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The Only Truth... | Part One

The Only Truth I Know Is You Masterlist

John "Bucky" Egan x POW Flight Nurse!Female Reader

While your journeys are very different, fate brings both you and Major John Egan to Stalag VIIA in Moosburg, Germany.

Warnings: Language, Angst, Descriptions of Aerial Combat and Plane Crash, Reader Injury (2nd Degree Burns), Death, Blood, Gore, Angst, John Egan Injury, Forced March, Hospital Setting, POW Camp Setting, SS Officers, Mental Health Struggles, Inevitable Historical and Military Inaccuracies, Rating - 18+ ONLY.

Author’s Note: This is a work of fiction based off the portrayal by the actors in the Apple TV+ series. I hold nothing but respect for the real life individuals referenced within.

Word Count: 7531

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January 8, 1945

A cacophony of thunderous explosions and shrieking metal shredded your restful state where you lay perched on the bottom stretcher in the back of a C-47, desperately trying to recover from the routine 0400 wake-up that came on mission days before your arrival at the advance airfield where some eighteen wounded men would come under your care. As the plane lurched and shuddered again, you bolted upright, cracking your head on the middle stretcher above you with a sharp expletive as the rows of jerry cans that you had helped load to fight off pre-flight jitters rattled against the floor where they were strapped down.

You had never experienced flak before. You had trained for the possibility of it at the School of Air Evacuation in Bowman Field, Kentucky, but the reality of it was something entirely different. Watching pinpricks of daylight appear through the alarmingly thin skin of the aircraft flooded your mouth with the bitter taste of adrenaline, your heart pounding violently as it prepared to fight or flee – but given that you were thousands of feet in the air, neither of those options were really available to you. Scrambling to your feet, you stumbled along the narrow path between the supplies that had been crammed onto the plane to be left at the front, to be traded for wounded patients on landing, and tried to get to the nose of the plane. Tried to get to cockpit where Major Roy and Captain Mercer were, pilot and co-pilot – the senior officers. They would surely know what to do.

Grateful for the decision to add your sheepskin flight jacket and gloves to your uniform of olive drab jacket and slacks with shirt and tie, a garrison cap pinned onto your sensibly styled hair, you still felt a shiver run through you despite the added warmth as you neared the radioman Warren and the brand new, baby-faced navigator Schmidt. With brown eyes wide as saucers and freckles splattered haphazardly across his face, you would not have believed the boy to be a day over fifteen. Given the fact that the plane had wandered into the range of enemy guns, your suspicions were growing all the more likely. Turning to see the back of your surgical technician, Fitzgibbons, blocking the entry into cockpit, you were about to tap his shoulder when a shower of wet, hot viscera splattered across you from the left – the only trace of Warren that remained, as a ragged hole in the fuselage now replaced his radio operator’s position.

You were vaguely aware of someone screaming, not realizing the haunting and horrified noise was emanating from your throat until Fitzgibbons grabbed you by the shoulders and shook you firmly.

“Lieutenant!” He shouted, seemingly exasperated with you. “Are you hurt?!”

Snapping your mouth shut, you smeared your hands across your face and down your body, shaking your head as the acrid smell of fuel flooded your nostrils, returning your senses to you. You quickly looked to Schmidt on your right, worried he might have been in the line of fire, and frowned to see him trying to yank a sizeable piece of metal from his shoulder.

“No, don’t!” You shouted firmly and grabbed the first aid kit from the wall above him, quickly padding the penetrating object with gauze and wrapping it, finding the purpose and procedure of it steadying. “It’ll keep the bleeding slow, ok? Keep it in, Schmitty.” You offered what you hoped was a reassuring smile, but with the remnants of Warren, mixed with the contents of the fuel tanks, splattered across you, who was to say what image you presented in that moment.

“It’s all my fault. It’s all my fault Ma’am, we shouldn’t even be here, got lost in the clouds an…” He began to blubber, and the plane shuddered and lurched again as Mercer tried banking out of the hail of flak, fairly dumping you into his lap.

“Easy now, easy…” You cleared your throat as it began to burn with irritation, lifting your head to see smoke billowing in from the hole in the fuselage.

“That’s it, we’re bailing out!” Roy yelled from the cockpit as he hit the bailout bell and Fitzgibbons quickly collected your parachutes, but you insisted on sending Schmidt down the aisle and out the door behind the wing first, given that he was injured.

“You know what to do Schmitty, try not to land on that shoulder.” You nodded firmly as you strapped your parachute on, fumbling slightly due to shaking hands and your thick gloves, but the repetition during your training paid off with your eventual success.

“Yes, Ma’am.” He nodded before seeming to vanish out the side of the plane.

“Sergeant.” You turned to Fitzgibbons, but he shook his head.

“You may outrank me Ma’am but you’re still a lady.” He muttered stubbornly, gesturing insistently toward the door.

“Get a move on!” Came Mercer’s impatient cry from the now-distant cockpit and you glared at Fitzgibbons.

The smoke that had been curling around you ignited then, a wall of flame licking through the air, fixing to separate Fitzgibbons from the door. A look of pure terror crossed his face – in a plane loaded with fuel, carrying dozens of jerry cans and tanks of oxygen, fire was certain death. Gripping the doorframe tightly with your right hand, you flung your left forward in advance of the encroaching, fierce heat, somewhat protected by the leather you wore, though the searing pain on your wrist assured you the flames had still found a way through. Grasping the surgical technician by the collar, you yanked him toward you just before the oppressive wall of fire sealed off the front half of the plane, checking that he nor his parachute were alight before shoving him out the door. You did not wait long to follow him.

Tears were streaming down your cheeks as the sleeve of your jacket was smoldering, the leather hardening and shrinking, the fleece on the inside trapping agonizing heat against your flesh. But your first priority was gravity. Yanking on the ripcord, you cried out at the sharp jolt from your midsection as the parachute caught the air and flung you upward before you began a gentle descent. Then you were able to begin frantically smacking at your coat, trying in vain to stop further injury. But it was not the leather itself that was burning, rather the fuel that coated the surface of it, and it refused to be put out. You had to get the damn thing off.

At last the disorienting cloud gave way to mercifully flat Italian farmland, the ground rushing up to meet your feet. You punched the harness free from your chest, yanking off your gloves, and wrestling free of your coat before stumbling forward toward the sound of a nearby stream, collapsing onto your chest to submerge the screaming flesh of your arm into the icy water. The relief of it drew a soft sob from your throat. The sliver of skin that had been exposed between your sleeve and glove was already starting to blister, would surely scar. You could not see the rest of your forearm trapped beneath your uniform sleeve, but it might have faired somewhat better.

You could have happily lay there for all of eternity, numbing the agonized nerve endings in your arm, but the sharp press of a rifle muzzle between your shoulder blades brought an abrupt end to your moment of bliss.

“Up.” A sharp command was issued in an angry, accented voice and you carefully, if awkwardly, raised up onto your knees with your hands in the air, turning to face the man.

The German soldier’s eyes widened, and his jaw hung slightly open for a moment, his shock more than evident as you revealed yourself to be a woman, before a hardened mask fell over his features once more. He gestured sharply with his rifle for you to rise to your feet and you were quick to obey. He stepped forward, reaching out as if to search you and then stopped, once again looking to your face.

You had read a pamphlet once, on what to do if you were captured. At the time, the situation had seemed utterly preposterous and unlikely, but standing face to face with a German solider in the middle of occupied Italy, you were suddenly grateful you remember something of what to do. You gave him your name followed by,

“Second lieutenant. N-741432.”

“Leutnant?” He muttered, nose crinkling, but his gaze moved to the gold butter bar on first your right shoulder and then your left, the second lieutenant’s insignia. His eyes narrowed further to see the silver wings on your left breast with the prominent N denoting your status as a Flight Nurse. “Schwester…”

The first bit of German was easy to extrapolate, sounded very much like the English version of your rank, but the second sounded like ‘sister’ more than anything else and you were not entirely certain what he was trying to communicate. He seemed finished with the conversation when he motioned to the left with his rifle.

“Go.”

And so you went, keeping your arms raised despite the arching protest of the left, past the still-smoldering remains of your flight jacket and your gloves, past your parachute tumbling across the field on the icy breeze, towards a group of two more German soldiers who seemed equally shocked as your face came into view. You supposed the slacks and loose fit of your jacket made it difficult from a distance to determine that you were a woman, but each of them was quick to smother their reactions as soon as they were revealed. One of the new fellows, so blond he barely had eyebrows, motioned for you to drop your hands and you were barely able to conceal your pain in doing so.

A flurry of Germany left his lips, making your eyebrows furrow in confusion before he gestured at the wet sleeve of your jacket. “Hurt?”

Nodding emphatically, you swallowed, pulling the fabric up slightly to reveal some of the blistered skin. The three men turned to one another, and a rather heated debate ensued, or at least that was the impression you gleaned from their tones of voice and body language, before the loudest among them seemed to prevail.

“You, come, medic.” He grasped your uninjured elbow and led you through the field on a slightly different vector toward a semi-ruined barn where several German soldiers were receiving treatment.

A soldier bearing a white armband with the Geneva cross came over when your guide beckoned and after their brief exchange, gestured for you to take a seat on an old barrel. Taking a pair of scissors, the medic carefully cut through your jacket and shirt, revealing angry, blistered skin all the way up to your elbow. Very gently, your arm was bandaged before he offered you a couple of pills that you did not recognize, and you refused them with a soft shake of the head. He shrugged and tucked them back into his pocket.

“Go, schwester.”

You frowned and pointed at yourself. “Schwester?”

The medic nodded and pointed to your golden nurse’s Caduceus insignias pinned to the lower lapels of your jacket and your eyes widened in recognition. “Oh, nurse.” You muttered quietly and stood. “Thank you.” Nodding to the medic, you followed the soldier out of the farmhouse as you rolled up the ruined ends of your sleeves to keep them from flapping obnoxiously.

What followed was a seemingly endless amount of walking, your entire body beginning to shake with cold and shock, as the soldier sought out his commanding officer. Everything felt surreal, the sound of battle so close at hand, German soldiers all around you, casting repetitive glances your way – it felt as though you had stumbled into the wrong side of a John Wayne film. When, at last, you plodded into the correct house on the outskirts of a small village, you were unspeakably grateful for the fire roaring in the hearth behind the desk of the imposing German officer who glared down his nose at you.

“Too bad you’re a woman…” He muttered in startlingly good English, making it your turn to look on in shock as your legs threatened to give out. “I suppose you also only know name, rank, serial number?”

Clenching your jaw, you nodded stubbornly, trying not to let your face betray the way your heart lurched hopefully at the word ‘also’ and he exhaled a long-suffering sigh. “You can put the contents of your pockets in here.” He held out a small burlap sack and you frowned, but obediently surrendered your favorite tube of lipstick, the four spare hairpins you always carried around, and your change purse – things all stored in your uniform jacket as you found the pockets of the flight jacket too unreliable for storage anyway. Satisfied you were carrying nothing more, he nodded to the man behind you and issued an order in German.

It was difficult to convince your legs into motion again as you were led down to a grimy root cellar with a dirt floor and only one window letting in little light. You had never seen a more welcome sight in your entire life as Schmidt and Mercer lifted their faces to meet you, their equally grimy and worn-out but elated expressions quickly blurring behind tears of relief that mortifyingly flooded your eyes. Dabbing them away, you quickly moved to Schmidt’s side and frowned to see he still had the remnants of your hasty bandage job and the piece of shrapnel in place, seemingly not afforded the same medical care you had been.

“Shit, Schmitty, they didn’t do a thing for you did they.” Kneeling beside him you began to unravel the bandages and gauze. “This needs to come out, then. Captain, would you mind holding him still, sir?”

“I’ve got him.” He nodded and grabbed the boy’s hands as you took a steadying breath.

Wrapping your fingers around the protruding end of the warped, jagged piece of metal, you began to carefully pull it from his shoulder, angling it forward as an uneven, wider piece was revealed on the end. Schmidt did an admirable job of relegating his protests to whimpers and murmurs of ‘oh god,’ only letting out one great yelp as you pulled the last of it free. You would have preferred to flush the wound with something, but there was no water available. Encouragingly, though, there was no great gush of blood.

“You did so good, Schmitty.” You smiled broadly and frowned a moment at the filthy bandages you had removed from him before beginning to unravel the relatively clean ones from your own arm.

“M…Ma’am!” He protested, voice cracking as he saw the state of your skin.

“You’re at much higher risk of infection than me, Sergeant, I won’t take any argument.”

“I don’t suppose I have any say in this?” Captain Mercer arched one of his rather elegant, black eyebrows and you swallowed.

“I’m sorry sir, but not when it comes to medical treatment. Besides, they went out of their way to bandage me once, maybe they’ll do it again.” You muttered and tied off the dressing on Schmidt. “Let me know if it gets hot or more painful, ok?”

He nodded quickly, settling back against the wall and you followed suit, feeling quite fatigued, sore, and to your surprise, hungry. Resting your throbbing arm atop your knee, you leaned your head back against the bricks of the foundation, closing your eyes to listen to the scuff of jackboots across the floorboards above you. Your mind wanted to whirl like a top, to turn questions over and over like ‘Where are we?’ ‘What will they do with us?’ ‘How long will they keep us down here?’ ‘Where are Fitz and Roy?’ but it would just be a waste of energy. Your fate was no longer in your hands and what would happen next would come no matter how hard you dwelt upon it.

The sound of the door at the top of the stairs scraping across the worn floor had all three of your heads snapping up as three sets of feet tromped down into the cellar. It was difficult to hold back your smile as Fitzgibbons peered out from between two German soldiers, the first gesturing for him to join you all on the floor while the other set down a tin plate of thick slices of dark bread covered with thin smears of margarine and four mugs of bitter smelling, black coffee. The first soldier crouched down and pointed at your arm, speaking in German.

“I needed bandages.” You pointed at Schmidt, and he frowned, either not understanding, or unimpressed. Perhaps both.

He straightened with a huff before digging around in his woolen jacket to produce a thick, rectangular bundle, tossing it at you. The two of them then retreated upstairs, shutting the door firmly behind them. Fitzgibbons was on you almost immediately, grasping the folded bandage to unravel it curiously.

“This does not look good, Lieutenant.” He looked at your arm pointedly and you huffed.

“Schmitty was worse off, Fitz, needs must.” You muttered but held out your arm without further protest as he quickly familiarized himself with the foreign bandage and carefully wrapped as much of your burn as he could.

“Thank you for what you did, Ma’am.” He murmured, voice barely audible, and you shook your head quickly.

“You’d have done the same.”

He lifted his eyes to meet yours, gaze filled with a vulnerable uncertainty, and you squeezed his shoulder with your free hand.

“Let’s eat something you two.” Mercer chimed in once he had finished bandaging you and the four of you descended on the plate of food, which tasted a lot better than it appeared. The coffee was just as bitter as it smelled, but was hot and that was entirely welcome.

After the plate was emptied, Fitzgibbons looked to Mercer slowly. “Roy?”

The Captain shook his head and you swallowed your gulp of coffee painfully – of the six of you that had left the airstrip outside Rome that morning only four had made it. Two of you were injured, and your journey had most certainly only just begun now that you were captives of the German army.

As the slim shaft of light that penetrated the cellar began to fade, your companions were fetched one by one for individual questioning by the German officer who had greeted you upon your arrival. When it at last came to your turn, the sun was well set, and though you tried to pay more attention to the detail of the rustic country house, it was hard to pick out much in the low light of the sporadically placed candles.

There was a chair waiting for you opposite the desk this time and you sank into it gratefully, every muscle in your body tight with pain as it felt distinctly like someone was rubbing sandpaper over your superheated flesh with every movement you made.

“I’m terribly sorry about your radioman and pilot, must have been horribly shocking to see such things. What a terrible day you’ve endured Lieutenant.”

Shifting quietly in your chair, you shook your head as he offered a cigarette from a pack of Lucky Strikes – surely confiscated from one of your crew members as they were not so readily available in occupied Italy.

“Is there anything I can get you to ease your discomfort? Blankets? A coat? More bandages?”

Pressing your lips together in a thin line you dropped your gaze to your lap, focusing on filling your lungs to a count of three before slowly exhaling, then repeating the process. Each offer of comfort, each word of kindness was horridly tempting and yet the source also filled you with revulsion.

“It’s a far cry from Lido De Roma where you’re going, no beaches or sea air…” Your head jerked up in shock and a slow, devious smile curled onto the German officer’s thin lips as his mention of the 802nd Medical Air Evacuation Squadron’s posting finally garnered a reaction from you. “I hope you like the Alps, Lieutenant. You will see them on your way by.”

Tears of shame pricked the corners of your eyes, and you blinked them away furiously, looking to the side. Slamming his leather-clad palms flat onto the desk, you jumped and eyed him warily as he stood slowly. “If you have nothing of value to add, then?”

Inhaling slowly you repeated your name, rank, and serial number one last time – much to his ire – before he barked out an order to have you removed from the warmth of his office and returned to the cellar. This process was repeated several times at random intervals throughout the night, the four of you taking turns resting and watching for the unfriendly arrival of an errand boy soldier to haul you upstairs for another ‘chat’ with their English-speaking officer. Sometimes he was friendly, other times he was intimidating. Once he simply sat opposite you in the near-dark and glowered.

Eventually, time or patience ran out and just as the grey light of dawn began to permeate the misty winter morning, the four of you were marched as a group up the stairs and loaded into the back of a canvas-covered truck partially filled with crates. Wedging yourselves into what open spaces you could find, you had barely sat down before the vehicle lurched into motion and began its long and jolting ride to your next destination. The sun was much higher in the sky by the time you arrived at a small train station, emerging into midday, the mists long burned away. Herded across the tracks towards a cattle car, you were startled to see a group of other American soldiers – infantrymen, being loaded in.

“Up.” Came the command from the German soldier at your back and you reached up gratefully for the broad hand of corporal already in the car who helped hoist you inside.

“How the heck did you wind up here?! Ma’am…” He quickly tacked on, and you could not help but laugh a little at the bewildered expression on his face, shuffling further into the car as the last of your comrades were loaded in.

“Well the long and the short of it is, we ran into a bit of trouble during our flight…”

Captain Mercer scoffed as he came to stand behind you. “You could say that again, Lieutenant.”

The space was suddenly plunged into darkness as the door was slid shut and barred closed. You nearly toppled over as the train jostled forward, thanking Fitzgibbons as he steadied you. You embarked on a seemingly endless journey in darkness as the train ascended and descended, stopped and started, climbed and came down across unknown landscape. It was nigh impossible to see through the thin gaps between the slats of the car itself, but you knew from your ‘conversations’ with the officer that you were crossing the Alps. Could feel the air grow cold as you huddled closer to the men around you for what warmth you could glean as your breath hung from your lips in foggy exhales.

Your bladder ached until you could no longer deny needing to use the squalid bucket in the corner. Mercer, Fitzgibbons, and Schmidt formed a human wall with their backs to you, loudly clearing their throats as you took quite possibly the longest piss in the history of womankind. With that basic need met, the ravening hunger set in. Those slices of bread were long digested by the time the train came to a stop and disgorged the lot of you, blinking into the daylight like mole-people, squinting for signage.

“Moosburg.” Mercer muttered under his breath, and you hugged your arms tightly around yourself as you stumbled through the snow to form two lines as instructed by new soldiers whose uniforms sported the double lightning symbol of the SS.

You would had never thought it possible to envy a dead man, but standing there shivering in the snow as cruel-faced men in well-cut uniforms marched up and down the lines with their snarling dogs, you wondered if perhaps it would not have been better if that piece of flak had taken you out at the same time it had struck Warren. You were not entirely certain if you were strong enough for what was to come.

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April 11, 1945

Every step was an agony. It was remarkable, really, how many injuries two goons had managed to inflict on Bucky’s body in the brief moments between Buck’s escape and Lieutenant Colonel Clark’s intervention. At least two of his ribs were cracked by the butt of that rifle, severely hampering his ability to breathe properly. Then there had been the sharp kick to the back of his calf, wrenching his knee. The coupe-de-grace had been the left hook to his jaw, shredding the inside of his lower lip across his teeth and flooding his mouth with blood. If Clark had not called them off with the threat of riot, Bucky was not entirely sure he would have made it out of that village.

As it was, he had barely made it off the floor of the church the next night, requiring a great deal of prodding from DeMarco. Teeth gritted against the raw ache in every limb, every joint, he had risen to his feet through sheer force of will, knowing the alternative was a bullet to the brain. Somehow even though Buck was well on his way back to the American lines – by god he truly hoped so – Bucky could not face the thought of disappointing him by dying like that and so he had persisted. Had kept putting one foot in front of the other as they had trudged through the mud, crossing the Danube, putting another twenty kilometres between them and Nuremberg.

It had not made it any easier to keep up, however. Bucky had felt himself slowing, felt his body refusing to keep pace with the rest of the men. Every time he had lifted his eyes from the boots of those in front of him plodding through the endless muck, he had been surrounded by different faces. As he had neared the back of the group, lightheaded from pain and lack of oxygen, he had taken a second glance as he realized the faces around him were those of Brady, Cruikshank, DeMarco, Murphy, and Hamilton – all men from the Hundredth. All had been keeping pace with him.

“We’re almost at 20, Bucky.” Brady had murmured quietly under his breath, glancing back at the pair of goons bringing up the rear.

“Keep it up.” Cruikshank had nodded encouragingly.

By some miracle he had made it into the half-collapsed warehouse, crawling into a corner that was still partially covered by its patchy roof and had promptly fallen asleep. There had been a gentle prodding against his shoulder sometime later, daylight filtering in through the dust motes drifting thickly in the air and an offering of bread had been waved in front of his face. He had pushed it away clumsily before falling back asleep. Bucky’s next return to consciousness had been with his arms slung across the shoulders of DeMarco and Brady, a great amount of protest falling from their lips about the size of him.

