#I stared at the TV for several minutes processing this scene

[adelineiserman]

I remember trying to describe Farscape to a friend of mine and ended up just sending this clip because, yeah. This is pretty much it.

Happy Easter!

Farscape: Bad Timing

[sortagaysortahigh]

Garden | Joaquin Torres

A/N: Heyyyy yall guess who's finally back because a hispanic man had me barking at my TV again?! That's right, oh so secksi big lexi is here with a novel of a fic. Also big shoutout and thank you to my lover @love-chx for beta-ing this and just being a thirsty freak with me over this man. I wouldn't have finished this fic without u bb <3 Anyways if yall wanna thirst ab this man with me my inbox is always open to fellow whores like myself. Also CHILDHOOD FRIENDS TO ENEMIES TO LOVERS BOOM SHAKA LAKA YES GOD!!! This is also canon-divergent with a few small CABNW references, also this is named after Garden by SZA tee hee

Summary: Y/n Y/l/n and Joaquin Torres had spent their entire childhood together, but growing up meant growing apart, and when travesty after travesty struck the world, their paths couldn't have been more polarized. But sometimes paths are meant to be crossed again, and there's always a chance for change

Warnings: angst, THIRD PERSON POV, use of Y/N, forced super soldier serum injections (scene not depicted), mentions of murder, mentions of war crimes (not explicitly stated), readers kind of a bitch ngl, cursing, mentions of violence, mentions of burns/Joaquin literally being shot out of the sky, SMUT: hair pulling, minor neck grabbing/choking, spitting, hickies, bruises, kissing (with tongue omg), oral (m receiving + a lil ball worship if you squint), handjobs, unprotected P in V, creampie, swallowing, handj*bs, dirty talk, lowkey sub!joaquin dom!reader vibes

Word Count: 20.8k

Joaquin Torres x Fem!Reader (reader has vague descriptions regarding having long-ish hair, but it's typically described to be braided/blown out/wavy post-braids, Joaquin does in fact stare at the reader's ass, but all booties matter purr, reader's great grandparents are also immigrants, non specified)

(Given the opportunity I'd kiss him on the mouth) AS ALWAYS MINORS DNI!!!

Miami, circa 2005-2006

Summers in Miami were anything but forgiving, filled with the kind of heat that made people question their own sanity, in combination with high levels of humidity that left an almost sticky film on one’s skin. It was like hell sometimes.

Hurricane season was always rough too, storms that would rock through cities and towns along the coast.

The nicer neighborhoods always seemed better off after the Hurricanes, meanwhile smaller, poverty stricken areas were always left in the dust to fend for themselves. Sure the city and counties had done their best, but power outages lasted days, sometimes weeks, and entire businesses would be destroyed, and communities were left to rebuild things together.

That same sense of community is what had brought Y/n Y/l/n and Joaquin Torres together. He moved to Miami from Mexico a little over a year ago, coming to the United States in May of 2005 with his grandmother and mother. They’d left in hopes of finding something better for him, chasing the American Dream like many migrants south of the border often did.

It wasn’t an easy process, but with family and an established sense of structure in Miami, it made the process a bit smoother for the family.

The y/l/n family had been living in Miami for decades, having genuine roots and history in the neighborhood, they had always been strong community leaders. Constantly volunteering to help at the schools, preparing meals for their neighbors, hosting several block parties and barbecues throughout the summers, and most notably, always lending a helping hand when it came to anyone’s children.

They embodied the saying ‘it takes a village’. 

When the Torres family moved to the neighborhood, y/n’s mother was the first to introduce herself to them, offering to send her eldest sons over to help them move in, and even inviting them over for dinner ten minutes into meeting them.

That single action led Joaquin Torres to Y/n Y/l/n two days following his move, and it led to the both of them being inseparable for years, a friendship that started with her shoving him into the asphalt when he’d clearly cheated at street hockey then proceeded to lie about it.

She was the one to knock him down, and she was also the one to help him up and drag him up the street to her house, mumbling about how she was sorry for shoving him, and muttering to herself about him being a ��wimp’ for ending up with bloody scrapes along his legs.

He also had watched her mother lecture her about how it was wrong of her to push him, and the moment he’d laughed, her mother started lecturing him. The concern laced harsh words easily flowing from the older woman’s mouth had his eyes wide, she’d even managed to throw a few Spanish words in the mix.

Sure he knew that she spoke Spanish, but he didn’t quite understand where her family was from. That was also another conversation her mother had with him a few months later when he’d pestered Y/n about why her family spoke Spanish if they didn’t exactly look hispanic. 

They’d been in Miami for generations, it made perfect sense that they’d known Spanish. 

She had also yelled at him, but to be completely honest, she wasn’t exactly the sweetest girl on the planet.

As a six year old, she was mean. Meaner than most, yet somehow she possessed her mother’s caring spirit, which led to her showing anyone she cared for the epitome of tough love.

The summer of 2006, the both of them had spent most of their time outside together, walking through the neighborhood, talking about anything and everything that would interest two seven year olds. She’d pestered him about his hair, stating that he needed a haircut because he looked like her Tia’s new puppy (the woman had been gifted a white fluffy terrier by her most recent boyfriend), and he’d responded by saying she looked like a tree from ‘Horton Hears a Who’ due to her large frizzy hair. 

Humidity was not a friend to either of them.

They’d also made a friendship pact that summer, they’d seen it in some random movie that his Abuela had rented from the local Blockbuster, and had decided that since they were already good friends, they’d both slice their palms with one of her dad’s razors, then shake.

Except they both ended up with deep cuts and had to be taken to the emergency room, where they had to foolishly explain that they’d not only schemed to steal her father’s razor, but had also gone through the process of cleaning it with a random bottle of isopropyl alcohol before slicing their palms to imitate a blood pact from a movie that they were probably too young to be watching.

Both of their mother’s yelled at them that night, at the same time. Then her father yelled at them both.

When they thought they were done being lectured, his Abuela yelled at them in Spanish.

That Summer they’d also gone to the beach with their families together, and her father had buried them both in the sand, leading to a photo of their heads and portions of their upper bodies sticking out while they both glared at the camera. 

When school had started back up, they were in the same class, which meant they’d caused quite the ruckus together, either laughing too loudly, talking way too much, or throwing things at one another. It was worse when their teacher tried to separate them, leading them to throw crumpled up paper balls at one another followed by miniature paper airplanes.

He’d also gotten into his first real fight with another boy two months into the school year, he’d called her names, pulled on one of her braids, and usually she would��ve responded, but her mother had recently told her that she needed to stop acting out in school.

So, like the good best friend he was, Joaquin didn’t hesitate to punch the other boy in the face at recess when he’d caught the kid pestering her. That decision also led to her high fiving him, and the both of them getting sent home and placed on a two day suspension.

Summer of 2017

The end of high school is a major milestone for many. Getting the opportunity to not only graduate, but graduate with honors was something that Y/n and Joaquin had worked incredibly hard to achieve, sure the both of them did run into several hiccups along the way, mainly surrounding Y/n’s need to get into fights and Joaquin’s need to constantly and consistently defend her. WAIT DONT FOCUS ON THAT HAHA I WASNT SURE IF THE COMMA WENT THERE

Most thought the two would’ve been together by now, having been friends for nearly ten years, not only friends, but the best of friends and practically inseparable, and yet they’d never crossed the line between friendship and something more. It wasn’t something that they’d planned on doing either.

Anytime their parents would talk about it, the both of them would swiftly deny the suggestion, looks of disgust on their faces as they looked at one another, then back at their families. It wasn’t until prom night that they’d both even considered seeing one another romantically.

They hadn’t acted on it, nor had they ever shared the thought with each other.

They’d gone together, mostly because his girlfriend had broken up with him at the last minute, or rather, y/n had forced her to break up with him after finding out that Julia had been cheating on him for a few weeks. She’d also threatened to ‘knock her front teeth in’ if she refused to do so. She’d also made sure that Joaquin knew that his now ex-girlfriend had been cheating on him, showing him a series of screenshots that a mutual friend had sent her.

When he showed up at her house in an all black tux, she’d been caught off guard. It was rare that Joaquin was dressed up, so rare that she almost didn’t recognize him, brows knit together as she stared at him from the front porch of her family’s home. 

She thought that he actually looked handsome. Sure, she’d always known that Joaquin wasn’t ugly, that much was obvious, but she’d never really given it a second thought. Not even when all of her friends would rant and rave about how ‘hot’ he was, or how he was super attractive and she was an idiot for not ‘jumping his bones’. 

He’d been growing his hair out a bit. It was slightly slicked back, but the curls along the back of his head were still defined. He held a corsage in his hand, the vibrant red roses sat in a sealed clear plastic box, and it matched the rose pin to his suit.

He’d been staring at her, his lips slightly parted, brows raised. At that exact moment he finally understood what all of his friends had said about her. The guys had always given him shit, saying that he was an absolute idiot for ignoring what was right in front of him. Some guys on the team had even asked him for his approval to ask her out; he’d always shrugged them off and said something along�� the lines of ‘go for it, but good luck’.

She’d never really given anyone a chance, sure there were a few guys here and there, and that douchebag lifeguard last summer, but outside of that, Y/n rejected pretty much everyone.

It got to the point where their mothers had asked if she was gay, which was an incredibly uncomfortable conversation, to say the least.

He was still staring, he knew she’d be wearing black, which had made coordinating with her at the last minute a lot easier since he already had a black suit. But he didn’t know that she’d be wearing a satin black dress with a neckline that plunged enough to make him blush, the fabric itself hugging all of her curves, and her hair that was typically braided, was now blown out and framing her face perfectly.

He dropped the corsage, then scrambled to pick it back up.

Things had gone back to normal the second she’d mocked him for dropping it; they’d both snapped out of their own trances, and had taken a myriad of photos. Then they’d been off.

The dance was fine, it wasn’t spectacular, but it was fun enough. They’d jumped up and down and screamed random party songs together, laughing with one another and their shared friends.

Then the slow songs started, and at first she’d decided to sit things out while he spoke with one of his friends, but after a few minutes, he had asked her to dance.

The moment their eyes met during the slow dance was the moment they’d both been dreading their entire lives. They’d realized that maybe everyone else was right about them, and maybe they’d just been too stupid to notice.

But they’d brushed it off when the song changed, awkwardly laughing together while nodding their heads, ignoring the fact that a few seconds ago they were a little too close with his forehead resting against hers and their lips millimeters apart.

Both of them had internally vowed to never speak of that night again.

Then graduation happened. After getting their diplomas, they’d posed for more photos, laughed with one another, and ended up taking one of their favorite pictures together. Joaquin’s hand was around her waist as they both held up a singular middle finger while making a similar face—one eye shut with their tongue out. 

She’d gotten into Florida State University, and Joaquin decided to go to the Air Force. Of course Joaquin applied to college, but he wasn’t like Y/n, he hadn’t received a multitude of scholarships with different choices and the last thing he wanted to do was take out a series of loans that would leave him in thousands in debt, especially considering he’d wanted to do his best to avoid putting any other financial pressure on his family.

They’d spent most of that summer together, both with the knowledge that it’d truly be their last real summer together, at home, with one another.

He was set to go to basic training the same day that she’d be moving into her dorm.

So the night before they’d gone to the beach together, both sitting side by side on the sand, watching the sunset.

“Quino, things are gonna be different now, aren’t they?” she leaned into him, her head against his shoulder while she gazed forward. Meanwhile he’d gone from looking at the skyline, to looking down at her as he nodded his head.

“We can’t exactly be kids forever, Sunshine.”

he scoffed, lifting her head to look at him, eyes trailing along his features as if she was trying to commit this moment to memory, taking in every single detail as if she’d be able to remember this in fifteen years.

“We’re eighteen, it’s not like we have to have it all figured out y’know. We could pack everything up and run away.” 

He smiled, laughing at her while rolling his eyes slightly.

“Yeah, but we’d have to flee the country. I signed a contract with the Air Force. Maybe we run off to somewhere small, off grid.” 

She nodded along, elbowing him slightly, while holding back her smile. 

They both knew that wasn’t possible. It really was time to grow up, time to part ways, at least temporarily.

“You still gonna write to me?” 

He nodded his head at that. “Why wouldn’t I? Who’s gonna laugh at me suffering through basic training? Besides, y’know I write killer letters.” 

She shook her head at that, shoving some sand in his direction.“You have shit grammar, Quino.” 

He smiled at her, shrugging. “So? You still know what I mean!” 

She laughed again, now standing up and brushing her thighs off before giving him an expectant look. Joaquin nodded along as he got up off the sand, then she kicked off her shoes, and grabbed his hand, already running towards the water.

“Hell no! That water’s freezing!” 

She glanced over her shoulder at him. In that moment, at the sight of the golden hue reflecting against her skin, and the outline of the orange, purple, and pink skyline surrounding her figure like an aura from the heavens, he realized that he might’ve been in love with her. 

It was truly a terrible moment to realize that.

“Oh, don’t be such a baby. C’mon, it’s our last real night as teenagers. Embrace it you doofus!”

Then she was pulling him along again, and somewhere along the way, he’d managed to kick his shoes off and toss his phone in a pile with their shared belongings before getting pulled into the water. 

They’d stayed out until two in the morning that night, and on their walk back through the neighborhood together, she wrapped her pinky around his as they moved in sync, trudging through the long sidewalks in their damp clothes together, knowing that in a few hours he’d be setting course to the airport then he’d be en route to San Antonio.

Meanwhile, she’d be starting the seven hour road trip to Florida State University with her parents while her dad towed a mini U-haul trailer on the back of his truck.

He always walked her to her door, even though they only lived a few houses apart and his house was the first they’d passed. She stood on the small front porch, key in the door as she faced away from him. A singular sniffle was what made him realize she’d been crying. 

“Hey, hey, Sunshine look at me.” 

She shook her head, looking down at the dimly lit door knob illuminated by the old porch light. The bulb nearly dead at this rate. Her father always said he’d get around to changing it, but it had been sitting the same way for the entire summer.

He was quick to move behind her, one hand on her shoulder, the other on her waist as he slowly turned her to face him. She tried to shove him off, but his grip was firm, and he’d managed to spin her toward him despite her resistance

“Things are gonna be fine. I’ll write to you, you’ll write to me. We’ll still be friends, still get to come home to the same neighborhood with our families, alright? Still gonna be best friends—” He raised his palm, showing the near identical scar that they’d both shared “—see? Friends for life, made a shitty blood pact and everything.”

She nodded at him, sniffling before pulling him into a hug.

“I’m gonna miss you, you idiot.” he laughed at her, easily hugging her back, slightly squeezing as he nodded. 

“I’ll miss you too, Sunshine. Don’t forget about me when you’re over there in enemy territory, got it?” 

She laughed, shoving him away, shaking her head as she rolled her eyes.“I would’ve picked Miami if they’d given me more money. I guess the Seminoles just got better funding, huh?” she teased him, sniffling again as she smiled, the both of them still holding onto each other, as they held eye contact.

Then, they were both leaning in, and slowly but surely, their lips were millimeters apart again—just like prom night.

The door opening had them pulling apart harshly, practically tripping over one another as her father stared at them through the screen door, blinking several times, brows knit together as he unlocked the door.

“I don’t know what the hell you two are doing out here, but finish your goodbyes, and Joaquin, go the hell home. I’ll miss you kid.” 

He nodded at her father, laughing at his somewhat stern tone before facing her again. Then Joaquin raised both brows, tilting his head before lifting up a singular pinky.“Promise me you’ll write?” 

She smiled, nodding at that before locking her pinky with his. “Promise me you’ll respond when you’re not busy getting your ass kicked?” 

He nodded.

Then Joaquin said goodbye to her father and made his way down the porch steps, walking along the sidewalk.Glancing back, he to offer another wave before making his way back to his house.

The next morning, they’d both gone their separate ways, one to college, the other to the Air Force.

Washington D.C. 2027, Six Weeks Prior

The interrogation room was cold, colder than it should’ve been for the middle of the summer in Washington D.C. of all places. Hell, half of the city didn’t have working air conditioners, but it made sense that a police precinct less than twenty minutes from the Capitol building would have an air conditioning system that actually worked.

That’s how it was now;where there was money, there were luxuries.

Y/n sat in the uncomfortable metal chair situated in the middle of the room, hands cuffed to the  large metallic table in front of her with her ankles stuck to the legs of the chair. They’d known she would be able to break free at any second, but she wasn’t an animal, or some monster, and she wouldn’t be portrayed as such.

A criminal? Yes. But a monster? Never.

She was wearing a black leather jacket, and clearly it wasn’t warm enough, because she’d had goosebumps along her skin, and her nose burned at the feeling of the cold air. Then again, anything cold had a tendency to bother her, side effects of the bootleg black market serum that’d been forcefully injected into her somewhere between Europe and Madripoor.

Everything from that period was a bit fuzzy.

They’d had her in this room for nearly two hours. For the first twenty minutes, they’d tried to question her, and she simply ignored them or answered them solely in Spanish. When they’d found someone who did speak Spanish fluently, she started speaking French.

Then everyone had left, leaving her like an animal in a zoo exhibit, the bright fluorescent lights shining down on her while they watched from behind the one-way mirror. Three cameras in the room, all with a flashing red light, letting her know that they’d been recording the entire time. 

She was a few minutes away from breaking out of the cuffs and throwing them at one of the cameras, but then the door opened. She scoffed at the sight of Sam Wilson: the new Captain America.f she was honest, she liked the guy and she hadn’t heard anything negative about him…well,  from anyone who actually had any sense.

The negatives were usually from racist morons, but Sam Wilson was a great Captain America.. He fit the morals and values, and from what she’d heard, he was genuinely a good person, and those were very rare these days.

She would’ve been perfectly fine if it was just Sam, but when his new protege walked in behind him, she couldn’t hold back the scoff of annoyance.

It’d been years since she’d actually seen him in person.

She’d unconsciously squeezed her right hand, the same hand that a thin horizontal scar sat on— the same scar that he had on his right hand.

Sam’s gaze was focused on the file in hand so he’d missed the glare that she was shooting at Joaquin, and his sudden stiff demeanor. They’d both sat across from her, and the sounds of metal scraping against the tiled floors made her cringe. Then, Sam tossed the file on the table, the papers sliding out of the manilla folder and towards her.

Different criminal charges, alleged photographs of her at global crime scenes, a series of witness descriptions—anything and everything that could possibly incriminate her, outside of genuine substantial evidence.

“Didn’t know Captain America did jail calls, thought that was reserved for the Raft.” 

Sam shook his head at that, raising a single brow as he looked at her.

He knew she hadn’t even hit thirty yet. The girl was still young, and from her records, she’d had so much potential, potential to do good. Yet here she was. Not only did she graduate with honors from Florida State University, she was a Stark scholar her freshman year, having interned directly for Tony at one point, president of several campus organizations, had not only a full ride to the university, but was also given several merit based scholarships during her time there, had significant research that was involved in several scientific journal publications, and she had even been an intern for the department of defense.

He also knew that the world wasn’t the best place following the Snap in 2018; it impacted everyone drastically. Some vouched that it was a great time, but a lot of people had suffered, and the world was left to grieve and mourn for five years.

“Well, now you do know that. Care to share how you’re involved with Serpent?” 

She rolled her eyes at that, shaking her head and letting out a sigh. “I’m not.” 

Sam raised a brow, opening the file and pointing at not one, but two images of Y/N very clearly speaking with one of Serpent’s main shot callers, Sidewinder himself. “Then explain your relation to Sidewinder”

“That’s not me in the photo.” She blinked several times, clearly bored of the conversation.

Joaquin just stared in silence, it was probably the most quiet he’d been in years, staring at his childhood best friend turned wanted criminal. He never understood what happened to her. They’d kept in touch when he’d gone to boot camp, and even after that, when she was in college and he was getting his deployment orders, she always wrote to him.

They’d written to one another, even after the Blip.

He knew her family had been blipped away, and he also knew that was a major turning point for her. She’d spent most of her time on her studies, overworking herself to the point of exhaustion, distracting herself from the truth.

Two years into the Blip they lost contact. He knew she was still in school, but he was stationed overseas, and the time zones, plus the stress of life had gotten to them both.

He tried to find her again when he was stateside, tried to got to the neighborhood, only to find new families living in the house that had been in her family for decades. He’d also found out that the county government had forcefully repossessed the house. They’d gone to court over it and she’d lost.

All he’d known was that she did end up graduating, and as a last ditch effort, she invited him to her graduation. She’d written to him a lot, but turns out most of those letters had gotten lost along the way. The Blip had left several economic issues, and had impacted a multitude of different industries, which accounted for the loss of most of her letters. The ones he’d finally gotten from her were all stacked up, scattered thoughts throughout three years—references to things he didn’t really get, random bits and pieces from stories he’d assumed he would never get to read, and most importantly, the invitation to her graduation.

Typically he would’ve been able to request time for that andhe wished he got the letter on time, wished that he would’ve been able to go to Florida State (although begrudgingly) and watch his best friend cross the stage and get her degree, especially considering he’d be one of the few people there for her after what happened to her family.

Seeing her was like seeing a ghost, except now he was seeing the ghost of who she was, of who she could’ve been. The woman across from him wasn’t the same girl that he’d seen all those years ago.

It’d been almost nine years. Nine years since he’d properly gotten to see her. He still remembers the way her voice sounded that night, the last night they were genuinely together. 

“Stop staring, Torres” 

His eyes widened at the sound of her voice, or rather, the sound of his name leaving her lips, because it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t his first name, or one of the several different nicknames she’d granted him over the years; there was no friendly tone, just venom.

He blinked a few times, brows knit together as he glanced at Sam, who was already looking at him with a curious expression.Sam looked between the both of them, glancing between the woman across from them, then back to Joaquin.

“Wait a goddamn minute, you two know each other?!” 

She scoffed at that, shaking her head. 

“Not anymore.” 

It was cold. Deep down, she knew that the response hurt Joaquin, but when she needed him, he wasn’t there. She hadn’t heard back from him in years. All she could do was sit and bury herself into her academics, striving to be the best of the best in hopes of becoming something or make her family proud.

She remembered the heartbreak she’d felt each time she hadn’t gotten a letter back. Then she sent him her graduation date, an invitation, and had even included a ticket.

He didn’t show up. 

She was alone in the world, left with no family, and she was hurt. Her home was gone, her family was missing, disappearing for what could’ve been forever, and she had nothing but a college degree and the few bins of stuff she’d had left.

The Blip had led to several criminal organizations skyrocketing, and it just so happened that Florida was home to a few of them, organizations that were using illegal alien technology to create weapons of destruction, organizations that had focuses in overthrowing minor governments, organizations that went hand in hand with any and all underground and black market affairs. 

So she’d taken advantage of that, used her brains to actually prove herself, and once they’d found a good use for her, she was helping engineer weapons. Thenshe was helping with mass production on a global front and she’d spent time traveling, doing illegal arms deals, and even wooing other crime bosses. 

That’s how she ended up tied in with Serpent, it wasn’t exactly difficult to hack into their secure systems, nor was it hard to convince them that they needed her, villains without real weapons couldn’t actually do much. Things had gone pretty smoothly until she’d been practically kidnapped, taken to a remote space, and used as a test subject for a new brand of super soldier serum following the arrest of the Flag Smashers.

She wasn’t proud of her actions following the injection, she knew she had blood on her hands, but it wasn’t her fault, not when they’d treated her like a lab rat.

“Okay, we’ll talk about whatever history you two have later. Right now, you need to come clean about your involvement with Serpent, or you’re looking at thirty years in the Raft.” 

She simply shrugged again, raising a brow before glancing down at the photos again. It was very apparent that it was her, and she had been mid argument with Sidewinder, who she should’ve just killed—another regret truly.

Then she lifted her wrists, and the cuffs snapped as if they’d been made of paper.

“That answer your question, Cap?” 

His eyes widened t, glancing from her wrists to the broken steel on the table. Sam watched as she pulled the documents closer, raising a single brow at the different photos and angles from the conversation.

“So it’s true then, they’re still experimenting on people?” 

Sshe laughed at that, nodding her head.

“Sure are, now can we get to the Raft already?, Pretty sure I can break out.-Ddefinitely not as secure as some would believe. I’ll take that sentence now.” She looked at the one way mirror, snapping her fingers a few times, as if she was summoning the cops to arrest her yet again.

“You’re not going to the Raft Sun- Uh- Y/l/n.” 

Sshe glanced back at Joaquin now, shaking her head at him. Any semblance of a smirk had left her face, now it was as if she’d been devoid of any emotion.

“Don’t call me that. You don’t get to call me that anymore.” She clenched her jaw, looking away from him and towards Sam. 

“I can help you. I know you’ve got a plethora of connections in the realm of illegal arms dealing, not to mention you’ve also been the brains behind a lot of the weapons that we’ve found, confiscated, and examined. I like your signature that you leave on them, too.” 

She smirked at that, nodding her head, then sifted through the photos, finding the close up of one of the larger automatic rifles she’d built, except this one relied solely on Chitauri energy-based ammunition. It didn’t need bullets, and she’d engraved the outline of a small bird onto the handle. 

“What can I say? It’s part of the brand. Now, I don’t need help Cap, what I need is to get the hell out of the U.S.” 

