#TV Reader's Digest

[kwebtv]

From the Golden Age of Television

France's Greatest Detective - ABC - May 16, 1955

A presentation of "TV Readers Digest" Season 1 Episode 18

Drama

Running Time: 30 minutes

Stars:

Arthur Franz as Alphonse Bertillion

Lawrence Dobkin as Renault

Ian MacDonald as Andrieux

Edgar Barrier as Camecasse

Philip Van Zandt as Boyoval

Peter Brocco as Jacques

Gene Reynolds as Hugo

Paul Frees as Vigeois

Claude Akins as Dupont

Belle Mitchell as Emilie

[thegikitiki]

Wonderful World of Color...

RCA Color Televisions, 1963

[ilovemesomevincentprice]

Vincent Price - The Brainwashing of John Hayes (1955)

[artficlly]

show me again [one-shot]

marvel au bucky x mutant!reader

you were born a mutant, gifted with the power to manipulate bodily sensations. until now, you've only ever used it to cause pain. but now, stuck in a remote safehouse with bucky for the next few months, tension crackles between you. when you finally confess that your ability can also bring pleasure, he looks at you differently, more than a little curious to experience it first-hand. 

Warnings: 18+ content minors dni, smut, magical smut??, fingering, edging!!, praise kink, so much sexual tension, vague enemies to lovers, forced proximity, lowkey brat reader at times??, soft dom! bucky (at times), kissing, angst, miscommunication (not badly), protective!bucky, grumpy!bucky, bodyguard!bucky, mention of torture, wound description, injuries, mention of human trafficking, hurt/comfort, there's some plot if you squint, reader has survivors guilt, reader is horny lol, use of the pet name sweetheart, no use of y/n, lmk if i've missed anything

Word Count: 17k (jesus fucking christ)

A/N: hi this is a fucking monster of a fic. i've been working on this for weeks now. if it flops i might cry and go die in a hole. pls like/reblog/comment etc <3 sorry for any typos - not proof read.

main masterlist

In the short time you had been acquainted with Bucky Barnes, you had quickly learnt three things. 

One, he didn’t talk much, if at all. Most of your conversations consisted of little more than grunts, terse glances, or unimpressed scowls. He didn’t ask questions, nor did he answer them. At one point, you suspected he might have had his tongue cut out. That changed when you began to hear him muttering under his breath as he stomped past, his heavy boots reverberating through the safehouse. ‘Securing the perimeter’. Always the same phrase, always delivered in the same grim tone.

Two, he was paranoid. He never turned his back on you. Always kept you in his line of sight. There was always a weapon within arm’s reach. He checked every door and window twice. His movements were systematic, almost compulsive. He prowled the safehouse like an animal on the hunt, slipping into view when you least expected him. More than once, he’d startled you so badly you’d dropped something. A shattered coffee mug still lay in the trash as proof. And each time you flinched, his eyes would narrow slightly, suspicious, as if trying to decide what exactly you were hiding, why someone like you could be so easily spooked. You didn’t know what his employers had told him, but obviously it was not the whole story.

And three, he didn’t want to be here.

He made no effort to hide that fact.

You bit your tongue more often than not, swallowing every snide remark that burned its way up your throat. Surprise, I don’t want to be here either, assshole. But you knew better than to lash out at the only person you'd be stuck with for the next few months. The only person standing between you and whatever might come crawling out of the woods. Protection wasn’t something you could afford to alienate.

The officials who dumped you here had been full of promises. They said you’d be safe, hidden, far from the reach of the Menagerie. They told you to wait. This storm would pass, and when it did, you could return to your everyday life.

But after two years under the Menagerie’s thumb, normal didn’t exist anymore.

What even was normal?

This safehouse felt like the eye of a hurricane, but you could sense the storm circling just beyond, the pressure building in the air, the wind pressing at the windows. It was only a matter of time before it rolled over and consumed you whole. And maybe that was the truth of it, that you were already in the belly of the beast, already chewed up and digested. There was no normality to return to.

There never would be again.

The safehouse sat on a stretch of farmland, tucked far enough from the world that it felt like the end of it. No internet, no cell service, not even a TV. Just enough power to keep the lights on and the water running. It was midsummer, and the air was thick and syrupy, heavy with the scent of clover and sun-warmed hay. At night, the frogs and cicadas sang in overlapping rhythms, insects tapping softly against the mesh of the window screens. Rolling meadows stretched in nearly every direction, grass tall and wispy, swaying lazily in the breeze, cattle grazing along the fence line. Beyond the weather-worn red barn, the woods waited. You could sometimes hear deer calling in the dusk, birds chattering high in the canopy.

You’d tiptoed downstairs about a week after your arrival, barefoot on the old wood planks, a floral sundress brushing your shins as you crept through the lounge. The sky outside was streaked with soft orange and watercolour pink, the quiet hush of dawn holding everything still. Bucky was asleep on the couch again, arms folded across his chest, his boots still on. He rarely slept, and when he did, it was always here, not in the bedroom just across the landing from yours.

You hadn’t asked why.

Maybe he was afraid he wouldn’t hear someone break in. Maybe he didn’t trust doors. You were half convinced he’d sleep on the porch if you hadn’t caught him doing it once and given him a look harsh enough to make him reconsider. Not that it mattered, he seemed to wake at the slightest shift in the air. Twice already, you'd startled him by just breathing too loudly on your way to make morning tea, trying to be as quiet as possible as you filled the kettle and set it to boil. 

This time, he didn’t stir. Or maybe pretended not to, just so that he could avoid your regular awkward morning exchange. You slipped past him, easing open the front door, wincing as the screen squeaked. The sun hit you square in the face, gold and blinding, warm even this early. You stepped out into the grass with a long breath and crouched, brushing your fingers through the delicate strands as the world slowly began to stir.

The farmhouse had a few animals, just enough to feel lived-in. A small coop of chickens, a handful of cattle, and a scraggly white barn cat who seemed to claim the place as her own. You called her Alpine, after the word etched into one of the barn beams above the old hayloft she slept in. Whoever carved it there had long since disappeared, but the name remained, half-claimed and half-given.

“It’s not safe out here alone.” The gruff voice shattered your moment of peace, and you jumped, heart lurching in your chest.

Bucky stood behind you, all shadows and hard edges.

He filled the doorway without trying to, broad shoulders bracketed by the frame, thick arms folded across a chest that strained the seams of his faded henley. He was massive in a way that made rooms feel smaller, as though the very architecture had to shift to accommodate him. 

Even when still, he gave the impression of movement barely restrained, like some great machine idling under the surface. His frame was built like something forged rather than born, towering over you with muscle carved deep into every inch of him, from his sculpted chest to the veined forearms visible beneath pushed-up sleeves. 

His stance was always solid, unmoving, as if the earth itself would sooner shift than he would. The glint of his vibranium arm caught in the low morning light, brushed in gold from the rising sun, each plate moving in smooth precision as he adjusted his stance.

His face sported an unimpressed scowl, his jaw shadowed by stubble, brows drawn low over stormy blue eyes that swept the fields behind you with disinterest. And though he said nothing, you could sense his irritation as clearly as the heat rising off the sun-touched grass. 

He had a particular hatred for you being outside alone. Most days, he’d trail after you reluctantly, watching with narrowed eyes as you wandered the fields for an hour or two. When his patience wore thin, he’d herd you back inside like a sheepdog. He preferred enclosed spaces. Contained. Controlled.

Places where he could see you—track you—where your every movement could be accounted for.

You were beginning to feel like you escaped one prison just to enter the next. 

“You gonna roll around in it next, sweetheart?” he called, voice stern with impatience.

Sweetheart. That damn condescending nickname. It wouldn’t have got under your skin so much if it didn’t make your stomach twist and flutter every time it rolled off his tongue.

You didn’t answer, but you could feel his gaze like a weight between your shoulder blades. Any second now, you wouldn’t put it past him to stomp into the grass and haul you inside himself, fingers fisted in the back of your dress like he was pulling a wayward stray by the scruff of its neck.

“Come on. Inside,” he barked again. “I haven’t checked the perimeter yet.”

Ah. Of course. The perimeter. God forbid a tree shifted in the wind without his knowing.

Suppressing an eye roll, you finally pushed to your feet, brushing bits of grass from your palms. The porch creaked under your steps as you ascended, pausing as he stepped aside with his usual stern silence.

You gave him a sugar-sweet smile as you gripped the handle of the screen door.

“Well, don’t let me stop you,” you said, voice light but laced with venom. “Go check your precious perimeter.”

The muscle in his jaw twitched. He didn’t answer, but the scowl that crept across his face said enough. He caught the bite in your tone, felt the edge beneath your pleasantry.

You didn’t wait for a response. The door snapped shut behind you, a little harder than necessary, rattling the frame.

—

The next time you saw Bucky was early afternoon. You’d been irritated enough to barricade yourself in your tiny room, thumbing through the stacks of old paperbacks until you finally landed on something vaguely interesting. It was some tacky romance novel that was amusing enough not to let your mind wander, but not quite good enough to engulf you completely. 

Though, eventually, it was hunger that won your imagined standoff, your stomach growling so loudly you were half-convinced it had gained sentience and was protesting its conditions.

Bucky was still on the couch, right where you’d left him hours ago. You couldn’t make out what he was doing from the doorway, his broad shoulders alone blocked most of your view, but he appeared to be fiddling with something in his hands. You didn’t ask. You weren’t in the mood for another grunt in place of conversation. Instead, you turned sharply into the kitchen without a word.

The safehouse was well-stocked, rows of canned goods crammed into the cupboards, their faded, illegible labels boasting things like beef stew, baked beans, and mystery meat in gloopy gravy. There were jars of peanut butter with oil slicking the top, stale crackers sealed in military-grade packaging, and boxes of instant mashed potatoes that looked more like powdered chalk than food. 

On better days, you had the garden out back, knobbly carrots, bitter greens, the occasional undergrown zucchini, and the chickens, who begrudgingly gifted you eggs when they felt generous. You found yourself wishing for a dairy cow, not that you had any idea how to milk one, just to be free of the powdered imposter you stirred into your coffee every morning. Whatever it was, it tasted like plaster. 

You could feel Bucky’s gaze flick toward you through the doorway. You didn’t look up, instead pretending to study the cans as if they held the answers to life’s greater mysteries, silently tossing up between which mystery soup you would try today. 

Before the Menagerie, you’d loved to cook, baking especially. Anything stuffed with chocolate chips or drowned in frosting had your full attention. But you dabbled in savoury dishes too, the kind your mother used to call ‘real people food’. The two of you would stand shoulder to shoulder in the kitchen, elbows knocking as you bickered over seasoning or whether the onions were truly caramelised. Your father and brother would crowd around the TV, shouting and drinking cold beers while watching the big game.

You swallowed hard at the thought of it. You wondered where their headstones lay, if they had even been buried at all. Who would’ve organised their funeral? That thought soured quickly, festering as your eyes dropped to the stove. The idea of putting time and care into a meal now felt wrong. Hollow. Maybe two years ago, you would’ve tried, scavenged herbs from the garden, scrubbed the vegetables clean, dared to open one of the suspiciously labelled cans of meat. But today, it felt like a step too far.

Bucky didn’t cook for you. It was clear from the start that you were on your own in that regard. A true fend-for-yourself arrangement. Come to think of it, you hadn’t seen him eat a single bite since your arrival. You weren’t even sure the man had taste buds.

Mystery soup it was. 

Your curiosity got the better of you. You stole a glance over your shoulder, narrowing your eyes. He was still planted on the couch, and for the briefest second, his gaze met yours before flicking away again. He turned toward the empty fireplace, posture drawn tight like he was trying to fold himself out of sight, which, of course, failed rather comically since he was a beast of a man.

You sighed and pulled two cans from the shelf, the metal clinking dully as you set them on the counter. You’d heat the soup for both of you, maybe as a peace offering, maybe just an effort at civility. Either way, it felt a little ridiculous. But at least you could say you tried.

—

You dropped one of the bowls onto the coffee table with a soft clack, Bucky blinked, slightly startled, his eyes flicking from the bowl to you as you sank down cross-legged on the floor across from him, the wood grain sticky against your thighs.

“Food. For you,” you said simply.

He didn’t answer at first, still hunched over the thing in his hands, something metal and half-disassembled, probably a weapon. His shoulders shifted, just barely. Like the faintest show of surprise, or maybe gratitude he didn’t know how to express. 

“Bit hot for soup,” he muttered, glancing toward the window. He wasn’t wrong. The sun had been relentless all day, and the old farmhouse was holding the heat like a kiln. The single desk fan that you’d claimed did little more than hum uselessly upstairs. You were sure it was a fire hazard from the sheer amount of dust it had collected on its plastic blades.

You shot him a look.

“Fine. Suit yourself. Make your own damn food—” You’d barely started uncrossing your legs when his hand lifted, palm open in a wordless command.

“Sit down.”

You did, settling back into place with a muted huff. He set the metal part aside, definitely part of a gun, now that you were looking. He picked up the spoon beside the bowl, eyeing it like it might bite him, and you watched as he took a mouthful, wincing slightly at the heat.

“Bland.” He commented.

You rolled your eyes. So, he did have taste buds after all.

“It’s from a can, god knows we’ve got enough of those to last the next ten years, let alone a few months.” You replied dryly, and you could’ve sworn the ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. 

You both ate in silence for a while. The soup was as terrible as you had anticipated, watery broth, sad carrot chunks, and what might have once been chicken. It was bland, just as Bucky had stated, but you wouldn’t give him the pleasure of admitting it. 

It was only as you were halfway through your bowl, the sound of spoons scraping against the ceramic, the occasional creak of the old farmhouse settling while the cicadas droned outside, that you finally found the words to speak up. 

“Your employers,” you began, eyes still on your soup, “did they tell you much?”

Through your lashes, you saw Bucky’s head lift slightly.

“No.” He stated. Simple. Gruff. Then he hesitated, leaning back on the couch, eyeing you in that analytical, quiet way of his. You could practically hear the thoughts ticking behind his silence. You, small—in comparison to him, at least—unassuming, wrapped in a floral sundress, hardly looking like a threat. How dangerous could you be? How much danger could you truly be in to warrant exile in the middle of nowhere, locked away like a state secret? “Just said you were mixed up in that mess with the Menagerie raid. That someone might be looking to hurt you.” 

“Right…” You stuffed another spoonful of soup into your mouth to keep from saying something foolish, letting the heat sting your tongue.

Silence stretched. He’d already emptied his bowl, positively licked it clean—so much for being too hot and bland. Meanwhile, while you pushed a discoloured chunk of carrot in slow, grinding circles, the handle of your spoon tracing the rim of your bowl. His eyes hadn’t left you.

You inhaled deeply, then blurted it out before you could stop yourself. “Do you know how long I have to stay here?”

He hesitated, just long enough to tell you he didn’t know either. “As long as it takes to eliminate the threat.” 

You finally looked up, catching the shift in his gaze. Less neutral now, more calculated… Suspicious. You recognised that look, it said I’m piecing something together. Like the soup had been some sort of tactic. A quiet kindness with strings attached. That you were slowly manipulating him with every gentle smile and soft word. 

Like he was finally seeing you clearly, and not liking the picture.

“If you’re being this well hidden,” he said slowly, “you must’ve been real deep in it. What were you, a mole? Scared they’re gonna hunt you down for revenge, sweetheart? You don’t look like the usual type they send out for infiltration.”

You froze, soup curdling in your stomach, your appetite gone before he even got the last syllable out. You placed your half-eaten bowl on the coffee table before you, refusing to meet his eye.

“I wasn’t a mole.” You clarified, though your tone did not sound anywhere near convincing. 

It was like he could smell the guilt and shame you reeked of. His mouth curled slightly. Not a smile. Not quite.  

“An informant, then?” He pressed. There it was, the snide bite you were waiting for. He thought this was some glorified babysitting gig for a rat. “Too scared to put you in prison in case you are killed before a court date?”

“No, I—” The words jammed in your throat like splinters, and all you could do was stare down at the coffee table. Coffee rings. Cigarette burns. Ghosts of the past.

Bucky leaned forward, forearms braced on his knees, voice lower now.

“So what was it that made you finally turn on the Menagerie, huh? A guilty conscience, fear?” He asked, a disgusted sneer joining his words. “Or did your morals only click after they started trafficking mutants, caging them and tagging them like inventory?”

Your throat closed up.

He thought you were part of it.

He thought you were one of them.

“Or was it just about self-preservation?” He continued.

You hadn’t said it aloud. Not properly. Not in a way that made it real. The interviews after the raid had scraped the words out of you, hour after hour, voice raw, eyes dry. Endless questions. Demands. ‘Be specific’, ‘Start from the beginning’, ‘What did they do next?’. They made you relive it again and again until your memories felt like ash in your mouth, so many retellings that they stopped sounding like your own.

Some mornings, you still woke to the phantom scent of damp stone and bleach. Still braced for cold concrete beneath your palms, for the echo of distant footsteps clattering through narrow halls. You could see it all too clearly in the dark, that stone labyrinth, windowless and humming with distant electricity

You’d think of the auctions. The buyers. Their laughter. The way the air thickened with rot and perfume. The casual smiles of men who knew they wouldn’t be stopped. The shouting. 

The cages.

The screaming—

Still, sometimes, you thought you could hear it, just beneath silence. Not memory, not quite. Like something still screamed through you.

“You don’t know shit about what I went through.” You spat out finally.

“No,” he admitted, coldly. “I don’t. But from where I’m sitting, you’re not exactly making yourself look innocent, sweetheart.”

You stared at him, stunned for a heartbeat.

Part of you wanted to cling to that flicker of delusion, that at least he cared. That the horrors of the Menagerie upset him, that he hadn’t brushed it off the way so many others might. There was something almost noble in his anger, in how deeply the injustice of it all seemed to affect him. 

But the moment cracked and fury surged up like bile, but it caught in your throat before it could be spoken. You opened your mouth, then closed it again, useless. The words wouldn’t come. They never did. Not the right ones.

Because how could you explain it? How could you possibly untangle the last two years into something coherent, something clean, when nothing about it was? You wanted to scream that it hadn’t been your fault. That they’d taken everything from you. That you’d been a victim.

But the voice in your head always whispered something else.

You’d done what you had to do. Survived the only way you could. But survival had never come without cost. Not in that place. And even if you knew that you hadn’t chosen any of it… there were still stains on your hands. Still moments when you looked in the mirror and didn’t see someone worth saving. 

You couldn’t find the words to defend yourself.

Because maybe, just maybe, you didn’t deserve to defend yourself.

“Fuck you.” You seethed.

You shot to your feet so fast your knee clipped the coffee table, rattling your half-eaten bowl. The room tilted slightly, breath caught between rage and something dangerously close to grief. Your legs carried you before you could think, before you could cry. You crossed the room in quick strides, soup abandoned, the sting of unshed tears heating your face.

—

A week of silence had followed your argument with Bucky.

You moved around each other like ghosts, haunting the same space but never touching, orbiting in sullen, silent patterns. You ate meals in silence on opposite ends of the house. Dishes piled beside your bed. Books stacked on the floor. You let yourself be swallowed by the mattress, the weight of silence slowly pulling you under.

When you did venture downstairs, it was only for chores. The division of labour had happened wordlessly. He’d take the barn, the treeline, his perimeter. You’d feed the chickens and cattle and refill the water troughs. Alpine was the only creature who seemed to move freely between you, accepting a can of tuna from Bucky one day, curling up against your legs the next when she wasn’t out prowling for field mice. 

You’d stopped asking him anything. Stopped trying to close the gap with awkward, tense conversation. And he seemed relieved, like silence was some kind of reward. At least now he didn’t have to pretend to care. His silent judgment was not something you were blind to. It followed him like a cloud of smoke, obscuring his vision as he regarded you as something malicious rather than wounded. So you started wearing your own bitterness like armour. Met every cold glance with a glare of your own. 

If he wanted to hate you, you could make it easy.

You already hated yourself enough.

The heat had been unbearable all afternoon, the worst it had been since you arrived. It was the type of heat that made the air feel thick and heavy, clinging to your skin no matter what you did to cool down. You opened every window in the house, splashed cool water on your face, tied back your hair, and even stood with the fridge door wide open, ignoring the quiet huff of disapproval from behind you. Still, it wasn’t enough to distract you from the fact that you were boiling alive in your own body with every passing hour. 

Bucky, of course, was perfectly composed. During your second attempt to fold yourself into the fridge, he sat at the kitchen table like a statue, sharpening a knife with slow, meditative strokes. Not a bead of sweat on his brow. Like the fact that you were both slowly roasting to death didn’t bother him at all.

You wanted to scream.

It wasn’t just the heat. It was him. His silence. His stillness. His looming, suffocating presence, like he was pressing the full weight of himself onto your chest without ever touching you.

You needed air. Space. Anything that didn’t feel like breathing your own recycled breath. You were going to lose your mind in this goddamn house. And if it came down to who’d walk out of here alive, it wasn’t going to be you. Not at this rate.

You had laced up your boots and stormed down the stairs before the thought had even fully formed, impulse overriding reason. Bucky didn’t look up at first. From his silence, you could guess he thought you were just being dramatic again, stomping around like a sulking child.

It wasn’t until your fingers curled around the doorknob that you heard the scrape of his chair against the kitchen tiles. “Where are you going?”

You didn’t look at him. You shoved the screen door open and muttered flatly, “The woods.”

He paused. You could feel it, the change in pressure, like the atmosphere thickened just from him standing up. The summer heat already clung to your skin like syrup, yet somehow it had become one step closer to suffocating.

“No.”

You turned, one foot already on the porch. Bucky was rounding the corner from the kitchen fast, eyes sharp, shoulders tense, like he was bracing to grab you by the arm if you took another step.

“I need air,” you snapped, backing away slightly. “It’s like five thousand degrees in here. It’ll be cooler under the trees.”

