#'your absence stings me i cant sleep'

[quevadilla]

if you think about it this song is steddie coded

[ashintheairlikesnow]

OH ANTONI 🥺🥺🥺 my poor baby. I hope he will find it within himself to come clean to Jake or SOMEONE about this :((((

(((ALSO CANT WAIT FOR MORR))))

One Two Three Four Five Six

CW: Wound cleaning, burns, touch aversion, aftermath of torture, BBU, conditioned fucky headspace

"Lift your chin for me," she commands, and he doesn't really remember that he could choose not to obey.

Antoni dutifully shifts, his eyes moving to roam over a line of framed photographs along the wall behind her. A wedding photo, faded with time, a much, much younger version of the woman currently dabbing a cotton ball dipped in something cold and stinging to the fresh burn on his throat with a man he's never seen. The two of them are smiling, holding hands, looking right into the camera.

Bright white wedding dress turned cream with yellowing paper, with time, covered in lace. Powder-blue tuxedo. Brilliant smiles.

She touches the cotton ball to his skin and he hisses, hands tightening where they grip the edges of the chair he's sitting on. The sting rockets through him, only a pale echo of the original pain, but it's enough.

It's enough.

Fuck, that's hot.

He catches the sob before it can leave his throat, forces the burn behind his eyes to stay there and not turn into tears. He will not cry over this again.

Not now.

"There we go, just a bit more," She says, her voice gruffly compassionate. She presses a small rounded bandage against his throat, her fingertips are warm against his neck.

His skin crawls at even this slight, indirect touch, but he doesn't protest.

He wouldn't dare.

"All done. That's not s'bad, I think with a good bandaging it won't scar half so bad as all its little friends down south," She mutters, more to herself than him, really.

Where her fingers touch, he feels the echoes of other hands around his throat. Thicker fingers, heavy with rings. Smiling down at him.

Beg for me, love.

"Please-" It's automatic. He's drifting, in and out of this old kitchen that still looks like it must have looked thirty years ago, when the man in the wedding photo would still be here maybe cooking or cleaning or chatting up a storm to anyone who popped by for a visit.

"Hm? You say something, sweetheart?" Miss Ruth looks at him, and those dark eyes are shrewd. They know more than anyone is supposed to, they know things Nat hasn't told her. Hasn't had to.

"Ah, no," He whispers. "Just. I am very tired."

"No doubt. I'll finish these up and you can get back to your own bed and no doubt you'll be glad to get there." She looks him over, and his eyes dance to hers and away again. Back to the photos.

He sees a family photo, the two people from before and a daughter and son. Everyone is smiling, looking carefully just off to the side. They wear matching outfits.

"Get a look at 'em?"

There's a 35th wedding anniversary picture with a big banner behind the happy couple. The two people, much older, stand in front a cake nearly as tall as they are, surrounded by others. Everyone in the photo smiles in sort of the same way.

The next photo is a birthday, he thinks. There's a boy and a young baby in the photo, and the man from wedding and anniversary photo isn't there. Miss Ruth, holding her grandbaby he thinks, is wearing all black. The photo was taken in a church, and there's a spray of white lilies just visible at the edge of the picture.

Another, with Jaden, who Chris plays basketball with. The kid who more or less effortlessly opened his life for Chris when Chris badly needed a friend his own age, or closer to it, to remember what being a kid was like.

He is reading, in images, the story of this woman's adult life. Marriage, and death, and birth. Children. Life going on.

A life he won't have, that he gave up every possibility of having, because of... of whatever is inside him that Mr. Davies knew about, that the people who just hurt him could see in him even though he cannot see it himself.

He must look like someone who deserves to be hurt.

"Young man." She taps on the back of his hand and he flinches, blinking at her, struggling to pull himself out of his reverie. Her words filter through his mind, shift into the language all his thoughts are moving in, come back out in hers. He swallows, feeling a lump in his throat that refuses to move.

"I'm... sorry," He says softly, with difficulty. "I did not hear."

"I can tell. I asked did you get a good look at whoever did this to you." Her eyes roam over his chest, his stomach. The circle of new burns, placed so carefully compared to the haphazard placement Mr. Davies had favored, no pattern at all. "Looks like they took their damn time, anyway, to get you so much."

"N-... no." Antoni's eyebrows furrow, and he tries to think, but all he can remember is their hands holding the lit cigarettes, the quiet one touching his face, ruffling his hair. He can't... he can't remember their faces at all. "I am sorry."

You're fucking gorgeous, buddy, you know that?

"Hm." If she's disappointed in him, nothing changes about her expression, still held in a kind of skeptical compassion as she wets a new cotton ball in liquid from a small frosted plastic bottle and touches it to each burn, one by one, in the circle. It's like a ritual, the sting, washing away a bit of sin with each hint of pain. He clothes his eyes and breathes carefully through it.

When he is done, each circle covered with a bandage that is shades darker than his skin, she steps back to look him over, critically. She steps away and he takes in deep breaths free of her air, the powdery scent of her. He breathes in her absence, no one nearby.

She returns with a washcloth and he takes it, scrubs at his face until his cheeks are red but clean, until you can't tell anymore that he cried while they burned him.

Good boy.

"You can stay here," She says, voice low now. "Sleep it off for a while. I've got a guest room."

"No. No, I will go home. Thank you. I will... I want to go home." He looks out the kitchen window right at Nat's house next door. No lights are on... yet. But there isn't much time before they will be.

"Fair enough. You plan to tell 'em what happened to you?"

He looks back at her, searches for the judgement, finds none.

"No," He says. Confesses, really, his sin. "I will not."

I will lie to them.

"That's your choice to make, I suppose." She lays a hand on his arm. He doesn't pull away from her. He wants to unzip himself from his skin and step out of it, let them all have what they seem to want to touch so much.

Instead, he holds himself perfectly still, until she pats him a few times and steps away again.

"I've done what I can do. You come back over here tomorrow or the day after and we'll look 'em over again and make sure they're healing up nice, you got me?"

"Yes," He says. He is good. He can be good.