He nodded his head at that, pulling some folder papers out of his jacket pocket. Unfolding them, he slid the documents across the table.

“Here are my terms. I can get you a presidential pardon for your crimes, a pardon that would allow you to be back in the states without hiding out. A pardon that would get you a fresh start. But you’re gonna need to start being honest here.” 

Her brows were knit together as she slowly grasped the papers, eyes scanning along the different legal terms as she flipped through the pages.

It was clear that she had to cooperate with Sam if she wanted the pardon. It guaranteed that she’d no longer be deemed as a war criminal ora domestic terrorist. That would also ensure that she’d be able to go back home, to see her family, to be someone else, to be anyone but the person she’d become. 

“If I agree to this, you promise my family’s gonna be alright?” She looked up at Sam. 

 In that moment, he could see through her walls. He could see a scared girl that had lost everyone to the Blip, a girl that had fallen into this lifestyle because it was her only real choice. 

Sam nodded at her, handing her a pen. “If you sign them now, you have my word.” 

She took the pen slowly, jaw clenched as she stared at the pages. It was almost too good to be true. However, a clause that stated any divergence from the very clearly outlined plan, which included court mandated therapy sessions, would result in her imprisonment, bringing her back to reality.

“What the hell do you need from me anyways? I’m not some hero, I don’t even think I count as a good person anymore. Don’t you have more happy and hopeful people like him to recruit?” She motioned towards Joaquin without even looking at him.

Joaquin was dealing with his own inner turmoil, there were so many things he wanted to say to her, so many things that he hadn’t gotten the chance to express. He’d waited years to see her again, and now, even if she was a bit rough around the edges, he felt almost happy to see her and know that she was alright—even if she was a wanted criminal.

But he was disappointed that she’d managed to become what she was now.

“Well, truthfully, you’re smart. Smarter than most. And with your network, we could do a lot of good, starting stateside, and moving from there. Besides, not everyone that does good has to be a hero. Just like not everyone who’s done bad shit, is a bad person.” 

She nodded slowly, then glanced back at the files.

“Sidewinder has a bounty on his head.Some big crime boss in Madripoor is pissed that Serpent didn’t deliver on their end of a large weapons deal a few months back. It was supposed to be some covert scam. They’d get the wired funds, stay stateside, or really anywhere other than Madripoor—y’know places that have real laws, and they’d be able to avoid the consequences.”

She sighed, glancing at the photo. “Tried to get me to speed a few manufacturing processes up.ell, no first he practically threatened me. but y'know the whole serum thing kinda reduces any real threat at this rate. Told me that if I helped him out, I’d get seven million.”

Sam nodded at the information. “Did you take the deal?” 

She simply shrugged then shook her head.“And have a ten million dollar bounty on my head? Hell no. I told him I was out of the business.Besides, can’t really have any high paying deals with shady government officials if I’m legally not supposed to be seen within the United States, or any U.S. territories.” 

Then she signed the contract, putting the pen on top of the indented papers and slide them back to Sam. She still avoided Joaquin’s stare, she had nothing positive to say to him, and the last thing she wanted to hear was a lecture about the person she’d become from the one person that had abandoned her.

Maybe if she wasn’t aware that he didn’t blip, then maybe she wouldn’t have held the grudge. But one of the last letters she’d gotten from him was after the Blip, so she knew he was okay, she knew he was alive.

“Welcome to the team, kid.” Sam placed his right hand out, and she easily grasped it, shaking on the deal.

Baltimore MD, 2027 Five Weeks Prior

If there was a word that could fully describe the relationship between the two former best friends, it would be strained, but that was a severe understatement. Over the past week they’d been staying in the same house in the suburbs of Baltimore county. Sam had stated that Y/n needed to be under constant supervision, mainly because part of him was still a bit weary with her.

He hadn’t given her a reason not to trust her, not yet at least. But with a criminal record as substantial as hers, within the short time span of about four years, she was definitely someone to keep an eye on. 

It wasn’t the first time Sam had opted to help in the rehabilitation of a criminal. To be fair, he’d placed a lot of hope in several different people, and most of the time, they truly did change. There were people like Karli Morgenthau, the former leader of the Flag Smashers that had been victim to the circumstance of the Blip, followed by the reversal of it all.She was willing to do better, willing to change, but it was too late for her.

Sam wouldn’t admit it aloud, but he held a lot of regret whenever he thought of the girl, even if it was several years ago. Some deaths weren’t easily let go of, especially those that could’ve been prevented. 

Maybe that was why he’d had so much faith in Y/n, he knew she wasn’t always the way she is now, that much was confirmed by the long winded rant that Joaquin had gone on the second they were out of the precinct.He’d spoken for what felt like hours about his former childhood best friend, and at some point, Sam had started tuning him out.

Of course Sam was going to be there to support Joaquin, who was clearly in love with his former friend, but at some point in time, he naturally tuned out the constant chatter. 

Things hadn’t gone smoothly whatsoever at the house, mainly because when Joaquin had tried to speak with her, she’d quite literally thrown a pan at him, slammed several doors in his face, sprayed him with a water hose, and had even opted to fully abandon her meals just to get away from him. She did eventually come back and clean up after herself, but at the moment, she wanted nothing to do with him.

When he tried to sit with her in silence, she’d roll her eyes and storm off. 

She hadn’t said a single word to him, and he was still doing his best to make amends with her, even though he really didn’t know what he had to make up for.

Today was no different, she’d ignored him and acted as if he didn’t exist, any time he’d enter a shared common space, she’d leave. It didn’t matter if she was in the middle of doing something, she’d find a way to leave as swiftly as possible.

Joaquin was over it, completely and utterly over it.

But before he could attempt to be confrontational and most likely get his ass kicked, there were several knocks at the front door, and of course, he was the one to open it.

In the doorway stood Dr. Christina Raynor, the same therapist that had worked with Bucky Barnes following his presidential pardon journey. It had taken several phone calls, and a lot of flaunting the title of Captain America for Sam to actually get her to do house calls for Y/n. It wasn’t exactly easy, and he didn’t trust that she’d be able to go to her appointments on a consistent basis. 

So he brought the appointments to her.

“Ah, Captain Torres. You’re not the person I’m here for, but a lovely surprise nonetheless.” She motioned for him to step aside, and when he did, she entered the home.

She’d taken a few minutes to look around. It wasn’t the fanciest of homes, but it was a nice house to live in, with three bedrooms total, a few bathrooms, and two floors, not including the basement. The place was small, but it didn’t feel small, it was nice, cozy even. 

It made sense why Sam chose a place like this for her. 

“So where is she? I’m sure she’s well aware of our appointment today.” Joaquin’s brows knit together. Truthfully, he wasn’t even aware of the appointment. Then again, it’s not like Y/n had said a single word to him over the past seven days. If her nonverbal communication said anything, it was that she didn’t want a single thing to do with him.

“Uh, upstairs, probably. We don’t really talk much.” 

She slowly nodded her head at him.“And why is that? Sam said the two of you knew each other well.” 

He scratched the back of his neck, glancing towards the staircase, then back at Dr. Raynor.

“Well, we did.We grew up together in Miami, but then she went to college and I enlisted, and then the Blip happened, and it’s been a while. So, we know each other, but I don’t think well would be the right way to describe it.”

She observed him as if she was taking note of everything he’d been saying. It gave Joaquin a minor spark of anxiety, but he chose to ignore it, closing the front door, then proceeding to guide her in the direction of the room that Y/n had occupied.

He knocked on the door several times, and the silence that followed was mildly concerning.

“Hello, it’s Dr. Raynor, here for our three o’ clock appointment.” 

The door opened, and at the sight of Joaquin, she rolled her eyes, but then she glanced at Dr. Raynor.  The older woman stared directly at her, so Y/n stepped to the side, motioning for her to come in before slamming the door in Joaquin’s face. 

“So, Joaquin tells me that you two grew up together. I think for today’s sessions, we should start there.” Y/n blinked a few times, watching as Dr. Raynor moved towards the windows, pulling one of the few chairs in the room with her, leaving it closest to the window, then took another and left it across the room.She took a seat at the one furthest from the window, opting to cross one leg over the other. 

Y/n was hesitant as she sat down, arms crossed in front of her chest, a look of irritation on her features.“We grew up together. A lot of people grow up together, what's the big deal?” The negativity in her tone was unmistakable, that in combination with her clenched jaw, stiff posture, and now shaking leg, emphasized not only the anger in her words, but the stress in her body.

“Well, Sam tells me that you’ve pretty recently started going downhill, sorry, not really a better way to say that. Don’t worry I won’t make you make amends with the people you’ve wronged and go through some long winded process to make things better. Truthfully, most of the time, you can’t make things from the past better, but you can work on the future. But, that does rely on looking back a bit, pinpointing the start of all of this.”

She groaned, shaking her head.“I know how it all started, I don’t need a shrink to psychoanalyze me and tell me when I turned into a shitty person.” 

Dr. Raynor nodded, watching as Y/n glanced outside, her gaze focused on the neighborhood around them.“Okay, so tell me about that then.” 

She thought the girl would fight, but she didn't; she just took a deep breath and nodded her head.

Joaquin stood outside of the room, hesitating as he debated leaving or eavesdropping, he knew it was wrong of him to stay, but he also wanted to know what went wrong, what caused all of this. More importantly, he wanted to know how to fix it. 

But he knew this wasn’t the right way to fix things, so he headed down the hall, opting to go back downstairs and get back to work. He had a few systems that needed some adjustments, so he’d occupy himself with that for now.

Her eyes traced the skyline, taking in the angular tilts of every rooftop against the soft blue hues of the sky. She hated talking about the Blip, she hated even thinking about it. There wasn’t a time that she’d ever felt so lost and so alone.

“After the Blip, I mean, to be fair I was okayish the first year, but my family was blipped away, and with my shit luck, all of my friends were also blipped away. Well, except for Torres, but at that point he’d already been deployed. We still talked for a while at least, he wrote me and I wrote him, then maybe two years in, he uh, he stopped writing Or maybe he didn’t, but I stopped getting them.” 

She blinked a few times, trying to ignore the burn of tears welling in her eyes as she avoided Dr. Raynor’s gaze.

“I dunno, I was just alone. I did keep writing though, and I drowned myself in my academics. I interned for all of the big major hard hitters, I had merit scholarships that I was positive I didn’t really deserve because someone more capable was most likely blipped away. But y’know, it was a good distraction.”

She paused again, this time wiping a few tears away, Dr. Raynor took minimal notes, mostly on her mannerisms rather than her history.

“Then I graduated, and no one was there, and I went back home, and no one was there either, then the county took my family’s house. I went to court, but I was poor and I couldn’t afford a good lawyer, so they won. They won and they took my family’s house.” 

Raynor nodded her head, raising a single brow at the very clear emotion. Prior to this, based on her file, the few interrogation tapes she’d viewed, and what she’d gathered from Sam, the girl in front of her wasn’t very emotional. She was meticulous, logical, and a complete smart ass.

This was a good sign.

“Tell me about the house.” 

She nodded, eyes still focused outside.“My great grandfather had purchased the land when they migrated over, it took him decades to buy it. He’d worked for twenty years before he was able to afford it. Even back then, when inflation wasn’t kicking everyone’s ass, it was still hard for an immigrant to get something as solid as land. Over the years my family has always lived in that house. It’s been passed down through the generations. Or at least, it was until they took it from us.”

She let out a deep breath, wiping away a few more tears.

“I grew up there y’know, my brothers are all older than me by at least eight years, then I met Quino, and we spent years causing a ruckus there. I don’t think I really have a singular bad memory being there, from being home.”

She sighed, running a hand along her face for a moment before turning to face Dr. Raynor.

“My parents got the house back, and this time I had the money, sure it was dirty money, but I got them the lawyer after the blip, I couldn’t even go see them physically, I’d already had too many warrants in the U.S., but I made sure we had what was ours again.”

Dr. Raynor nodded her head, glancing down at her watch for a moment.

“I want you to tell me about your family.” 

The two spent the next thirty minutes speaking about Y/n’s family, starting from her grandparents who were both deceased, to her parents, to her siblings that she hadn’t spoken to in years. She’d even mentioned Joaquin’s family, stating that they weren’t blood relatives, but they were still family nonetheless.

That’s also how Dr. Raynor found out that Joaquin’s mother had been Blipped away.

By the time that the session was over, Y/n had cried more than she’d cried in the past three years, and she actually felt a little better about the world, maybe therapy wasn’t just some ‘mumbo jumbo’ that they tried to force onto people. Then again, it could’ve also been the simple act of having the opportunity to actually speak with someone about her issues that had made her feel better.

She was quick to walk Dr. Raynor out, but when heading downstairs, she realized that Joaquin was no longer alone.Based on the loud voices and laughter, Sam was also present, along with someone else.

Sam rounded the corner, a wide smile on his face as he said his hellos to Dr. Raynor, shaking her hand for a moment before glancing at Y/n, taking in her bloodshot eyes

“Session go well then?”

“As well as pouring my heart and soul out to a complete stranger can go.”

Washington D.C., 2027, Four Weeks Prior

“Sam this is stupid, I’m not gonna waltz into the White House and ask for a damn expedite on a pardon from the Hulk Hunter of all people!” 

He shushed her, making eye contact through the rear view mirror as he drove. She sighed, brows knit together, frustration evident in her features.

It was bad enough he had her wearing business professional attire. There was nothing that she hated more than dressing up, especially in blazers and button ups, not to mention the obnoxious pencil skirt that he insisted she wear. This had to have been her own personal hell.

Maybe that was it, she’d died and was forced to live in this lifetime as a karmic cycle.

Then, to make matters worse, Joaquin was currently sitting in the front seat of the SUV, doing his best not to look back at her, knowing she’d probably find something to throw at him, or worse, she’d curse at him again.

Over the past few days she’d moved on from giving him the complete silent treatment, which might’ve been nice if she wasn’t verbally assaulting him any chance she’d get. It made sense that she would want to push him away, but being cursed out constantly was the last thing he needed.

Joaquin was getting tired of it. 

He was beyond frustrated with her, especially given the fact that Sam had practically dropped him off with her and stated that he was the best bet for ‘fixing her’ as if she needed to be fixed. What she needed was a hug, or maybe a xanax, he had no idea, but Joaquin knew the last thing she needed was him.

Sure they’d grown up together, but they were drastically different at this point.

“Well, you can’t start on a new foot if you’re dragging a ball and chain the size of Australia with you everywhere you go.” 

Y/n knew that Sam had a point, but she didn’t want to accept that.She was looking down at her hands, her left thumb nervously running along the thin scar decorating her right palm.“I didn’t even do anything that bad.” 

Sam laughed at that, shaking his head.“Yes, because contributing to several global wars by distributing biomechanical alien tech based weapons isn’t anything bad. Not to mention working with several major underground crime families.” 

She shushed him, kneeing his chair like an angry little kid on a long car ride.

“To be fair, at least you didn’t really kill anyone.” 

She rolled her eyes at Joaquin’s input, glaring at him from her seat.

“Also, not technically true, Joaquin.” Sam nodded as he spoke, finally making it through the plethora of security gates and guards, being able to actually park the car in the underground garage that was typically utilized for staff-only vehicles. 

Y/n was relatively silent as she got out of the car, adjusting her skirt uncomfortably before following Sam’s lead, rolling her eyes at Joaquin when he walked beside her.

When they were younger, they always walked together, and she remembered the way that she’d gravitate towards Joaquin, linking her pinky with his, especially when she was nervous about something. She felt as if she was fighting that part of herself, doing her best to ignore what was probably her inner child—or at least that’s what Dr. Raynor described it as.

He chose the worst time to extend an olive branch, she flinched the second his hand brushed against hers. At first she assumed it was an accident, but the second time she took a few steps away from him, putting some distance between them both.

She hated being patted down, but , it was part of the process, and as the security did so all she could do was roll her eyes and hold her arms up. 

Sam gave her a pointed look when they stood in front of the oval office doors.

“It’s now or never kid, time to right your wrongs.ell, at least start righting your wrongs.”

She nodded slowly, running her thumb along the scar on her palm again as she followed Sam and Joaquin inside.

Truthfully, the entire time that President Ross spoke, she simply nodded her head, offering faint and forced smiles, doing her best not to have a fully fledged panic attack. She could practically feel the anxiety thrumming through her heart, and it was getting harder to breathe, she needed to relax, needed to calm down.

Then the President shook her hand and she had no idea what he was saying, she just nodded her head at him, eyes a bit glossy as she fought the nervous tears.

Joaquin noticed it first, he could see how stiff she was. It wasn’t normal, or at least, it wasn’t what he was now used to. She looked almost afraid, or maybe it was panic. Then he noticed her rubbing her palm, and he knew it was panic, she’d always done that, it started when they were kids, and now it was resurfacing.

He excused himself, and in the process, also excused her, a single hand on her lower back, guiding her with him as they stepped out of the office, leaving Sam and President Ross to speak with one another. 

She didn’t have the energy to curse at him, she needed some air.

Joaquin guided her movements, taking her to one of the smaller more secluded gardens outside, a place that most of the public wasn’t allowed.

“Sunshine, you need to breathe.” 

She nodded her head at him, vision a bit hazy as she tried to focus on breathing. She hadn’t realized that her panicking had gotten this bad, the anxiety practically surging through her, she was too busy overthinking about everything she’d done over the past four years, trying to piece together the fuzzy pieces, trying to remember who she really was.

It was clear that just talking to her wasn’t helping, so he stepped forward, gently placing one hand on the side of her face, practically caressing her warm skin as he held eye contact with her.

“I need you to breathe. You’re okay, everythings okay. Ross approved the pardon, you just need to follow through with Dr. Raynor. You’ll be alright, Sunshine”. He spoke slowly and quietly, and for the first time in a long time, he felt as if he was really seeing her.“Take a deep breath. Exactly, in and out—just like that.” 

She nodded along, following his lead until she finally felt like her heart wasn’t going to beat out of her own chest. 

There was something calming about Joaquin, and maybe if she’d genuinely let him in again, she would know that it was just his presence overall that calmed her down. 

But it was never that easy.

Then she was shoving him away from her, blinking a few times when she finally realized how close they were.

She let out a cynical laugh, shaking her head at him. “Can’t you just leave me the hell alone?!” He stared for a moment, face void of any emotion for a few seconds.

“What the hell is your problem, Sunshine! I mean come on, I’ve been trying to talk to you for two weeks.I haven’t seen you in almost ten years at this point, and God, I’m so tired of this weird silent treatment, oh lets be mean as hell to Joaquin fiasco. I just want to be there for you!” his voice was getting louder as he ranted to her. 

“Seriously?!” she raised both brows at his outburst, rolling her eyes.

When she tried to walk away, he stepped in front of her, blocking her way, knowing she couldn’t exactly shove him. They were at the White House for her presidential pardon, any and everything that she did could easily get it ripped away from her.

“Stop calling me that! It’s not my freaking name!” Her voice was loud as she yelled at him, swatting his extended arm away from her, he rolled his eyes, letting out a deep sigh, shaking his head.

“I don’t give a shit if it’s your name, I’ve always called you Sunshine! What the hell is so different now?!” 

She let out another cynical laugh at that, fighting the urge to shove him away from her.

“Everything is different Torres! Every single fucking thing is different! You’re arguing with me in a garden outside of the damn White House where I have to get a fucking presidential pardon because I’m a god damn criminal. But you…Torres, you’re a freakin Avenger! We’ve never been more different!” Her voice cracked as she yelled back at him, her eyes burned as she felt them start to water, and she did her best to make sure she wouldn’t shed a single tear around him.

“It doesn’t have to be! You don’t have to be like that anymore! It’s a fresh start for a reason! You’re so god damn stubborn that you refuse to see yourself as anything but what you’ve been over the past few years. Newsflash,Sunshine, the Blip wasn’t good to all of us.It brought out the worst in a lot of people! You don’t have to be that same person anymore!” 

She shook her head at that.“What the hell would you know about what happened to me? You weren’t even there. Do you know how many times I wrote to you?! How many days I stayed up hoping that maybe I’d hear back from the one person I knew was still around?” Her voice cracked again as she spoke, her bottom lip quivering by the time she’d finished shouting at him. Her heart was practically pounding and her ears were ringing, her skin was flushed and all she could focus on was trying not to cry, trying to hold it all in.

She hated crying.

Once the first tear fell, it was as if the floodgates had been unleashed. She couldn’t hold it in, but she wouldn’t allow herself to break down, not like this. So she turned on her heel, hands clenched in fists as she started walking down the stone path, steadying her breath as she shook her head.

But his voice had her stopping in her tracks, still turned away from him. 

“You think I didn’t write you? Do you know the kind of shit I had to see when I was overseas, the shit I wished I had someone to talk to about?! I never stopped writing to you! Then I waited and waited for your letters! They were the only thing that got me through in the beginning, you were the only one.” 

He was exhausted, he’d been exhausted for years. Sure he’d found productive distractions, he’d even found parts of himself he’d thought he lost after the Blip. But there was always something missing, and that something had been her. She’d always been there, she was one of the largest constants in his life, then suddenly, things got hard, and she’d been gone.

She wasn’t the only one who had felt loss, that had felt that sense of loneliness.

But he didn’t know how to say that, he didn’t know how to let her know that he’d been hurting too, that the hurt hadn’t just gone away. But it wasn’t numbing, not like it had been that first year they’d lost contact. He’d managed to stay busy, working his ass off in the Air Force, using his own skill set, and expanding on it. 

He’d spent years drowning himself in work, sure he still had family back home, but it wasn’t easy going home, it wasn’t feasible for the most part. He’d been overseas for years, and in all of that time, he’d hardly gotten to speak to any of his family or friends. But he did his best to not let that loneliness overcome him.

So he’d done his best to show his superiors that he wasn’t just intelligent and athletic, but also diligent, committed, and useful.

That’s how he’d ended up meeting Sam that day in Tunisia, after years of climbing the ranks. There was so much he wanted to tell her, so much that she wouldn’t hear.

His voice cracked as he spoke “You act like I forgot you, I’ve never forgotten you, Sunshine.” 

She shook her head at that. Looking down at the ground, feeling the tears falling faster.“I don’t wanna hear that from you. Now leave me the hell alone Torres”

Then she walked away, heels clicking against the pavement as she walked through the lush space, shaking her head while wiping away her tears.

Baltimore M.D., Three Weeks Prior

“I’m not avoiding the question!” Y/n shook her head, jaw clenched as she stared at Dr. Raynor. They were currently sitting in the living room of the house that Sam had called her ‘new temporary home’. 

She was seated on the large burnt orange sofa in the middle of the room, one leg crossed on the oversized cushion she sat on, the other extended in front of her, foot resting on the edge of the small glass coffee table in the room. She held a throw pillow in her lap, glaring at Dr. Raynor who sat across from her, except in the room itself, she was technically diagonal as the recliner she sat in was angled away.

Of course the small brown leather bound notebook was still in her hand alongside a black ink pen that she jotted down notes with.

The woman sighed, adjusting her glasses as she glanced back down at the notebook, clearly making a note of Y/n’s defensive behavior.

“Yes, yes you are avoiding the question, It was a simple ask, what do you think your genuine purpose is? I’m not asking for an essay, most people have some kind of answer, some would say to work, others would say to help, I’ve even had clients say their last purpose is to make amends. If you don’t have an answer—then that itself is an answer as well. But you? You’ve completely disregarded the question”.

Y/n sighed, shaking her head again as she glanced down at her hands, the skin around her cuticles were peeling, some of it red, some of it scabbed, from her constant need to pick or fidget. 

The question was simple in thought. Dr. Raynor had asked the question ten minutes ago, and for the past ten minutes, Y/n had done her best to avoid it, opting to bring up random thoughts, extend on previous things, and ask her therapist questions instead. 

She knew for a fact she’d been avoiding the doctor’s question. 

Mainly because she’d always thought her purpose would be to do something good, something great even. To find the next biggest scientific discovery, to use her smarts for the benefit of helpful research, to engineer something substantial, to expand upon biomedical sciences and studies. 

Instead she was technically an ex-arms dealer, the engineer behind a series of potentially country-ending-weapons and machinery, a contributor to several global wars, and a literal felon with a criminal record. Not to mention the fact that she couldn’t leave the jurisdiction of the State of Maryland or Washington D.C. without pre-approved supervision.

She used to believe that maybe, on the simplest level, her purpose was to help those in need. To help those who were sick, those who were wounded, those injured in wars, but instead, she was part of the reason for those injuries in wars.

“Okay, so I don’t have an answer then.” 

Dr. Raynor shook her head “now you’re just lying to me, y’know for a global criminal considered a national threat, you’re a horrible liar” she took a note of that as well.

Y/n sighed, looking up at Dr. Raynor then back down at her hands, specifically at her right palm, running her left thumb over it again. Tracing the scar, back and forth, several times over. 

The only reason they’d had today’s therapy session in the living room was because Joaquin had been called into work late last night, some local mission that Sam needed intelligence backup on. It worked out perfectly, she’d finally gotten a day of peace and quiet.

That and her usual therapy session didn’t need to be in the mess that was her room, and Dr. Raynor wouldn’t be able to jot down any notes about the disastrous state that the bedroom was in.