He didn’t flinch, just stared at you with that wolfish intensity, jaw tight, eyes narrowed. You could see the twitch of frustration behind them. Not anger exactly, but something more primal. Protective, maybe. Possessive. Something you didn’t have a name for.

His nostrils flared as he narrowed his eyes. 

“It’s not safe,” he said, stepping closer like a warning. A hunt was unfolding between the two of you. You took a step back. He mirrored it forward.

Your eyes flicked down. He wasn’t wearing shoes.

Interesting.

You glanced at the couch, his boots tossed haphazardly at the base, probably kicked off after his last perimeter sweep. A grin tugged at your lips, sharp and cunning. You released the screen door with deliberate calm.

“Don’t you dare—” he growled, voice already rising, warning.

The door slammed shut behind you as you took off, boots hammering down the steps, sundress flying around your legs as you sprinted into the field.

You could already hear him swearing behind you, scrambling for his boots, but you didn’t look back. The grass was tall and wild, slapping against your calves as you tore through it, laughing breathlessly as you darted toward the barn like a madwoman. The sun beat down mercilessly, warming your skin, but you didn’t stop. Not when you heard your name shouted, not even when the chickens exploded into squawking chaos as you shot past the coop.

The fence loomed just ahead, waist-height, made of metal wire and wood posts. You’d never gotten close enough to inspect it properly before now. The top was wrapped in barbed wire, coiled like a snake. Of course it was.

“Shit,” you hissed, skidding to a halt and eyeing the fence with frantic calculation.

Behind you, Bucky’s footsteps thundered across the clearing. You glanced back once, just once. Your breath caught.

He was a storm.

Boots only half on, shirt clinging to his chest with sweat, barreling toward you with terrifying speed. Determined. His eyes on you like a target.

This was your only shot.

“Fuck it,” you spat, grabbing the fence and hoisting yourself up. The metal rattled under your weight, one foot jammed between as you swung a leg over. You hissed as your dress caught, barbs slicing the fabric and catching the tender skin of your thigh. Pain spiked up your leg, but you didn’t stop. 

You heard him yell your name just as you dropped down the other side, hitting the dirt hard, knees skidding through dry grass. You shoved yourself upright, wiping your hands on your dress as Bucky skidded to a halt on the other side of the fence, face wild with disbelief.

“What the fuck are you—”

But you were already gone, vanishing into the trees.

The woods swallowed you whole. The world shifted the moment you passed beneath the canopy, sunlight shattered across the leaves, scattering gold and green over your skin as branches closed above you like cathedral arches. You ran until the burn in your thighs twisted into fire, until the pounding of your heart drowned out everything else. Behind you, his voice grew distant, swallowed by underbrush, bark and birdsong.

You didn’t know where you were going.

You just knew you needed to be gone before he caught up.

And for a fleeting moment, you thought you’d done it, lost him in the thick underbrush, outpaced him through the tangles of low-hanging branches and bramble. The heat had begun to slip from the air, replaced by the cool breath of the woods and the low, rhythmic drone of cicadas. A sea of green unfurled before you, layered in moss and leaf-shadow, still and quiet now that your footsteps had slowed—

The world tilted.

You hit the ground hard, air knocked from your lungs, before your mind even registered that he had caught up to you. A blur of limbs and gritted teeth, the two of you rolled through the dirt and fallen leaves, snapping twigs and kicking up soil as you struggled against each other in a mess of instinct and fury.

You twisted, tried to scramble away, but his body was too heavy. His arm caught your leg as you kicked, his weight pressing you down, pinning you like prey.

When the momentum stopped, he was already on top of you, straddling your hips, shoving you deep into the damp forest floor. His hands pinned your wrists above your head with effortless control. His face loomed close, his eyes dark and glittering, and his breath harsh from the chase.

“Are you done?” he growled, voice low and raw, every syllable biting.

You glared up at him, chest heaving. “Get off me—”

Your voice caught as he laughed, a low, humourless sound, breathless but amused. There was dirt smeared across his cheek, a leaf tangled in his hair, and his shirt clung to him with sweat and blood. He looked wild. Feral. Alive in a way that made your stomach twist.

“I’ll take that as a no,” he muttered.

And then he was moving, the sudden loss of his weight a brief mercy, but it didn’t last. Before you could twist away and draw in a proper breath, his arm was around your waist, and you were tugged up, slung over his shoulder like a sack of grain. Your stomach hit the edge of his metal shoulder blade with a thud that knocked the wind from you again.

“Hey, put me down, you asshole—!” you protested, breathless, your voice muffled slightly by the sway of his shirt against your cheek.

But he was already moving, circling back toward the house with slow, deliberate strides like he hadn’t just chased you through half a mile of forest. His arm was iron around your thighs, locking you in place against the solid plane of his shoulder. You bounced with every step, your ribs pressing painfully against the hard ridge of his collarbone and the metal edge of his arm.

“No,” he barked, tone clipped. “You’ll just bolt again.”

Your stomach was twisted sideways over his shoulder, blood rushing to your head until your vision pulsed at the edges. It was dizzying, the world tipping and tilting with his gait, trees, sky and earth passing upside down in a blur. His shirt clung damply to his back beneath your arms, soaked through with sweat and forest humidity. Every inhale brought the scent of dirt, pine, and something distinctly him into your lungs.

“I won’t! I swear, just—” you tried, squirming, but he adjusted his grip and hoisted you higher with a grunt, one hand sliding firmly up the back of your thigh to keep you from slipping.

“You lost any of my trust when you decided to hop that fence, sweetheart,” he said coldly.

His hand stayed there, splayed wide and strong, fingers flexing against the curve of your leg in a way that made something flutter low in your stomach. You writhed, trying to ignore the way your skin heated under his palm, how aware you suddenly were of every place his body touched yours, his forearm hooked tightly around your knees, his breath steady and close.

“Put me the fuck down!”

“Shut the fuck up, or I’ll find something to gag you with.” His voice turned harsh, and the end of his patience showed. “I’m sick of your whining. This is your own fault.”

“My fault?” you choked out, exasperated, pushing at the small of his back, which did absolutely nothing. “You’re the one keeping me locked up!”

“It’s for your safety, or did that little detail slip your mind?” he bit back, unbothered by your wriggling.

“We’re in the middle of nowhere!” you snapped. “Who the hell is going to find me out here if I go for a goddamn walk to cool down?”

“I’m not worried about people.” His grip on your thighs tightened again, just enough to send another shock of awareness through your core. “I’m worried about animals. Do you know how many bears, cougars, and other shit that can rip you in half live out here?”

You froze, the fire in your chest faltering. “…There are bears out here?!”

“Yes,” he snapped, voice rough. “Now would you shut the hell up? Every living creature within a hundred miles already knows where we are thanks to your squealing.”

You clamped your mouth shut, heat prickling at your ears, though whether it was from embarrassment, exertion, or the lingering burn of his hand against your thigh, you weren’t sure. Upside-down, half-breathless, and bruised with indignity, you told yourself it was just the blood rushing to your head that made your heart beat like that.

He reached the fence a few seconds later, barely slowing his pace before tossing you over it with an unceremonious grunt. You yelped as you hit the ground with a solid thump, your knees scraping against the packed dirt and scattered stones. Pain bloomed across your palms as you caught yourself, your breath stuttering.

You looked up at him just in time to see him plant his boot on the middle rung and vault the fence with practised ease. He landed beside you, his chest rising and falling with the exertion, his expression furious.

Your eyes caught on his shirt, the fabric torn open across the side of his ribs. Blood welled from a sharp gash beneath it, slow and dark, soaking into the material. He must’ve hit the barbed wire trying to chase you down.

The fence: two. You and Bucky: zero.

You shifted uncomfortably, your own thigh still stinging, a warm line of blood trickling down your leg. The barbs had bitten deep. It felt like the forest had left its mark on both of you.

Bucky stared down at you with a scowl.

“Now…” he said slowly, “do I need to carry you all the way to the house, or are you going to be a good girl and walk by yourself?”

You blinked up at him, heart hammering, pulse still roaring in your ears and gulped. “I’ll walk.”

—

Bucky didn’t seem to care that he was smeared in a mixture of dried blood and dirt as he slumped heavily onto the couch with a grunt, his broad shoulders sinking into the cushions. He kicked off his boots with a purposeful carelessness, one of the pair nearly smacking you in the shin as you shied out of its path. 

He’d practically herded you back into the house, his gaze never leaving you as you limped your way up the porch steps. His scowl never wavered, only deepened with irritation as he finally realised the state you were in, hair tangled and sticking to your damp forehead, your dress torn and stained with streaks of mud and blood.

You stopped in front of the empty fireplace across from him, arms crossing tightly over your chest, jaw clenched. You leaned slightly on your right leg, the pain flaring hot in your thigh. The cut burned like it had been licked by flame, no doubt packed with dirt and whatever else you'd rolled through during your messy scuffle. But your eyes drifted from your leg, caught instead by the quiet rustle of fabric. Bucky peeled off his shredded shirt with little fanfare, exposing the sheer, ridiculous expanse of muscle beneath. His torso looked sculpted from stone, every line and shadow painfully defined. And yet, infuriatingly, even in all his dishevelment, he looked good. Unfairly so. It was almost nauseating how perfect he looked. 

You bit the inside of your cheek and tapped your fingers against your arm, gaze snagged for a beat too long as he examined the fresh gash slashed across his abdomen. He winced slightly, dragging a finger through the blood and grime that caked the wound. It was a deep cut, raw and filthy, and the dirt clinging to it made you pause. You knew that kind of wound, the kind that festered fast if left unchecked.

“Where’s the first aid kit?” you asked, stepping forward despite yourself. “I’ll get it for you—”

“No.” His voice cut through the air, low as a growl, stopping you cold. “You’ve done enough. I’ll get it.”

You blinked, the words catching in your throat. “Hold on—”

But then he looked at you. Really looked at you. And whatever flicker of protest had been building inside you died right there.

“Sit. Down.”

You sank onto the couch without another word, the tension knotting in your shoulders as he disappeared up the stairs. You ran a hand through your tangled hair, wincing as your fingers snagged on leaves and twigs embedded in the strands. Somewhere above, you could hear him rummaging through the bathroom cabinet, drawers slamming and clattering as he searched.

Your attention dropped to your leg. You hesitated, then slowly hiked up your skirt, trying not to wince as you exposed the wound. The barbed wire had torn a lash up your inner thigh, the skin swollen and angry. Blood had dried in thick, flaking streaks down your leg. You hissed as you prodded the edges, trying to gauge the depth through the grit and grime. It stung like hell, sharp, hot, and pulsing, and the thought of cleaning it out made your stomach churn.

Bucky thundered down the stairs behind you, dumping the first aid kit on the coffee table. A few medical supplies spilt out from the jolt. He barely looked at you before muttering, “Stop fussing. You’ll make it worse.”

Your hands stilled instantly, retreating to your lap. You didn’t dare test his patience again, not when he was like this, all bruises and blood and stormclouds behind the eyes.

He sank to his knees in front of the couch, wedged between your legs and the coffee table, and reached for you without hesitation. His grip was firm as he caught your leg, fingers wrapping around your calf and sliding upward, tilting your thigh to get a better look at the damage.

Your breath hitched, chest tightening. The cut stung, but it wasn’t the pain that made you tense, it was him. The heat of his skin against yours, the way his rough palms guided your leg, thumb grazing perilously close to the seam of your underwear. Your dress had ridden high, bunched around your hips, leaving you far too exposed. And his face, god, it was right there, inches away from the softest, most private part of you—

You let out a small yelp, the sharp sting of antiseptic dragging you back to reality as he pressed a wipe over the wound with no warning, scrubbing away dried blood and filth like it was nothing. You squirmed on instinct, gasping.

He tutted with annoyance, locking your leg in place with his forearm like you were nothing more than a twitchy animal.

“Stop squirming.”

“It’s kind of hard when you’re manhandling me—”

“I’m not in the mood for babying you, sweetheart,” he shot back, glaring up at you briefly, his voice low and cool.

That shut you up.

You swallowed hard and stared past him, fixing your gaze on the constellation of scars across his chest and shoulders. Old wounds. Some shallow, others deep. Your heart thudded against your ribs, the silence between you prickling with static.

He dipped his fingers into a small tin of ointment and began slowly and deliberately, working it into the wound. His touch was firm, steady, maddening, his hand creeping higher with each pass, inching up your inner thigh until his knuckles grazed dangerously close to the pulsing heat between your legs. Your entire body shuddered lightly, a tingling up your spine, and for one wild moment, you were sure he was savouring this. You could feel his every breath against your thigh, every callused inch of his palm.

Your breath hitched audibly. Embarrassingly.

“There you go,” he murmured, almost to himself, patting your knee. “Good girl.”

A whimper escaped your lips before you could stop it.

Then, he was gone. Peeling off some large sticky bandages and slapping them on hard enough to make you jolt in surprise. 

You jerked your leg back, retreating into yourself. Your fingertips hovered at the edge of the bandages, trailing the sticky outline. He didn’t seem to notice—or maybe he did and didn’t care—as he climbed up off the floor and took a seat beside you on the couch, the cushion dipping under his weight.

You sat there with your mouth slightly agape, still recovering, still too aware of how much of you had just been laid bare.

He stared at you.

“Are you even listening?” he barked.

You jumped. “Sorry—what?”

“I said,” he gestured toward the gash slicing across his torso, “I need you to help me clean this cut, repeat the steps I just did for your leg.”

You floundered uselessly like a fish for a second. 

“Did you hit your head?” he asked, voice laced with irritation. “Do I need to check you for a concussion—?”

“No!” you blurted, too fast. “No. I’m fine. I can do it.”

Without waiting for permission, you slid to the floor, knees brushing against his shins as you settled between his legs. Your fingers fumbled through the mess of gauze, scissors, and ointments strewn across the coffee table, deliberately avoiding his gaze. When you found the antiseptic wipes, you cleared your throat, peeled one open, and hesitantly pressed it to the wound carved deep into his side.

The muscles under your hand were corded tight, heat and tension rising from him like steam. You dabbed lightly at first, uncertain.

“You’re gonna need to press harder than that, sweetheart,” Bucky muttered, voice rough. “You’re not picking up all the—”

You shot him a look flared with annoyance and dug the wipe in harder than necessary.

He hissed, breath catching between gritted teeth, and his abdomen flinched beneath your hand. The skin twitched as you worked, dragging out a stubborn patch of grit and dried blood. You grimaced, wiping again, watching the red bloom spread.

The gash was far worse than yours. Red, angry, and deep. The kind of wound that would’ve sent someone else into shock. When you pulled the wipe back, it was streaked with fresh blood, revealing a glimpse of raw muscle beneath.

“This is going to need stitches, it’s too deep—”

“It’s fine.” He shook his head, his breath uneven as you reached for a fresh wipe. “It’ll heal faster than a normal person.”

You paused, cloth hovering just above the end of the slash curving around his ribs. “You’re a mutant?”

That stopped him cold.

His body stiffened, almost imperceptibly, but you felt it. His jaw ticked, and the muscle beneath your touch turned to granite.

“No, uh—” He began, and the words faltered. For the first time since you’d met him, his voice wavered. This voice was uncertain. Defensive. It didn’t match the sharp-edged man who barked orders and silenced you with just a glower. You looked up in time to catch the flicker of frustration in his expression, the way his brow furrowed, not in pain, but regret. Like he’d just given away something he wasn’t supposed to. 

“Super soldier,” he muttered finally, quieter like the words tasted bitter.  

You frowned, forcing yourself to keep your fingers moving as you continued to clean the lash. 

“Super solider… like serums?” You dared to mumble in question.

“...Yeah.”

You nodded. You were familiar with the rise of serums and super soldiers, they had been a hot commodity, just as coveted as mutants. Weapons given flesh. The perfect stock for the Menagerie to peddle. Easier to control, more predictable than the mutants among their inventory.

“There were a few of those at the Menage—” The words slipped out before you could catch them. As soon as they crossed your lips, your stomach dropped. “I—Nevermind.”

You didn’t need to look up to feel it, the shift in his posture, the way his presence recoiled. Not from pain. From you.

He was flinching from you.

Shame roared up your throat like bile. You didn’t have to ask what he was thinking. You could feel it. The disgust. The assumptions. You could almost hear his thoughts shaping you into a creature of cruelty. A collaborator. A willing participant.

Did he think revealing this information would illicit a perverse curiosity within you? That you’d start viewing him in the same way the Menagerie had viewed you?

And for once, there was a sadness that lingered. A sadness that you couldn’t tell him, couldn’t explain. You let him believe you were complicit, that you were broken in a way that was your own fault. Would it have been better to tell him? To offer up the whole, rotting truth and see what he did with it? Not one clouded by the lies and falseities you used to punish yourself?

When you had stumbled free of that place, you had sworn never to use your powers again. Never be a weapon again. Never let anyone twist your gift into something cruel and unrecognisable.

What if this was different?

What if you could use it for good this time? Not to tear someone apart from the inside out, not to entertain monsters, but to soothe. To help.

Would that balance the scales, even a little? Would that scrub the blood from your conscience, the memory from your skin? Would it make you more than what they turned you into?

Would it make you… better?

Your hands had stilled. The wound was only half-cleaned, blood still trickling sluggishly along his side. You looked up.

His expression was unreadable, like a wall had been placed between you.

Your voice came quiet and uncertain. “Can I… can I show you something?” you asked. “I think it’ll help.”

He tensed. His jaw was tight, the suspicion in his gaze sharp and waiting, as if he expected you to pull a knife, like your soft-spoken words were nothing but bait in a trap he hadn’t seen yet. But you didn’t wait for a reply. For once, you wait for a command. You balled up the bloodied wipe in your fist and tossed it aside, the fabric landing with a wet slap on the cluttered table behind you. Then, without ceremony, you raised your hand above the wound stretching across his ribs.

His mouth parted, breath catching, ready to protest, but you were already committed, brows drawn in concentration as your palm began to glow. The light bloomed, like dawn bleeding through morning mist. A ball of pale, gold light that cast long beams between your fingers, casting his skin in a haze.

You didn’t dare look up at him. 

Instead, you pressed your focus into the magic pooling in your hand, letting it spill like silk across the jagged tear in his flesh. As you touched your fingers to him, you hovered a moment longer than necessary, and a soft, invisible pulse of heat radiated from your palm to his abdomen. 

He didn’t flinch.

That was the point.

The knot in his abdomen uncoiled. His muscles slackened, his body loosening inch by cautious inch beneath your touch. Your fingertips hovered over the torn skin, skimming the edges. When you finally dared to glance up, his face had slackened in sudden, jarring relief. 

He stared at you like you weren’t real. Disgust turned to horror and then to shock.

You didn’t stop. Your palm pressed lightly to the curve of his ribs, the glow now flickering as your focus thinned and the pain siphoned away. The magic never hurt, not directly, but it drained you all the same. You could feel it in the weight of your limbs, in the tremble behind your knees. Your breath had turned shallow. Sweat prickled along your hairline.

“You’re a—”

“A mutant,” you interrupted quietly, light fading as you squeezed your hand into a fist. “I know.”

The silence was thick as you reached behind you, grabbing a clean antiseptic wipe from the dwindling supplies. He didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t even blink as you swept it gently through the remaining dirt and grit, revealing clean, ragged flesh beneath. Crimson welled at the edges like dew.

“I took the pain away,” you clarified as you blindly searched the table for the small tin he’d used earlier. You couldn’t meet his eye, couldn’t deal with any guilt he was likely feeling. “My powers… I can change how the body perceives sensations. I can nullify nerves or amplify them. Make you feel things that aren’t there, or take away feeling entirely.”

You found the tin at last, fingers fumbling slightly as you pried it open with a soft metallic click. A faint herbal scent rose as you scooped a generous, pearlescent smear of ointment onto your fingertip. It clung thickly, catching the light like a melted pearl.

“You were a victim,” Bucky said, voice breathless and stunned, like he’d received a punch right to the gut. “Sweetheart, why didn’t you tell me you were a victim?”

You didn’t answer right away. Instead, you pressed your fingers to his skin, spreading the salve along the length of the wound in slow, deliberate strokes. The half-translucent mixture turned pink as it blended with the fresh blood that beaded the surface.

“It’s complicated,” you muttered, eyes fixed on your hands instead of his. 

But he didn’t let it go.

Of course, he didn’t.

Bucky Barnes, ever the soldier, ever the protector of the broken and bruised. That part of him, the part that saw pain and didn’t look away, that part that burned with justice, that was maybe the only thing you’d truly admired from the start.

Not the cold commands, not the steel-blue stares, not the way he could make your breath hitch with just a word.

It was that he cared.

Beneath the hard edges and combat scars, he gave a damn. About the ones who couldn’t fight for themselves yet. About the ones others would write off. When he looked at something shattered, his instinct wasn’t to discard it—it was to fix it.

“You’re a victim. When they pulled you out of there, why didn’t they send you back home? Back to your family?”

You swallowed hard. “Like I said... It’s complicated.”

When you dared to look up, he was looking down at you like he was expecting an answer. You sighed.

“My powers, it’s a gift and a curse. They can be used for good, like this.” You nodded toward his side, where the blood had begun to clot under the thin sheen of ointment. Withdrawing your hands from him, you tucked them into your lap, fingers curled inwards, guilt weighing heavily in your chest. “Or it can be used… used to create pain.”

His brow creased. “Pain?”

“You think the Menagerie were above torture?” you asked, sharper than you meant to. Then your face twisted apologetically, and you looked away quickly. “Sorry. I just—” 

You drew in a breath, steadying yourself. 

“When they captured enemies, or anyone who defied them, they interrogated them. Asked their questions. And if they didn’t get what they wanted…” You paused, voice tight. “They brought me in.”

His face changed, eyes sharpening, expression folding inward.

“They made me hurt people,” you explained. “Amplify their pain, make them feel things that weren’t even real. The body doesn’t know the difference. It responds anyway.” 