"Right. Off you go, then, before your people wake up and you get to come up with a story about why you're in an old widow's house at 4:30 in the morning, hm? You're pretty enough, but you're no Wilbur." She laughs to herself, a dry and crackly sound, and he thinks that her laugh was the sort that could set a whole crowd to laughing, when she was young.

It still is.

The corners of his mouth twitch in an answering smile.

"Yes, ma'am," he says, and pushes himself off the edge, standing up again. No one has seen his scars, no one but this old neighbor woman who looks at them like they are simply part of living, not something to be pitied. "I go. S-... thank you."

"Paugh." She scoffs, waves a hand in dismissal. "Go on, now. You've thrown off my morning coffee time. Tell your young man that Jaden will be over this afternoon."

She all but shoos him out the door, and the air is clear and clean and quiet. The only dirty thing is Antoni himself, smudged and mussed, still feeling in his scalp the prickles of Quiet One's hands, still feeling on his arms the sharp pressure of the shirt tied around his wrists.

Still aware of every single burn under the slight pull of the bandages pressed over them, the gentle sting that feels like a return to how he was always meant to be.

Even the walk from one yard to another feels like too much. Antoni's eyes move over the empty darkened windows of the houses all around him. How obvious he must be, if three people saw him in the darkness and knew him for a pet pretending to be human.

He shouldn't have left, shouldn't have gone on those walks. He'd left himself open and vulnerable, hadn't he? His scars are deeper than skin, and they must shine like the streetlights to anyone who knows what to look for.

Antoni stops at the porch, where he carefully lifts a loose bit of board from the porch railing, finds the small box hidden inside. The slightest scrape of metal on metal as he pulls off the lid makes him freeze, but no one is awake to hear it. He takes the contents of the box, moves it quickly back to its hiding place, replaces the board.

Like nothing ever happened.

Everything can be made as good as new, as long as it isn't him.

He slips inside the safehouse, where everything is still quiet, in the silent inhale that comes before the exhalation of morning. The clock in the kitchen reads 4:45, fifteen minutes until Jake's alarm will go off, until he - and likely Chris - will stir.

Fifteen minutes for Antoni get upstairs and look so deeply asleep that no one will realize he was ever gone.

No time to shower.

He will have to sleep with the grime of their hands still ground deep into every single pore. He will sleep with Deep Voice's we know what you are in his ears, with Quiet One's fingers tangled in his hair, running over his skin. He will sleep with Lookout's eyes locked on his chest as he presses the cigarette in.

Antoni hasn't worn a collar in years now, but he buckles it on, just one notch too tight like Mr. Davies would have, and climbs under the covers, pulling them over his head.

He breathes in as deep as he can, to feel the constriction. Breathes out, and runs his hand up over his chest, over the bandages that cover his burns.

They knew what he was.

Everyone always will.

Good boy.

The ashtray falls asleep humming a lullaby, afraid that if he pulls the blankets back down he will see bars on the windows.

[pinkjeanist]

hello, could you do hcs to dabi who has a fem!reader whats stain's successor?

peaches || dabi

a/n: im so sorry i cant do hcs, im just really bad at them??? but i wrote this for you!!! i actually really enjoyed writing it, which is odd seeing as it’s my first time writing for dabi. if you really don’t like it, i can rewrite it for you, so sorry in advance that i couldn’t make exactly what you wanted!!! [masterlist and requests]

desc.: As Stain’s successor, you often find yourself beaten and bloodied as you return to the hideout. Luckily, Dabi is always there to stitch you back up. 

w/c: 1,152

The sun was just beginning to rise as you limped back into the bar, keeping as much weight off of your now injured leg as possible. You found Dabi at the bar, nursing a half-full bottle of alcohol and an empty glass, and ignored the way your lungs tightened as you attempted to limp silently passed him. He only turned to you, frowning.

“What the hell are you limping for?” He eyed your leg, seeing the makeshift bandages you’d cut from old tarps in an alleyway doing little to stop the slow bleeding. The wounds were probably infected, now, but you’d worry about that later after you’d finally had some time to rest. Dabi didn’t seem to care how tired you were, though, as he called irritably to you: “I’m gonna have to amputate your damn leg if you’re thinking of leaving it like that.”

You turned to him, swallowing. “I’m gonna sleep first. Speaking of- why aren’t you asleep?”

Dabi’s frown only grew deeper as he began filling his glass, again. You already knew what he was doing up; you just liked to see him explain himself. “Doesn’t matter. Now stop being dumb and show me your leg.”

You huffed with a small smile as you propped yourself up onto the barstool next to him, and he moved behind the bar to grab the first-aid kit before returning. His words would sting if he actually meant them, which you knew for a fact that he absolutely didn’t, comparing his talks with you to his talks with anyone else in the League. Furthermore, you never had to ask him for his help with anything, because he was always oddly willing. You’d just been about to go to bed with a bleeding, possibly infected leg, and he’d been waiting to help you without you even thinking of asking for his aid. 

You didn’t know exactly what it was between the two of you, but you were grateful for it, nonetheless. You’d probably have already ditched the League if it weren’t for him. You wouldn’t call what you felt towards him to be love (at least, not yet, you assumed) but you certainly admired his brash personality, the way he held himself, his sheer devotion to your cause. And you couldn’t be sure what Dabi felt for you, but all things considered, you’d take what you could get so long as you had him.

You propped up your leg on the two stools between you. Dabi unwrapped your bandages and scowled at the wounds he found underneath as if they’d insulted him before digging into the first-aid to find the hydrogen peroxide and splash it mercilessly onto your wounds. You hissed but didn’t shy away, and he continued to treat your wounds haphazardly with various other items he managed to fish out. You were sure he’d been about to stitch your most prominent cut before deciding against it with gauze and moving onto your arms, which weren’t nearly as bad but still torn up.

“Did you win?” Dabi asked, lifting your legs off of the stool and taking the one closest to you to work better. 

You nodded, trying not to focus on the sensation of his hands against your bare skin. “Gotta say, he managed to get a few good hits in, but I did him in before he could do too much damage.”

“I can see that.” 

You both fell silent again, and it was nearly deafening. You weren’t sure if it was the blood loss or the sleep deprivation that made you speak your mind, but nevertheless, you found yourself asking, “Do you think I’m living up to his legacy?”

