#also the dinner was super good even if i threw it up after

[rambleonwaywardson]

Clegan Astronaut AU - Part 18

Masterpost Read on AO3

AU Summary: the boys as modern day NASA astronauts. Taking place in 2025, Bucky is about to head to the moon as mission commander of Artemis III while Buck is CAPCOM at NASA. Established relationship (obnoxiously in love).

Author's Note: As an update, I am eyeing another chapter after this followed by an epilogue. A nice, even 20 parts. Thank you, as always, to everyone who reads, comments, shares, and otherwise supports this fic. I love you all so much. Now for some healing!

---

December 11 Nassau Bay, TX

A house is nothing but four walls and a roof, a place to live, a place to sleep. It doesn’t have to be anything special. It doesn’t have to mean anything at all.

A home, on the other hand, tells a story. Its walls are infused with the memories of a life lived, for better or worse, within their bounds. It’s made what it is not because of its structure, but because of the people who make it their own, all the little moments etched in time.

Growing up, Gale thought a lot about the difference between a house and a home, never quite sure which one he had. The little house he grew up in was nothing special. He doesn’t remember it fondly. He doesn’t have a particular desire to remember it at all. And yet, when he thinks about the off-white walls of that old living room, he can see himself playing on the carpet in front of the worn sofa, flying a toy F/A-18 Hornet through the make-believe sky. It had been a birthday gift from his dad, who was arguably proud of his son, if absolutely nothing else, because of his interest in aircraft. 

Gale can see his father leaning against the wall by the door, watching him. Little Gale looks up at him with an excited grin as he makes whirring little engine noises, and his father gives a barely-there half smile back – Gale had to get that facial expression from somewhere, after all.

He can also remember the day he didn’t hear his dad calling his name because he was lost in the clouds, dreaming about flying a real jet someday. He remembers the way his dad stormed into that same living room, ripped the toy jet from his tiny hand. The way he sneered at the pale, vulnerable look on his child son’s face, scolded him for daydreaming when he should have been doing his chores. Maybe it was taking out the trash. Or doing the dishes. Or sweeping the porch.

Or maybe he did nothing wrong and his dad was just drunk again. 

Either way, Gale remembers the way his dad threw that F/A-18 at the wall, the way the wing snapped right off. He remembers the way his dad shoved him when he cried, called him pathetic, said he needed to start acting like a man.

Later on, his dad repaired the wing with some super glue, but it never looked quite right again.

Gale has a lot of memories like that. A little good mixed with a lot of bad. The walls of that house told a story alright. He just doesn’t think it’s a story that ever earned it the title of home.

When he remembers the kitchen – light yellow walls, gray cabinets, a gas stove – he thinks about early days of his childhood, clinging to his mom’s bright, flowery skirt as she baked cookies that tasted like heaven. He remembers her light, comforting voice saying his name. He thinks about how she let him lick the spoon, asked him what sprinkles he wanted to use, let him help put the dough on the baking sheet with small, innocent hands. 

But then he also thinks about setting the kitchen table for dinner, his dad burning his arm with a cigarette for breaking a glass. Or maybe it was a plate. He thinks about fingers wrapped tight around his teenage throat when he came back home too late one night. He can practically feel the bruises, hear the impact of being shoved unceremoniously against the door. Next time he was late, his dad threatened, he’d spend the night in the yard with the dog. 

Other than the fact that it was nearing December and night time temperatures were below freezing, Gale couldn’t decide if that would be so bad. He got smacked for that, too. 

When he thinks of the small master bedroom, he thinks of his mother. One day there, the next day gone. He remembers the smell of her perfume filling the room. Little Gale, still too young to understand why she wasn’t coming home. Why that scent would fade away, becoming nothing but a memory, something to pop up randomly here and there in his adult life and fill him with some sense of longing. He thinks about his father cleaning out all of her clothes, chastising Gale for not wanting to get rid of any of it, for trying to sneak out a shirt or a scarf that smelled like her. 

Then there were two. Hardly a family, and far from a home.

The house on Nassau Bay couldn’t be more opposite.

He stands in the middle of the living room, looking around at the life he’s built. Warm, light beige walls decorated with artwork, prints of aircraft and spacecraft, photographs of his de facto family. Framed pictures of him and John are scattered around. In the middle of the room, across from their TV, is a coffee table, two armchairs, and a well-worn gray couch, semi-permanently occupied by Pepper and sometimes Meatball. Morning sunlight fills the room, leaving patches of light on the hardwood floor.

Gale has spent the last hour adjusting the furniture layout – spreading out the coffee table and chairs to make space, shifting the couch back so it’s under the window, putting away stray dog toys and shoes, cleaning up the blankets and pillows he’d been using to sleep out here – just to make it easier for Bucky to move around in a wheelchair or on crutches. He even rolled up the rug to keep the floor even.

He’s been obsessively doing anything and everything he can to make their home a comfortable space while Bucky heals. He bought a shower chair for the master bath and a plastic cover to put over Bucky’s cast to protect it from water. He bought an assortment of loose sweatpants, flannel pants, and shorts so Bucky has more options for what to wear over his cast. The kitchen has been stocked with his favorites of late. Soup, chicken and rice, or eggs for when he’s not feeling well. Or richer things like pastas and casseroles. There’s orange juice and smoothies and jell-o. And Marge – who rested a hand on either of Gale’s shoulders and told him to take a rest – is making chocolate chip cookies. 

As Gale stands back and studies his work in the living room, trying to decide if it looks alright, his chest feels tight in a way he can’t quite explain.

As a young adult, he never bothered with buying a house, choosing instead to rent something out wherever he was stationed with the Air Force. When he and John both got selected to the astronaut training program based in Houston, they intrinsically knew that it was the right time to take that step. A sort of settling down, even though they were preparing to quite literally launch themselves off the face of the planet. Admittedly, they didn’t spend too long looking for a house, seeing maybe two or three local listings which were all perfectly fine. Then one day, Benny, who had been accepted into the program the year before, mentioned that a house down the street from him was for sale.

Gale fell in love with it the moment he saw it. And John loved it because Gale did.

It’s a one story, ranch-style house on a quiet street just a 5 or 10 minute walk from the water. A beautiful white brick and stone exterior with a sweet little front garden that they try to plant flowers in every year – an endeavor that often includes Gale trying to find plants that match the climate and sun exposure of their yard, while Bucky insists on “experimenting.” There’s also a backyard with a large patio for entertaining and enough grass space for the dogs to run around. 