“Fine. When I was a kid, I wanted to help people. Do something good y’know, my mom always said with as smart as I was, I’d be able to find the cure to the most untreatable diseases. I uh, I remember when Quin—Torres, uh yeah, Torres, would tell me that I’d be able to make a real difference for people like us y’know, people who grew up in poor areas with shit access to things like health care and real genuine medical treatments. But it all seems so far-fetched now.”

She took a deep breath after that, finally looking over at Dr. Raynor, who’s brows were knit together as she listened, then she took another note, it was short, and quick.

“You do know that you still have time to do that, right? In a world like this, where aliens, gods, and superheros are all real, there’s really no such thing as an aspiration that’s far-fetched,”

“That’s what Quino used to say to me, said we could be anything since aliens were real,” she smiled, shaking her head while looking down at her palms again.

“Tell me about your friendship with Joaquin.” 

She coughed at first, slightly taken aback before shaking her head at Dr. Raynor. 

“I’m being serious, I’d like to know more about your past, and he seems to be a consistent figure” 

She sighed, nodding her head “I dunno, like I said before, we grew up together, we were best friends for years, our families are friends, they always told us we’d get married someday, that way our families could just be one big family y’know. We were close for a long time, he was my closest confidant.”

The session ended shortly after that, mainly because time had run out, and Y/n had nothing to really respond with, sure the words of encouragement were nice, and even if they made complete sense from a logical perspective, morally, Y/n didn’t think she really deserved a second chance.

Maybe that was why this entire predicament was so difficult. It was hard to adjust, hard to accept that Sam Wilson had really given her a second chance, that maybe she’d actually be able to do some good and be able to actually help people instead of hurt them.

She’d sat in the living room once Dr. Raynor had left, opting to use one of the large throw blankets on the couch, covering herself to get comfortable, eventually opting to lay down, TV now on as she mindlessly scrolled through the channels, well at least, things were mindless until Y/n caught the local News.

Then her eyes widened as she sat up swiftly, a recorded footage feed showing Captain America and the Falcon mid air, both fighting what looked to be missiles over the Indian Ocean. She wasn’t even sure if they were actually fighting, it looked more like they were trying to lure them away, and at first they’d been doing a great job.

Then Joaquin had been hit, and not only had he been hit, he’d crash landed into the Indian Ocean. Based on the timestamps on the footage, that had happened almost four hours ago.

It was like she was on autopilot, immediately standing up, eyes wide as she rushed to gather her things and put on whatever clothes she could quickly find. Sam had mentioned that if anything ever happened, they’d be rushed to the hospital at the air force base twenty minutes outside of Washington D.C., so what did Y/n decide to do? 

Steal Joaquin’s keys and drive herself to that hospital.

It didn’t help that she’d been questioned at the security gate, and then they’d also tried arresting her, which did lead to a very unnecessary fight, but she defended herself by stating they’d triggered her fight or flight response by putting their hands on her first and practically ripping her out of the car that was registered in Joaquin’s name.

To be fair, she’d even told them that they’d been living together, and that he should’ve been flown in by then, or at the very least, he’d be arriving shortly. She had also tried showing them the paperwork that Sam had provided to her, all of it had been filed electronically, notarized, and in the legal sense, it was concrete proof that she was no longer a wanted criminal.

Technically, she wasn’t exactly a regular civilian either. There was some subclass that she’d fallen under after being experimented on, and then, of course, being a former enemy of the state wasn’t the best title for someone actively trying to get onto a military base, especially when they had zero military clearance or involvement.

It had taken two additional hours for her to actually get to the hospital on base, and the only reason they hadn’t fully arrested her was because Sam had managed to find her. 

The walk to the hospital, and through the halls was quiet. Sure there was the general noise and ambiance of a hospital, plus the stench of alcohol and antiseptics, and the ongoing background chatter between staff and patients, plus the beeping of different machines, but between Y/n and Sam, they were silent.

Sam felt guilty, guilty for it all, as if it was his fault that this had happened.The past twenty four hours had been miserable, everything that could’ve gone wrong, had gone wrong. He’d even gotten guidance from Bucky Barnes of all people, sure he loved Buck, but at the same time, getting guidance from one of the least level-headed people he knew was tragic.

Now he had to deal with Y/n, who he practically ripped away from several military police after she’d taken down two of their guards after claiming that they’d hit her first. Truthfully, he wouldn’t be shocked if they had acted with aggression towards the girl, her record was beyond worrisome and she did have several red flags that equated to violent tendencies.

But he also knew that she was worried, the concern was practically oozing off of her. 

She acted as if she hated Joaquin, but Sam knew that she was just hurt, and it was the kind of hurt that would take time to heal. It wasn’t exactly easy for her to go back to normal, especially when the past five years have been anything but normal.

They walked side by side, neither wanting to be the first to speak, at least until they’d reached the door to the room he was currently admitted into. It was a recovery room, he’d just gotten out of surgery about half an hour ago, his entire right shoulder had been burned and partially broken, not to mention the bits and pieces of metal that had pierced through his skin from his suit, wings, and the shrapnel from the missile. 

With the blinds to Joaquin’s room being open, Y/n could see him lying in the hospital bed, elevated, from where she stood.  His upper body had been bandaged, but she could see bits and pieces of his burnt skin along his jawline and his neck. 

He even had a few cuts and scrapes on his face, but they weren’t major, not like the burns, breaks, and fractures. 

It broke her heart to see him like that.

“Y’know, he really needs you right now. He’s probably needed you for a long time. Same way you’ve needed him.” 

She nodded her head at Sam, jaw clenched and brows knit together, as she blinked rapidly, trying to force the tears away at the sight of Joaquin unconscious in the hospital bed.

“I can’t do this Sam.” With that she’d walked off in the opposite direction, wiping her tears away as fast as possible, but it was no use, they’d kept falling.

Washington D.C. Air Force Base, Two Weeks Prior

To say that it was easy getting Y/n on and off base over the time span of a week would’ve been a bold faced lie, Sam had to pull several strings for it to happen, especially considering her not so subtle fight with several members of their military police unit. It would’ve been easier if she hadn't won the fight by a landslide. He had to pull the Captain America card several times, and even stated that he was taking her under his wing.

Once she was officially allowed on base, and considering that’s also where his main headquarters was based out of, it was much easier for her to have somewhere to be while Joaquin was in the hospital on the opposite end of the Air Force campus. She hadn’t gone to see him again, instead she’d spent her time bothering Sam, hacking into random systems, and going through their records.

She’d even managed to pull the records on the super soldier serum that she’d been injected with, she found out its origins, even found records of illegal tests, experiments, and medical data from overseas that had been discovered through a series of raids and top secret missions.

Every single day Sam would ask if she wanted to go see him, he’d try to convince her, and she’d always decline. He’d even mentioned that Joaquin had asked for her a few times. 

Although he wasn’t fully conscious. 

So she’d decided that maybe it was time to go see him, she couldn’t hide from seeing him forever.Sure she was mean to him, and she did push him away, but she’d never ever wished harm onto him, and she never would. At one point in time he’d meant the world to her, and if Dr. Raynor was right about anything, she was right about the fact that Y/n needed to work on opening up to people again, and letting them in.

So she left Sam’s office space and made her way to the hospital, glaring at a few officers that had given her questioning looks. By the time she’d made it to the hospital she was nervous, so nervous that she couldn’t bring herself to go into his room, she’d managed to get directions to his floor and now she was standing outside of the door, arms crossed as she tried to give herself a mental pep talk.

Then her soul had practically left her body the second an older woman spoke to her.

“Going inside sweetheart? You’ve been out here for about twenty two minutes now.” 

Y/n slowly shook her head at the older nurse, taking note of her badge that read ‘Shirley ICU RN’. Her hair was fully grey and pulled up into a ponytail, she couldn’t have been taller than Joaquin’s abuela—the woman standing at a whopping 5’1—and she was full of life.

“Uh no, I don’t think he’d want me in there with him, not the person I am today at least.” 

She shook her head at that, raising a single brow.“I think it sounds like you don’t want to be in there because of the person you are today, y’know, I saw the way you looked at him when you’d first came last week. I don’t know your history with Captain Torres, but I know he means a lot to you. Remember sweetheart, holding grudges only does harm in the end, it’s easier to forgive and keep moving forward.”

With that she reassuringly patted Y/n’s forearm, offered another smile, then made her way down the hall towards another room.

When Sam had gone looking for Y/n to ask if she was going to come see Joaquin today, she wasn’t there, and naturally he , but after about fifteen minutes he’d found the note that she left on his desk that read ‘Going to go see him’.

That’s how he found her sitting in the uncomfortably stiff cushioned chair beside his hospital bed, tear stained cheeks and bloodshot eyes, looking right at Joaquin as she held his right hand with her own, or rather she held onto his right hand even though his stayed open.

She hadn’t noticed Sam at first, too busy sniffling as her eyes kept retracing the burns along his shoulder and neck, the previous dressing had been removed, the nurses stating that it would be good for the burn to ‘breathe’—whatever the hell that meant. Sam had also watched as she reached over with her left hand, slightly brushing the loose curls along his hairline back.

He was typically very put together, his hair never really fell out of place, and Y/n knew that, he’d always been particular about how he liked his hair.

She shook her head at him, eyes tracing each and every ridge, line, and curve of his face. 

“You’re such an asshole,” she’d mumbled, looking at him.

“Glad you finally gave him a visit.” 

Her eyes widened as she sat up, left hand instantly moving away from Joaquin, but she’d instinctively squeezed his right/ The moment she was about to respond to Sam with a witty remark, Joaquin had squeezed her hand.

Sam caught the movement too, his eyes widening as he approached the bed, now standing at the foot of it as he glanced at Joaquin, who’s features were slowly but surely moving, brows knit together, his eyes squeezed shut even harder, then he slowly opened them, blinking a few times, struggling to adjust to the bright fluorescent lights in combination with the sun shining in from outside.

“S-sunshine?” his voice was hoarse, throat dry, and he was confused as he started to process everything around him.

“Glad to see you’re finally waking up, kid” 

He slowly nodded his head, easily seeing Sam in front of him, however he didn’t register Y/n next to him, not until he went to move his hand and realized someone was holding it, then he shifted his head a bit, rolling it to the side, a little groggy still as his vision focused on the woman beside him.

He could feel her squeezing his hand, and he let out a slight laugh. Although it didn’t really sound like a laugh, more like a dry breathy cough.

Then one of the nurses walked into the room, she was an older woman who had taken the time to speak with Y/n before she’d gone into the hospital room, giving her a few pieces of helpful advice about actually being there for someone. 

The nurse smiled at the sight of Joaquin waking up, and she approached the bed with a small cup of water, taking the time to raise his bed, letting him sit up a bit more before helping him with the water.

The entire time Y/n didn’t let go of his hand, and he’d made the effort to hold onto hers as well.

“It’s good you’re awake Captain Torres, we were getting a bit worried about our resident hero.” 

He nodded his head groggily, smiling slightly.

Her assessment took about ten minutes, she’d asked him several questions to see what he remembered to judge his cognitive function, and she’d also asked him to move certain body parts of his, which he could mostly do. It was a bit uncomfortable, but it showed that while he was injured, it wasn’t anything debilitating.

Everyone was quiet as she took his vitals, making several notes before letting them know that she’d let his care team know that he was awake.

He finally looked over at Y/n again, a small smile on his face “Sunshine, how long was I out?” His voice was still hoarse, but it sounded a bit better, as if he was getting used to talking again.

“Consistently? A week, but they said you were in and out for the first week.” 

He nodded his head at that before looking over at Sam. “Did I at least look cool in the air?” 

She lightly slapped him on his side, meanwhile Sam shook his head, hands in his pockets with a small smile on his face.

“Yes, you looked cool in the air. Now I’m gonna give you two some time.I’ll be back in a bit, I’m sure you have a lot to talk about." With that, he left the room, closing the door behind him.

Joaquin took a deep breath, now looking over at her again, meanwhile she did her best to avoid his stare, gaze moving around the room, taking in the small details that she truly didn’t care for such as the small crack in the drywall above the door, the several wires behind the bed, all tangled as they connected the medical machinery to the bed, a power source, and most importantly Joaquin.

She’d even realized that the table on the opposite side of him didn’t match the table closest to her, it was clearly the older version of the side table.

“Have you been crying?” 

She rolled her eyes at him, silently nodding her head 

“Why?” 

That had her looking at him as if he had three heads, eyes squinted as she craned her neck back a bit.“Why have I been crying? I dunno because I had to watch you get shot out of the air by a goddamn missile then crash land into the ocean? Plus you’ve been hospitalized for two weeks, one of which involved a medically induced coma?!” 

He slowly nodded his head, squeezing her hand again.

“I thought you hated me.” 

She took a deep breath at that, jaw clenched as she shook her head.“No you moron, I don’t hate you, I just—I dunno okay Dr. Raynor has had me thinking and I guess talking to Nurse Shirley and just—just-fuck shut up!” 

He nodded his head slowly at her frustration, he was still a little groggy, and it was clear that whatever pain medications they had him on were strong.

He looked down at himself, doing his best to see his lower chest and lower body, noticing the few wires and patches under his hospital gown, and he’d even been able to see the burn along his chest, it was clear he’d screwed up going after that missile, he just wanted to impress Sam. Hell, he wanted to impress the entire world.

“I missed you, y’know.”

She shook her head at his words, bottom lip quivering.“Of course you did” 

He nodded at that, now looking at her again, and this time, she couldn’t help but get closer, leaning into his space as she brushed his curls away from his face, doing her best to fix his hair. He smiled at her look of focus, the same concentrated look that she’d had since they were kids.

Her brows were furrowed and it was clear that she’d been biting her tongue slightly with her teeth, lips barely spread as she focused on what she was doing.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come to your graduation, I didn’t get the letter on time.”

His voice was quiet, and that was what finally broke her, the tears were flowing along her cheeks while she looked at him, shaking her head as she nodded.

“I’m sorry I held it against you, but Jesus, I’ve never felt more alone, I didn’t have anyone. Then I needed you and you just, you weren’t there—and it hurt so fucking bad.” 

He nodded at that, a singular tear of his own sliding down his face. “It was hard, wasn’t it?” 

She nodded at his question, sniffling, squeezing his hand a little tighter.Harder than anything I’ve ever experienced. I guess that's why it was so easy to fall into shitty habits and routines.” 

He nodded at that, eyes trailing along her figure, taking in her disheveled state. She’d been stressed, that much was obvious.“Yeah, you’ve got quite the rap sheet now.” He was teasing her, and for a second, things felt normal, it felt like they were seventeen in Miami again, going back and forth with each other while sitting outside on the hood of her dad’s truck. 

“What can I say, being a criminal mastermind was quite the regrettable career choice out of college.” 

He raises both brows.“I’d say so, too.” 

And in that moment, they’d both realized that she was still close to him, she could’ve moved at any point in time, but she didn’t. His eyes took in the details of her face, slowly but surely taking note of everything that had changed about her over the years, there wasn’t much, truthfully she looked almost the same, just a little older now.

The same way that he’d grown up, so had she.

Then he was leaning forward, ignoring the radiating pain from his shoulder and his ribcage, slowly lifting his left hand until it was resting against her face.

Neither of them had moved away.

Her gaze had shifted from his eyes to his lips, back and forth, and she wasn’t sure if it was the overwhelming emotions rushing through her, or the close proximity of Joaquin, or maybe even a mixture of both, but she’d been the one to lean closer, connecting their lips.

The kiss was soft and careful, just as it was sweet and gentle. 

He smiled against her lips, they moved slowly in sync with one another, and she squeezed his right hand again, her left hand now finding its way to his jaw as she kissed him.

Once they’d finally pulled apart she rested her forehead against his.“Promise me you won’t get shot out of the fucking sky again” 

He laughed. “Only if you promise me you won’t go back to being a war criminal.” 

She rolled her eyes, giving him one last quick peck before standing up fully. “I mean, I guess I could give Sam’s plan a shot.”

Washington D.C. Air Force Base, Present Day

Joaquin’s major rehabilitation plan involved a multitude of physical therapy, specialist visits, and most importantly, he had to stay on base. Meaning, he couldn’t leave the Air Force base unless it was on a work related trip that didn’t involve being the Falcon.

Even after sustaining his injuries the doctors were a bit shocked that he was up and moving around so quickly, it’d been about two weeks since his accident, and one week since he’d been fully awake and functional. They tried to get him to stay in the hospital, stating that they would be able to move him to a more comfortable room, but he swiftly declined, stating that if he had to be on base, he’d prefer to be in his office space, considering it also had a somewhat private attached living quarters.

It wasn’t the biggest living area, it was practically the size of a studio apartment, but it was enough for him to actually have his own space. Well, almost his own space.

Instead of him being Y/n’s babysitter, she was his. 

Sam had advised her that he trusted her enough at this point to make sure Joaquin was alright, it also helped that the two of them were on a genuine speaking basis again, and following their kiss two weeks ago, they’d been friends again.

They truly were the epitome of old friends that could catch up in the time span of an hour, it was as if nothing had changed, as if they hadn’t gone nine years without seeing one another. 

The day that he’d woken up, following their kiss, they’d talked for hours about anything and everything. She’d told him about the less than legal activities that she’d been involved in, even did her best to describe her stint in Madripoor before and after being injected with the serum. That was something that did worry Joaquin, especially considering she couldn’t really piece those memories all the way together.

But she’d reassured him that there were no lasting harmful side effects of the serum, her body had adjusted to it, and now it was just a part of her whether she liked it or not.

He’d told her about his different missions, even let her know about the day that he’d met Sam, which she did tease him about, knowing that the Falcon was his childhood hero. 

Then he was moved into the lackluster studio space attached to his shared office with Sam, and Y/n had spent two days cleaning and organizing it, the first day was about cleaning, the second she’d been driving to Baltimore to get their things, then she’d practically bullied some of the men that typically worked under Joaquin into helping her move things.

Sure she could’ve done it on her own, but everything was bulky all together and it would’ve taken more than one trip.

Joaquin still hadn’t fully processed that Y/n was fully back in his life again, she’d apologized profusely for the way she’d been treating him, he knew that she was hurting, he also knew that she wasn’t the best when it came to coping with her emotions. 

He’d forgiven her a week into having her back in his life.

But she didn’t need to know that, nor did she need to know that she had him wrapped around her finger. He’d do anything and everything for her. 

He’d always been that way when it came to her.

What he hadn’t expected was the immediate resurgence of the feelings that he’d harbored for her when they were younger, the same feelings that he’d tried to rationalize the day he’d left for bootcamp. He was never able to truly define them, he couldn’t exactly let himself fully accept and acknowledge that he’d been in love with his childhood best friend.

Not now and not then, well maybe now. Things were different, they were adults now, adults who would most likely be spending a lot more time together for a while, plus she wasn’t on the run and he wasn’t somewhere overseas.

They were currently in the main office, Y/n was busy researching super soldier serum, she’d found herself heavily invested in this over the past few weeks, and in her downtime she’d take advantage of the various softwares and technologies they had. 

It was a good distraction.

She was currently reviewing the various interrogation tapes and video diaries from one of the last few hydra bases that had managed to survive well into the blip. It was remote, somewhere in the middle of Russia’s countryside, and the diaries documented failed experiments, potential recreations of the Red Skull, and even notes on how to adjust and ‘train’ soldiers like The Winter Soldier himself.

She stood in front of one of the large table-top touch screen monitors, gaze focused on different feeds, manuscripts, and translations.

Meanwhile Joaquin was seated on the large sectional, his feet propped up on the small coffee table in front of him while his laptop was in his lap where he was supposed to be doing some work and reviewing some encrypted data that Sam had sent over.

However, his gaze was held on Y/n, more specifically, on her lower half. It was hot outside, so she’d been wearing shorts a lot more often, however these shorts-if one could even call them that, were so short that anytime she bent forward he could see the bottom of her ass, and it had him biting his bottom lip while blushing. 

Not to mention they weren’t exactly fitted shorts, but they weren’t overly loose, and he was positive they were made of something soft like cotton based on the way the fabric sat. Then she’d shift and he’d see the way her thighs and ass would slightly jiggle, and at this rate, he was losing his internal battle.

They hadn’t even spoken about the kiss, maybe it was a one time thing, or maybe it was a pity kiss on her behalf. He tried to blame it on the emotions of the moment, but truly, he’d wanted to kiss her for a long time. 

Then she dropped her notebook, mumbling a quick ‘shit’ before stepping to the side, now fully bending over, back arched while she reached to grab the notebook that had slid between the desk itself and one of Sam’s large filing cabinets. 

The entire time she was mumbling curse words and his jaw was practically on the floor. The way he was looking at her was down right perverted, his entire face was on fire at this rate and he was positive he was sweating.

But he couldn’t tear his gaze away as he traced his eyes over the span of her legs, then towards her ass, and now her legs were somewhat spread and the thin little shorts she had on were riding up, meanwhile the more she moved, the more the fat of her ass moved, and the more she spread her legs, the more prevalent the outline of her cunt between her thighs became.

The fact that she had on thin little red panties wasn’t helping either, his brain was short circuiting.

Then she’d grabbed the notebook, standing back up and doing a small victory cheer, except when she turned around to check on Joaquin, his gaze was on the laptop screen in front of him and he would’ve looked normal if he hadn’t been so red and flushed.

It was somewhat concerning, especially because she’d been so involved in her own research and task at hand, that she hadn’t realized he’d been staring at her. So, she placed her notebook on the table in front of her then waltzed right towards him.

He was praying she didn’t catch him staring, and he was also angling his laptop to hide his very evident ‘issue’ that had occurred because of his staring.

“Torres, are you okay?” she blinked a few times, now looking down at him, moving while very clearly examining him. 

He nodded his head and did his best to act nonchalant, pretending to type something, meanwhile he had a small sticky note open on his laptop and was typing random letters into it. 

But then she got closer, shutting his laptop to gather his full attention, her brows were knit together, her eyes quickly scanning his figure over and over again, double checking that she hadn’t missed anything or that something wasn’t wrong. 

Then to make matters worse, she was even closer now, one of her legs brushing against his while she propped herself up with her other knee on the sofa cushion beside him, now leaning into his space, before placing the back of her hand on his forehead, then his cheek.

“Why the hell are you burning up?! Do I need to call one of the nurses?!” 

He shook his head, gently swatting her hands away while avoiding her gaze“I-I’m uh fine. Trust me I’m just a little hot—it’s fine” she squinted her eyes at him, not buying his horrible lie.

“Tell me the truth, are you feeling okay?” Then she grabbed his chin, slowly tilting his head towards her, both of her brows now raised as she looked at him with an expectant look on her face.

The motion shouldn’t have turned him on as much as it did. It also didn’t help that he was already turned on.

“I’m fine, I promise, just hot ‘s all” 

She nodded.“Okay, you want me to turn the air on?” 

He shook his head at her.

“But you said you’re hot Torres” 

He groaned, nodding his head while grasping her wrist, pulling her hand away from his face slowly and carefully.“I’m fine, it’s probably a side effect from the pain meds or something.” 

She raised a single brow at that, now finally catching him in his lies. “You’re not taking any pain meds, you literally argued with me about it yesterday because you said you’re not gonna risk getting reliant on narcotics, and heat flashes sure as hell are not a side effect of ibuprofen.”

The way that she was concerned about him was also turning him on, it was so nurturing and sweet, but also a little mean, and honestly, this was the worst time for him to be acting like some kind of horny teenager. He’d always known Y/n was attractive, but this was absolutely insane to him.

It could’ve also been the fact that she was so comfortable around him too, prior to this current living arrangement, she’d never worn anything like that in the other house, not for the almost month that they’d lived together. Now she was walking around in little shorts, and he couldn’t even think about the top that she’d worn last night.

She’d been sleeping on the sectional, stating that she wasn’t going to just start sharing a bed with him, and then she’d told him that she’d slept in way worse places than their expensive ‘cloud of a sofa’ when he tried to protest.

But it made sense to go to sleep comfortably, however, he hadn’t expected for her to walk into the room and give him his antibiotics for the shrapnel wounds wearing a little pair of shorts and a fitted, cropped tank top with nothing under. He’d very clearly seen the outline of her breasts, alongside her nipples poking through the thin fabric, and he did his best not to watch the way her chest bounced as she walked. 

Maybe he was acting like this because he hadn’t had sex in a while, but sex wasn’t ever a huge priority for him, sure he slept with people from time to time, but he didn’t go out of his way to seek out people to sleep with.

The last time he’d thought about Y/n like this was when they were nineteen and he’d actually managed to come home to visit for the winter holidays. She’d shown up to his family’s annual christmas party in a fitted off the shoulder red dress with a white faux fur neckline and a similar trim at the bottom of the dress.

Everyone from the neighborhood had been invited, plus his extended family, and their friends. It was always a huge deal for everyone to come together around the holidays, but what he hadn’t expected was for her to show up like a Christmas vixen.

What had gotten to him though, was when she’d bent over to grab something from the oven for his abuela, and he’d been flashed her barely-covered ass, only adorned in what he assumed was a thin black thong.

He’d also made a scene out of it, rushing behind her to pull her dress down some before harshly whispering to her that she needed to ‘put her ass away’, which led to her shooting up, nearly dropping the hot pan in her hands while she whispered that she’d forgotten to put on her shorts because she was rushing out of the house.