You rubbed your wrist with your other hand, as if scrubbing the memory away. “Sometimes… sometimes they made me do it for fun. For their entertainment. Just because they knew how much it broke me—” Your voice broke on the last word, the sound caught between a sob and a gasp.

Turning away, you reached for the coffee table with trembling hands, shoving through the disordered supplies until you found the large, sticky bandages. Only as you felt confident that your voice wouldn’t tremble, you spoke up again.

“I was their prisoner, their weapon for two years. Decided I was to be kept, too valuable to be sold like the rest of the product,” You mumbled, the plastic crinkling as you tore one free, fingers fumbling with the edges.

“That’s why you’re here,” Bucky said at last.

His voice was quiet, like he was speaking more to himself than to you. You watched the gears turn behind his eyes, watched the truth slot into place piece by piece. 

“You know too much,” he murmured, breath catching in his throat. “The Menagerie... they’re not hunting you because you ran.”

You didn’t move. Didn’t speak.

“They want you dead because you know. You know too much.”

His gaze snapped up to meet yours, the initial shock gone. Something had shifted. The realisation landed like a crack of thunder as anger reared its head, hot and bitter.

“And the officials…” He shook his head, his jaw tightening. “They don’t care what it costs you. They just want you on that stand. They want a witness.”

His hands curled into fists at his sides, a tremor running through his arm. 

“God,” he muttered. “They used you. All of them. They’re still using you. They’re all just passing you around like you're fucking evidence.”

You nodded, blinking hard as you peeled back the adhesive strip. “Not a rat, you see?” you said with a brittle sort of humour, trying to cover the tremor in your voice.

He looked down at you sharply, eyes dark, nostrils flared, coiled tightly enough you were half-convinced he was going to march out there and tear them apart himself. “I’m sorry.”

That startled you more than it should have. 

“Shit, sweetheart. I was wrong about you, very wrong,” he added. “From the start. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” you murmured. “I should’ve… I should’ve just told you. I just—”

Your fingers splayed out as you smoothed the bandage carefully across his ribs, palms gentle as you coaxed it into place. “It’s hard. To defend my actions. To relive it over and over again, to think of what I could have done differently, what I could’ve done to stop it. And I’m sick of people telling me it wasn’t my fault, sick of the nightmares and the memories I—”

The warmth of his skin still lingered under your touch. You were about to pull away when he caught your wrist. You jolted, breath stuttering. His grip wasn’t tight, just enough to hold you there. His thumb circled slowly over the inside of your wrist, right over the soft thrum of your pulse.

“No, I… I get it.” 

Your lungs stalled, breath coming out in a sharp wheeze as you looked up at him, wide-eyed.

“It’s hard sometimes,” he said, gaze haunted, “to justify defending yourself when you feel like a monster. Even when you weren’t the one who chose the violence.”

He glanced away, then back, not with judgment, but understanding. Maybe even shame.

“But you’re not that,” he affirmed. “You never really were.”

You got the sense he wasn’t just saying it for your sake. Not entirely. That maybe he was saying it for himself, too.

—

Bucky had been truthful. Within a few short days, his wound had knit itself into a pink, raised scar, the kind that would fade in time.

Yours, however, wasn’t healing nearly as well.

It wasn’t an infection, you knew that much. Bucky’s borderline militant efforts to clean and dress your wound had paid off. No, the problem was its intimate placement. Too high on your inner thigh, too close to where the skin was soft and constantly moving. Every step rubbed it raw. Every shift of your legs, every twitch or stretch, irritated it further. The adhesive bandages clung stubbornly, chafing the tender flesh surrounding.

And the weather wasn’t helping.

The dry heat had broken sometime during the night, replaced by a soupy humidity that clung to everything. It made your clothes stick to your back, your sheets damp, your skin slick with a sheen of sweat you couldn’t seem to shake. That morning, as you fed the cows, Bucky had tilted his face to the sky, eyes narrowed.

“Storm’s coming,” he muttered, gaze fixed on the horizon where dark clouds had begun to crawl over the hills like an advancing army.

You’d followed his eyes and silently agreed.

It was the third day since your reckless dash through the woods, and you could feel every inch of it. Your body ached with dull protest, knees bruised, but it was the wound that made you grit your teeth every time you moved. Bucky had noticed, of course, he noticed everything. He’d watched you hobble halfway down the stairs that morning, frowning in that deeply displeased way of his, jaw set like he was at war with the world.

Ever since your reluctant confession, something in him had shifted. The hostility had bled out of him, replaced by an overwhelming guilt. You felt sorry for your dejected bodyguard. You both knew it wasn’t his fault, that he had acted true to his nature with the information given, yet he still reeked of regret. 

His protectiveness had turned soft at the edges. Where once he’d shadowed you out of suspicion, now he hovered like a sheepdog with a wounded charge, not willing to leave your side for a moment.

He gave up his place on the couch without a word, fetched things before you asked, and adjusted pillows behind your back with silent focus. When you’d had enough of being babied and escaped upstairs to your room, he’d only watched you go with those impossibly blue eyes, gaze desperate and stricken.

But today… Today, he took it further, determined to take his coddling the extra mile. 

You only made it to the corner of the stairs before you saw him coming up with purpose written in every line of his body.

“Wait—Bucky, I can walk—!”

Your protest was cut short by a startled gasp as he swept you effortlessly into his arms, cradling you against his chest like you weighed nothing at all.

Your breath caught, not just from the motion, but from the sudden, intimate closeness. His body radiated heat, even through his shirt. You could feel the curve of his shoulder beneath your cheek, the steady beat of his heart beneath your palm.

“I can walk myself down the stairs,” you tried again, more weakly.

“You keep aggravating it,” he said simply, descending with slow, sure steps. 

With uncharacteristic gentleness, he placed you down on the couch. He crouched in front of you, one knee pressed into the floor, his eyes scanning your face with quiet intensity before dropping to your thighs.

You opened your mouth to argue—too late.

The hem of your dress was already lifted.

“Hey—!” You flinched, hands moving to cover yourself, but he was faster. His fingers curled gently around your knee, not forceful, but firm enough to stop you from snapping your legs shut.

“It’s irritated. Look.” His voice was low, focused, the pad of his thumb brushing dangerously close to tender skin as he inspected the wound.

You inhaled sharply, trying to ignore the heat that jolted through you at the contact, the way your body betrayed you with the pulse that bloomed low in your belly. His breath ghosted across your inner thigh as he leaned closer, and it was all you could do to hold still.

He pointed, fingertips skimming just above the angry, raw skin. “See that? It's from friction. The humidity is not helping. The bandage is rubbing it raw.”

You tried to speak, but he was already speaking over you.

“I’ll change it over,” he said, already rising to grab the supplies. “Stay here.”

“It’s fine, really—” you began, trying to wave off the concern in your voice, but Bucky hit you with a look so sharp it cut your words clean in half.

His brow dipped, jaw tight. “Don’t be like that.”

“Like what?” you shot back with a whine, already shifting upright from where you’d been slumped between the couch cushions. The movement made your thigh throb.

Before you could get far, his hand shot out—broad, calloused, and unbothered—pressing gently but firmly against your middle. The ease with which he pinned you back made you blink.

“I said stay,” he said, with exasperated authority. “What is it with you and always making things difficult?”

Your mouth hung open in disbelief. “I don’t want to be babied.”

“I’m not babying you.”

“I feel like dead weight.”

His brows shot up, incredulous. “If I were to describe you as anything, it would not be dead weight, sweetheart.”

“Oh?” you challenged, folding your arms, eyes narrowing. “Then what would you describe me as?”

That made him pause.

His hand fell away slowly, drifting up to rub along his jaw. He turned his gaze downward and away, suddenly studying the floorboards like they held some grand revelation. You could see the calculation flickering behind his eyes, like he was deciding if his true answer was worth whatever calamity he was anticipating or not. 

Your heart kicked in your chest.

You held your breath, shamefully hopeful. Like some stupid, soft part of you, some battered, longing part, was enamoured with him. Even when he’d been cruel, cold, dismissive... you'd wanted him to see you. Wanted him to like you. And now, beneath all the banter, you were hanging on the edge of a confession you weren’t even sure you wanted to hear.

He finally looked up. His eyes, storm-dark and unreadable, met yours.

“If this is some ploy to distract me,” he said, voice rough, “it’s not working.”

You deflated, oddly disappointed and sank back into the cushions with a huff. “Fine. I’ll play along. Just get one of the books from my room, would you? If I’m stuck on this damn couch, I’d rather not die of boredom.”

His expression broke into a crooked, lazy grin. “Sure thing.”

And before you could blink, he was halfway up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

You let out a breath through your nose, dragging a hand down your face. The house was suffocating you. The stillness, the isolation, the tension that bloomed every time he entered the room. Maybe it was the ridiculous number of romance novels you’d burned through. Maybe it was the heat. Or maybe it was just him—Bucky, with his quiet protectiveness, so noble with his brooding silences, and the way his hands had felt against your bare skin in the forest.

You bit your lip, cursing yourself.

His rough palms. The way his body had pinned you down, heavy and solid, the way his breath had ghosted across your cheek, your thigh. It was a memory you couldn’t scrub out, no matter how hard you tried.

And now, you were wondering… wondering how it would feel if he pinned you to this couch—

You jolted upright as Bucky returned, slapping the first aid kit and one of your smuttiest romance novels onto the coffee table like a dealer laying down a hand of cards.

He didn’t say a word, but his lips twitched at the corners. His poker face was cracking.

Your face burned.

You reached for the book, praying he wouldn’t comment on the shirtless man with windswept hair on the cover, but of course, he didn’t have to. That stupid, knowing smirk was already doing the talking.

So much for subtle.

You swallowed thickly as he settled between your legs again, his weight pressing into the couch, his broad shoulders framed by the curve of your thighs. There was something maddeningly composed about him, like none of this fazed him in the slightest. If anything, he almost seemed amused by your discomfort, eyes flicking upward just enough to catch the squirm in your hips, the shallow hitch in your breath. 

He looked far too comfortable for someone in such a compromising position, like he knew the effect he had on you, and maybe even enjoyed drawing it out.

He gave your knee a light pat, a silent signal to open up. You obeyed hesitantly, and he brushed back the hem of your skirt. Your underwear, thin and barely holding modesty, was now fully on display. You bit down a wince as he took hold of a loose corner of the bandage. He tugged gently, slowly peeling the adhesive away from the inflamed skin. Pain flared sharp and immediate, white-hot beneath the stretch of gauze.

A soft, involuntary whimper escaped your throat before you could muffle it. Your hand shot out, fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt as you gripped his shoulder for stability, or maybe just to anchor yourself against the sudden wave of discomfort.

Still, he didn’t flinch. Didn’t look up. His voice came low and steady, a rumbling murmur as his free hand drew calming circles into the uninjured thigh. “Nearly there, sweetheart. You’re doing great.”

Your nails dug into him as your head lolled back, breath ragged. Every muscle was taut, braced against the conflicting signals. Pain prickled your nerves, comfort stirring from his voice and touch. You weren’t sure whether to pull away or lean in.

“You’re doing so well,” he continued. “Just hang in there for me, won’t you?”

The bandage continued its slow ascent, dragging higher and higher up your thigh, until his knuckles were brushing the very edge of your underwear. The skin there was more sensitive, flushed, overheated, and the gentle pull of the adhesive felt too much, too raw, too close. You hissed through your teeth, muttering a broken string of half-coherent words.

“Shit—ah—”

A particularly harsh sting made your hips buck. Your legs tried to snap closed on instinct, but Bucky was faster. He caught your knee with his forearm and pressed it down, holding you open, firm and immovable.

“Easy,” he murmured, steady as a rock. “Don’t tense up. You’ll just make it worse.”

You squirmed beneath his touch, back arching slightly, breath caught between agony and embarrassment. Finally, he peeled the last sticky corner away, and your skin gave a soft snap as it sprang free from the bandage’s grip. The rush of fresh air was immediate, and with it came a strange kind of relief, tinged with something dangerously close to arousal.

“See?” His voice dipped into something almost indulgent. “Good girl. It’s all done now.”

You nearly passed out on the spot. Your head swam, vision dancing at the edges. A ragged exhale wheezed out of you. “God... Sorry. You probably think I’m being dramatic—”

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” he said, smoothing a hand briefly down your thigh. “That’s a nasty spot. Fence got you good.”

You finally dared to look down at him, cheeks flushed, heart a mess in your chest. You were almost certain there was a wet patch on your underwear now. You prayed to whatever higher being was listening that he hadn’t noticed, but when you chanced a look at him, down between your legs, a wave of heat coursed through you. You could see it now. The slight flare in his nostrils. The way his jaw tightened. He knew. And he wasn’t saying a damn thing.

His attention drifted only briefly from your wound as he balled up the used bandage and tossed it somewhere behind him with little care.

“Why don’t you ever use your powers?” he asked, casually. “To stop your own pain?”

You exhaled, long and slow. 

“Doesn’t work that way,” you muttered. “I can use it on others, sure. But not myself. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s a mental block or something... I just... can’t read my own body the same way I can read others. Or maybe the universe just hates me.”

He didn’t reply immediately, just nodded slightly in understanding as he cleaned the area with another antiseptic wipe. You winced, hissing through clenched teeth as the sting bit into your already flayed nerves.

“Sorry,” he murmured. “One more second.”

You braced yourself again as he smoothed a fresh bandage over the wound. You could feel the ghost of his fingers lingering there, just for a moment longer than necessary, just enough to make you question it.

—

Outside, the sky had deepened from moody grey to near-black, the clouds rolling like smoke across the heavens. The wind picked up, rattling the windows. Somewhere far off, the first crack of thunder rumbled.

You had expected Bucky to drift off somewhere once he had finished tending your wound, the kitchen maybe, or the porch to watch the storm roll in, or even just to sit on the floor nearby. Anywhere that wasn’t with you. You’d stretched yourself out across the length of the couch, limbs heavy and warm, your upper body propped up by a mess of pillows and the armrest as you lost yourself in the pages of your book. It was a position meant for solitude.

So when Bucky returned from putting the first aid kit away, he didn’t hesitate. With casual ease, he lifted your outstretched legs and sat down, settling your feet squarely in his lap, like it was the most natural thing in the world. But the moment his hands touched you, your entire system short-circuited.

He did it so easily, like it was a habit. Like it was his right.

Your breath caught mid-page.

You didn’t dare move. Didn’t speak. Your fingers hovered over the paper, your eyes glazed across the lines, but your brain refused to register a single word. Your heart pounded in your chest like it was trying to break free. It took twenty agonising minutes, maybe more, before you could even pretend to read again.

And what didn’t help, what made the entire ordeal a million times worse, was that your book had finally reached the scene, the one everyone waited for. The part where the tension cracked wide open, and the protagonist was getting thoroughly ravished against a wall in some expensive villa by the kind of dark, brooding man that only existed in fiction... or maybe sat next to you.

You swallowed dryly, heart lurching again as the male lead slid his hand up the heroine’s thigh, just like Bucky’s had earlier when he’d peeled off your bandage. Only… you’d imagined it going further. Higher. 

Maybe you were delusional, but every time he’d touched you, even under the guise of first aid, you’d felt it—the maddening restraint.

You bit your tongue hard, forcing yourself not to let your thoughts spiral, even as arousal simmered low in your belly and pooled with heat between your thighs. You were already flushed and aching and halfway to combusting, and now he had the audacity to sit there, thigh under yours, body close enough to feel his warmth, like he wasn’t slowly unravelling you.

You were seconds away from imploding, from throwing your shitty romance novel across the room and throwing yourself at the goddamn furniture—

“Did you know,” Bucky drawled suddenly, voice low and casual and way too close, “that super soldiers have enhanced senses?”

You practically jumped out of your skin. “What?”

“I can hear your heartbeat,” he continued, that smug glint in his voice unmistakable. “It’s pretty fast. Erratic.”

Your mouth opened, then closed. Your cheeks went up in flames.

He added, far too pleased with himself, “That’s actually how I found you in the forest. I followed your footsteps and your pulse.”

“You’re unbelievable,” you hissed, snapping your book shut with a hard thwack, trying—and failing—to sit up with any grace.

Outside, rain hit the house in a violent curtain, a sudden hisssssh as the skies split open and water poured down in thick, slanted sheets. It rattled on the roof like pebbles hurled from the sky. Wind clawed at the windows, moaning through the seams.

He chuckled, one hand sliding over your shin, fingers curling around your ankle as he held you in place. “Couch rest,” he reminded you, voice dipped in that annoyingly firm tone.

You struggled half-heartedly, but he didn’t let go. Instead, he tugged gently until you sank back into the cushions, his hand still wrapped securely around your leg.

“No,” he scolded, like he was denying more than just your movement.

Your blush deepened, spreading to your chest. You let out a breath, half-frustrated, half-flustered, and melted into the cushions like you wished they’d just absorb you whole.

His thumb brushed a soft, slow arc along your calf—

Then, with a sharp pop, the power snapped off.

The lamps blinked out. The steady hum of the fridge died mid-breath. Silence swallowed the room for a single heartbeat before a thunderclap shattered it, a crackling whip of lightning illuminating the windows in a brief, unnatural white.

You jolted in fright. 

Bucky didn’t move right away. He remained seated, your legs still draped across his lap. You squinted into the darkness, instincts already urging you to move, to rush and shut the open windows before the rain crept in.

Bucky’s grip on your shin tightened, silently reminding you to stay put. 

“I’ll get them,” he said quietly, voice calm as thunder rumbled loudly overhead once more. “The windows. And some candles.”

You nodded, throat dry, unsure if he could even see the gesture. He moved slowly, easing your legs off his lap and lowering them onto a pillow with tenderness. Then he vanished into the gloom.

You tracked him by sound, the soft thud of his feet on the floorboards, the swift click of windows shutting, one after the other. Each flash of lightning lit the farmhouse like a shuttered camera flash, brief glimpses of movement, shadow, and form. You caught sight of him once, silhouetted in the doorway, jaw set.

When he returned, he carried a bundle of stubby candles and a matchbox. He set them on the table in front of you, crouching low as he arranged them.

He struck a match, the flare hissing into life, and held it up to one of the candles.

You watched, horrified, as he held it aloft for too long. Far too long. The flame crept toward his fingers, the wood blackening, curling with heat. It licked the vibranium tips, skimming the grooves like the metal had been soaked in fuel.

“Bucky—!” you gasped, lurching forward. “Doesn’t that hurt?”

He blinked up at you, brow furrowed in quiet confusion.

“The vibranium?” he asked, glancing at his hand like it was some borrowed object. “It doesn’t feel pain. The tech…there are no nerves.”

You stared at the charred ends of the matchsticks and the still-glowing candlelight flickering against his dark silhouette. The flames cast golden halos along his jaw, his cheekbone, glinting off the grooves of his metal fingers.

“You looked terrified, sweetheart,” he murmured, amusement warming the edge of his voice. “You okay?”

“I just—you let it burn you.”

He smiled, slow and crooked. “It’s not me. It’s metal.”

But you didn’t agree. Not really. Because it was him. That arm, the weight of it, the precision and restraint in it. It was as much a part of him as the careful way he spoke, or the way he touched your leg like it might bruise.

You swallowed again, watching as he struck the final match. It flared to life with a dry rasp, briefly lighting his face in warm gold before he tipped it to the last candle. The wick caught with a soft sputter, the flame settling into a steady flicker. He sat back on his heels, eyes lifting to meet yours. Smoke curled faintly in the air, mingling with the subtle sweetness of melting wax.

Your voice was small. “It is you. All of it.”

He didn’t say anything at first. Just watched you, something in his gaze softened. Then, slowly, deliberately, he reached out again, resting one calloused palm on your shin. His thumb moved in an easy rhythm

“Explain it to me,” you breathed. “How it works.”

Bucky seemed to turn that over in his mind. A low rumble of thunder murmured outside as he eased himself up, returning to the couch beside you. His hand lingered on your leg, tracing up the curve of your shin in thought, pausing lightly over your knee.

“The technology…it simulates nerves, mimics what touch feels like,” he said quietly. “I can touch an object and understand I’m holding it. Feel its weight. Its texture. But I can’t feel temperature… not heat, not cold. I can’t feel pain. I could sink my hand into a fire or take a bullet straight through the palm and feel nothing.”

You didn’t answer. Not right away. Instead, you reached out, your touch featherlight as your fingertips skimmed the metal of his wrist. There was precision in the construction, elegant, engineered, but it was still him. You traced along the inside of his forearm, up to the sharp line of his palm, feeling the grooves, the seams, the impossibly subtle notches between each plate. Then you curled your fingers gently around his, lifting his hand.

You turned it upward. Candlelight caught along the joints of his fingers, gleaming in liquid amber.

And then, deliberately, intimately, you ran your hand down the back of his vibranium hand. Knuckles to wrist.

“Can you feel that?” you breathed.

He inhaled quietly, eyes locked on yours. “Yes.”

You traced your thumb across a seam in his palm, a soft circular motion like brushing the edge of a scar. “Not temperature. But touch?”

“Yeah,” he said. His voice was rougher now. “I can feel the pressure. The motion. Just not... the heat of your skin.”

You didn’t speak. Just guided his hand upward, toward your face, your breath catching as the cool pads of his vibranium fingers grazed your cheekbone and rested there. You could’ve sworn he shuddered. A thrill passed through you at the sensation, not for you, but for him, a quiet hope that maybe this gesture still meant something, even if he couldn’t feel the warmth.

“And now?” you asked, voice barely audible over the rain.

His gaze dipped to your lips, then back up. The flickering darkness had devoured the familiar stormy blue of his eyes, leaving only a hungry void in its place.

“I feel your skin,” he said, low. “It’s soft. Smooth.” 

His fingers flexed gently, tracing the line of your jaw in a slow descent. “But I can’t feel the warmth. Just… the shape.”

A small, involuntary smile tugged at your lips, bittersweet. A silent war was waged behind his expression, trapped between desire and duty. Between what he wanted and what he was allowed to reach for.

