on the couch, which is swiftly poof'd into a very large, quite decadent fold-out bed. "Whiskers, how likely is he to eat me if we wake up spooning tomorrow...?"

"Uh..."

"What about you?"

"He's never eaten me before. S'long as I purr."

"I. need. details."

"Tomorrow. If we don't become breakfast in bed." Husk grumbles, dropping his hat on the bar and riggling onto the massive bed. Setting about moving Alastor to a more comfortable position. "Oh, and... if you wake up and Niff is there, don't scream. She sleeps with her eye open, but she just likes to be close to Boss."

"...Whiskers, you guys and your weirdness ain't even close to the strangest thing I've managed in bed." Angel dramatically rolled his eyes. "Heya short king, wanna come spoon with an infamous adult film star? Could raise your public image?"

"HAH! Or I could decimate yours!" Luccifer shot back, in the middle of what looked like a round bed with a nest-like structure around the outside. Okay, Angel admits that's pretty damn adorable. "But I'm cosy here... oooh, Char Char, did you want to nest with me? Maybe your angel wants to?"

"Yes." the word is out of Vaggie's mouth before she even registers the thought. "Angel thing, hun, I... love staying with you, but I did miss nesting with others. One of the only things I miss about being with my sisters... I mean, the others."

"Oh Vaggie, you should have said sooner! I would have made you a nest! Or ten! And gotten all the bird sinners I could find to roost with you!" Charlie panics, kissing every inch of Vaggie's face she could reach. "I'm so sorry..."

Vaggie kisses her on her nose, once. "No, you're overtired and very upset. But we can fix that, so let's go hop into bed with your dad..." She sighs through her nose at Angel's perfuntory Whoop, "and have a good sleep. Then we can deal with whatever the fuck he's done in the morning."

She can front all she wants, but the fact Vaggie didn't point with her spear said volumes about her fondness for the deer.

As everyone settles down and the lights dim, KeeKee and Fat Nuggets slink in and are picked up by their respective owners for snuggles.

Angel glances at the King. "Uh... ya majesty... any chance you could maybe... er..." He hesitates. How much power would that take?"

With a snap, the air around them is filled with tiny stars, and a rather lifelike model of earth's moon. "It's okay to ask for what you want." Lucifer reassures.

Angel beams, tucking close to the purring bartender and making sure he's not actively putting anything vital in biting distance of the slumbering overlord. "...thanks, for this. And I hope you can tell us more stuff another time, it was fun listening to ya... up until the bit where Smiles nearly died. but I liked it."

"You would really like to hear more?"

"Of course, Short King! You're a orn entertainer and you know so fuckin' much I want to read you like a book, and I hated doing that shit back in school."

"And we'll discuss that in the morning before anyone starts a monologue about different species of birds they created, right Dad?" Charlie subtly interjects.

"Of course, Char Char... goodnight everyone."

Various goodnights are heard across the room... and from a vent in the ceiling directly above Alastor. Ah, Niffty.

Angel grins to himself, imagining the flustered indignation the Overlord would front with tomorrow, at the knowledge of how many people cared enough to help his stubborn ass. It was gonna be quite entertaining...

------------

End?

Genuine question

How do you think alastor and angel dust reacted when they heard about the moon landing?

Like, that was an insane step for everyone, can you imagine newer sinners coming in talking about rover on mars and those two assuming it was some sort of scifi show or podcast

Then finding out it was real

Also lucifer being a shit inthe background like, "the moon, pfft, yeah i made it. Its not as exciting as what we hid on jupiter, but go off i guess..."

#hazbin hotel #alastor #angel dust #hk #lucifer #phoenixwrites charlie #vaggie

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xradinoxinterloperx · 4 years ago

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Hi People! I wanted to share something very nice that

my Friend Shinigami did

for me, with Vaggie and my OCs who, in my headcannon, are closest to her. The 3 become almost family.

The idea was to dress them as their National birds, with their flag indicating the nationality. What in itself and more with the demonic forms of my OCs could get tricky but Shini being so talented she managed to make it work beautifully 😁.

First we have Zaza , the barista goat demon, whom everyone affectionately nicknames "Mama Goat" because of her warmth and motherly manner. She is a joyful lover of her Mexican culture and represents them with the appearance of a Royal/ Golden Eagle.