It had been dark again. Darkness meant more walking and so he had awkwardly planted his feet. Relieved sighs had filled his ears from both his companions as the three of them worked together to propel him out of there and down the muddy road. Night had yielded to the hazy light of dawn and at last a sea of barbed wire fences, clapboard buildings and canvas tents came into view. Bucky had quite honestly never been so pleased to see a Stalag in his entire existence.

“Almost there.” Groaned Hamilton, who had since switched off with DeMarco, though the stalwart Brady had yet to budge from beneath his right arm.

As they stepped through the gates into the main courtyard, Bucky lifted his head to eye Clark blearily. “Guess they’re not gonna process us.” His words were slightly slurred as he tried to present his usual level of joviality, but the man’s brows only furrowed deeply in response.

“Get him to the hospital immediately.”

There was a chorus of ‘yes sirs’ and some hesitation before Hamilton and Brady got their bearings, but then they were on the move again. Bucky’s legs were barely responding by this point, toes mostly dragging through the incessant muddy landscape that seemed a consistent feature of every Stalag he’d had the misfortune of visiting thus far. As his vision began to go fuzzy, black dots eating away at it while it simultaneously began to dim at the edges, Bucky began to worry this might be his last camp.

“Put him right there please.”

Bucky tried to swing his head towards the most musical sound he had heard in over a year, but Hamilton and Brady were turning him to lay on his stomach, rambling about the broken ribs on his back and all he could see were worn wooden floorboards. Until suddenly your gorgeous face flooded his vision as you knelt beside his cot, your shockingly feminine fingers cradling his face to gently turn it and ensure he was not smothered in the pillow.

The style of your hair, the lashes framing your eyes, the cupid’s bow of your upper lip – the unmistakable womanliness of you; it made his heart ache.

“Must be in heaven…” He slurred as there was certainly no way he could be alive anymore. Women did not exist in this reality of underfed men and murderous goons.

“They got you good, Major, but you’re still very much with us.” You smiled warmly up at him, and he groaned out a laugh, eyes crinkling at the corners.

“You’re killing me, angel face.” He wheezed, lips clumsy and barely responsive, before promptly blacking out.

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

Your heart plummeted as you watched his eyelids fall, shuttering those stunning, if exhausted, blue eyes, terrified you had lost another one before you even had the chance to try and save him. Fingers delving beneath the collar of his shirt, you were greatly relieved to find his strong pulse. Holding your cheek in front of his notably plush lips, the bottom one all the more pronounced by his recent injury, you were even more encouraged to feel the caress of his steady breathing. Sitting back on your heels, you nodded up to his mismatched pair of friends reassuringly.

“Did he just call her ‘angelfish?’” The blond one with angular features and a mouthful of gold muttered as they watched over their friend protectively but also seeming shocked, as everyone before them had been, to find an American woman in a POW camp.

“Maybe he was going for ‘angel face?’” The brunette with sturdy eyebrows replied in a hushed voice.

“Are you gentlemen in need of anything?” You asked, fighting hard against the amused smile that wanted to break through. They were truly a distraction when you had a patient in need of attention before you.

“No, Ma’am.”

“Thank you, Ma’am” They shuffled off to leave you to your work.

Taking a moment to assess the length and breadth of your patient, you carefully worked off his leather flight jacket before untucking his uniform shirt and undershirt to reveal the deep purple bruises on his back. His friends had been very right to be worried about broken ribs – at least three by the span of the contusion. Kneeling back down you looked over his face once more, gently lifting his head to inspect both cheeks and confirm the bones were all intact. There did not appear to be anything in need of bandaging. It was most likely that undernourishment, the march, and the broken ribs all compounded to extreme exhaustion.

“What do we have here, Nurse?”

You looked up as Major Chalmers, a British surgeon, and head of the hospital emerged from one of the exam rooms. He had been a resident POW of Stalag VIIA for nearly eight months when you arrived in January, happily surrendering one of his exam rooms to become your separate quarters in return for your work in the camp hospital. It was an arrangement that benefited both of you, kept you safe and out of the male population and occupied the long and lonely hours that seemed to pass at their own pace in this place.

Chalmers had done what he could to care for your burned arm, re-bandaging it daily. However, by the time he had been able to start giving it proper care, the damage had already been done. The skin was now permanently mottled by scars, unnaturally smooth, with a texture akin to crumpled cellophane. You were always very mindful to keep your mended sleeve down to your wrist. It was not all that difficult to cover your shame when the rest of your wardrobe consisted of standard men’s POW wear from the Red Cross – the sweaters draping over half your hands and the winter coat blissfully warm but nearly swallowing you whole.

It was only due to Chalmers’ temerity that anyone walked away from the camp hospital at all. With supplies chronically low, men were dying of the most preventable and treatable things. All you could do most of the time was put on a brave face and hold their hand, give them a little comfort at the end. Even Schimdt, despite your best efforts, had found his shoulder wound quickly beset with infection in the less than sanitary environment. Penicillin was non-existent here and he had faded fast, lost in a feverish delirium as you held tight to his hand, watching the light fade from his burning eyes. Your brave façade was second nature to you by this point, showing itself more often than your real, bedraggled self who only showed her face in the cold isolation of your locked exam-room-turned-solo-combine at night.

“Newly arrived American Major, force marched over eight days, beaten two nights ago. At least three broken ribs, damage to lower lip, abrasions to the face and contusions to the back but nothing else I can see. Pulse is strong, breathing is steady, but lost consciousness almost as soon as we laid him down, sir.”

“Hmmm.” Chalmers made a noise of displeasure at the last and conducted his own exam, digging out one of the makeshift charts to add some notes before glancing at his watch. “Do we know when he last ate?”

“No, sir.” You shook your head.

“Alright, I want you to sit with him and keep an eye on his vitals. Hopefully, he’s simply sleeping this off, but I want you to get some water and broth in him as soon as he wakes up alright?”

“Yes, sir.”

Collecting the requisite liquids, you settled onto the sliver of floor space between the Major’s cot and his neighbor’s, working at folding some boiled and dried bandages, now ready for re-use. The actual hospital itself was unspeakably crowded, men nearly stacked atop one another around a small cast iron stove. Originally built for 10,000, the camp’s population had been well over that when you had arrived in January and seemed to multiply every week now. Things had become so dire, a tent hospital had been erected adjacent to the building you lived and worked in to allow for the treatment of more men. It was crowded and ripe, and even surrounded by all these humans you still felt alone as the sole representative of your sex.

As you pulled each strand of once-white fabric from the basket, carefully rolling and tucking the ends to form neat bundles, you studied the unconscious man’s face. Errant dark curls were dangling across his tall forehead and the most absurd and yet endearing dusting of hair graced his upper lip. Clearly, he was going for a Clark Gable, but it was not quite there. Even with one ear poking a mile out to the side, however, you swallowed tightly as you realized you would not change a thing about him. Taken individually his attributes seemed odd, yet combined to make an incredibly handsome whole. Not to mention his feet were dangling off the end of his cot, his shoulders barely contained by the sides of it. If he woke up, no when he woke up, he was going to be a devastating sight to behold.

Reaching the midway point of your task, you slid forward onto your knees to check his vitals, pleased they were holding steady and noting so on the chart, before settling back onto the floor. You had nearly reached the bottom of the basket when a pair of boots entered the hospital. Not German, you had long since become familiar with the way jackboots reverberated across wooden floorboards. Most likely American or British. Peering around the end of the bed your eyes widened as you caught a glimpse of a silver oak leaf – a Lieutenant Colonel! That was the highest rank you had yet to encounter in camp.

Struggling to disentangle yourself from your laundry and not kick over your patient’s waiting fluids in the process of trying to rise to your feet and accord the man the proper greeting that his rank entitled him, you looked up startled as he addressed you first.

“At ease, Nurse.”

He was the first man to seem utterly unfazed by your presence and you somehow found that unspeakably reassuring.

“Thank you, Colonel.”

“How is Major Egan?” He peered down at the still very much asleep man.

“Major Chalmers, our Surgeon, is certain it is no more than a case of exhaustion and he will recover with rest and fluids upon waking. He’s just down the hallway behind you there if you’d like to speak to him yourself, sir.”

He nodded thoughtfully as he glanced over his shoulder before looking back to you. “The Red Cross knows you’re here?”

“I filled out the card when I arrived in January, sir.” You nodded.

“Where have they put you?”

“Converted one of the exam rooms, sir. I eat, sleep, bathe separately.”

“Good.” He nodded in return, seeming quite satisfied with your answer. “Name’s Clark, please find me if you need anything.”

“Thank you very much, Colonel.” You smiled warmly, feeling strangely fragile as the warmth of it actually emanated from deep inside you rather than a mask plastered on for the comfort of the recipient.

Dismissing himself from your presence with one sharp nod, he turned to follow your directions down the hall, most likely in search of Chalmers. Turning back to eye your patient, Major Egan, you sighed a little as he remained blissfully unconscious, lips parted against the thin pillow to allow heavy exhales to fall rhythmically. There was little change to his condition as the sun made its way across the sky before hovering at the horizon, preparing to set. Your dinner was delivered to the bedside and there was a rather heated exchange between Chalmers, Clark, and a few of the guards before they conceded you could remain unlocked for the night to keep an eye on your fragile patient. This Lieutenant Colonel was obviously not someone to be trifled with.

You waved off Chalmers when he asked if you were up to the task, taking advantage of his presence to make a quick bathroom run and fetch a blanket before returning to your post. It was your first night spent amongst others in months, their soft snores and nightly noises combining with the sound of rain pattering onto the ramshackle roof to do their very best to pull you under into sleep. The downward slide of your eyelids was halted abruptly by the first vocalization from Major Egan since his contested term of endearment – angel face? Angelfish? Whatever it had been, silence had since reigned over his mouth until he began to mutter and emit soft sounds of protest, his features tense and furrowed. Shifting up onto your knees, you lay one hand over his clenched fist, trying to smooth the crease in his brow with the thumb of your other.

“It’s alright Major Egan, you’re safe.” You soothed in a hushed whisper, hoping to dispel whatever unseen terror was plaguing his thus far peaceful sleep.

He shifted slightly in response, lips smacking a little as his hand moved with alarming speed to engulf yours in a tight grip and hold it close to the side of his chest. Barely smothering your gasp of surprise, you held your breath a moment until he stilled completely, features relaxing and breath evening out as he slipped deeper into sleep once more. Exhaling slowly you gnawed on your lip a moment before shifting to sit on the floor with your back against the cot, hand still very much held captive by his. Allowing yourself to drift a little more, quite certain any movement on his part would now alert you to his wakening, you barely noticed the hourly checks the goons were making on you – clearly uneasy about having you roam free amongst the hospital patients, but for whatever reason Clark’s demands had been honored and it was a refreshing change around here.

It was just before dawn of the following day when Major Egan began to shuffle and groan behind you, your hand slipping free from his. You straightened stiffly, turn to watch him roll onto his uninjured side and take stock of his surroundings.

“Good morning, Major, have a good rest?” You asked quietly, hoping not to wake the others sleeping around him.

His head immediately snapped down towards you and he eyed you in bewilderment once again. “I thought you were a hallucination.” He rumbled, voice roughened by disuse.

You smirked slightly and nodded. “I got that impression. Thirsty?”

He bobbed his head in a small nod, and you slid to your feet, grasping his elbows to help him sit up. Grabbing the mug from the ground, you offered it to him, only allowing him to take a small sip before pulling it back. He blinked at you sluggishly for a moment before you offered him the mug again. After three limited sips, which he clearly found frustrating, you allowed him to keep hold of the mug as you wrapped your fingers around his thick wrist to track his pulse.

“How long was I out?” He asked once you were finished noting your findings on his chart.

“Almost a day. Seems as though you really needed the rest. Ready to try a little broth?” You smiled as he nodded once more and picked up the other mug from the ground. “I saved you some, I’ll get it warmed up.”

He slowly lay back down as you took the mug of broth over to the stove in the centre of the room and set it on top, swirling the liquid until it was steaming and then decanting it into his now empty water mug so it would not burn his hands. As you returned to his bedside, he leveraged himself up with barely concealed, painful effort and you frowned as you set the mug in his hands.

“I’m here to help with that, Major.”

“Please,” he took a sip of the steaming liquid, “call me Bucky.”

You smiled and introduced yourself properly as well before your lips tugged into a mischievous grin. “But do feel free to keep calling me angelfish, I certainly haven’t gotten that one before.”

He choked a little on his next sip, giving you a rueful albeit lazy smirk. “Kick a man when he’s down why don’t ya, angelfish.”

You were unsuccessful in smothering your answering giggle, several of the men around you muttering and tossing restlessly as you had accidentally woken them. Bucky pressed a long finger to his lips teasingly before turning back to his broth, slowly finishing it before setting the empty mug on the floor beside the low cot.

“I uh, am sure the facilities are lacking but…” He raised an eyebrow meaningfully and you swallowed, gesturing for him to follow you, and assessing his movements with your medically trained eye.

It was of course a test, of his balance, pain level, and energy to see how he moved across the floor and into the rustic patients’ washroom. You, of course, left him to his own devices in there, but walked him back to the bed, noting how he grew stiffer with each step.

“I’m sorry we don’t have anything for the pain.” You whispered when he lay down once more on his stomach, small grunts of discomfort escaping him.

He shook his head. “S’fine, angelfish.” He mumbled softly, sleep tugging at him again already as you tucked him in with the worn blanket.

“Rest then, Bucky.” You soothed, relieved that he was quite cognizant, able to keep his food down, and resting well.

This one might make it.

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

Read Part Two

The Only Truth I Know Is You Masterlist

Tag list: @gretagerwigsmuse, @luminouslywriting, @softspeirs, @sunny747

[oepionie]

—"MY DUMBASS SOPPING WET CAT" leona kingscholar

🎸masterlist | 💬ao3 link

synopsis: "are you insane?! look at you! you're soaking wet!" "i don't care. i had to come see you." in the middle of a stormy night, you hear knocking at your door and find leona standing outside your dorm in the pouring rain. it seems that he has a question for you.

⊹ [ cw ] — passing mention of freezing◞

⊹ [ tags ] — FLUFF.GN! READER | soft leona agenda, mutual pining, kissin◞

⊹ [ w.c ] — 800+◞

Thunder rattles the ground as a bright white flare lights up the dreary dark halls of Ramshackle. The rain pattered against the roof while you and Grim huddled in a blanket. Both of you were watching a soap opera on TV, waiting for the storm to pass.

Grim had long since dozed off to dreamland, snoring quietly, but you stayed up, far too engrossed in the family drama on TV.

As you grabbed the remote to play the next episode, the last thing you expected was to hear a knock on the door.

Now, cats were notorious for hating water, you were pretty sure of that. Those furry little balls of fluff loathed being hit by even a single drop of rain.

So, why in the Twisted Wonderland was Leona Kingscholar standing outside your dorm in the middle of a pouring storm?

Leona's hands were buried in the jacket he somehow had managed to grab in his haste. He kept his attention fixed to his feet as he rubbed the back of his neck. "Bout time you opened the door, herbivore."

"Are you insane?! Look at you! You're soaking wet!" Dumbfounded, you pulled Leona into your dorm and ran to fetch him a towel. The lion followed your retreating form with a paralyzed gaze, uncharacteristically silent.

Was running through the rain really worth it just to see you? He debated just making a run for it. The entire thing had been a spur-of-the-moment decision, anyway. However, before he could do anything, you returned and tossed a fluffy towel over his head. Leona took it into his hands, draping it over his shoulders.

"C'mon. You're making my doormat soggy." You grumbled, nose scrunching up as you pulled the lion into your dorm.

Leona slams the door shut behind him. He pulls you back by the collar of your shirt, dragging you to stagger back until your back was pressed up against the wall. He rests one hand beside your head and uses the other to lift your chin up towards him.

"What are we?" Leona mutters whilst staring at you, taking his merry time to take in every little feature on your face. His expression was contemplative, apprehension swimming in his eyes.

"I dont know-Rivals?" You snort, laying a head on his shoulder. Leona looks down at you with an annoyed expression. Chuckling, you peer up at him through your lashes. "What do you want us to be?"

He stays silent and stares at your lips, glancing back up at you for permission. You nod and he wraps a muscular arm around your waist. Your hands grip the fabric of his shirt, tugging on it slightly as you lean up to reach him. Leona cranes his neck and meets you halfway. He kisses you sensually, moving his hand down to rest around your neck and holding your hand with the other. You pull back and Leona chases after your lips. Giggling, you press the back of your hand against his mouth.

"Woah there, tiger. You're still cold and drenched. Let's go to the living room."

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"That really all you have? Crowley didn't have anythin' better to give you?" Plopping down on the couch, Leona scoffed as he watched you drag a bulky heater over. Sighing, you pat the rusty metal. "Deadbeat crow-dad, remember?"

While you fumbled with the old switches, he took a mental note to gift you a new one soon. Old-fashioned tech like that isn't reliable enough to keep you warm during the winter - you could end up freezing to death. It was a situation he wanted to avoid at all costs, especially now that you've wormed your way into his heart.

Finally, after some tinkering, the heater buzzed to life. You clapped your hands, the giddy grin on your face making Leona's lips curve into a small smile. Cute.

"Anyways. Look at you. How much of a dumbass do you have to be to run through a storm like that?" You huffed, hands on your hips as you looked down at him.

The creaky worn down couch was already starting to darken and soak up the rainwater on his clothes. Leona fumbled with his hands, gaze moving to his feet.

"I don't care. I just-" He rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. "I had to come see you." 

"Why's that?" You questioned, raising an eyebrow at him. Leona blinked. Even he wasn't sure. 

He hadn't expected to feel as strongly about you as he did. These were the kinds of things he thought a person like him was too rough around the edges for. It drove him wild and caused him to daydream about mushy lovey-dovey things he'd never considered before. Despite that, he wasn't ready to fully admit it yet, and somehow, he thinks you knew.

"You always have to ask dumb questions. I just fucking wanted to." Leona scoffed, wrapping his arms around your waist and burying his face into your stomach. His eyes fluttered shut as you stroked your deft fingers over his damp hair, undoing the knots and tangles with care. Snorting at the lion, you poked his cheek and jeered at him.

"Dumbass."

"Your dumbass, at least."

Likes and Reblogs are greatly appreciated and really motivating on my end!

Taglist: @keedas @spadecentral @crypticbibliophile @pastellepastary @cassidycampfire @cocomollo @poisoniousheart @anonima-2 @kawaiipotatoghost ↳ want to be added?

[whorbidmore]

okay, so, I've fallen victim to the leon kennedy brainrot steadily overtaking me, following me from Tumblr to Pinterest, to Instagram and even the absolutely fucking dreaded application of TikTok. I don't even use it that often??? and the algorithm is just like 'wow, yeah, this little fuckers gay as hell send in the 40 year old meow meow!!' and having watched Death Island fairly recently, I'm gonna have my opinions on what this dude would be like. Cus my brain loves to rationalize shit and think ab 'what if this mf was someone real?' so... fuck it.

Leon Soft Kennedy Headcanons

SFW

accidentally bigoted. - im sorry but let's be so fucking real here. he's a 40 something year old man who spent the majority of his life in either the military, a police training academy in the 90's, or otherwise working under the U.S Federal System with minimal/no time between missions to unpack absolutely everything he's got going on... the guys gonna have some problematic tendencies. Obviously that doesn't mean he means any of that or is incapable of change, etc. etc., but I know for damn certain this dude would laugh a little at Bill Burr's borderline to blatantly misogynistic material and has probably chuckled unironically at the attack helicopter jokes. But, he's not a complete dick, and would definitely become more critical of those kinds of jokes if it's pointed out to him.

honest to God, Dad Without Kids™ - it's not simply enough for me to leave it at 'but it's the vibes!!' so, I'm gonna break this shit down. Leon is absolutely Gen X incarnate. I can fucking guarantee you that on his off days he accidentally ends up dressing as an undercover cop; I'm talking cargo shorts, light blue button up, those fucking standard issue boots cus "they're perfectly good shoes" and those stupid ass sunglasses... you know the ones I'm talking about. Let's say you're living with him, right? And you're... you, and you wanna watch something on TV. This dude would strain himself getting up like a turtle fallen backwards on its shell, stand up, walk right in front of the TV screen and stand there with his hands on his hips. It doesn't matter that he had to piss, he needs to get a better look of what's happening! Does those really loud, obnoxious coughs and sneezes, absolutely blows his back out doing one at least five times a year.

Only watches British Reality TV - Considering he's canonically a film buff, I'll say that this is purely for whatever he gravitates towards on general streaming services. I honestly don't see him being the type to regularly tune in to standard American cable TV, or only does so under specific circumstances like American Ninja Warrior or maybe Forged in Fire if there's absolutely nothing else. It's not something that's exclusive to Americans, — I'm from New Zealand and I do this too, — but Leon absolutely falls into the category of watching British Reality and Game shows purely because of the accents. I'm talking Jeremy Kyle, The Big Fat Quiz of Everything, Taskmaster, The Great British Bake Off and so on and so forth. It doesn't matter that baking isn't his forté or a passion of his, if Josephine curdles her buttercream by over mixing, his hands are in his hair in utter disappointment. 100% tries to mimic their accents too. We all do it, don't lie.