Dabi paused, knowing exactly what you meant but seemingly unsure of how to respond. You weren’t Stain- no one could do what he’d done as well as he’d done it- but Stain had left his mission up to you specifically. Anyone else that seeked to fulfill his wishes was just a follower, as you were the one he’d chosen. But even after a good four years of training, you hadn’t been prepared for his defeat, and had been left unsure in his absence. Every night, you came limping back into the bar after being nearly defeated once more, and it made you wonder if such constant failure was worthy of the title of “Stain’s Successor.”

But even with this, Dabi seemed to give it serious thought before replying: “He chose you. You’ve gotta be living up to his expectations, otherwise he was dumber than we all thought.”

You smiled warmly without having to think. Seeing your expression, he quickly ducked his head and continued patching you up. You noticed that he was a bit more gentle when he reached your hands. He was more gentle with the peroxide (did peroxide even actually work?) and slow with wrapping your hand in gauze, making sure it was done properly. He let your hand fall into your lap when he was done. It felt odd, not having him hold your hand, as if it was meant to be there. 

You stood and immediately regretted it as you began to fall forward, only to be caught by his truly. Dabi held onto you even as you’d gotten your bearings, and supported you as you began to limp towards the bedrooms. He stayed silent but was constantly attentive nonetheless, making sure you didn’t put too much pressure on your bad leg, and keeping an arm wrapped tight around your middle. 

You reached your room and quickly helped you get situated on your bed. You couldn’t imagine yourself having to get up in a few hours, as inevitable as it was, but you were sure you’d have to take the next night off from your “villainous” duties. It seemed Dabi didn’t want you to leave bed either as he tucked your blanket tight around you, making sure you were comfortable and staying put perhaps longer than what was normal. But nothing was normal about the League of Villains, and you didn’t want him to go, either.

“You can stay,” You croaked, “if you want. I don’t mind.”

He seemed to ponder it for a long moment before sighing, moving around the bed to join you. You could see how he practically sank into the mattress, just as exhausted as you were, and you wondered how long he’d been awake, waiting for you. 

You knew Dabi was never really comfortable around other people, so you took it as an honor as you drifted off together. It made you happy beyond words knowing he trusted you so much, and it should have frightened you just sleeping in the same room with a man like him, but you couldn’t have been any more at peace. 

Neither of you had been happy for a long time, but in those few moments before you drifted off, you couldn’t have been more ecstatic.

[the-foxes-fangs]

I Wish I Was the Moon (Ikesen Mitsuhide)

A Mitsuhide songfic

Rating: SFW

Pairing: Mitsuhide/MC

Warnings: Some violence, angst

Listen to the inspiration here 

Chimney falls and lovers blaze Thought that I was young Now I’ve freezing hands and bloodless veins As numb as I’ve become

He did his best to make it look magical. Or at least, like all of the best tricks he made it look far more effortless than it was, coming and going from Azuchi like autumn snow falling and thawing.

He knelt and held the end of a grimy cord between his teeth as he finished off a knot around a cache of supplies that needed to be hoisted up off the floor of one of his many well hidden way points. He spat it out and felt the particles of dirt on the back of his teeth. He had his own vassals, one or two of whom he even trusted, that he could send to do these petty chores, but he preferred to keep his high cards up his sleeves. 

A rusty brown dot on the hem of his sleeve caught his eye and he sighed, loud to his own ears in the pre-dawn quiet of the forest. He preferred to imagine his mind as a library, each shelf separate from the next, information collected and ordered, meticulously curated for maximal affinity and usefulness, and he hadn’t given a damn where anything on those shelves came from or how. 

Until he thought of the look in her eyes if she saw it, if she caught the scent of his work on him, of the fear and blood and burned flesh and men who hadn’t yet realized that they were dead. 

His hands ached from the damp cold and the cord slid just enough to leave a burn across his palm before he caught it. He finished and stood, stretched and felt the lassitude of too many days with too little sleep. 

He leaned against the frame of the door to look at the setting moon just above the tops of the trees as it faded into the sky like sheer silk sliding over skin, and the susurrus of the mountain woods seemed to carry the same sound, like the fall of hair as it tumbled down a naked back. He curled his cold fingers around the burn on his palm and blamed his wandering mind on exhaustion. 

It was better to imagine her in the arms of someone who could claim the violence wasn’t in cold blood. He forced himself to think of her that way, burning with desire in the arms of someone with much warmer hands. 

He rubbed at the spot on his sleeve, and pushed aside his tiredness and the pins and needles of something waking up that was meant to stay numb, something thawing that was meant to stay chilled through, something dangerous. 

Last night I dreamt I had forgotten my name ‘Cause I had sold my soul but awoke just the same I’m so lonely I wish I was the moon tonight

“Mitsuhide.” 

He didn’t miss a beat as he grinned at Hideyoshi, pretended that he had been provoking him instead of watching a sliver of the moon through the window of the banquet hall. The syllables of his own name barely registered sometimes, it was one of so many and it felt no more like home than any of the others he wore. 

“Yes, mother.” He answered, and curled his lip up just enough to add a sting to the insult. 

“Oh if only, then I could at least give you a slap upside the head for being mouthy,” Hideyoshi muttered, adding “I asked where you went this time.” He had a flush creeping up his throat from the drink, and his fist was clenched tightly on his knee, broad shoulders still perfectly straight no matter how deeply he got into his cups. 

“As a matter of fact, I had a rather interesting meeting with-” Mitsuhide cut himself off deliberately and made a show of looking at her as she came in carrying a fresh bottle, laughing at something Masamune was saying. Her hair gleamed in the lamplight as she came toward them. 

“Dear girl,” he said and motioned to her, looking through her now, looking at the curve of the moon through the window over her shoulder, “Hideyoshi was just wondering when you were going to be back, I practically had to shoot him to keep him from sending a search party to the cellar.” 

He stood smoothly as she sat, and ignored the flicker of frustration in her eyes as he nudged her closer to an even more flushed Hideyoshi and sidled away, mouthing polite excuses as he went. 

He stopped in the dappled shadows on the path between the castle and his manor, and tried to feel the satisfaction of a successful scheme, but the sound of distant music seemed to make the air around him hard in its silence, and the golden glow of lamplight through the windows made the moonlight cold and clear, sharp where it fell across his face. 