After that, he made sure to walk her back to her house so she could change, then they walked back together. But that night, all he could think about was how she looked bent over in her skimpy panties and her little dress, and it was sending his mind into overdrive.

“Hello, earth to Joaquin?!” She snapped her fingers a few times in front of his face, and he’d blinked and finally realized that she’d been talking to him the entire time. But now he was stuck on the sound of his name from her lips.

“What’d you say?” 

She rolled her eyes, arms crossed in front of her chest.“I said earth to Torres, I’ve been talking to you for like five minutes and you’ve been zoned out thinking about whatever the fuck.” 

He slowly nodded, brows now knit together as he stared at her before shaking his head.“No, you didn’t call me Torres.” 

She sighed, hands now on her hips, irritation evident on her features.“Okay, big deal, I called you your name, I’m trying to make sure you’re okay and you’re over here in la la land! I should kick your ass!” 

He shook his head at that, now leaning back into the couch, except usually when he’d relax, he’d move his laptop, but he made no effort to do so, so mindlessly Y/n reached forward to grab it, then he surged forward too, grasping it and holding it in place with a panicked expression.

He’d also lightly shoved her back, making her laugh as she tried to regain her footing, however she hadn’t processed that she’d still been leaning into the sofa, so when he’d pushed her, she’d started falling backwards in a fit of giggles—but instead of catching herself, she simply grasped his left arm and had managed to pull him down with her.

Both of them were now lying on the ground or rather, she was on the ground while he was above her. They were laughing at one another, except Joaquin had barely managed to balance himself on his left arm, and it was a bit wobbly, which had them even closer than before. 

Then they both suddenly got quiet, now realizing how close they’d actually been.

His gaze was glued to her lips, meanwhile her eyes were trailing his features again, then she paused on his lips, and truthfully, neither of them were sure who’d made the first move, but their lips were connected again, except this kiss wasn’t slow, soft, or sweet.

It wasn’t anything like the kiss they’d shared a few days ago.

This kiss was fueled by frustration from both ends, as if they’d been pouring years of emotion back into one another. One of her hands was now in his hair, lightly tugging at the strands while her other hand slowly slid beneath his shirt, fingers gently running along the warm ridges of skin.

They were both fighting for control, it was clear that Joaquin wanted to win, however, the second she pulled his hair with a bit more force, he groaned against her lips, and his arm wobbled.

That had her pulling back, brows knit together as she caught her breath, looking from his kiss swollen lips to his eyes, then towards his left arm. She’d then realized that his right hand had been lightly caressing her jaw, however the position looked uncomfortable for him, and she knew he was straining too hard.

“Get up.” 

He blinked a few times, caught off guard by the sudden demand, then she was shoving him, making sure it wasn’t too hard. He could feel her hesitating when her hand was closer to his right shoulder.

He slowly nodded, listening to her.

“Did I do something wrong?” 

She shook her head, now standing up before giving him an expectant look, so he slowly got off of the ground, and he also made sure to check that his laptop that had hit the floor was alright—it was okay enough.

Then she pushed him back onto the couch.

“Y’know you really shouldn’t be over extending yourself, Torres.” 

He nodded his head, watching as she easily straddled his lap—then both of their eyes widened the second she was properly situated against him. There were a few moments of silence before Y/n started laughing again.

“You’re seriously hard right now? Wait,is that why you were being so weird?!”

He groaned again, this time covering his face with his hands feeling overly embarrassed as if she wasn’t the one on his lap right now. It also didn’t help that with each movement, it was as if she was slowly grinding against him and he wanted nothing more than to moan.

She was still giggling, shaking her head while she gently pried his hands from his face.

“Oh c’mon Torres, it’s only natural, don’t be shy about it,” she smirked, her teasing tone had him nodding his head, then she leaned closer to him, trailing a few open mouthed kisses along his jaw, then moving towards the left side of his neck, lightly nipping at his skin, tongue trailing over the marks she’d left behind.

Meanwhile she slowly moved her hips against him, letting out a few gasps, enjoying the friction against her core. His hands gripped her thighs, fingers digging into the soft skin while he leaned his head back and a bit to the side, giving her more room. 

Her hands were shifting his shirt up, nails lightly tracing along his abdomen, the feeling making his mind fuzzy.

“Take it off, Torres.” 

He blinked a few times, nodding his head at her words as he scrambled to pull his shirt off, tossing it to the side somewhere, then her lips were back on him, but each time he tried to lean forward-she’d push him back against the cushions. 

Then her lips were back on him, except now she was slowly moving lower and lower, leaving a trail of minor bite marks and bruises along his skin before she was situated between his legs, now on her knees looking up at him. He hadn’t even realized that she’d been on the ground, his eyes had been shut while he leaned back, enjoying the feeling of her lips and teeth against his skin.

He’d been dreaming about this moment for years.

Seeing her looking up at him from between his legs had his mind short circuiting, then she started undoing his belt while still holding eye contact with him.

Truthfully, it was a feat in and of itself, she’d been nervous, but she was doing her best to play it off. Once she managed to undo his belt, she raised a single brow at him, as if asking for his permission, which had him practically whimpering as he nodded his head.

His eyes were slightly hooded, lips parted while he tried to steady his breathing, and he’d kept running his left hand through his hair. 

By the time that she’d undid his jeans and slid her hand into his pants, he was already biting down on his lip, chest rapidly rising and falling at the feeling of her hand against him, the only thing stopping her from actually touching him had been the thin layer of fabric separating the both of them.

She’d been palming him over his briefs, a smirk on her face at his quiet moans.

Then she tugged on his jeans a bit more and pulled his cock out, her eyes widening at the size of it, he was bigger than she’d expected, and he was certainly thicker than she’d thought. But it almost made sense, Joaquin had never really been scrawny, he’d always been broad, but now he’d filled out a lot more, the years in the Air Force had been good to his physique.

“Shit you don’t have to—” 

She cut him off, shushing him as she scooted a bit closer, now leaning over him as she slowly spit onto the tip of his cock before spreading it around with her thumb. “Let me take care of you Joaquin.” 

He nodded his head, her voice so soft and sweet, his heart was practically hammering out of his chest. 

“O-okay—” then he moaned, it wasn’t a quiet moan either, it was loud and throaty. She’d wrapped her lips around the tip of his cock, tongue swirling around the thick mushroom tip, then she pulled back, tracing her tongue along the weeping slit, the pleasure made him shudder.

She wrapped her right hand around his thick shaft, slowly raising it up and down, spitting on his cock again, using it as a lubricant to keep her motions fluid. 

“You’re always saving everyone, always being the hero, taking care of everything else. Can I take care of you this time?” 

He nodded his head, his entire body was on fire, it was as if he’d been possessed, maybe she was possessing him, maybe she was actually a witch and this is how’d she’d kill him.

Or maybe, just maybe, the love that he’d thought he’d been over, the love that he’d felt for her was making things one hundred times more intense.

“I wanna hear you say it, baby.” 

He whimpered, brows knit together as he looked down at her.“Yes-please-do it-do anything you want to me-fuck ‘m all yours, promise” 

That made her heart flutter.

Then she was taking him into her mouth again, inch by inch, and when she’d finally gagged on him, he let out another guttural moan, struggling to keep his hands still, then she’d looked back up at him and he felt like he was about to pass out.

She took her time with him, slowly bobbing her head along his cock, letting her spit trail along his thick shaft, some of it even dribbling down her chin while she used her right hand on what she couldn’t fit in her mouth. 

He finally placed his hand in her hair, it was a bit frizzy and wavy from being in braids and he’d gathered what he could, holding it in a ponytail, keeping it out of her face while she focused on sucking his cock. She’d even hollowed her cheeks, moving herself a bit faster, taking a little more of him down her throat.

This was downright sinful.

His ears were practically ringing as he fought the urge to buck his hips into her mouth, but the faster she moved her head, the closer he was to cumming.

Then she pulled back, a string of spit connecting her lips to the tip of his cock, he blinked a few times, heavy breaths leaving his lips when he watched her smirk, then she was leaning down, her tongue tracing the veins on the underside of his cock for a few seconds before she’d moved lower-that has his eyes widening.

She didn’t hesitate to trail her tongue along his balls, then she’d taken them in her mouth and he’d pulled her hair so hard it stung, but she’d just moaned, moving back up to his dick again, tongue back along the shaft before she wrapped her lips around the tip, tongue swirling around it again.

Meanwhile both of her hands were pumping and slightly twisting along his shaft, he’d bucked his hips a few times but she’d ignored it, watching as he writhed above her.

“Fuck-baby I’m gonna cum-fuck-you gotta stop before I cum-” he was borderline whining, voice a bit higher as he tried to catch his breath and tried to hold back, then she moved again.

“I want you to cum, so cum Joaquin” she’d practically demanded it, and that sent him over the edge, as her hands moved, he was cumming, thick spurts of cum shooting from his cock, trailing along her fingers, then she’d pulled the head back into her mouth, swallowing the rest of it before moving back, licking along her fingers before using her thumb to slowly drag the mixture of spit and cum along her chin into her mouth, dragging it against her bottom lip.

He thought she was done, he was already getting soft, but clearly she was a fan of torturing him.

She’d brought the sensitive tip of his cock back into her mouth, sucking on it as she stared at him, moaning around it for a few seconds, as if she was milking him dry.

The overstimulation made his eyes water as he shook his head at her.

“Baby, fuck-give me a minute-please-oh-” he whimpered when she took more of him into her mouth, lightly running her teeth along the sides of his cock before pulling away, letting him go with a ‘pop’. Then she kissed his tip, and out of everything she’d just done to him, that was downright filthy.

“You gonna let me keep goin’ Quino?” his jaw dropped at the nickname, watching as she stood up, easily slipping her shorts off, then straddled his lap again, leaving just enough room between them for her to spit on his cock and go back to fisting it. 

To say he was overly sensitive was an understatement, however that hadn’t stopped him from getting hard, not when she was on his lap making him pant like a dog. 

“Don’t call me that right now.” 

She laughed at his strained voice, leaning a little closer to him, resting her forehead against his as she kept her motions up.“Why not, Quino?” 

He moaned, shaking his head.“F-fuck, you know why.” 

She shrugged at that, moving back a little bit, she looked at him as if she was on death row and he was her last meal. “No I don’t Quino, you gonna tell me why I can’t call you that?, I’ve always called you that.” Her tone was mocking and degrading, he shook his head again, now bucking his hips into her hand, watching her bite her bottom lip, he was hard again, his head was spinning, his heart was racing, and he was five second away from telling her he’d been in love with her his entire life.

He moaned, using his left hand to grab her neck, pulling her into a kiss, practically slamming his lips into hers. 

She was surprised by the motion, especially considering she could still taste him on her tongue. 

Joaquin didn’t care about that, he was practically drowning in her. The kiss was rough, it was all teeth and tongue, the both of them swallowing one another’s moans as she ground herself against one of his thighs while slowly and lazily playing with his cock.

He pulled away first “I need to be inside of you-” and as he tried to push her off, attempting to switch positions, she used her enhanced strength to push him back into his spot while shaking her head.

“You're still hurt, or did cumming make you forget that?” 

He rolled his eyes, shaking his head.“It’s nothing I can’t handle, Sunshine” 

She shushed him again, giving him a pointed look.“No, your shoulders still hurt, you have a long recovery, no way in hell you’re about to make things worse because you want to have sex.” 

He groaned, nose scrunched with his eyebrows furrowed.“So we’re not having sex anymore?” he sounded unsure of himself, and that made her laugh again, shaking her head, their previously heated exchange now filled with a combination of their laughter. She smiled at him, rolling her eyes playfully.

“Do you trust me, Quino?” 

He groaned at the nickname, nodding his head, trying to ignore the butterflies he was feeling in his abdomen. He felt like he did the last night they’d spent together after high school, he was undoubtedly in love with her, and that love was all consuming. 

“That’s not my name.” 

She shushed him, moving her body forward now, easily sliding her panties to the side before slowly gliding his cock against her sopping cunt, practically coating him in her essence, teasing him.

“Yes it is, or would you prefer Joaquin?” She leaned closer to him, lips brushing against the shell of his ear “You want me to call you Joaquin when you’re inside of me? Tell you how good you feel against my tight little cunt, huh Joaquin?” 

He moaned again, eyes squeezed shut at the feeling of her lining his tip up with her entrance, then she was sliding down,taking all of him.

She moaned at the stretch, resting her head against his shoulder as she took him inch by inch until she was stuffed to the hilt, clenching around his thick cock,whimpering at the burning stretch.

“‘S so fuckin big-feels so fuckin good” 

He nodded at that, his hands now holding onto her waist, fingers digging into her skin hard enough to bruise trying to keep his composure. Then she’d fluttered around him over and over again while slowly grinding herself against him-enjoying the feeling of being so full.

“Should’ve done this a long time ago-shouldn’t have let you go so easy.” Her words were quiet as she finally started moving, bringing her body upwards, then slowly back down, setting a slow pace-rambling against the crook of his neck. 

“Missed you so much, Quino” 

He moaned, nodding his head as she moved against him, hands now moving, pulling her even closer to him.“I-oh shit-missed you too-S-sunshine.” He was stuttering at this point, head thrown back as she bounced on his cock, she was gradually building her pace, doing her best to keep things gentle, to make sure he’d be okay.

She kissed along his throat again, except this time, she moved, shifting towards his right side, peppering soft open mouthed kisses along his scarred skin, the doctors had said the burns were pretty superficial around his neck and shoulders, he’d scar, but it wasn’t as major as his other injuries.

If this wasn’t genuine love, he had no idea what love was supposed to feel like.

She was moving faster now, her moans a little louder against his skin, it was as if the only sounds in the room were their shared breathy moans, the sloshing sound of her cunt, and the sound of their skin. 

Then she reached between her thighs, fingers easily finding her clit as she kissed him again, it was difficult to focus on kissing him, their lips were moving, but it was sloppy, they’d been moaning against one another while she bounced a bit faster.

He used his left hand to move hers out of the way, two fingers now focused on rubbing fast half-circles against her swollen bud-earning several high pitched whimpers as she kept her movements up, cunt clenching around his cock as she lost her rhythm.

“I’m gonna cum-fuck Quino I’m gonna cum.” She was whimpering, her forehead resting against one of his shoulders again as she grasped onto his forearms.

“Just like that, you’re doing so good-so good for me baby.”

She nodded her head, feeling herself getting closer and closer to the edge.

Meanwhile he was doing everything in his power not to cum again, his mind was hazy and his only real goal was to make her cum first, he knew she was close, so he started bucking his hips up into her-knowing she wouldn’t argue with him right now-not when she was like this.

That sent her over the edge, moaning out a string of expletives and his name, alongside a few jumbled words, begging him to cum again.

“W-where?” 

She whimpered again, hips still moving slowly, “Inside-fuck need it inside, Quino.”

That pushed him over, and in his own orgasmic haze he hadn’t realized what he’d been moaning.

“Fuck-fuck-so perfect-shit I love you-oh god love you so much” 

The both of them sat in a comfortable silence as they came down from their highs, then she slowly started sliding off of him, wincing at the soreness of her cunt, followed by the feeling of his cum leaking out of her.

She slowly stood up, and instead of saying anything, she simply gave him an expectant look, that look resulted in the both of them being in the shower together, she was washing his hair for him, the intimacy of it all made her heart flutter even if he was complaining that she was doing it wrong.

“How the hell do you wash hair wrong, Quino? I have more hair than you, I think I know what I’m doing” her response was a bit snappy, however the few giggles that left her lips after reassured him that she wasn’t mad at him, besides he wasn’t even supposed to be lifting his shoulders too much, she was doing him a favor.

“Okay, there, now rinse it pretty boy.”He nodded at that, looking back over his shoulder, smiling at her.

When he was done rinsing his hair, he’d volunteered to wash her back, it made both of them laugh, however as she stood in front of him, he took the time to glide his fingers along the deep indented scars in her skin, brows furrowed as he realized this was what she had left to show fro everything she’d been put through for years.

“I’m sorry this happened to you.” 

She shook her head at that. “Don’t be, you should see the other guys,” she laughed softly, rolling her shoulders back when his touch tickled her, a smile on her face.

She turned to face him now, and they held eye contact for a few moments, as if they’d been taking one another in for the first time in a long time.“Is what you said true?” 

He blinked a few times, caught off guard by the question—trying to rack his brain to figure out what she was referring to. 

Then she raised a single brow “You don’t remember do you? Y’know it’s very in character for you to confess your love to me while literally cumming inside of me, then forgetting that you said something so major.”

His eyes widened, practically popping out of his skull.“Well- I uh, y’know we’ve known each other for a long time, and uh-well I guess old feelings uh y’know resurfaced when we were, well doing that-” 

She cut him off with a smile “Doing that huh? We’re literally butt ass naked in a shower together and you can’t say having sex? Really Quino?” 

He scoffed.“Stop making fun of me when I’m trying to explain myself to you!” 

She laughed at him, a little louder than she meant to, then she tried to hold it in, biting her bottom lip, the same way she always had when they were younger.“Okay-sheesh-sorry lover boy-go on and tell me how much you love me.” She was teasing him now, and he couldn’t help but shake his head at that, droplets of water splashing her from the motion.

Then he got closer, wrapping his arms around her waist as he looked at her, their faces only a few inches apart at this rate, the water bouncing against their skin as he pulled them closer to the shower head.“You got me okay, I’ve been in love with you since we were kids, you totally broke my heart when you were all cold to me for a month even if we hadn’t seen each other in years, you’ve always been the one for me, Sunshine, even if you are a reformed war criminal.” 

Her jaw dropped at his jokes, shoving him.“You asshole!” she couldn’t hold in her fit of giggles. “Is now a bad time to say that I wanted to kiss you on prom night?” he shook his head.

“No, because I wanted to kiss you too—but we can make up for lost time. Besides Sam said I need a long term babysitter. Okay, now it’s your turn to say you love me, too.” 

She laughed again, smiling at him as she held eye contact, then she kissed him, it was practically a peck.“I guess I love you too, you loser. Although it did take you crash landing into the ocean for me to realize that. Now can we please get out of the shower before I prune up like a raisin?” 

He raised a brow before reaching back to turn off the showerhead. “You do know that prunes and raisins are two different dried fruits right?”

-

Thanks for reading secksies <3

[milkywaybesties]

i wrote shit!!!!!! first paragraph below, the rest under the cut :))

Martyn sat on the floor of his living room, eyes fixed on the TV screen as a familiar outro played. Grian and BigB were behind him on the couch; they had come over so the three of them could watch their favorite show, Blue Sword. Martyn and Grian agreed that they all had a hyperfixation on it, or that it was their special interest, but BigB insisted that they didn’t.

As soon as the lyrics started Martyn and Grian began to sing along, very much out of tune but honestly, what else was expected from two trumpet players? They had embraced that joke at this point, as had the rest of their band friends and several others.

BigB sat through it, all two minutes and eighteen seconds of them singing. At the end, Martyn and Grian were grinning, BigB offering his own smile—the one with no teeth, but that still reaches his eyes.

Martyn stood to get snacks before starting the next episode. He refilled their bowls of chocolate covered pretzels and popcorn, and Grian’s odd choice of pita chips. (It wasn’t quite odd, necessarily, but no one in their friend group liked pita chips as much as Grian.)

Returning to the living room, he handed Grian his bowl, his friend’s face lighting up at the sight of his favorite snack. He placed the other bowls in a spot where all three of them could reach relatively easily.

Taking his place back on the floor, Martyn started the next episode, singing along with Grian once again during the intro.

About halfway through, Grian and Martyn lock eyes with a grin, knowing what scene is coming up.

“‘It was always going to be like this, Canary,’” the two quoted in unison.

They fell back into their seats, smiles wide on their faces from laughter, and settled into silence until the end of the scene. It was another couple of minutes before one of them spoke again.

“Do you wanna break up?” Grian asked, seemingly to no one.

“Yeah,” came the reply from BigB, before the room went quiet again, save for the sounds of the show.

Martyn stared at the screen for a few beats, processing what his friends behind him had just said. He turned slowly, face contorting in confusion. “Wh-huh—ffhuh?” he said intelligently. Grian and BigB were still looking straight at the TV, as if they hadn’t just broken up on Martyn’s couch—since when were they dating?!

[palettepainter]

Food for thought 35

Riley is definitely the type of kid who, growing up, would do an impressive amount of chores for pocket money and then spend all of it in one go on a bunch of sugary stuff.

I want to make this into a short story but one time, when Riley went out and brought bags full of sweets after school, she made herself a sugary sundae concoction of all the stuff she'd brought and some thinks already at home (included but not limited to: ice cream, custard, sprinkles, chocolate mousse, fruit loops cereal and whip cream). Hoshi and his sister were round at the time and he stared in abject horror at her ''creation'', I don't have a scene in mind but here's how I imagined the scenario goes:

Riley: Hm, I see you're so impressed you are speechless~

Hoshi:...Speechless yes, but impressed is not the word I'd use

Riley: (pouts) Rude. I was planning to share this with you but I don't think I will now. I think I'll just have it all to myself

Hoshi: You can NOT eat that Riley! Not all at once!

Riley: (smirks) Sounds like a dare

Hoshi: (worried) I PROMISE I am NOT daring you to eat this! You're absolutely going to make yourself sick!

Riley: (fishing for a spoon from the drawer) The words of a coward my dear beloved cousin~ As my dad always says: (mocks her best Powerloader impression) A creator must take great risks for the betterment of science

Hoshi: Uncle Higari has NEVER said that!

Riley: Well he WILL start saying it after today (offers Hoshi several comforting pats to his shoulder) Don't you worry your little ninety degree composed head about a thing Hoshi, your cousin Riley knows what she's doing!~

Hoshi: (frowning) I'm two months older then you...(shrugs) But fine, it's your stomach that'll suffer

Riley: Relaaax~ I made sure to balance out the levels of sugar with equal amounts of healthy stuff. I cut up some banana and threw that in, problem solved!

Hoshi: But...fruits have natural sug-...(sighs) Nevermind

No less then thirty minutes later when Hoshi and his little sister are watching TV does Hoshi hear Riley groaning from her bedroom, so with a roll of his eyes he goes to investigate and finds Riley curled up on the floor clutching her stomach. Her miss-matched pudding creation isn't even half finished and sits abandoned on her desk. At the time of this all happening Cementoss, Higari and Powerloader are attending an afterschool UA meeting, so Hoshi leaves to go and call them for help (I also like to think that while Hoshi does that his little sister helps herself to Riley's leftover pudding creation, totally ignoring Riley in the process), and then the following phone call goes something like this

Ecto: (hums when he feels his phone vibrating, temporarily stepping outside the meeting to take the call) Hello?

Hoshi: Hi Uncle

Ecto: Oh, Hoshi. I didn't expect you to call (casts a look back to the meeting door) I'm in a meeting at the moment, is everything alright??

Hoshi: Uhm...not really

Ecto: (blinks)...You're going to need to be a bit more specific. What's not okay?

Hoshi: (nervously) Sooo just curious, but would eating an elaborate combination of uh...maybe several types of sweet things combined into one in one sitting count as a bit excessive?

Ecto:....(squints) Excessively excessive

Hoshi: (turns to look to Riley) In that case I think you or Uncle Higari need to come home..

Riley: (still clutching her stomach) UUUUGGGGGGHHHHH-

Ectoplasm left the meeting early and came home to one concerned teenager, one teenager curled on the floor groaning, and a toddler grabbing fistfuls of melted ice cream from a bowl. After Hoshi and his sister went back home Ectoplasm probably gave Riley a talking to, but he ends up not being able to stay mad

Riley: (now standing, but still clutching her stomach) Erugh... Everything hurts

Ecto: (arms crossed) You're old enough to know the consequences of your actions, Hoshi tried to warn you. Now you're going to have to deal with an upset stomach until you're better

Riley: Does this mean you won't rub my head till I feel better?..

Ecto: (scowling)....

Higari came home shortly after to find Ectoplasm on the sofa with a book, Riley under a blanket besides him with her head resting on his leg as he rubbed her forehead (this entire situation would repeat itself no less then a month later when Riley made her next sugary concoction-)

[lizcameron]

Part of His World | Part Three

Pairing: JJ Maybank x fem!reader

Summary: Y/n was just trying to get out of town, running from her family and her past. When her dirt bike breaks down in Kildare, JJ Maybank swoops in to help her. Forced to stick around for a while, Y/n begins to fall in love with JJ and his tight-knit family of outcasts. The longer she stays, the harder it becomes to leave OBX as she knows she must.

Word Count: 2030

Warning(s): angst, death, tragedy, one very hot and heavy kiss, JJ being the sweetest ever

You rolled over onto your side, stretching as you squinted your eyes open. The light poured in through the sheer curtains covering the window. You looked down to see JJ curled up on the floor, cuddled up with one pillow under his head and one between his knees. He looked like a sleeping baby - one that needed to get up and get ready.

You reached down and yanked the pillow out from between his knees. JJ whimpered and reached out sleepily before coming to, eyes shooting open.

“Hey, that was a good dream,” he nearly whined, giving you a fake pout.