Has... very dated music tastes - I don't know if you could guess, but the last paragraph included me calling myself out and name dropping some shows I watch anyway or grew up watching, and I'm just saying that this is gonna be no different. If anything? This'll be worse! Since I'm very passionate about the music I listen to and have the inability to keep my interests separated from the other, of course my love of particular bands will bleed over into my interpretation of Leon's character! Anyway, all that for me to say that Leon fucking LOVES 90's grunge musicians, specifically Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, as well as early nu metal bands like Korn (their dubstep phase did not happen.), TOOL, and Rage Against the Machine — and no, he unfortunately doesn't see the irony of him being a fed and listening to Rage, — but would also have a soft spot for psych rock, post-punk and shoegaze. My man's definitely laid awake at night, sobbing without expression as he struggles to accept that Ada never really wanted him like he wanted her while listening to fucking Slowdive. My hottest take here is that he doesn't really listen to Deftones. Like he'll occasionally blast My Own Summer, Change, Bored or Rosemary, but anything outside of those? He just didn't listen to 'em. My second hottest take is that he does NOT like Slipknot, which kind of pains me 'cus I do, but I fucking bet you this dude would actually adopt one piece of "Gen Z lingo" or whatever just call them cringe. Though admittedly he would've been jamming the fuck out to Psychosocial and The Devil in I when they came out. Went off the deep end in Vendetta, obviously, and drunk-cried himself to sleep on the couch listening to Linkin Park.

Very confusing spending habits - On one hand, we all understand that Leon came from money, — he was implied to have been born into a mob family from my understanding? And I doubt he'd ever really had to worry about being fully, irrevocably broke, — but I'm sure that growing up in the U.S Foster Care System made him at least a little more cautious of where his money comes from, where it's going, what he's spending it on, etc. So, on the one hand, he's apprehensive to spend recklessly, particularly on perishables. But also, if he can drop over $100,000USD on a motorcycle that got absolutely fucking cheese grated into the road, and spend a perceived, metric fuck ton of money on designer leather jackets and massive watches, it's gonna be hard for me to call him 'financially conscious'. On one hand, he gets apprehensive on spending more money than he needs to on food since he's "just gonna shit it out later", but if he sees a cool watch or a nice suit in a shop window? Money's suddenly not an issue! Not because he's materialistic, but because the one thing he really maintains a sense of control over in his life are his possessions and the way he dresses. The D.S.O can call him in for another months long mission whenever they please, and all he can realistically do is allow the government to tug on his leash and put him where he's needed. He may as well spend their money on things he wants!

Gets out... enough? But also, not really? - So, personally I've pegged Leon as more of an introverted person, — amateurly typed his MBTI as possibly ISFJ? — so he doesn't really feel the need to go out and meet new people or really hang out with anyone. If somebody invites him out? Sure, he'll go. Otherwise, it rarely occurs to him to meet up with friends or colleagues at a cafe or anywhere. I think he'd prefer to just go there alone, mostly for the sake of having somebody else cook for him as opposed to actively seeking out the atmosphere. It's pure convience in his mind. And remember when I said in the beginning about him accidentally being at least a little misogynistic? Yeah, that was me trying to say that he regularly tries to hit on younger waitresses. Not because he actually wants anything to do with them, but simply because it's an ego boost. He likes that he can make girls half his age blush or offer him their numbers, because it tells him that he's still desirable, and ultimately, that gives him the power to reject them politely and go about the rest of his day. If they don't reject him first, of course. Admittedly, Leon's audacity towards women peaked during Infinite Darkness.

Since I'm planning on posting more NSFW headcanons for this guy, — and more NSFW kinds of posts, — here is the obligatory Minors DNI attachment. For your own safety, I don't care if what I have to say is tame so far, you can hold it off I promise.

[444rockstargf]

ive never made a request before im a bit nervy omg

but could u maybe do smth about like a sweet innocent little y/n meeting euro (or maybe even kappa) and he just wants to ruin her innocence and make her a total whore for him (maybe slight undertones of cnc IF youre comfortable with that)

K IM NERVOUS TY

don't be nervous, anon! thank you so much for reaching out & sharing your ideas!

"said i was flawless, true perfection." | euronymous

ridin'. - lana del rey

✮⋆˙ [tags] @faesucksass @lustkillers @mayathepsychic1999 @josibunn @si1nful-symph0ny @vanlisbon @livingdead-reilly @oliviah-25 @lankysimp@auggiethecreator @livingdead-materialgirl @monkeyfart@imoonkiss @nom-nommmm1 @xxbl00d-cl0txx @k1ll3rh0rr0r @wildathevrt @mommymilkers0526 @greenxgloss @wild-rose-35

female!reader x r!euronymous

word count: 1.7k

contents: blowjob, public sex, masturbation

who the hell thought it would be a good idea to sell lana del rey vinyls in a black metal record store?

business at the shop had been slow. euronymous sat behind the cashier, lighting himself a cigarette as the clock neared noon. he sighed deeply, putting his feet on the desk as he took the tv remote, flipping through channels mindlessly. he’d figured to take his break a little early. it didn’t seem like anyone was planning on showing up anyway.

the sun outside shone just a little too bright. euronymous groaned, standing up and making his way to the window to close the blinds. he peeked outside through the glass, the streets nearly empty with the exception of the occasion person strolling by. he grumbled, closing the shutters and rubbing a stressed hand over his face. he needed to make a sale, even if it was only one. all he needed was an angel from heaven to stroll by…

the bell above the door chimed, snapping euronymous out of his train of thoughts. “we’re off for break, man. come back in an hour.” he muttered. you froze in your tracks, raising an eyebrow. you cleared your throat and he glanced over at you. “i said get los-” he finally locked eyes with you, seeing a woman instead of his usual audience.

his eyes were wide with shock as they travelled down your body. you were just about the furthest thing from death metal he’d ever seen walk into the shop. it’s not like you were adorned in pastel rainbows, but he’d never expect someone like you to show up at a store like this.

he cleared his throat, walking back behind the desk as you began to stroll through the shop. “i don’t think we have the type of music you listen to, lady?” already at the section for the artist you were looking for, you looked at him. “you sure? cuz i think i see what i need right here.” you rolled your eyes, starting to flip through different albums as euronymous glared at you.

this new sale was already attracting all the wrong types of people. you looked like a doll, one meant to be used and destroyed by a ruthless owner. not wandering through a black metal store like it was your second home. silence filled the environment, much to your comfort but it made euronymous very uncomfortable. he’d been used to cracking conversations with whoever walked through the door, but he didn’t know how to go about that with you.

after taking a deep breath, he spoke. “everything going okay over there?” his words were forced, but you looked back at him with a smile. “going just fine, thanks.” your sweet words had a bite to them, like you were mocking him for something. he found himself getting intrigued about a person he had met less than a minute ago.

after what felt like an eternity, you picked 5 vinyls and took them to the cashier. you set them down in front of him, you two now less than a foot apart. he glanced at you as he rang up your items. “you come to places like this often, doll?” you swallowed hard, shaking your head. he added up the total before reading it out to you. “your total will be $401.59.” your eyes widened to the size of saucers. “400 dollars?! i don’t have that kind of money on me!” you bent over to read the total off his screen, your tight dress slipping down your chest slowly and revealing your cleavage to him.

your breasts waved right in front of his eyes and his breath grew shallow. your arousing scent filled his nostrils. he squirmed slightly in his seat, heart hammering in his chest. you were almost completely revealing your tits to him compeltely by accident. he had only know you for a few minutes and was already getting a taste of how naive you were.

his gaze bored into your chest until you stood upright again, picking at your fingernails. “i-i had no idea that these would be so expensive…” euronymous clasped his hands over his lap, a boner already sprouting underneath. “well you’ve gotta pay for them one way or another, lady.” he paused, a sinister idea brewing in his mind. “i’d hate to get the cops involved in our business.”

your heart stopped for a second as you frantically shook your hea.d “n-no, of course not…” you sighed deeply, trying to think of a way to get out of this situation. you looked right into his cold eyes, speaking so softly that he could barely hear you. “p-please, find it in your heart to help me out. i’ll… i’ll do anything…” that line alone was the perfect telltale of how much porn you watched, but maybe euronymous was the clueless one for not picking up on your obvious hints.

you fiddled with the thin chain aorund your neck, pouting slightly as his pupils dilated. he stood up from his seat with a small grin, extending his hand to you. “let’s step into my office, sweetheart. then we can talk business.” you nodded, taking his cold, pasty hand in yours as he walked you into the small room behind him, locking the door.

he looked at you right in your cartoon eyes, your face resembling one of a make-believe character that was too good to be true. he leaned against his personal desk, beckoning you to come closer to him. ou stood right infront of him, his arm slowly slithering around your waist. he spoke in a whisper, eyes locked on your nipples that barely poked out through your dress.

“you want those records real bad, don’t you?” you nodded, chest rising and falling slowly as you took deep reaths. his smile turned slightly sadistic as he pulled you into him, his breath hitting the cave of your ear. “then i’m going to make you work for it, whore…” you almost choked as euronymous grabbed the neck of your dress, tugging it down and making your tits pop out.

your gasped, your pierced nipples painfully erect. he kneaded your bugs between his fingers, making your knees go weak, much to his pleasure. the boner he had been fighting all this while was roaring to be let out, a mess of precum already spilling in his black jeans. “get on your knees, bitch.” you went down without protest, your face an inch away from his bulge. he grabbed the back of your head, bringing your lips to it and making you kiss him through the fabric, a low groan escaping his lips.

his dick throbbed and tiwtched through the denim, his body instantly reacting to your indirect touch. “tell me you want this cock, doll… say it.” you swallowed hard, gazing up at him trough your eyelashes as you spoke hoarsely. “i-i want your cock, sir…” you didn’t know what to address him as, so you went with the best choice. he smiled, his hand moving to unbuckled the weapon of a belt that was around his thin waist.

the metal clanged to the ground. he unbuttoned his jeans, biting his lip as his cock sprung out and slapping the base of his stomach, nearly hitting you in the face. you flinched, mouth gaping open. “i-it’s so big…” you whispered, making him chuckle. “and you’re gonna take every inch of it, you hear me?” you nodded, feeling a soaking sensation spreading in your panties.

he gave himself a few lazy pumps, connecting the tip with your lips. you opened you mouth slightly, not enough for him to fit himself in. he grabbed your jaw, forcing it open all the way before shoving himself all the way in. you gagged eyes welling with tears as he grabbed the side of your head.

he put on a fake pout. “aw, too big for you, angel?” his arrogance was unlike anything you’d ever seen before, but you let him have it. a deal was a deal. one you adjusted to his size, you slowly began to bob your head up and down his shaft, gazing up at him with shiny eyes. his core heated up as he listened to your lewd gagging and gurgling.

“you’re a natural, you nasty bitch…” his eyes shaded like a lust-filled haze, as if you were the only thing in the world right now. your hands felt completely useless in this whole ordeal, so you reach one underneath your dress, starting to touch yourself through your panties. you moaned softly, the vibrations feeling like pure bliss to him.

his hair feel into his face as profanities slurred out from him. he slammed his cock into your throat, not even lettinig you get a breath of air. but the pleasure outweighed the discomfort for you, your fingers coating in your liquids as you slipped your panties to the side. he noticed this in an instant, his voice growing shaky. “y-yeah… touch yourself for me, you slut…”

you used your other hand to fondle his balls as they slapped against your chin. his tip repeatedly rammed into your uvula, the slaty taste of his precum making your throat convulse around him. he used his thumbs to gently wipe the tears rolling down your cheeks. he forcefully fucked your face as you fingered yourself even quicker. his cock abosrbed your moans like a sponge, the feeling being better than anything he’d ever felt.

his moans becamemore intense and more frequent as the warmth of your throat took him in like a blanket. time began to go elastic as euronymous felt the pleasure getting to his head. the sound of your gurgling was intoxicating. you swirled your tongue around his girth, finally pushing him to the edge. he bit his lip, drawing blod as he whipped himself out of your mouth and shot his cum onto your tits like he was frositng a cake.

you panted as he the string s his you, a smile growing on your face. “such a dirty girl…” you licked his tip, cleaning off the last bit of cum and finishing him off. his breath was heavy like he just ran a marathon. you stood back up, tucking your tits back into your dress and trying not to ruin it with his cum.

euronymous slowly tucked his cock back into his pants, fixing up his hair as the sound of customers reminded him of where he was. he cleared his throat, looking at you deeply. “it was a pleasure doing business with you ma’am. enjoy the records, completely free of charge.”

author's note: back to shcool tomorrow :((

[crazyinlovewithbucky]

“you’ve bewitched me, doll”

——————————————

Summary: you have the same powers as Wanda but your powers are darker. You were a villain and you fought the avenger but eventually, they helped u get rid of the dark magic and u became one of them. You are reading their minds in secret but there’s only one mind that revolved around you only, which is Bucky’s. you keep teasing each other and playing mind games until one day you get into action.

Characters: Bucky Barnes (the white wolf) X female reader

Warnings: Smut, M masturbation, mind reading, witches, unprotected sex, overstimulation, praise, teasing, multiple orgasms, creampie, almost getting caught, mind games, begging, & lots of +18 explicit smut, Y/N's pov in the middle.

Word count: +3k

A/N: this is my first time writing smut ever + English isn’t my first language so excuse me if I misspelled anything lol

P.S: Y/N is such a girlboss! + This takes place before Wanda vision and MOM! (aka Wanda didn’t get hold of the darkhold yet but Y/N did)

You were laying in your bed in your room in the compound watching your favorite TV show, your teammates were all on a mission except for you, Bucky, Sam, and Yelena. Sam and Yelena were in the gym training for their next mission. You and Bucky only shared a wall as your rooms were next to each other. You were just laying there remembering it all, how you became the most wicked witch ever, you even almost overpowered the scarlet witch herself as you locked yourself away for a year with the dark hold learning all its secrets and spells. Your brain brought you back to the events in New York and your infamous fight with Doctor Strange and how you almost wiped him and all the Avengers out from the face of the earth but that broken small little girl inside of you stopped you before it was too late, instead, you just asked for help and they were kind enough to put all your broken pieces back together and help you.

Strange took the dark hold and hid it away from the entire world that even he, can’t even have it. You were relieved by this thought as you can’t forget all the dark awful places this cursed book took you and how it almost made you go insane. Even though, it was the reason behind all your powers and knowledge of magic. Suddenly, you got snapped out of your thoughts by the random thoughts of your next-door neighbor.

The winter soldier himself, you’d be lying to yourself if you said you don’t find him hot, you had that secret crush on him since the first time you laid eyes on him which was when he tried to stop you from crashing Sam to death when they were fighting you. You knew that some part in your dark-tinted heart wanted Bucky to hold you down and fuck all the darkness out of you. You giggled at that dirty thought and went back to exploring Bucky’s thoughts.

You kept it a secret from everyone that you can read all of their minds but you couldn’t help it, it was a new environment for you and these guys were supposed to be your enemies so you felt like you had to, just to prepared for any kind of betrayal, as you promised yourself no mistakes like that again. You will not trust anyone again. But these guys made it different for you, they showed you what true family is. Especially Bucky. As you’re in his mind now, there’s an old song from whichever decade he’s from playing in his mind as he’s polishing and cleaning his metal arm. He’s so focused and you decided to play with him for a bit.

Bucky was obsessed with you and you knew it, you loved it, you even touched yourself to the thought of it. When you started getting used to them and getting close to them after they adopted you in the compound, Bucky kept picturing you in your underwear after he saw you this one morning by accident only in your bra and panties. He noticed for the first time how absolutely hot you are and how you were definitely his type. From this moment on, he started to notice you more, even though he hid it so well but you were in his mind and you knew it.

You knew how any sound from you made him obsess over you for hours so you got out of bed and searched for that song that keeps playing in his head and you played it, knowing it will get a surprising reaction out of him.

And it did. He looked over to your shared wall and smirked, and you felt that smirk. But what you didn’t know, is that Bucky knows you’re in his head. He noticed it first when he pictured you wearing skinny leather pants that hugs your ass cheeks perfectly and saw you wearing them the very next day. At this moment, he knew it was too perfect to be just a coincidence. He wanted to test this theory of his more, as he kept picturing you and thinking of you in certain places and wearing certain clothes and him knowing your playful teasing nature, you entertained every thought and idea of his and served it to him on a golden platter. He kind of liked how you keep reading his mind, this is why he kept seeing you and imagining you in very sexual scenarios and kept fantasizing about you. He knew you loved it.

You both kept playing these mind games for a while now and keep hearing each other masturbating at the thought of you two together in one bed. He knew you loved the idea of him masturbating and touching himself to you while moaning your name, and you did the same to him. Even the rest of the team noticed that heavy sexual tension between you two whenever you are all gathered for a meeting or a house party.

Bucky knew you were playing with him the moment you played that song, this is why he smirked. “you want a reaction doll, you’ll get one” he said to himself while he adjusted his metal arm on his torso again and laid in bed thinking about dressing you slowly while his hands are between your thighs teasing your entrance and you’re moaning his name in his ear and him burying his head in your neck biting and kissing your sweet spot. You, being in his head, seeing him doing this to you made you breathe heavily and feel your cunt gets hotter and wetter. You sat in bed in silence and paused the song which made him smirk and grin more in the other room, knowing what his thoughts did to you.

Bucky couldn’t actually handle more of these mind games and wanted to taste you so badly, he was really desperate for the real thing more and needed you. He thought that if he kept that “let’s try the real thing” thought in his mind, you’d cave and ask him to fuck you. But you didn’t, which made him more craving and weaker for you. But you couldn’t help it, teasing is actually one of your kinks. Now, you can read in his mind that he’s tired of fucking himself to the thought of you and he wanted to actually do it. You actually thought of just going to his room and burying yourself in his bed, giving him permission to do anything to you but you didn’t really have the guts to do it. You were not the begging type. But little did you know, he was.

You heard him get out of bed and get out of his room, with one thought only in his mind. You. Fucking you, licking you, tasting you, burying his cock inside of you. Your heart started to beat a little faster as you heard him knocking on your door, you walked to your bedroom door slowly as you kept seeing what he was going to do to you for the rest of the day as it keeps playing in his head. You opened the door and saw heavy-breathing shirtless Bucky standing in front of you with nothing but lust in his eyes. “Aren’t you tired of these mind games yet, doll?” he said as he got closer to you that you can feel his hot heavy breaths on your forehead and you looked up to him and smirked. “Gosh, you’re killing me.” He said while moving closer making you step back and he kept moving forward until he was inside your room. He closed your bedroom door with his metal hand without breaking eye contact with you.

“What are you talking about, Barnes?” you said while trying to hide that smirk on your face as you got him where exactly you wanted.

“No, Y/N, don’t play dumb. I know you’re in my head and you can see what I’m thinking about” he licked his lips while looking at yours. “I know you love it, don’t lie to me doll” A shadow of a smirk formed on his lips which made you more turned on than ever. “I can smell the throbbing heat between your thighs baby, please don’t lie to me” Your heart kept beating more and your breaths became heavier.

���What do you want, Barnes?” you wanted to tease more and be more playful with him since you knew, this turned him on too.

“I wanna fuck you, Y/L/N. I wanna feel your body on mine. I wanna feel your wet throbbing cunt hugging my dick while it’s buried inside you.” He kept staring at your body like a prey and he’s the predator, you still can read his mind and what’s going on in his head, is a literal porno starring you, and him. He’s not lying when he said these things, you can see him actually doing it. “I know you want it too, kitten, please let me fuck you.” He did something, you weren’t expecting at all. He dropped to his knees in front of you. Lust is the only thing you can see in his eyes, and you love it. “You’ve bewitched me doll, all I want is you. Please let me at least touch you.” He made such an accusation of you bewitching him, in fact, you didn’t do anything at all, you just woke up one morning and saw him fucking you raw in his dreams out of nowhere. Jesus, this man will be the end of you as you are of him.

you moved closer and placed your left hand on his shoulder and your right hand on his head, playing with his hair, he looked up at you as he was still on his knees wearing nothing but gray sweat shorts. “Only with one condition, Barnes,” you said while pulling his hair a bit. He didn’t break eye contact and opened his mouth a little. “It has to be good” he smiled and grabbed your thighs from behind while lifting you up. “You’re in good hands doll, be sure of that” he chuckled while throwing you on the bed.

Y/N's POV:

He threw himself on me but being careful not to crash me, he started kissing me heavily as our tongues kept fighting for dominance. He obviously won this fight then he started taking my shirt and my shorts off. He broke the make-out to get a good look at my body as he ripped my bra off. He bit his lower lip hard when he saw my breasts and my hard nipples. “Just how I imagined them” he smirked while moving down to kiss and suck them and he put my life nipple in his mouth sucking and biting it and the other one is in between his fingers. I moaned hard and kept pulling and tangling his dark brown hair in my hands.

“You taste so good doll, fuck” he said between breaths then he pulled himself up to my neck and buried himself in it. Kissing and biting on my sweet spot while leaving his marks all over me. His fingers started to trace the line of my panties as he proceeded to take them off. I kept moaning in need of any attention to my lower area as it was soaked wet and needed any kind of ease. “Just say what you want doll, I can feel your heat against me,” he said while moving his hand down on my bed till it reached my swollen clit. I moaned loudly at his touch. “I know you need me, babe. I wanna hear you begging” he said while rubbing circles on my clit making me moan and scream louder. He wants me to beg just like I made him beg to fuck me.