Gale remembers the day they moved in, sweating from the July heat but grinning from ear to ear with the excitement of a young couple on the verge of their future. Before they even started unloading the U-Haul, he stood in the middle of the empty, echoing house, staring at the walls, the ceiling, the windows. He couldn’t believe it was theirs. A place they could really make a life together. A place that he could call home, maybe for the first time in his entire life. Bucky found him standing, wide-eyed, in the living room. He wrapped his arms around Gale from behind, kissed him on the cheek, ducked down to rest his chin on his shoulder. 

“Welcome home, angel.”

Gale remembers dragging the couch through the door, collapsing down on it that first day. They sat, leaning against one another, surrounded by shoddily labeled, mixed up cardboard boxes full of their belongings. Exhausted, Gale said something noncommittal about getting to work unpacking. But John pulled him to his feet, kissed him silly, lead him to the bedroom where their new mattress lay on the floor, bed frame yet to be constructed. 

They lived off cereal and takeout for several days in a row, but they sure did break in every piece of furniture, every surface.

He remembers hot, desperate reunions when they each returned from their respective ISS expeditions, touching each other for the first time in six months. Their hands roamed over one another’s bodies with an insatiable desire to relearn every inch of each other. Bucky would grip his waist so hard he thought it might bruise, pressing him against the wall or the bed. Gale would twist his fingers into Bucky’s hair, kiss every place he could touch. He remembers it being rough and kind, a sense of desperation driving them to claim one another all over again as if the last time they were together was a lifetime ago.

He remembers late nights with their friends, Curt crashing on the couch, Benny or Marge in the guest room, sometimes Rosie or Alex on the floor. Midnights spent drinking and laughing, dumb jokes and good people. He remembers this house being filled with more people than it was meant to hold, buzzing with life.

He remembers the day they brought Pepper home, almost a year ago now. She was nothing more than a tiny, 10 week old ball of fluff with one ear still flopped over. He remembers the way they sat on the rug in the living room with her that evening, completely enamored with their new addition. “We’re a little family now,” Bucky said, smiling at Gale as he held the puppy up to his face. Gale scrunched his nose and closed his eyes, laughing as Pepper licked his cheek. Next thing he knew, Bucky’s lips were on his, and he felt himself melt a little inside.

Family. Home. Family. Home. 

They’re not words Gale takes lightly. They’re words that he will protect. Even though they’ve only been here a handful of years, this house tells their story, memories built on memories that he holds close to his heart in a way he never knew he was allowed to before. 

When he thinks of their kitchen, he thinks about making pancakes on Christmas morning, flour everywhere, chocolate chips and blueberries and chopped bananas spilling across the counter. Bucky singing along to the Christmas songs on the radio. He’d pull Gale close, plucking the spatula from his hand, and convince him to dance with him around the island until they were both giggling like children and the pancakes were starting to burn.  

When he looks at the front door, he thinks about all the times Bucky flung it open, yelling “honey I’m home!” as he walked inside. Sometimes he’d bring flowers for the vase in the window or pastries from Gale’s favorite bakery. He thinks about stumbling through on their wedding night, eager and drunk on nothing but love for each other. 

When he thinks about their yard, still drenched in sun and warmth in the middle of December, he thinks about the day he and Bucky stood in the middle of it, holding tight to each other's hands as they held the keys to their new home. He thinks about washing their cars in the summer, chasing each other with the hose. He thinks about Pepper and Meatball running outside to greet him. He thinks about standing in the driveway and watching Bucky teach some of the neighborhood kids how to ride a bike up and down the quiet road. 

Of course, the house holds bad memories, too. Fights they’ve had, times they’ve lost their temper, raised their voices, slammed a door or walked away. Times Gale cried alone because John was in space for months on end and he missed the closeness, the warmth, the weight of John’s head resting on his chest, the soothing sound of his heartbeat. Times John got drunk for the same reason, wanting nothing more than to hold Gale tight and kiss him in the dark. Still too fresh in Gale’s mind is the memory of collapsing to the floor, Marge rocking him in her arms because he didn’t know if his husband would come home alive. 

The walls will hold onto that memory. They won’t let him forget that the life he built here with John Egan very nearly became nothing but a flash in his mind, moments to look back on fondly, with a watery smile and a choked sob, a whispered I miss you. 

That almost might never leave. It’ll be months before Gale can wake up in the morning secure in the knowledge that his husband is here with him. It’ll be months before he stops jolting awake with tears in his eyes and a scream in his throat. It’ll be months of hard work and pain and frustration to make Bucky feel whole again. 

But it’s time to start pushing forward. 

Gale has never been a particularly religious man, but he will gladly thank whatever Gods may be listening, because his prayers were answered. Starting today, two weeks after splashdown, there will be memories of John coming home to add to all the rest.  

“Buck?”

Gale looks over to see Rosie standing in the entryway to the living room. 

“Ready to go?”

Taking one last look around, Gale starts to nod, then stops short. “The mirror.”

He didn’t replace the damn mirror in the master bath. Benny was the one to clean the bathroom, dispose of the glass fragments and scrub the tile until it was free of Gale’s blood. Gale’s barely even stepped foot in there in weeks, choosing instead to use the guest bath. 

Marge appears from the kitchen. “Benny’s on his way with a new one,” she assures him. “We’ll get it set up before you’re back.”

Gale doesn’t know what to say, so he nods dumbly as he twists his wedding ring around his finger, trying to quiet the storm of worries and hopes and needs and fears buzzing around in his head. Marge steps towards him and pulls him into a hug. “Take a breath, hon. He’s coming home.”

—

It’s raining, just the littlest bit. It’ll be done by the time they walk through the hospital doors, but dark clouds gather in the sky, casting shadows over the ground and darkening the hospital room. It makes Gale’s heart constrict with an unease, a sense of foreboding. He tries to shake it off, because he’s not in his bedroom on a stormy night. He’s not being jostled awake by Benny. His world isn’t crashing down with the water falling from the sky.

He leans against the doorframe of Bucky’s hospital room, hands shoved in his pockets, and he watches his husband for a moment. Bucky is looking out the window, watching the rain fall, the cars go by. He’s dressed in the same shorts and Air Force Thunderbirds t-shirt as he was the day before. A half finished plate of scrambled eggs, potatoes, and fruit sits on the tray beside him from breakfast, seemingly pushed aside and forgotten. Gale wonders if he didn’t finish because he felt sick or because he’s protesting hospital food. 