God blessed me, I’m a free man With no place free to go I’m paralyzed and collared-tight No pills for what I fear.

He hadn’t been him in a week when he saw them walking together from the shadows of a tea-house door. They were a good a match, he told himself, bright and generous and absurdly kind-hearted. 

The afternoon light was honey golden as they walked, and he ignored the feeling that ran from his chest to his gut at the sight of Hideyoshi ruffling her hair affectionately. He chose not to give it a name, not to give it a life. Lying came so easily when you practiced lying to yourself. 

The prospect of facing mountains of paperwork at home exhausted him, the quiet alley and the faded blue sky exhausted him, the feel of his rifle on his hip seemed heavier than it had before as he watched them turn out of view. He stood like that until he felt the chill of a lengthening shadow from the awning and began to walk in the opposite direction by force of will. 

He pulled his scarf away from his throat as if that would loosen the tightness in his throat, and was grateful that he hadn’t chosen to wear a mask of sincerity which he knew would be much harder to feign than detached amusement when they should next meet. 

She came with some documents the next evening, and he told himself it was only natural to check on the progress of his objective as he made them tea.

“Our little seamstress seems to be laying siege to the castle of devotion around Hideyoshi” he said as he searched her eyes for confirmation behind what he assumed would be flustered denials. 

“A seamstress, a mouse, now a siege engine?” She shot back with an amused snort, and darted her eyes away from his. 

“One has to be flexible in these trying times. Is your blockade a success?” 

“I’m no strategist, you know that better than anyone.” She answered and he hid how his breathe caught at the look of frustration and longing in her eyes when she spoke. 

She studied him and he studied her in a beat of silence that felt like a chasm. 

He had memorized her face, her expressions, the curve of her brow, the cant of her shoulders and the sweep of her throat. That look was just one more, he told himself as he hoped that the noise of him sipping tea would cover the cavalry din of his heartbeat. 

How will you know if you’ve found me at last ‘Cause I’ll be the one, be the one, be the one With my heart in my lap I’m so tired I wish I was the moon tonight

The full moon had vanished into the snowy night, as his horse stumbled and slipped down the path toward Azuchi. But the snowfall was suffused with enough light to keep riding. It was too cold to stop and he could nearly see the white wisps of heat rising from where blood soaked through his hastily bandaged shoulder and arm. 

It had been too hasty of a retreat to assess the full damage done by some bastard’s shortsword, but it didn’t feel too deep. The cold slowed the bleeding well enough for the moment, and he fought the sluggish feeling that began to set in as he squinted toward the faint glow of the castle town. 

He held the reins slack in his injured hand and gripped the pommel of his saddle with whatever strength wasn’t holding him up. 

He drifted up above his body, as if the snow was a counterweight that pulled him higher and higher as it swirled gently around him, so high he could finally no longer see himself, or the horse, or the castle, so high that the lake looked as small as a silver coin and finally as dot of dew. 

It was clean and sharp and cold up here, and he struggled to remember what it was that he was so worried about doing down below as he carried on drifting upward, swallowed by a clear brightness until he felt his back slam hard into what he could only assume was the moon, since the ground was nowhere to be seen. He found himself laughing at the thought that he had floated all the way to the moon. He’d have to tell her that it was very cold and white and that you couldn’t feel your body at all up there. She was the only person who would believe him, in spite of his constant lies, he knew she would believe him just this one time.  

He could feel his pulse in one hand, though. It was hot and painful as it throbbed where something pulled insistently. 

He struggled to lift his frost covered lashes and focus on her as she wrenched his hand in both of hers. They were warm, even hot and he gave her a lopsided grin. 

“Of course you’d manage to be warm up here.” 

She said something but it was muffled. Her cheeks were red with cold but the rest of her face seemed unusually pale. He squeezed his eyes shut against the sudden intrusion of bright yellow and heard another muffled voice, and then another, until he stopped trying to work out who was speaking. He felt a searing pain and gasped at the sudden sense of falling back down, nauseating and too fast, before he was swallowed by the dark. 

The noise of footsteps in the hallway roused him. He was bleary eyed, but the edge of the blanket told him that he’d been carried to his own bed. He didn’t try to move, but he heard the rustle of blankets and felt a sudden absence as someone moved away from him. 

“You’re awake.” She said, and he felt the tickle of her breath close to the back of his neck. 

“Am I?” he asked hoarsely. 

“You were so cold, we- I was worried, so-” she swallowed the rest of her thought nervously and he was suddenly keenly aware of her hand clutching the back of his robe, of her legs tucked into his, of the warmth of her body and the burn and ache of his wounds. 

“So you crawled into bed with me? How bold.” He croaked out, and waited for her to move away. 

She settled closer to him, gentle and careful. “Not the way I’d imagined it, but yes, I finally managed to crawl into bed with you.” She answered, smoothly. 

He couldn’t think of a thing to say to that. He was so tired and she was so close and so warm. 

“No smart remark? I’m going to have to mark the date I made you shut up.” She said, and her voice grew soft as she added “I’m glad you made it back, Mitsuhide.”

“I am too.” Too close to saying too much. 

She seemed on the verge of speech for a moment, but he felt the soft brush of a kiss on the back of his neck instead. 

He promised himself that he would untangle it all when his head wasn’t swimming with fatigue and she wasn’t so near. He allowed himself to believe his own lies as she found his uninjured hand and twined their fingers together.

[sweetboybucky]

Dreamers

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

Word Count: 2600

Warnings: Infinity War compliant. Aka - a lot of sads. 

Summary: In the time he is gone, one thing remains. 

A/N: My piece for the Marvellous Writing Challenge, hosted by the angel @bucky-at-bedtime, who was so kind as to give me an extension. (Jess - I love you so much, I hope you know.) My prompt was “Saudade”, and what was originally going to be a sequel to my one other angst fic, Golden, turned into this. Please don’t kill me. 

Taking a page out of @evanstarff‘s book for this one and going with a reader adopted into a Wakandan family. There are also a few notes at the end, if you want to read those. 

My Masterlist

*** A war was waged.

The aftermath sits in front of you.