“Know your place, Barnes, you’re the one who begged me in the beginning,” I said between moans, trying my hardest to sound confident and well put. He chuckled and looked at me “Still won’t cave Y/L/N. Fine. We’ll do it this time your way.” he said while taking off his sweat shorts and boxers and running his hard dick on my entrance, teasing. “But I promise you, next time, you’ll be the one begging on her knees, kukolka” God, I love when he throws Russian words like that. He noticed my reaction to this Russian word as I moaned at the sound of it and opened my legs more for him. He smirked and held my legs and wrapped them around his waist while adjusting himself at my entrance. “Я собираюсь трахнуть тебя так сильно. что ты не сможешь ходить несколько дней.” He said while pushing his full length inside me as I screamed his name so loud, he even put his hand on my mouth. His Russian accent, his full length inside my wet cunt, his groans in my ear, his messy hair, his slight beard tingling my neck, his neck kisses, all of these things happening at the same time making me lose my mind. If I’m not losing it from the dark hold, then I’ll lose it because of Bucky Barnes. He’s my karma.

He kept thrusting slowly at first, trying to adjust himself inside me while stretching my insides and making me get adjusted to his length. I don’t know if I should focus more on how our bodies are connected or on how he just told me he’d fuck me so hard that I won’t be able to walk for days in Russian. Gosh, I didn’t know how much I needed him until now. “You don’t know how much I’ve been dreaming of this moment, babydoll,” he said between his groans while thrusting slowly and making eye contact. “I know Bucky, I know” I moaned while he kept thrusting as he locked our lips together. This kiss felt different than the ones before, this one felt more passionate and genuine, and it wasn’t lustful. He broke the kiss while looking me in the eyes “I’m still a man of my word Y/N, try to be quiet sweetheart.” He said while holding both of my hands with his right hand and lifting them above my head.

Next thing I know, with my hands tied together with his right hand and his metal left hand around my throat, his pace and thrusts grew faster and harder as it felt like he was on a time mission and he have to finish the job fast. I can’t put my mind around how I am such a moaning mess right now. With this fast pace and hard thrusts, his lengths kept hitting my g spot rapidly and I felt the knot in my stomach kept tightening and getting closer on edge. Another person’s thoughts broke mine and Bucky’s moans as I felt a presence on the same floor getting closer to my room. My eyes widened and I stopped Bucky quickly by flipping us over so now I’m on top and he’s on bed. He held my waist as his penis is still buried inside me and I placed my finger on my mouth singling him to keep quiet. He nodded, knowing that I’m hearing someone.

Using my power, I locked the door quietly and put a force of magic around the room that would soundproof it. Bucky watched me sitting on him moving my hands and using my magic to make sure we don’t get caught which made him grin and lick his lips. When I gave the look that ‘we’re good now’. He pulled me closer “You are a fucking goddess and I’m so lucky to get to be inside you.” He whispered in my ear while playing with my dark hair and pulling it down to my shoulders and back. “You’re so beautiful Y/N” he pulled me into another passionate kiss and unconsciously I started to grind my hips on him as if he will still inside me. We moaned in each other’s mouths, never breaking the kiss. I hate how we were almost close to releasing and got interrupted by stupid Sam as he was looking for Bucky. Little does he know, his best friend Bucky is under the witch who almost killed him, begging her to let him fuck her.

Bucky held me waist so tight stopping me from grinding on him as he continued fucking me so hard. He kept thrusting so fast inside me, never breaking eye contact. He was still underneath me, holding me in place, thrusting his dick in and out of me like I’m just a sex doll he was playing with, which turned me more on. He’s so good. He makes me feel so good. I can’t even feel myself or how loud I am now as I’m so high on the feeling of him hitting my g spot, making me vibrate and shake so hard. He knew I was coming and I knew he knew so I didn’t have to tell him. He pulled me closer so now my chest is touching his and his hands are now holding my butt cheeks and he didn’t stop thrusting hard. I buried my head in his neck. Can’t stop moaning. “That’s it, baby, that’s it doll. Cream me. Cream my cock.” His words were just what I needed at that moment to push me off the edge. I let go and came all over his cock. I can feel the heat of my cum dripping down on his cock and his inner thighs and staining the bed sheets underneath us and yet, he never stopped fucking me or thrusting hard. Making me feel overstimulated that I can’t stop cumming. “Good girl. You’re such a good girl Y/N. fuck-aghhh I’m cumm-mm”

I felt a striking hot liquid burst inside me that made me scream out his name loudly as it hit my sensitive g spot which did not help my cumming to stop. He kept thrusting until he stopped cumming but I didn’t, which made me so weak that I can’t stop screaming or moaning. It felt so good. He felt so good. I hadn’t had like this before. This is the first time someone made me feel that good or made me cum this hard. The thought and the feeling of it made me want more. Made me want him more.

He stopped thrusting and moved his hands away, resting them on the bed as it must’ve been sore. Our chests are against each other breathing hard and heavy, our bodies are still connected down there with our mixed cum covering his cock and filling my cunt. I got up slowly and was going to get off of him but did it slowly as my insides are still sensitive and any move could cause another burst out of me. “No no no no no. Come here” he pulled me down on his cock again making me moan and flipping me over so now he was on top again. “Please, doll, not yet. You fit me so good, I don’t wanna leave you yet” he said while burying his cock inside me more making me squirm beneath him.

I would be lying if I said that I don’t feel fulfilled with him inside me like that. I know I’d hate the emptiness I’ll feel when he pulls it out. But I have to stay safe. “Sorry babe, safety first,” I said while kissing him on his lips. He whined and pulled it out and yes, I do hate the emptiness. I pouted at him. “Don’t look at me like that, it’s your call not mine” he smirked then held my shirt from the ground and cleaned me up before I went to the bathroom to pee and clean myself with water. I finished and stood at the bathroom door looking at Bucky while he was laying there on my bed, naked, looking at me, smiling, looking so hot and fucked out. I smiled widely at how I’d always wanted to see him like that since the first day I laid my eyes on him. Fuck, I think I’m in love. And by running through his mind, I think he is too.

[astroboots]

Don't they know it's the end of the world

Pairing: Joel Miller x female reader

Summary: There are many things Joel would like to forget, you hope you're not one of them.

Rating: Explicit. I just want to fuck old man Joel.

Content: hurt/comfort, explicit sex-town, cowgirl position yee-ha, post-apocalyptic angst and jazz. Mentions of death, blood and gore, but the real warning all along was emotionally unavailable men.

Word Count: 3.5k

Astroboot’s Masterlist 

The thing that nobody warned you about living in a post-apocalyptic world (to use the dramatic phrase) is that when the world as you know it has ended. When an unprecedented catastrophe transforms the very fabric of your reality. In the midst of abandoned cities, dilapidated high-rise buildings overrun with moss and ivy, and rusted cars forsaken on the highway. This horrific new world of unending horrors, at some point, with enough days gone by, becomes common place.

After the first and second year, you're no longer bothered by the constant aches and how everything hurts, everywhere all the time. The new bruises that spring up overnight to replace old healing, because sleeping on concrete and dirt will do that to you, isn't as overwhelming. You barely mind the constant blunt ache in your lower back from unloading crates anymore. Or the way your feet are always blistering and covered in callouses that crack and split and bleed. It's all background noise.

After the third and the fourth, you're no longer dry-heaving at the burnt metallic smell of charred flesh and human hair that reminds you of melted and burnt plastic when they're tossed into fire. Your sense of smell dull to it.

After the fifth year you think that hollow feeling in your chest of missing home, is no longer a constant. At most it comes to you in glimpses. Because sure, there are a million and one things you still miss. The sweetness of cereal soaked in milk. The lingering smell of peonies from your shampoo after a steaming shower. The way your cat used you as a headrest while watching TV.

You miss cupcakes. You miss the cinema. You miss pumpkin lattes. You miss the forest ground covered in auburn leaves in the fall. You miss your mom. You miss--

You miss a lot of things. Small little things, and you remember each one of them despite the years that passes.

But the mind adapts. It doesn't consume you with a hollowness that makes you burst into tears at any given moment anymore. Humans are nifty like that. Our brains rewire to accept the new realities and life just goes on somehow.

You accept the military surveillance. Of men in vests and gear, wearing blank expressions, with rifles slung across their shoulders like it were backpacks, ready to use them at the slightest provocation if you so much as dared to cough in their presence.

You get used to cracking jokes about priests walking into bars, while burying your dead, not because you're unfeeling, or not understanding of the graveness of what you're doing, but because the human mind cannot be relentlessly scared and sad and depressed and unhappy without reprieve.

Instead like much else, that seems horrific and world-ending at first, it becomes background noise.

---

"Uno," you announce as you drop the last card in the pile of red, blue and green cards in front of him.

Joel scowls, that furrowed wrinkle between his brow carves deep with displeasure.

"You're cheating. I've never played this game where stacking is allowed. The correct rule is no stacking."

This again. You scoff. This topic of conversation comes up every now and then (everytime he loses in fact) because the two of you has solely been relyng on your memory to reconstruct the rules given that the manual to the pack of cards were lost long ago.

"I'm not having this argument with you again Joel, I've told you. The rules allow stacking, you're misremembering it."

You shake your head at him and smile. He doesn't smile back. He never really does. Instead he folds his arms across his wide chest, leaning back as he appraises you with skepticism.

"What if you've forgotten the rules?"

"I don't forget things, I'm not you" you say lightheartedly.

He's already passed out when you let yourself in through the front door tonight.

It's a sparse apartment, like all the other accommodations in the area. The mismatched dining chairs and fold up table is not much to look at, but there are still hints of the family who had made this place their home before they had to leave it. The feminine touch of flowery rose wallpapers. Scribbled markers of their children's height year by year. The claw-marks of a dog by the front door.

If Joel left tomorrow, you don't think it would tell much of a story of him or the life you lead together. The only thing that's his besides the radio and music catalog is the blue butterfly sticker that sparkles on the window.

And even with that, you don't quite know what story it is meant to tell or why he'd put it up. You only know it wasn't there when he moved it because it appeared out of nowhere after Tommy left. It clashes with the rest of the decor. Something that belongs to a young girl's bedroom and not a grumpy former veteran addicted to painkillers. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to put one plus one together and deduce it's something of sentimental value to him.

It's always confounded you, because that is so unlike the man you know.

Unlike you, Joel forgets. He makes it his mission to forget. Expired opioids from god knows how long, you're surprised they don't crumble into dust when they're exposed into open air.

There are horrors in his memories that Joel wants wiped clean, and he doesn't care if the good memories go with them, as long as he doesn't have to look at them in the broad daylight.

You never said anything about it, don't pry and you don't ask questions. You don't ask him for anything period. You just let him be and take him as he is. You suspect that that's why he's allowed himself to keep you around for so long.

The room is dimly illuminated from the night light has been left on for you, and you try to be quiet as you make your way to him on the bed. He's lying curled up on his side, back turned to you.

Broad shouldered as he is, with a build that reminds you of a bear at times, in this position, there's something vulnerable about him right now that's reserved for your eyes only. His face is no longer tense, against the amber hue that bathes the room. The specks of grey and white in his beard, soft to the touch.

He's half-dragged into consciousness as you dip your knee into the mattress, as he lifts the tattered, moth-eaten quilt and makes space for you.

Reaching behind you, you kill the light. Then you wrap your one arm over his waist, tucking one leg between his thick and firmer ones. He sighs into his pillow and leans into your touch.

There are things that you know Joel wants to forget, you would like to believe that this won't become one of them.

"Are you awake?" he murmurs against the nape of your neck. His voice is gravelly and worn with sleep.

You open your eyes and the world greets you with darkness. It's too early to be awake at this ungodly time.

His chest is pressed up against your back, warm and firm, and you hum in reply. "Barely."

You nuzzle into the scratchy linen of your pillow, inhaling deeply to relax back into sleep. But Joel isn't turning back around. He's still behind you, almost hovering above you as if he wants to tell you for something, but doesn't.

You raise yourself slightly, reaching over the nightstand to flicker on the small lamp there.

Turning back towards him, you observe him for a moment. The slight sheen of sweat pooled in the hollow of his throat. His eyes wide and alarmed, hands closed into a tight fist into the sheets. His whole body is wired for a fight, even though he's just woken up and it's dead quiet in the still of the night without a threat.

"Did you have a nightmare?" you finally ask.

His jaw tightens at your question, which is as good of an indicator as any that he doesn't want to answer. Also a good indicator that he did have one.

You sigh, reaching your hand back to trail the soft hairs at the back of his neck. Flattening the curly ends with your fingers, and trying to comb it down in a gesture to soothe him the way others used to do for you in a different life and another world. It's a mistake.

He flinches at the touch, and stiffens awkwardly in front of you. Like he's trying to decide what's the right next course of action. To apologize or to turn back around and pretend he didn't do what he just did.

You frown at him, but say nothing. You give him the time to find his words.

"Can we just--" he starts, but his words trail off, eyes barely meeting yours. Silently pleading for you to know what he's asking for so he doesn't have to put them into words.

Joel doesn't really do softness. Doesn't accept comfort. Doesn't trust it.

But there are things that he wants, because he's only human after all. A touch, a warm body to lose himself in, a human connection. It's what everyone of us wants.

But he can't ask for it. Can't say it.

The moment he puts words it, he would have to name it. What this thing is, between the two you that you have. Where at the end of the day you return to his apartment. Where you sleep in his bed. Where he worries if you don't.

If he asks you for this, then he can't pretend there's nothing there anymore.

So you don't say anything. You don't needle him into finishing his sentence. Don't ask him what he means. You don't ask him for anything. Instead you nod.

His face shifts, the stiff crease between his brows smooths in relief and he scoots forward, chest draped flush against your back. He's already hard, the familiar thick girth pressed to your tailbone, like it's trying to carve a permanent dent into you.

"Is it okay?" he asks again, rolling his hips and the newfound pressure against his denim-covered cock has him breaking off with a gasp.

"Yeah Joel. Yes it's okay."

His fingers come to the hemline of your jeans, as he roughly shoves at it in the dark. It catches at the dip of your hips, and you can hear the gruff impatience of the man from behind, as he yanks it down further. As if sheer brutal strength is going to be the solution in here, the way it is outside these walls.

You lift up your hips to help him, long enough for him to slide the jeans off your legs and you can kick them to the floor. Vaguely you try to estimate the distance to where they landed. Because that's where you'll have to pick them up in the early morning before he gets up. But that doesn't matter right now.

There's a scuffle behind you of rustling denim and the metallic clink of a buckle being undone. You reach back with your hand against the softness of his belly, down the sparse trail of fine coarse hairs until you can wrap your hand around his hardened cock.

He shudders in relief. A soft sigh into the back of your neck as he grinds against your back, demanding more. You indulge him, swiping your thumb in a circle over the head of him. There's a sharp intake of breath from him, similar to the sound he makes after taking a swig of shitty whiskey that burns his lungs too sharply.

The indication that it's too much, and therefore just right, because it's only then that it's a relief. An escape from the current reality.

You squeeze down again, fingers wrapped firm around the thickness of his girth not allowing him any reprieve, and he thanks you not in words, but with the way he bares his throat as his head throws back in ecstasy.

For Joel, the old world never ended. Never left. He's still trapped in it. His existence now is a purgatory. He treats it like he's just sitting in a waiting room, as the days and years go by. Everything and everyone in it are transitory. Nothing in the room matters.

His hand shoots out, sliding down the bare skin of your stomach and wedges underneath your panties. One broad thumbs presses down on your clit perfunctory, and still it feels so good. Sharp heat licks your spine at the touch, and your eyes flutter close as you lean back into him.

It's brusque, the way Joel's hand comes to your thighs and spread you open for him. Unrestrained the way his fingers parts your slick folds to collect the wetness he finds there, pressing into you and curls with a familiarity when he knows he's reached that perfect spot that makes your vision whiten. Rough in much the same way he is in every other part of his life.

"Fuck, get up here," he orders gruffly.

You roll over and he wastes no time to roughly grip onto your hipbones and dragging you up his body.

Bracing your arms on his firm chest to steady yourself, you settle yourself with your knees pressed into the sides of his ribs. They're dipped into the worn-out mattress and you think you can feel the springs of the bottom of the bed dig into your kneecaps.

It's a bit uncomfortable, but you don't mind. Because you get to straddle him this way. Get to see all of him, underneath you, on display. His bare skin made golden and soft by the dim light of the night lamp.

He doesn't look like the movie-stars of old. But Joel is handsome. There's no doubt about that.

Despite his rough masculine features, there are details that don't quite match up. His lips are plump and soft, inviting. A deep crease in the curve of his bottom lip that is just begging to be kissed.

Even with the significant grey in his thick hair, and the white in his beard, the weathered look suits him well. As does the fine lines on his forehead, and the ones around his eyes.

Smile lines, an old friend of yours had called them. Does that mean he used to smile? You imagine how he must've looked like in those days. Not constantly frowning or scowling. But smiling so hard that it would make his eyes crinkles. How beautiful and carefree he must've been.

In front of you, there's no trace of that man. His jaw is set, grinding his teeth, with gritted impatience as his hands grips onto your waist and pull you forward, towards and over his cock, positioning you right where he wants you.

His hand reaches behind you, and even though you can't see it from this angle, you've seen it plenty times before to know how good his cock looks fisted in his hand, as he uses your slick, still wet on his fingers to spread it over the length of him. Then you feel it, the fat tip of him nudging against your entrance as he slowly slips inside.

A heady anticipation fills you. It shakes the core of you until it makes your thighs tremor visibly as you straddle him.

Joel is rough. He is unrestrained and brusque, but he is not unkind. Or at least you'd like to think, not to you. He steadies you, one hand still on your hip, the other a flat palm against your lower belly, as he slowly lifts his hips as you sink down on him in unison.

The first thrust always knocks your breath away. Pleasure that warms you inside out in a way that standing in a fire fails to. It fills you anr nourishes.

You drop down the rest of the way until he's as deep as he goes, until he hisses sharply again, in that tell-tale sign that it's, too much and just right.

Your chest glows with pride, and you grind down against him to elicit another noise, this time a chocked grunt that's not nearly as satisfying. But the buzzing warmth that spikes your veins more than makes up for it.

You stay there for a moment, savoring the pleasure that simmers along your spine, until Joel opens his eyes, his fingers digging a bit deeper into the plump flesh of your thighs.

"Fuck," he grumbles, "please move."

You don't deny him, you never do. Not with this, not with anything. Rising on your knees, you feel his cock drag inside you and close your eyes at the sensation until only the tip of him rests inside you. It's a slow, dragged out pace. One that Joel doesn't seem to have any patience for.

His hand around your hip wraps firm and he pushes down at the same time as you can feel him thrust upwards, until he's buried as deep as he goes.

Fuck, you feel like you can't breathe. Didn't know you could fit so much of him.

Your eyes fly open, to the sight of him, thick brows knitted in pleasure. He looks gorgeous like this. Lost in pleasure, no longer buried in a grave of regrets he can never climb out of. Mouth parted as he gasps out at the feel of you wrapped around him. You stare at his spit swollen lips and all you can think of is how you want to kiss this man. Press your lips to his and feel the full weight of intimacy of this shared moment with his arms wrapped around you.

You anchor your arms on his chest, leaning down closer to his face, hovering above his lips and it's like he can sense you. His eyes flutters open as he meets your gaze.

You wonder what it is he sees in your eyes. If the want and depth of your feelings for him are so plain to see. Because he looks at you like he's terrified.

You don't kiss him.

You drop down your hips again, as far as he goes, and his eyes squeezes shut again, both of you choosing to forget what preceded it. An unrestrained moan rips out of him and to your ears, and though he's not saying any words, it's almost like he's thanking you for forgetting.

You ride him and it's rough and there is no rhythm. He meets you with every thrust, deep and fast, like he's racing for the end.

The hand on your belly, pushes down firmer, and the pressure does something to you. The simmer of pleasure turns to an inescapable heat. It climbs up your veins and invades your ribs with it.

You come around his cock and the pleasure is punishing, a slam to your ribs that squeezes down on your very lungs. It flattens your vision, until you're disorientated with it and you nearly fall off. But Joel doesn't stop. Continues to fuck up and into you. Harsh and reckless thrusts.

Pleasure is written over every line of his face, teeth gritted as he keeps his eyes closed to you. You feel him swell thicker in you, and you know he's almost there.

With a harsh hiss, his hand on your waist, lifts you up and off of him. His freed hand comes to his cock and wraps around it. Swollen and glistening with your wetness, as he fists himself with frantic strokes.

The chords of his neck strains, and then he comes. Line after line after line of his release, coating your stomach with the warmth of him.

You're both breathing hard and fast, made louder by the silence of the room at this hour.

Joel doesn't say anything and neither do you. Instead you reach over to the nightstand to kill the light, enveloping you both in the familiar darkness.

You lay back down against the mattress and roll to your side. There's rustling noise besides you and then Joel's hand comes to your stomach, cleaning up the mess he made of you with a corner of the sheets.

---

You wake up before dawn breaks. When it's no longer dark but the sun has not had time to rise above the skyline.

Dipping your foot onto the grimy wooden floor, you walk towards the very spot your jeans had been tossed aside last night, and put them on, as quietly as you can so as not to wake Joel.

You cast one last look at him where he's lying in the same position you found him when you'd let yourself in last night. On his side, curled up, vulnerable.

Then you gently pad across the length of the living room and let yourself out of the apartment, closing the door slowly until it gently clicks.

Someday, when this version of the world is over and one of you leaves. You hope that you get to miss him.

a/n: to be notified of new writing updates follow @astroboots-writes and turn on notifs 🤡💖🤡

[bettyfrommars]

Death Becomes Us

a True Blood au

vampire!eddie x supernatural!reader

Part 7: Cry Little Sister

masterlist playlist

It's been over 2 months since you had more than a glimpse of Eddie, but you had the feeling that he never let you get too far out of his peripheral vision. Some vampires you've never met before come looking for him while you are trying to housetrain your new companion. Just as you're about to have some quality time with Eddie, another visitor shows up.

word count: 4.4k

18+only for mature themes, vampires, mention of illegal drugs, a demobat, allusions to smut, angst, werewolves, ode to The Lost Boys

authors note: this is a shorter chapter, and there is not a ton of action like in the other parts, but I will make up for that next time.