He looks healthy, despite the whole being in a hospital thing. That damn cold lingers, making him stuffy, his face sore from the pressure. His lungs protest when he breathes too deeply, or sometimes even when he doesn’t, and the cough won’t go away. Not to mention the broken leg. But he has color back in his cheeks. His eyes are clear, his face unworried. His heart beats steadily, and he’s able to breathe well enough without the cannula.

“Hey, darlin’,” Gale says at last.

Bucky turns his head, and he stares at Gale for a good second or two, uncomprehendingly. But then a grin spreads over his face. “Hey, angel.”

Gale feels his heart swell, and he takes a deep breath before stepping into the room. As he sits on the edge of the bed, Bucky grabs his hand and presses a kiss to his knuckles. 

“How ya feelin’ today?”

Bucky shrugs, looking down at their intertwined hands. He coughs once, holding his breath for a second to prevent it from getting worse. “I ain’t dead.” He squints, cocking his head like something is bugging him, but then he looks up and meets Gale’s worried gaze. “Almost went down in history for the wrong reasons, huh?”

John Egan. First astronaut to die on the moon. What a headline that would be.

Gale chuckles even though the acknowledgement of that damn almost makes him feel physically ill. “Think you’re goin’ down in history?” He forces back the flashing mental image of a tri-folded flag, a three volley salute, a missing man formation. 

Bucky’s eyes have that mischievous glint back, that look of invincibility, like he’s daring the universe to take another stab at him. “Oh yeah. The world will remember John fuckin’ Egan.”

And the thing is, Gale knows they will. 

By 1pm, Major John Egan is being discharged from the hospital. Paperwork complete, Gale carefully packs up every single get-well card, along with Bucky’s clothes and medications. Beary Egan gets carefully tucked into the top of the duffel. 

Over the past few days, Nurse Clara has kindly worked with them, teaching Gale how to help Bucky with daily tasks: things like changing clothes, safely getting in and out of the wheelchair, covering the cast with plastic to take a shower, and anything else that may be hindered by his lack of mobility. She patiently answers every question Gale has, and he has a lot. 

With the IV removed, Clara and Rosie stand by as Gale, all by himself, helps Bucky slowly get to his feet. With a few curse words, one panicked moment where Bucky nearly topples over, and a lot of strained encouragement – “we’re alright, we can do this, look at me, sweetheart” – Gale manages to help Bucky change into fresh clothes. The whole ordeal – while far more pleasant than the process of getting Bucky suited up on Starship and Orion – has Bucky swearing as he grips Gale’s hand or shoulder so hard his knuckles turn white, leaving accidental bruises on Gale’s pale skin. 

It’s a bit cold out, so the outfit of the day is black and gray plaid flannel pajama pants and a black t-shirt with an astronaut on the front. Above and below the astronaut are the words “Houston, I am the problem.”

A gift from Curt and Alex.

Finally, Gale helps Bucky shrug on a black zip-up hoodie and get settled into the wheelchair. Bucky forces a smile as he sits down, even leaning forward to kiss Gale on the cheek. “I love you,” he whispers.

They leave the hospital with a detailed rehabilitation, check-in, and physical and occupational therapy schedule. They also leave with a hefty hospital bill that Harding won’t let Gale so much as see, stating that NASA will take care of it.

Bucky doesn’t speak at all on the way home, not seeming to notice when Gale tries to ask him things like “how are you feeling?” or “excited to see Pepper?” He just stares out the window and watches the dark clouds roam across the sky, his brain too tired to do anything else. Gale has found himself wondering, in the last week, if there’s a reason why the brain fog is better on some days and worse on others. Other than night vs. day, he can’t find a rhyme or reason as to why Bucky gets confused sometimes, why he seems to fade away here and there. The doctors assure him it’s normal with the injury he had. Just like the shaking hands and fine motor control, it’ll take time. Gale hopes they’re right, but he still feels a painful worry twisting in his chest when he notices it. 

When they pull into their driveway, the word “home” pops out of Bucky’s mouth, and Gale reaches over to squeeze his hand.

It’s only when they pull to a complete stop, really taking in the sight of their house, that they notice the Christmas lights newly strung up along the roof, a strand of brightly colored bulbs joined by sparkling white icicle lights. Gale certainly didn’t have time to hang them, and it’s the middle of the day, but they’re lit up anyways, welcoming Bucky back with some holiday cheer. In the back seat, Rosie says “would you look at that,” and he reaches forward to rest a hand on Bucky’s shoulder.

Bucky focuses on those lights for a moment, and Gale watches the way they seem to ground him, waking up his brain a bit more as the blues and reds and greens reflect in his eyes. He squeezes Gale’s hand back. 

When his offer to help is declined, Rosie hauls the wheelchair out of the car, leaves it in the driveway, and heads inside to give the newlyweds some space. As Gale helps Bucky to step out of the car and sit down in the chair, though, he sees that not everyone got the message. He catches a glimpse of curly red hair on the porch of the house across from them, and he can’t help but smile. “Incoming,” he whispers to Bucky.

Bucky looks up as he settles into the chair, blinking away the fatigue, and his face brightens when he sees Maggie. Jane rushes out the door after her, grabbing her shoulder. “It’s alright,” Bucky says quietly, and Gale relays this information, shouting across the road.

Maggie immediately breaks away from her mom’s hold, barrels down the steps, checks both ways before crossing their quiet street, and she stops just short of colliding with Gale. Always so expressive around them, the little girl suddenly turns shy. Unsure what to do, she half hides behind Gale as she takes in the sight of Bucky in a wheelchair for the first time, his cast visible at the bottom of the pant leg.

Bucky’s smile doesn’t leave his face, though, and he tilts his head to peer around Gale’s legs until he’s looking Maggie in the eye. “There’s my favorite little astronaut.”

With a gentle hand on her shoulder, Gale nudges her forward. “Go on,” he insists. With a hesitant little stutter step, she moves out from behind him, looking up at him as she does so. 

“I told you he’d come home,” she says. Matter of fact. Like there was never a single doubt that John would survive.

Gale wishes he could have been that certain. He envies the way children view things like life and death, through a lens of naivete where the people they care for are invincible. He’s grateful, though, that Maggie was spared the worst. That she never knew the full story. 