“I used to have another arm,” he said suddenly, his voice quieter now, like the admission cost him something. “A silver one. I couldn’t feel anything with it. Not even this.”

Your brows furrowed.

“I don’t know what’s worse,” he murmured. “Feeling everything… or feeling nothing at all.”

You leaned into his touch, your cheek pressing fully against the metal. Even if it didn’t give him warmth, maybe it gave him presence.

“I think,” you mumbled, “that feeling is the most natural thing of all. It’s the experience of living. Of life.”

His hand stilled against your face.

“People who try to push aside feeling,” you said, softer now, “to cut it off and pretend it doesn’t exist… they’re the ones who are suffering the most. Not the ones who feel everything.”

His breath left him in a slow exhale. A subtle release, like he hadn’t even realised he was holding onto something tight in his chest until now. The candlelight caught the faintest tremble in his throat as he swallowed, as though your words had struck a nerve.

“I feel everything now,” he said at last, voice barely above a breath, like a truth he hadn’t meant to say aloud, like it had just dawned on him. His fingers twitched, then slowly withdrew, curling into a loose fist in his lap.

Silence settled between you, and you watched as the plates in his metal arm shifted with a subtle hiss, the faint whir of unseen mechanics clicking into place as he flexed his fist open, then closed again. The movement was restless, almost unconscious, like his body was speaking the turmoil he wouldn’t voice. You could feel the heat where his hand had just been, the ghost of his touch clinging to your skin.

For a second, you worried he was retreating inward again, lost to whatever troubles consumed him, but then his voice, low and quiet, cut through the static. 

“Come here.” 

You blinked, unsure you’d heard him right. “What?”

“Just... closer.”

You moved without thinking. Slowly, cautiously, you slid forward on the couch, knees grazing his, breath shallow in your throat. The space between you disappeared. You could feel his warmth, his stillness, the quiet restraint in the way he held himself.

When he reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear, you didn’t flinch. His fingers lingered against your cheek, almost like he was afraid you might vanish if he wasn’t gentle.

“I’m not gonna lie,” he murmured, his voice barely audible beneath the rain. “You’re killin’ me here.”

You let out a shaky breath. “I thought you didn’t notice.”

“Sweetheart,” he said, voice rough and honest. “I notice everything about you.”

Your breath caught, lips parting on instinct, but no sound came.

God, was this really happening? You could feel it, his gaze, the pull of something simmering just beneath the surface, waiting for a spark. But was this wise? You were holed up here, alone together for who knew how long. If you were wrong and misread this current thread between you, it would ruin everything. There’d be no slipping away, no easy out, just long days and longer nights of awkward silence and sidestepped glances.

You didn’t know if you were ready to be seen like that. To be touched like that. To fall headfirst into something that might not let you come back the same. You swallowed hard, unsure if you wanted to lean in or away. 

And then you took the plunge.

“Let me… let me show you something.”

His breath hitched almost imperceptibly, but he didn’t pull away. “Yeah?”

You focused, just a small pulse of energy through your fingertips, a delicate twist of sensation sent skimming through his nerves like a shiver. It bloomed slowly at first, a gentle, spiralling warmth that coiled from where you touched and then unfolded, spreading like ripples in water.

He inhaled sharply. Eyes fluttering closed. A tremor ran through him, his spine arching ever so slightly as the feeling expanded, not sharp or overwhelming, but deep. A full-body shudder, unforced and unguarded.

You squeezed your fist shut just as his eyes opened in shock. “What was that?”

“Pleasure.” You muttered, almost sheepishly, as heat crawled up your neck. “It’s just another way I can manipulate the senses. Pain, pleasure, hot, cold—”

“Show me again.”

You blinked, unsure if you’d heard right. Momentarily stunned as your nervous ramble melted to nothing on your tongue. “What?”

His eyes met yours. There was no teasing in them, no bravado. Just raw honesty. Curiosity. Need.

“The feeling,” he said. “The pleasure.”

You hesitantly pressed your fingertips gently to the curve of his throat this time, just under his jaw. A warmer spot, closer to where his pulse thrummed, let the sensation unfurl more slowly this time. Syrupy and coaxing, a velvet ribbon of warmth that traced along his neck, over his chest, down his sides. 

He exhaled sharply through his nose, body caught somewhere between a shudder and a squirm.

“Jesus,” he breathed.

You bit your lip, focusing, and let it continue, sliding up through his arms, his back, the curve of his stomach. A steady rise and fall of sweetness and shimmer, like goosebumps made of sunlight.

“Tell me,” you said. “What’s it like? How does it feel?”

His voice was strained, breath catching. “It’s—fuck—it’s like… some is pouring honey down my spine. Like every nerve’s waking up. I don’t know how else to explain it. It’s… good. So good.”

You swallowed hard, your own fingers trembling slightly now. The intimacy of it, watching him react, watching the pleasure ripple through him, watching him feel, it was dizzying. You hadn’t expected this. You hadn’t expected how much it would undo you.

You hadn’t meant for it to turn you on. But there was something so dangerously intoxicating about the control, not over him, but over what he felt. To give something gentle. Something sweet. To offer pleasure instead of pain.

And God, he took it like he’d been starving for it.

“Do you want me to stop?” you asked, barely recognising your own voice—breathy, tight, trembling with restraint.

“No,” he said immediately. “Please. Don’t.”

Your fingers drifted lower, brushing the soft fabric just above his chest. His eyes locked with yours, dark and dilated, his pupils swallowing the colour. Every inch of him was taut, vibrating beneath your touch. His thighs twitched from the phantom of sensation, his breath ragged. You held still, the thrum of your own pulse deafening. Your underwear clung uncomfortably to your skin, soaked through with want. You shifted instinctively, a slow grind against nothing, desperate for friction.

A wicked thought slid through you. Before you could talk yourself out of it, the magic spilt from your fingers, liquid light snaking down his torso, following the line of muscle, dipping lower, lower….straight into the heat of his groin.

His hips jerked up in response, a shocked, broken moan ripping from his throat.

Both of you froze, eyes locked, stunned. The golden glow in your palm flickered, fading, the magic receding like a tide.

And then something snapped.

Your lips crashed into his, sudden and sure. He kissed you back instantly, almost desperately, his hands coming up to cradle your face. You barely registered the storm outside anymore, the flicker of lightning on the windows, the hush of rain. He shifted, and suddenly he was between your thighs, pressing you back into the couch cushions. His weight blanketed you, but it only made your need ache sharper.

One hand cradled your jaw, thumb swiping across your cheek as his lips moved against yours, needy and desperate. You fumbled at the hem of his shirt, tugging it upward and over, your palms dragging over heated skin and hard muscle. His stomach flexed beneath your touch, and you traced along his ribs, up the carved lines of his back, just to feel how he moved.

He groaned into your mouth, a low, guttural sound that went straight to your core. His hips ground down against you, bandage and gash completely forgotten, lost beneath the press of flesh and want.

Your wrap dress loosened under his hands, fingers slipping beneath the knot and unravelling the fabric with an urgency that made your breath stutter. The fabric parted, cool air brushing your skin as he exposed your chest.

Your head tipped back as his mouth left yours, trailing lower in a feverish line, across your jaw, down your throat, over the arch of your collarbone. His head dipped beneath your chin, kissing his way down your sternum like he was worshipping every inch of you.

Then you sent another slow pulse of magic through your fingers and into him, this time directly into his skull.

His kisses faltered, breath catching. Teeth scraped gently across your skin as he let out a sound that was half growl, half groan.

“You’re gonna be the death of me, sweetheart,” he rasped against your chest, breath hot and trembling. Goosebumps rippled over your skin in waves, the warmth of his voice sinking straight into your bones.

You only laughed, breathless. “Good.”

You sent another wave of pleasure, molten and slow, slithering down his spine.

He stiffened, body arching slightly as he rode the feeling. You used the moment to shift, rolling him carefully onto his back. He let you, too lost in sensation to resist. You knelt beside him, half draped off the couch, hair hanging wild around your face as you gazed down at him.

He looked wrecked. Beautiful. Lost. His eyes unfocused, lips parted, chest rising and falling in shallow gasps. You watched the way his muscles jumped and twitched under his skin, the way his mouth struggled to form words.

When he blinked back into awareness, the first thing he did was reach down, hands fumbling at his belt with shaking fingers. You helped him, breath caught in your throat, both of you working together to strip him down.

And when his pants came off—

You stopped, just for a second.

Your breath hitched.

He was huge, hard and flushed, resting against his belly. Your mouth went dry.

“You have to tell me how it feels,” you murmured.

Your hand flattened against his stomach, fingers splayed wide. A deep, pulsing bloom of heat channelled through your palm, arcing downward into the thick, aching weight of him.

His reaction was immediate.

A sharp cry tore from his chest as his hips bucked up off the couch, hands flying to your thighs, fingers digging in as if he needed something to anchor him.

The pleasure took him like a tide.

And you could only watch, trembling, as he unravelled beneath your hands.

“I—I… fuck, sweetheart.” He stuttered, breathless, mouth slack as your magic surged through him, pushed to its limits. The strain already throbbed in your arms and back, a dull, familiar ache blooming beneath your skin, but you didn’t let up. Not yet.

He was beautiful like this, utterly undone. His cock flushed at the tip, slick with precum that beaded from the slit, catching the golden shimmer of your magic. His chest heaved, muscles tensing and quivering as pleasure rolled over him. His eyes were clenched shut, brows knit tight as he rode every pulse of sensation.

Then, just as he trembled on the edge, you withdrew, your magic vanishing abruptly.

He choked out a curse, hips jerking uselessly toward the absence, left hard and aching.

“Holy fuck—” he muttered hoarsely, blinking up at you with dazed eyes. “You’ve been holding that back, sweetheart?”

You giggled, warm and wicked, delight blooming in your chest as his vibranium hand slid up your belly and cupped your breast through your bra. His grip was firm, thumb brushing slow circles that had your spine arching.

“I didn’t think you wanted me,” you whispered, almost shy despite the heat between you.

He stared at you like you’d just told him the sky wasn’t real.

“Didn’t want you?” He looked stricken. “Shit, I thought you didn’t want me. If I had known… if I’d known you didn’t hate me, after everything, I would’ve had you pinned to this damn couch days ago.”

Your head spun. The words lodged in your throat. You couldn’t speak, not when your body was buzzing, not when your heart was hammering like the thunder overhead.

So you showed him.

Your palm lit once more, gold heat pulsing from your fingers like molten thread, weaving into the core of him. His face crumpled beautifully, a groan tearing loose as he squeezed your breast harder, his body lurching with the force of it. Precum spilt onto his stomach in a slippery trail, his hips trembling with the need to move, to finish.

You watched as his right hand dropped, trailing down his stomach in desperation, fingers clumsy, desperate for friction.

You caught his wrist before he could touch himself, eyes narrowing as your breath came in sharp pants. His gaze shot up to meet yours, pupils blown wide.

“I… you fucking minx—”

His voice caught, and then his eyes rolled back. His chest rose and fell rapidly, wrist twitching in your grip as he fought for release. His hips rocked into the air, helpless, caught between your magic and your mercy.

He was close. You could feel it in the way his muscles trembled, in the sounds he made. You wanted to see him fall apart. To come undone under your power, not in pain, not in fear, but in ecstasy.

For once, you wanted someone to reap the rewards of your magic—

But just as your focus began to flicker, just as your grip faltered, Bucky struck.

With a growl, he surged upward. His weight hit you like a wave, knocking the air from your lungs as he flipped you beneath him. Your magic sputtered out, lost in the sudden jolt. You gasped, blinking in surprise as he pinned you with his body, his hips snug between your thighs.

He grinned down at you, smug and breathless, as he locked your legs around his waist.

“You wanna say it?” he murmured, voice rough with lust and teasing threat as he rolled his hips with one testing thrust. “Or do you want me to make you?”

You arched up into him instinctively, a cry caught in your throat, the space between your thighs pulsing with need. Every nerve ending felt electrified, begging for contact, for friction, for him.

“Touch me, please,” you whispered, voice raw and aching.

That was all it took to break him.

“Good girl.” He purred, and then he surged forward, crashing into you with a kiss that was all teeth, tongue, and hunger. Your gasp was swallowed by him, your hands fisting in his hair as he kissed you like he was trying to devour you, like he'd starve without you. His hand slid beneath your skirt in one bold motion, cupping the heat of your soaked underwear.

“Fuck,” he growled, voice cracking with disbelief and lust. He broke the kiss, pulling back just enough to watch his fingers press into you through the fabric. “You’re dripping for me.”

You whimpered, head falling back against the cushions as his thumb found your clit, rubbing maddeningly slow circles through the damp cotton. Every movement sent a jolt up your spine. You couldn’t help the way your hips bucked, chasing after every scrap of friction he offered.

“God, Bucky—”

He latched onto the underside of your jaw, kissing and nipping, teeth grazing just enough to make you squirm. 

“Should’ve known,” he muttered against your throat. “Sitting here all sweet and pretty, thighs clenching, practically vibrating with it. You wanted this, didn’t you?”

Your only answer was a breathless moan as he hooked his fingers under your underwear and tugged them down your legs. The fabric clung to your slick folds before peeling away, leaving you bare and glistening, trembling beneath him.

Cool air hit your wetness, and you jerked, but he held you in place, palm braced firmly against your thigh.

“You’ve been so fucking patient,” he murmured like a promise, and then, finally, his vibranium fingers found you again, brushing through your folds, gathering your wetness before teasing at your entrance. “Such a good girl. Let me take care of you.”

Then he pushed inside, one thick finger curling into you with devastating control. You cried out, hips lifting from the couch as your walls fluttered around him, greedy and clenching. Then another finger followed, stretching you, filling you, and the stretch burned just right.

“Christ,” he groaned, voice ragged, his lips dragging over your collarbone. “You’re so tight… gonna squeeze the life outta me, sweetheart.”

Your hands clawed at his shoulders, his back, anywhere you could find purchase as he fucked you slow and deep with his fingers. His thumb circled your clit in time, the rhythm perfectly matched.

But it wasn’t enough. You needed more. 

Without thinking, your magic stirred, wild and hot and instinctual. It bloomed at your fingertips, golden light flickering like flame across your skin. You pressed your palm to his back, right between his shoulder blades, and poured it into him.

Bucky gasped, his body convulsing above you as the magic hit him, raw pleasure cascading down his spine. His fingers faltered inside you, but you grabbed his wrist and pushed him deeper.

“Don’t stop,” you whispered, voice shaking. “Let me…let me feel you feel it.”

His mouth dropped open, a strangled moan escaping him as the heat of your power flowed down his nerves, threading through his blood like lightning. His arm flexed beside your head, trying to hold himself up as your magic made him quake.

“You’re gonna ruin me,” he rasped, voice nearly unrecognisable, jaw slack as he rocked his fingers harder into you, magic fueling his every movement. “You—fuck, sweetheart—”

“I know,” you cooed, hips stuttering. 

You pressed another surge into him, palm glowing like molten gold. His body shuddered against yours, and this time, he groaned your name. And God, with his fingers driving into you, his mouth on your skin, and your magic wrapped around his soul like silk, you were close. So close.

“Fuck—what are you doing to me?” he groaned, voice cracking as your magic threaded through his chest like silk. “Feels like—feels like I’m burning—”

“You are,” you gasped, your back arching, thighs shaking. “Burning for me.”

Your walls clenched around his fingers, drawing him in as if your body was desperate to keep him there, to never let him go. Every drag of his fingers, every stroke of his thumb over your clit, sent a new wave crashing through you, building like a storm on the horizon.

“Bucky, I—” Your voice broke on a moan as pleasure threatened to spill over. “I can’t—”

“Yes, you can,” he growled, pressing his forehead to yours, sweat beading at his temple. “You’re gonna be a good girl and fall apart for me. Right here.”

Your magic surged in answer to his voice, responding to the ragged way he spoke, to the desperation in his touch. You reached for him again, palm pressed flat to his chest this time, and pushed, magic pouring from your body into his, sparks dancing where your skin met his. It hit him like a shockwave.

His breath caught, a strangled gasp punching out of his lungs. “Oh fuck—”

His entire body shuddered. His hips jerked forward reflexively, grinding against your thigh as his body buckled under the pleasure, his orgasm taking him by force, torn from him by the sheer intensity of your power. A guttural, broken sound ripped from his throat, and you felt the warmth of him spill across your stomach, hot and thick as his cock twitched against you.

That was all it took.

Your climax slammed into you with brutal force, your body seizing around his fingers as the pleasure snapped through you. Your legs trembled, your hips rolled uncontrollably, and you cried out. Your back arched off the couch as your magic exploded outward in golden waves. You clung to him, trembling, your body pulsing around his hand as the orgasm rippled through you, again and again.

Bucky felt it all, every tremor, every pulse, every wave. He grunted, his eyes fluttering closed, mouth open in pure awe as you came around his fingers, your walls fluttering and spasming, slick dripping down his wrist.

Bucky groaned against your throat, his lips open and gasping against your skin, voice gone to gravel. “Jesus Christ.”

He collapsed half on top of you, arm catching his weight as his vibranium hand slowly slipped free, fingers drenched in your juices. You were both breathless, wrecked, his cum smeared across your stomach. You crumpled beneath him, limbs shaking, still tingling from the aftershocks. 

“You okay?” he whispered, brushing your damp hair from your face with trembling fingers.

You managed a breathless laugh. “Are you?”

He chuckled, dropping a kiss to your collarbone. “You just hijacked every nerve in my body and made me see God. So yeah. I’m fucking great.”

You winced sheepishly, heart fluttering. “Sorry. Lost control a little there.”

“Don’t apologise,” he insisted, voice low and reverent. “If that’s you losing control... I want it. Again. And again…”

He kissed your temple, then pulled back slightly to look at you, eyes half-lidded and hungry even in the aftermath. “But next time, sweetheart… I get to make you lose it first.”

You grinned, your pulse still fluttering. “Deal.”

---

hi, if you made it to the end, holy shit congrats. if you enjoyed please let me know! drop a comment below, reblog or send me something through my inbox! thank you for reading my work :) if you want to stay up to date with any series updates or new one-shots being posted, follow my sideblog @artficlly-updates and turn on notifications.

[chuulyssa]

drunk and driven. (light yagami)

↷ A/N ─ happy belated birthday to light and me !! i hope you enjoy this :) again, this is NOT rape/non-con. the reader is as sober as light here. written by a zombie-me at 4am. also im sorry if the camera topic is overused, i just couldnt help myself fantasizing about this

★ COUNT ─ 2.5k

!! TAGS ─ f!reader, dom!light, drinking, smut, fingering, spanking, unprotected sex, p in v, nicknames (good girl, pretty girl, etc.), edging, begging kink, voyeurism

★ PROLOGUE ─ your boyfriend punishes you for almost letting slip his real identity

SMUT, 18+, MDNI

The dim glow of the television cast shadows around the room. You had been at your high school's farewell party, and had too many drinks there to stumble back home in one piece. It was almost midnight, so there was also no way your boyfriend, Light Yagami, would have let you out of his sight, especially with how tipsy you were. He was quite protective of you, but he was right. You let out a drunk sigh and looked away, silently accepting the fact that you'd have to meet his parents in the morning and share a few awkward exchanges.

Light had had more drinks than you at the party, but he looked far from as drunk as you currently were. He was quietly watching a movie on the TV, stroking your hair lightly. Your gaze went up from Light to the flickering screen. A sudden surge of courage rushed through you.

"Light," you whispered, breaking the silence with your hoarse voice.

"No, you're not going home tonight," Light replied without looking at you.

"No, it's not that," you said frustratedly.

Light raised his eyebrows, hearing you slur your words due to the effects of the alcohol. Still, he did not look at you.

"How much did you drink?"

"Less than what you drank," your throat burned, your eyes drooping slightly.

He ignored you, seemingly engrossed in the movie, but you knew it was all just an act for the cameras L had set up.

You continued, "And it doesn't matter how much I drank, because either way, you refuse to give me attention."

Ryuk snickered in the corner.

Light frowned, finally turning his attention towards you as his eyes trailed down your body. He noticed the dark circles under your eyes, the redness of your cheeks, and the slight swaying of your body.

He looked at you for a few more seconds with a calculating look before sighing and setting the remote on his table. He stood up, "You should really get some sleep."

"No," you repeated.

"I-" Light was starting to get annoyed. "Are you crazy? Don't you want to go home tomorrow?"

"I just- I-" You sighed again, leaning back against your chair and almost falling off.

"Idiot," Light muttered, catching you before you fell. He carried you to his bed and lay you down gently before covering you with his blanket. "Are you comfortable? Do you want me to sleep on the floor?"

"No, no, I need cuddles," you smiled drunkenly, completely forgetting what you were going to say back when you had gotten some "courage".

"Of course, you do," Light said proudly. "You need my cuddles to sleep."

You hummed in response. As he snottily took his shirt off before lying down next to you, you closed your eyes slightly. They were burning, as if trying to stop you from both closing them and keeping them open.

His hands made their way to your back, gently pushing your neck to his bare chest. You finally shut your heavy eyelids and snuggled closer to him. This was what you always wanted. Just you and Light. Alone.

You furrowed your eyebrows, your eyes still tightly shut, your face pressed against him. Alone? It was laughable that you thought even for a moment that you two were alone right now. Well, for one, there was a God of Death in the same room as you, trying not to pass out from the lack of apples in his digestive system. Second, a great detective was watching the two of you, possibly along with your boyfriend's own father.

Light pulled you even closer to him, inhaling your scent deeply. Soon, the two of you drifted off to dreamland, and L was left questioning whether the seventeen-year-old star student really was a murderer.

You woke up, limbs tangled with Light's. You checked your wristwatch. About four hours had passed, and as you tried to sit up, your head felt heavy from an early hangover. Light's eyes jerked open. He had always been a light sleeper.

"Hm?" he mumbled in his sleep, no longer feeling the presence of your head in the crook of his neck. "What's the matter, honey?"

"I... had a dream," you said slowly.

"Nightmare?"