I had a few names I was considering for our new companion, and decided to go with Bela, in honor of Bela Lugosi, thanks to @somnambulic-thing

You’d picked up an old, pea green recliner at the thrift store, and that was where you sat in the morning by the lamp to drink coffee and read as much as you could about demobats. 

There wasn’t much known about them, but you had gone to Robin at the bookstore with your search, and she found an obscure issue from a dead publication and ordered it. You told her it was purely to satiate your curiosity after you’d witnessed them firsthand on your way to Sacrament. You didn’t know if it was good sense, or even legal, to have one residing in your home, so you decided to keep your new friend a secret for the time being.

Days turned into weeks since you'd last interacted with Eddie, but you kept track of when he was home and when he wasn’t, as if it was your job. Sometimes, when you were watching TV in your living room with the curtains drawn, you’d catch his kitchen light click on about an hour after dark, and you imagined him walking through in his boxers, yawning, scratching his stomach where the trail of hair from below connected to his bellybutton.

What you didn’t know was that the first part of his waking up ritual was to crack his bedroom curtain and see if you were home. If you weren’t at work, the answer was usually yes, and he’d watch the flicker of your tv in the window reflection.

That morning, you had a black, hooded sweatshirt in your lap, and in the sweatshirt sleeping like a baby, was a demobat. 

You peeled back a bit of the material to take a peek at her face. Her enormous mouth of teeth hung open and her leathery wings twitched like she was in the middle of a dream, your arm straining at the heft of her weight. She didn’t have any eyes, but her sense of hearing was excellent and sometimes, you had to make noise for her to find you, like tapping your knuckle on the wall or countertop.

You didn’t realize she’d followed you from the Upside Down until a good three days later when you came home from work late to find her collapsed on your porch. You imagined she got desperate because she was starving. This wasn’t the same world as hers, and she didn’t know her way around or how to find nourishment. She let you pick her up when you found her, after one long roar to let you know she was dangerous, and then she wrapped her wings around you.

  You were worried that she might go after Eddie’s cat, Dio, or one of the other strays you were feeding at the trailer park, but you were surprised to read in the book that they were not carnivores.

A vegetarian demobat? She especially enjoyed canned mandarin oranges and corn on the cob.  Everything considered, she was docile and attention-starved, for the most part, until she could sense voices a bit too close to the trailer, or the mailman slipped letters in your box, making the metal flap clink shut.

And then she would go berserk, screeching at the top of her lungs, wings outstretched, trying to make herself look as big and threatening as possible.  

“Bela,” you called to her, using the name you’d decided on, inspired by Lugosi.  You clapped a few times, using vibration to get her attention, and she eventually learned to come to you.

Weeks turned into months and there was snow on the ground; a light dusting to accompany the late-November freeze.  You’d only recently caught a glimpse of Eddie in passing, from a distance, or just before he snapped his trailer lights off in the morning to go to sleep.  He stopped by Main Vein a few times  to sit in his regular spot and have a NuBlood, but you had a strong feeling that he was avoiding you.  The second you walked over, he’d either check his pager and act busy, or he’d excuse himself and say he had to run.

He never failed to leave some of his artwork scribbled on a napkin, though, and you were always quick to snatch it and put it in your pocket.

You felt like he was keeping tabs on you, yet keeping his distance, all at once. 

You’d dropped off a carved jack-o-lantern on his porch a few days before Halloween, and the day after that, you were surprised to find an odd butterfly animal made of scrap metal, sitting on your welcome mat.  Your smile cut into your cheeks so hard, a tiny ache throbbed there as you admired the welded legs and haphazard laser cuts on the wings.  

To honor the family memories that were so ancient they were almost dust, you got up on a ladder outside to string some colorful Christmas bulbs, and you put up a tiny tree of the Charlie Brown variety inside.  You had a Bing Crosby album while you decorated.  Mostly, it was a sad attempt, and the other vampires in the lot hated the holiday by definition, so they all gave your place pointed looks over the upturned collars of their jackets.

Bela looked like E.T. between some stuffed animals with silver tinsel on top of her oddly shaped head, hanging down like hair, when there was suddenly some kind of commotion outside.  You strained to listen and swore you heard a loud voice shouting for Eddie.  

The demobat sprang from the couch, flaring her wings wide; she was a blur of holiday delights being thrust away by her sprawl.  A feral sound escaped her that was part howl, part Velociraptor caw.

You jumped up and moved in front of her, so she lowered her wings--which were also used as hands with extremely strong fingers---and hovered behind you in the air.  She finally dropped to the counter and waited with a snarling mouth while you pressed your forehead against the cool of the window to see what was going on.

There appeared to be four boys dressed like 80's rockers in long black coats, and you noticed a motorcycle for each parked just between your two trailers.  They continued to call Eddie’s name, almost taunting now, and two of them hit the trailer with the flat of their hand, trying to get his attention. 

“He’s not home,” you went out onto the porch, shutting Bela inside to shriek to herself in private. You did not know for a fact that he wasn’t home, but there was no car parked in his normal spot, and you sincerely wanted them to go away.

They all turned to you, pale faces stern at first, but then smiles crept across their devilish mouths exposing the points of vampire fangs.  The one with the platinum blonde hair and earring in one ear caged his fingers in front of him and rolled his thumbs over each other as he spoke.

“And, who might you be? He cocked his head, and the others seemed to mirror him, four pairs of eyes sweeping over you.  

The sounds inside the trailer told you that Bela had moved to the far end, possibly the bedroom.  You could hear her shrill cry followed by a thud.  

From your higher vantage on the porch, you told the vampire your name, appraising him down the end of your nose.  “What do you need from Eddie?”

He walked closer, almost to your steps.  “Oh, we’re old friends, just hoping to catch up.”

He was positively enigmatic, in that way only vampires can be, but you had a feeling this guy never had a hard time getting what he wanted even when he was human. There was sarcasm in his tone and, for some reason, the others snickered.  

“Well,” you took a breath and grabbed for the door handle.  “Good luck finding him.”

In a flash, they were all up on the porch, crowding you, making you gasp.  “Not so fast there, princess,” the blonde one grinned.  “Maybe we want to get to know you better.”

You could hear the ticking of the time bomb inside of you, on its final few counts before detonation.  Your heartbeat quickened, and you were sure that they noticed.  You watched them freeze and exchange a few curious glances.

Then, there it was: the inhale, that quick and deliberate sniff of your scent.

The blonde one ran a finger down the scar on your cheek.  “You don’t smell like a human.  Why is that?”

You shrugged away from him.  “Please get off my porch.” 

They were all leering at you, their crooked grins mocking.

You wondered if he was trying to glamour you—to make you do whatever he wanted by hypnotizing you—but he’d soon find out you were impervious to vampire party tricks. 

“Don’t be so hasty, princess,” the main one moved as if he were about to touch you again, his cold breath matching the chill of the air outside.

“Hey, are you bozo’s looking for me?” There came another voice, just below the porch railing.

It was Eddie.  

You stepped back, closer to the front door, face flushing with the heat of relief. 

He was in the typical Eddie uniform of all black, but for the white of the Iron Maiden tee under his leather, and the rips in his jeans where pale, tattooed flesh peeked out. He wore heavy motorcycle boots that were covered in mud, and when his hands flexed into fists at his sides, you saw that the knuckles on one hand were bloody.  You wondered where he’d rushed from the moment he felt your fear.  What sort of car jacking or obligatory beating had he been partaking in when he felt your need?

You never meant to call for him on purpose, but now that he had your blood in him, he could sense any ripple in the force that hinted to your discomfort. 

The look on Eddie’s face when the vampire boys parted, and he finally found your eyes, was a mix of worry and white hot anger.  “Are you okay?”  

You nodded once, that was all you could manage.  You were so glad to see him, and it wasn’t because you worried that the guys on your porch would hurt you.  There was another, more foreign emotion that bathed you in a sense of calm.

Meanwhile, the thudding at the other end of the trailer stopped abruptly. 

“Easy boys,” blondie spread his arms wide to motion for them all to step back.  “Give the lady some room.  We didn’t come here for trouble.”

“What did you come here for, then?” Eddie bit.  His stare was trained on you as the vampires santured down toward him.

You could’ve, or possibly should have, gone inside, and even though you knew Eddie could handle himself, you didn’t feel good about the 4 on 1 odds.  One of the mullet boys had a butterfly knife that he was fidgeting with; opening and closing it with a flick of his wrist while he walked. He had black gloves on, and you wondered if the blade of the weapon was made of silver.

“Just a friendly visit, Munson,” Blondie said. You watched him stop a few feet from your neighbor while the rest circled him like they had with you.  “We were told you had something of interest to us.”

Eddie shot him a look, confused, but maintained his composure. “If it’s Dice you want, I haven’t sold that shit in years.”

Dice: the vampire drug of choice.  

The only drug on the planet designed for vampires to experience the equivalent of a human Benzo.  Highly addictive, and made with a lot of illegal, human-derived ingredients that Eddie preferred not to think about, it was also deadly in large amounts to vampires because of the trace amounts of garlic oil.  

The four guys who looked like they’d just walked out of a heavy metal video exchanged bored expressions. Eddie knew the platinum-haired one fairly well, his name was David, and the shorter one with the butterfly knife was Marko, but he’d never cared to learn the names of the other two.  They lived down at The Caves in a vampire “nest” with a few others, and had only been turned recently, so therefore, were no match for Eddie’s strength. Still, they were cocky as hell and always looking for trouble, as most young ones were. 

Eddie chanced a glance at you, hoping maybe you’d gone inside by then, but also, he liked having you where he could see you. He looked over his shoulder to get an idea of how many other residents were lurking around.  

“We should probably talk business inside my trailer,” Eddie inclined his head.  “Too many ears out here.”

“If you don’t have it,” David lowered his voice and tilted his head.  “I bet you know where we can get it.”

Sure, Eddie knew one guy in town who had it, but there was no way he’d send those creeps over to Reefer Rick’s place.  His long time friend was still human, and he didn’t trust the irrational hunger he saw in their pinned pupils.

“There’s only one person I know for sure would have some and that’s Jareth,” Eddie lied.

The other three guys mumbled to each other behind David, but then David shushed them with a hiss and flap of his hand.  

Eddie knew that would shut them up pretty quick.  No one could just stroll into Sacrament and ask Jareth for drugs.  Also, Jareth never wanted money in return, he always wanted services for “favors”, and they were always tasks that would make any normal person, vampire or otherwise,  have a hard time looking at themselves in the mirror afterwards.  

David began to back up, toward his motorcycle. “Alright well, this was a pleasure,” his gaze lingered on you and he gave a slow, generous lick of his lips.  “I really hope we bump into each other again sometime.”

Eddie couldn’t help the death stare he was giving him, grinding his back teeth so hard, the muscles in his jaw bulged.  He hated that they knew where you lived, he hated that they had been so close to you, to know that you were different.

The motorcycles began to start up, headlights snapping on to blare right into your eyes, making you blink away.  

The rest of their motors idled until David took off first, tires making tracks in the thin blanket of white over the ground, and then the rest followed onto the gravel road before blasting onto the highway, howling to each other like wolves as they went.

“You sure you’re okay?” Eddie was up on the porch with you as fast as if he had teleported.

The sudden jolt of his new proximity knocked the wind out of you; you still weren’t used to the lightning speed at which they could move.

“Could you please not do that anymore,” you clutched your throat. “Maybe just walk up the steps like a regular person?”

Leaning back against the railing, he grinned.  “My bad,” he mumbled, playing with the chunky ring on his middle finger.  

The truth was, he’d been going crazy trying to get you off of his mind.  Ever since he took you to the Upside Down, he’d been wrestling with some serious demons and trying not to think of  you in a sexual way, but his efforts were fruitless.

It was normal for humans to have sexual dreams about a vampire if they ingested their blood, but he’d never heard of it happening the other way around.  He’d been prey to so many wet dreams of tasting your cum on his tongue that he’d lost count.  It was getting to the point that he looked forward to the fantasies because it was a way to spend time with you; to feel the warm, wet lining of  your cheek when you sucked his fingers, to not only split you open with his cock and deny you until you begged to cum, but to make soft, deep love to you when he confessed things that he could never say out loud.  

He wasn’t allowed to have feelings for you.  It would make his job very…complicated.

That other secret job of his, the one you could never know anything about.

“Have you been avoiding me?”

Eddie’s head snapped up at your question. “Why would I be avoiding you?” Indeed, that is exactly what he’d been doing, but he didn’t want it to be obvious.

With an absent shrug, you realized all of a sudden that you only had a light cardigan on over your jumper, and your teeth were chattering.

“I’ve been really busy with…” he trailed off.  “...stuff.”

“I loved the butterfly you made,” you told him, hoping to see those flecks of gold dance in his eyes again.  

“You mean the bug soldier?” He chuckled, correcting you. “Those aren’t butterfly wings, that’s a cape.”

“He’s inside.  I’ll have to apologize to him for calling him a butterfly.” You wrapped your arms around yourself.  “Do you want to come in?”

“Shit, sorry, yeah, you look cold.  Here.” He shrugged his leather jacket off, exposing the patchwork of tattoos along his arms and neck, and you let him put it around  your shoulders.  You were suddenly shrouded in that familiar musk of his and you felt safe.

But then, he let the weight of your other question sink in.  “Are you inviting me in? Officially?”

If you invited a vampire in, that meant they could enter your home any time they pleased, by whatever means necessary.  There was always the option to resend the invite, but it was an important decision that would eliminate the barrier of magical protection.

Just as you were about to make a decision, you heard the sound of glass breaking, like a window shattering.  

And then you heard the all too familiar screeching.

“Oh shit, Bela,” you cursed under your breath.

“Bela?” Eddie tried to peer around the trailer to where the sound was coming from. “Who is —”

She appeared over the top of the roof then, jagged teeth ready to strike as she shot down at Eddie like a missile, roaring as she went.

Defensively, he exposed his fangs to meet her aggression.

“No, no Bela! He’s a friend!” You put your arm out like a shield to protect him and she landed on it like a trained Hawk or Owl, curling a finger from one of her wings around you for support.

She hissed one more time at him for good measure, and then her wings fell slowly to her sides as she crept up your arm to settle on your shoulder.

Eddie’s jaw went slack.  

“Is this the…same one that we…how?”

You told him about how you found her on the porch and the way she refused to let you too far out of her sight.

He lifted a hand to maybe touch a finger to her belly.  “Can I?” He asked you.

“I wouldn’t,” you responded quickly, noting Bela’s low growl.  “Not until she knows you aren’t a threat to me.”

He dropped his hand and hooked a thumb into his belt loop, taking in the details of what it was like to see one of them up close.  “I’ve never heard of a human, or anyone, making one of them into a pet. I didn’t think it was possible. They are killing machines.”

You let Bela rest one of her heavy tentacles gently in the palm of your hand, swirling it into a spiral.  “I don’t know if she’s a pet as much as…some type of guardian.  She’s tuned into my emotions somehow. I think that’s why she’s not trying to eat your face off right now.”

You were enjoying the awestruck expression on Eddie’s face.  “Did you still want to come inside? Or have you changed your mind?”

He remembered the wet dreams he’d been having, how many times you’d buried his length inside of you while seated in his lap.  The sweat dripping down, the groaning, the words of adoration.  The way he fingered you in the shower and made you—-

“Earth to Eddie?” Your voice snapped him from his thoughts. “I said, would you like to come in?” 

You had the door open, and you gestured for him to follow, with a feral demobat casually riding on your shoulder.  It had begun to snow again; petite flakes that melted as soon as they hit  your skin.  One got stuck on Eddie’s eyelash.  

“Yes,” he swallowed, raking a hand through his hair. “Yes, I would like to come in.”

“Okay, let me put Bela in my bedroom real quick,” you went on ahead into the warmth of your place, shivering.  Eddie put his boot in the door to keep it from closing, taking in the gravity of the situation.

You had invited him inside.

As a vampire, it was not something to be taken lightly.  

You had to put Bela in the bathroom momentarily, until you could duct tape over the broken window in your bedroom.  You felt like she’d listened to you well enough, but the doubts you had gave you anxiety, so separating her from your new guest felt like the best idea.  You put a soft blanket on the bathtub in there, and she nestled down in it like she was sleepy.  

When you came back out a few minutes later, Eddie was still standing in the doorway, just inside the threshold.

“Did the invitation not work?” You asked, curiously.

“No, no, it did,” he took the final step in and went to close the door behind him.  “I was just enjoying the moment, I guess.”

You noticed that his hand, the one that had been bleeding earlier, was completely healed already.  

Just as the front door was about to shut completely, headlights from a car lit up the porch as someone approached from the road and parked in front of your trailer.

“What now?” You sighed, exasperated.

But then you heard the rumble of the big engine that belonged to a classic, square-body Chevy, and your blood ran cold with sudden recognition.

Eddie closed the door the final inch and turned to note the way you nervously adjusted yourself.  “Were you expecting someone?”

Shit shit shit

You cursed to yourself quietly. 

Could all this be happening at a worse time?

Also, how could you forget? Between Bela and Eddie's motorcycle buddies, the fact that you’d agreed to go on date that night had somehow slipped your mind.  

The headlights turned off and the engine cut. 

“Yeah, um, I agreed to go to the movies with someone tonight,” you cleared your throat.  Why were you nervous to tell him you had a date? It wasn’t like Eddie had made a move, in fact, he’d been giving you the cold shoulder for weeks.  You were starting to think he was repulsed by you.

“Someone?” Eddie heard the heavy footfalls climbing up the wood steps, and realization dawned on him. Everything made sense all at once.  The fact that you were dressed up in clothes he’d never seen you in, and you smelled extremely good, even more so than normal.  

What had he expected you to do? Wait around on the porch for him, knitting, until he was able to work through his issues and ask you on a date himself?

Someone else had beaten him to hit, and he didn’t care who it was—he fucking hated him.  Wanted to rip him open and stomp on their guts.

At the sound of the doorbell, Bela screeched from the bathroom.

Chaos, you mused, pure chaos.

You squeezed your eyes shut and wished for a hole to open up in the ground and swallow you up.

With a tight jaw, Eddie was the one to open the door.

Steve Harrington had a bouquet of daisies in his hand. A full head of hair that was long down his neck, and black and red flannel over a new pair of blue jeans. He raised an eyebrow at the sight of you standing just behind the vampire with the murderous look on his face.

Steve’s eyes shifted to you.  “Is this a bad time?”

“Yes,” Eddie said.

“No,” you corrected, pushing by Eddie to take the flowers and thank him.

“These are so beautiful,” you cleared your throat.  “Um, Steve—this is Eddie, my neighbor.  Eddie this is—”

“I know who he is,” they both said in unison.

You watched Steve’s brown eyes glow a bright yellow for a moment as he regarded your other guest with stern resolve. 

You took off Eddie’s jacket and handed it back to him with a shove. “Just give me a second to grab a few things?” You said to Steve in a rush.  “I’ll be—I’ll be right out.”

Steve stared right at Eddie when he said, “I’ll go wait in the truck.”

“You do that,” Eddie muttered as Steve turned to go.

Eddie was quick to slam the door shut again.  He turned to you with a scowl on his face, “A werewolf?” He balked.  “You’re going on a date with one of those smelly dogs?”

“Yeah, well,” you tossed the daisies on the counter while you fumbled with your handbag. “Why do you care?”

“I don’t,” he pursed his lips into a tight line and shook his head.

“Good, that’s settled,” you took a deep breath.  “Not that you deserve any explanation, but I’ve been running into him at the bookstore for weeks, and I mentioned that I never go anywhere, so he invited me to a movie.  We’re just going as friends.”

“Friends don’t bring you flowers.” 

Outside, the truck rumbled to life and the headlights snapped on again. 

“I can’t do this right now with you, Eddie.  I need you to go so that I can get Bela out of the bathroom and calm her down before I leave.”

Without another word, he reached for the door again.

“Hey Eddie,” you softened your tone.  You’d meant to grab his arm, but took hold of his hand instead.  He squeezed your fingers back, but he did not turn to meet your eyes.  “I’m sorry we didn’t get to…I don’t mean to run out on you like this. Maybe tomorrow?”

“I’m busy,” he mumbled.  He rubbed his thumb over your knuckles once, and then, in a blink, he was out the door and gone.  

-----

Love you all for your patience on this! I look forward to your thoughts and reactions through comments, reblogs, and asks so much! All my love!

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[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

[dovahkiin796]

Poppy Playtime: CH 3 (What-if Part 2)

John watches in both awe and terror as the metal, skeleton-like hand of The Prototype lowered from the same hatch CatNap jumped down from to get the jump on him. The giant purple cat backed away in fear at it.

Knowing he failed his God, he feared at what punishment he'll receive. But instead of a harsh punishment. The Prototype turned his hand around, as if wanting CatNap to take it.

At least that what it would look like to an outside viewer. But to CatNap. He knew what it truly meant... and he was very willing to it.

CatNap, real name Theodore Grambell, got onto his knees and waited for his God to take him. The Prototype pressed his sharp fingers together and rammed them through CatNap's mouth.

The death was instant. The large front legs fell limply to the floor and as if the giant cat weighed nothing. The Prototype lifted the dead Bigger Body off the ground and into the hatch.

As far as John knew. That was the last time he would see of CatNap. Getting up off the floor. John looks at his right GrabPack arm and sighs when seeing the green hand completely destroyed.

"I really hope I won't be needing it anymore." He said. Taking the elevator he used to get up to this power room back down. John completes his task by putting the blue battery into the wall socket and diverting the Red Smoke.

To his left he heard a door open. Walking through it, John finds himself in a massive room with a concrete covering hooked to some kind of crane system in the center.