She doesn’t notice the way he bites his lower lip to choke back a sharp, startled inhale, but Bucky does. He glances at Gale, eyebrow raised with a myriad of questions that he can’t ask, but then he looks back to Maggie. He grabs her small hand in his even though his fingers shake, and she grips back so he doesn’t have to focus on holding on.

“Sounds like you were very brave while I was gone,” he says to her. 

Maggie nods. She has this determined set to her eyes, a seriousness all over her face as she stands in front of him. Yet her voice is small and innocent, and Bucky hopes she’ll always stay this strong and kind. “I knew you wouldn’t leave us forever,” she tells him.

It’s Bucky’s turn to bite back tears, because, even though he knows, on some level, that it wasn’t really up to him, she’s right. He hides the thickness of his voice and the tightness of his throat with a cough that’s been tickling at his chest anyway. He directs it into his arm away from the little girl, then rubs a hand over his face. After he blinks a few times, willing away the wave of emotion that he’s sure will only get higher and higher throughout the day, he looks at Maggie again. 

“Learn to ride that bike yet?”

Maggie shakes her head. “I waited for you.” 

Gale remembers her words clearly, ringing in his ears. That awful day feels like years ago and like yesterday at the same time. The day he felt like his soul might disintegrate into the stars if he had to take one more breath without knowing if Bucky would survive. “He’ll come home. He has to. He promised he’d teach me how to ride a bike.”

“Might have to wait a bit longer. Until I get this thing off my leg.” Bucky pulls up his pant leg to better show the cast extending from knee to foot.

Maggie stares at it for a moment, unsure what to make of it, before she crouches down and runs a finger over the rough texture with a frown. She inspects the names written all over it – Curt and Rosie and Alex and Gale and more she doesn’t recognize. “Can I sign it?” 

Bucky tells her of course she can, and Gale digs around in the duffle until he finds a few colorful sharpies to offer. Maggie chooses the purple one. 

“Where’s a good spot?” Bucky asks her, leaning over to analyze the cast with her even though it hurts every single part of his body to do so. Maggie squints her eyes, analyzing her options, before she points to a spot above his ankle, right under Gale’s name. She looks at both of them for approval before uncapping the marker. 

She signs her name in big, slightly wobbly letters: MAGGIE with a carefully drawn heart at the end. 

“Perfect,” Bucky says, grinning at her as Gale takes the marker back. Then he adds, “by the way, that drawing of us? Museum quality.” He’s referring to the one that Jane brought to the hospital, of Maggie and Bucky on the moon together. Maggie rolls her eyes at his dramatics but looks pleased anyway. “You sure you wanna be an astronaut, not an artist?

The girl nods vigorously, her curly red hair bobbing against her shoulders. “I wanna be just like you,” she tells them, once again like she doesn’t have a single doubt in her mind. “I’m gonna go to space someday.”

Gale feels emotionally drained at this point, unsure how much more he can take even though everything about today is edged with hope and homecoming. He swallows thickly and puts a hand on Maggie’s shoulder as he glances back towards her house, where Jane is sitting on the porch. She waves to him. He looks back down at the girl, a little in awe at how he and Bucky have somehow managed to mean so much to her. How she has managed to mean so much to them.

“Well,” Bucky says. “If you’re so sure about that, I have something for you.” Gale takes his cue and rifles through the contents of the duffle bag until he finds Bucky’s PPK. Safely tucked into the bottom of it is a small, clear plastic envelope, which he lays in the palm of Bucky’s hand, face up so Maggie can see. 

Inside the plastic is a thick, heavy coin about two inches wide, engraved with braided edges and the Artemis III logo in the center, designed by the crew members themselves. A big red “A” with the middle line swooping out to the left, fading from red to blue as it loops around the moon and ends with the Orion capsule docked to Starship in front. Overlapping the right side leg of the A are the roman numerals III in dark gray. Printed around the edges are the names of the astronauts: Egan, Biddick, Rosenthal, Jefferson. 

“Do you know what this is?” Bucky asks Maggie. She shakes her head. “It’s a challenge coin,” he tells her, going on to explain that a challenge coin is carried by members of a special group, signifying their membership. Every big NASA mission gets its own challenge coin, and all of the crew members carry a few of them. 

Bucky kept one for himself and traded one with one of the Navy guys on the USS Portland, so this is the last one he took on board Orion. “This coin is very special,” he tells Maggie, urging her to take it. So carefully, she plucks it from his palm, holding it up close to her face so she can read the names. “I carried it with me on the moon.”

Maggie’s eyes go wide, shooting back to Bucky, who grins at her. He presses his palm to hers, the coin in between.  “Now it’s yours. Something that’s touched the stars. See? You’re on your way to being an astronaut.”

Maggie’s smile broadens, and, as she clutches the coin in her hand, she throws her arms around Bucky’s neck. It’s awkward over the chair as she tries to avoid jostling his leg, but she isn’t deterred, squealing an elated “thank you” as she holds on. Bucky wraps one arm around her in return.

When Maggie pulls back, Gale kneels down beside her, even though the pavement is still wet from the morning rain, and he wraps an arm around her. “Why don’t you flip it over?”

Maggie does so, and she runs a finger over the back of the coin, feeling the texture of the raised image. An astronaut on the moon, the Earthrise and the stars in the sky behind him. “Is that you?” She asks Bucky. 

He laughs. “Could be.” 

Gale points to the lettering along the bottom of the backside. “See that?”

“What does it say?” Maggie asks, rubbing her thumb over the italicized words. 

Bucky recites them to her, but his eyes are locked on Gale the entire time. He watches Gale silently mouth the phrase along with him, not only the mission motto, but a promise to one another. “Ad lunam. Ad astra. To the moon. To the stars.”

—

With Maggie safely back across the street, Gale wheels Bucky up the walk to the front door. As he turns the knob and pushes it open, Rosie appears on the other side, holding it for them. 

“Welcome home, darlin’,” Gale says as they enter the foyer.

Bucky smiles tiredly as he takes a deep breath that rattles his chest and nearly causes him to cough again, but it’s worth it to smell the scent of home. He tilts his head. “Cookies?”

Gale chuckles, but doesn’t answer, wheeling Bucky past the foyer and into the living room. The moment they’re within view, he’s met by a chorus of “Welcome home!” and the sight of his closest friends sitting around the slightly rearranged living room. 