"Kinda."

Light sat up slowly and reached out for a glass of water to hand to you.

You peeked into the glass, rubbing your left eye until you saw stars.

"Vodka?" you said hopefully.

"Water," he replied calmly.

You pouted pleadingly; more alcohol was what you needed right now, but you eventually had to resign to your boyfriend. You drank the water, and instantly felt much more sober than you were before. Your sleepy eyes fell on Ryuk, his legs and hands in a rather uncomfortable position, perhaps due to not having apples for such a long time.

For a moment, you, for the second time that night, completely forgot about the existence of the cameras.

You turned to Light. "How long is he going to go without apples?"

"Who, honey?" Light's eyes flashed warningly, but you were far too sleepy to notice.

"Ryuk, your Shini-"

Your words were cut off by a sharp kiss. Light had completely thrown himself at you, and you fell back down on the bed due to the sheer force of his abrupt kiss. The empty glass landed on the floor with a loud clink, but he ignored it. His hands reached under your shirt, his nails digging into the skin of your hips as if daring you to talk further.

You attempted to prop yourself up on your elbows, to gain some kind of control over what was happening. But Light pushed you back down, pulling you by your hips and roughly throwing your head down on the pillow.

He pulled away eventually, the pupils of his eyes completely red, and you cursed yourself mentally. This was not your Light. This was Kira.

He leaned away from you, got up to pick up the thrown glass and filled it with water again, but as he offered it to you, you rejected it. "I'm sober enough for this, Light."

"Very well then," Light whispered and leaned in closer to your ear. "I hope you remember you're being watched. Make sure you put on a show."

You nodded slowly, letting his hands roam around and make their way to the hem of your skirt, twirling the fabric around his fingers. He brought another hand to your top and slid it under the cloth, feeling the material of your satin bra.

"The one I gifted to you?" he raised his eyebrows, a little smirk on his face.

"Yes," you whispered, pulling his bare chest against your clothed one. "Strip me, Light."

"What's the magic word?" he teased, hand slipping under your bra and cupping your breast.

"Please," you whimpered when he pinched your nipple.

Ryuk snapped his eyes open and tumbled out of the room clumsily, perhaps to give you some privacy.

"Good girl," he didn't hide his smirk this time as he pulled your top off completely, throwing it to the side where it landed on his chair next to his own shirt. He ran his hands down your back, grabbing the zipper of your skirt and slowly pulling it down. Light slid the skirt down your legs, leaving you in a matching set of satin underwear and bra.

"Pretty," he murmured, his hand grasping his growing bulge tightly.

"Let me help you with that," you sat up on all fours and leaned in closer, a hand stretched out to touch his crotch.

You rubbed him lightly, slowly increasing your pace before unbuckling his belt and slipping your hand under his boxers. Your constant touching of his tip made him groan, hand reaching out to yank you by your hair and push you back down to the bed. You grabbed his hands and brought them to your breasts, pressing them against your chest.

"Take my bra off."

"I'm not a man to be told what to do," he said, bringing his lips down to your neck. "But I will allow it this time."

Light freed his hands from your grip and brought them to your back, unclasping the hook of your bra and letting it fall to the floor. He cupped your breasts in his hands, lowering himself so that his mouth sucked on one nipple while his hand squeezed the other.

"Fuck," you moaned, pushing his head against your chest.

He grabbed your hand and brought it once more to his crotch, letting you feel the bulge in his pants again.

"You're not the only one who's needy right now."

"You're so- god, I can't wait to feel you inside me," you said, rubbing his dick through the fabric.

"Patient girls are rewarded," he said, dragging his lips from your neck to your collarbone, his free hand ripping your panties off.

"Hey!" you whisper-screamed.

"I'll buy you another set," he said calmly, sliding two fingers inside you, curling them up and hitting your g-spot.

"Yes," you moaned, pushing his hand against your pussy. "Faster."

He brought his other hand from your nipple to your clit and started rubbing it in circles, simultaneously fucking you with his fingers.

"Fuck, I'm going to come," you whimpered after a few minutes, feeling your orgasm build.

"Mhm, do it, what a good girl," he said, rubbing your clit faster, aiding your release. You came hard on his fingers, arching your back, bucking against his hand and moaning loudly. Your legs shook, while he pulled his fingers out of your pussy and brought them to your mouth. "Clean them."

You nodded, sucking on his fingers, your teeth digging into his skin. Light smirked.

"Don't you think you should be punished?"

"Huh-? For what, Li-?"

Your words were cut off once again when he pulled you onto his lap so that your ass faced him and you lay on your stomach, pussy pressed against his crotch.

_ _ _ _

"L, I don't think we should be watching this," Soichiro Yagami kept his eyes away from the screen, where his son, his perfect little son, was busy fingering his girlfriend. He hadn't even known he had a girlfriend, let alone the fact that they were so... intimate with each other.

"There has to be some meaning in what the girl said," L racked his brains, eyes scanning the scene, now showing you in Light's lap and his hand rubbing your ass. "Apples?"

"For god's sake, it may be some sort of safeword for when they- for when they do- this," Soichiro yelled, his eyes on the floor.

"It's not a mere coincidence, Mr Yagami," L said thoughtfully. "Apples? Kira told me 'Shinigamis' loved apples earlier. This is not a coincidence, Mr Yagami."

_ _ _ _

"You're going to be punished for fucking everything up," he whispered in your ear before smacking your ass hard. "Count."

"One!" you yelped, feeling the sting of his hand on your ass. "Two!" "Three!" "Four!" "Five!"

He kept spanking you, alternating between your ass cheeks. You could feel his dick hard against your stomach, and ignoring the pain in your ass, you started to grind against it.

"Six!" "Seven!" "Eight!"

He spanked you harder, and you could feel your ass getting red. You were breathing heavily, and your pussy was so wet that it was dripping onto his lap.

"Nine! Ten!"

_ _ _ _

"Can we stop watching this now?" Soichiro groaned.

"There has to be some hint," L traced the screen with his fingers which showed you getting spanked hard by Light now.

Soichiro let out an uncomfortable sigh.

"Mr Yagami, you can close your ears and eyes," L said without looking away from the screen.

_ _ _ _

"Good girl," Light said, rubbing your ass. "Now, a reward."

He slid his pants and boxers down to his legs and wiggled out of them. He brought his dick to your pussy, rubbing its head against your clit and earning a moan from your pursed lips. He flipped you over, pinning you under him on the bed again as he continued to tease you.

"Please, Light," you begged, trying to reach out for his dick so you could push it in.

"Please what?" he said sweetly and you groaned in annoyance.

"Please fuck me."

He smiled and pushed his dick inside you slowly, savouring every inch of your tight pussy.

"Oh!" you wailed, feeling his cock stretch your pussy.

He started bucking his hips in and out, fucking you harder as his balls slapped against your clit, doubling the pleasure. He was careful not to make a sound, but he didn't stop you from letting your strangled moans out. This would be your punishment, facing his mother in the morning after getting fucked so hard by him at night.

You tried very hard to suppress your lustful sounds, eyes welling up at the thought of facing his family in a few hours, but you couldn't. He was too good. He knew just how to get under your skin. Slowly, you felt your second orgasm approaching.

"Ah, ah! I want to come," you clasped your hand against your mouth to stop yourself from screaming. He was going so hard on you, of course, his mother and his sister would wake up if he continued.

"No, you're not. Hold it in," Light commanded. "You're going to come when I say so."

He kept fucking you harder, and you could feel your orgasm building. This was torture. There was no way you could hold yourself in when he was going so hard on you.

"Please, Light," you begged, feeling your pussy clench around his dick. "I can't hold it in anymore."

"Hold it in, I said," he said, flipping you over again and spanking your ass hard. He increased his speed, and you buried your head in a pillow to muffle your screams. "I'm going to come inside you now. Understood?"

You could feel his cock twitching inside you, and you knew he wasn't lying about his orgasm. You nodded slowly, voice still distant because of the pillow.

He let out a long, satisfied groan as he released his juices inside you, pushing his dick deep inside you. You could feel his cum filling your pussy, and it sent you over the edge.

"Now, come for me, pretty girl," Light said in a hoarse voice.

"Yes!" you screamed, feeling your orgasm wash over you. His cum was dripping out of your pussy, and you could feel his cock softening inside you.

"Good," he said, pulling his cock out of you. It was scary how calm and composed he was when a minute ago, he had spanked you so hard. He grabbed a towel and wiped your pussy clean.

_ _ _ _

Soichiro blinked at the abrupt ending of the sounds. Still refusing to look up at the screen, he asked, "Is it over now?"

"They're both still naked," L said, analyzing the place, feeling his own dick harden at your bare figure, panting and sweating as Light got off you and laid next to you, throwing the towel somewhere insignificant.

"Well then?" Soichiro said.

"Well what?"

"You made me watch my son... doing- doing stuff with his girlfriend," Soichiro said in a shaky voice, his hands behind his back to avoid pulling his hair out in frustration. "What have you understood from this?"

"What I've understood?" L said thoughtfully, his gaze unconsciously reaching his growing bulge. "Your son is quite romantic, I suppose."

© chuulyssa, 2024 - do not copy, plagiarize or repost my works on any platforms. do not translate.

[fatkish]

How the different Avengers take care of a sick Omega Reader

The Alphas:

Bucky-

it depends on when you get sick.

If he’s still on the run then he rarely ever leaves the your side. The only time he does is to get food. He’d buy fruits, white bread, white rice, and other easy to digest foods. He’d probably skin and boiled some apples before mashing them up to make applesauce

He definitely doesn’t trust anyone to help his omega. Would definitely feed you by hand and be waiting on you constantly. Barely ever lets you leave your nest

If you’re feeling weak then he’ll help you get around and help you bathe. He’ll cuddle with you and make sure you’re drinking water. He’ll always have a large bowl or bucket nearby in case you puke

If it’s after he reunites with Steve and spends time in Wakanda

He’ll immediately alert whoever, either Friday or someone in Wakanda depending on where you guys are

He’ll allow Bruce or whoever to look you over and give you medicine but he will be hovering around watching

Treats whatever the doctors say as gospel and makes sure to follow it. If you want a food that the doctors didn’t specify say was okay then you’re not getting it

Might let Steve look after you if needed

Loki-

How he goes about caring for his omega depends on whether he’s on earth or Asgard

King. Of. Comfort. Is your nest too small? Don’t worry you can have the entire floor if necessary. Blankets not soft enough? He’s getting you the most luxurious and soft blankets ever. Lights too bright? He’s about to fight the fucking sun. There is nothing this man won’t do for his omega

Would personally oversee the chefs who make your meals by using a clone if you’re on Asgard. If you’re on earth then he’s constantly backseat driving while either Bruce, Wanda or Pepper cook for you. They’re the only people he trusts to not poison you accidentally

He would cook your food himself but he wants the best for you and his cooking isn’t. Also, he doesn’t want to leave your side while you’re not feeling well

If you have to take medicine that you don’t like then he’s going to find a way to get it in you. Doesn’t matter the method, if you need this medicine you’re getting this medicine even if he has to trick you or seduce you

If you’re sore or tired and need a bath then he’s more than happy to help. He’ll carefully wash your hair and skin, making sure not to get soap in your eyes. He’s careful not to jostle you too much in case you’re feeling queasy

If you’re having trouble keeping things down then he’ll hold your hair back and sit with you by the toilet. If you’re crying from the constant vomiting then he’ll rub your back and softly sing to you to comfort you

If your nest doesn’t feel right then he’ll gladly be your proxy and build your nest for you as you tell him where to put things. It doesn’t matter how many times he has to repeat the process, as long as you’re comfortable

If you’re just an overall emotional mess then he’ll be more than happy to comfort you in your time of need. If you’re just so sick of feeling sick he might put a sleep spell on you so you don’t have to suffer, he’ll watch over you and make sure you come out feeling better

Thor-

Giant. Puppy. Energy. He will cuddle with you, bring you food, watch tv with you. Whatever makes you feel better, he’s down for it

You want to snuggle and have skin to skin contact? Move over, he’s already lost his clothes and doesn’t mind snuggling. You’re self conscious because you’re sweaty, your hair is a mess, you look like shit? He only sees the most beautiful omega ever and he’s more than happy to prove it to you

Whatever food you need he’s gonna get. If he has to fly across the world just to get these one chips you like only to return and you throw up after eating them, he doesn’t care. As long as it’s to help you, he’ll do whatever he needs to

You want to steal his cape and use it in your nest? He already put it there. The world needs saving, eh, there’s always tomorrow, right now his omega needs him

If you’re fussy and a pain when your sick, he doesn’t mind, you don’t feel well so he’s happy to let you do whatever you need to make you feel better

He’ll tell you stories about his childhood and his adventures as you lay your head on his chest and try to rest

He’ll bring you the fluffiest blankets for your nest and help you build it too, all he wants is for his omega to get better

Steve Rodgers-

Having spent over a decade being sick in the past, he’s no stranger to being ill. He might not be an omega anymore but he knows and remembers what helped him

He’ll make old family recipes just for you, he’ll use everything he remembers from being sick. Cold damp towel on your forehead to help ease the fever, warm blankets and easy to digest meals

He’s more than happy to feed you if you need it. If you can’t keep things down then he’s already got the puke bucket ready for you by your side

If nothing works then he’s happy to do some research even if he struggles with it

Will gladly let Bruce look you over and give you a checkup. If you need medicine and you hate the way it tastes he’ll use every trick in the book to get you to take the medicine. Afterwards he’ll give you praise and lots of snuggles

He’ll help you bathe but he’ll definitely be shy about it. He has to clean your crotch and chest? His face is red as he looks away but he’s gentle and thorough making sure you get clean

If you have an accident like throwing up on yourself because you couldn’t reach the bucket or the toilet fast enough and your embarrassed, he’ll smile softly and reassure you that whatever you did, he’s probably done at least twice. He’ll even tell you embarrassing stories about himself and have Bucky join in if it makes you feel better

Bruce/Hulk-

There’s only one thing these two can agree on and it’s that they love/care about you

The moment Bruce realizes you’re sick, he goes full mother hen mode. Partially because he himself is an omega, but also because it’s the doctor in him. He brings you to his lab or he brings his equipment to you and does whatever tests he needs

Hulk will be yelling at him in his head the entire time to let him out so he can take care of you while Bruce does his check up on you

Bruce somehow manages to convince Hulk to let him run the tests so he can make sure your condition is nothing serious. Once they both know that it’s just the flu and you won’t die or need some exotic/fancy treatment then Bruce relents and allows Hulk to care for you

Hulk is definitely a cuddler, he climbs into your nest and lets you use him as a bed. He’s got his arms around you and holds you keeping you warm. C’mon, the guys practically a giant gamma powered heater

Hulk will wrap you up in a blanket burrito and purr to you, Hulk can be surprisingly soothing and he holds nothing back, he knows he can’t smash the germs making you sick, so he provides moral support while your body fights

Hulk listens to Bruce’s instructions on how to care for you and make you food. If his form is too inconvenient then he’ll let Bruce handle the intricate things like cooking or getting your medicine

Bruce has a Hulk sized tub so Hulk can bathe, Hulk helps you and is gentle with you as he washes your hair and body. Makes sure you’re nice and dry using his big towel

Hulk gently rubs your back as you puke and holds your hair back. He doesn’t like seeing you so miserable

If you want to watch movies then Hulk will cuddle with you even if you fall asleep and he hates the movie, anything for his omega

The Betas:

Scott Lang-

This sweet baby is immediately on his feet and worried for you

He might not be an alpha but that has nothing to do with how much he loves/cares for you

This lovable goofball is running around like a chicken with his head cut off at the first sign of the sniffles

Will definitely get the ants to help clean the house and make sure to sanitize everything so that the germs are gone

If you’re puking then he’ll braid your hair and put it in a bun so it’s out of the way, he has a daughter so his papa instincts are in full swing

He helps you get in and out of your nest, bringing you whatever you need and making sure you’re warm and cozy

If you’re feeling down or tired of being sick then he’s more than happy to cheer you up. Cue the magic tricks and playing rockband with the ants

He’s more than happy to cuddle with you if it makes you feel better, anything for you

He doesn’t mind if your nose is stuffed or runny, he’s got plenty of tissues and even makes a game of seeing how many he can throw in the trash from afar

Tony Stark-

Now he knows he’s not the best with caring for sick people but as the team’s omega, which he personally recruited, he takes his job seriously

He’ll have Bruce look you over and make sure it’s just the flu before making sure that you have everything you need

If you specifically want him to snuggle with you then move over, he’s snuggling but your watching a movie too

He’ll have either Jarvis or Friday monitor you so he can ensure that you’re eating and staying hydrated. If you’re puking they’ll alert him so he can make sure you get easy to digest meals

He’ll watch bad movies with you so the both of you can roast the movie. For example: an old sci/fi with terrible visual effects that he’ll keep commenting on. That or you’ll watch YouTube videos of people failing and doing stupid stuff

He’ll gladly order whatever you need no matter how ridiculous, if a dozen dancing cacti make you feel better, you’re going to get double

You’re not allowed to move from your nest unless it’s to use the bathroom. He’s very controlling but in a loving sense. You don’t move to get anything, that’s why he’s here, he’ll get what you need so don’t move

He almost becomes like a worried parent, constantly hovering over the line of ‘its just a bruise’ and ‘everyone panic! It’s the return of the plague’. He’s constantly a mix between relaxed and incredibly worried

[takes1]

playing with asahi azumane's hair

ahhh an original for a change woo! hope this finds the right crowd

warnings. sfw :0 minors still DNI

details. afab!reader / fluff / sprinkling of suggestiveness / crushing on asahi / validated crush / platonic?touch / mutual!crush / sweet!asahi / sensitive!asahi / love language: physical touch / sleepy, feel-good fic / 1.4k words

links. masterlist. more haikyuu. my ao3. requests OPEN.

Asahi's shoulder had been rubbing on your calf for three hours now. It was warm, pleasant, but not indicative of a damn thing.

You craved more.

The only evidence you had, equally falsifiable as it was, was the fact that he had not moved away from you.

You gave a disinterested sigh at the colorful, flashing TV. Smash Bros was fun for the first hour, but you soon gave your controller to Nishinoya and had no stake in the fight.

You glanced down at Asahi's handsome face for the umpteenth time tonight.

He held a soft frown, his brow naturally heavy and set like he was frustrated at whatever he focused on. Asahi didn't play much. He liked to watch, and gave some commentary, but you figured out that he must have simply enjoyed the inclusion, the company, of a close sleepover such as this one.

When he reached across the floor in front of you to grab another sour gummy worm from its bag, you forced a fake interest in the screen again. He lingered a moment or two too long. Then, he found what he was looking for and sat back upright, chewing on it, color by color instead of all-in-one.

Your fists tightened. Morbid curiosity, mixed with a bit of sleep deprivation, and compounded boredom, fueled a stormy, boundary-crossing question.

It was a mutter, but anyone not paying 100% attention to the game could probably hear you, "Could I play with your hair?"

As soon as the last syllable left your lips, you grew hot with regret.

That was the kind of question that could make things too weird, too quick, and things might never be the same. You could spare that embarrassment with just about anyone else in this room, but not him.

It was innocent, but didn't sound like it; not out loud. You just wanted to touch him. That sounded awful, but the feeling was so strong and pure, you couldn't fully believe that it was as wrong as its near-guaranteed perception.

Asahi raised his brows, honey-brown eyes made intentionally softer for you.

He returned your exact volume, "Sure!"

Your expression remained still, a little wide-eyed, still polite, as you digested his too-easy yes.

Suga gave you an ultra-soft nudge, your queue, in a way, to come back to the land of the living. You glanced to him, unable to hide your shock, and he chuckled at you.

"-Haven't brushed it in a few hours--," Asahi was pulling his hair out of the clip he had it confined in.

It all cascaded down his shoulders in a dark, rich, shade of brown. His fingers racked through it, close to the scalp, a few times, with a little shake. His curls came loose and you couldn't see his face as he leaned, settling onto the carpet in front of you.

"Let me know if there's too many tangles. I can get those- uh--,"

You both realized your knees were not a comfortable surface to lean back on.

In an awkward, shaky adjustment, you spread your knees apart to make room for his shoulders on the back of the couch, closer to you. He took the liberty of grabbing your ankles and placing your legs in front of him.

Your body was frozen, unsure of what to do, with the sensation of his warm, warm body on your legs- his hands easily wrapped around your ankles. You could feel his bulky, muscular shoulders on the back of your thighs and had to collect yourself for a few moments.

His hair was so soft. It slipped through your fingers like water.

Coconut oil. You caught a whiff of it and almost melted. You desperately hoped he couldn't sense the tremble in your fingers.

Every twitch, every movement, you made mental note of.

It took minutes to get adjusted to the act of being this close to him, without overanalyzing every breath. He kept the bag of gummy worms in his lap, and ate more frequently now that he didn't have to try as hard to get to them.

But you couldn't stay so nervous forever.

Fatigue, if anything, overcame your anxiety and helped you slowly relax. You paid half-attention to the screen, half to the braids you began, brushed out with your fingers, then restarted with muscle memory.

You would take your time parting his hair at the scalp, using your nails to better separate the sections, and go about the process from side to side, then back again.

"Looks like somebody's falling asleep," Suga mumbled.

As sleepy as you felt, you automatically thought was that he was talking about you.

When you turned to look at him, confused, you noticed he was instead looking at your lap. A feint smile, amused, but charmed, on across his own tired face.

Curious, you craned to look down at Asahi-- his eyes were rolling back into the sockets, his whole face completely relaxed. It was downright adorable.

You slowly brushed out the braid and just used your nails to give him head scratches, instead.

"Mm-h," Was his short, quiet groan.

Now you could feel the full weight of his body adjust, twitching, as he woke up and started to fall back asleep again.

His deep sigh lifted your thighs along with the height of his shoulders. He leaned his head back onto your hands, then crossed his arms, trapping your ankles with a small shimmy.