Rests there, in the ocean blue eyes of a soldier you have only just begun to know. The one you’d once only heard stories of.

The man with more burdens to carry than you could ever imagine. With the weight of an ungrateful and unforgiving world on his shoulders. The world he’s worked to save so many times.

A silent apology.

A wish for things to be different.

Tears.

You find them there, in that harrowing expression on a face that should never wear it.

You don’t ask.

You know.

***

There is a space between the world you know and all of the others you’ve come to discover in your time. Those realities that hold the souls of all that have been lost. The souls you still have yet to meet. A mirror image of the life you know.

You find him there, in the night.

His voice calls out to you, where you rest in that hazy middle ground. And it’s strong, like it always was. Strong even when it had no reason to be, even when he wasn’t. It pulls you into the inky night with its soft timbre, your name spreading tendrils of awareness through you.

It wakes something within you. Something raw and real and aching as you search for him. As you reach blindly into that darkness. Hoping and hoping and hoping.

But he’s just beyond your grasp. A breath away, whispering to you. Your name falls into the dark from lips you want to see more than anything. Lips you want to trace with your fingers, kiss until the world has finished turning.

You whisper back to him, voice desperate and pleading through the darkness.

***

Ochre light brings a new day.

It flecks across walls and floor and sheets. Sheets that should hold him beside you, the man who laid his soul out to bare for you on them in memories tinged with a certain fondness.

Memories that don’t flow like fire, the way they once had.

Memories that sting in the aftermath.

That careful ember, the one he’d lit within you, has left the hollow in your chest. Lit the sun, instead. Forced a new morning into your hands. A world he no longer breathes in.

And your heart aches with strangled sobs, body curling around his pillow and pressing into the sheets that still smell like him. Eyes close, shut out the view of the home he made in the quiet.

But reality exists without him, now.  

That fact is carving itself into your bones.

***

Many hours later, once dawn has truly broken and everything has settled heavy into your heart once again, you find your self on a trail he showed to you.

Green folds around you. Leads you to the little hillside he found, sitting just to the side of his farm. Above the lake. Another corner of the world he could almost call his own.

The place he still wanted to share with you.

And it feels wrong, settling into the grass on your own. Tracing trembling fingers through dark dirt instead of threading them through chestnut hair. Resting in that quiet place he first showed to you. Before everything began.

Before the end.

Blue sky and soft clouds roam overhead. Sparkling waters lie still beneath you. Trees brush together in the breeze, echo against the emptiness of the space. In your heart.

It’s a view you’ve seen so many times. A place you’ve spent so many afternoons, with a man far more beautiful than any sunset could ever be. And even before he came to you, the sky was still there.

It feels different now. So unlike the other days you spent underneath it.

Sitting on the grassy hill with the absence of that warm arm around your back. Lips against your skin, a rumbly voice finding its own special place within your heart.

It feels final.

***

Every night is the same.

Dark and cold. Lined with wanting. Frenzied thoughts and soft confessions and an ache so real it nearly eats you alive.

His voice speaks back to you, quiet but strong as ever. Soft in that way it always was, affection bleeding through every word he murmurs to you.

And then morning falls onto you once again. Draws muted light to your eyes and a desperate plea from your lips as fingers search for the body that should lay beside you against cool, threadbare sheets

But morning is an ever present thing.

Light always washes him away.

***

For weeks, Bucky’s voice finds you at night. In the dark.

One day, in the hours the sun claims, a different voice is there.

It’s a soft whisper. A careful, “Hey,” as he settles in the grass next to you. Watches the way the lake shines with the light of midday.

You turn to him for a moment. Notice the dulled expression on his face. See the way his once golden hair falls against his face, unkempt and dark. The set of his jaw, the line of his mouth, not even a hint of a smile tugging at the edges.

He’s worn. More so than you.

He’s lost. Same as you.

Ocean eyes stay trained on the sky. But his lips part enough to murmur, “He talked about you.”

Bucky’s face comes into your mind, easy as anything. And surprise lights through you at Steve’s words, pained and heavy.

Lashes shield irises filled with regret. “He talked about you all the time.” Eyes flick to you, just for a moment. Burn through your mind and body and soul. “I don’t think we had one conversation where he didn’t bring you up.”

His face tips down, gaze falling to callused hands in his lap. There’s a ghost of a smile in his voice as he adds, “I always teased him about it. How crazy he was about you.”

Tears gather around your eyes, warm and wet and burning through the last bit of your resolve.

Steve glances at you, expression just a little softer once its aimed toward you. “I’d never seen him that way. Even before - before everything.” He bumps his shoulder into yours, a fond, cautious gesture. “There were girls, but none of them were you.”

And that hurts more than it should. More than you think he meant it to. Coming from the man your love trusted with anything, defended at every turn. Spoke of like a vision, a dream he was so lucky to live in.

Tears slip down your face in the silence. As Steve turns away, face twisted and creased and pained. You can see the slump of his shoulders. Feel the inhale he takes, steeling himself his next words. For what’s to come.

“It never hurts any less,” he tells you, voice quieter than you’ve ever heard. An echo of the heartache he keeps locked away. Fingers trace over a blade of grass. “But it gets easier to manage. Just takes time.”

A hand reaches for yours, firm and rough and trembling just a little, fingers squeezing against your own. And his voice is so sincere, so real as he breathes out one last sentiment. Something that is both the balm for your soul and everything you don’t want to hear.

“But, wherever he is, now, he loves you just the same.”

***

That hollow spaces fits against you, the same way it has every other night since the end.

For a long while, the stillness of it washes over you. Inky black and completely silent.

But you can feel him. You can always feel him.

Is it true?

It’s a question breathed into the quiet. One torn from your chest, filled with longing.

He doesn’t ask what you’re referring to. He doesn’t need to.

There’s only a soft sigh. The feeling of him as he answers.

Always, he tells you, reverent and final in the way you need. Always.

***

Time is such a cruel thing, now.

It moves against you. Presses into your skin, falls into your mind with a terrible kind of determination. It pushes the world on, pushes you on. Forces you to watch the new reality you live in try to rebuild itself.

It brings you to your apartment.