Second we have Vaggie , the Salvadoran Moth wearing the feathers and vivid colors of the beautiful and Picturesque Torogoz

And Third we have Vic, the Colombian Cobra demon with his ruffian appearance. He is Dressed as the Lord of the Vultures, The Imposing Andean Condor, shared bird of Colombia and other Andes Mountain Range's nations.

I have to congratulate again @Shinigami pray for carrying out such a beautiful and cultural idea 🙂, it would be very nice to see more characters, birds and flags from different places like this, but I felt more than honored that she done it first with my OCs 🤩

The drawings, the birds and their details and attitudes of the characters came out really great 😮

Here is her Twitter if you want to see some of her art and projects: https://twitter.com/ShinigamiJG?s=09

Oh and also a Huge thanks to @sisterstories02 , the designs of my characters were based in the drawing you did for me for free on Valentine ☺️ .

#hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel vaggie #hazbin hotel oc #Vaggie #Vic #Zaza #hazbin hotel fanart #national flags #national birds #culture #drawings #english #fanart #hazbin fanart #helluva fanart #mexico #san salvador #olivia colomar

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bird-in-a-cage · 5 years ago

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It wasn’t Steve’s fault. He came across the page by accident. He certainly wasn’t social media stalking some guy he spotted in the library when he should have been working on his accounting course because he was far too shy to just go over and say hi.

What a ridiculous thought.

He didn’t lay awake in his dorm room that night, after seeing those blue eyes and hearing that laugh and certainly wasn’t instantly smitten. Definitely didn’t spend almost half an hour finding out his name through college facebook pages, then use that information to find not one but two instagram accounts. One clearly a more public page, photos of cars and coffee and the bay at sunset. The other just a total thirst trap, post after post of shirtless shots. Chest bare and shiny and tanned and toned and gorgeous. There also, definitely, wasn’t a link to an Onlyfans page right in the bio line, topped and tailed by sparkle emojis.

Steve, categorically and without question, did not pay $12.99 to become a subscriber after less than a minute’s thought.

He then absolutely did not turn the brightness down on his phone, slip in his earbuds and spend the whole night watching seemingly endless videos of this guy going to town on himself. On the most beautiful dick Steve’s midwestern, recently-out-of-the-closet-for-good-and-wrapped-up-in-a-bisexual-pride-flag ass had ever seen. He didn’t immediately commit this guy’s name to memory like maybe this was all a dream and he’d forget it in the morning somehow.

BillyBoy

Just paying for college with what god gave me

Steve really should have stopped. Should have cancelled the subscription in the cold light of day, but he didn’t. Couldn’t. The crush had only been small before, no more than just a passing glance. But now Steve knew what this guy sounded like when he came. The ramp up of moans going deep, the sudden stop before the gasped out sigh. The endless string of fucks that came with thick ropes of cum. It was impossible to go back to not knowing that information.

Most of the videos were taken on campus. Places Steve had to pass everyday going too and from class. Mostly bathrooms. Occasionally just empty hallways in the middle of the day. Not that Steve sought them out to check his theories about this guy. With his perfect chest and perfect dick and perfect cocky grin and clear exhbitionist streak.

Steve wasn’t obsessed. It wasn’t something that could easily become a problem. It wasn’t as if some days he would just walk through places videos had been filmed previously in the hopes of just bumping into this Billy guy, who outside of the internet was apparently incredibly illusive. Not that Steve would even know what to say if he did find him. Probably just stutter something embarrassing before going to find a corner to die in.

The boy can come out of the closet but the cape of shyness apparently comes with him. Accounting and finance wasn’t the course to meet people.

There was one video though, one three minute clip that lived in Steve’s head from the moment it ended. It wasn’t taken in public like the vast majority of the others, but clearly in a dorm room from all the furniture matching Steve’s own. A see through silicone sleeve taped to the corner of a desk, clearly filled with little bumps and ridges. Taken from a chest down angle it was just Billy’s magnificent cock fucking this toy over and over, thrusting and pumping, thighs getting tense as the sounds were just groans and a slick wetness. Gradually getting faster and faster, the thick head of his cock poking through the end of the sleeve with each thrust, shiny and pink and fat and weeping. It gave Steve endless dreams about being fucked like that. Bent over a desk. Feeling all that weight and girth break him apart, just begging for it. Feeling the load spilled over dark wood deep inside him instead.

It wasn’t an obsession. It wasn’t.

Steve didn’t nearly drop his phone in the middle of the silent library when a notification vibrated and sent jolts down his spine and his eyes to go wide.