You laughed before throwing the pillow at his head. “Get up. I need to get going, and I promised you breakfast before I leave,” you said, rising to your feet and stretching again.

You each dressed quickly and were in the truck within 10 minutes. JJ drove you to a diner where he ordered a large meal of eggs, pancakes, grits, fruit, orange juice, and a stack of bacon. Your plate had only two large pancakes with a smiley face of whipped cream and berries on top with a mug of hot cocoa to accompany it. JJ gave a cheeky grin when the server set down your plate.

“What, no toy?” he teased after the server walked away.

“Don’t make fun of me. Who doesn’t like a smiley face pancake and hot cocoa?” you asked rhetorically.

JJ retorted anyway. “Probably anyone over the age of 8,” he mocked playfully.

You glared at him through your eyelashes. “Leave me alone. Let me enjoy my nostalgia,” you pouted.

JJ reached out and poked your nose with a swipe of whipped cream from his own pancake. “Whatever you say princess,” he chuckled before digging into his meal.

You gasped, snatching up your napkin to wipe at your nose. “You are the real child, mister,” you scolded, but you couldn't hold back the dopey smile on your face.

When you looked up at JJ, nose clean, the tv on the wall several paces behind JJ caught your eye. The shot was an aerial view of burning ruins, smoke curling up and obscuring the camera’s focus. Little yellow blobs moved around the charred structure, poking and digging at piles of rubble. The screen flashed to a reporter standing in the street in front of the scene.

The reporter began to speak. “The fire marshall’s team is still investigating the source of the fire, but it is believed to have started in the kitchen. Sadly, the department has confirmed one fatality and no others injured.”

The rest of the reporter’s words were muffled as your ears began to ring, your head fogging in disbelief. You couldn’t process what you were seeing. You couldn’t make sense of the neighbors’ yards you recognized but the home you grew up in no longer standing.

“That’s my house,” you said plainly.

JJ looked up from his food, eyebrows raised. “Hmm?” he mumbled.

You gestured with your head toward the tv behind him, and JJ turned his head around to see. When he turned his gaze back to you, his expression was pained.

“Y/n, ‘m so sorry. Do you wanna…?” JJ trailed off, not sure what to say.

“Let’s go,” you said abruptly, grabbing your things off the table and walking out the door.

JJ paid the tab for your uneaten breakfast while you waited in the truck. He shot you a glance as he got in, but you remained stone-faced, staring straight ahead. He began driving toward the main road but could only go so far.

“Y/n, I need you to tell me where I’m going,” he said gently, pulling you from your rumination.

“Head north on the main road,” you said dryly, remaining stoic.

The entire 50-mile drive, you were quiet in your dysphoria as you kept your eyes forward. JJ tried to talk to you, check in with your thoughts or emotions, but he didn’t want to prod.

When you entered your hometown, you directed JJ until you arrived on your street. JJ parked the car down the street from your house, unable to get any closer as reporters, firefighters, and officers crowded the street.

You got out of the truck and began walking briskly toward where your home once stood. You pushed through the crowd of bystanders until you were directly in front of the yellow tape blocking off the scene. JJ followed your strides, mumbling quiet apologies as he brushed past the tightly packed observers. When he reached you, he waited a few quiet moments as you took in the sight of your childhood home before he spoke again.

“Y/n, what do you want to do? I can go talk to that officer if you want me to. Tell me what you need,” he pleaded.

Your eyes briefly met his before you pushed past him and the caution tape to go stand directly in front of the smoldering house. You could hear JJ behind you telling someone to let you go, that it was your house.

A few uniforms stood around a gurney in what used to be the living room. They spoke quietly among themselves, one of them making notes on a clipboard before another zipped up a black body bag. The thought didn’t cross your conscious mind, but somewhere deep down you knew that your father had caused all of this with his own negligence.

Unphased by the scene in the living room, you walked around the crumbling structure to the backyard. The shed was mostly intact, a branch having fallen through its roof. Your eyes scanned up the trunk of the tree before landing on the partial frame of your childhood treehouse - where all of your fondest memories were made, where you would hide when your parents fought, where you accidentally interrupted your brother’s first kiss. The one place in the world where you had always felt safe was gone, eaten up by the fiery tendrils that flew off the house in the height of its blaze.

An unrecognizable wail left your mouth as your eyes flooded with tears. Your body was wracked with sobs, making it difficult for you to breathe. You reached up to clutch your burning throat, and strong arms wrapped around you and cradled you as you sank to the ground, completely falling apart.

The next few hours were a blur. Official after official came to talk to you at your place on the sidewalk - letting you know when to expect results from the dental records, asking if your father had home or life insurance, asking if there were any other relatives they needed to call. It was all very overwhelming, and JJ stayed nearby, not burdening you with his own many questions.

When you were finally told you could go and that the detective would call you with any updates, you let JJ lead you to the truck with a ginger hand on your back. You dumped the stack of business cards you had collected in a garbage can along the way.

He had been paying attention during your many interviews. He knew you didn’t have any other relatives nearby who you could stay with, so he started toward his house without question.

You’d stopped crying once the interviews began, but a few minutes into the drive, JJ glanced over to see tears silently rolling down your cheeks. He reached out to grab your hand, giving it a squeeze, and you didn’t let go until you got out of the truck at his house.

You took JJ up on his offer to use his shower, letting the water soothe you for at least 40 minutes before getting out. It was 4 PM, but JJ had dinner already prepared by the time you got out of the shower in case you just wanted to eat and go to bed. You weren’t hungry, but you ate a small bowl of macaroni and hot dogs to be polite. Not wanting to excuse yourself to bed to leave JJ alone after all of his kindness, you stayed in the living room with him after finishing your food.

There were a few awkward moments, but JJ decided to fill them with funny stories, knowing that you probably still weren’t ready to answer all of the questions he had about this mystery girl who just rode into his life. He told you about his long friendship with JB and the trouble they got into even from an early age. One story had you laughing so hard you were crying.

“You should have seen the look on Mr. Heyward’s face. We were in deep shit,” he roared, clutching at his sides that hurt from laughing so hard.

“You guys are so bad! I could never. I’d be so scared to get in trouble,” you squealed, falling back in a fit of giggles onto the futon that served as a couch.

JJ fell back beside you, and the two of you slowly came down from your hysterics. As you drew in a deep, sobering breath, you turned your head to find JJ’s face close to yours. Your lips parted slightly in a silent gasp. JJ shifted his hand to brush a thumb across your knuckles. You clenched your hand reflexively, but JJ’s hand stayed.

“So um, thanks for today. You didn’t have to waste your whole day dealing with my melodrama,” you inserted into the silence.

“Wasn’t a melodrama,” he opposed. “You were going through something big. You shouldn’t have to do those things on your own.”

“Well, still, I know you probably wanted to do something else with your time,” you deflected, feeling heat in your cheeks, embarrassed that he had to witness the events of the day.

JJ paused, tracing circles on the back of your hand with his index finger. ‘I wanted to spend the day getting to know you,” he said.

Well he probably got to know some things about me he probably didn’t want to know, you thought.

“I don’t know what it is about you,” JJ continued. “I just want to be near you, like gravity is pulling me toward you.”

You looked into his eyes, wondering what could be so intriguing about you. JJ held your gaze, searching for reciprocation. He must have seen something there because he leaned his head down and pressed his lips to yours, and you didn’t stop him.

The kiss was soft and slow at first. When you let out a shaky breath, JJ deepened the kiss, and you responded with an even greater need. He tugged on your bottom lip with his teeth, and you allowed his tongue entry. As JJ’s tongue explored your mouth, his hands ran up your thighs to your waist. He massaged the skin there, needing to feel more of you.

When you rolled your hips under his touch, JJ turned onto his back and hoisted you on top of him in one fluid movement. Your hands went into his hair, tangling with the golden locks at the back of his head. You devoured each other’s mouths hungrily, unable to get enough.

JJ ran both hands up your back and dragged his trimmed nails back down, causing you to let out a breathy moan. JJ slowed the kiss, holding your chest to his. He struggled to clear his mind enough to make a rational decision. If he didn’t stop now, he’d be taking advantage of you in your emotional state.

JJ let out a groan. “I’m sorry, I can’t - not after the day you’ve had,” he lamented. “We should go to bed.”

You stared at JJ in disbelief and frustration. He stopped what was happening just to spare your feelings? You were a willing participant, too. 

“I don’t-,” you began.

“I’ll take the couch,” JJ cut you off, sitting up under you. 

You couldn’t wipe the shocked, hurt expression from your face as you climbed from his lap and retreated to his bedroom. You lied awake for a long time, replaying the events of the day and the last 10 minutes over and over in your mind before finally dozing off into a deep sleep. 

Thanks for reading! Allllll the feedback is very much appreciated by this growing writer.

I'm thinking there will be at least two more parts to this story.

[thebluewritingbench]

10) “Please, for the love of god, do not explain any of what I’m seeing.”

I feel like there could be a lot good comedic dialogue with this one.

I’ve enjoyed your Supercorp stories so far ❤️

thank you!! here have some more fluff: this is disgust #10 from these dialogue prompts

"Please, for the love of god, do not explain any of what I'm seeing."

“Your Monopoly set is cursed.”

Lena glares at the board, currently filled with houses and hotels, abandoned pieces still spaced around the edges. She’s sitting on the floor, leaning against the couch instead of sitting on it and looking disgruntled. Her nose is scrunched in disgust, and Kara kind of wants to reach over and boop it.

Instead, she leans back on her hands and grins at Lena. “I don’t think the fact that you lost means it’s cursed.”

Laughter rings out loudly from the kitchen, and Kara catches Nia’s cackle above the rest. It’s the tail end of game night, the point where the games are starting to be forgotten halfway through and abandoned in favour of fervent drunk rants and trips to the kitchen for more snacks. Right now, Kara can hear Nia trying to convince the others to climb out the fire escape and up to the roof.

It’s just her and Lena left in the living room now, and Kara’s had enough aldebaran rum and coke that everything is a little fuzzy around the edges.

Lena falls forwards slightly, like she’s tilting on her axis. She’s a lot floppier when she’s drunk. “I think that’s exactly what it means,” she says. “I always win Monopoly. I am the queen of Monopoly. I do not go bankrupt.”

“You did in this game,” Kara laughs, catching her hands. Lena beams at her, forgetting to be irritated for a moment before she quickly overcompensates with an expression that’s far too serious to be believable.

“Because it’s cursed,” she says.

“Because Alex beat you.”

Lena gasps. “Alex cursed Monopoly.”

“Alex did not curse Monopoly,” says Kara, swatting at her. Lena laughs and swats her back, so they’re hitting each other’s hands as she talks. “There were just a lot of us and you had bad luck this time.”

“Like I said, cursed!”

There’s the sound of a window opening and closing, and the chatter in the kitchen swells and fades slightly. Nia must have convinced everyone to go up to the roof. Kara cranes her neck to try and see if there’s anyone still left in the kitchen.

“Stupid Monopoly,” Lena mutters, mostly to herself. “Fuck Monopoly.” And just as Kara’s turning back to look at her, she reaches out and hits the board off the table, sending cards and plastic pieces flying.

“Lena!” says Kara.

Lena does not have the grace to look abashed. In fact, she looks quite pleased with herself, like a cat who just knocked something over.

“You can’t just knock over the Monopoly,” says Kara, scraping up handfuls of little plastic houses and hotels from the carpet. “What if we wanted to keep playing?”

“Oh, pfft,” says Lena, unbothered, flipping dark hair away from her face. “Everyone’s too drunk to play now anyways. We weren’t going to keep playing.”

“You don’t know that.” Kara plucks a Monopoly house from her palm and throws it at Lena. It bounces off her forehead, and Lena’s jaw drops in a comical exaggeration of betrayal.

“Did you just throw a hotel at me?”

“It was a house, actually,” says Kara, picking another one to throw. This one bounces off Lena’s cheekbone. “That was a hotel.”

“You did not just do that.” Lena leans across the table and snatches a stack of Monopoly money, then launches it in Kara’s direction. It flutters down over the table and carpet. A bill brushes Kara’s ear. One lands on Lena’s head.

“That’s paper, it’s not going to do anything.”

“Don’t test me,” says Lena, scrambling out from behind the coffee table and grabbing the rest of the stack of money. She flicks it off her hand, a few bills at a time, sending a rain of multicoloured money over Kara and scattering the once tidy piles across the floor. The bills slide under the couch and TV. Kara chokes out stop between her laughter, still tossing tiny houses and game pieces at Lena.

There’s a bowl of gummy bears on the table, and when Kara runs out of Monopoly pieces, she reaches for a handful of those and starts throwing them at Lena instead. Lena’s moved on to throwing the cards at her, and it’s really going to be a bitch to pick it all up tomorrow, but Kara’s laughing too hard to care. Lena’s cackling, and she stumbles to the side and crashes into the coffee table, knocking over the remaining Jenga tower as she goes down. It only makes them both laugh harder.

Popcorn. The bowl of popcorn on the couch still hasn’t been knocked over, so Kara grabs a fistful of that and throws it. It’s better than the gummy bears, it sticks in Lena’s hair and falls down her blouse.

Having finally exhausted the contents of Monopoly, Lena reaches for her own handfuls of popcorn and gummy bears. “Take that,” she says, alternating between throwing the two snacks at Kara. “And that.” A gummy bear lands in Kara’s mouth. A piece of popcorn hits her eye.

Hiccupping back her laughter, Kara reaches blindly across the table for her drink, and without really thinking about it, flicks her wrist and tosses the entire contents directly at Lena’s face.

Everything freezes. Lena looks stunned, blinking rum and coke from her eyes. Amber liquid drips from her chin, her hair.

Kara, eyes wide, only manages, “Oh my god, Lena, I am so—” before Lena’s vodka soda is hitting her in the face. She gasps, inhaling a mouthful down her windpipe. Lena looks far too smug when she finally manages to stop coughing, and some instinct in Kara must take over because she lunges forwards and tackles Lena to the carpet.

Lena shrieks and laughs and squirms, and Kara pins both her hands above her head with one hand, sitting on her knees to straddle Lena’s waist. Instinct still driving her, she leans forwards and licks a wet strip up Lena’s cheek.

When she sits back again, Lena has stopped squirming and is staring up at her, utterly bemused. “Did you just lick me?”

“You’re covered in aldebaran rum and coke,” Kara grins. “Wouldn’t want it to go to waste. It’s expensive stuff, Lena.”

“Oh, so you’re trying to drink me.”

Kara shrugs. “Drink, eat, whatever.”

She’s basically sitting over Lena’s middle, which means she feels the way Lena’s stomach jerks slightly against her pelvis in a sharp inhale. Feels the way Lena tenses, like every muscle in her body has gone taut. Lena swallows, licks her lips nervously, which of course brings Kara’s full attention to her mouth.

Her lips are so pink, and so pretty and plush, and she suddenly looks so kissable it’s unbearable. It feels like Kara has to kiss her, like it’s a physical compulsion. She takes Lena’s chin in her free hand, squishing her cheeks slightly as Lena stares at her, and whispers, “Wait, wait, wait.”

Then, very gently, softly, quickly, she presses her lips to Lena’s.

Lena blinks at her, eyelashes fluttering, when she pulls away. There’s a long silence where she searches Kara’s eyes before she says, voice low, “Again?”

Kara leans forwards and presses a second experimental kiss to Lena’s lips. She lingers a moment longer than the first one, then pulls back an inch, still holding Lena’s hands fast above her head.

“Yes?” she whispers.

Lena nods, like she can’t quite remember how to speak. Then she says, “More.”

When Kara kisses her for a third time, her lips are already parted slightly, and they slot easily between Kara’s.

They’re so soft.

She tastes like vodka soda and gummy bears, and it’s almost more than Kara’s drunk brain can process at once; Lena’s warm body pressed to hers, her slim wrists in Kara’s hand, the softness of her lips, the taste of her mouth, the slick brush of her tongue. She loses herself in it, forgets time, forgets how they got here, forgets everything but Lena.

It’s finally quiet after all their shrieking and laugher, just the sound of their lips melding together. Kara’s not sure how long they’ve been kissing—perhaps a minute, perhaps a lifetime—when someone clears their throat loudly, like they’ve already done it once or twice.

Kara breaks away, and Lena makes a small protesting sound in the back of her throat, a tiny whimper. They both look over Kara’s shoulder at Alex, who’s standing in the doorway looking faintly queasy.

Kara watches her take in the scene: Lena lying on the ground with Kara straddling her waist and pinning her hands above her head, the pile of Monopoly money and pieces that they’re lying in, the gummy bears and popcorn scattered across the floor and in their hair, the drinks that are still dripping from both their furtive, swollen-lipped faces.

Alex opens her mouth, and then presses it closed again.

“You know what,” she says, after a long moment. “I don’t think I want to know. Please, for the love of god, just… do not explain any of what I’m seeing right now.”

Without another word, she turns on her heel and disappears back into the kitchen.

Kara and Lena turn back to each other, still pressed together on the floor, breath uneven. Lena’s flushed, eyes dark, lips parted. She really does look good enough to eat. Her wrists twitch under Kara’s hand.

They stare at each other. Several long seconds tick by. Then, simultaneously, they start laughing.

It’s a long time before they stop.

[icasttourniquet]

Common Misconceptions: Raising the Dead (CPR)

Let's start with the bad news: basically all the CPR you've seen in movies and TV shows is performed terribly.

Here's the good news: most CPR is performed on dead patients, which means even bad CPR is better than nothing.

What is CPR?

CPR stands for (googles hurriedly) Cardio-Pumonary Resuscitation. It has two parts: 1) chest compressions and 2) rescue breaths. Here's a video in case you're still confused, but most people have seen CPR performed a ton of times during the climaxes of medical shows. It comes right before either a) the nurse yells "Clear!" and the patient comes back to life or b) the EMT says "I'm not losing you" and injects the patient with adrenaline right to the heart, and then they come back to life.

Raising the Dead

CPR is generally performed on dead patients. That is, patients without a pulse. In the first responder business, the situation doesn't really get worse than dead, so it provides a unique opportunity for authors because you can't really get it wrong.

Here are some questions I've heard people ask while learning CPR:

Should I perform CPR on pulse-less patients who have chest wounds?

Can I continue performing CPR if I break a rib?

Should I perform CPR on pregnant people?

What if I can't give rescue breaths? Should I still give CPR?

My patient has a lot of broken limbs. Should I fix those before performing CPR?

My patient was electrocuted. Should I give CPR?

Here's the trick to answering all your CPR questions. Is my character dead (no pulse)? Does performing CPR put a) the first responder, b) another patient, or c) a bystander in danger?

If you can answer (yes) (no, no, no), congratulations! Your first responder can perform CPR, even really crappy CPR, even CPR that is ineffective, for as long as the plot requires (ModN's WFR instructor tells the story of a 6-hour CPR session on a dead patient during a journey to care that included a toboggan ride).

(NOTE: there's actually one solid contraindication: if the patient is severely hypothermic, their heart rate may be so slow and weak as to be undetectable. In this case (and pretty much only this case) chest compressions may actually do more harm than good. Other than that, obvious signs of death like decapitation or rigor mortis indicate you don't need to start resuscitation, but there are still plenty of compelling interpersonal reasons to do it – at that point you're doing CPR for the responder and survivors rather than the patient.)

Otherwise, your character should go for it!

The bad news about CPR

Time for the bad news (other than you having a dead character on your hands). In general,* CPR is not enough to bring someone back. Its role is to continue circulating oxygenated blood while you wait for a defibrillator like an AED to arrive. The AED or manual defibrillator is what actually convinces the heart to stop fluttering/beating erratically, and allows it to resume something like a normal rhythm. That means that in the wilderness, CPR is almost never going to work. That said, ModN's WFR instructors had a couple tales of AEDs falling from the sky (via helicopter, not under their own power), so it's worth trying regardless.

* The exception: lightning-struck patients can at times restart regular rhythms with just chest compressions. This leads to interesting triage considerations when dealing with the aftermath of lightning, but that's a subject for another post.

How to perform non-crappy CPR

There are a million videos on YouTube that can talk you through every sort of CPR. Keeping in mind, of course, that some CPR is better than nothing on a pulseless patient, here are some quick tips that could indicate your character has some training:

Your character distinguishes between adult and pediatric CPR. Because children don't tend to get heart attacks, pulse-less children almost always have a trauma or respiratory cause. This means responders give children more rescue breaths.

Your character keeps their elbows locked. Here's a playlist of some examples of bad CPR (and some are really quite bad). Actors generally can't lock their elbows because they'd risk injuring or even killing their scene partner (so, okay, fine, that's a decent excuse), but people with real training will know better.

They do not always give rescue breaths. Any CPR is better than no CPR. Rescue breaths can put the first responder at risk because they can involve lip-to-lip contact, assuming no PPE is available. I once had a paramedic say bluntly that he really only gives breaths to children—it's just not worth the risk to him for anyone else. If this sounds callous, remember, CPR is (almost) only performed on dead patients, and the number one priority in any disaster is yourself.

(ModN edit: in a professional setting your character will always have some sort of PPE for rescue breaths: a face shield at the minimum, or in the front country a full-blown bag valve mask (BVM) that allows them to use their hands to get air into the patient.)

Your character does a blood sweep before staring CPR in a trauma injury. You may have heard the rule no pulse = chest compressions immediately. This is almost always true, especially in the frontcountry, when most pulse-less patients you encounter will have had a heart attack. However, in the wilderness, we can run into a bad situation: chest compressions that pump all my patient's blood out the gushing wound in their side.

Maybe you're thinking, hey! I thought you said my character could always do CPR on a dead patient and they'd be fine! And yes, I did say that—thank you for listening. If your character performs CPR on a patient with no pulse and arterial wound, they have not killed their patient. This is because the patient was already dead. They have not "sped up" the bleeding out process because this patient has basically already bled out. So, I'm not blaming your character for anything.

That said, the pro-est of pros will do a blood sweep after finding no pulse and stuff/apply direct pressure/tourniquet as necessary. As an added note, your character with no pulse and the arterial bleed? Probably not going to survive.

This leads me to...

Writing more realistic necromancy

If your character's CPR is successful, your character has just raised the dead. Thinking about it this way can help you write more realistic resuscitation scenes. Here's the number one thing that will make all your CPR more realistic:

Your dead patient does not go from dead to walking and talking in a few seconds.

When the body has no pulse for a while, it gets unhappy. This is because all its internal organs are dying and also because it is dead. CPR replicates the pumping of a heart, but not particularly well. Most people whose organs are all dying don't get that shot of adrenaline to the heart (this is not part of any WFR or EMT protocol but whatever) and then go back to swashbuckling adventure after a quick sip of water.

In fact, in real life, checking the pulse of your patient is an important part of performing CPR because sometimes they come back to life and you don't notice.

So how might you accurately describe someone who's just come back from the dead via CPR (possibly plus defibrillation)? May I recommend some of the following words (no need to cite me—just plop 'em in your writing):

Unconscious

Unmoving

Pale

Clammy

Weak pulse

Non-responsive to pain

Not dead!!!

An added point: absolutely no one whose heart stopped is now "okay" because their heart restarted. They are "not dead" because their heart restarted. Admitedly, not dead is pretty good in the first response business, but they need to see a doctor. As soon as possible. This is because something caused the heart to stop and CPR did not treat that underlying cause. Many people who come back from the dead die again soon after, and could come back and die multiple times before picking a state more permanantly.

Wilderness-Specific CPR

In the wilderness, we have get one (1) special CPR-related ability and that is the ability to stop.

In the US, there's a thing called patient abandonment that can get folks in trouble. Basically, if you start treating a patient, you need to keep treating them until 1) they are dead, 2) they are conscious enough to refuse further treatment and do so, or 3) someone else with an equivalent or higher level of training is treating them (ModN: as a W-EMT this is tricky – it's hard to find people more qualified in the wilderness to hand a patient off to!).

Because WFRs and EMTs cannot declare patients dead, and a dead or unconscious patient cannot refuse treatment, that means you are treating them until someone else is treating them. (As a side note, my first first-aid instructor told the story of performing CPR for 30 minutes in an ambulance on a patient missing part of his brain [this is bad] because the police officer at the scene didn't want to declare him dead on the highway, which would mean shutting down the road for a few hours).

CPR is unique, however, because it's performed on dead patients. The law doesn't want a poor WFR to be stuck in an endless CPR loop because they can't abandon their patient, so in the wilderness only, your character can stop CPR:

After 30 minutes of sustained pulselessness.

If another patient needs more help.

If continuing is dangerous to self or others.

Otherwise, backcountry and frontcountry CPR are pretty similar.

Summary

CPR is generally performed on dead people.

It is difficult to get worse than dead.

Garbage CPR is better than no CPR.

Recovering from being dead takes time and always warrants more care.

WFRs have a superpower and it is called stopping CPR.

Good luck raising your characters from the dead!

[broccoliboix5peepeeman]

Can I request a platonic traffic light trio/Kiri🟥Kami⚡Deku🥦? Like,🥦is going out w/ friends.🟥⚡Simply wished🥦's hangout to go well & then off to do their own thing. But when🥦is back, he's in tears. Turns out,🥦's "friends" are still the same bullies they were back in🥦's school days. 🟥⚡Being the good, true friends & best bros they are, proceed to provide🥦w/ a very much needed comfort, reassurance & support. (For context, this is a Quirkless AU where 🟥⚡🥦are college roommates) TY ILYSM

Ohmigosh yesssss!! (sorry this took so long) _

'Hey, Mido-bro! Going somewhere fancy?' Eijirou paused his game of Mario kart to turn and look over at his flatmate.