From here, you realized his skull was kind of big. It was proportional to his body, but it felt like he was spreading your inner thighs further than you fantasized he might.

The way he craned his head back made it almost impossible to get to his hair. You were looking straight down at his twitchy, sleeping face.

Your fingers needed something to do. They flitted over his skin in a natural reaction.

He sighed through his nose, relaxed again, fully into you.

Your heart fluttered at the seemingly unconscious action. You were careful not to scratch him as you began tracing over all his chiseled features.

His crooked nose bridge, up to his forehead, through his thick eyebrows. You dipped your knuckles down his cheeks and discovered exactly how much you liked his facial hair.

He shaved more of his face than you thought. His 5 o'clock shadow was rough, and textured, along his jaw.

The other guys were starting to head to bed.

Some looked satisfied in their bundled up blankets, laying on the floor where they had fallen asleep a while ago watching the first-years and their endless energy. They, at least, continued to play into the small hours of the night.

Your desire to keep him here was getting blurred with your need to get some rest, too.

You took as much as enjoyment as you could waking him, using the kindest voice you could, lightly scratching his scalp again.

"Mm-!" He woke with a mumble and a quiet gasp.

His stubble scratched against your inner thigh as his head jerked properly upright. As much as you felt the scratch of his jaw, he felt the soft, smooth flesh of your leg and loved it, too.

Immediately, he realized his position and his rough hands slid back over your calves, calculating how much he actually needed to move.

You caught his hesitation for what it was, for once.

Your small, excited, smile remained audible as you told him, "We're going to sleep now."

Asahi nodded, but didn't move. Not right away, at least.

"Mmkay," He grumbled, and twisted to lean hard against your right leg. He clutched it tighter and smushed the side of his face into your supple skin.

The way his small movement shifted your balance kept your fists tight, your lip bitten, and your heartbeat strong throughout your whole body.

You whispered, giddy, "Asahi-!"

"(Y/n)," He muttered, in a very weak attempt to return your inflection.

Your hand placement was second, triple, then quadruple-guessed before you decided to place it on his chest, doubled over to better speak to him.

"I'm serious, I need to get up."

From here, you were nearly eye-level. He glanced at you. Needy, still.

His gaze was low, steady, and fuzzy in intention.

It sent a shiver down your spine.

After a moment, he yielded with another tired sigh and rubbed a firm squeeze into your shin. And even though you were released, you remained to return his kindness with another stroke through his hair.

From the side, you could see how his jaw tightened at the motion. It needed to stop there.

You prayed he wouldn't forget about this when the morning came around.

☆VIP☆

@integers @paradoxicalwritings @yuchacco @screamin-abt-haikyuu

links.

my masterlist. requests open.

[whocaresstillthelouvre]

The Return

Batter Up Chapter 7

Pairing: Baseball player Joel Miller x Female Reader Rating: Explicit. 18+ (Minors DNI) Summary: After a month of being away from the game and the girl he loves, Joel Miller is back and ready to play. Warnings: smut, making a sex tape, oral (f receiving), unprotected p in v (reader has an IUD), cream pie, also regular pie, joel miller's dirty mouth, wine. Words: 5,000

A/N: Thank you to my dearest @devineconjuring and her beautiful brain for beta'ing and being my grammar goddess.

Masterlist Playlist

⚾️⚾️⚾️

The crowd chants Joel’s name, lights flicker through the stadium, the ground feels like it’s shaking beneath his feet. He loves this feeling—the rush of adrenaline coursing through him, the loud crowd drowning out every doubt he’s ever felt. After three weeks on the injured list and another week rehabbing in the minors–a month away from the big leagues–Joel Miller is back.

He walks to the plate, digging his heels into the dirt and tapping his bat against the plate as he soaks in the moment. 

“Miller, good to see you back,” the catcher says.

Joel nods, and grunts an acknowledgment back.

His eyes settle on the pitcher, some young phenom throwing 99-mph with almost every pitch. Don’t worry kid, you’ll get old like me.

The first pitch whooshes past him—ball one. 

Ball two.

Strike one.

The pitcher’s keeping it a little outside, Joel inches closer to the plate, squaring up. The pitcher winds up again, Joel takes a deep breath, feeling the vibration of the bat as it connects with the ball. The crack of the bat reverberates through the stadium as the ball soars past the infield, over the outfield, and disappears beyond the right-field fence.

Home run.

The crowd erupts, the celebratory bell tolls as he rounds the bases. His eyes scan the club box above third base, finding you amidst the cheering fans, your arms raised high, that smile of yours lighting up his heart.

Joel Miller is back, doing what he loves, and now in front of the woman he loves.

__

You’re so proud of him. You wipe the tears from your eyes as Joel’s feet touch home base. His recovery wasn’t easy. Every week away from the game for someone as old as him means double the work versus a young kid just in the game. Forty year olds aren’t known for being pro athletes. 

With the long Labor Day weekend, you were able to take time off from work and travel by train to Philadelphia to witness Joel's celebrated comeback, which had turned into a legend after his grand slam. Suddenly, all of your worries are lifted away. The stress of telling your families that you're a couple, your demanding job as a column writer at Sporting Digest that revolves around the ebb and flow of games, trades, and record breaking moments–none of it matters now.

Your responsibilities at work have been stacking up over the past few weeks. Churning out articles on everything from college football predictions to analyses of NBA draft picks. When you were hired you agreed to not cover baseball, what with the conflict of interest and all. Now, you dream of the headlines you could write about your boyfriend’s triumphant return. 

You’ve barely been able to leave your laptop. Last week, you spent three days shadowing a tennis star at the US Open, scribbling notes on her training and the pressure of being labeled the “next big thing.” You’ve barely had time to breathe, let alone do laundry, go grocery shopping, and, most importantly, be there for Joel. You put in countless hours of work to make this long weekend possible, just so you could witness his big comeback firsthand. 

“Heck of a player that Miller is,” you hear the TV in the corner say. “He sure knows how to show everyone he’s still got it, doesn’t he?” 

You clutch his number dangling from your neck, you’re so proud of him, always proving everybody wrong. Well worth every sacrifice. 

__

The Liberties win, 4-0, all thanks to Joel’s grand slam in the first inning. Sports radio is going to have a field day with this. 

You make your way down to the stadium’s corridors, where staff rush around with more important tasks than yours. 

The Liberties clubhouse sits just ahead of you, the two large blue doors stay closed to onlookers. You rest your back against the cold cinder block wall and send Joel a text, telling him to take his time.

A year ago, you never could’ve imagined this. Joel Miller—rugged, no-nonsense baseball star, the man who occupied your teenage dreams—now your boyfriend. The man who keeps your favorite pasta sauce in his pantry. The man who goes mattress shopping with you. It feels surreal, yet so real at the same time.

Every time that damn blue door opens your heart skips a beat, hoping you’ll find Joel walking out. False alarm after false alarm. 

Until…

Joel emerges, hair slicked back, wearing a gray Liberties shirt, khaki pants, and those cheesy white New Balance sneakers you tease him relentlessly about. Joel, you’re way too rich to be wearing these damn ragged shoes. 

“Hi baby,” he smiles as he wraps his arms around you, pushing you further against the wall. 

“Hi,” you breathlessly respond, smelling the body wash on his skin. Damn, he showered. “Good game.”

“It was, wasn’t it?”

You can’t help but smile at how happy he is, back where he belongs, doing what he loves.

“Come on,” he says, pulling you close. “Let’s go celebrate.” His arm stays around your waist as he leads you through the corridors to his car.

It’s so freeing now, being able to cheer for—and love—Joel out in the open, for all eyes to see.

__

“You know you made me cry today, right?” you say, reaching for his hand resting on your thigh.

“I did, huh?” he replies with a smirk on his face.

He always looks so confident as he drives. Philly’s narrow streets, filled with potholes and pedestrians, are nothing like Austin’s, but he navigates them as effortlessly as he does everything else—injuries, tough teammates, media storms. He handles it all like he handles a fastball: with ease.

“Yeah, I’m really proud of you,” you tell him softly, grabbing his hand harder. “I know I’ve said it a hundred times, but I’m just so happy to be here for you.”

He smiles that quiet Joel smile. “That’s how I feel watching you handle everything too.”

"So, where are we headed?" you ask, noticing you're not on the route to his apartment. “I hope I’m dressed okay,” you say, looking down at your simple red gingham dress. 

"It’s a surprise. You’ll be fine, you look beautiful baby," he says.

The car winds through the city. You glance over, watching the city lights flicker across his face as the car turns off the main road, slipping into a quieter neighborhood.

The car pulls up to a small, unassuming brick building tucked away on a quiet side street. No flashy sign, no valet—just a discreet, vintage lantern hangs above the door. It’s definitely a place Joel prefers. 

He turns off the car and turns to you, his hand still resting on your thigh. “Thought we’d keep it low-key,” his deep voice rumbles in the quiet of the car.

You nod, your smile widening. “Perfect.”

He steps out of the car and, ever the gentleman, comes around to open your door before guiding you toward the entrance. You wrap your arm around his, leaning into his warmth as he leads you inside.

—

“Mr. Miller, welcome to Vetri Cucina. We’re happy to have you here. Let me show you to your table.”

“Silvio," Joel says with a firm handshake. "Good to see you. Thanks."

Your eyes scan the cozy space. Shiny worn floorboards, warm amber walls, a glistening chandelier that hangs from the low ceiling–you’ve never seen a place like this before. Little did you know that behind the unassuming brick row home exterior there would be a whole functional restaurant. It feels like the perfect mix of a place for the two of you, rustic and intimate.

Silvio leads you both up a narrow staircase to a private room on the second floor. A table for two sits in the center of the room. A red glass chandelier hangs above it, candlelights flickering shadows across the golden walls.. 

“So, we’re still hiding our dinners with each other away from prying eyes?” you tease as Joel pulls the chair out for you and you take a seat.  

“Not exactly,” he says, taking your hand in his. “I just wanted to show off that I can get us a private table at one of the best restaurants in Philly.”

You laugh. “I’m sure there’s a Golden Corral around here.”

Joel chuckles. “Very funny. But trust me—you’ll love it here. They’ve got all the fancy dishes with those French words you like.”

“You know me too well.”

“Better than you think,” he says, his eyes gleaming under the golden light.

—

A waiter approaches, a polished smile on his face. “Good evening, and welcome. My name is Royal, and I’ll be taking care of you tonight. We have a special tasting menu prepared just for you, personally selected by our chef. It’ll start with an appetizer, followed by a pasta course, a main, and dessert.” 

Your mouth waters as Royal pours you a glass of wine. 

”Each course will be paired with a wine from our grand collection. Your first course will be out shortly. In the meantime, is there anything else I can bring you?”

Joel shakes his head. “We’re all set, thanks.”

“Wow,” you say once the waiter leaves, glancing around the elegantly set table. “I feel a little underdressed for a tasting menu.”

Joel shrugs. “I have a feeling they won’t care what we’re wearing once I pay the bill. Besides,” he says with a smile, “I like you in that red dress.”

“Atta boy, Texas,” you say, smiling as you sip your wine.

—

After a couple courses of delicious appetizers that you happily eat, but Joel barely touches, the water returns, presenting the main course with a flourish. 

"For your entrée, we have our signature dish: salt-crusted tilapia with a bread salad of parsley and tomatoes, alongside grilled artichokes on a bed of smoked squash puree."

You glance at Joel as the waiter expertly cracks the salt crust, revealing the perfectly cooked fish underneath. You know Joel hates fish and artichokes. The waiter sets down two glasses of white wine and disappears, leaving you both alone with the dish.

"Baby, what are you going to do?" you ask, eyes wide as Joel picks up his fork.

“Don’t worry about me. I’m here to impress you,” he says with determination before spearing a piece of the fish. He takes a bite, his nose crinkling ever so slightly as he chews.

“How is it?” you ask, biting back a smile.

Joel grimaces. “I’ve had better.”

You chuckle softly, shaking your head. “Please don’t eat it. I know the only fish you like is fried.”

“Always been more of a Filet O Fish man myself.”

“I don’t think they’ve got tartar sauce here, so please, for me, don’t force yourself.”

He sets down his fork with a relieved sigh, his hand finding yours again. “Anything for you.”

When the waiter returns, he doesn’t comment on Joel’s barely touched plate, but you notice a subtle, appreciative smile as he clears away your empty dish.

“Well,” you say, leaning back, happy and full from dinner. “At least there’s dessert.”

“Never said no to dessert,” he chuckles, before looking you in the eyes with adoration. 

"You know," he begins, his voice low and serious, "I couldn't have done this without you. Coming back after my injury—”

Joel's voice trails off as he searches for the right words. His eyes stare into yours. You squeeze his hand encouragingly, needing to hear more. 

“It wasn’t just physical,” he continues. “It was mental. Wondering if I still had it within me, if I was too old, if it was time for me to hang up my cleats. But you—you never doubted me for a second.”

Tears pool in your eyes as his thumb brushes back and forth against your knuckles. 

"I’ve always been your fan, Joel. I’ll always believe in you.”

He nods, a small smile lighting his face. “I know, and that’s what got me through. I love you.”

“I love you too,” you smile through tears. 

The waiter approaches with dessert, you silently thank the interruption so you’re not left sobbing in the middle of this beautiful restaurant over how much you love your boyfriend. 

A familiar slice of pie is placed in front of you and Joel.

“Uppercrust?” you excitedly ask, your eyes widening at the large, glazed pecans laying atop the golden crust. 

Joel gives a shy, satisfied nod, his lips curving into that familiar, gentle smile. "Thought we’d end the night with our favorite. Had Sarah overnight it to the restaurant."

“Jooooel,” you breathe out, overwhelmed by his thoughtfulness. You stare at the pie, stunned by how deeply he cares for you.

“All for you baby,” he says softly as he lifts his fork and cheers with a playful smile. “Cheers to Austin and that hotel bar.”

You laugh, grabbing your own fork and tapping it against his. “Cheers,” you whisper, trying to steady your voice. 

“Oh my god,” you moan around the fork at the first taste of sweet pie. “I can’t believe you got this. You’re too good to me.”

He barks a laugh. “Baby, this is nothing, I owe you so much.” 

The pie is sweet, but your boyfriend is sweeter. 

The sweet wine served with the pie warms your body, Joel’s smile from across the table warms you even more. You sneakily slip your foot out of its sandal, and run it up his leg, making your way up to his crotch. He jumps in surprise, his eyes leer at you as he takes a sip of wine. Your foot finds its target, against the soft fabric of his pants, thankful for the white tablecloth that hangs from the table. He places a hand on your foot, pushing it closer to his crotch. You giggle as your toes wiggle back and forth, teasing him. 

“So, what’s next?” you ask, with a mischievous grin.

"Well, after we finish dinner, I'll pay the bill, grab some leftover pie for later...and then take you home and fuck you," he responds confidently.

A small hmph escapes your lips at the promise. “Is that so?”

“Oh, it absolutely is,” he replies, a sly grin spreading across his face. He leans in close, his voice lowering to a secretive whisper. “Just think about it—my place, those fancy sheets of mine you love so much…”

His hand wraps around your foot, pressing it harder against him. 

“Now you’re just making me impatient,” you tease. 

—-

The plates are cleared, the leftover pie is boxed up, Joel settles the bill and rises from his seat, extending his hand to help you up. 

Your fingers lace together as you step out into the warm summer night. Joel leads you to his car, unlocking it and opening the door for you. You lean over and seal your mouth over his, relishing in being able to kiss him out in the open. You pull away and give him a smirk before getting in and sliding across the passenger seat, your heart racing with anticipation for the next stop—Joel’s apartment. 

Your time together has been precious and few. Your career keeps you north in New York, Joel’s training and rehabilitation game have kept him busy and all over the states. But now, you finally have three nights together—the most time you've had since his injury a month ago. 

He glances over at you and winks before he adjusts the rearview mirror. You miss his truck back in Austin, the front bench seat allowing you to slide over and cuddle him close. You curse the existence of the center console. 

“Buckle up, baby,” he says with a grin. Your heart races at the double entendre. 

—-

Taking the elevator up to Joel's penthouse brings back memories of that first night together, when you couldn't believe how handsome he looked in that golden elevator at the hotel, not believing you were about to sleep with Joel Miller. Now, his body presses against yours as you lean on him, his head nestled in the crook of your neck as he leaves sweet kisses down your skin to the matching pendant of his number you wear, leaving a kiss against it before his eyes meet yours. 

“I can’t tell you how much I love seeing this on you, baby,” he says before licking his way up to your mouth, sealing his over yours. He grabs your ass, lifting you into his hold, your legs instinctively wrap around his waist, your arms wrap around his wide shoulders. 

The elevator doors open and he carries you into his penthouse, crowding you against the entryway wall. His mouth moves against yours with fervor, deepening the kiss as your fingers tangle in his hair. You gasp against his mouth, the cool wall chilling your overheated skin. 

“God, you’re so beautiful,” he murmurs between kisses, his breath warm and sweet against your lips. “I’ve missed this—missed you.”

He turns and carries you to the living room. The ambient city lights shining in from the floor-to-ceiling windows light Joel’s way. He gently sets you down on the couch and slides his hand to the back of your neck, pulling you closer for another kiss.

“Let me show you how much I’ve missed you, baby,” he whispers against your lips, pausing to look into your eyes.

You nod, breathless and eyes wide. “Please,” you whisper. 

He grins, standing back slightly, taking in the sight of you sprawled on his couch, dress askew. “You look so damn good.” 

His hands rest on the hem of your dress and, with a cocky grin, he slowly lifts it up, exposing the soft skin of your thighs. 

“God, this is all I’ve been thinking about. Drove to the ballpark thinking about you, stepped up to the plate thinking about you, and, baby,when I saw you in the stands… all I could think about was you naked in my arms.” 

“Joel…” you struggle to find the words, already lust-drunk on his words. 

“I need to taste you.” 

He drops down to his knees in front of you, his large fingers slipping beneath the waistband of your underwear and sliding them off.

You bite your lip as he grips your thighs and spreads them apart.

He breathes out a deep sigh at the sight of you. A low whistle leaves his lips. “There she is, she’s so fuckin’ pretty.”

He leans closer and places soft kisses along your inner thighs, teasingly slow, making your heart race even faster.

“Joel…” you plead.

He spreads you wider, warm breath teasing against your core. He licks a long, slow line from bottom to top, humming appreciatively at the first taste of you. 

Your back arches, a gasp escaping your lips. "Oh my God," you breathe.

His rough palms grip your thighs, thick fingers digging into the flesh as he holds you steady. His hot breath tickles your skin as he licks you. "God, you taste so good," he murmurs against you, his voice vibrating against your cunt. “Missed this taste.” 

His tongue explores you as your fingers tangle in his hair, gripping the soft waves of his dark strands.

Two thick fingers slide inside you, stretching you perfectly. Plush lips close around your clit, sucking and lapping at your sensitive nub.

It's been almost a month since he last touched you like this, and now with his skilled mouth and fingers all over you, your body is ready to let go.

“Joel,” you moan. “C-close.”

He enthusiastically hums against you, deep brown eyes staring into yours from under furrowed brows. His fingers pumping in and out of you as his tongue flicks rapidly over your clit. Your pussy pulses against his thick fingers, squeezing them as you bloom under the pleasure of finally feeling his touch. Goosebumps rise all over your skin, cheeks heating, legs trembling, and your eyes tightly shut… and when he curls his fingers upwards inside you, your orgasm crashes into you, your pussy soaking his hand and your voice screaming his name. He doesn't stop, continuing to lick and tease you through your orgasm until it's all too much and you're pulling at his hair.

He pulls back with a satisfied smile and kisses your inner thigh before standing and placing a kiss on your lips. You taste yourself as he licks into your mouth. His plush lips sucking against yours. 

Before you can catch your breath, Joel scoops you up in his strong arms, throwing you over his shoulder and carrying you into his bedroom. You giggle as he smacks your ass and growls. 

He sets you on the edge of his bed, the crisp white sheets cool against your overheated skin. He steps back, his eyes roaming over your body. 

“Stay right there,” he says as he moves to the closet, rummaging around for a moment before returning with a black camera and tripod in hand. 

Your breath catches at the sight as he sets them up, carefully adjusting the angle. 

The tiny red recording light blinks on and the little screen lights up. There you are, all disheveled—dress hiked up, your lips full and swollen from Joel’s mouth. 

His eyes meet yours. “Is this okay?” he asks softly.

You nod, excitement running through your body. “Yes,” you breathe. 

He grins as he removes his shirt, tossing it to the side before he steps out of his pants. He stays behind the camera, standing in the shadows like a director. “Go ahead baby, take it all off.”

You stand slowly, your heart racing at Joel and the camera’s attention. Dark brown eyes watch you intently from behind the camera, his eyes never leaving your every movement. You reach back and unzip your dress, pulling it down, as you slowly slip the straps off, letting the dress fall to the floor, the red gingham fabric pooling at your feet. 

"God, you're gorgeous,” he whispers.

You reach behind to unclasp your bra, staring at Joel as you let it fall away. Your breasts are exposed to his eyes and the camera, your nipples hardening in the cool air. You’re completely bare now except for the necklace with his number. 

"Touch yourself for me, baby," he instructs softly.

You smile, running your hands slowly up your sides, cupping your breasts. Your fingers glide over your nipples, teasing them to stiff peaks before you back up against the bed and lay across it, spreading your legs wide for the camera and Joel. Your hand snakes down your body, across your stomach, down to the apex of your thighs. 

You lock eyes with Joel as you slowly circle your clit, your breath hitching. His gaze is dark from behind the camera, his chest rising and falling rapidly. You can see the outline of his cock straining against his boxer briefs as he watches you pleasure yourself. Your fingers dip lower, sliding into your wet heat.

"That's it, baby," he groans. "Show me how you like to be touched."

Your other hand kneads your breast, pinching and rolling your nipple.

Joel steps out from behind the camera, moving to the edge of the bed. He strips off his boxers, his thick cock springing free. He strokes himself slowly as he watches you.