BillyBoy is live!

Steve acted as natural as possible, finding a place to sit on a table that was mostly empty, set up his things like he might at all try to study and flipped open the video like he was texting. Just to check. Nothing more. He wasn’t obsessed, goddamnit, he wasn’t. But he recognised where BillyBoy was though. All the books in the background were a dead giveaway. Steve tried to keep his face in neutral. He’d thought about this moment, bumping into the guy in the middle of a shoot and offering to lend a hand. A throat. Anything this guy wanted Steve was down for. Carpet burn and bruises be damned. He held his phone close to his lap as he watched. Watched Billy grin at the camera, pan down his ridiculous body with his shirt pulled up under his chin and cup his hard cock through a pair of bright red board shorts. When Steve could pull his eyes away from the main focus, a book in the background caught his eye, a name on a spine.

Mastering Bookkeeping.

That information hit like a punch. Steve knew exactly where he was hiding this time. Knew he was there right now. Suddenly his tongue felt fat, his limbs just deadweight and useless. He could get out of the chair, walk to the back corner and find the man who had been plaguing his every fantasy. Finally put them to rest and witness first hand what he thought about every single time he jerked off. But he couldn’t move. What would he even say? Hi, I’ve been giving you money to see your dick for months now, can I touch it? Steve cringed at even the idea. He wasn’t one of those people. The bolder part of him knew exactly what he wanted to do. Find Billy and have that cock fuck his throat until it was raw and horse. Swallow everything. But Steve had been in college for almost three terms now, had barely even said hello to anyone not in his class. He couldn’t just do that if he couldn’t speak to people. Especially someone he wasn’t obsessed with. Someone he hadn’t wasted hours scrolling through instagram posts figuring out what this guy was like in real life and not half naked spread out on a mattress with his dick in his hand.

But life doesn’t throw you very many chances. And his father did always say to grab each one you come across. Of course he never meant it to be about boys, but still.

Steve turned the video off when he knew it was almost over, it was kind of embarrassing that he knew that from sound alone, slipped his phone into his pocket and decided to just be bold for once in his life. He could always say he just needed a book. It wouldn’t be a total lie. He left his things on the table, all intentions of coming back to actually get some work done and wandered up to the upper level, towards the back corner. He was there, leaning back against a shelf of textbooks, even more perfect in real life. Flushed from clearly just coming, shirt rolled back down and shorts rolled back up. If Steve hadn’t known any better it maybe looked like Billy had been doing something weird like jumping jacks or just running on the spot. But Steve knew a lot better. And seeing that grin in real life made his knees feel weak. Blue eyes sparkling. Blonde hair pulled into a messy bun, one that looked effortless. Like he’d just rolled out of bed and had an early class. Steve felt his palms start to sweat. He shouldn’t have done this. Just grab a book and leave. But he was caught in that gaze. Like a deer in headlights. Like a moth to a flame. Stuck. Billy licked his teeth, looked Steve up and down very noticeably.

“Hey there pretty boy...”

Okay, Steve was obsessed. Very obsessed. And this was everything he’d wanted for months. His heart was hammering in his chest, palms now practically soaked, trying to force the sound of this beautiful man coming over and over again out of his head enough to talk around a nerve swollen tongue, because nothing would happen if he didn’t just try and say something regardless of how stupid or embarrassing it would sound. Nothing would happen if he didn’t try.

“Hi…”

#harringrove #billy x steve #my writings #so i haven't written anything in two weeks #be gentle #not 100% happy but i finished something #so thats good

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dizzy-lights · 2 years ago

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reposting these! sorry, but the original post's tags were broken, making them practically unfindable even on my own page so i decided to bite the bullet and repost them.

same note as before, using multiple versions of contested flags because it's not my business to say what people in those community should use to represent themselves.

flags are in order: pansexual (two versions), genderqueer, aromantic, asexual, aroace, polyamorous, achillian, sapphic, gay (two versions), lesbian, nonbinary, transmasc, transfem, bisexual, intersex and transgender.

#web graphics #pride pixels #pride #rentry resources #carrd resources #moth's shiny flags #moth's original content

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tilltheendwilliwrite · 5 years ago

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I Like Boys

A Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers Story

Master List

Pairing: Stucky | Word Count: 2256 | Warnings: Language

Based on the Todrick Hall song I Like Boys

A/N: With all the crazy in the world right now, I thought we could all use a little something fun and fluffy. This is my first Pride fic, please be kind as I did my absolute best. Love who you love, people. There’s nothing greater in life.