"Good, you're here." Said the voice of Poppy from nowhere. "And you've done it again. The impossible. Just like I knew you would."

"I didn't do it alone. Had some good friends to help me on my journey." Said John with a soft smile. "...I wish more people like you worked here in the factory. Maybe... maybe none of this would have happened." Said Poppy.

Suddenly the lid was being raised. Revealing a long shaft and another elevator that would take anyone down it. "CatNap's gone... the Red Smoke is diverted... Everything is falling into place, thanks to you. But if we're to keep going then..." Poppy emerges from an open vent, stepping onto a platform with a VHS tape in her tiny hands.

The little doll correctly assumes John came back for his co-workers, wanting to know what happened to them. It was all over the news. Who wouldn't want to know? Around over 250 people suddenly vanishing without a trace. And he wasn't there to do anything to save even one person from just disappearing.

"This... this is your answer." Poppy raised the tape, so his focus was on it. "We called it "The Hour of Joy". She inserts the tape in a VHS player. John heard the sound of static and looked to where it came from.

On the ground floor with him he sees a TV. He walks up to it and sees from the POV of a CCTV camera of the main lobby with Huggy standing in the spot where John first found him. Though this time he was surrounded by dozens of people.

It looked like it was just another day in the factory. Till Huggy suddenly attacked someone by chomping down on them. The people all ran in terror with Huggy following them.

John watched in absolute horror as the feed would change to different cameras around the factory. He saw Mommy Long Legs reach out and grab three workers and crawled up to the ceiling out of the camera's view. Then only a few seconds later the workers she carried up fell to the ground. Blood splattered onto the floor.

John couldn't believe at the amount of carnage he was seeing. Everyone must've been so confused when the toys suddenly started attacking them. Some of the employees no doubt cornered themselves in an attempt to find a safe place to hide.

After watching the toy massacre everyone. All there was left to see were the bodies. They were everywhere! Just left in the spots where they were killed. The tape came to an end. John had to back away and process at what he just saw.

"I remember hearing every moment of it." Said Poppy in a tone that made it clear she was vividly remembering that horrible day. "It went on so long... So agonizingly long."

John continued to remain silent as heard Poppy recount it all. Remembering their cries, begging for God to save them, pleading to see their families. Poppy referring it as nothing but senseless slaughter that didn't fix anything. No one was spared and when it was all done. The bodies were dragged to the deepest part of the factory... and were then feasted upon by the toys.

Just then a door opens up and stepping through it is Kissy Missy and to John's joy she's holding DogDay in her left arm. When spotting the human, he waves at him. "Hey there Angel! I'm glad to see you're still alive. CatNap? ...is he...?"

"Dead." Is all John said. DogDay looks toward the ground in a thinking manner till saying. "I know I said I was the last of the Smiling Critters back at the Playplace. But I was referring to the fact me and the others didn't follow CatNap's belief in The Prototype. But with CatNap now dead... I'm truly the last."

Suddenly DogDay broke down into tears. Actual tears were falling from his eyes. "I... I wish the others were here! I wish they were still alive to see this day! Finally free from all the torment, all the suffering, all the misery! I wish... they got to meet you, Angel."

Kissy turned the Smiling Critter around and gently pressed his face against her pink fur. She then with her free hand started rubbing the back of his head. She knew hugging was Huggy's specialty. But she also knew kisses would not be the appropriate action to reassure DogDay.

John, feeling so sorry for his new friend, walks over to him. Knowing what the human wanted to do. Kissy crouches down to allow John to put his hand on DogDay's back and mimic Kissy's soothing gesture.

After a minute DogDay was able to calm down. He dried his pitch-black eyes with his hand and said. "Thank you, all of you, for saving me and keeping me safe."

"John here deserves all the thanks. It was he who made the choice to save you. Which is why I keep saying he... you John. Are perfect for this quest to finally put an end to The Prototype." Kissy hands DogDay to John who gladly took him and had him in the same position when they were escaping the Playplace.

He looked over his shoulder and smiled at him and despite the Smiling Critter was always smiling. John could tell DogDay was giving him a genuine smile in return.

Kissy took hold of Poppy and placed her on the elevator platform with John and DogDay following suit. "Are you ready for this DogDay?" John asked the Bigger Body.

Nodding his head. "I am. It's time to end that monster once and for all. Avenge my friends and those who were slaughtered during The Hour of Joy. So, they can finally be put to rest." The elevator slowly made its way down the shaft towards the home of The Prototype. John wasn't sure what he was going up against.

He only over saw the hand of The Prototype and only heard it was intelligent. But judging how Mommy Long Legs feared about being a part of him and CatNap's brief moment of fear at seeing the hand. The Prototype is leagues above Huggy, Mommy, and CatNap. But at least he wasn't alone in this. 'We'll make it. I believe in that.' He confidently thought in his head.

[goldenamaranthe-blog]

Hazband 2: Band AU

Buckle Up, Buttercups. This is gonna be looooooooooong.

-"Insider Bands" playing on VH666 streaming services on a computer monitor / TV screen sitting on the desk against the far wall-

Charlie: (laying on her belly on her bed and chewing her nails like a cartoon goat chews through a field of grass as she watches the TV)

Riff Rascal: Alright, dudes, dudettes, non-duders, and rock-aholics! That was Simple Plain's newest single "Why Are We Kids?!". Coming up next, our guy, our big shredder, our big bad-

????: Dammit, Riff!!!! Just get on with it!!!

Riff Rascal: Yo, sorry, boss lady! Coming up next, we have our expert in all things metal and shredding, Axel Steelgrave, conducting a super secret, super exclusive interview with one of Hell's latest and greatest! Stay tuned!

Charlie: (whines and plasters her face into the comforter) Fuck! I really messed up! I shouldn't have released that album, guys! What if Vaggie doesn't like girls outside of the metal scene?! Then I'm just the creepy, stalker, pop diva who messages her on Sinstagram every once and a while! And likes all of her posts! And comments on each picture! And-

Razzle: (trying to finish polishing Charlie's hooves after a full pedicure and hoof care) Baap?

Charlie: So? It was only ever mentioned once in a tabloid that she was once in a poly ship with a man and woman before. Nothing set in stone. Who listens to tabloids anyway? She said she was a lesbian in her last interview with Angel Metal Monthly.

Dazzle: (brings up a wide array of nail polishes) BaaaAaaAp?

Charlie: Yes! She messages me back almost immediately after every message I send her, but that doesn't mean the's interested in me. She hasn't been online in a week! (rolls over and flops onto her back, covering her eyes with her arm) Not since Katie Killjoy did that whole news segment on my new single music video and album.

Dazzle: (painting Charlie's hooves in a deep red hue called "Wicked Sinister") Baaaaaaap. BaaaAAaaap. Baap. (clicks his hoof in a way that's supposed to look like a sassy finger snap and blows heated air over the paint)

Razzle: Baap! (scowls) Baaap. Baaa. Baap!

Charlie: Thanks, Razzle. No, Dazzle. I really don't think this is some kind of rebound. I really started liking her during the Battle of the Bands gig over at the Jackpot Hotel and Casino. She was the first person who didn't openly laugh at me being there even though I was the only pop singer there.

-VH666 blares back with a heavy metal guitar riff-

Axel Steelgrave: Hey, good evening, everyone. How's it going? Tonight, we have a very special guest. (camera pans out to show Vaggie sitting next to Axel in an interview chair) Lead singer, guitarist, and rocking girl, Vaggie the Steel Vagina from Fallen Angels.

Charlie: WHAT?!?!?!?!?! (crocodile death rolls around in her excitement and falls out of bed, completely wrapped in a burrito, and worm crawls over to the TV) RAZZLE!!! DAZZLE!!! TURN IT UP!!!

Razzle: (salutes) Baap! (grabs the remote and turns up the volume)

Dazzle: (sad bleats as he looks at the mess of nail polish everywhere) baaaaaap.....

Vaggie: (trying not to snarl at the name) It's just Vaggie, Axel.

Axel Steelgrave: Oh, sure. Sure. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to come and see us. Not gonna lie. We were shocked to hear that you were coming out with a new single so quickly.

Charlie: (plasters her face to the screen) New Single?!?!?!?!?!

Vaggie: (blushes slightly) Well, I figured after hearing the Princess's new album and call-out, I should work on a reply.

Angel: (from behind the camera man) You wouldn't have had ta write and record a whole new song and music video if you just sent 'er a video of you jacking it all week! I've never heard dat vibrator work so hard in its life! I swear I smelled smoke last night!

Charlie: (squeals, gasps, and shrieks all at once and falls backwards)

Vaggie: (jumps up from her seat) Angel! What the Fuck?!

Axel Steelgrave: Well, well, well, I guess that answers my next question. I take it this new single is going to be good news for the Princess?

Vaggie: (still steaming as she sits back down and tries to compose herself) I know you have the video on hand. Why not play it and let the fans see for themselves?

Axel Steelgrave: I couldn't have said it better myself. (to the camera) With that being said, let's take a look at a sneak peek of Fallen Angel's new single: "Dear, Charlie - For Somewhere Better".

-Video cuts to some random point in the music video where Vaggie is standing in black leather skirt that has the leather ripped into strips in a hoola-skirt style, black halter tank top, thigh high leather heeled boots, and black fingerless gloves, holding and shredding a guitar. Angel is a pink, fabulous gay disaster on drums while one set of hands works a keyboard.-

Vaggie: (singing) We'll ignite. Still dreaming wide awake. On the hunt for "Somewhen brighter". Pull me close now, and I'll dream until my dying day. Till we create a new "Somewhere better". The promise of a life. Like a thousand suns inside my broken heart. I can see through your eyes. And embrace the flame that guides me through the night.

-Video Cuts back to the interview-

Axel Steelgrave: (freaking out excitedly) Wow! That's quite the statement! Good on you, Steel Vagina!

Vaggie: Vaggie.

Axel Steelgrave: Before we end this exclusive, is there anything you want to say to the Princess in case she's watching?

Vaggie: (Face falls briefly as her eye widens and a blush colors her face) Oh.... (shakes her head to compose herself, looks into the camera, and makes a telephone gesture) Call me~

Axel Steelgrave: (laughing) Alright! You heard it here first, folks. "Dear, Charlie" will be available on HellTunes tonight at midnight. Thank you all so much for tuning in. And, as always, stay rocking.

Charlie: (finally managing to unravel the blanket and sitting on the floor with a bright red blush) C-Call.... Her.... She wants me to call her... (jumps up and down like a teenager in a bad "not another teen movie" while holding Razzle and Dazzle's hooves) SHE WANTS ME TO CALL HER!!!! (pauses) How?! I don't have her number!

-DING!-

Charlie: (dives for her phone on the floor and opens a new Sinstagram message)

FallenAngelVaggie: Hope you got a chance to watch "Insider Bands" tonight. Talk to you later? Maybe over coffee? XXX-XXX-XXXX

Charlie: (takes a deep breath) SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

Vaggie: (leaning against the wall of the VH666 studio, holding her phone against her chest, and taking a long drag of a cigarette)

Angel: Hey! I thought you were quitting! (yoinks the cigarette and plops it between his lips)

Vaggie: Dammit, Angel! I said I'd be done once my case is empty! (digs in her pocket and pulls out an angelic steel cigarette case) It still has four left! I haven't even lit up in nearly six months!

Angel: I know! Proud of you for that. That interview rile you up that much that you gotta wreck six months of hard work?

Vaggie: Ugh! (slams her back into the wall) You think Charlie got the message?

-squeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

Angel: (looks up at the sky towards the Morningstar Mansion where it looks like fireworks are going off on one of the balconies) Oh, I think she got it~

[blurredcolour]

V. "I Trusted You!"

"Trust" Series Masterlist

John "Bucky" Egan x WAC!Female Reader

The unthinkable happens on Bucky's next mission, leaving both of you to deal with the aftermath of your idyllic day in London, and his harsh parting words to you during that final phone call.

Warnings: ANGST, Language, Grief, Death, Imprisonment, Interrogation, Near-Death Experiences, Despair, Self-Loathing, Pregnancy, Era-Typical Sexism, Inevitable Historical and Military Inaccuracies, Mature/Explicit Themes - 18+ ONLY.

Author’s Note: I cannot believe we have reached the penultimate installment! As always, letters/notes have image descriptions that can be accessed by clicking the 'ALT' button. Special thanks to Marina @precious-little-scoundrel for helping me untangle numerous plot points in this and the final part of the series. I could not have done this without you. This is a work of fiction based off the portrayal by the actors in the Apple TV+ series. I hold nothing but respect for the real life individuals referenced within.

Word Count: 7477

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

Your eyes were burning as you struggled to decipher the last few lines of scribbles on the page of notes you were attempting to transcribe. Two nights of little-to-no sleep after weeks of fourteen-hour days had done you no favors, and the addition of the heavy weight of dread you had been lugging around in your lower abdomen since your disastrous phone call with Bucky yesterday afternoon was not helping. Your eyes lifted to the clock on the wall for the fifth time in as many minutes, once again hoping that no news was good news. It was nearly 1930, surely one of your dependable trio of friends would have delivered word to you by now if there was bad news.

The shrill ring of the telephone on the corner of your desk physically jarred you, your right hand nearly colliding with the cup of coffee you had brought up from the mess in a desperate attempt to make it to the meeting at 2200. Under Myrtle’s expectant glare, you lunged forward to answer it, providing your last name in greeting.

“Darling…” Vi’s drawl crackled over the line, dripping with sympathy, and you were convinced your dinner of army noodles and watery tomato sauce might make a reappearance right there on your desk.

“Vi I don’t…” You blurted out and then snapped your mouth shut because you did want to know, you were just not sure you could take it.

You clenched your eyes shut as your heart began to race, palms sweaty as your stomach continued to churn.

“He didn’t come back…” Her voice trembled and the world tilted completely off its axis, a wail clawing at your throat, desperate to be released.

“Thank you for telling me.” You gritted out before clumsily hanging up the phone, fairly dropping the handset into the cradle, before leaping to your feet and wrenching the office door open to dash down the hall to the washroom.

It was a miracle you made it in time, collapsing into the first stall to empty your stomach, tears streaming down your cheeks as your knees stung from their impact with the tile. When the urge to retch finally subsided, you hit the handle to flush and slumped back against the metal dividing wall between the next cubicle, sniffling pathetically.

‘He didn’t come back…’ Echoed through your mind and your hand rose to clamp over your mouth, desperate to smother the noise of pain that ripped through you.

Before you could fully surrender to the shuddering sobs that were about to wrack your body, however, the sound of the faucet running had you forcing your emotions down with brutal efficiency, snapping your head to the side to see who was bearing witness to your second public breakdown since your posting in England.

The sight of stoic, icy Myrtle holding out a dampened handkerchief to you had your watery eyes widening in shock. After a moment of your bewildered staring, she heaved a great sigh and crouched down to begin blotting at your cheeks and brow, dewy with the effort of losing your dinner. The handkerchief was blessedly cool, even if her touch was less than gentle, and brought a modicum of relief.

“What’s his name?” She asked quietly, tone not at all softened, but the tenderness of her actions and the words themselves had your eyes brimming with fresh tears.

“John…John Egan” You rasped.

“It’s heartless how the entirety of a man’s existence is boiled down to three letters. Just focus on the M for now. Doris in personnel is always willing to keep an eye out for a familiar name, I’ll ask her to add your man’s name to her list. Let’s get you up.”

You thanked her softly as she grabbed your elbows and pulled you to your feet. Beginning to tug your uniform back into place, you shuffled toward the mirror to tidy your hair.

“What’s your fellow’s name?” You asked her quietly once you felt confident in your ability to speak properly.

“Bobby Vendetti. Flew with LeMay and the 3rd Division to Regensburg. KIA.” She replied in her clipped, stoic voice and slipped out of the washroom leaving you to wonder if she was a grim glimpse into your own future.

Bracing your hands against the sides of the wall-mounted sink, you leaned against it heavily as a cruel wave of weakness overtook you, your body feeling an awful lot like a bowl of Jello in someone’s unsteady hand. Screwing your eyes shut, you locked your knees against the desire to crumple to the ground and forced slow, steady breaths into your trembling body until some semblance of control was restored.

Frowning deeply, you lifted your eyes to the mirror to re-adjust a few pins with sharp, self-chastising movements – using the pain as a point of grounding and focus – before you looked acceptable enough to return to your desk. Myrtle glanced up as your chair creaked slightly upon your return and nodded once. You barely managed to return it before glancing at the cup of coffee in disgust. Pushing it further away, you took a deep lungful of air and turned back to the task at hand.

Every time your fingers struck the M key you took a moment to send a silent plea up to every power above that might possibly hear you.

‘Please keep him safe.’

‘Please don’t let it change to a K.’

‘Please let him be alive.’

‘Please bring him back.’

‘Please.’

‘Please.’

‘Please.’

Reaching the end of the report, you swallowed roughly to see that it was just after 2100, time to set up for the last meeting of the day. Punching a pair of holes in the stack of sheets, you secured the report in its dated folder before dropping it off at the filing office and then made your rounds to collect the final weather and supply reports to be reviewed by the senior operations officers. Stepping into the darkened conference room, you laid your burden of files down on the large table before hurrying over to pull the blackout curtains closed. Clipping your hip on the sharp wooden corner as you made your way over to the light switch, you had to furiously blink back the tears that had been threatening to fall since you had emerged from the washroom.

‘Just a few more hours, then we can lose it completely in the sanctity of our attic closet-turned-bedroom.’ You mentally promised yourself with a shuddering breath.

Working your way around the table, you set out targeting information at each place for the Generals and their subordinates to review.

‘To send the next group of boys to the slaughter.’

Shaking your head with enough physical ferocity to send yourself slightly off balance, you succeeded in momentarily knocking such petty thoughts from your head as you confirmed the list of slides with those in the projector. With preparations complete, you settled into your out-of-the-way seat in the corner of the room. WACs did not sit at the decision-making table – your presence in this room was not for the purpose of being seen nor to be heard. It was simply to ensure things ran smoothly and were recorded for posterity.

Would that you could have done something yesterday, after Bucky announced his intentions to fly, as the target of Münster became ever more likely. Bucky sure seemed to think you could affect things – perhaps he would have come back if you had done something. Gulping roughly, you robotically slid to your feet as the jovial voices of several of the operations officers sounded just outside the door, warning of their imminent arrival.

They filed into the room in clusters and bunches, chatting and sipping at cups of coffee they had brought as they flipped through the latest reports. Once everyone was assembled, the meeting began more or less at 2200 and you set to your diligent notetaking, pushing aside the snarling voice in your head that wanted to question their every decision.

It seemed, in their packets, were the loses that had been accumulated in that day’s mission, Bomber Command 114 to Münster – thirty planes and their crews. A horrifying thirteen of these from the 100th. With their determination to mount another assault on Schweinfurt, the lack of operational aircraft and men would mean several days’ delay, but this would certainly afford the Divisions and Wings extra time in the planning. With a tentative date set as October 14, 1943, the meeting was adjourned, the junior officers hurrying to deliver the news via teletype as you cleaned up the room.

You had very little recollection of completing the last report of the day or the journey up to your room, only fully returning your body as you shed your uniform to collapse onto your cot in a flood of tears no longer willing to be kept at bay.

But loosening your hold on your emotions did not provide much relief. In fact you found yourself fading day by day to no more than a hollow shell of yourself, an empty ache replacing all that used to fulfill you. The world grew grey and cold around you, even if the sun dared to show its callous face, and food was barely tasted or tolerated. If you had possessed the mental capacity to notice, the other girls began to call you ‘mouse’ behind your back for the way you would idly nibble at crackers or toast while staring vacantly at things unseen before giving up on the idea of a meal altogether. The majority of your breaks were spent rambling outside, warm or cold, rainy or fair, circling the grounds as you gnawed at the worn ends of your nails and silently repeated your threadbare pleas for Bucky’s welfare.

Nearly two weeks of such dismal behavior seemed to be Myrtle’s limit as she turned to you sharply one afternoon and declared, “We need to get you a hobby. Do you know how to knit?”

Your head whipped up from your typewriter to look at her in startled silence for a few moments before you shook your head pathetically.

“I will show you how tomorrow at lunch so you can stop haunting the grounds like the Hound of the Baskervilles.”

Your lips may have even twitched slightly at her literary admonishment, and you nodded meekly in agreement. Though when she handed you a pair of long wooden needles and a skein of midnight blue wool as soon as you returned to the office after a lunch of cold toast and a few sips of soup, you certainly felt out of your league.

“Watch.” She said sharply and leaned back in her chair to demonstrate. “Stab it, strangle it, scoop out the guts, toss it off the cliff.” Myrtle rattled off as she slowly moved her needles through each step.

To the surprise of you both, a soft snort escape your nose and she gave you the tiniest of smirks.

“It is rather memorable. I’ll show you again.” She repeated the process several times, accumulating numerous stitches along one needle before looking to you expectantly.

Tucking your lower lip under your teeth in concentration, you did your best to follow her example. Your fingers found the motions foreign and awkward, the needles slippery, and the yarn uncooperative. But you were not one to surrender easily in any aspect of your life. Narrowing your eyes at the challenge set before you, you poured more of your concentration into the effort and slowly but surely cast twenty stitches onto your needle.

“Good. They will get tidier as you go. I think your first project should be a scarf – something useful and a no more than a large rectangle. Add another sixteen stitches to that and then I’ll teach you how to cast off.”

Glancing at her nervously, the idea of a new step and attempting to create a garment both intimidating, you took a steadying breath before turning back to look at the needles in your hands.

‘One step at a time. Sixteen more stitches.’