“Astrofag!” Curt calls out from his seat in the middle of the couch. On one side of him is Marge, Benny on the other, while Alex sits in one of the armchairs. Rosie trails in behind Gale. A banner with hand-lettered words is strung across the back wall: “We’re glad you’re alive!” More space balloons float around it, and in the time that Gale and Bucky were outside, Rosie has already displayed all of the get well cards from the hospital on the side tables and tv stand.

“Did you miss me?” Bucky grins, holding his hands out to the side like a risen savior as Gale eases him to a stop in front of the coffee table, close to the empty armchair.

“Had enough of you for a lifetime,” Benny jokes, calling back to what Bucky said to him in the hospital nearly two weeks ago. He gets to his feet, though, and walks over to Bucky, leaning down to give him a side hug.

“I almost died, you have to be nice to me,” Bucky claims as he returns the hug.

“And how long does that last?”

“Until Gale quits gettin’ all nervous every time I cough or somethin’.” Every time he coughs. Every time he zones out. Every time he feels nauseous or complains about his head hurting. Every time his fingers shake and he can’t hold his own fork or move his own wheelchair.

Everyone looks at Gale, who, in the presence of his best friends, doesn’t even try to hide his blush. He secures the brake on Bucky’s wheelchair before sitting in the armchair beside him, and Benny returns to his seat while Rosie sits on the floor between the couch and the coffee table.

Bucky nods to a tray of cookies in the middle of the table. “Who made those?”

“Marge,” Alex says.

Bucky just about groans. “Thank god. They’ll be good then.”

“Hey,” Gale shoots back, offended, as Marge laughs.

Bucky waves him off. “I know you didn’t make ‘em, doll. Got my head on straight enough to know you’ve been with me all day.”

Marge gets to her feet to grab a cookie and hand one to him across the table. “I made them how you like them.”

Milk and semi-sweet chocolate chips, but not too much of either so that there’s parts of the cookie with no chocolate at all. It’s called balance, he told her once during a late night trauma-dumping/baking session.

Bucky takes the cookie, biting into it as he closes his eyes. Silently, he’s so fucking grateful that he hasn’t felt any nausea today. “Real food,” he mutters.

Gale scoffs, even though this ‘perfect cookie’ was his own recipe to begin with. “Not sure a cookie counts as real food.”

Bucky flips him off, his middle finger still not quite able to get all the way up without the others, and he takes another bite. It’s been too damn long since he had some quality snacks. It’s better than wheat chex, that’s for sure. And he’d take the wheat chex any day over the bland desserts they tried to give him in the hospital.

The guys – and Marge – stay for a bit, talking and taking comfort in being all together again, all of them alive, home, on the road to healthy. When Bucky starts to drift, going quiet as it becomes more and more difficult to focus on the conversation, everyone makes their excuses to head out, leaving the Buckies alone to rest. 

Benny returns ten minutes later with an overenthusiastic husky straining at her leash – the antithesis of rest – and he passes her off to Gale through the front door before leaving them again. The dog knows immediately, her paws tippy-tapping on the hardwood as her tail wags so hard Gale doesn’t know how it doesn’t hurt. “You’re gonna have to stay calm, baby girl,” he tells her.

“Come on, Buck,” Bucky calls from the living room. “I’ll be fine.”

When Gale finally walks Pepper into the living room, Bucky has managed to get himself turned around to face them. Gale keeps her on a tight leash as they walk forward, holding her back from flat out charging at Bucky. Her entire body is wiggling as she tries to pull away. “Easy, babe,” Gale tells her.

When they finally reach Bucky, he loosens the leash, and Pepper immediately presses her nose to Bucky’s knees, his thighs, his cast, his hands, any part of him she can as she wags her tail and pants. She looks like she’s smiling, completely overwhelmed with the excitement of her other person finally being back where he’s supposed to be. Bucky laughs and scratches behind her ears and under her chin, letting her lick and sniff and press her head against him. He grimaces when she nearly jumps on the chair, bumping his bad leg, before Gale catches her and tells her firmly to stay down. Bucky hardly cares, though, his fingers clutching weakly at her soft fur, unwilling to let go.

“Hey, Pep,” he says, his voice strained with emotion. He tilts his head as he strokes her ears, his eyes fluttering closed so that Gale can see stubborn tears clinging to his eyelashes. Bucky takes a deep, rattling breath, and he stares at the dog as she sits loyally beside his chair, watching him with the same love in her eyes. She rests her head on the armrest and licks his hand gently.

Bucky gives her a wobbly smile. “Thought I’d never see you again.” 

Gale sets a comforting hand on his shoulder, and time seems to freeze for just a moment. One perfect moment. A snapshot of their little family.

That afternoon, Pepper wolfs down all of her food, totally unprompted, for the first time in days. 

—

For the first time since the morning of November 19, Gale sleeps in their bed.

He’s hardly stepped foot in this room except for this morning, when he took a deep breath, told himself it was time to get his shit together, and set about changing the sheets, getting everything ready for John to come home. Sharing this bed feels so familiar, and yet so different. He finds himself holding his breath, like if he disturbs the moment, breathes too loudly, blinks too hard, then it’ll simply evaporate, and he’ll be stuck in the same Purgatory that he was nearly a month ago. He tries to ground himself in Bucky’s warmth, the familiar shape of his body, his scent – different than usual due to being in the hospital, but somehow still him. Smoky and sweet. 

It’s December. Even in Nassau Bay, Texas, the current night time temperature is near 40 degrees, and yet Bucky insists on sleeping shirtless while Gale tucks himself into an old NASA sweatshirt. At first, Gale worried about Bucky getting too cold, what with the pneumonia and the head cold and the TBI. But Bucky wouldn't hear it. “You’re gonna make me overheat,” he said. 

Now, Gale doesn’t mind so much that he can feel Bucky’s skin beneath his hands. Warm, not cold. Alive, not dying.

They don’t sleep at first. They lay awake in the dark, Gale curled up with his head on Bucky’s chest. His cheek and ear nestle against Bucky’s bare skin, and he listens to the beating of his heart. Their hands cling to one another, and Bucky plays mindlessly with Gale’s fingers. That same old habit that he’s had since they were in college.

Gale wonders when such little things will stop making his chest constrict in anxiety and relief.

“I know you broke the mirror,” Bucky says eventually, his voice cutting through the silence.

“Mmm.” Gale doesn’t deny it. 

“I ain’t dumb. It doesn’t even have the same frame.”

“Benny replaced it this morning,” Gale says passively, even though he’s staring dead ahead in the darkness, ublinking. 