'Yeah! I must say you're looking absolutely Gucci today, my good man.' Denki agreed, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. 'Ten out of ten would bang.'

'Kaminari-kun, stop!' Midoriya squeaked, hiding his blushing face in his arms. 'You don't mean that and anyway, It's not a big deal!'

Eijirou looked him up and down, before raising an eyebrow. Midoriya was wearing a green suit that matched his hair; the top buttons of his shirt were open - he had likely given up on trying to fix his tie and discarded it - showing enough of his chest to make a simple man like Eijirou swoon. Even the chunky red shoes were endearing…

In a certain light.

'Bro, you are looking manly as heck! What's the occasion?'

Midoriya slowly lowered his arms until they were in front of him. He tapped his fingertips together and looked away, almost embarrassed.

'A few friends from school are in town and they wanted to meet up at that fancy restaurant downtown.' He laughed nervously. 'I'm probably gonna just get garlic bread or something because it's super expensive, but yeah. I think it'll be fun.'

'That's great, man!' Denki flashed him a bright smile. 'I went there for a date once and let me tell you, the garlic bread?' He blew a chef's kiss. 'Très magnifique!'

'Yeah, but he can't just have garlic bread!' Eijirou looked at him, scandalised. 'Mido-bro is our resident beefy boy and needs more than bread to sustain him!'

'Kirishima-kun, it's okay-'

Eijirou dug his hand in his pocket and pulled out two 10,000¥ notes. Both Denki and Midoriya stared at him with wide eyes, but Eijirou just shrugged and held the money out to Midoriya.

'Treat yourself, dude!' He smiled, but his friend shook his head.

'No, no! I couldn't possibly!' He exclaimed, frantically waving his hands in front of him. 'That's way too much money!'

'It's fine, really.' When Midoriya remained apprehensive, Eijirou got up from the sofa and physically placed the notes into his friend's hand. 'Have fun, Midoriya.'

'I'll pay you back!'

'No, you won’t!' He sang. ‘It’s on me.’

'But-'

Before they could start bickering, the blaring sound of Mario Kart's Coconut Mall started blasting from the TV and Eijirou whipped around with a shocked cry.

'DENKIIIII!!!'

His friend turned to smirk at him, albeit his eyes flashed knowingly and in an instant, Eijirou realised the reason behind it. Anger and betrayal turned into awe.

Oh Denki, you beautiful specimen of manhood! 

With a grin, he ran forward, leapt over the sofa and bounced onto a cushion, before picking up his controller and racing to catch up.

Several minutes passed before the door behind them shut quietly, signalling that Midoriya had left. The two of them then smiled knowingly and bumped shoulders.

'Yo, man! Can you lend me 20,000¥ too?'

'Sure, bro- Wait… What for?'

'I wanna get more Pokémon plushies.'

Oh…' He thought about it. 'Sure!'

🔴🟡🟢

Denki wasn't sure exactly when he fell asleep on Eijrou's shoulder, but he was definitely sure of how much it had hurt when the two of them woke with a start and bashed their heads together when the front door slammed shut.

He rubbed his forehead and groaned as they both turned around to find Midoriya in the doorway, illuminated only by the light of the glaring TV. His friend didn't seem to notice them though, too wrapped up in his own mind as he fell back against the wall and slid down onto the floor.

'Midoriya!' Both Denki and Eijirou exclaimed, rushing over as their friend bent his knees up to his chest and rested his head on them. When they reached his side, Denki heard soft sobs and noticed how Midoriya's shoulders shook with every breath.

He then noticed how his suit was stained and ripped in some areas. He shared a look with Eijirou, both concerned.

'Hey, Midoriya.' Eijirou reached out to touch him, but his friend flinched away. 'It's okay, it's just me and Denki. You're home now. Are you hurt?'

Denki bit his lip when Midoriya slowly lifted his head to look at the two of them.

'Kaminari-kun, Kirishima-kun?' He sniffled, before moving to wipe his red-rimmed eyes with his sleeve. 'I woke you up, didn't I? I'm sorry.'

'Don't apologise, dude!' Denki shook his head. 'Are you okay? What happened? Were you mugged?'

'No.' Midoriya's voice was hoarse and he stared straight ahead, eyes watery. 'Well, yes, but not by some strangers.'

Their friend swallowed heavily and sighed, lip quivering. 'I should've known better really. I thought they'd changed. I thought uni would've made them kinder, but I was wrong.'

'Wait, are you saying your friends from school did this?' Eijirou asked, eyebrows furrowed.

Midoriya bit his lip and nodded.

'When we were at the restaurant, they were fine. They were being nice and they asked about my degree and whether I was enjoying it, but as the night went on, they started making jibes until they were being straight up rude. I didn't want to cause a scene because we were in public, but when they started laughing about my mum, I paid my share and left, but they cornered me outside and… Well… seven on one was never going to be a fair fight anyway. Got a few good hits in though.'

Denki blinked dumbly as he processed what these so-called friends had done, while Eijirou frowned.

'I'm calling Todoroki, Uraraka and the rest of the crew.' The redhead made to stand. 'They're not getting away with this.'

'No! Kirishima-kun, wait!' Midoriya surged forwards and grabbed onto his arm. 'Don't, it's okay. I'm okay. Can we just… Forget about it, please. I don't want to give them any more reason to hate me.'

'Why do they even hate you in the first place?!' Denki found himself blurting out. When Eijirou shot him a look as if to say 'dude', he shrugged. 'What? It's a valid question! You two are the nicest guys I know.'

Eijirou muttered a quiet 'bro' but Midoriya just sniffled out a laugh and let go of his friend's sleeve to wipe away more tears.

'I've asked myself that for years, Kaminari-kun.' His laugh came out as a choked sob. 'I mean, I've always mumbled a lot and used to obsess over heroes and stuff, so that probably just… made it easier for them to pick on me, I guess?'

'Midoriya, no.' Eijirou crouched back down and clasped his friend's shoulder. He initially jolted at the contact, but slowly accepted that the touch was kind. 'There will never be a valid reason for what they did. You have to believe that.'

Denki watched as Midoriya stared at Eijirou for several moments before nodding stiffly. His friend then pressed the heel of his palms against his eyes and shrunk in on himself once more. Eijirou sighed at the action and looked at Denki, pleading for help.

Not wanting to disappoint his friends, he scratched the back of his head to rattle his brain for answers. He wasn't good at this, neither of them were. Usually, Midoriya was the one who inspired others and helped them talk about their feelings. It was unfair to now ask Midoriya to give himself his own pep talk!

'Why am I so stuuupid!' Denki moaned into his hands, his revision notes were a mess around him. 'The information's just not going in!'

'Don't say that, you're not stupid!' Midoriya smiled brightly at him. 'You just haven't found the right method yet.'

'What do you mean?'

'Well, you've been using mind maps for the past few weeks and you haven't been able to take any of this in, just like the flash cards last year.' Midoriya started to mumble and Denki tried his best to follow along. 'But when we did that activity with the plasticine a few months back, you got it practically straight away!'

His friend beamed at him in a way that made Denki instantly feel at ease. 'Play by your own strengths, Kaminari-kun, not what’s expected!' 

He clicked his fingers and grinned at Eijirou before turning to look at Midoriya.

'Hey, dude.' He spoke gently, albeit with a hint of playfulness. 'Me and Eijirou were about to play some Dream Daddy and we need your expertise to woo our man.'

'Dream Daddy?' Midoriya raised an eyebrow and looked at him quizzically. His face was blotchy and dried tear tracks stained his cheeks, but Denki definitely preferred that to a still-sobbing Midoriya.

'It's a dating sim!' Eijirou barked out a laugh.

'A wh- what?!' He squeaked. 'N- Not happening!'

'Come on, Mido-bro!' Denki pouted with big eyes. 'Please? It's not the same without you! We need you and your big brain to reel in our perfect daddy!'

Eijirou nodded frantically and mimicked his expression. The two of them stared expectantly until their friend sighed, resigned to his fate. His frame relaxed slightly and a small smile made its way onto his face.

They missed that smile.

‘Okay, fine! Just... Stop saying daddy.’

‘No promises.‘ He winked, eliciting a snort from Eijirou.

However, before either of them could say anything else, Midoriya suddenly threw himself forwards and wrapped them both in a hug, knocking their heads together as laughter fell freely from his lips.

'Thanks, guys.' 

[joyful-soul-collector]

Misser Star’

By @joyful-soul-collector for @wh0doyouthinkyouareiam! 

For the @friendly-neighborhood-exchange!

Rating: General Audiences

Characters: Tony Stark, Peter Parker, Helen Cho

Summary: 

“Woah there Sea Legs,” Tony said, catching him under the arms and setting him up straight. “Wouldn’t want you hurting yourself.” “The sea is in my legs,” Peter said, clinging tight to Tony’s arm as he wobbled slightly. “What if my legs… were in the sea?” “Oh wow--this is going to be fun.”

OR

Peter gets his wisdom teeth taken out, and is a very silly lad

Story is under the cut, or you can read it on AO3!

Irondad Tag List: @phahbiyah @keep-a-bucket-full-of-stars @clevermuffinalmondpeach @stuck-in-a-fictional-universe @canonismybitch @freckledmountain @not-your-housekeeper98 @misskirkstark @iron-loyalty

Lemme know if you want to be added or removed from the tag list!

“Misser Star’, there’s clouds i’ m’ mouth,” Peter mumbled around the cotton, staring at Tony with wide eyes. Tony laughed and pulled Peter’s hand away from his mouth, as he was trying to touch the “clouds”. 

“Don’t mess with those, you need them to stop the bleeding,” Tony said with a small laugh. 

“I’m bleeding!?” Peter said incredulously. Then he suddenly gasped and grabbed Tony’s arm, a panicked look on his face. “Do they know!?”

“Know what kid?” Peter looked around dramatically then yanked Tony’s arm closer so he could whisper in his ear. 

“That I’m a spider,” he said. Tony snorted and gently worked his arm out of Peter’s death-grip. 

“You’re good, kid. You’re at the compound, Helen was the one who operated on you. You remember Helen?”

“Karen?”

“No, Helen--”

“She’s my suit lady, she’s nice. But she can’t do tooth stuff Misser Star’--”

“No, kid, Helen was the one who did the work on your teeth, she’s a doctor--”

“I know who Helen is,” Peter said, as if Tony had told him this information several times before. Tony rolled his eyes and ruffled Peter’s hair, only to laugh when Peter raised his head and leaned into his touch, eyes slipping closed with bliss. He was like a little kitten, leaning into someone scratching behind its ear. 

In fact he leaned so far he almost fell over, and Tony had to catch him by the shoulder, snorting at the panicked look on Peter’s face. 

“Jesus, Dr. Cho gave you the Good Stuff didn’t she?”

“Had to, it was the only thing his metabolism wouldn’t immediately burn through,” Helen said, making Tony jump. “You two are alright to leave now, just make sure Peter doesn’t take that cotton out too early and give him some ice when the medicine wears off.”

“Thanks Doc,” Tony said. Peter made a noise of confusion and pointed at Helen. 

“She’s not Doc Ock, Misser Star’! He has way more arms, and she’s way prettier,” Peter said. “I think you need new glasses.”

“I don’t even need glasses in the first place, kiddo,” Tony said with a snort, signing a couple papers Helen handed him. 

“Oh yeah!? Then what are those!?” Peter said, pointing directly at the square sunglasses perched on Tony’s nose. Tony raised his eyebrows at him, the determined look on Peter’s face making it hard not to laugh. 

“Sunglasses, not normal glasses,” Tony said, then he held out his arm. “Here lemme walk you back to the living quarters, I’m fairly certain you’re not gonna make it there yourself.”

“Why does the sun even need glasses?” Peter muttered as he pushed himself off the hospital bed, and almost immediately toppling over. 

“Woah there Sea Legs,” Tony said, catching him under the arms and setting him up straight. “Wouldn’t want you hurting yourself.”

“The sea is in my legs,” Peter said, clinging tight to Tony’s arm as he wobbled slightly. “What if my legs… were in the sea?”

“Oh wow--this is going to be fun,” Tony said, steadying Peter as he stumbled down the hallway to the elevator. 

Peter babbled on and on about random stuff on their way to the living quarters, Tony having to physically restrain him from pressing all the buttons in the elevator, and had to answer his questions about extremely odd yet mundane things like “why is the ceiling in the sky?” only for him to forget what he asked entirely.

When they finally arrived, Tony walked him to the couch and sat him down, and Peter immediately curled himself into a ball, knees tucked under his chin. 

“Alright kid, you wait here while I call your Aunt and let her know everything went good, alright?” Tony said. 

“Wait here,” Peter repeated, with a determined nod. “Waiting waiting waiting. Like a rock.”

At this point Tony had absolutely no clue what Peter was talking about so he just said “Sure, kiddo”, and ruffled his hair before he stepped away for a few minutes. 

“Hey, Tony,” May said when she answered. “How’s he doin’?”

“He’s alright, pretty damn loopy but fine,” Tony said, leaning against the wall of the hallway. “I’m glad you came to me about this, I was right, a normal anaesthetic wouldn’t have stood a chance against his enhanced metabolism.”

May chuckled and Tony could hear the bustle of the hospital in the background. 

“I don’t know what we’d do without you Tony,” she said. “Thank you so much--Oh, shoot, I gotta go--”

“No problem, May, I’ll take care of him till you get off work. Just call me when you’re done, I’ll drive him over,” Tony said. May thanked him at least ten times before hanging up, and Tony chuckled to himself, slipping the phone in his pocket. 

“Misser Staaaaaaar’?” Peter’s voice said from around the corner. It had a rather guilty tone to it, and Tony quickly rounded the corner to see him. 

Peter seemed to have tried to grab a blanket, and in the process, had gotten himself rather tangled in it, now lying horizontally on the couch and staring up at Tony with a wide-eyed expression. 

“Got tangled in your own web, huh Spiderling?” Tony said, smiling down at him. “Probably for your own good anyway. Might just leave you like that so you don’t get yourself in more trouble.”

Peter frowned indignantly at him, and suddenly started trying to wiggle himself into an upright position, since clearly Tony was just gonna leave him to die like this. Tony rolled his eyes and helped him sit up, but as soon as he tried to get him untangled, Peter leaned away, looking confused. 

“What?” Tony said. 

“I’m a burrito Misser Star’,” Peter mumbled, snuggling himself further into the blanket. “Spider-Burrito. Or Spider-Sushi. Or Spider-Ravioli. Or--”

“Spiders In A Blanket?” Tony suggested, and Peter’s eyes got wide. 

“Oh my god--I’m a spider, and I’m in a blanket!” Peter whisper-screamed. Then he burst into laughter, throwing his head back against the soft cushions of the couch so fast Tony thought he might give himself whiplash. 

“Jesus--Just you existing scares me kiddo,” Tony muttered, deciding tv would probably be the best distraction. Just as long as it isn’t a comedy. Kid might break his neck, Tony thought. It’s a good thing Luke Skywalker isn’t played by Jim Carrey. 

Peter stopped laughing immediately as the Star Wars theme began to play, though his loud, comical gasp proved it wasn’t just the medicine wearing off. 

“I LOVE STAR WARS!” Peter shouted, making Tony jump. 

“Jesus christ--I know ya dork,” Tony said, watching Peter bounce excitedly in his seat on the couch for a moment before sitting next to him. Peter flumped into Tony’s side, giving a deep, dramatic sigh of contentment. Tony couldn’t help but give him a little one-armed squeeze; he knew how much Peter loved hugs. 

Though he couldn’t expect Peter to be silent for more than a few minutes, now could he?

“Hey Misser Star’?” Peter said. 

“Hey Misser Parker?” Tony said, imitating Peter’s tone and voice. 

“What if I was hungry?” he said, either ignoring or completely oblivious to Tony’s teasing. 

“Um, I would get you something to eat? I think there’s some soup I could warm up for you,” Tony said, looking down at Peter with raised eyebrows. Peter looked skeptical at the idea of soup however.

“Mmm, but what if I’m only hungry for something cold?” he said. 

“Uh… you want a smoothie?”

“Something sweet and cold.”

“Smoothies can be sweet.”

“Something chocolate and sweet and cold,” Peter said impatiently. Tony rolled his eyes and looked down at Peter, who put on a very mischievous grin. He sighed in defeat. He just couldn’t say no to that silly face. 

“Your Aunt’s gonna kill me when she finds out,” Tony said, getting up with a groan. 

“No she won’t! I’ll protect you! I’m Spider-Man!” Peter said, trying to take his hands out of his cocoon/burrito, but only succeeding in tangling himself more. Tony snorted, dragging a tub of chocolate ice cream out of the freezer and scooping some out into a couple bowls. By the time he came back Peter had freed his arms and was rubbing his hands over the fluffy blanket, muttering to himself. Tony helped him take the gauze out of his mouth, which had a surprisingly small amount of blood on it, as it seems his enhanced healing had taken care of it. 

Peter ate his ice cream happily, eyes closing with bliss. 

“Ice cream is my best friend,” Peter said around his spoon. “‘Cept for Ned. And MJ. They’re better than ice cream, but ice cream is like… real good friendo. Ten outta ten, would go to the movies with ice cream.”

“Ha, me too kid,” Tony said, scraping the last remnants out before setting aside his bowl to focus better on the movie. He never cared much for Star Wars, but he couldn’t deny that the fight scenes were pretty awesome. Peter eventually nudged him with his bowl to say he was finished, and then went back to his original position against Tony’s side. 

It wasn’t until the movie was over that Tony realized Peter had fallen asleep like that, curled up tightly in the blanket, his face pressed into Tony’s chest. Tony ran his fingers through Peter’s hair for a moment, smiling as Peter relaxed even further against him. 

“You caught all that, right Fri?” Tony said, glancing up at the ceiling. 

“Of course Boss,” Friday replied. “Shall I send you the file for you to view later?”

“That’d be perfect. If there’s anything that’ll be more hilarious than Peter getting stuck in a blanket, it’ll be how red his face gets when he sees himself getting stuck in a blanket.”

Peter didn’t even wake up as Tony lifted him off the couch and down the hall to his room. He whined a little when Tony laid him on his bed, but was quickly consoled by Tony’s fingers running through his hair again. 

“Goodnight ‘Spider-Burrito.’”

[sherlollyandspoilers]

Sherlolly ILY 2021 Anniversary

I really wanted to participate this year, but work has been super busy and I have no inspiration for writing right now...so here is my take on the ILY scene from my work in progress, Here Be Dragons. I feel I need to warn you that this particular scene does not end with an I love You as the fic is angsty but there are happier times ahead!

SHERLOCK: A child’s coffin would be more expensive. This is in the lower price range, although still best available in that bracket. JOHN: A lonely night on Google SHERLOCK: This is a practical and informed choice. Balance of probability suggests that this is for an unmarried woman distant from her close relatives. That much is suggested by the economy of choice. Acquainted with the process of death but unsentimental about the necessity of…

Sherlock trailed off, still staring at the coffin. Please no! He looked back up at Eurus on the screen, trying his hardest to read his sister.

“Sherlock,” Mycroft said quietly. John and he turned, seeing him holding the lid. “There’s a name plate…only it isn’t a name.” He slowly turned the lid towards Sherlock. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered as Sherlock took in the words that were etched on the gold plate.

I LOVE YOU

Sherlock inhaled sharply and closed his eyes tightly. His grip on the gun was so tight that his fingers were starting to tingle and his heart beat was pounding in his ears.

“Where are they?!” Sherlock’s eyes shot open as he spun around. “WHERE ARE THEY!” he shouted again.

“Perfectly safe, for the moment.” Eurus switched the screen showing four angles of their home. He could see Molly leaning heavily on the kitchen counter, but Mina was nowhere in sight. “Your little home is rigged to explode in approximately three minutes…”

“EURUS!” Sherlock shouted at her. “This is about you and me – leave them out of it!”

“Three minutes, Sherlock.” Eurus switched the screen back to her as she snapped at him. “Make her say it.”

“She broke off our engagement…why would she say that?!” he bit out, unable to regulate the tidal wave of emotions he was feeling.  

“Are you to have me believe that Miss Hooper no longer cares for you? No longer, loves you?” He watched as Eurus raised an eyebrow. How could he convince her of something that he did not believe himself?

Taking several deep breaths he raised his head and tensed his jaw, looking her in the eye.

“Three minutes.” Eurus switched the screen back to Molly who was still leaning on the counter. “Unless I hear the release code from her lips. Now, I’m calling her on your phone, Sherlock. Make her say it.”

Sherlock took an uneasy breath and squared his shoulders.

“Oh, one important restriction: you’re not allowed to mention in any way at all that her life is in danger. You may not – at any point – suggest that there is any form of crisis. If you do, I will end this session and her life. Are we clear?”

Sherlock gave a curt nod as the speed dial rang out. Moriarty’s voice came from the speakers, Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.

--

She stared down at the three tests in her hands and tried to wrap her mind around her current situation. Pregnant. She dropped the tests in the trash, unable to look at them anymore. She walked to the kitchen and turned the kettle on, setting out a cup and grabbing a lemon. She rested her elbows on the edge of the sink and looked out the window, waiting for the water to boil.

“What are we going to do?” Molly whispered, gripping the back of her neck.

The sound of her mobile ringing startled her. She looked over at the counter, catching the name on the front of her phone, Sherlock. Sighing heavily, she left it on the counter ringing and started slicing up the lemon. She glanced impatiently at her phone again, it was too early for his and Mina’s call and she was surprised that he was home so soon. She started to doctor her cup up the way she liked it when it finally went to voice mail – she could have Mina call him back later. She groaned as it started ringing again. She finished squeezing the lemon into her cup and slammed it down on the cutting board before wiping her hands off on the towel.

“Hello, Sherlock. Is this urgent, ‘cause I’m not having a good day.” She hugged her arm tightly over her body.

“Is Mina home?” he asked, his tone tense. Molly sighed – he had been doing so well with their schedule.

“She’s with Kathy – I’ll have her call you when she gets home.” She went to hang up, her finger hovering over the end button.

“NO! Molly! Wait!” he shouted at her.

“What is it?” she asked, annoyed. She started cleaning up her tea things, waiting for him to answer, but he was silent. “Sherlock, what is it? What do you want?”

“I need you to do something for me.”

“I think you’ve run out of favors, Sherlock.” Molly slammed the cupboard closed.

“I know…but just, Molly, please.”

“I can’t do this with you right now.” She pulled her phone away from her face, trying to hang up again.

“Molly, no, please, no, don’t hang up! Do not hang up!” he yelled, the urgency in his voice making her heart squeeze.

“What do you want? Why can’t you just leave me alone?” She let out a sob and a tear rolled down her cheek. “I already told you, I can’t do this anymore.”

“I know,” he sounded defeated, “but I…I care about you.”

“You have a funny way of showing it,” she bit out.

“I don’t deserve you.”

“You don’t have me,” she reminded him. There was a long pause as she waited for his response.

“Do you still care for me?” Her shoulders fell forward at his question.

“Of course I do, Sherlock…how could I not?” She wiped at the tears on her face.

“Then tell me.”

“Sherlock…I can’t,” her voice was soft. She looked down at her feet, wondering where he was. “But…but I would be willing to meet and talk…we should talk. There’s something I need – ”

“Tell me,” he said again, cutting her off.

She licked her dry lips and took a deep breath.

“Of course I do…I always will.”

“Why can’t you say it then?”

“You know why – ”

“I love you.” She froze at his words. He hadn’t said it in over a year and she wasn’t prepared to hear him say it again. “I love you, Molly.”

She couldn’t stop the laugh that burst from her lips.

“You bastard!” she said with a sad smile.

“Molly, please just say it!”

“Those words mean something to me, Sherlock!” She wiped the last of the tears from her face.

“They mean something to me too!”

“Then why are you doing this?” She was tired and ready for this conversation to end.

“Molly, please!”

“No, Sherlock. I can’t say that to you, not right now.”

“Please! Molly! Please!” he sounded desperate. “Molly, just say it! I need you to – ” The connection was cut and all Molly could hear was dead air on the other end.

--

“Molly, just say it! I need you to say it!” The countdown clock clicked to 0:00 and the view of his home was cut. “No, no!” Sherlock grabbed the sides of the TV. “NO! EURUS! NO! BRING HER BACK! EURUS!!!”

“Oh my god!” John and Mycroft’s responses barely registered with Sherlock.

“EURUS! BRING HER BACK RIGHT NOW! DON’T..YOU CAN’T!” His lungs burned as he yelled at his sister. “EURUS I WILL – ” Her face popped back up on the TV cutting him off.

“Do be sensible, Sherlock. There were no explosives in your little house. Why would I be so clumsy?”

Sherlock stepped back from the TV, still breathing hard, tears streaming down his face. The screen changed, showing Molly holding her phone. Sherlock watched as she dropped it and buried her face in her hands.