"You're so fucking sexy," he growls.

You whimper at his words, your fingers moving faster. "Please, baby,” you whine, “I need you."

He grabs your foot and turns you on the cool, slick sheets. Glancing over at the camera’s small display screen to check the angle of your body.  

He climbs on the bed and you instantly welcome the warmth of his presence and his broad body. He positions himself between your legs, gripping his cock and running the head through your folds, coating himself in your wetness. Your breath catches as he slowly pushes inside, a smile lighting your face at finally feeling him inside you.

"Fuck," he groans, his eyes fluttering closed as he bottoms out. "You feel so good, baby. So tight and wet for me."

You moan as he starts to move, his hips rolling against yours in a steady rhythm. Your hands glide over the expanse of his shoulders and down his muscular back, relishing in feeling the flex of his strong muscles with each thrust.

He leans down, capturing your lips. His tongue tangles with yours as he picks up the pace, fucking you harder. 

"Look at the camera, baby," Joel murmurs against your neck. "Let's show it how good I make you feel."

You tilt your head, looking directly at the camera lens with heavy-lidded eyes. The knowledge that you are being recorded, that Joel will watch this later, that the two of you will get off while watching yourselves… it’s a new thrill for you. You moan louder, arching your back higher as Joel fucks you. 

"Touch yourself for me," he commands.

Your hand snakes between your bodies, fingers finding your clit. 

"Oh god, baby," you moan, your fingers working furiously at your clit as he pounds into you. "I'm so close."

Joel's rhythm falters slightly as he watches you touch yourself, sweat glistening on his brow. "That's it. Cum for me. Let me feel you."

Your voice echoes through the room as you cry out Joel’s name, your body trembling as your walls clench tightly around him. 

“Fuck,” he grunts, his hips snapping against yours. “So fucking good, you cum so fucking good for me. So fucking tight.”

He pulls your body towards him, sitting up on the bed, his cock still buried deep inside of you. You take control and ride him, your legs wrapping around his waist as you grind down on him. His hands grip your hips firmly, guiding you.

“That’s it baby. Take what you need from me,” he growls.

Your hands tangle in the short waves of his hair, pulling him in for a kiss. Your tongues exploring each other’s mouths, bodies glistening with sweat.

He breaks the kiss, his forehead resting against yours, his nose bumping against yours. “I love you. God damn baby, I love you so much.”

“I love you too,” you moan as he thrusts up into you.  

He captures your lips again. “I’m close,” he groans against your mouth. “Cum with me baby. Give me one more.”

His hand snakes down between your bodies, his thumb finds your clit, rubbing firm circles against it as you bounce on his cock. 

You cry out his name as you orgasm, Joel’s fingers and cock working in tandem to push you over the ledge. You turn your head to the camera, staring into it as you chant Joel’s name while your walls clench around his cock. 

“Oh fuck baby,” Joel groans, his hips stuttering. “I’m gonna cum for you.”

In one swift motion, he flips you onto your back, your legs instinctively wrap around his waist as he buries his face into the crook of your neck, his hot breath fanning across your skin as he chases his own release. Your hands run down his back, feeling the flex of his muscles with each thrust.

"Cum for me, Joel, I want to feel you cum inside me."

With a final and deep thrust, Joel stills above you. He groans your name as he empties himself inside you, his cock pulsing with each spurt. He fills you with his release, still gently fucking you with soft thrusts, pushing his seed deeper inside you. 

He leans over and grabs the camera, his cock still plunged deep inside you. With a sly smile, he films your face, capturing the bliss across it.

“Look at you,” he admires, “smiling all sweetly, all drunk on my cock and cum, aren’t you baby?”

You moan a response and nod eagerly. 

He chuckles as he pulls out, shuffling his body down to settle in between your legs. Joel positions the camera between your thighs, spreading them apart and running a finger through your cunt, swollen and slick with his spend pulsating out of you.

“Look at you, leakin’ everywhere,” he groans, collecting himself across his fingers and sticking it inside you. “Can’t have that, now can we?” 

His eyes stay focused on the little screen, watching his fingers pump in and out of your overworked cunt. 

“Fuckin’ filthy baby,” he angles his fingers, your slick squelches loudly across the room. 

Writhing and whining under his touch, your skin is overheated, your pussy radiating heat across your body. 

He pulls his soaked finger out, wiping it across your folds. “Show me how you drip baby, let me see.” 

A gush of his cum leaks out of you, the warm liquid runs down your ass, pooling on the bed. 

“Fucccccccccck,” he growls. “Can’t stop looking at this.” 

He zooms out, capturing your whole body in the frame. 

“Tell me whose pussy this is,” he instructs.

“Yours,” you breathlessly respond.

“That’s it baby,” he growls, before his eyes lift from the camera and into yours. “I love you,” he softly says, his eyes rounding in reverence. 

“I love you too.”

He grins, standing up from the bed and switching off the camera before placing it down on the bedside table.

“That was incredible,” you sigh. “I can’t believe we just did that.” 

A smile spreads across his face as he leans down to give you a tender kiss on the lips. "We'll have to watch it later," he says before heading to the bathroom. He returns with a damp towel and gently wipes between your legs, before planting a kiss on your forehead and turning to leave the room.

“Where are you going?” you slur, too blissed out of your mind. 

“To get pie. I’m starving.”

⚾️⚾️⚾️

Series Masterlist

[quandledlngle69]

─ ' I love you like a rotten dog. '

⸻ 糸師凛 ITOSHI RIN.

⋆˙⟡ synopsis; you realise as rin's babysitter you should have raised your concerns with his disturbing behaviour earlier, maybe then his parents would still be alive.

⋆˙⟡ tw; heavy dead dove do not eat, detailed gore, murder, blood, body horror, obsession, disturbing behaviour, implied bulling, reader ignoring all of younger rins red flag, reader is implied fem, brief mention of sae twice. || ⋆˙⟡ w.c; 0.9K.

"rinnie, i thought i told you not to watch this...stuff."

you had slowed your tracks in front of the tv, the remote you had grabbed seconds prior limp in your hand. you had taken in what was on the screen for a moment, the brutal, natural act of a cheetah lethally biting into a writhing deer's neck. you shook your head and snapped out of it, the gruesome act reminded you that a five year old shouldn't be watching with such interest.

you should've known something was wrong with him.

you should've known when he would purposely break his toys, not really caring about the light scolding you gave him, softly beckoning him to take better care of his toys.

as his babysitter, you should've told his parents the disturbing red flags you ignored.

"am i weird?" he had asked you blankly once with big, round eyes. he had been dozing off on your lap a few minutes ago, drooling on your shirt, the movie on the big screen long forgotten. he remembered you sitting up straighter on the couch, a frown taking over your features as he continued. "my classmates...they call me a freak."

"you're not a freak, or weird." you had established right off the bat, gently did you take his small, chubby face in your hands. "people say that when they don't understand something. they just–" you had paused, and he had pondered if you had a moment of wondering, like what he was doing at school to have the kids call him that. “–they just don't understand you. and that's okay."

he hummed, before occupying himself with your hair.

the one true memory that stuck with him was when he was deeply engrossed in a cartoon, the villain just being defeated by the hero, exploding to death. "i want to fight someone amazing...destroy them...and then die." the pace of your folding laundry paused as if on hold, the kind of a momentary pause that allowed you to fully digest his words. you had blinked, staring at the back of his head. He didn’t know whether you were more queasy at his words, or the pure infatuation on his face.

you saw his big brother's seemingly shocked face at rin's words too, and you were quick to discard dealing with the laundry, scooping him up on the fat of your hip, hesitantly announcing it was bedtime. even though he knew it wasn't for the next two hours.

you'd always tried to understand him, didn't you?

their very faces were fear set in stone, eyes rolled to the back of their skulls, blood pouring out from every hole possible. there was blood, so much fucking blood the metallic smell made nausea ache violently in your stomach. you could name every one of mrs. itoshi's organs, all spilled on the couch like smoothie pulps. the deep stab wound on her neck was still pulsing with a heart beat, gushing out a few pathetic lumps of crimson that had nowhere else to go.

next to her, was mr. itoshi. his body was upright, but you couldn't claim the same for his head. you could tell, his neck had been ruthlessly stabbed so many times that there was no tendon to hang onto, no flesh left for the head to stay connected to the neck. the only thing that left them both attached was a flimsy spinal cord, already jutted out and curved so low his cheek was brushing against his chest.

your brain couldn't physically comprehend the scene, so you just scream, as if you're experiencing a cluster headache episode.

rin hadn't flinched. he hadn't dropped the kitchen knife, either.

the look in his eye was nothing short of animalistic. his eyes are wide and feral, piercing through you as if you're less of a human. He’s covered in fluids that should only remain inside a body unseen, your vision getting so hazy his face blurs. you can’t breathe, like all the remaining oxygen was sucked out of the room. predicting on instinct you're gonna bolt, he takes one long stride closer to you, that action being all it takes for you to freeze like a prey animal.

you were the closest one who understood him. even if you turned a blind eye, you never looked at him differently because of the way he is was. he misses your nickname for him on your tongue.

the small, sane voice in the back of his head wanted to apologise for you witnessing this; for expecting a catch–up dinner, still coming around even after you stopped babysitting them so many years ago. he wants to tell you how much you consume his thoughts to the point he can't function properly without you. that he loves you, that once being platonic, morphing romantically when he grew into a young man. don't leave him. he still loves you. he knows what he did was bad, but don't you know about the pressure they were putting on him? they didn't unconditionally love him like you did.

he can't hold back, so he tells you all of it. every dark thought until the weight leaves his chest and the stillness of silence in the room could be its own sound.

He’s aware sae’s still on the phone, the one that had limply dropped from your hand when you first walked in, still upright on the polished wooden floor.

he can hear sae speeding faster, his distressed yelling at you to get out, quietly muffled by it being on non–speaker.

he just hopes sae doesn't get here before he can take you for himself.

Quandaledlngle69 © 2025

[kwebtv]

From the Golden Age of Television

Around the Horn to Matrimony - ABC - May 23, 1955

A presentation of "TV Reader's Digest" Season 1 Episode 19

Drama

Running Time: 30 minutes

Stars:

Robert Hutton as Asa Mercer

Donna Martell as Emma Scofield

Jan Shepard as Louella

Dee J. Thompson as Hope

Juney Ellis as Rachel

Nancy Kulp as Ruth

Dan Seymour as Captain

Harry W. Harvey, Sr. as Ben Holladay

Dennis King Jr as Editor

Robert Clarke as Rev. Dr. Scofield

Edmund Cobb as Cop

Leonard P Geer as Seattle Man

Earle Hodgins as Deputy Marshall

A precursor of "Here Come the Brides" starring Robert Brown, , David Soul, Bobby Sherman, Bridget Hanley, Mark Lenard, Joan Blondell, Henry Beckman and Susan Tolsky.

[sombrashe]

Hello!! 💕🌸🌿 How are you doing? hopefully fine!

I was wondering if you could write HBO's Jesse x Reader where reader gets hurt really bad - maybe during patrol where a new member shoot her by accident, or the harsh winter makes her really sick, or by a random accident. i don't really mind the reason! - and he has to take her back to jackson and she thinks she's dying so she confesses to him and he's like "yeah I like you too please don't die".

I hope that my request is not a problem, you can also change anything in order to make the fic to your liking! I trust you so do whatever you please! Have a good day 💕🌸🌿

bloody confessions tlou tv show jesse

content ִ ࣪𖤐⋆ blood, gore, reader gets shot, fluff, comfort, protective!jesse

notesִ ࣪𖤐⋆ hiiii!! im doing pretty good so far :3 school is over for rn so im focusing a lot on this blog lol / i hope you enjoy reading this, i feel like i could have made it a lot longer

you let out a sharp yell as hot metal tears through your thigh. you don't get any relief as it sticks to bone deep beneath fat and skin. crumbling to the ground you cry against crimson cold. another shot and you're facedown, wetness seeps through your jacket and settles deep in your heart. raiders were always an issue especially so far away from civilization but you've never been caught alone before. using every bit of strength your destroyed body has you flip yourself onto your back. if you were gonna die you might as well see who killed you. of course your eyes decide now is the time to start getting that annoying black fuzz around your sight. maybe you'd be able to relax a little, just a little.

"Don't you dare fall asleep on me."

you didn't even know he was here. letting your head loll to the side you come face to face, well what used to be a face, with who you assume shot you. twice. good, glad the bastard got what he deserved. blinking slowly, whats left of your eyesight settles on a mop of frazzled black hair. you can't see his features and lowkey it freaks you out. your arm reaches up to cup his face only for your head to loll to the side. you can feel pressure but you don't know what's from the bullet and what's from him. looking down at your limp arm maybe a thought starts to form, something about how he has no blood on his face even though you swear you just touched him, but it quickly evaporates. letting out a strangled scream you suddenly have a lot more energy as you attempt to wiggle away. cold fire is being poured into your wounds and it's excruciating.

"Stop. Stop. Please."

it's all your poor voice can muster as you weakly flail around. he hushes you and starts moving his hands over your wounds. you think you hear a rip of cloth but your heartbeat is too loud in your ears. your whine is cut off as you're hoisted up and into arms. you have no strength left to hold up your head and you watch as snow fills your eyes. you can't even bring yourself to blink it away. you're laid back down and despite the cold you don't feel nearly as frozen. he settles you down into the makeshift cot and you watch as bundled jute gets dragged past your face. you know the routine when someone is dying.

"I love you."

he pauses, digesting your words, before going back into work mode.

"Just relax. You're going to be fine, I swear."

"No listen I love you, Jesse. I don't wanna die. It hurts so much."

he gently wipes some hair out of your face in comfort. once he has you situated to his liking he comes back to you. poking at your wounds you let out a sharp sound in protest.

"I have to make sure you're not bleeding out. The bullet snagged."

you close your eyes and within moments your head is spinning wildly. you gag and barely turn your head in time to empty your stomach on his shoes. he doesn't say a word just uses some snow to clean them off as you blink up at the blinding sun. it doesn't take much longer before the sun starts moving. you begin to wonder when the sun started moving before your foggy mind realizes its you that's moving. you can't see jesse anymore either and panic creeps in. sensing your anguish he speaks up from somewhere in front of you.

"I'm taking you home, you should be okay to close your eyes. you're all bandag-"

your eyes start to close at his okay and before you know it you're slipping into unconsciousness.

[revolutionsingingintherainnn]

Ooh so i was watching "Sawdes" And i thought what if desi reader and Lando watch that movie together and she explains all the small details to him, like the caste system and how rigid it was, and how it actually was in the villages and Lando's like very curious to know about India.

swades ⊹.˚🪞🕯️♡

ᡣ𐭩 ln x desi!reader ✬

ᡣ𐭩 fluff ✬

masterlist ☾☼

lando was sprawled out on the couch, legs stretched comfortably over the ottoman, a bowl of popcorn precariously balanced on his lap. the tv flickered with the opening credits of "swades," the soothing hum of the background score filling the cozy living room.

"so, what's this one about again?" lando asked, glancing at you with genuine curiosity.

you settle next to him, tucking your feet in under you. "it's a movie about this indian guy who works for nasa and then goes back to his roots and finds a need to give back to his community."

lando inclines his head. "sounds deep."

you smiled. "it is, but it's also very beautiful and so real."

as the movie started, you noticed lando's brows furrow slightly during the scenes that showed mohan—the protagonist—returning to his village. the dusty roads, the humble huts, and the villagers carrying out their daily routines seemed to intrigue him.

"wait, why's he sitting on the ground?" lando asked during a pivotal scene where a villager refused to sit on the same level as mohan.

you stopped the movie and turned to face him. "that's actually a huge part of india's history—the caste system. it's a strict social hierarchy that has been around for thousands of years. people were divided into different groups based on their jobs, and it determined where they could live, what they could do, and even who they could talk to."

lando's eyes widened. "seriously? that's awful. is it still like that now?"

"not officially," you said, picking at a stray thread on your sweater. "the indian government banned caste discrimination years ago, but in rural areas… it's complicated. traditions and mindsets don't change overnight."

he nodded slowly, digesting your words. "so that's why the guy didn't sit on the bench. he's… lower caste?"

"exactly," you said. "he probably grows up thinking he's not good enough for someone like mohan, who's educated and from the city. it's just sad."

lando sat back, scratching his head. "man, we brits really left a mess behind, huh?"

you snorted, unable to hold in the laugh that had begun to rise. "a bit of an understatement there, lando."

he grinned sheepishly. "alright, alright, point taken. i’ll add it to the list of things i’m apologizing for. right under the tea tax."

the movie continued, and you found yourself explaining more details to lando—how arranged marriages worked in rural India, why electricity and running water were still luxuries in many villages, and the deep cultural significance of festivals like dussehra. lando hung onto every word, his questions reflecting genuine interest.

"it's crazy to think about," he said during intermission. "like, i took so much stuff for granted-growing up—clean water, electricity, just even … being treated as an equal. and then this guy's coming to alter the way an entire village lives its life. inspiring,"

you smiled at him, a warmth spreading through your chest. "that's why i love this movie. it's not just a story; it's a reminder of where we come from and how much work there's still left to do."

"also a reminder that my ancestors were the worst," lando added, giving you a mock-serious look. "you're never letting me live this down, are you?"

"nope," you said, popping a piece of popcorn into your mouth. "you're stuck with me and my history lessons."

By the time the credits rolled, lando was wiping at his eyes, laughing sheepishly when you caught him. "alright, i'll admit… that hit harder than i expected."

you chuckled, leaning into his side. "told you it's a masterpiece."

he looked down at you, a thoughtful expression on his face. "you'll take me there one day, right? to india? i want to see it for myself."

your heart swelled at his sincerity. "absolutely. but only if you're ready for a sensory overload-the crowds, the colours, the chaos."

lando grinned. "bring it on. as long as i've got you to explain everything."

you smiled, reaching for his hand. "always."

you then realized just how lucky you were-to share a piece of your world with someone who cared enough to listen, to learn, and to embrace it wholeheartedly.

══✿══╡°˖✧✿✧˖°╞══✿══

i tried to add a little humour in this, but like, the movie itself is really serious, so i kept the fic a little serious too. i hope you like it! this is my prompt list, so y'all can select a number, give me a driver and i will write it as soon as possible! i also have a google form for a taglist if anyone's interested! you can sent in your requests here :)

taglist: @imlonelydontsendhelp ; @greantii ; @anamiad00msday ; @maketheshadowsfearyou ; @nocturnalherb16 ; @justaf1girl ; @peterholland04 ; @phobiccneel ; @winkev1

[writingquestionsanswered]

any advice for writing characters who are very unlike myself? I've realised that in order to have a cast of interesting people I need to create characters that I don't relate to or sympathise with at all... but how do i get into their heads enough to write them in that case?

Getting to Know Different Types of People

Sadly, like most things writing-related, there are no quick tricks for getting into the heads of people who are different from you. Also like most things writing-related, it's something that takes time, effort, and research.

Here are some suggestions:

-- read short stories (many are available free online) -- read books, magazine articles, comic books, graphic novels -- read biographies and autobiographies -- watch TV shows, movies, reality TV, plays, and musicals -- watch documentaries about particular people -- play video games with lots of character development -- spend time people watching -- spend time talking to people you know -- read personal stories on the various "Humans of..." sites like HONY -- check out Story Corps, and Real Life Stories on Reader's Digest -- listen to This American Life, snap Judgment, Lives Less Ordinary and Conversations

Happy researching!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

[kyupidos]

04/8/24’s delivery 🏹✉️ twisted wonderland

rather melodramatic aren’t you?ヽ( ･∀･)ﾉ_θ彡☆Σ(ノ `Д´)ノ,ヽ( ･∀･)ﾉ_θ彡☆Σ(ノ `Д´)ノ ;; summary. ‘so it seems, you’ve finally found your way back home.’

characters. first years : ace trappola , deuce spade , jack howl, epel felmier , sebek zigvolt ( separate ) ;; romantic ( implied ) angst . 🖇️ tags. reader is gender neutral ( you/your ), reader is yuu, angst with romance sprinkled in i s’pose ( can still be friendship seen,, i think.. ), blah blah angst

📡 _a/n. mmmm, been listening to tv girl a lot more like i used to, ended up coming up w this. still not the best w angst but we stay rollin ( also, cigarettes out the window >> )

a. trappola

— he was always the one who kept everyone’s mind off the topic of you going home—making the mood lighter so no one would be upset again, especially you. but ace can’t deny how distraught he is, when it comes the time for you to finally, finally go. he’s happy for you, never doubt for a fact that he is. but there’s that one part of him that never wants to let you go. you’ve been friends all this time, haven’t you? then again, this school year with him has always been more of an experience for you, hm.. like an emotional rollercoaster until you make it home, and things will go back to normal, to your usual.

— he knew that much, that one day you would say your final farewells and that he would have to turn his back and go on with his life, the rest of his school year, without you by his side. without a magicless prefect who turned his world upside down, without a magicless prefect to spend his time with, without a magicless prefect whom he held ever so dear to his heart. maybe your time spent with him was just a waiting game before you could return to your norm. but his time spent with you made his heart full, as if you were everything he wanted and more.

— but he can let go, can’t he? not like he’s making lighthearted jokes here and there, about what it’d be like if you were to stick around, even if for a little while longer. he eventually holds his pinky out to you, in a moment of bitter weakness ( to him and him only ), that if the chance ever comes to fruition that it’s not a one way trip, you’ll return to night raven and stay friends, stay together with him. and it becomes a promise, pinky sworn and all. he tells himself he can swallow his bitter tears and see you off, yet he leaves deep, ragged breaths in his wake when you hug him tightly and tell him you’ll miss him, no matter how the circumstances may end up.