“You punch it or what?” Bucky knows his husband. He knows how stoic everyone thinks he is, how calm and collected Major Buck Cleven tries to be. But he also knows that Buck – Gale – can snap.

“Mmm. The morning I found out.”

“Straight to the dramatics.”

“Benny woke me up,” Gale drawls, his voice steady, measured, even though Bucky doesn’t miss the nervous undertone in the way it shifts. “I thought you’d be dead by the time I got to JSC.” He says this matter-of-factly. He doesn’t tell Bucky that he imagined his entire funeral, word for word, breath for breath. “It was touch and go for a while there.”

“I was the one dying.”

“You were passed out those first few days.”

They’re quiet for a while. Slowly, slowly they’ll learn what the other went through. Someday, they’ll fall apart late one night or early one morning, and it’ll all spill out in a tidal wave that threatens to crush them under the weight of this aftermath. They’ll hold each other tight and try to hold back the sobs and remind each other to keep breathing, remind each other that they’re still breathing. 

But it’s not time. Not yet. It hurts too much, and they don’t have the words. Right now, they’re not sure that they’ll ever have the words. Right now, all they can do is hold on tight.

There was never anything that could break them, Marge said at their wedding. They may have come damn close, but here they are, unbroken.

So they sit in silence. Gale counts Bucky’s heartbeats. One. Two. Three. Four. Five…

When he hits thirty-two, Bucky says, out of nowhere, “It was like I could hear you.” As if he’s been thinking over something troubling for some time now. 

Gale tenses. “Mmm?”

“W-When I was, um…” Bucky takes a deep breath. He coughs once, weakly, and it jostles Gale. But he rests his free hand on the back of Gale’s head, holding him there, not wanting to lose that reassuring weight. “I guess I was unconscious. Those first days after I… after…”

Why is it that, in the dark, it feels easier to talk about the hard things, and yet it’s harder to find the right words?

“You were in a coma,” Gale says. “Completely non reactive.” That’s what Dr. Huston told him. What Curt told him. 

“I know,” Bucky agrees. He makes a breathy, frustrated sort of sound, and Gale can imagine him squeezing his eyes shut, clenching his jaw as he tries to figure out how to say what he needs to say. Gale waits patiently.

“Everything hurt so bad,” Bucky finally explains. “I could feel it. I could hear Curt sometimes, too. But I couldn’t move. I couldn’t fuckin’ think. I-I was just… I couldn’t… Fuck.” It was like he was floating, not part of the world, not part of his body, but in so much goddamn pain he wanted to scream. He doesn’t know how to tell his husband that, though. 

Instead, he pushes forward to what he needs to tell Gale now. “But it was like you were in my head. I heard your voice. It made me… it made me keep breathing, y’know?”

Gale goes completely still, eyes wide, unblinking, not breathing. Bucky’s fingers try to grip his hair, but can’t seem to close around the strands. Gale grips Bucky’s hand. He bites hard at his lower lip.

Bucky’s voice gets thick and tight, and Gale can hear his chest rattling as he breathes, threatening another coughing fit. “I-I knew I had to… I had to…” Another painful pause. “I had to get back to you.”

Gale holds back the wet little gasp that wants to tear through his gritted teeth. A tear drips off of his nose and onto Bucky’s bare chest, and he wonders if Bucky feels it. He tucks his face against the warm skin, needing to be as close as possible as he curls around Bucky’s body in a way that makes it unclear if he’s trying to hide against it or protect it from the world, make sure it can’t break any more than it already has. 

“I couldn’t leave you,” Bucky chokes out. Gale can’t see his face, but his husband’s voice alone is enough to cave his chest in with a crippling kind of sorrow. “I couldn’t do th-that to you. I had to… I needed…”

Gale can hear the tears building up in Bucky’s voice now, and he wants to make them go away. Yet he knows they both need this. They both need to feel this pain, let it drown them, just for a little bit, as they grip so tightly to each other that their fingerprints become embedded into each others’ souls. They need to face it, or they’ll never be able to move forward. 

“It’s okay,” he whispers.

“I-I think I…” Bucky takes a careful, controlled breath. He thinks about the stars he could see through Starship’s window, flickering in the darkness. He thinks about the pain burning like fire through his body and his brain. He thinks about wanting to die, near begging a god he didn’t believe in to carry him away from that damned place because death must be better than whatever he was going through. 

But in the darkness, a star shines on. A heart beats. A mind dreams. The Earth turns. And even when he couldn’t wake up, when he was consumed in agony from the inside out, Bucky thought of his husband. He heard his voice, saw his face, wanted nothing more than to hold him tight and hang on forever. And even when he wanted to give up, he fought to stay.

Bucky’s breath shudders, and he feels tears dripping down his cheeks. He closes his eyes. “You’re what kept me alive, Gale.” 

You’re the reason I had to stay alive. The reason I had to come home. 

You are my home. 

Gale is quiet for a long time, listening to Bucky’s heartbeat. He presses his lips against Bucky’s chest. “Don’t tell Curt that,” he whispers.

Bucky laughs wetly. He can feel Gale’s tears against his chest, and he strokes his husband’s hair. “I know,” he says, “But. It was you, angel. It was always you.”

—

It’s 1am when Bucky asks Gale if he’s still awake.

Gale, still tucked against Bucky’s side, nods sleepily. His eyes drift open, taking their sweet time adjusting to the darkness of the room. He shifts just slightly, making Pepper huff in annoyance where she lay curled up right at his feet.

He presses his lips to Bucky’s shoulder. “You okay?”

He waits so long for an answer that he wonders if Bucky actually said anything at all. But eventually it comes: “Hurts.”

“What does?”

A pause. “Everything?”

Gale nods again in understanding. Leg, head, chest, ribs. In that order. Possibly his back as well.

“I’ll get you some pain killers,” Gale says. He reluctantly pushes himself away from Bucky and crawls out of bed, his foot getting caught on the blanket as he goes. His mind flashes back to the way he scrambled out of bed on November 19th, sheets tangled around his feet as the room tilted, Benny approaching him like a wild animal.

His heart beats faster, faster, faster.

“Thanks, hon.”