This fic is for @magellan-88 who inspires me even when she doesn’t intend to.

***

James Buchanan Barnes was ninety-seven years old when his Hydra programming finally broke. He spent two years running from his best friend, another two in cryo, and five after that apparently blipped into nothing. After the fight - were, somehow, they all came out alive - Bucky decided, fuck it!

How many times had he almost died? How many chances had he had? How many more would he waste before finally living his best life?

So he retired—sort of.

There was no such thing as "retiring" when your idiot best friend continued to throw himself out of planes and into the line of fire on a regular basis, but Steve did slow down. He took on a more managerial role, was promoted to "General" for his service, and spent his days sitting on his ass behind a desk.

Bucky liked him there. He liked having Steve unbruised and unbusted at the end of the day, saunter through the door to their joint living space and holler, "Honey, I'm home!"

It was a joke on the blond's part that was wearing thin, for when Bucky decided to live his best life, he'd begun to do some research about what that meant. Be true to you was a big part of it. But to be true to himself, he had to be honest with himself, and honesty meant admitting he'd been in love with Steven "is this a test" Rogers for most of his natural life.

Sadly, Steve liked girls. Case in point, one Peggy "gonna bust some balls" Carter.

Bucky couldn't exactly compete with that. She was one classy dame, and it hurt him to know that Steve would likely never move on. This era and it's dating rituals had thrown Cap for a loop. Women were too forward, and Steve - surprisingly - too shy to dive into the world of casual dates and sex.

For Bucky, it was different. He liked boys. There, he'd said it, but he still hadn't said it to Steve. Natasha, however, was a different story. She'd grown used to him sighing and pining on her shoulder. She said she hated it - she didn't - but she bitched enough for both of them.

Then she took him shopping.

While he was standing in some place called Sephora with miles of makeup and aisle of perfume that kind of made him want to sneeze, he had the shock of his life. All this "girly" crap everywhere, but in the middle of it was a guy? A cute guy. With well-groomed hair and this fabulous winged eyeliner - nothing like his Hydra days - wearing really cute skinny jeans and glitter on his cheeks.

Enchanted, Bucky left Natasha's side and slowly made his way over. The guy, man, guy he wasn't sure, looked up and flashed him a smile.

"Help you, honey?"

Bucky blinked. He had fantastic skin. "You're so shiny." A flush immediately reddened his face.

But Sephora Guy, whose name ended up being Ben, laughed and lightly patted his arm. "Aw, thanks, sweets. You looking for some skin care tips?"

Bucky nodded, unsure what else to do.

"Honey, you came to the right fella!"

Ben grabbed his wrist and led him to a chair where he bid Bucky sit. For the next hour, he was educated on everything from moisturizer to foundation to why Ben wore makeup. They talked about hair care, skin care, and what it meant to be "out" with such enthusiasm. Bucky had never spoken so candidly with anyone about his sexuality and found it enlightening.

He left the shop with five hundred dollars worth of product, a list for the hair salon, and a bunch of links to reputable websites if Bucky had more questions.

The smug on Natasha said she set him up, but he didn't care. He'd had the best day.

And when everything wound up on the counter in his and Steve's shared bathroom, Steve only arched a brow, smiled, and said nothing.

Bucky continued to learn, research, and occasionally visit the mall to have coffee with Ben or his partner Matt. They were always kind, never impatient, and easy-going. He'd begun to wonder if they hadn't realized who he was until one day he asked, and they both looked at him with amused smiles.

"Metal arm, slightly brooding, runs around after a "little punk" but now with a much better skin routine? Honey. Please," Ben snorted.

After, Bucky began to explore and try new things. He cooked, found a love for baking, and especially loved baking for Steve. The man refused to slow down, so it never affected Steve's physique, but Bucky found he was a little bit softer around the middle, his face fuller, his body less hard, and he liked it.

It was nice not to be combat-ready all the time. Sure he could strap on the black and spend nine hours running down Hydra, that hadn't changed, but he had the smallest pudge of a belly, a soft little roll that he loved.

Then, out of the blue, Natasha introduced him to roller derby.

Bucky was thrilled! He'd never seen anything so flashy, showy, violent in all his life that was meant to be fun! Oh, sure he'd watch the wrestling that showed up on TV, but he felt most of that was so phony. This? This was chaos. This was mayhem.

This was freaking awesome!