It turned out casting off was not nearly as terrifying as it initially sounded. And the hobby of knitting? Remarkably forgiving, unlike the rest of life. When a stitch was dropped or poorly executed, it was a simple matter of unravelling the error-filled portion of the scarf and remaking it. Knitting filled the empty times when you could not sleep, could barely eat as your stomach seemed hopelessly snarled in worried knots. You were still by no means living a healthy lifestyle, but somehow everything was a little less abysmal. Your nerves a little less frayed, your tongue a little less sharp.

The resulting scarf was in no way a work of art, but it was entirely serviceable and would certainly be a welcome donation to the Red Cross to keep some poor soul warm. It was upon the completion of that project, within one week, that Myrtle decided you ought to try and follow a pattern. A knit cap to match perhaps?

Patterns were an entirely different beast and certainly slowed your progress, though your slightly aching hands did not begrudge the slackening in pace as you worked and reworked, knit and unravelled and reknit your way through it. The weather turned genuinely cold by the second week of November, dropping to the single digits during the day and below zero at night. There was still no word on Bucky. No change to his three letters, still holding as MIA.

‘Please. Please. Please.’ You repeated silently with each wooden clack of your needles as you sat cross-legged on your cot, knitting by the light of your bedside lamp until your eyes refused to focus.

Three envelopes with writing as distinct as their personalities were tucked into the small dresser beside your cot – letters from Vi, Ruth, and Mary that you simply could not bear to open. The threat of their sympathy was too frightening to contemplate. Would surely shatter the fragile semblance of normalcy you had cobbled together. Holding equilibrium and hyper vigilance seemed to only way forward. If you were to upset the balance, something catastrophic might befall Bucky and you could not risk such an outcome by changing your well-worn habits now.

The third week of November brought the arrival of a familiar and, frankly, unwelcome face. It appeared you had not seen the last of Captain Miller yet, for she transferred to Pinetree as the replacement for the WAC commanding officer Captain Burns who had suffered a rather severe fall down those treacherous attic stairs a couple days prior. Your greeting was professional, if a bit on the frosty side, and you could feel her beady eyes boring into your back as you left her office along with the other WAC officers to inform the enlisted women of the personnel change.

Despite being a Lieutenant, you had yet to be placed in direct charge of any personnel yourself, a fact that you might have mused further upon if you had the energy to spare on useless pursuits. As it was you were barely getting through the day-to-day struggle of survival while awaiting news of Bucky.

It came not two days later, in the form of a note dropped on your desk as Myrtle shuffled past with a stack of folders. Eyeing it with trepidation, you slowly reached out for it before unfolding the torn scrap of paper to reveal three entirely new letters.

POW

An exhaled sound of elation escaped you before you could stop it, quickly clamping your mouth shut against further outbursts in respect for Myrtle’s lost loved one. Setting your elbows on the wooden top of your desk, you lay your hands over your face and rambled off a silent litany of gratitude to the powers of the universe for this outcome. It was by no means the best – Bucky would most certainly be furious to have been apprehended by the enemy, to be kept behind fences and barbed wire. But it was absolutely not the worst, and for that you could feel nothing but relief.

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

Every time he closed his eyes, all Bucky could hear was your shaky inhale, laced with pain, which had seeped through the phone after his careless statements on October 9. Even as he had slammed down the receiver, it had already begun to echo in his ears as he wrenched open the door of the telephone booth and stormed back to the hotel room. The only anger he felt about the entire affair was at himself. He had not been there for Buck, and then he had hurt you.

Each piece of flak, each bullet that struck his plane, felt like divine retribution for his personal failings. And while he was utterly furious when that third engine died, forcing the crew to bail out, he was also convinced on at least some level he deserved it. Deserved to be caught by those snivelling kids and their fathers. Deserved the beating in that godforsaken town that the RAF had failed to flatten. Deserved to have died on that wagon, but the sunlight still pricked at his eyes stubbornly.

Your agonized sound ricocheted through his throbbing skull and his eyes shot wide with the realization that if he were to give up now, he would only be hurting you more. Failing you and everyone else he cared about. His stomach lurched in horror and, seizing upon the distraction of the two repellent grave diggers, he rolled himself off the cart, making for the woods with all the grace of a newborn giraffe. Everything hurt, most especially his head, and he could barely see out of his right eye, yet somehow, he managed to evade them. Before everything went black.

By the time he arrived at the interrogation centre he knew he had missed his chance to escape. But there was a bed, and a blanket. Some questionable food, but it was better than wormy cabbage. His interrogator, for all his claims of insider knowledge, knew nothing about Buck – the famed sports hater, nor you. Everyone around Thorpe Abbotts was more than acquainted with the fact that he was utterly devoted to you and yet the slimy blond tried to insinuate he was still up to his good time ways. It did not make the barbs and intimations of Buck’s death any less painful, however. But it failed to make him crack.

When at last he arrived at the prison camp, first spotting Crank and to his unspeakable relief, Buck, he was convinced his legs might give out right there on the spot. Refusing to give those sneering guards the satisfaction, he forced himself to continue putting one foot in front of the other, remaining curt yet polite through registration and combine assignment until he was delivered to his quarters. Barely able to summon the energy to embrace Buck, he asked him to point in the direction of an open bunk before crawling in and passing out for hours.

Bucky’s memory of the next few days was spotty, consisting of vignettes and flashes rather than full days. Brady and Buck had seen to it that he had made the twice-daily roll call, forcing watery broth down his throat, and Bucky had even managed to wash the last of that soldier’s brains from his hair with shockingly cold water. All the while he felt the need to mutter the apologies to you that he should have spoken. He should have called you that night when he reached base, or even right after he had hung up in London. He vaguely recalled Buck soothing him, uttering platitudes like ‘your girl isn’t stupid she’ll understand’ ‘just hang on you’ll tell her yourself.’ It was around his fourth day in camp when things began to clear, and he felt more like himself. Then the monotony set in.

The weather was already cold, even for late October, and he was sorely missing the sheepskin coat he had swapped with Kidd for his plain leather jacket. It only grew colder as the days grew shorter, darkness coming to dominate the time they spent huddled together around the small table eating their meagre rations. Apparently, the Red Cross packages, though frequently delayed, had their captors feeling entitled to provide them less than their full allotment. The atmosphere was grim among all the prisoners there, particularly the Brits and Canadians who had been POWs since ’41. Bucky was not sure if he had the fortitude to last that long.

The first mail call did not come until December and Bucky did not even bother raising his eyes as the enlisted man tasked with the duty called out everyone’s name.

“Cleven, DeMarco, Brady, Egan…”

Bucky’s eyes lifted slowly, and he looked to the young man, who’s name was just on the tip of his tongue but seemed determined to escape him, to see him holding out an envelope expectantly. Bucky reached out to take it, swallowing roughly as he recognized your writing immediately.

“…Cruikshank, Murphy…oh and this is for you too, Egan.”

Bucky’s eyes tore from your delicate cursive to look at the small box he was holding out, taking it with a mumbled ‘thanks’ before setting it on his lap. The box bore your writing too, his fingers idly tracing the loops and whirls before he heard a soft laugh.

“Go on then, Bucky.” Buck smirked at him, already well into his letter from Marge, eyes alight with pure excitement.

Bucky exhaled slowly before tearing at the paper covering the box, a broad smile forcing its way onto his tired face as he was struck by the scent of you. Pulling the first woolen object from inside he turned it in his hands a few times before recognizing it as a hat, misshapen though it was, and quickly pulled it onto his head. Several of the guys laughed and he was certain he looked a fool, but he also felt immediately warmer for it. In pulling out the much longer garment, clearly a scarf, a small note fluttered to the ground. Wrapping the scarf around his neck he scooped it up to read.

There was a total of thirty-one words on that small piece of paper, with your name included, but he only cared about the last three, just above your signature. Taking a slow breath, Bucky was thankful for whatever divine entity existed that had prevented him from ruining his relationship with you. He turned back to look at Cruikshank as he mocked his new winter fashions.

“I’m sorry Crank, what did your girl send you?” He smirked good naturedly, picking up your letter from the tabletop, feeling the thickness of it, hoping there were a lot more than thirty words to lose himself in.

“My mom sent me this fine number.” Crank cracked back, pulling on a comparatively well-knit cowl scarf which he seemed more than a little proud of, but Bucky would take your questionable textiles any day.

First and foremost being he was currently wrapped in a cloud of wool that smelled so distinctly of you he had to be careful not to let his thoughts wander. He shook his head, laughing along with the rest of the guys, each of them basking in the glow of their first contact with home, as he carefully tore into your envelope. He was very obviously not the first to open it, probably not even the second, which sent a flash of annoyance through him, but he was learning to conserve his energy for things he actually had control over.

He closed his eyes tightly as his mind was flooded with the memory of you falling apart in his arms all those weeks ago. It seemed like another lifetime now, but it was heartily reassuring that you too seemed to have such memories on your mind in writing this. Slowly opening his eyes once more to return to his grim reality, his eyes drifted below your signature to your post-script.

The grin that split his face was near-painful and if he had not already reached the conclusion, the words would have surely been the final piece of evidence required to confirm that you were the perfect woman.

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

January brought with a continuation of daytime temperatures below zero, the return of your appetite, and your first letter from Bucky.

How something so small and thin as paper could both wound and soothe at the same time was perhaps the greatest of all mysteries to you. Elation at seeing his writing, hearing his voice in your head, was mottled with grief and pain at knowing what and who kept him from you. It was almost too horrid to think what he must have endured to date – what he could very well be enduring in this very moment for his letter was dated over a month ago.

‘Please keep him alive.’

Using your next Friday off you, made a special visit to the shops, collecting things like dried soup, nuts, and other things from Bucky’s list. Chocolate was harder to come by, but managed by accumulating your own rations of it, despite how you could not seem to get enough of it lately. That and apples. The staff in the mess line seemed to always have one on hand for you now, at every meal, after your constant requests, and the first crisp bite brought almost as much pleasure as a kiss from Bucky.

Adding a pair of hideous, in your opinion, mittens to the box of provisions, you sent it off via the Red Cross hoping he would not have to wait too long before the items reached him. A short note was all you added.

As you were making your way up to your room to begin a more detailed letter, you were startled to see Myrtle and Captain Miller walking down the hallway together, heads bent close, the sight giving you more than a little unease. They had not noticed you, several steps short of the landing, and you happily remained hidden behind a stone pillar as they stepped into Miller’s office together.

With a frown, you continued on your way, hoping that nothing was amiss, but struggling to shake the sense of foreboding that had settled around you like an unwelcome, smothering blanket. It was an odd sensation, considering the way that you had been desperately fighting off the deep chill of the English winter that seemed to have snuck its way into the very marrow of your bones. You were constantly burrowing beneath blankets and coats and scarves, even going so far as to squirrel a lap blanket into the bottom drawer of your desk for use during your long motionless periods of typing.

Your suspicions were confirmed when Captain Miller asked to have a word with you in her office the following Monday. Nothing had ever gone well when you spoke to this woman alone and this time proved no exception to the rule.

“How have you been feeling lately, Lieutenant?” She sunk her teeth right into the meat of the issue not two seconds after gesturing for you to take a seat across from where she sat, perched behind a rather ornate desk in her remarkably well-appointed office.

“A…alright I suppose, Ma’am, no complaints.” You did your best to answer lightly, very much desiring to keep your exhaustion, born of the constant worry combined with the demands of your position, from reaching her untrustworthy ears.

“Hm.” Captain Miller replied, tone conveying that she remained utterly unconvinced. “I must say you seem rather changed since your time at Thorpe Abbotts. You look less than well to me, and some of your colleagues have brought such concerns directly to me. I’ve scheduled an appointment for you to see the surgeon tomorrow at 0800, just to be sure you’re right as rain.”

“Ma’am I assure you, I am–” You began to protest, wondering just whom considered you unfit for duty.

“That will be all, Lieutenant. You’re dismissed.” She replied brusquely and you rose to your feet to salute her quickly before slipping out of her office, mind racing.

Certainly, your lack of sleep was less than desirable, but your work or various knitting projects were safe haven from the darker thoughts that seemed prone to find you during periods of rest. Aside from that, though you were fine. Improved, even, since communication had been somewhat restored with Bucky, though you could not seem to shake this annoying sniffle. But everything else was just…

Your eyes flew wide as your steps abruptly halted in the middle of the busy hallway, hardly registering the sharp bark of the man behind you as he narrowly avoided slamming into your back. In all your desperation to lose yourself by blindly trudging forward through life, just trying to get through it, it seemed you had lost track of something rather important. Springing back into motion, you hustled to your desk, digging out last year’s calendar, flipping back through the dates, racking your brain for the last time you’d had your monthlies. Your fingertips grew colder with each turn of the page until you reached September. That was the last time you could confidently say that you had bled.

And then there had been the ‘idyllic day’ in London with Bucky. Or more specifically the night.

Looking down at your abdomen as though it were some separate entity; having acted entirely on its own agenda, you felt your lower lip wobble. The door to the office opened, the sound of the pane of glass rattling lightly in its wooden frame startling you into an upright posture as you slammed the calendar closed. The look Myrtle gave you was one of confusion laced with guilt and had you bristling defensively as you vividly recalled her chummy conversation with Captain Miller a few days ago.

Colleagues.

“I trusted you!” You snapped under your breath, the waspish cruelty of your outburst stinging your own ears and flooding your eyes with tears. “How could you go to her…”

“I was worried about you.” She replied guardedly, retreating to her desk as a place of safety. “You are clearly not well.”

You sniffed indignantly but it was beginning to register just how true that statement might be. Because you most certainly had not been taking excellent care of yourself and if…Who were you kidding, four months with no bleeding. The exhaustion, the nausea, the susceptibility to cold. The signs had been there all along, you had simply chalked them up to the emotional turmoil you had been experiencing related to Bucky’s disappearance, capture, and internment as a POW. A strangled sob escaped you before you could stop it, quickly burying your face in your hands as you gasped for air, struggling to get a grip on your rapidly fracturing composure.

The soft ‘snick’ of the lock on the door had you peeking through your fingers as you watched Myrtle approach you not unlike one would a wounded animal.

“I thought as much…How far along do you think you are?”

“I don’t. I’m not.” Every attempt at denial turn rotten in your mouth and though you knew that your words could very well travel from her lips to Captain Miller’s ears, who else did you have to unburden yourself to here in this former girl’s school where women were nothing but replaceable the moment they became an inconvenience. “Three months probably. No, definitely. If I am. Which I’m sure is what I am.”

Myrtle set her hand on your shoulder, offering a short sharp squeeze, fairly rending your heart in two at the realization that it had been far too long since you had received any form of comfort from another human being. “You’ll get to see your family soon.”

It was meant to be soothing, surely, but all you could think of was the ocean that was about to open up between you and Bucky. The statement wrung a fresh sob from you before you scrambled with the lock to get out of that room and down the hall to the now too-familiar sanctuary of the washroom.

The remainder of the day passed in a fog, the looming morning appointment dangling over your head like the executioner’s axe poised to fall. You even felt encouraged to begin tidying and sorting through your belongings that night, starting to assemble them into your suitcases. The puzzle pieces simply fit too well for you to ignore. The faint knocking on your door just after midnight had you tilting your head in confusion, and cracking the door open cautiously.

A rather tentative Myrtle stood on the other side, a small envelope in hand.

“This might help when you get back. Here.”

Take it slowly, your fingers traced over the lump in the middle, opening the flap to reveal a gold ring with a small diamond.

“Myrtle I couldn’t–” You blurted out quickly, certain it was from the man she had lost over Regensburg.

“Oh it’s costume jewelry, and I want you to have it. It’ll make things easier.” She replied firmly and turned to head back to her room before you could reply.

Swallowing roughly, you shut the door and moved to sit heavily on your cot, sliding the ring onto your left ring finger experimentally. It was a bit loose and felt like a lie. Tugging it off roughly, you returned it to its envelope, tucking it into a pocket of your suitcase before turning in to try and get some rest.

The surgeon, as sympathetic as he portrayed himself to be, was utterly convinced you were ‘in the family way.’ However, before he could have you discharged from the Women’s Army Corps, he ordered a Hogben test. Your urine was collected and sent to a local pharmacist to be injected into a frog, or so you were told. If this frog produced eggs by tomorrow morning, you would be confirmed as pregnant and immediately evacuated by to the United States. Until then, he ordered you to rest.

Captain Miller delivered the news personally the following morning, tone more than slightly patronizing. You sat quietly in the chair in front of her desk, trying to take slow, even breaths and remind yourself she would have to eventually run out of things to say. The next words out of her mouth, however, had your spine straightening sharply.

“You know, Lieutenant, this was precisely the situation I was trying to avoid when I recommended you for this promotion back in September.”

“You did this?!” You snapped, feeling somewhat blindsided.

For all her coldness you had never seen her for a schemer. Never once suspected her hand in your sudden removable from Thorpe Abbotts and Bucky’s side.

Captain Miller looked down her nose at you and exhaled impatiently. “You may dislike me, Lieutenant, but all three more weeks at Thorpe Abbotts would have done is hasten your due date.” She narrowed her eyes as she twisted the verbal knife.

“Dislike you?” You repeated incredulously, that icy rage which you had first become acquainted with back in August once more flooding your veins. “No Ma’am. I do not dislike you. I pity you. I pity whatever lack of love you have in your life that you could so easily brush off three weeks with someone you care about.”

The woman was taken aback for a moment. Most likely for the first time in her life, before she cleared her throat. “Please proceed to your quarters and pack your things at once. You will be transported to Prestwick for transport by air back to the United States for immediate discharge due to the medical inability to serve. You are dismissed, Lieutenant.”

“Ma’am.” You muttered and gave a half-hearted salute before making your way upstairs.

Your belongings mostly packed, you instead pulled out a fresh piece of paper to write to Bucky to provide him your new return address. The question that hung in the air, however, was whether or not to inform him of your…condition…

Knowing the fragility of such things, and given that his daily life was already such a struggle, it seemed prudent not to burden him with anything unnecessary until this baby was born. Besides, it had been your choice, your initiation – that last, final, reckless, unprotected coupling. You had been a greedy thing and look what it had gotten you.

Your hand found its way to rest on your lower abdomen unconsciously and you let your gaze follow the motion absently. You had never reached the stage in your relationship where you had been able to exchange gifts and yet…here you were carrying what some might call quite a gift.

Most of all, bleak as he found life as a POW you were unwilling to force him into the position of putting that life in jeopardy. He did not need to become reckless as you had been. Inhaling a shaky breath, you put pen to paper to keep it brief and vague.

Sealing the envelope with a kiss from lips coated with fresh lipstick, you made a trip down to the post box before visiting the mess for an early lunch.

Within twenty-four hours, you were enduring your first plane ride, clinging to the seat inside a C-54 on the first leg of your journey from Scotland to Iceland. It was uncomfortable, unfamiliar, and on a plane filled with seriously wounded men, you stuck out like a sore thumb. The flight nurse had the grace not to comment, but the slightly oversized engagement ring you had ultimately decided to wear felt like a piece of armor on your left finger when her eyes fell onto it.

Bless Myrtle and her foresight. Whatever her motivations in bending Captain Miller’s ear had been, she had provided you with some of the best defence against judgement you could possibly have been afforded in your complicated situation. A wedding ring would have been too easy to disprove with no marriage licence. An engagement? Well it was still a bit fast of you to have spread your legs before the wedding, but at least he had bought you a ring first. Or so it appeared.

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

The ongoing mail issues finally resolved in a flood of mail in early March. Two letters and a large package arrived from you, bringing a broad smile to Bucky’s face after a barren, cold set of months. The food was quickly stashed to be meted out, but the mittens were not to be shared. There was some kind of magic in the yarn you used that trapped your perfume and held it for several weeks. He supposed it was because you had to cradle and hold it close for some time in your crafting of the garments you sent him.

He had never been jealous of clothing before, but life was full of new experiences these days.

Turning to the pair of letters next, he was immediately drawn to the impression of your lips on the slimmer of the two envelopes, tearing into it with utmost care to preserve the mark for later use in the darker, more private hours. The letter inside, however, was the most confusing and vague piece of correspondence he had ever received. And it was not due to some obvious attempt to skirt censors or other prying eyes. You were being evasive.

Tearing into the thicker envelope with less concern, he noted an earlier date, though only by a few days, but no trace, not even a hint of an explanation, for the second, odd letter.

As he and Buck went on their daily walk about the camp – a necessity to keep fit and stave on the stir-craziness that came from spending too many hours indoors – he exhaled slowly before breaking the silence.

“Hey Buck?”

“Hm?” His friend lifted his head from where his eyes traced their boots through the endless, frozen mud that had become their landscape.

“What do you think the odds are on a WAC getting a discharge to care for a grieving mother?”

Bucky did not need to hear his answer. Buck’s doubtful facial expression said it all.

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

Read Part Six - "Trust Me, Doll..."

"Trust" Series Masterlist

Tag list: @gretagerwigsmuse, @precious-little-scoundrel, @rubyfruitjungle, @storysimp, @mads-weasley, @xxanaduwrites, @bcon24, @fxxiva, @slowsweetlove, @hockeyboysarehot, @darylas, @carpediem1219, @blueberry-ovaries

[mirage-aera]

•°. *࿐ Stay high

ᴺᴼᵂ ᴾᴸᴬᵞᴵᴺᴳ : Habits (Stay High) - Tove Lo

Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley x Reader

pt 1. - pt 2

Synopsis: You lose yourself in your grief. You do various things that you never did, or occasionally did. As much as you know it’s wrong, you can’t get yourself to stop. You need to keep him off your mind somehow.

Word count: 2.263

Masterlist

TW!! Mention of character death, eating disorder, alcoholism.