Months have passed since you’ve seen it, his hut serving as your home and your hell in that time. But you know that you can’t stay there forever. You can’t bear to sleep in a bed of ghosts any longer.

The lock clicks the same as it always did, the door creaking in that familiar way. It gives way to the living room, small kitchen just adjacent to it.

Everything is in its place. Nothing has changed.

And yet - it has.

There’s no soft greeting waiting for you, anymore. No feet to slide along the floor, no arm to curl around you and tuck you against his body. Lips to kiss away the crease in your brows, the ache in your bones.

But his book sits on the table. His favorite blanket is tucked into the corner of the couch. A worn pair of sneakers near the door. The dark green mug he always used in the sink. 

The remnants of him are still here. Scattered around one of the only other places he’d been able to find refuge.

***

Phantom memories find you in the dust of your apartment.

Chestnut hair mussed in the morning. The smell of his favorite tea. Soft socks and all of the sweaters you stole from him. Pressing into this side, holding his hand at the market. Whispering to him when the ice crept back into his heart.

The stories he told you. Stories of the sky, the stars.

The same stars under your tired gaze now.

And even after everything, even in the absence of the man who loved them most, those stars remain the same. Unchanged by the rest of the world’s decisions.

They shine among inky blue. Glisten in the darkness, mapped out along an impossibly big sky. Absolute and so unknown. Arranged in their intricate patterns.

He spent more nights than you could count studying them. Resting near the large bay window of your apartment in a city still so unfamiliar to his weary heart. A city he grew so fond of. A city that grew so fond of him.

And he held you in the night. Brushed his lips against your skin and whispered about a constellation you couldn’t see. A woman given a beautiful crown, written into the stars once she’d passed. A reminder of who she was.

A reminder that, more than anything, she was loved, even after she was lost.

So much longing lies within you. Grief you never imagined you would feel. A fierce kind of sadness that takes over your mind and heart and soul and leaves you aching.

But more than anything, there is love.

You close your eyes against the sky those gray eyes loved to see and wish him into the stars.

***

Seasons pass. Come in with the cold and leave with the warm. Draw in new breezes and heady air and fleeting thoughts. Fleeting images of pale cheeks flushed with cool wind, with summer air.

And with every passing day, that face is a little harder to remember.

The line of his nose. The little wrinkles near his eye, those that only appeared in the face of his smile. Gray eyes sliding open in the morning, sparking with the possibility of a new day.

It grows fuzzy, the image of him, the sound of his laughter, as years that hardly feel like years drone on. As life moves on despite it all.

Anger festers within you. Rivals with the grief that still lives on, even after all this time. Even after the exact shade of his eyes isn’t as easy to conjure in your mind anymore.

But that soft affection you felt for him. That fierce kind of fondness, blinding and overwhelming and so strong. 

That remains. 

Even as years wane. As time spans on and life without him shifts into something close to normal. 

The way he made you feel - the way he always makes you feel - never dies down. Never shrinks in the face of a new sunrise, as dawn falls onto the world and his voice slips away. 

It only grows stronger. 

***

The hollow still finds you in that strange place between your reality and his. Dark and cold and full of him. So close you can almost feel him. So real it hurts.

And his voice is still there, murmuring things you don’t really listen to. Echoing around the empty space he should be, that soft little place you made for him in your heart. 

It’s a blessing, to know he’s there. To know he’s somewhere. 

It’s a curse, to know he’s somewhere you can’t reach him. Not really. 

So you hold onto his voice. Try to grasp the threads of it in your fingers. Close your eyes and let it fall over you, gentle and calm and beautiful as it is. 

***

It’s a rising tension in the air. A shift in the world, so similar to the one you felt years ago. Before the end.

Another war has begun.

***

The night he doesn’t visit you, his favorite stars do.

They gather you up in their impossibly soft embrace. Hold you close, keep you warm. Shelter you from the darkness and the grief, even if only for a few moments.

In the space between the lines, the thin veil of reality you’ve been able to find, where he is close and still so far, they whisper to you.

A story forms through the haze of their voices. One of two lovers set in the sky, separated by a river of stars between them. Close enough to taste each other. Destined to be apart.

But for one night, the heavens open up. And the two are offered the gift of time. Allowed to be together, even if only for a moment.

Bucky’s voice permeates through it all. Parts the dark of the sky, the river of stars lying between you. He calls out your name, fierce and desperate and full of love. So much love.

He’s close. You know he is. You can feel him, drawing toward you with every passing second.

***

You wake to tense air and soft light. Something strong beating within you, like the tap of his pulse has settled into your skin.

He’s so close.

Rumpled sheets gather in your hands, those that have long since lost any trace of his smell. Eyes close against the fabric, breaths shudder through a weary chest.

For the first time since the end, you hope.

***

The world has crumbled once again.

Been marred by the jaws of fate. Splintered in ways no one can ever hope to repair. Developed cracks that you know can never be filled.

But as the dust settles, he is there.

His face is worn but soft in that way it always was. Warm and open and kind, fixed with the bright smile that had grown fuzzy around the edges in your hazy memory. Slate eyes find yours through the distance, across the grassy patch of his home.

An eternity has passed.

And yet, no time has drawn between the two of you at all.

Fondness rings through you, clear as anything. That sting of grief, the ache of longing fades into something achingly familiar. Gives way to the one feeling that never left, even on the darkest days. Even in the moments you were sure it would.

Love.

It sings in the air, fills your heart and mind and soul and pushes you forward a step. Then another. Until he’s right in front of you. Broken and ragged and different.

But still.

He’s beautiful.

Grin grows. Teeth flash. Lines spark up near his eyes, so small and so sweet.

Bucky holds out his hand.

You take it.

***

Notes:

Title taken from ‘Rainbow Connection’ by Sleeping At Last. 

I took another page out of @evanstarff‘s book and made a playlist for this fic, which you can find here. 

The constellations used in this piece are Corona Borealis, or The Northern Crown, and the story of Altair and Vega. (The interpretations I went by are not the only variations of this story, just those I thought fit best.)

A huge thank you to the incredible Star Queen, @fangirlfiction, for lending me her expertise in the space things for this fic. 