And the women were great. They were loud and boisterous, or sweet and shy, but when they put on their gear, they all became demons. Natasha occasionally trained with the group known as Red's Devils, a group of women from difficult circumstances she sponsored during the blip. It gave the ladies an outlet for grief, anger, pain that they wouldn't have had otherwise.

Once they met him, they'd put him in a pair of roller skates and dragged him around the track. Of course, with the serum and his enhanced body, getting his balance and figuring out how to move on wheels was cake, and soon he was skating around the room, learning neat tricks and tips from the women catcalling and laughing along with him

Bucky loved it.

Finally, after seventy years as a Hydra pawn and all the crap that came afterward, he'd figured it out, found himself, and was happy. The only thing he wasn't satisfied with was Steve.

It was getting harder and harder to pretend like he didn't tent his pants every time the big dumb blond wandered through the apartment in a towel. Or that "Honey, I'm home!" didn’t make his damn heart flutter. Some days it hurt to look at his stupid beautiful face and not want to kiss it. Or punch it.

He swore Steve's shirts were getting tighter. Sometimes, it felt like his eyes lingered.

The shit was messing with his head, dammit!

Then, just as the world was getting it's shit back together, the pandemic happened. Covid 19 struck, and everything stopped. The world stood still, went into lockdown, and Bucky wanted to slam his head on the wall.

He had been going to his first Pride event with Ben and Matt, ready to step outside and be who he was, while those who didn't approve could kiss his lily-white ass. He was going to tell Steve. He was going to stop hiding, conforming, resiting who he was. And it all went to shit thanks to a fucking virus.

He was pissed! It wasn't fair! He'd been so prepared.

Natasha found him pouting on the couch in the common area of the now mostly empty compound. Anyone who could go home was sent home, leaving them running a skeleton crew of people, and forcing as much separation as possible.

She flopped down mostly on top of him. "Why so glum, chum?"

"Pride's cancelled," he muttered.

She snorted. "No, it's not."

He rolled his eyes. "We're under a shelter in place order, Natalia."

"I'm aware, Barnes," she huffed. "But Pride isn't cancelled. Just because you can't strut down the street waving a rainbow flag doesn't stop what this month is about. It's about you, celebrating you, and all the people who came before you who fought, screamed, raged against injustice and in some cases, died to be able to stand up proudly and say I'm gay, I'm bisexual, I'm transgender. You can't go out. That doesn't mean you can't celebrate."

She patted his chest and left him sitting there to think about what she said.

***

The music that pounded through the compound jerked Steve's head up. Reports forgotten, he rose and went to look out his office door, only to gape in shock as Bucky, wearing the shortest, tightest, black shorts he'd ever seen and a cropped top that showed off his cute little belly, rolled by on roller skates. He'd cut his hair not long ago, his interest in styling it a new hobby. Right now, it was fluffed high and held there with wax, looking soft and shiny and pretty as hell. Glitter sparkled on his cheeks, on his lashes, and glossed his lips.

He smirked as he rolled by, blue eyes amused. "Close your mouth, Rogers."

Steve swallowed thickly and followed Bucky down the hallway. Those shorts should be illegal. The top wasn't much better. The cropped top was blue, sleeveless, showing off defined muscles and metal arm. His skin freaking glowed against the blue.

It was seriously unfair how hot his best friend was, and Steve thanked his lucky stars he'd worn sweats and underwear today that helped disguise the tent forming in his pants.

When Bucky stooped to pick up a big ass rainbow flag, Steve's jaw dropped. He knew what June first represented, how did Bucky?

Like a moth to a flame, Steve followed Bucky into the common room where Bucky was skating in happy circles, singing along to the music.

"I like boys, I like pecs, like them arms when they flex. Like that print in them sweats. Tell them, girls, "Thank you, next." I like when they text me sexy pics of 'em, like them abs when there's six of 'em. Tell them girls I'm sorry; I like boys, Mama, boys like me."

Steve's jaw dropped. His mind refused to compute what he was hearing. It blue screened, whited out, and returned in time to watch Bucky drop it low and twerk like he'd done it all his life.

"I like when they shake it, shake it. I like when they grind real slow. I like when they almost naked. Tell dad I'm so homo. Lights off, doors shut. Tall, dark, clean-cut. Thick with a bubble but. Yup, Mama, I like boys."

A sound like a fax machine escaped his throat as Bucky danced, shook his ass, swung his hips, and sent Steve's mind so far into the gutter he wondered if it would ever come out.