“Wh-what?” He blinked several times as he tried to process the information he was taking in. “I – I don’t…” he took a few steps backwards, dropping the pistol and watching Molly shake on the screen.

“There was no need to plant explosives.” Eurus popped back on the screen. “Look what you did to her. Look what you did to yourself.” Sherlock turned away from her as she talked. “All those complicated little emotions. I lost count. Emotional context, Sherlock, it destroys you every time.”

Sherlock walked past the coffin, staring at the lid, and ignoring Eurus’s voice. He gripped the lid tightly, picking it up, and brought his head down to rest on the three little words, closing his eyes.

John and Mycroft exchanged quiet looks as Sherlock stood stone still. They both jerked slightly when Sherlock straightened up suddenly. He carefully put the lid on the coffin and rested his hand on top. He gave a tired, almost angry sob, as he drew his hand over the surface.

“Sherlock?” John asked as he took a step towards him.

“No. No!” he muttered before pounding his fists into the wood.

[hyucksong]

[8:31am]

   Boyfriend!Chenle leaned into the cushions on the coffee-colored couch, his back sinking into the crevices. He looked up at you, who was sitting in front of his torso on the couch, your back pushing him further into the brown abyss.

  His eyes stared at your figure as you talked with the other boys in front of the TV, laughing and updating each other on your lives. He saw the way your back rose and fell as you breathed, he could see the corner of your smile from his place from underneath you, he could see your red ears and neck -- it drove him crazy that he couldn't wrap you in his arms right then and there, but he was always shy about showing affection in front of his friends.

  “Princess,” he started, groaning and flinging his arms around your waist and clasping his hands together. You turned around, your large smile morphing into an endearing grin as you glanced down at your overly affectionate boyfriend. “Yes, Lele?” He frowned in response, whining and tugging on your waist to cuddle with him.

  You felt your heart melt a little and you chuckled, shaking your head. His ash-brown hair was falling in front of his bare-face, and you tucked it gently behind his ear as to not obstruct your view of him. You gave Chenle all your attention, caressing his face with your thumb. “Lele, there’s other people.” You reminded yourself to ask him about his skincare routine later on. 

  He ignored the stutter of his heart and pouted, tugging you closer. Rolling your eyes, you gave in. You climbed on top of him, laying down on his chest, your head finding solace in the crook of his neck. You couldn’t help but let a sigh of content leave your lips as his arms wrapped around your waist and your legs fell in-between his, his clinginess not even a little annoying. The warmth he emitted felt like a blanket for your heart. He smelled like the cologne you bought him for his birthday a few months ago; at that memory you smiled into his neck, rubbing your nose against him. A squeal left his lips and he choked, his hands separating from each other to grab onto your waist to stabilize himself.

  “Ew. Can you please get a room.” Renjun sneered, rolling his eyes. You didn’t spare him a glance, you were much too lost in Chenle’s aura. “Mhmm, sure,” you answered without thinking. A large sigh left the annoyed boy's lips before you heard him get up and leave the living room, huffing as he did so. The sound of his footsteps was followed by several more, which you took to mean that the other boys left you and Chenle alone.

  “Mission accomplished.” Chenle murmured in your ear, his warm breath causing you to squirm. You hummed, removing your head from its comfortable position to look down at him. As you took in Chenle in all his glory, you felt the sudden urge to envelop him in all your love.

  It was probably the way his hair fell so beautifully past his flushed face, or maybe it was the way his mouth was curled in the cutest mischevious smile you’d ever seen, possibly the way his eyes creased with happiness -- either way, it all was too much for your cardiovascular system.

  You took a hold of his face, squishing his cheeks together as you leaned down, ignoring the adorably confused noise that left his throat. His lips were soft, a little chapped, but soft. He didn’t move for a second, his brain processing what was happening. But once he realized, Chenle took control and sat up, pulling you into his lap without breaking the kiss. His mouth moved in synch with yours as he pulled your waist into his and leaned you back; your hands resting lovingly against his chest, the feeling of his rapidly beating heart drum against your shaking fingers causing your own heart rate to accelerate too.

  The kiss ended a minute later, a heavily breathing Chenle parting from you with wet lips. Comfortable silence ensued from the kiss, the air was filled with light breaths, happy sounds, and shy glances.

  “You know I love you, right?” He asked a few minutes later, his back laying against the arm of the couch and you on top of him again, a similar scene to earlier.

  You nodded against his chest, a joyous grin breaking out on your red face. “Yeah. Not as much as I love you, though.”

  Followed by a distant, “GROSS,” coming from somewhere deep in the apartment.

[blindprof]

It’s Complicated

When people first hear me say that I am blind or severely visually impaired (B/VI), the most common reaction is surprise…followed by sympathy…followed most often by awkward silence. This is totally understandable. Unless you are regularly interacting with differently abled people, disabilities are uncomfortable. I feel uncomfortable and awkward around people who live with other forms of disability.

Heck, I’m still awkward around other people who are B/VI. And even this is understandable. Because each person is unique. Each manifestation of visual impairment is unique. Each path to and with B/VI is unique. Each person has unique life experiences, coping mechanisms, support networks, etc. We are all strangers in a strange land. I’ll have other posts dedicated to the whack-a-doo personal and social psychology of B/VI. For now, the focus remains on the physical, or rather the perceptual.

The second reaction is usually a question: “How bad is it” or “What do you see?” And my answer is “It’s complicated.”

In my first post, I laid out some more technical details: I have a visual field that is less that 10 degrees, night blindness, color blindness, uncorrectable myopia, light sensitivity, etc. But it’s not apparent how these details really affect what I see and how that impacts what I can do. This post will go into greater detail into what and how I see. Later posts will focus on how I (try to, with varying levels of success, stupidity, and hilarity) cope with these limitations.

It probably makes sense to start with my visual field, as this is the aspect of my vision that “qualifies” me as legally blind. However, before getting to that, we really need a basic understanding of how humans see. Don’t worry, I’ll keep it short and simple.

It may be easiest to compare the eye to a modern digital camera. A camera lens gathers and focuses light; it also constrains the amount of light passing through by altering the size of a mechanical aperture. In the human eye, these functions are performed by the lens and the pupil, respectively. In a digital camera, the lens focus light onto a CCD or CMOS sensor, which is a dense grid of light sensitive “pixels,” each generating a small electrical charge proportional to how much light (within a certain wavelength) is hitting it. The human retina is the biological, electrochemical equivalent. Finally, a digital camera has wires that transport these electrical signals to a computer, which then interprets the signals to create a digital image. Here, the human analogues are the optic nerve and the visual cortex within the brain.

As I noted in my first post, I have Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP), which primarily impacts my retina. Due to the wonders of genetics and epigenetics, other parts are impacted. But for now, I’ll focus on the retina. Characteristically, people with RP find that their retinal “pixels”—millions of light-sensitive “rod” and “cone” structures, as well as protective retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells from which the disease gets its name—stop functioning from the outside in. We don’t know the exact cause, nor is there yet any proven way to slow, much less reverse the process.

Of course, this is a biological process that is unique to each individual. For me, it has progressed relatively slowly from childhood. I can recall early symptoms as far back as age 6. I’ll have a separate post at some point talking about progression. But it is notable the process is neither steady nor predictable. I’ll have periods of relative stability followed by periods of perceptible loss. It’s rarely like a light switch, but rather more like a dimmer. Each area of loss will appear darker with less usable information until it is just “clicked off” by the brain, presumably redirecting its limited processing resources to doing something other than trying to interpret shotty data from dying cells. For me, the progression has also been very spotty—for example, I retained some usable vision in the extremes of my left-right periphery until just a couple years ago, despite progressively losing most of my peripheral vision between there and my center.

The result today is that I have very little of my retina remaining that pretends to function “normally.” I can detect very high contrast light vs. dark in some of my periphery, but nothing there that you would qualify as usable sight. My central vision is still somewhat functional, but has been fading rapidly of late. As I said, it’s spotty, but on average in good light I have maybe 10-15 degrees total horizontal vision and less than 10 vertical. And much of that is probably equivalent to what most would consider to be peripheral vision. To help better “feel” what this means, here are a few examples of how this manifests itself in my day-to-day life.

When I’m sitting across a table from you, I can see your face but not your hands. If I’m not socially distant, I might be able to see your eyes or your mouth, but not both at the same time. I often creep people out during a conversation because I’m constantly losing eye contact and moving my eyes to different parts of their body. I promise, I’m not “undressing you with my eyes”—people talk with their entire bodies, and I’m simply trying to catch as many visual cues as possible.

When watching TV from 10 feet away, I can “see” my entire 55-inch screen. But less than a quarter of that is in my central vision. I have to move my eyes to see detail or read signs or captions. Sports and fast action scenes are difficult to catch. A fast action, dark scene with subtitles…oy…the Battle of Winterfell may as well have been a BBC Radio broadcast.

I can read, though usually only slowly and for short periods, especially if it is paper and ink. I see only a few words at a time, so my eyes have to constantly move. This causes a lot of eye strain, and I have trouble keeping both eyes properly oriented and occasionally have periods where one eye twitches uncontrollably—obviously I’m channeling my inner Mad-Eye Moody.

And of course, navigating unfamiliar or unpredictable environments is very difficult. I navigate by moving from waypoint to waypoint, and if I don’t know the waypoints or if things jump in my way, well, bad things happen. Or maybe funny things.

More on all of these and their many repercussions in future posts.

People ask, “What do you ‘see’ in the places where you have no vision? Is it blackness? Emptiness? Blurry?” Again, it’s complicated, but for the most part, my brain has just removed those areas from its visual processing “algorithm.” So, I see the same thing that you see when something is beyond your peripheral vision…just nothing. There are long periods of adjustment as I lose sight—kind of like losing a limb and still expecting it to be there. But eventually it’s just not a part of the picture that my brain paints of the world around me.

Unfortunately, that’s not all. Night blindness is often the first detected symptom for folks with RP. What is left of my retina doesn’t detect light well, so I need much more of it. The result is that I’m totally blind in low-light situations. I need direct light to see any kind of detail. I carry a flashlight everywhere I go and use it regularly day and night.

So, I need bright light. But it is also my nemesis. My eyes compensate like one would with a digital camera…by cranking open the aperture (pupil) and turning up the gain on the sensor. This does allow me to function semi-normally in certain situations. But it also results in severe light sensitivity. As with a camera, the wider pupil also results in loss of detail, and bright light can almost entirely wash any other visual information. To make matters even worse, although my pupils do function, they are VERY slow to adjust.

The results of all of that are varied. I’ll post more details in the future. But for example, I am no longer able to read a computer screen for any length of time without inverted colors. It’s like trying to read while staring at headlights. I truly need dark mode on all of my devices. Also, changing lighting conditions are challenging, especially when they are extreme. When I come in from outside, my eyes can take many minutes to adjust. And bright light sources like sunny windows in otherwise moderately lit environments can really cause havoc.

Finally, a common comorbidity with RP are cataracts, which cause hardening and blurring of the lens. Of course, this one hit me, as well. A number of years ago, I had cataract surgery. It was great. I was the youngest patient in the surgery center by like 30 years. The process involves using a magic wand to dissolve your natural lens and replacing it with a plastic one. This gets rid of the blurring, but entirely removes the ability to focus. As a bonus, I did go from needing coke bottle glasses to just needing a couple of diopters of correction. But this further complicates reading, and means I’m constantly donning and doffing my specs or having to look below them to read. Minor in the big scheme of things, but it does make me look and feel like a damn old fart.

Okay, if you made it this far, you deserve to be let off the hook for now. There’s more like the fact that my corneas—the eyes’ (usually) clear “lens caps”—now seem to cause my sight to remain blurry for the first couple of hours of each day. Or that the eye strain can sometimes get so physically painful that I have to close my eyes for long periods during the day. But this is a mostly complete and accurate snapshot of what I’m currently living with physically.

I guess I didn’t present too many funny or uplifting or forward-looking things in here. Truth is, you kind of have to muddle along with me through these sewers to eventually find the humor and hope in all of this. Because it’s complicated. But I’ll get there if you’re patient.

[thewnchstrs]

Rescuer

Pairing: WinchesterSister!Reader

Disclaimers: sexual assault, unwanted touching, unwanted groping 

Word Count: 2.1K

A/N: this got a little darker than I originally planned...

M A S T E R L I S T

buy me a coffee?

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I sliced my machete clean through the vampire’s neck, watching it roll across the floor before turning, slicing into another one and then the one behind that. I stood in the living room, my machete held out in front of me as I waited for more to appear, careful of the ones littering the floor around me.

I slowly crept back up the stairs toward where Dean was supposed to be. I turned into the first room where three vampires laid lifeless. I moved onto the next room where I could see Dean untying two young guys from a wooden post.

“Hey, you alright?” Dean asked over his shoulder as he cut the guys loose

“I’m good,” I said, looking to him as he stood, helping them up. “You?”

Before he could even answer, I heard the creak of the floorboards behind me. I quickly dropped low to the ground, swiping a foot across the floor, knocking the vampire to the floor. It growled up at me, baring its teeth as I brought the machete up over my shoulder and sent it down sailing through the air, severing its head.

I panted, wiping away the splattered blood over my face as I stood, turning to Dean and the two guys who watched in shock, “Woah.”

“Yeah, yeah, alright,” Dean said as he ushered them down the stairs and out of the house. “Lets get out of here before anymore of those freaks show up.”

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

Dean and I leaned up against the sticky bar, the loud music booming around us. The Saturday night scene was in full force and we were right in the middle of it. The bartender continued to bring us more rounds of beers long after I waved him off, but Dean kept asking for more.

“God, I haven’t seen you drink this much since you were in your twenties,” I said, laughing as he picked up another beer and shoved another into my hands.

“We’re celebrating. To a hunt gone right,” Dean said, slightly slurred as he clinked his bottle against mine. “We earned a win.”

I nodded, taking a sip from the beer, “First time in a while…we’re not getting rusty are we?”

“Psshh,” Dean said, making me laugh. “Speak for yourself. I am as youthful as ever.”

I raised my eyebrows, “Right. Because for the next few days you’re not gonna talk about how bad your back hurts?”

Dean ran his tongue over his top teeth as he took another drink from his bottle. “Hey, by the way, nice job back there. You did good.”

I watched him closely, “You should drink more often.”

“Amen, sister,” he said. “And that thing you did with the leg? Knocking that vamp down like that? Pretty badass.”

“Right?!” I said. “Pretty sure I learned it from watching one too many Charlie’s Angels movies.”

Dean laughed, throwing his head back when someone traveling from one end of the bar to the other caught his eye. I watched as Dean’s eyes traveled to the girl that passed, his eyes raking up her long legs and short shorts, her dark hair that curled down the middle of her back. She turned halfway over her shoulder to wink at him at the last minute before disappearing out the back of the bar.

“Go,” I said to him, making his eyes dart to me in confusion. “I know you want to. We’re celebrating, right?”

“No, no, I really shouldn’t- alright, I’ll go,” he gave in, quickly grabbing his beer from the bar top and meeting the girl outside, the heavy door closing behind them.

I shook my head, laughing as I tapped the pads of my fingertips against the bar top as I watched the TV screen above the racks of alcohol, sipping my beer. I tried to push away all of the crap that’d been piled on us the past few months. With Cas M.I.A, Rowena dying and the only weapon to rid all of the supernatural beings on the planet being destroyed, it could easily be categorized as one of the worst few months of our lives. However, now I decided to take a play from Dean’s playbook, to drown myself in cheap beer and forget about our problems for just a little while.

I should’ve known it wouldn’t have been that easy. As I watched the TV, I began to have the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that someone was watching me. Call it hunter’s instinct.

I looked to my left but was only met with a crowd of people talking loudly around a table, nothing entirely suspicious. I dragged my eyes back up to the TV before looking to my right where sure enough, a large man sat at the other end of the bar, definitely not trying to hide the fact that he was watching me.

Gripping the bottle tighter in my hand, I downed the rest of its contents before standing. I flipped my jacket aside as I dug for the cash in my pocket, revealing the gun tucked away in my waistband to the man. I slammed the money on the bar top as I stared back, challenging him.

I began to gather my things, grabbing Dean’s jacket from the chair, planning on going to sit in the Impala to wait for Dean when I turned around and nearly ran into the man. He was tall and burly, and not bad looking if he hadn’t been a total creep. I made a mental note that this guy could easily take me down if he really tried.

“Leaving so soon?”

“Did you miss the part when I showed you I had a gun, or do I have to remind you?” I asked, moving to the left to pass him but he moved too, blocking my way.

“I don’t know, shooting a guy in a public bar might get you into some trouble,” he said. I clenched my jaw as I watched a smirk spread across his face. “What do you say we get out of here?”

“Oh, I plan on getting out of here, just not with you,” I stepped to the right this time, but he blocked me again. This wasn’t this guy’s first time harassing a girl in a bar. “Stay away from me.”

He began to run his hands up my arms. I tried pulling away but he only tightened his grip, “C’mon, let’s go have some fun.”

I scowled up at him, twisting my arms before pulling them out of his grip and pushing him away from me, “Don’t touch me.”

Pushing past him, I bound out the bar’s main entrance, silently cursing Dean for parking the car so far away. I pulled the keys from his jacket pocket slung over my arm, my hands slightly shaking as I neared the car when a strong hand gripped my shoulder, pulling me backwards.

I stumbled back, watching the man. I felt myself begin to shrink. You could put any kind of monster, demon or angel in front of me and I wouldn’t bat an eyelash before taking them down. When it came to these situations, the ones with just people, those were the hardest. Monsters were scary, but people like this guy were much scarier.

“I’m not gonna tell you again,” I said, mustering up every ounce of strength I had to stand in front of him without shaking like a leaf. “Stay away from me.”

“Or what?” he said as he came closer. With every step he took toward me, I was taking one back. This went on until he’d backed me up into a corner, right where he wanted me. My back pressed up against the harsh brick wall of the bar, my arms scraping it as I tried to sink deeper into it. He rested a palm on either side of my head as he looked down at me, his face nearly inches from now. “What are you gonna do if I don’t stay away?”

My breathing began to pick up as I swallowed roughly. I had no idea. I had no clue as to what I’d do, and this guy knew it. He twisted my hair in between his fingers, his eyes flicking up to mine as one of his hands began to roam down my body, the other one still pinned to the wall beside my head.

The man came in close to my ear, biting at it before whispering something to me that I couldn’t quite process. I felt myself begin to shake slightly as his hands came to rest on my hips.

“Relax,” he whispered, which only succeeded in making my heart pound faster. He began to kiss down my neck, biting my skin as he pushed me harder up against the wall. I racked my brain for anything, almost like everything I’d ever learned up to this point about what to do in these situations was lost on me, completely wiped from my memory. I felt frozen as his hands massaged my chest, crashing his lips into mine.

I felt myself begin to tighten my grip on something in my hand, almost as if my body were going into autopilot because it knew I was of no use. I felt the metal of the car keys sliding in between my fingers before jutting them upward into the man, making him stumble backwards in shock. With the split second of freedom, I found myself screaming for Dean who I prayed would be able to hear me if he were still even here.

I began to run toward the side of the building, pumping my legs. “Dean!” I screamed again before I felt a pair of arms wrap around me and slam me against the brick wall. I watched in fear as the man gripped a tight hand over my mouth.

“You’re gonna regret that,” he snarled at me, inches from my face when I heard the unmistakable sound of a gun cocking. My heart dropped, unsure of how I hadn’t seen he’d had a gun, wondering if maybe he’d taken mine. However, the look on the man’s face was enough for me to know that it wasn’t him who had the gun.

“No,” Dean said from a few feet away. The man and I looked toward him, my whole body nearly going limp with relief. “You are.” Dean shot the gun twice, making the man fall to the ground, screaming in agony as he held his legs where blood began to pour from the wounds. Dean quickly ran toward me, his eyes scanning my face. “Are you okay? Did he touch you-”

“Lets just go,” I said, the words coming out just above a whisper. I pulled him away from the man who continued to scream for help. Dean didn’t move from where he was standing, clenching his jaw as he looked from me to the man on the ground, a look of anger I’d never seen in him before.

Dean gently pushed past me as he stood over the man, grabbing him by his shirt collar with his left hand and swinging a fist into his face with his right. Dean’s fist rained down over the man once, twice, three times before he threw him back onto the ground, his chest heaving with anger.

“C’mon,” he said, leading me back to the car. He pulled the passenger door open for me, putting a hand on my head as I slid into the car, watching him walk slowly to the driver’s side. We sat in silence, neither of us sure of what to say.

“Are you okay?” Dean asked. I could feel his eyes on me, but I kept mine glued to the dashboard.

The scene continued to replay in my head like a broken record, everything I could’ve done differently racing through my mind at top speed. Now that my head was back on straight again, I felt the weight of the gun in my waistband, how if I had been thinking I could’ve used it a lot sooner.

“I froze,” I said, still keeping my eyes off of Dean. “I never freeze.”

“I know.”

“I should’ve shot him.”

“I did it for you,” he said. I looked up to him now where the anger in his face was beginning to fade away and was being replaced by concern. “Are you okay?” He asked again.

I hesitated, unsure of what I was feeling, “I don’t know.”

Dean nodded slowly, turned the engine over, the Impala rumbling to life. I tightened my jacket around myself tighter as I slunk down in my seat, desperately trying to get the feeling of the man’s hands over my body out of my head.

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

FOREVER TAG LIST

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[idreamofplaid]

Sweetheart

Square Filled: Non Con Roleplay

Characters: Jensen x Reader

Rating: Explicit

Tags: Use of Safe Word

Summary: The reader reveals a secret fantasy to Jensen. He agrees to fulfill it, but it doesn’t turn out the way she planned.

Word Count: 1626

Created for @spnkinkbingo

Jensen was willing to try just about anything in the bedroom, and since it was his tendency to be dominant; you were pretty sure he’d be willing to do what you had in mind. You loved his dom side. He had a look that said “you’ll do anything I want you to do,” and just seeing it made you wet.

There was something about being tied up and completely at his mercy that made your orgasm so intense that you were pretty sure you had blacked out on several occasions. Jensen knew how to tease, and he knew how to add exactly the right amount of pain to heighten your arousal. You enjoyed the sting from your rosy pink ass after he had spanked you.

This, however, was something different. You always felt comfortable sharing your fantasies with him, and he didn’t hesitate to share his with you. As a result, sex with him was the best you’d ever had in your life. He was your first partner who was willing to talk and experiment. So, you were going to do it; you were going to tell him what you wanted.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jensen was home from filming for the day. He was settled in his favorite chair with his feet up sipping a glass of whiskey. You walked up behind him, placed your hands on his shoulders, and started to massage. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “Mmm, Baby. That feels good.”

He’d taken off his leather jacket when he came in the door leaving him in only his form fitting black t-shirt. Jensen didn’t wear as many layers as Dean. You eased your hands down his shoulder to his biceps and started to knead them. A smile crossed his face, and he reached up to take your hand. “C’mere.”

You circled the chair and sat down in his lap. He settled his hand comfortably on your hip and pulled you in for a kiss. His skin was soft, hiatus beard gone. He squeezed your hip slightly while he kissed you. “What did I do to get this kind of greeting?”

Those clear green eyes that made you melt were staring into yours. You kissed his cheek, not quite able to look at him when you broached this subject. “There’s something I want to talk to you about, ask you really.”

Jensen held the back of your head with his hand and kissed your hair. “This must be really good.” His shoulder beckoned, and you placed your head there. The smell of his cologne brought all kinds of sexy memories to mind and reminded you of what you were going to ask.

He held his hand up and you threaded your fingers through his. It was Jensen’s way of letting you know “I’m here for you.” You let yourself enjoy the warm, solid feel of his hand. It was calloused now from all the fighting, guns, and other stunts being Dean required.

Jensen put his arm around your waist and secured you snugly against him. “What’s made you so shy all of a sudden? You know you can ask me anything.”

You wiggled your fingers laced through his and squeezed his hand. “There’s something I’ve been thinking about for awhile, something I want to do with you.”

Jensen pulled your hand to his lips and kissed your fingers. “You have my attention.”

You closed your eyes to enjoy the warmth of his nearness and inhaled his scent. “You know I like it when you get a little rough sometimes. It really turns me on. It excites me, but I still know I’m safe with you.”

You felt Jensen’s finger under your chin, and you opened your eyes. “You’re always safe with me, Sweetheart.”

When he said things like that, it made you feel all soft and vulnerable inside, vulnerable and cherished. “I know.” You smiled at him, a smile that was as soft as the way you felt inside. “Would you be willing to take it further? Like a scene where you make me have sex with you?”

Jensen got still, then he pulled his bottom lip into his mouth and bit it for several seconds. When he released his lip he asked you slowly, “You want me to pretend to rape you?” He put his feet down and sat up, and worked his lip some more. “I don’t know, Y/N.”

You put your hand on his chest. “I know it’s out there, but it’s only pretend. You’re an actor. You do things that aren’t real all the time.”

He put his hand on the small of your back and looked into your eyes. “Are you sure about this?”

You let yourself get lost in his eyes for a second. “I’m sure.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It had been a few days since you had made your request to Jensen, and he’d asked you to meet him at the studio today. He was scheduled to be done with his scenes at two, then you could grab lunch together.