One more thank you, to my beautiful love, @marvelous-avengers, who read and cried before posting, who is always there when I need her - I adore you more than you could ever know. Thank you for everything. 

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@solarbarnes II @akamaiden II @my-meant-to-find-blog II @marvelous-avengers II @jack4xx II @buckyforbreakfast II @theglowstickofdestiny II @bucky-at-bedtime II @notimetoblog II @deceivedeer II @teawithbucky II @veronicalei II @part-time-patronus II @thunderous-flower II @thelostverse II @delicatecapnerd II @pizzarollpatrol II @laurfangirl424 II @stevieboyharrington II @yknott81 II @bucky-smiles II @buckysb-tch II @a-watson-in-search-of-a-sherlock II @heartssick II @spxder-bxck II @bottled-starr II @buckybarneshairpullingkink II @yenneffersstuff II @fangirlfictionmain II @creideamhgradochas II @queenofstarliqht II @dessinemoiunehistoire

[overdrivels]

Yay requests are open again! Could I request some Reader76 where Jack and reader were together before the fall and after all the shit goes down reader thinks Jack is dead and when the recall happens they meet again except reader doesnt recognize him as 76 and reader is all like "wow this 76 guy is such an ass i cant stand him who does he think he is!" and they constatly butt heads and general sassyness shananigans :3

Ravages of Time

“I can see you haven’t been sleeping, Jack.”

Soldier: 76 stiffens. He swears Ana’s skill as a sniper granted her the ability to see through steel itself. As though she could read his thoughts, she chuckles heartily.

“I can see it in your shoulders, you can’t fool this old eye.”

She takes her place beside him by the guardrails overlooking the sea on the Watchpoint. The sun is fast fading, heralding the end of a hectic day and the beginnings of another restless night.

Soldier: 76 sighs. “It shouldn’t have been like this,” he rasps, clearly pained.

Ana hums contemplatively, willing him to continue. The chilly breeze tousles their hair and its whistle fills the silence between them. Soldier: 76 takes in a breath, steeling himself for a story he isn’t sure he is ready to tell.

The man leans against the railing. “It was my fault. I tried to interfere where I wasn’t wanted.”

Ana nods sagely. “I heard. You took your habibi off the next three missions.”

He sighs again. She could tell he was exhausted, both physically and mentally. “Ex-, Ana. We’re not together anymore.”

She scoffs, humored by the thought. “I do not recall you two breaking up.”

“Then you didn’t hear the conversation.”

It was a scant few hours ago when he heard that you had been assigned to several critical risk missions. The level of danger was high, and the chances of death even higher.

He didn’t even know you were alive until two weeks ago when Winston introduced you to the team. He thought he was finally going to die from a heart attack, seeing you alive and well–he could have sworn you perished in Switzerland. Not a day passed where the patronizing question of ‘what if’ didn’t surface in his mind.

He could still remember the conversation clearly that led to your almost-demise.

“Can we talk?”

You cocked your head to the side, a sign he had your undivided attention. Under your scrutiny, he suddenly felt foolish for even opening his mouth. But he trusted you, and that’s why he forced himself to continue. He slapped the back of his neck, rubbing carefully like he does when he’s nervous.

“Switzerland. I need you to come with me. For…” He gritted his teeth. “For…support. I can’t do this alone anymore. Would you come with me?”

There was a moment of silence where he feared you’d laugh and tell him to stop being silly, that he can do it by himself. But to his immense relief, your eyes softened and you cupped his cheek so gently. Your hand was warm and he couldn’t help but lean into it, holding your gaze steady. “What sort of asshole would I be if I said ‘no’, Commander?”

You slapped him in the shoulder encouragingly, the mild sting it brings was a fierce reminder of your strength–strength he could always count on. “Come on already, let’s get your shit patched up with Gabe already. You’ve both waited long enough.”

You would’ve been an asshole, but an alive asshole. Not that you weren’t now, but he couldn’t have known that. There should have been no survivors. But he survived. Gabriel–Reaper–survived. Wishful thinking had made him hope that you did, too, but you were no super soldier like the two of them. So he didn’t hold his breath–he just held the doors to his heart closed just so he could even sleep at night.

But seeing you those two weeks ago made the pain return full force, almost knocking him to his knees. The doors to his heart slamming open with such intensity, he feared he may never close them again. You were different, more grey in your hair than he remembered, more intense and curt, but it was still you. Time was decidedly unkind to you.

He never knew the full effects of the saying “absence makes the heart grow fonder” until now. You didn’t recognize him–how could you, he was a different man–but he knew it was you right away even beneath the mask you wore, and his heart ached fiercely, his blood singing in his veins, for something it was denied for so long.

But he couldn’t reveal himself–it wouldn’t be fair, he told himself. He could see the way Ana looked at him and how Winston seemed eager for something to happen. There was Jesse, who definitely gave him a side-eyed glance, and there was an awkwardness that surrounded you both when you shook hands whereas you’d tackle him with a warm hug in the past.

It only made him irritated. At himself, mostly. The obvious attention everyone else was giving him didn’t help either.

It was even worse when you declared icily during your introduction, “I’m just here to finish what Jack started.”

It was all his fault, he supposed, and he resolved the fix that. What he wouldn’t give to rewind time just so he could find you again right after the blast–even before it and tell you that he was mistaken, he doesn’t need any support, he can handle these discussions alone and spare you a life of pain. A pang of guilt would strike him with dizzying force whenever he notices something about the way you’ve aged: the small limp in your step that you do your best to hide (he can hear the unevenness); the shaking of your hand when it was free; the small box of tools you kept on your person that looked like it’s been very well used.

But unless he managed to convince Tracer to do some interference, all he could do now was to make sure that this time you didn’t die on his watch and to keep his distance. He owed you that much. It was unfortunate that you didn’t see it that way especially after you found out how he went about ensuring your safety.

“Agent 76,″ you called out. He did not budge when you stomped toward him and put yourself in his face–under previous circumstances, he would’ve been inclined to lean in closer, but now, that would be far from appropriate. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“What do you mean?”

He could tell you knew he was feigning innocence, and you weren’t buying it. You crossed your arms over your chest, regarding him shrewdly behind the mask. “Listen. Just because I just answered the recall doesn’t give you a right to remove me from those missions.”