"Bitch, B to the O to the Y to the S, Boys will be boys, and with boys, I'm obsessed. Boys in their gym clothes, boys in a dress, and if boys are a crime, then I'm under arrest. 'Cause I've been boy crazy since the boy scouts. Fuck the closets, let the boys out. Don't be a camel when you are a llama, period. No comma, bring on all the drama. Mama, I like boys, I like pecs, like them arms when they flex. Like that print in them sweats. Tell them girls, "Thank you, next." I like when they text me sexy pics of 'em. Like them abs when there's six of 'em. Tell them girls I'm sorry; I like boys, Mama, boys like me."

The music continued to play, but Bucky rolled away from the window, leaving the flag he'd been carrying behind on the couch when he skated up to Steve and stopped. On the skates, Bucky was inches taller and caused Steve to tilt his head back to look up at him as he had when they were kids.

"So," Bucky murmured, a blush under the glitter and eyes suddenly shy and uncertain. "I like boys."

Steve's heart clenched. Before he could stop himself or second guess what he was doing, his hand shot out, grabbed the back of Bucky's neck, and dragged his friend down in a kiss that had been pent up for almost a century.

Bucky squeaked, flailed once, almost rolled away, and finally wrapped his arms around Steve in a near bone-crushing hug. Lips slanted, mouths softened, parted, inhaled, changed the angle and softened.

Tingles raced through Steve's body as he kissed Bucky, his Bucky, pouring every bit of emotion he felt into it. Then, he nipped his teeth into Bucky's lip and slowly pulled away.

"I'm bisexual," Steve murmured. "I've known for years."

"You punk-ass piece of shit! Why didn't you say something?" Bucky barked, but Steve noticed he didn't let go.

"There wasn't time." He gently squeezed Bucky's nape. "And how do you tell your best friend in the whole world you've been in love with him your entire life?"

"Steve…" Bucky whispered, resting their foreheads together. "You're an idiot."

Steve kissed him again because there was no refuting that logic.

***

From the second-floor observation deck, Natasha turned her phone camera from the scene below to her grinning face. The live stream event had hearts and comments blowing up her Instagram. "Happy Pride everyone. If those two old farts can figure it out, anyone can."

She blew a kiss at the camera and ended the stream.

-The End-

#i like boys #stucky #tumblr exclusive #for pride month

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en8y · 2 months ago

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[IMAGE ID: two rectangular flags with nine evenly-sized stripes each. all of them have these top five stripes: bright green, dark brown, dull yellow, medium grey, and dark green-grey. the first flag's bottom four stripes are as follows: bright red-orange, light orange, white, and cool grey. the second flag's bottom four stripes are as follows: light orange, dark grey, medium grey, and light grey. END ID.]

ironmothextaclyst: an extaclyst related to iron moth from pokemon!

shinironmothextaclyst: an extaclyst related to shiny iron moth from pokemon!

@radiomogai @liom-archive @obscurian @pokegender @pokemoqai

#ironmothextaclyst #shinironmothextaclyst #extinclypse #iron moth #shiny iron moth #mogai coining #mogai gender #gender coining #tech.png

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tabletoptrinketsbyjj · 5 years ago

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Trinkets, Worthless, 10: These trinket are garbage plain and simple. They would be termed vendor trash or junk loot in video games. They aren’t touched by stray magic or mystery as with regular trinkets, aren’t made from valuable materials and aren’t particularly useful even if they aren’t damaged.

A burlap bag containing a dozen assorted doorknobs.

A rather large and dead hairy spider that looks as if someone tried to make a wig out of it.

A small beige oilcloth sack embroidered neatly with the word ‘CHEESE.’ You can smell it from halfway across the room.

An expertly taxidermied rat with a built in candle holder capable of bearing a small tea candle. The mouse is posed as if scurrying

A lump of coal with runes carved into it.

A five pound pyrite (Fools gold) ingot.

A worn minotaur’s nose ring that has been bent and beaten back into shape many times.

A lacquered wooden coin engraved with the holy symbol of a minor God of Random Neutral Domain.

A smooth, flat, black river stone.

A small, tattered canvas sack containing a dozen half-rotted teeth that are as long as a thumb, but are decidedly identifiable as human.

—Keep reading for 90 more trinkets.

—Note: The previous 10 items are repeated for easier rolling on a d100.