Please don’t read this, read my other work instead if this triggers you. This time it’s pretty heavy on the latter two topics. Stay safe lovelies.

Simon has been officially declared MIA on a mission gone bad. Or so, that’s what you’ve been told. It’s been months and you’ve been spiraling ever since the news broke out. You’re clinging onto the smallest of hopes that he’s still out there. Alone, injured, but alive. It’s scary how you can go from being completely independent to being dependent on someone, only for it to be ripped away from you in seconds, being left alone to figure out how to be fully independent again. You’ve gone from being able to sleep in your bed alone like a baby, to being not able to sleep at all. Tossing and turning, wondering if Simon is still out there kicking, or if he already has kicked the bucket. His body lying in a ditch somewhere or in some organization’s basement. You don’t know, no one knows what happened to him. All that is known is that he was on a solo mission, observing a high-value target. Only for it to be an ambush and get surrounded by tangos. From there on out it was radio silence.

You lay on the couch. Eyes swollen and red from continuous crying. The TV is playing some show that you can’t be bothered to care about on repeat. It’s been months, and you’re still as miserable as the day they came to your door and sent you their condolences. They promised to let you know if there are any updates about him, even if they end up finding his body. They promised they’d tell you. You don’t know if the lack of updates is a good thing or the exact opposite.

I get home, I got the munchies

Binge on all my Twinkies

Throw up in the 'tub, then I go to sleep

You haven’t eaten all day. You either don’t eat for days on end, or eat an unhealthy amount of junk food to keep you going. You know it’s not healthy. You know it’s not what Simon would want you to do. But you can’t help it. You need something, someone to numb the pain. A knock sounds at the door. You rush off the couch to open the door. You hope that it’s Simon at the door. You stumble toward the door and fling it open. Your heart sinks to your stomach when you spot two military officers at the door. They look at you grimly and hold out Simon’s dog tags, bloodied balaclava, and a small wooden box with his personal effects. Your entire world crumbles at that moment. The sight of his dog tags and bloodied balaclava sends bile to your throat. You reach out with shaky hands for the items. You put the wooden box down. You clutch the piece of cloth and metal tightly in your hands. One of the officers speaks up. “Mrs. Riley, we regret to inform you that Simon Riley has been declared KIA,” they take off their hats and bow their heads, “our condolences.” A sob escapes your throat. You nod meekly, wish them a good night, and shut the door. Once the door is closed, it’s only you in the lonesome cold house. You slide down the door and sit on the floor. Cries leave your body. He’s gone, he’s really gone, and he’s not coming back.

You get up shakily and walk to the kitchen. You raid the kitchen cabinets for whatever junk food you can reach for. You grab several candy bars, cookies, cakes. Whatever you still have left, whatever you haven’t touched. You glance at the fridge. All of the food stored is starting to expire. You know you should eat healthier if you’re going to eat at all. But it isn’t appetizing to you anymore. More tears fall from your eyes. You trudge over to the couch. You slump over and start eating. You binge on whatever you grabbed until it’s all or mostly gone. Not even a minute later you feel yourself growing nauseous. You send yourself to the bathroom to throw up. You don’t make it to the toilet bowl. Instead, you empty all of your stomach’s contents into the bathtub. After you finish throwing everything back up. You slump over the side of the bathtub. You rest your head on your arms. Sobs racked through your body. Binging on junk food made you temporarily forget about Simon. Giving you short bliss. Now you’re back into that rabbit hole and you can’t climb out. Eventually, you fall asleep on the cold, hard bathroom floor. Having been tired out by sobbing your sorrows out.

The following morning you wake up with a sore and scratchy throat. Your head is pounding. And the thoughts of Simon are flooding your mind. All of the past memories you’ve made together are looping in your mind like a movie. All of his sweet nothings are playing in your head like a broken record. It’s as if he’s haunting you in your own house. A house you used to share with him. You begrudgingly get up from the bathroom tiles. You walk towards the living room, wanting to go back to sulking on the couch and feeling miserable for yourself. For how far you’ve fallen. Then you eye the liquor cabinet. You aren’t much of a drinker, you never were. But you’d sometimes join Simon in the activity, as he’s fond of dabbling into the occasional night spent with whisky in one hand, the other entangled with yours. You swing open the liquor cabinet. Grabbing the first thing you see. Whisky. Great. Another thing to remind you of him. You walk towards the dining table. A table you’ve always kept neat, a table that is now littered with all sorts of things. You haven’t cleaned the house in ages, not having the energy to do so.

And I drank up all my money

Dazed and kinda lonely

You're gone, and I gotta stay high all the time

To keep you off my mind

You sit down and crack open the bottle of whisky. You don’t bother pouring it into a glass. You take a huge gulp and swallow. Your throat burns as the liquid traverses from your throat to your stomach. You grimace. You never got used to the burning sensation, perhaps you will later. You keep drinking until you feel yourself getting sick.

The same pattern repeats in the following days. You’d binge eat junk food, throw it up, and pass out. The next morning you’d drink yourself stupid and sick. After you run out of alcohol, you’d buy more. You run out of junk food, you order a huge amount of takeout. You burn through your money without a care in the world.

Spend my days locked in a haze

Trying to forget you, babe, I fall back down

Gotta stay high all my life to forget I'm missing you

All of this has one goal, to keep Simon off your mind for as long as possible. Even if it’s only temporary. You’d rather forget about him temporarily than torment yourself with all sorts of trinkets around the house that remind you of him. The picture frames on the wall. His closet. His favorite drink, alcoholic and non alcoholic. Even his toothbrush will torment you till the day you die. Every time you try to pick your life back up. When you try to pick up the pieces of your shattered heart that he has left behind. You’d regress and fall further down that hole. You’ve gone from being an occasional drinker to someone who can’t function without getting drunk at least every other day. To someone who eats healthy and promotes it, to someone who doesn’t bother anymore and eats a very unhealthy amount of junk food. From someone who seldom goes to bars, to someone who frequents them often.

Pick up daddies at the playground

How I spend my daytime

Loosen up the frown, make them feel alive

I make it fast and greasy

I'm numb, and way too easy

You find yourself in another bar. You’ve been hopping in between bars for the last couple of months. People are always telling you that with time grief will get easier. Oh how wrong they are. You feel the same amount of grief, if not more. The bartender recognizes you the instant you make yourself known. He already hands you your preferred drink. You’re a paying customer after all, even if you look like you went through hell and back. As you down shot after shot. You see a man walk up to you and take a seat next to you. You ignore him. Wanting to drown yourself in your sorrows in solitude. But the man is persistent and orders you another shot when you finish yours. You glance at him. “You didn’t need to do that.” You say indifferently. The man shrugs before grinning. “You look like you’ve had a rough couple of days. You could use a treat.” You scowl at the shot on the counter. You down it quickly. The man orders another for you. “Make that a couple of months.” You retort bitterly. He looks at you surprised before he gives you an understanding nod. The bartender gives you another shot. You down that one just as quickly as you did the other couple of shots. “If you need a distraction I’d be willing to give you one.” You arch an eyebrow. He’s offering you to hook up with him. You dwell on his offer. You can’t believe you’re even considering it. It must be the alcohol talking. Before you even realise it you blurt out your answer. “Sure.”

One thing leads to another. A sloppy, messy kiss develops into a makeout session. From the living room to the bedroom. Clothes being torn off. When he climbs up onto you, a thought rushes through your slightly sobered-up mind. You promised you’d stay loyal to him. Even if he’s dead. Everything starts rushing to you and you can’t take it. You push him off you, gather your clothes, give him a rushed apology while throwing your clothes on, and storming out of his apartment. You call yourself an Uber to get you back home. You swear to yourself, that this is going to be a night you’re going to forget. Erase from your mind.

You sit in the car, pondering on the actions that you’ve just done. You were ready to give yourself to another man, a stranger no less. You don’t even know his name and he doesn’t know yours. Tears fall from your eyes. That thought scares you. Yes, you want to keep Simon off your mind, but not like this. Anything but this.

Staying in my play pretend

Where the fun ain't got no end, oh

Can't go home alone again

Need someone to numb the pain, oh

The next few days you spend your time revisiting old places that you often visited with him. Places he would take you out on dates, places that you begged him to take you to. You’d stay out from morning until late in the night. You’d bring enough that’ll be enough for two people. You and Simon. You’d pretend he’s still here with you, telling you about his day. How his teammates, friends are doing. People who pass you by think you’re insane, and honestly, they might be right. But do you care? No. This is your way to grieve. You keep his death off your mind by pretending he’s still here with you. Your own little play pretend. Because you know when you get home, the harsh reality will sink in and destroy you again. You want to savor these moments as long as you possibly can. Oh, how it hurts. That the one you need to numb the pain is Simon himself, and no one else.

You're gone, and I gotta stay high all the time

To keep you off my mind

Ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh

High all the time to keep you off my mind

When you get back home from your adventures. The loneliness, and coldness from the house you once called comforting, and warm, seep into your bones. You go back to your routine. Drown yourself with more junk food or alcohol. Cry yourself to sleep. Wake up. Cry again. Go out until late. Rinse and repeat.

A figure hiding himself in the shadows outside your shared home observes your behavior. His heart breaks when he sees how far you’ve fallen. He watches how his strong independent woman, resorts to bad habits to keep herself afloat, mourning the supposed death of her husband. He wishes he could barge in, and comfort you. But he can’t. At least, not yet. And that fact hurts him tremendously. He just wishes he’ll be able to finish his mission before you fall rock bottom in that rabbit hole you’ve dug up for yourself.

For now, the only comfort he can give himself is watching you in your home. He’ll have to stay in the shadows and watch from afar. Keeping you at arms’ length.

Sometimes you’d see a dark, hooded figure by the window. They wear a mask similar to Simon’s. But it can’t be him. He’s dead and isn’t coming back. So for now you’ll ignore the figure. As long as they don’t come in here and interrupt your peace, you don’t give a damn about them. But you can’t help but have that gnawing feeling in the pit of your stomach. What if it really is him?

[armed-with-a-waffle-iron]

The Bat Family Timeline and Ages (Post-Crisis and New Earth) with Sources

Evidence

In Batman: Year One, Bruce is said to be 25 in the January he returns to Gotham. The 1976 DC Calendar puts Bruce's birthday on the 19th of February so Bruce is 26 during his first outing as Batman in April.

Marv Wolfman's Batman: Year Three (Batman vol. 1 #436) tells us that Dick Grayson's parents die in Bruce's third year. In Batman vol. 1 #441 (also by Wolfman) Tim says that Robin started appearing around 6 months after the death of the Flying Graysons. For Dick's age when he becomes Robin, see below.

Bruce joins the Justice League before Dick forms the Teen Titans. Both these teams form before Barbara Gordon becomes Batgirl at 16 (Batgirl: Year One).

Barbara and Dick are each other's dates to their high school prom and so are less than 2 years apart in age (Detective Comics vol. 1 #871).

I suspect Dick, who was an emancipated minor, graduated high school and started college a year early, which allows Dick and Barbara to have some time as the new Dynamic Duo, as we see in Batman Family.

Dick Grayson is 18 when he forms the New Teen Titans, all of whom are also teenagers (Nightwing vol. 2 #137 by Wolfman, who also created the New Teen Titans).

Dick Grayson is 19 when he becomes Nightwing (Batman vol. 1 # 416).

21 year-old Helena becomes Huntress (Huntress: Year One #1), and interacts with Batgirl, meaning that Barbara is not yet Oracle.

Jason dies at 15, 4 months before his 16th birthday (Batman Files). This is before the New Teen Titans' third year anniversary (New Titans #71), before any of the Titans turn 22 (Deathstroke vol. 1 Annual 1), 2 years after Dick becomes Nightwing and almost 10 years before Dick's parents are killed (Batman vol. 1 #436). Dick is hence 21 during these events and 11 when he became Robin.

I also kinda like Dick being 17 years younger than Bruce because that's also the age difference between Adam West and Burt Ward from the 60s TV series.

After these events, Tim Drake becomes Robin and is 13-14 (Batman vol. 1 #441 and Robin II #1)

Soon after, Stephanie Brown is 15 when she becomes Spoiler (Secret Origins 80-Page Giant).

Stephanie is still 15 when she realises that she is pregnant (Robin vol. 2 #59) and Tim is almost 15 during this time (Secret Origins 80-Page Giant).

Cassandra Cain is 17 when she comes to Gotham during this time (Batgirl vol. 1 #1), during No Man's Land which lasts one year.

Helena’s family were killed when she was 8 and during Batman/Huntress: Cry For Blood, Tim says the murders happened roughly 15 years ago, making her roughly 23 during this storyline.

Cass turns 18 in January (Batgirl vol. 1 #39), Tim Drake turns 16 (Robin vol. 2 #116), Jason would have turned 18 in August (Detective Comics vol. 1 #790), and Stephanie is 16 when she "dies" (Batman Allies Secret Files & Origin).

Personally I'd re-arrange Tim's 16th birthday to be the last of these events four events to accommodate him still being 17 late into the Batman: Reborn, see below.

Jason soon returns to Gotham as Red Hood, not long before Infinite Crisis, 52 and One Year Later.

Following the one year time skip, Dick says it's been almost 10 years since his misadventures with Metal Eddie and Liu as a 16-17 year old (Nightwing vol. 2 #133 by Wolfman), which makes sense because he would be 25 by my math.

Stephanie returns from her time as a medical volunteer in East Africa, finishes high school and begins university during Batman: Reborn. She'd turn 19 by the end of this year by my math, which is a typical age to be begin attending university (Gotham Underground and Batgirl vol. 3 #1).

Dick calls Damian Wayne a "10 year-old" before Stephanie attends university (Batman and Robin vol. 1 #2) and Steph still calls Damian a "10 year-old" while she's in her second semester (Batgirl vol. 3 #13 and Batgirl vol. 3 #17). He might have turned 11 before the reboot.

Batwoman: Elegy (Detective Comics #858), during the Batman: Reborn year, shows that Kate was 12 when she was kidnapped and saw her mother and sister killed. This incident is also said to happen "20 years ago”, making her 32 and hence 30-31 during her first appearance in 52/One Year Later.

Tim Drake is still 17 while Steph is in her second semester of her first year at university, and it's stated that he is meant to be in his senior year at high school (Batgirl vol. 3 #13, Red Robin #17 and Red Robin #25). It's possible he turns 18 before the reboot.

Mistakes I Made

Cassandra Cain is 21 in Year Eighteen.

The "Titans disbands" in Year Thirteen was definitely a year early but it's done.

[takiniteasynightcoreremix]

here's the full text of the 2006 pre-tv premier IGN interview with dethklok as it's now only available on wayback machine

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Premiering Sunday, Aug. 6 at 11:45pm ET/PT on Adult Swim is Metalocalypse, a new animated comedy series from Tommy Blacha (Da Ali G Show) and Brendon Small (Home Movies).

Metalocalypse follows the on- and off-stage adventures of Dethklok, the world's most popular and heaviest heavy metal band. The band is so popular that thousands of fans will travel to a remote area of Scandinavia to hear them perform a single song: a jingle for a coffee company. So popular that these fans will sign "pain waivers" in case anything truly horrible happens to them at a show, which invariably occurs. The band members are also incredibly selfish and stupid, and they create a wave of mayhem, death and destruction wherever they go.

The members of Dethklok are:

Nathan Explosion - Vocalist. The lyrical visionary of Dethklok. Skwisgaar Skwigelf - Guitar. From Sweden. Fastest guitar player alive. Toki Wartooth - Guitar. From Norway. Second-fastest guitar player alive. William Murderface - Bass. No one in the world is full of more hatred than him. And he hates no one more than he hates himself. Pickles - Drummer. Raised in the Midwest, he became the world's most celebrated drummer after fronting L.A. rock band Snakes and Barrels.

The five Dethklok members recently sat down with the press to discuss their music, their influences, and the band. Below are their responses, followed by the pain waiver they require all Dethklok concert-goers to sign.

Q: First, let's start with the persistent rumors that Dethklok has signed a contract with the devil. Can you finally put this to rest?

William Murderface: I'll put you to rest.

Toki Wartooth: The devil is dildoes.

Nathan Explosion: There is no such thing as the devil because there has to be a god in order for there to be a devil. And we all know there is no god. And if there were a GOD then he would have protected us from signing that deal with the devil. And now we're stuck with a deal with some guy who doesn't even exist.

Q: If Dethklok is the heaviest band in the world, and also the most popular band in the world, what does that say about the world?

William Murderface: I'd like to destroy world hunger by destroying the world.

Toki Wartooth: I love questions, and dats a good one.

Skwisgaar Skwigelf: It means nothing because, heavy or not, the world is a black vortex of black Nothingness and I hate our audience.

Q: The band has both the world's fastest and second-fastest guitarists alive in it. Is that a bit of overkill?

William Murderface: I'll overkill you.

Toki Wartooth: No, it's "underlive." Ha ha.

Skwisgaar Skwigelf: Not at all. As the fastest guitarist, I prefer to have someone a little worse at guitar in the band, like Toki. Because I think you would takes it for granted that I am the best. Like you get used to a room filled with the smell of roses until you go into a room with a rotting corpse smell - then you go back to the roses room and extra appreciates it a greats degrees better.

Q: Is it too loud, or am I too old?

William Murderface: I'm too fat.

Toki Wartooth: You gots hairs in your ears.

Pickles: It is loud. It's very loud. Before each show I have liquid concrete poured into my ears so that I don't cause permanent damage. You gotta protect your ears, anyone will tell you that. But what they don't tell you is that you should protect other parts of your body from loudness - for example, we now have to travel with a gastroenterologist.

Q: Nathan, you have a distinctive vocal style. What do you do to take care of your voice and still fill it with anger and hate?

William Murderface: I'm not Nathan.

Nathan Explosion: Two words: Potato chips and chocolate milk. I can go for days smoking and drinking and killing myself staying awake, but have a glass of chocolate milk and a handful of potato chips and I'm good to go.

Q: What's heavier - your music or your lyrics?

William Murderface: The lyrsmusic…shut up!

Toki Wartooth: Oooh, good question, it's like a two-parter.

Pickles: We had them professionally weighed recently and the difference is fractional. But the lyrics actually were heavier. The one lyric that tipped the scales was "I have a hate horse torso whose face is a Corpse/ Lacerated innards and a ding dong doodily dorpse." Now that's heavy.

Q: What kind of gear do you use?

William Murderface: Krank amps and Gibson guitars.

Toki Wartooth: Gibson guitars and Krank amps, but Krank won't give us no hoodies.

Skwisgaar Skwigelf: Gibson guitars. I stick with my Explorer and Toki usually plays a V, Krank amps- right now I'm using the KRANKENSTIEN, Line 6 pedals, Digidesign plug ins. We gots endorsement deals with alls of them. We can wrecks dem all- they just give us more.

Q: What are your influences - musical and otherwise?

William Murderface: Those awesome medical shows about really fat people and tumors.

Toki Wartooth: Depression and wind.

Skwisgaar Skwigelf: My influences is my parent. I hates her beyond beliefs.

Nathan Explosion: I'd have to say I've influenced myself a lot. I listen to myself on records sometimes and think, "I could do that..."

Pickles: The sound of drums influences me. I say that I think because I am a drummer. And cymbals.

Q: What will it take for Dethklok to "sell out"?

William Murderface: We sell out every night, dildo.

Toki Wartooth: We sells out every night.

Nathan Explosion: Selling out is a point of view thing. I've redefined my word definitions of "selling out." I call it making things "more metal," and now it's impossible to sell out. We don't sell out at all. And we never will. I dare you to try. Seriously. Offer us any amount of money. And we'll take it. And we'll make it "MORE METAL."

Q: Death and mayhem seem to follow the band. Unlucky or cursed? Does it affect your music?

William Murderface: Lucky!

Toki Wartooth: Dat's life, deals with it.

Pickles: Death happens whether or not we are there. Though there does seem to be a little more when we are around. That's why we have the audience sign "Pain Waivers" to get into our show. It basically states that the audience is signing their life away should something horrible and "death-inducing" happen during one of our shows. And we can't be sued. Pretty smart!

Q: What is life on the road like for Dethklok? Do you prefer the seclusion of the studio to the adoration of thousands?

Toki Wartooth: Thousands?! You mean billions!

Skwisgaar Skwigelf: The way I looks at it is that you can't f**k studio gear. Well, you can. But it's better to be on the road and f**k things there - there are more options and shapes.

Q: What inspires Dethklok?

William Murderface: A flower with its brains blown out.

Toki Wartooth: Everything must die.

Nathan Explosion: For me, it's humor. The fact that we are rich and that we will die eventually. See, that's kind of funny to me.

Q: Any thought about solo projects? What does Dethklok do to relax?

William Murderface: My solo project is called Planet Piss. Like it or not, who gives a piss?

Toki Wartooth: I likes to answer questions and build models.

Skwisgaar Skwigelf: We relax with alcohol and Drug Buckets. And everybody's working on solo stuff always. That's cool. I'm in a Harry Potter tribute band called "10 Points to Gryffyndor." Also, I'm in a nudist Civil War styled band called "Depantsification Proclamation."

Q: Is Dethklok's music art?

William Murderface: When it's painted on your face.

Toki Wartooth: We gots an album cover of a Mona Lisa with blood.

Skwisgaar Skwigelf: Art is stupid. There is only food and death. So to answer your question: our music is both food and death.

Q: Much is made about Dethklok's penchant for pain and metal. But what about the groupies? Are there special ladies in the lives of Dethklok?

William Murderface: You mean like retarded?

Toki Wartooth: I don't wears no penchant.

Skwisgaar Skwigelf: I have no recollection of most of the women that I've slept with except for the paternity suits, which are null simply because they must sign a "fatherhood waiver," before a screw.