Ah. You found out much faster than he thought you would (he should’ve remembered not to underestimate your thoroughness from experience), but the fact that you haven’t yet started kicking his ass yet meant that you were going to give him a chance to explain himself.

Like hell he will.

“Those missions were wrongfully assigned to you. You weren’t ready for them.” He almost winced at the boldness of his own lie.

Slowly, like a mother leading a child, you spoke carefully, “Agent 76, I am not a child. I am old enough to retire. Just because you possess more grey than me doesn’t mean that you have the right to control me. Do you understand me?”

“I’m not trying to control you–”

“Then what do you call vetoing the missions that I was assigned to and accepted?” you whispered.

A pang of guilt made him want to shrink, but he held fast. “According to your profile, you haven’t been on the field in too long. You need to work your way up.”

You barked a laugh. Shit, that laugh made his back prickle–you were annoyed. “Excuse you, old man! I’m not spring chicken, but I was former Overwatch–not even the Strike Commander himself could beat my ass without going full strength.” You smacked the back of your hand against his chest. “What the fuck would you even know about missions being for me or not?”

Damn, he forgot how strong your strikes were.

‘It’s all in the wrist,’ you’d used to say as you playfully backhanded his shoulder to demonstrate. Even with his SEP enhancements and accelerated healing, it still left a mark.

You whipped a finger to his face in warning.

“You may have answered Recall faster than me, but that doesn’t mean that it makes you the fucking boss of me. Got that, soldier boy?”

God, you didn’t have to tell him that–of course he knew, he knew better than anyone else just how strong you were even in the face of adversity. But at the same time, it’s because he knew you that he had to do this.

You may think you hide it well, but he doesn’t miss the way your arm seizes right after the gun recoils during the demonstration you give them to prove that you’ve still got what it takes to be Overwatch; he isn’t able to see through your mask, but he had been with you long enough to know you were in pain even after you take a victory pose among a heap of broken training bots. It was an impressive sight made no less so by Solider: 76′s knowledge of your pain.

“Speak for yourself,” he rebutted. It may not have been the right thing to say, but he was just looking out for your well-being. “I am in charge of team compositions. If I don’t think you should be on a mission, you’re out. It’s for your own good.”

He can tell your face has twisted up into a deep scowl that he desperately wishes he could see so that he can kiss it away, but balls his hands into fists to stop.

Finally, you spat out, “You’re a real piece of work, you know that?”

He knows. “When you prove yourself, then we’ll reconsider it.”

“You guys don’t have enough people to be picky about this, 76.”

Yes, that’s another thing he knows, but knowing that, he still needed to protect you. “Prove yourself first, then we’ll talk.”

Your shoulders pulled back, and your whole stance stiffened. Mentally, he braced himself for a blow or another harmless (but painful) slap to the chest. But you didn’t. Instead, you growled, annoyed.

“Fine. Fine.” You threw up your hands. “You don’t want another asset on your team, fine. Have it your way, Commander. Go fuck yourself.”

It was unbelievable how much it stung to hear you say his title so sarcastically when he was used to it being used as a term of endearment. Before he could even recover from the stinging verbal blow, you were gone, uneven steps now more obvious than ever echoing in the hall.

He had let you go. Foolishly. 

“So you’re going to leave it like that, Jack?” Ana asks softly. 

Soldier: 76 let out a heavy sigh, shoulders sagging. He almost didn’t have the strength to lift his head and just let it hang pathetically. He never did like fighting with you. And knowing that it was his fault that you were even doing this only made him feel worse.

“I don’t know, Ana. I was…”

The words die in his mouth, leaving an imaginary bitterness he could almost taste. He was what? Foolish? Just trying to protect you? He didn’t know. The sun has long gone down, leaving the two old soldiers in the cold and misery of Jack’s memories.

Ana gives him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. “No matter how long it’s been, not everything is lost, Jack. Go, it’s not too late.”

He has almost half a mind to refute that because it’s been a decade and he’s hurt you much more than he could ever make up for, but the look she gives him is solemn and sympathetic. He’s suddenly reminded of the explosive argument she had with Fareeha after their first meeting in over a decade, and the cookies that the two shared just last week, and he is forced to reconsider.

It really might not be too late, but he doesn’t know if he has the strength to tell you the truth. Not when you were his strength all along.

This was a little rushed, but I just–OW. That prompt hurt. I couldn’t help but keep going on and on. 

[ashinterred]

Civil War Balls and Yankee Deserters

Its 1:30AM and i am alone. Its 1:30AM and i cannot sleep. You are so far away and i am too sad to comprehend the miles of asphalt that separates these souls of ours. These cigarettes burned hearts that found each other when they both decided it was better to be alone than to be lonely in a group of people. These black light minds that only display the parts of ourselves we wanted to keep hidden from the world but would ultimately showcase to prove we are stronger with it than without. Our shadow box bodies that we see everyday and feel ashamed to have made them look this way but somehow, you found love in mine as i did yours. It's now 1:40AM and i am depressed. It's now 1:40AM and i dont want to be alone anymore. I dont fear your absence as i do you departure for when you leave a piece of my soul leaves with you and the piercing, stinging pain that flows from that void forces me to hole up inside my mind like a fist protesting death. But when youve been gone, that pain subsides leaving a dull, meaningless ache that just never ceases to remind me that you have a choice to come back to me or not. Oh, how i hope you choose the former! Im left, an insomniac, that thinks too much and writes what sounds good. Im left, in the early morning, writing random words that fit because, right now, im free. The ideas of the day have yet to have been found and i am finding them with you as my muse. It's 1:50AM and i can feel my eyes sinking into my skull. It's 1:50AM and i can barely smile. Dark circles surround my eyes as i try to go to sleep, but cant. I worry too much about you, i worry about your safty. Im wondering if you can sleep, without me, just fine.. or are you so drunk you wont remember going to bed? Are you awake now? I was told to take a pill that will make my Anxiety go away enough to let me sleep but i cant find the bottle and even if i could, i would take them all just so that we never have to "handle" another attack again. Maybe if i take them all, i will finally get enough sleep to never be tired again. Its 2AM and i am going to go to sleep...