A burlap bag containing a dozen assorted doorknobs.

A rather large and dead hairy spider that looks as if someone tried to make a wig out of it.

A small beige oilcloth sack embroidered neatly with the word ‘CHEESE.’ You can smell it from halfway across the room.

An expertly taxidermied rat with a built in candle holder capable of bearing a small tea candle. The mouse is posed as if scurrying

A lump of coal with runes carved into it.

A five pound pyrite (Fools gold) ingot.

A worn minotaur’s nose ring that has been bent and beaten back into shape many times.

A lacquered wooden coin engraved with the holy symbol of a minor God of Random Neutral Domain.

A smooth, flat, black river stone.

A small, tattered canvas sack containing a dozen half-rotted teeth that are as long as a thumb, but are decidedly identifiable as human.

A single feather hanging from a chain of slender twigs reminiscent of a bird’s nest.

A dull-red, cloth pouch filled with five pounds of finely ground, rust flakes.

A pair of minotaur horns, which were well used by their original owner.

A tangled mess of metal wires fused together with heat and attached to a wooden plaque. It may be a worthless mess of twisted scrap metal or a priceless piece of inspired artwork.

A heavily used hand cranked wood drill that creaks loudly when used.

A foggy hand mirror that when cleaned, immediately fogs back up.

A cracked and weathered hourglass that only has some sand remaining

A battered leather satchel filled with dried red beans.

A fishing hook that cannot be bent.

A large tin canister whose lid is crudely stamped with the word “JURKY”, which contains dozens of sticks of meat jerky. Any creature can clearly identify the jerky as “meat” but as to the exact animal the dried “food” came from, (If it is only from a single species of animal) is impossible to tell.

A battered stone shaped like a heart.

A child's wooden doll that makes whoever looks at it uncomfortable.

A cloth sack packed to the brim with cat fur.

A cloth sack packed to the brim with dog fur.

A flat, round, dark gray stone speckled with reddish flecks, and about six inches across.

A sewing thimble that, when poked by a needle, will roughly squeeze the bearer's thumb.

A small brass key.

A hand mirror with a horn handle. Instead of actually functioning correctly, the mirror reflects all creature's image as a specific bald human of unknown origin.

A very roughly drawn map of the surrounding area. A knowledgeable creature is able to tell that the map is not to scale and is barely useable for actual navigation.

A spindly iron key.

A chipped nautilus shell.

A moth eaten, gray velvet clutch purse.

A fairly convincing but ultimately inaccurate map, with a single red dot marking “You are here”.

An old scratched up lyre, strung with well-worn cat gut strings.

A Random Humanoid Race’s rotting, severed head.

A crudely made staff topped by a small skull.

An uneven, gnarled length of wood from a grotesque tree.

An old and cracked velum scroll whose script has been rendered illegible by the ravages of time.

A simple, springy rod made of twisting vines and twigs.

A rotting wooden goblet filled with a festering brew of pus, blood, wriggling maggots and worms that spill from the froth on the liquid's surface.

A dusty old pair of half-moon glasses of such a strong prescription that they are unwearable for most creatures.

A cracked glass jar containing a crudely removed bear claw.

A poorly embroidered handkerchief with the words “I love you dad” crudely stitched into it.

A red, child sized, fuzzy blanket that smells of mold and mildew.

A desiccated hoof that once belonged to a large, male elk.

A simple dusty scroll has no marking, seal nor text on it. By all appearances, it is a standard sheet of writing material that is bound by a single hemp thread.

A stone jar of filled with acid. The jar's lid is badly fitting, and the acid bubbles and froths as it moves. The object's sole markings are a skull symbol resting overtop of a warning written in Dwarvish.

A bedroll that is covered in a large, dark stain, but is in otherwise fair condition.

A set of crude fishing supplies, including a box of maggots, several bent hooks and a ten foot length of wire.

A set of clothes, appearing halfling in size and design. They appear partially burnt and have a large, black stain on the chest.

A primitive woolen bag filled with bones.

A rough bag full of leaves and stems of an unknown plant.

A crude animal cage. Inside there are two dead rats a dead bat and a large number of healthy maggots feeding on the aforementioned corpses.

A badly water damaged book whose pages cannot be read.

A set of badly maintained scientific instruments, including a compass, measuring rods, quills and ink. With some repair, they could form a cartographer's toolkit.

A humanoid skull that has been cleaned and bleached white. It has a large, drilled hole in the center of the crown and several abyssal symbols are crudely carved into the temples.