Gale takes a breath. He walks to the kitchen, flicks on the lights, reaches for the little orange bottle of prescription pills sitting on the windowsill. He stares at the tiny print, remembering the doctor’s instructions. One pill every 6 hours as needed. He does some mental math, concludes that it’s been well over 6 hours since the last dose, dumps a tablet into his hand, and fills a glass with water,

When he returns to their bedroom, he finds Bucky sitting up with a pillow behind his back, looking at a too-bright phone screen – Gale’s too-bright phone screen. Gale turns on the lamp on Bucky’s bedside table. “What’re you looking at?”

Bucky sets the phone on his thigh so he can take the pill and glass of water, swallowing both down. Gale glances down at the phone, and he finds that the saved email from their wedding photographer is pulled up, the cover photo of the digital album displayed on the screen.

Bucky sets the glass down on the table, the bottom of it rattling as his hand shakes. He looks up at Gale, who is still hovering over him. “Thought we could look at them. Together.”

Gale can’t quite bring himself to smile, his brow scrunching into something pained but full of love. “Yeah,” he whispers. He walks back around to the other side of the bed, stopping to scratch Pepper on the head, and he sits back against the headboard. Tucking his legs beneath the covers, he presses himself against Bucky’s side.

Bucky offers him the phone, too tired to focus on making his fingers work right, and Gale opens the album once again.

It’s strange, really. These are the exact same photos that Gale looked at before. Some of them – especially those of John in the groom’s suite – he’s stared at and stared at, unable to look away and unable to move forward. These photos carved a hole into his chest even as he fell in love with every image, at one time thinking that if he never got to see his husband again, at least he would be left with such perfect, life-filled photographs. 

They made him sob and they made him panic. They made him chuck his phone away because they filled him with too much everything and he was overloaded with the weight of it. They made him grieve.

But here they are. The same exact pictures, and they look completely different somehow. When the gallery opens, Bucky sinks down so his head rests on Gale’s shoulder, and Gale wraps his arm around him. He balances the phone on Bucky’s chest and turns to press his nose into his hair. 

Bucky’s lips curve into the most genuine little smile the moment he sets eyes on the photographs of Gale in the bridal suite, and it hits Gale in the weirdest of ways that, even though he’s seen these specific pictures a handful of times now, Bucky hasn’t. This is the first Bucky has seen of Gale’s pre-ceremony experience. “You’re…” Bucky huffs out a disbelieving breath. “God, Gale, look at you.”

While Gale holds the phone, Bucky uses a finger to swipe from photo to photo, pointing something out here and there – how he didn’t realize Gale was so nervous, too, or how lovely Marge looks or how much he loved that white suit – or sometimes just staring with his hand poised over the screen like he’s eager to get to the next one but reluctant to move away from the one he’s on. He stops for a long time on a candid of Gale standing in front of the mirror, looking down with a nervous smile on his face as he adjusts his cufflinks. The light coming through the windows hits just right, making his suit seem brighter and his boutonniere pop. It highlights the freckles on his cheeks that Bucky sometimes likes to kiss or poke at. 

Gale thinks he hears Bucky whisper the word “wow.”

“Sorry I ain’t that pretty all the time,” Gale jokes self-deprecatingly.

Bucky turns his head, glances up at him. “You get more and more beautiful every day, love.” He reaches a hand up to grab Gale’s chin, satisfied at the way it makes him blush. Gale feels the metal of the wedding band rub against his jaw, and he motions for Bucky to keep going through the album. 

“Ah, look at that handsome man,” Bucky says when he gets to the pictures of the groom’s suite. “Whoever gets to marry him sure is lucky.”

Gale scoffs, hiding his face in Bucky’s hair. He squeezes Bucky’s hip with the hand wrapped around him and whispers, “I am.” 

“Holy shit I was nervous,” Bucky admits as they scroll through. Gale stops him every once in a while, wanting to look at certain photos for just a little longer even though he’s drilled them into his mind already. Bucky biting his lip anxiously as Rosie fixes his cufflinks, Bucky kneeling down to pet the dog, Bucky with his head thrown back in a full body laugh, looking beautiful, carefree, happy.

They reminisce over their first look, feeling like they’re there all over again, seeing each other for the first time, reaching out to touch, at a loss for words.

And then it’s on to uncharted territory, the photos that Gale never managed to get to. He takes a deep breath, and he decides right then and there that it’s okay. After everything, right now, they get to look at their wedding photos together. Just like any love-struck young couple.

One small step on the road to normal. 

“Someday I’ll thank her for holdin’ you up while I was gone,” Bucky says when they get to a picture of Marge walking them down the aisle. Gale can only nod, because nothing he could ever do could ever repay her for, well, everything.

“Were you crying?” Gale asks as he zooms in on a picture of them at the altar, holding tight to each other’s hands. Bucky is biting gently at his lower lip as he looks at Gale, and his eyes are glistening in the light. 

“I don’t know,” Bucky laughs now. “I was so focused on gettin’ my vows right. I don’t even know.”

“Wait,” Gale smirks and leans his head down, trying to get a good look at Bucky’s face. “Are you crying now?”

Bucky shakes his head, but he also scrubs at his eyes with his hand. He presses himself even closer to Gale, if that’s possible. “I have a head injury,” he says meekly.

“Yeah, sure,” Gale drawls, kissing the top of his head.

There’s a few pictures of the ring exchange, and Gale remembers how badly Bucky’s hand was shaking that day. The irony of it claws at his throat, but neither of them say a word. He remembers how fast his own heart was racing. He remembers the feeling of that cool silver band sliding over his finger. He remembers the look in Bucky’s eyes.

They spend a long time looking at the series of photos from during and after their kiss, remembering how the entire world disappeared in that moment, just them, their own universe, the greatest love story ever told. Naturally, they’ve barely kissed since Bucky returned. 

“Tomorrow I’m gonna kiss you like that,” Bucky promises.

“Why tomorrow?”

“Cause the meds are kickin’ in and I’m too comfy to move.”

That would make Gale smile, but he finds he already is. He’s barely stopped this whole time, even when the pictures bring tears to his eyes and shove a lump into his throat. He holds Bucky tighter.

After the ceremony photos – Bucky jokingly declares that the best one is the one of Meatball and Pepper crashing their kiss – there’s plenty of staged photos of the wedding party and even more of John and Gale. And then there’s the reception.

Speeches. Curt and Marge standing on a chair. The newlyweds holding hands at their table, whispering into each others’ ears, kissing sweetly like no one was watching even though everyone was watching. People dancing and laughing. Gale dancing with Bucky, with Marge, with Chick. John having a dance off with Curt and Alex. Cutting the cake – Bucky smashing a piece into Gale’s mouth. Kissing through the icing, staining their lips blue. John and Gale on the mezzanine, John kissing him on the cheek. Gale tossing the bouquet over his shoulder. All of their Air Force friends, Benny included, scrambling over each other to catch it like it was a football and they were trying to win the Superbowl. Meatball grabbing it in the chaos and running full speed through the reception hall.