— you should know at least that much, left to digest it as you go back home, that he’ll miss you too—and though he may leave this out, unless he’s caught in a moment of weakness truth, you’ll always be on his mind.

d. spade

— deuce always felt such a pain in his heart whenever he comes to the recollection ( sometimes random, but then comes the times you’re forced to remind him you may not be there forever ), that you’re doomed to leave him behind as you return, to your family, to your friends of before. his hopes for you to see his graduate, to stay together being each other’s best friends, to just stay by each other’s side, he’d accept just being in your proximity. how he loved, and will never stop loving your words of kindness, words that’ll never leave the back of his mind, words he’ll never let go.

— how many times you’ve affirmed and reaffirmed your friendship and fondness toward him with those words, he can’t recall. or maybe he does; he’ll keep those memories with him until the ends of times, and whatever voice messages you may have sent him when you finally got your phone will be treasured and stored forever. oh, but how he’d like to not need that in the first place. how will he go on, without your kind words ringing delightfully in his ears? he’d never be able to bring himself to forget your voice, even if he can’t hear it in the present, he’ll hold it dearly as he looks to the past.

— he could never go against your wishes to return home, though. he knows for a fact it’s all you’ve wanted, and he’ll never say he wouldn’t want the same for himself if he were ever in your situation—he couldn’t even imagine that much, he always commended your strength to get as far as you’ve gotten now. but he finds himself asking you, if you’ll ever forget him. reaffirm him once more with your words; tell him that you won’t for as long as you live. that you’ve treasured the times you’ve spent together.

— because, let it be clear, he’ll treasure those times just as much as you, he’ll treasure them forever, and when forever ends, he’ll treasure them more.

j. howl

— he recalls all those times he shyly managed to bring himself to do little things for you, wake you up in class when you felt tired, remind you to straighten out your uniform, anything to silently tell you he respects and cherishes his friendship with you. jack recalls the times you returned the favor, watering his cacti with him, and thanking him for everything he does. just smiling at him makes him happy. but he accepts, with a heavier than he expected heart, that these times will become nothing one day. a day that’s come and approaches now.

— he’d like to send you off easily, but “easily” will never belong in the end. maybe when your friendship first bloomed he could huff and pout about how you were barely friends, and he just “couldn’t let the bad things happening around you go down the way they were”. but if he didn’t admit how much of a likening he took to the time he’s spent with you, he could never live with himself. still, he knows he’ll have to see your smile only once more before never seeing it again, anyway. he finds it difficult, actually, trying to remember how he spent his time when you weren’t there, a time before you. when in the early mornings you weren’t there to greet him, no matter the mood amongst you.

— but in his heart stays all the things you’ve done for each other, and all the things he still wishes he could do, but he knows time will never stop for that. even so, he’ll praise you for your hard work, everything you’ve done that’s gotten you so far as to return to your loved ones. there’s a part that gnaws at him though, that he’ll have to get used to a routine that doesn’t involve you. it was so often, how you’d greet him and he’d greet you, sometimes you’d eat lunch together and on a good day, maybe you’d join him on a run, even if it did end with you laying against the wall because of how exhausted you were. and he’d scold you, telling you not to overexert yourself.

— at least he’s certain you’ll take care of yourself back home, since he asked carefully about your health and you reassured him. still a shame, though, that he could never introduce you to his family.

e. felmier

— he gifted you a nicely carved apple, once. epel figured you may like it, at least he hoped you would. he’s long since found you cool, someone he saw as the confident, ever so diligent prefect to be admired. but eight’s a crowd; it’ll always be back to seven in the end. you were as beautiful as the apples he’d carve while you were on his mind during evenings, glistening in the sunset, their shine never dulling as they design came to be the longer epel worked. in a sense you were like that—except you’d built yourself up from the ground, keeping yourself strong to bear through the troubles of your time at night raven. and epel’d been your supporter as long as you’d known and been a friend of him.

— and now you bear the fruits of your success, and he’s thankful that he’d managed to bring himself to a smile at the good news that you’d managed to finally find your way back to your own world, the world you belonged to. not the world you’ve only spent a school year in. he’d never bite into a bitter apple on accident, far too acidic with a metallic aftertaste; but it feels like he did, as he thinks of how many apples will have rotten, that one singular apple you ate right before leaving, that you forgot to throw out and left on your old bedside table.

— allow him to hold onto your hands gently, as he whispers to you that he’d like, if ever even possible, for you to return, maybe one day. he’s barely paying attention to that bitter taste, a dry gulp as he tries not to make his upset audible to you, leaving his tears silent. he lets you dry those tears, not even caring that it should be himself doing it, he’ll let himself be taken care of you again just once. he wonders what the apples of your world taste like. you’ve talked about the differences between your worlds before, and how nice your world seems from what you tell, so vastly different compared to his, and he commends you for your commitment to returning. he’d want to return to his own world under your circumstances, too.

— so he clenches onto the hem of his shirt, feeling as though he might give in to his impulsive thoughts if not, his growing desire to never let you go, run up to you and hug you ever so tightly to spend eternity with you.

s. zigvolt

— you’ve always seemed to find a way to make things refreshing. sebek’s read ever so many books in night raven’s library, it’s one of his more favored hobbies after all. and ever since your friendship grew he always seemed to search for your thoughts and opinions more. he doesn’t truly understand, how a human, a magicless one at that, from another world like you managed to find your way by his side. maybe that’s just because you were doomed to leave it. humans were always trouble, right? to think you’d leave this type of stain on him. no, no—he could never blame you. as it goes, right person, wrong time. . . and place.

— he grew to be fond of your commentary, your view of things. there would always be aspects of the two of you respectively that clashed, and yet even so here you were. actually, he thinks about your informal first meeting. how he rolled his eyes indifferent to your figure, considering you just another clumsy human who he knew would stumble about. sure there may have been times you had two left feet, but you sure proved him wrong didn’t you, hm? the title of the ramshackle prefect becoming renowned, a prefect who could never be replaced or mimicked, not you, never you.

— once upon a time, you invited him over to ramshackle to read a book together, one he’d apparently not yet to have read. the evening was lovelier than he’d yet expected, having fun sharing your thoughts together and making light conversation between pages. the evenings to nights feel so much lonelier without you. in literature, it hangs in the silence of its realm, alone as some think it. he once respected it as a nice metaphor within the books he’s read—yet now he seems to sympathize with the moon, its solitude compared to others which had more moons to surround it.

— maybe some day “once upon a time” will turn into “and they lived happy ever after”, and those words will belong to him. and then, he can share them with you.

[whorrorbellee]

Cherry Waves : one

Ghostface! Danny Johnson x f!reader

Danny just had to save you. He just had to save your poor sad life. Knocking your sad frail body against fake plastic tiles. Shoving his fingers down your throat like a kid fishing for pennies. What was it you wrote in your diary? Your shiny white masked knight in a black shroud? Well how cute. Maybe it was time he kept a pet around.Just to play or course.18+ : eventual smut, themes of suicide (reader attempts), selfharm, sexual content, murder, themes of violence

ao3 prolouge masterlist

Three months later,

VETERANS MURDERED IN HOME

Adam webbing

Senior journalist 

See page four for more details.

Another violent murder has shocked the small sunny town of Roseville after the body’s of Daren and his brother Edward Small were recovered outside their home in the early hours of the morning. The Brothers fought bravely in the army during the Vietnam war, Darren was a well loved member of the Roseville community and along with his brother they led the local boy scouts on numerous camping trips and charity events, last year raising nearly two thousand dollars for the local animal shelter. 

The witness (who chooses to stay anonymous) found Daren slumped over on a lawn chair with multiple stab wounds, while Edward was found lying outside the trailer door in an obvious attempt to escape with a shattered leg and seven stab wounds to the back. The stab wounds were so brutal it shattered his rib cage and punctured his lungs. The Witness said she saw a man covered in a black shroud and white mask running from the scene before calling first responders. Darren died shortly in the ambulance after attempts to stop bleeding. 

Is this the work of a new killer, or a robbery gone wrong?

If you have any information please contact Detective Moore at the RPD +(000) 000 000

A memorial will be held later today at the Roseville Community Hall at 4pm everybody is welcome to attend.

Your hand traces the words, they're so tiny you could have missed them. White mask. You bite your lip. A month ago you would have called him a knight in a shiny black robe and a white plastic mask. And now you're unsure if he really was a saviour, a guardian angel. When you had thought about it a bit more he had seemed like a vigilante, the violent ones from the comic books, like the punisher, or maybe even Batman. Cloaked in darkness protecting people from rapists by beating them to a pulp, he had reminded you a bit of the crow, your own Eric Draven. 

And maybe he was just a vigilante, maybe the Small brothers had committed multiple offences during their time in Vietnam, you heard the stories. Rape, Looting, collecting ears. You had even heard about soldiers paying for certain commodities with children. But these were just maybes, maybe he was a saviour, a blessing in disguise, but he had also threatened you with a painful death if you would ever try to attempt again. 

And although it was Florida, where crazy crack addicts try to train gators, or break into houses just to watch TV for hours. There was something shocking about the turn of events that had happened in such a short amount of time. You had a near death experience while unknowingly being saved by a masked killer, and then two 50 something year old men the community worshipped on veteran day had been killed, stabbed. 

Shot in the head would've been easier to digest, but the brothers owned guns, they hunted, they had been in the army for god sake, they had killed people. Stabbed? When either brother is able to grab a gun and shoot? This was a completely different story. Whomever had killed them was not someone to mess with. He was dangerous.

And what if you were next, what if you crashed into the guy out of costume and he saw the scars on your arms, or a pot of pills from the pharmacy. What if you cut in line or told him to ‘fuck off’, would you be next, if you even thought about suicide again would he make good on his promise?

The Police thought they were clever, that it was NCIS level shit, the only problem was, when you have a town this small. Every detective or officer was someone you had spoken to. You could spot them from a mile away as they stood ridgid against walls holding candles like batons. The police were so sure the killer was going to be in attendance that you could make out the indentation of handcuffs in the jean shorts that half of them wore.

You walked, arm linked in arm with Aaron. He was on your recently completed college course, and had just landed a gig as a touring concert photographer with some band from the 70s. Made up of fifty year old men. It was high paying, and he actually got to go to like three places in Europe. So it was something worth being jealous over. The only thing you had managed to do was get a job at the paper as a photographer and assistant to the editor, running coffees while snapping photos for the paper wasn't exactly the hardest gig, nor was it the most riveting. But hey, you had bills to pay, and your uncle hired you as a favour from your mum. 

In Fact the only reason you were here at the Memorial service at all was to snap quick photos of mourners, you had shot some photos of candles being lit by the boyscouts hall, along with flowers laid upon each other neatly, swapping from a digital camera to a film camera when you realised you were gonna have to edit either one on the difficult software you had begged your manager to buy. Aaron pointed out different ideas for the paper, but you knew your Uncle would go with the lit candles anyway, so there was no bother. After you had got your shots you head back to the gazette, zig zagging across the crowd of people heading to the memorial. You wave goodbye to Aaron as you sling your digital camera over your shoulder ready to enter the building and suddenly you're crashing into the wall. Or a person. You gaze up at your victim. He's a little shy of six feet, dirty blonde hair swooping every which way. Brown puppy eyes staring down at you, he brings his hand up apologetically, and you watch the way the curves of his lips twitch into a smile. “Im so sorry” 

You squint back at him. “It's fine,” you wave your hand at him. “Really I should watch where im going” you pause, and then force a smile, reaching your hand out to grab the door handle, his hand follows and knocks your own, you both pull back quickly. 

“Gosh! Look at us.” He smiles again, eyes crinkling into a big fake grin, you only stare back. “Well, ladies first.” he nods. You don't look back as you swing the door open, and then pull yourself into the building, not bothering if the door hits him on your way in. “Did you go to the memorial?” he asks, in an odd cheery tone, the kind you put on when you answer the phone. 

“Yep” you mutter back, you're unsure if he even heard you as you turn in a twist of corridors, yanking doors and climbing up the stairs, until you're at the office. 

The Gazette is an odd shaped building, its L shaped, the gap allowing for a parking lot that's scarcely used. The Gazette is on the second floor, underneath a marketing or lawyer firm. It's a three story building at the edge of town, a short walk from your home, and the local coffee shop you hide in. 

Jed waves bye at you as you slip into the dark room, you spend thirty minutes developing the film and bathing it into baths of chemicals. You snip the roll into sections, hang to dry over the sink with film clips weighing each of them down. Then rebottling and labelling the chemicals you've used. You've got about two to five hours to wait-out until they're dry, so you sort the film from the other day into a clear folder, checking Jeds to see if it was dry. Your eyes glaze over the shots of a new cafe that opened up recently. Then you hurl yourself out the door. 

You carefully scan your film into the kodak 35mm scanner, it takes ages to see it fully appear on screen, Then  you work on editing the contrast and changing the photos from sepia to full colour. You finally print the photos for a final go over and head over to your uncle's office. You pass Jeds desk, perfectly organised, he swings around on his chair, you pause. 

“Your films dry in there, by the way” you smile lightly and watch him lean back on his chair before standing, the chair rolls across the floor at a hurdling speed, and you pop your leg out to stop it before walking away.

Micheal Thomas Jones wasn't actually your uncle, before your dad passed he was his closest friend. He helped your mum out financially before she remarried, even offering her a job as assistant when she couldn't work due to health reasons. He's a sweet guy, you remember him swinging you around his garden at a family barbeque when you were seven. You weren't sure if they were actually hiring for a photographer/assistant when he offered you a job, in fact Jed had only been hired four months prior to your appearance and he was already taking photos for the paper. But freshly graduated you decided to take whatever you could. 

You had learnt the office admired Jed, the ladies fawned over his perfect hair and the guys laughed at his crude jokes. You weren't sure how you stood with Jed, he was a seasoned Photographer/journalist that had crashed into the tiny town right next to your little apartment. Part of you wondered why Roseville, why a tiny town? With his experience he could have aimed for somewhere bigger. It felt like charity work, barely minimum wage for beautifully written articles about the intricacies of the town. He made potholes being filled sound like someone had won the lottery. It bothered you slightly, he was put on this pedestal, even a snarky remark had sounded like a lighthearted joke. 

You push the door open to Mike’s office, planting the images on his desk as he smiles up at you. “Do you want a coffee from down the road?” you ask. Mike nods, bald head shining under the light. He stretches out his arm to check over the photos as you grab the company card from his wallet and walk out. You already had his coffee order memorised. You walk around and ask the few in if they want anything. Your feet land at Jeds desk. You purse your lips at the empty chair.

He takes it black, right?Maybe you should check. 

Your arms sway against your body as you pull yourself up to the dark room. The red light isnt on so you plant your hand on the door. Slowly turning the silver handle. “Don't come in,” Jed hisses. You shut the door. Blinking quickly. “Sorry, the lights are off and I don't want to ruin these photos” You furrow your eyebrows, eyes glazing to the now shining red light above the door.

“All good, do you want a coffee?” you ask. You wait a few seconds and lean against the door, He doesn't reply. “Jed?” you wonder if you should leave. You clasp your hands and stretch them out in front of you. 

A few moments pass and you feel the door open, you scramble to balance yourself on your feet as Jed peeks his head out the door. “Hey” He smiles. The scar on his cheek lifting. You step backwards to allow him out the room, head blocking the photographs he's hanging to dry.

“Hi”, you answer. 

You watch him adjust his button shirt, pushing his glasses up before he tilts his head at you. “I'll come grab coffee with you!” He seems almost sincere. You nod your head as he leads you out the building. 

The walk is silent. All you hear is Jeds converse scuff across the sidewalk in quick succession, he walks on the outside of the road and switches over when you cross. Hand pressed against your back as he moves round you. When you head into the Coffee shop they're nearly closing, you're glad you're only ordering four coffees. The whirring of the coffee machine fills your ears, and you sigh into the smell of freshly ground beans. After you order you wait for the coffees by the collection point. 

You pick at your nails, Jeds hands slide into his back pockets and he kicks his feet against each other. “Sorry, I hope I haven't gotten the wrong idea, but do you hate me?”

His question startles you, you feel the wind knocked out of your lungs. It's too confrontational but not out of the ordinary for Jed. “No, what? Why do you think that” 

He breathes a sigh of relief, fingers combing through his brows, “well, I guess it's because we don't really talk and I catch you giving me these horrid looks sometimes?” 

Your eyebrow raises, lips snarling, and then you relax your face. “Look, I don't hate you. I guess I'm just a little jealous, I feel like Mike likes you more than me and I've known him for like, ever~” you watch him digest your words. There's a hint of a smirk on his face. “Maybe I'm just being cynical but it's like, everyone is so captivated by you and I have no clue why you are even here. Not in a bad way, just it's a small town in Florida literally outside Jacksonville, like Miami is right there. Maybe i just think you should aim a little higher, actually get your name out there” 

He turns his head towards the barista, smiling and thanking her for the drinks. He nods at you and you follow him through the door. When you're outside you take out the carton of cigarettes from your back pocket, sliding one into your mouth and turning to Jed, he looks down at you. You feel squeamish on the inside, soft eyes hitting your own, his arm bumps your own in a sweet jokey way. You're starting to get why all those ladies like him at work. Something in his boyish nature takes you back to highschool. With those heart crushing crushes on indie nerds. You feel your cheeks blush. You smile back, it's genuine this time. You hold out the carton to him, he plucks one from the pack, slipping it in the corner of his mouth you bring the lighter towards the Cig, his lips purse as he huffs smoke from the corners of his mouth.  

When Jed Olson waves you goodbye at your door with a smile, he steps into his cramped apartment and his face falls, shoulders arching inwards as he stomps off his clothes. Stepping into the shower, washing away the achy muscles of the day. Fresh scars burning as the water steams over them.He lets his hand run over his hair slicking it back until only a strand falls over his brow. He fishes out a black shirt from a pile on the floor and shoves it over his head. Wet skin sticking to the fabric. He needs a day off. Jed Olson is making him so sick. Keeping up appearances is only so easy when everyone wants a piece of you, he wishes Jed was less likeable. That he didn't feel the need to trap flies into his web with ease and yet he felt you edge closer to the centre of his cage, ready to be coiled into a prison of silk, just like the others. Because if everyone liked him, then Danny would have a far easier job.

Danny pulled out a small folder, and flipped through the number of photos he had taken over the past few months, Darren smoking a cigarette outside, Edward teaching a young boy how to tie a knot. Sally Hughes drinking a glass of wine and watching a trashy tv show and you . 

You're sitting on the couch with your hand between your thighs. Kyle Maclachlan is on the TV drinking a cup of coffee. Another of you crying, mouth gaping open, hand over your throat. Face red from the vice grip. There’s one of you pinching the fat on your thigh. Another biting your finger in a tiny lil leopard print thong in front of the mirror. You're on the floor cutting your thigh with a small knife, blood smeared against your cheek. You licking the knife clean.

He wouldn't have run into you if he had climbed into his apartment that night. You would have been dead, rotting into the sofa. Body inflating. But he just had to save you. Knocking your sad frail body against fake plastic tiles. Shoving his fingers down your throat like a kid fishing for pennies. Pressing the leather into your tongue until you had thrown up. Patting your head as you cried. Threatening you. Saving you poor sad life. He could've ended it all right there, started the chain of events. Pulling you away from deaths edge and then pushing you straight in. He had seemed to convince himself that he would have been caught if you were dead. Apartment ransacked leading to his questioning, he’d never figure out the logistics of it. But he just knew you would be important. 

So he slides himself over to the wall above his tv, pushing pins into the photographs, anyone else would call this a shrine. But really, it was his final plan. 

Danny Johnson dresses himself in a pair of cargos, he pulls his leather combat boots on and ties them up quickly. He buckles up his brand new Shroud and slips on a white mask. He slips out the window smoothly and creeps on to the fire escape, walking slowly along the metal before purchasing himself outside your window. And then he watches.

[bryngmemoney]

✁FASHION FLIRT✃

Megumi Fushiguro x Reader

⭑story masterlist link

🪡EPILOGUE

“This sucks,” Megumi mumbled, adjusting himself so his head laid on a softer part of your shoulder. “Being cuddled up next to me sucks?” you joked. “No my fucking headache.”

You exhaled a breath, and although your boyfriend may have been in pain, you couldn’t help but smile at the way he continued nuzzling himself into you. He had been like this for the past two days after the ‘incident’. You gently brushed your fingers through his hair trying to soothe whatever tension you could. “Well, at least you seem a little better today.” Megumi just grumbled softly, closing his eyes and letting you basically pet him.

After a couple more minutes, he shifted again, this time moving up to meet your face and stealing a kiss from your lips. “Sorry about keeping you here for so long,” he whispered against them, before kissing you again. “Hm, I don’t mind.”

Just then the door to his room opened, causing you two to quickly move apart. “We’re back!” Yuji announced, “And we brought pizza!” All though his excitement, Megumi just kept glaring him down, not even bothering to sit up until after you did.

“Take it out, we’re not eating on my bed.” Yuji just shushed him, completely ignoring his statement and setting the box down over the covers. “It’s okay, you need your rest we’ll take care of it Megs.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

Nobara just snickered, and you almost joined her if it wasn’t for the fact Megumi was right next to you. “You couldn’t have gotten anything easier to digest?” Megumi asked Yuji. “Woah, I just got like a strong sense of deja vu,” Yuji said.

Megumi just ignored him, staring down the now opened pizza box. “Need help little baby?” Nobara teased him. He threw her a glare, but that did very little to actually disturb her. “Open up, here come the airplane!” Yuji exclaimed, picking up a piece of pizza and shoving it in his direction. Although Megumi was fed up with their actions, hearing your laugh beside him made it worth it.

“Give me that,” he said while snatching it out of the others hand.

If Megumi really thought about it, besides his condition, and even if he was kind of annoyed with their behaviour, he wouldn’t have this any other way, with you by his side and his friends companionship in front of him.

After eating, once Nobara and Yuji got distracted argueing over what movie they wanted to put on Megumi’s tv, you pressed a kiss to Megumi’s forehead. “I love you Megs.”

“Love you too Y/n.”

Author’s Note: well that’s it :3

thank you guys for reading!!

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