A long clock hand of dark metal, the end raggedly pointed and stained with old blood.

A dusty glass bottle that still holds a few drops of viscous red liquid.

A page torn from a hymnal book dedicated to a god of war.

A clay tablet with indecipherable symbols.

A padlock that any key can open.

A bundle of crumpled papers, each having a partially completed love poem on them. Most of the words are scribbled out and are illegible, but the intended recipient appears to be a woman by the name of Neurelia.

The skull of a bird with an iron nail driven through it.

A crude wooden mask featuring a head crest of branches. The entirety of the mask is scorched wood and it smells like charcoal.

A beaten crate filled with rotted children’s clothing and old toys.

An alligator skull that reeks of sulfur and bog water. The druidic rune for “Preserve” is carved into the forehead.

A stone statue of a goblin, paper-thin and hollow. If the statue is broken, goblin bones tumble out.

A rusty dagger with a blade that is wildly unsuited for any sort of cutting whatsoever. Dangling from the pommel-nut is a leather thong strung with teeth and walnut shells.

A latticed or deformed stone that's possibly a meteorite

A malformed doll with a strange leer that wears a sackcloth dress.

A stitched up bear composed of multiple parts from different teddy bears.

A lady’s brush, elegantly carved of ivory with boar bristle. The ivory is stained and cracked, and many of the bristles are missing.

A hefty book full of notes written by many authors and inserted pages from other books. There are bite marks and slashes on the covers and some dirt might slip from between the pages when shaken.

A wizard's spellbook that was enchanted to repel liquids. Unfortunately, the enchantment is so strong that the pages cannot be written on rendering it completely unusable.

A reasonably shiny pebble.

A plank of wood whose knots and grain, crudely (At best) depict a lesser known deity of Random Domain.

A corroded metal cylinder bearing forbidden writing. The runic script bears little coherence, appearing like mad ramblings about the things beyond.

A set of brass lockpicks that couldn't possibly fit into any known style of lock.

A sheaf of poorly rendered sketches made by children.

A torn flag of an ancient city long since fallen into ruin.

A dissected and flayed corpse of a tiny fey creature.

A syringe with a squared-off crystal barrel. The plunger, flange, and needle hardware are nickel alloy ornately etched in twining, serpentine coils. Though it has no needle, and the plunger no longer seals, it is finely made, given its age.

A rotting quarterstaff made of oak wood. The staff has grips wrapped in slimy brown ape skin.

An old pair of trousers that are almost entirely made of patches and stitches, having been kept in service long past their time.

A crooked rod of dark wood with a possum skull lashed to the top.

An antique sword, rusted to its mildewy scabbard.

A length of heavy rusty chain, entangled in an impossible knot.

A thick waxy candle the colour of sickly pallid skin. When burned, the smoky odor of roasting ghoulflesh fills the room, ideal for setting the mood for foul necromantic rituals, preparing volunteers for human sacrifice, and all manner of depraved acts involving corpses.

A large bird's nest that has human finger bones woven into it.

A thick shirt of coarse brown horsehair.

A small leather pouch containing a double handful of seemingly fresh tree nuts, still in their shells.

An ugly gray wine skin, heavier than it looks, sloshes and gurgles in response to any movement.

A large, cast pewter vial containing a quantity of strangely textured sand. It clumps and sticks in a single doughy mass.

A piece of parchment bearing an unusual symbol drawn in iridescent green ink.

A long and tangled piece of twine with tiny brass bells knotted into it every few feet.

A dingy, brown leather collar with a sea serpent branded along its length is stuck on a jagged piece of splintered wood.

An intricate and spiky ball of cat and rat whiskers.

A heavy shot glass with a cat's face carved into the bottom.

A copper coin with a small hole drilled at the top and attached to a long length of fishing line.

A small, stained sack with a crudely painted figure of a halfling on the side. Opening the sack releases an odour that invokes tears and gagging to those nearby. The sack itself contains a number of crude items designed to disguise a goblin as a halfling. Laying the kit’s inventory out on the ground, you assess its value as a tool for subterfuge and determine a figure of zero. The wig leaves an odor of wet dog on your hands. The goblin disguise kit contains the following items: a chopped and damp wig made from worg fur, flesh-toned paste that burns when applied, a set of incomprehensibly disgusting false teeth, a canvas tunic with a poorly painted “shirt front,” and a pair of greasy gloves.

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