You waited for him in his trailer. Since you were a few minutes early, you amused yourself by doing some channel surfing on the big screen TV. You’d settled on a cupcake decorating show when Jensen came striding through the door all wide shoulders and charming smile. Confidence and sex appeal practically vibrated off him.

He took the remote from your hand and clicked off the TV. His eyes raked over you, lingering on your breasts. “Well, you are much prettier than the last girl they sent over.” Jensen took your hand and pulled you to a standing position. “Come with me. No reason to waste any time.”

You faltered for a minute. “Jensen, what are you talking about ‘sent over’?” You'd arrived at the bed, and he turned his attention to you putting his hand squarely on your ass and squeezing. “Come on now. Don’t pretend. You know you’re one of the perks.”

“P...perks?” You searched his eyes and saw nothing there but smooth. Then the lightbulb went off in your head. He was playing a part. This was what you’d asked for. It was time.

Jensen’s hand was still on your ass. He closed it, grabbing a fistful of your skirt and starting to pulled it up. While he pulled your dress over your head, you kicked off the flats you were wearing.

You’d opted for a pink lace bra and panty set today. Jensen looked at your body, appraising it, like he’d never seen it before. He cupped your breast and smiled. We’re going to have so much fun together.” He more or less pushed you down on the bed. It was a little more forceful than usual, even the times Jensen was so driven by need for you that he all but skipped the foreplay.

His mouth latched onto your neck and he started to kiss and suck making his way down to your breasts. He ripped your bra out of his way. His mouth felt foreign to you as he sucked at your nipple. This didn’t feel like Jensen. You pushed weakly against him. “Wait.”

He let go of you and started stripping out of his shirt. “There’s no reason to wait. The fun’s right now, Sugar.” His pants disappeared while you were still trying to fully process what was happening. This was what you’d asked for.

In nothing but his boxers, his lips began their onslaught of your body again. He worked his way down your stomach until he got to your panties. “Let’s see what you’ve got hiding under here.” He tore them down your legs and spread your thighs. Without wasting anytime, he pushed his boxers down just far enough to free his cock.

He hadn’t said your name, not even once. Before, no matter what kind of scene you’d decided to play out, he always said your name. This didn’t feel right. When he shoved himself inside you, it was a shock, and you grabbed at his shoulders. “No. Not like this. No.”

He acted like he didn’t even hear what you’d said and kept pounding into you. “You feel so good, Sweetheart.” Something snapped in you then. “Jensen. Jensen. Please.” He kept going. You squeezed your eyes closed as the tears began to ooze from them. “Jensen...Winchester. Winchester.”

He pulled himself from your body immediately, and you felt his arms around you, cradling you gently. “Shh, baby. It’s okay. I’ve got you, Y/N. Tell me what to do. Tell me what you need.” He kissed the side of your temple with barely a brush of his lips.

You took deep breaths trying to steady yourself. “Just hold me, Jensen. Hold me and be you.”

He put his hand into your hair and moved his fingers through it gently. “It’s alright now, Y/N. It’s alright.” He held you like that and whispered to you until you calmed down. Then he settled you against him, your head on his shoulder, the curve of your body molding against his so well.

This felt right. You lay there in silence for several more minutes before you found your voice to speak. “It didn’t seem like you, and that scared me. The way you said ‘sweetheart’... the way it sounded...” Your fingers curled against his chest, and he held onto you a little tighter. “Will you say it now? Call me sweetheart?”

Jensen put his cheek against your head. “I love you, Sweetheart. You’re safe. I’ll never do anything you don’t want me to do. “You sighed deeply, and tears filled your eyes. You couldn’t stop them.

Jensen tilted your head up and wiped the tears from your cheeks. “It’s okay, Sweetheart. It’s okay.” You nodded and lay your head back on his shoulder.

Forevers: @bitterstar88​ @coffee-obsessed-writer​ @timelordy-fangirl2​ @stusbunker​ @girl-next-door-writes​ @mariekoukie6661​ @dean-winchesters-bacon​ @sandlee44​ @cosicas-cuquis​ @ohnowin-chester​ @waywardbaby​ @oldfreakything​ @akhuna01​ @tumbler-tidbits​ @maddiepants​ @evansrogerskitten​ @sorenmarie87​ @ladywinchester1967​ @mrsdeanfuckingwinchester​ @sea040561​ @atc74​ @mrs-meghan-winchester​

[mishimalovemail]

prompt: “you are such a whiny baby” with akechi - requested by @lastvalyrian

i hope you like sickfic. it’s sickfic.

The scene Mishima walked in on was… pathetic, to put it lightly. There was a small trash can pulled over to the couch — likely from Akechi’s bedroom — overflowing with balled up tissues. The living room table had become home to a stack of books and papers. The overhead lights were on, as was the TV, but Akechi was thoroughly unconscious on the couch, with his laptop open resting on his chest and one hand still resting on its keyboard. The cord for the laptop stretched across the room in a way that Mishima had to step over it just to get to the couch. He did so, sat down the plastic drug store bag he’d been carrying on the table, and gently tried to remove the computer from its position. 

Akechi instantly snapped back to at least partial consciousness and quickly shut the laptop, almost trapping Mishima’s hand in the process. 

“Careful! Jesus.” Mishima tried to take the laptop again, but Akechi pulled it back closer to himself. “I’m not trying to sneak a peek at your Marvel fanfiction or whatever, I just wanted to save you from breaking your computer when you rolled over in your sleep.” 

“I don’t need—” Akechi’s voice came out hoarse and broken. He cleared his throat, but only managed to make himself sound worse. “I don’t need you to save me from anything. I’m working.” He stated that very matter-of-factly.

“Oh, okay. And how much are you getting done?” Mishima started rummaging through the bag he brought and setting things out on the table — a big bottle of water, cough medicine, fever reducer, disposable face masks, more tissues, a small packaged snack cake. 

“Plenty.” Akechi coughed into his arm several times and then whimpered sadly, perhaps out of reflex. The noise tugged at Mishima’s heart, and he reached down and stroked over Akechi’s messy hair. Akechi shut his eyes. 

“You need to rest or you won’t get better.” His tone softened and settled into basic concern rather than outright teasing. 

“I’m fine.” He sniffled and coughed again, body betraying his words. “I have things to do.”

“Nope.” Mishima succeeded in device removal this time, but was met with actual, literal whining from his boyfriend. He laughed. “You sound horrible.” 

“Thank you,” Akechi croaked. From his expression, Mishima could tell he was attempting to be sarcastic. “Please unhand my laptop.” 

Mishima hummed as if he were thinking, but just set the computer down on the table out of Akechi’s reach instead. He lowered himself down to the floor next to the couch and handed up the water he’d brought. “Maybe if you actually take care of yourself, you can have it back.” 

“Yuuki.” His voice broke on the second syllable.

“Goro.” He opened up the pack of cough medicine and handed up some capsules. He looked at Akechi sweetly until he caved and took the medicine, brows furrowed. “Drink more water. I know you’re not drinking enough ‘cuz there’s no cups in here buried in your mountain of tissues.” 

Akechi squinted at him, but did as he was told, easily draining half the bottle before handing it back. He seemed to be having trouble keeping his head up, and his eyes shut as soon as he lowered it again. Mishima turned to face him and placed a hand against his forehead. His skin burned. Mishima made a sad noise and began stroking his hair again.

They sat like that for a few minutes until Akechi half-opened his eyes and attempted to lift his head with some effort. “I have performed adequate self-care. Can I please resume my work?”

“You can barely keep your eyes open.” Mishima nudged his head back down and was met with what little resistance Akechi could manage. “Take a nap. I’ll sit here with you.”

Akechi made a very sad, very croaking noise in his throat and sent himself into another coughing fit, followed by another pathetic noise meant to illicit a pity response from his doting partner.

“You are such a whiny baby.” Mishima tucked Akechi’s blanket around him tighter and reached for the TV remote. “Nap time.”

“This is a hostage situation.” Akechi hissed his words out, losing the battle with his voice. 

Mishima said nothing, just leaned his head back to rest against Akechi’s chest and smiled at him. Akechi stared him down in irritation for a minute, then his expression softened and he cupped Mishima’s cheek in his hand. His eyes shut. 

[mars-barssss]

Hi! For the whump bingo ask, can I ask for "Apologizing right before they pass out" with Patton? Thank you.

//I’m really sorry about this being so late! Also, sorry to the two other asks for a while ago, I’m gonna finish these up before continuing. Life got a bit hectic but I’ll get back on it!

An Illogical Feeling

Pairing: Logicality

TW: Blood, Near Character Death (But not actual character death!), Stab Wounds

Type: ANGST

//College!Au and Human!Au, to let you know!

Summary: Logan gets a call from his best, no, a really close friend. He learns something new about himself.

—

Ring…! Ring…!

The ringing of the phone mixed with the loud movie that was blasting on the TV. Roman didn’t pay any mind to it, as his eyes were trained on whatever action movie they happened to be watching.

Logan himself was reading a book, however. He was paying no mind to the movie. He had no interest in it, anyways.

Roman had invited him to watch a movie over in his dorm, and he didn’t really care for the choice of movie that he chose. Truthfully, Logan just was tired of waiting for his own roommates to come home, and although he wouldn’t admit it, he didn’t want to be alone.

There was something so suffocating about being alone. It was illogical at best, he should be fine with that. But he had gotten used to the conversations and sounds that dulled the silence, that he couldn’t just avoid it! He didn’t know if that meant he was getting weak, or otherwise. Either way, he simply had told Roman he’d be over, but not to watch. Roman didn’t get much of a response to his next text, before said friend arrived at his door.

And the moment that Logan stepped inside showed just how lonely Roman was too. Or at least, bored. Pillows and blankets coated the couches and a bean bag chair was pulled up in the living room. The movie was looping on the menu screen, and there were some blankets specifically placed as like a cover. A true… pillow fort.

When questioned, Roman had shrugged it off, mumbling something about how his emo roommate not being home for the next two hours and his other being at a debate competition for the weekend.

As Logan recalled this, a loud shout pulled him out of his thoughts. The scene kid continued to shout as a lion, apparently, was hanging by the edge of a cliff, and screaming for help from the other lion.

“Mufasa, you could just like, I don’t know, climb to the left slightly, there’s a branch right there-!”

Roman continued to argue nonsensically at these characters, who Logan didn’t even know the names of, and who would also not hear Roman’s arguments, until eventually the lion fell off of the cliff. That left Roman with a loud irritated shout.

Logan scoffed slightly, smiling. He returned to his book.

Ring…! Ring…!

Oh. Right. The phone. The phone that was still ringing.

It was Roman’s phone, so obviously, he should answer it. It wasn’t in Logan’s place to answer it. It could be personal. But his that dumb drama student just wouldn’t stop whining the screen. Honestly, Logan didn’t know why it bugged him so much. Maybe because it didn’t merge with the background sound of the movie.

Maybe it was because of a strange feeling in his stomach. He didn’t even know why it was there, but earlier when it first started, he nearly wanted to take some medicine. He was probably just getting sick, to be honest. It was winter, after all.

Speaking of winter, Logan glimpsed out of Roman’s dorm window. It had actually began to snow, after Logan arrived. Something about it excited him, because he hadn’t seen snow in so long. That however, didn’t last long. The snow also made him worry for Roman’s roommates, as well as his home. The roads would be slippery, and honestly his roommate should have been home a while ago. Anxiously, Logan checked his phone, tapping his foot lightly on the carpet.

6:48 PM

Ring…! Ring…!

Logan shuffled slightly, getting to messaging app to try to contact him again. Logan did not like the idea of spamming people, it was rude. Honestly, they’d respond back when they did get the chance, but this time, his stomach was almost doing figurative flips. His stomach was figuratively flipping?

He didn’t really pay too much mind to the half-cooked metaphor as he scrolled through today’s messages and typed a new message.

___

Today

1:30 AM    Patty-Cake: GO TO BED

1:30 AM    Patty-Cake: I can c ur light on

Patty-Cake changed Crofters’s nickname to hey.

Patty-Cake changed hey’s nickname to LogAN gET SoME FLIpPiNG sLEEP.

1:37 AM     LogAN gET SoME FLIpPiNG sLEEP: I need to get this essay done.

1:38 AM     Patty-Cake: u got that essay last night, it’s due in two weeks

1:40 AM     LogAN gET SoME FLIpPiNG sLEEP: Better to get it done early.

1:43 AM    Patty-Cake: Comin to ur room rn

1:43 AM    LogAN gET SoME FLIpPiNG sLEEP: What?

-

2:11 AM    Patty-Cake: ILY nightt

Patty-Cake changed  LogAN gET SoME FLIpPiNG sLEEP’s nickname to Stargazer.

-

12:34 PM  Patty-Cake: Lo!!! I got a role!! SO EXCITED!!! :D

12:34 PM  Patty-Cake: Ro’s gonna be so happy! He’s been trying to get me into the play for weeeeeeeeks

Patty-Cake changed Patty-Cake’s nickname to AAAAAAAA.

12:36 PM  Stargazer: That’s nice. Congratulations.

12:36 PM  AAAAAAAA: Emile’s calling! C u at home im gonna be making cookies

-

2:03 PM   AAAAAAAA : Do u want burgers tonite?

AAAAAAAA changed  AAAAAAAA’s nickname to Patty-Cake

2:03 PM   Patty-Cake: Gotta fix my name one sec

-

5:30 PM    Stargazer: Patton, please respond. Where are you? You should have been home a half an hour ago.

-

6:48 PM    Stargazer: Patton, are you home yet? If you are not, it is snowing outside, please drive carefully.

Patty-Cake didn’t pick up. 0:03 

6:50 PM    Stargazer: You’re worrying me, please call back.

___

“Get off your electronics, Microsoft Nerd!” Ahead of him, Roman was a leaning backwards, giving him a pointed stare. His lips were pouting as he pointed at his phone. The movie was paused. “Thought you were gonna be on your book, not your phone!”

“I was reading my book. I only went to go check the time on here.” Logan deadpanned, pocketing his phone. A small glance to Roman’s home phone made Roman shout at him again.

…

“Really? I could heard you typing! You aren’t even paying attention to me right now!” He huffed, sitting up in the chair, still staring at Logan. “See you’re just staring at my phone for some odd reason, at least give me a straight answer.”

Turning back to Roman, Logan’s expression was dulled out, kind of a tired ‘what are you even going on about’ face. “Just unpause the movie, Roman.”

“Alright, whatever, just don’t text during the movie! Puh-lease!” The movie was unpaused, and the volume replaced the silence immediately. It blasted through Logan’s ears the moment it came back on, the stark difference surprising the engineering major. He didn’t realize that the phone stopped ringing.

Everything continued as normal.

Only until a few minutes later.

Ding!…

___

6:58 PM    Patty-Cake: l

6:58 PM    Patty-Cake: logan

___

Logan quickly grabbed his phone, his hands shaking slightly as he scrambled for the messaging app. Oh, he was going to rip Patton a new one for scaring him.

___

6:59 PM    Stargazer: Patton, why didn’t you respond to me all afternoon?

6:59 PM    Stargazer: Patton

7:01 PM    Patty-Cake: hlp me pls

7:01 PM    Stargazer: What’s wrong?

Patty-Cake didn’t pick up. 0:01

7:03 PM    Patty-Cake: guy cme up behnd me 

___

By now, Logan has stood up, staring down his phone. This felt wrong, this felt so, so wrong. Glancing away for a brief moment, Roman had also gotten up from his beanbag, although his intention was different.

“Hey pocket protector! What in the world are you doing?!” Roman nudged his shoulder, although not unkindly. “You’re panicking dude, come on, breathe.” A hand landed on his shoulder, but Logan didn’t acknowledge it. He was on the screen to call Patton, consistently trying to call the other.

Roman looked at Logan’s phone nervously, before tightening his grip on the other’s shoulder.

___

Patty-Cake didn’t pick up. 0:02

Patty-Cake didn’t pick up. 0:01

7:05 PM    Patty-Cake: over by th aprtmns alleyway

7:05 PM    Stargazer: Why aren’t you answering?!

7:05 PM    Stargazer: Why aren’t you calling the police?

7:06 PM    Stargazer: Patton

You called Patty-Cake.

___

Finally one of the calls went through. As Logan looked at the video on the call, there was just black, and all he heard at first was gasps, and clearly a choking sound. The phone moved from what sounded like the ground, into the air, slightly. The phone was shaking from the place it was held, showing only concrete.

“Patton-?! Patton, are you there?”

The phone jolted again, as it sounded like he was trying to sit up. “L…Logan?…”

“Yeah, Patton, it’s me. Where are you?! Tell me where you are!” The phone uneasily shakes in Logan’s hands. He’s already walking towards the apartment door, keeping his eyes on the call desperately. As the door opened, he winced at the choke-like gasps coming from the other end of the call. Roman quickly followed after him as he rushed down the staircase, not waiting for the elevator.

“Logan… L… I…” Several more coughs came through as the phone was pulled back towards Patton. The camera jolted as he coughed. His hand came into view of the camera for a moment, and Logan stopped breathing for a moment as he stood in the front door of the dorm.

Dark red blood stained his hands and the snow around him. The arm itself was shaking either from fear, or the cold winds. Another wheeze came through, before Logan saw that Patton was beginning to drop the phone, falling forward in the process.

“Patton, don’t fall asleep! Please! Tell us where you-!”

All of a sudden, a loud thump was heard on the call, as the camera went dark. The call was still on, but Patton must have passed out on it. Soft uneven breathing came through the speaker.

“P-Patton!”

His head turned up sharply as he could hear just how much he was hyperventilating. He stared at Roman, his eyes watering from his fear how tired he was. “R-Roman.”

Roman touched his shoulder, his words fumbling right out of his mouth with how quickly he spoke. “He stayed late at the theater, and he said he was near the dorms in an alleyway, he’s probably that way-” Roman gestures to Logan’s left. “I’ll call the police to this area, call me when you find him- I’ll lead the ambulance there, okay?! You just focus on finding him!” He shoves Logan to the left, as he pulls out his own phone quickly, his boots stomping through the now-thicker snow.

Logan briefly nods before running off to the left. If you asked Roman, Logan never runs for anything, unless he is genuinely scared, which is rare. Nothing could ever get him to run, but now, he was going as fast as he could on the slippery ice and snow.

“PATTON-!”

Glancing down every alleyway there was, he held the phone close, listening to the soft, weakened breathing, to make sure he was alive. After a few moments, Logan stumbles after hearing a hitch in the other student’s breathing, before he couldn’t hear it anymore! His own breathing hitches, as tears spill down his eyes.

“PATTON!”

He sprints off again, desperately looking down every alleyway and corner, until finally, he spots Patton’s cardigan down one of them, abandoned.

Turning sharply into it, he reached the cardigan, picking it up shakily, and holding it close. A small whimper snaps his head towards the right, where Patton was laying, a few feet away. Logan stumbles forward desperately, falling to his knees beside Patton, who’s eyes were closed with a light layer of ice on them, and breathing that was barely heard.

“Patton, can you hear me?!”

He pulled the other into his lap, trying to warm him up. The moment he saw his stomach, where a stab wound festered, he shoved his hand on it, giving it pressure, despite all of the blood that surrounded them. His other hand grasped at his phone, dialing Roman’s number, the other continuing to hold the unresponsive student in his lap. Once the call went through, he quickly blurted out the area they were in, and set his phone the ground without a care. The now empty hand hesitated, before taking one of Patton’s in his own.

“Patton, wake up! Please, wake up!”

-

Patton didn’t know who was speaking, but someone was speaking.

He didn’t know who was shaking him, but someone was shaking him.

He didn’t know who was saving him, but someone was-

-

He opened his eyes to see a blurry mess of blues and blacks. A small groan forced it’s way out of him as he struggled to move, only realize the hand that pushed down on his stomach. A whimper was heard as he felt the pain that grew from the pressure, before he felt himself get moved around slightly, his back against the wall of a dorm.

His eyelids drooped slowly, as his whole body longed to be on the floor again, as he longed to sleep. Suddenly, his hearing came back and-

“-tton! Stay awake! Don’t fall asleep!”

Logan’s voice blasted throughout his whole body, it just felt so loud. Everything suddenly felt so loud, and his stomach hurt so badly. The rocks beneath him felt so cold, so very cold, and… sticky. Why… Why was it sticky?

“Pa-” His hearing went out again as he blinked over and over, trying to get a better view. Eventually, he can see who the figure above him was. Logan.

Some fellow student. Some nerd. A stoic acquaintance, who hid his emotions. A person who helped him with math homework, who didn’t care how dumb he was. A childhood friend, who tried to avoid him. A stargazing dork, who stayed late up until four in the morning to see a comet. A friend, who didn’t leave him, even if it meant he got bullied by the same kids that bullied him. His partner in crime, who begrudgingly joined him with a prank on the bullies. His only friend, who would let him ramble listlessly all night. His best friend, who took care of him when he was bedridden, and called for Roman to bring blankets and watch movies with them until he was better.

One of the most important people in the world to him, who was slowly fading away into the darkness that clouded Patton’s vision.

“Lo…” Patton’s voice whimper out through the pain, his hand squeezing Logan’s, as strong as he could. Which wasn’t that strong, but it was something. Logan’s eyes darted right back to Patton’s, and for the first time that Patton ever knew, he was crying. A sudden shiver wracked Patton’s body, and he tore his gaze away from the other to try to contain heat.

Some of Logan’s tears hit Patton in the cheek, sliding down his face. Logan’s breathing rose again as he watched Patton carefully, and held him away from all of the snow that had gathered around him. Quickly shifting his jacket off of him, he wrapped it around Patton, and held it closer once more. “Patton, stay awake for me, okay? You can hear me, right?”

Patton stiffly nodded, as another shiver made him shrink into Logan’s jacket. He looked so… small. His voice wasn’t much bigger than how he looked, rasping at the edges. “Y-Y-Y-Ye-eah. I-I can he-ear you.”

“G-Good, you’re okay, you’re gonna be fine.” Logan muttered those reassurances under his breath as he looked back at the main road, waiting. Waiting for the inevitable sirens to come down it. At any time now. “You’ll be fine.”

“Logan…” Patton felt it inside of him. Something inside of him was wilting, like a dying rose. He didn’t know if it was because of all of the red around him, or the frost that nipped at his wrists. His body felt like it falling apart, one thing at a time. His fingers, then his wrists, then his arms. Something deep down in him was fading, and he was scared, because his eyes won’t stay open, they won’t stay open, oh god, he’s falling he’s falling he’s falling-

But he’d always be there to catch him.

“Patton, come on. I’m going t-to pick you up now, is that okay?” The sound of sirens suddenly filled the absence of sound. Logan’s voice barely wavered, his ability to hold in his emotions from the outside was something Patton wished he was better at to be honest. But right now, Patton was sure his expression was only either pained, or nothing. He didn’t feel much of anything. Not emotionally, but neither the cold that tore at his limbs.

He was so tired. He was so… so cold.

He couldn’t even nod his head to let Logan know he heard him.

“Patton, can you hear me? We have to go!” Logan’s voice cracked. It was a little detail, but Patton knew just how much it meant. Logan was scared. But Patton couldn’t reach for him anymore, he was too numb. His head rolled to the side, looking at the pavement as Logan tried to move him. “Pat!”

Pat. That’s a nickname that Patton hadn’t heard for years. At least, not from Logan.

Maybe he should change his nickname to it again.

“Patton, please, don’t close your eyes, the ambulance is here! I’m sorry if you don’t want to be picked up, but I have to move you.” Logan shook him slightly, the movement only rolling his limp head around more. When he looked at Logan, he could only see beauty. He could only see his best friend, as if the whole world didn’t exist at that moment. The world faded into the background, grays and blues and whites. Snow flew around them as Logan carried him. It was a wonderful world.

Where he had no wounds and wasn’t dying right now.

He didn’t feel any pain, he could only see his best friend holding him close. And perhaps it was just the blood-loss speaking, but he knew at that moment just how much he did love the man who was saving him. The world shifted around him, and he didn’t care. He didn’t notice. His head rolling slightly, but his eyes were trained on Logan.

He looked so sad. Why was he so sad? Scared too. He didn’t like Logan when he was scared. He didn’t want him to be sad. He wanted him to be happy!

He kept looking sadder whenever he faced him as they walked forward, with snow fluttering around him. Did he do something wrong?…

If he did, he was so sorry. He felt so guilty. He felt sore, but he didn’t care. He’d feel sore all day if it meant he wasn’t sad. He had to say something, to apologize for… whatever he did. He just had to get that sad face off of him. He didn’t care about what it was, he just wanted him to be happy.

With the last of his strength, he reached up towards Logan’s face, and in return Logan’s face snapped towards Patton. His thumb weekly traced a tear as his hand shook and fell to his chest.

“I’m… I’m so sorry, Lo.”

It was clear, if not raspy. And as he uttered it, he heard Logan. Not really though, the words were so muffled and quiet, it was if he had whispered it, and Patton wasn’t close enough. But he heard him speak, whatever he was saying, as his head rolled back limply against Logan’s arm, and his eyelids fluttered shut.

And they didn’t open back up.

-

Logan didn’t know he could cry, but almost losing his best friend taught him that.

___

//There we go! Let me know if you want a sequel to it! And I’m gonna get to work with the other asks! Have a great day!