Gale laughs as he sees those photos for the first time. “I didn’t even know that happened.” When he doesn’t get a response, he looks down at Bucky. “You still with me darlin’?” 

“Mhm,” comes the reply. And Gale realizes that Bucky is struggling to keep his eyes open. But he blinks and glances up at Gale. “That was the best day of my life, you know.”

Gale’s lips part, but he doesn’t have anything to say. He wants it to have been the best day of his life, too. But after everything… 

Gale doesn’t believe in miracles. But as far as he can tell, the day Bucky splashed down in the Pacific was as close to one as he’ll ever get. So after everything, is it strange that he thinks the best day of his life isn’t the day that marked the rest of his forever, but the day that kept that forever intact? The day John came home to him. 

He can’t bear to say all that, though. So he nods as he turns the phone off, and he wraps his arms more fully around his husband, feeling the warmth of his bare skin and the reassuring weight of his upper body. He finds himself feeling comfortable, safe, secure, not afraid. He almost feels like he could just nod off right here. “It was a damn good day,” he agrees. 

Within moments, Bucky is drifting off in his arms, relaxing into his embrace. Carefully, slowly, Gale eases them both down, so they’re laying more comfortably on the mattress, but he doesn’t let go. And for the first time since early October, together, in their own bed in their own home, they sleep.

—

December 12 Nassau Bay, TX

It’s raining.

For real this time. At least, John really hopes it’s real.

He sits on the couch and stares out the window, listens carefully. The house is filled with that eerie but comforting light of an afternoon rain storm, gray and blue and green with a daylight sort of darkness that settles over everything with hardly a shadow. 

Drops of water drip down the windowpane, and Bucky watches them. He presses his finger to the glass and traces their path as they roll down. He listens to the steady beating of raindrops on their roof. He pretends he can smell the fresh earthy scent of a storm mixing with the salty air of their home on the bay. He pretends he can feel the cool water sliding over his bare skin, plastering his hair to his forehead. 

The rain has been falling for over half an hour now, and his heart reaches out to it. He has to wonder if it’s real, or if it’s only a dream. He often wonders that – was all of it a dream? Is it all a dream? Will he wake up one day, still on Starship, and find out his trip home, his successful failure, wasn’t real? Maybe the accident never happened. Or maybe it did and he never actually woke up.

Or will he wake up one day in this very house, learn that he never went to the moon at all? Will he be shipped off to quarantine to do it all again?

But his leg throbs with his heartbeat, and sometimes his head still spins. Every cough reminds him he’s alive. He holds onto Beary Egan as he sits on the couch, Pepper at his side, and while many things are blurry or missing, there’s so much that he can recall in such detail. If he closes his eyes, he can see the surface of the moon stretched out before him. Nowhere and everywhere. But he was there.

“John?”

Bucky’s brain takes far too long to understand that someone is saying his name. When he finally tunes in, for a second he thinks it must be Curt or Rosie. Checking on him, trying to get him to eat something, telling him it’s time to do this or that thing that is going to cause him pain but is necessary anyways. 

But the voice says his name again, followed by a gentle “darling?” and a smile slips over Bucky’s face. 

He turns his head to see his husband, leaning against the doorway to the kitchen. His hair is unstyled, soft and messy. He’s wearing jeans and a black sweater. Bucky is once again wearing his own Yankees sweatshirt – if for no other reason than to make it smell like him again. For now, it smells like Gale, and it makes him feel safe. 

“You okay?” Gale asks. He raises an eyebrow in concern. He looks at Bucky like that a lot now – concerned.

The truth is, everything hurts. Everything feels icky. Everything about Bucky’s body feels wrong and out of control. But he nods. Because right now, he is actually okay. 

He woke up in his husband’s arms, his dog at his feet. Gale made him pancakes, and when he couldn’t quite stomach those, he cut up a bunch of fruit and let Bucky drink as much orange juice as he wanted. Gale told JSC he wouldn’t be in today, and they spent their morning watching a movie on the couch while Bucky scrolled through their wedding photos again. Lazy and domestic, just trying to heal.

Bucky reaches an arm out towards Gale, making a grabbing motion with his hand. Gale’s face softens and he walks across the room, settling on the couch beside Bucky. He wraps his husband in his arms, and together, they stare out the window at the water falling down onto the Earth.

Gale closes his eyes and takes a deep breath in, holding Bucky tight. He presses his nose against the dark curls at the back of Bucky’s head, where that shaved patch is finally growing back. He tries to remind himself that John is here, in his arms, safe, not going anywhere. He tries to block out the rhythm of the rain, wills it to stop.

All he can think about is that night, a storm pouring buckets over their town, when Benny woke him in the darkness. 

One single moment can change the way you see even the most fundamental parts of the world. Something that once was beautiful, now bears nothing but pain. Fear and grief. That’s the song sung by the rain.

Gale listens to its melody, wondering if it’ll ever change its tune.

“You know,” Bucky says. He presses his whole hand against the cool window glass. His eyes flick momentarily to Gale’s, then back to the view of their backyard. “The rain is one of the things I missed the most.”

Gale blinks. “Mmm?”

Bucky nods. “The moon is so… empty,” he says, frowning. “I mean, it’s amazing. It’s beautiful. I wish I could go back. But it’s quiet. Unchanging. Dry. I missed water.”

Bucky seems to drift away again after that. One moment, he looks focused, speaking purposefully. The next, his eyes go a little hazy and the expression just drops from his face. He leans his head against Gale’s shoulder, and he stares out the window. Gale half expects him to fall asleep, but just as he’s about to ask Bucky if he’s still with him, Bucky shifts, tilting his head in thought.

“I remember wanting to feel the rain. I’d pretend I could feel it running over me, soaking my hair. I pretended I could taste it on my tongue. Like when we were kids, y’know? Playin’ in the puddles.”

Gale stares thoughtfully out the window, trying to see it in the same way. His heart beats a little too fast, though, when he can’t shove away the memory of that morning. 

He tries to smile weakly, pressing his lips to the back of Bucky’s head to hide the way he wants to cry at the memory mixed with the visual of John here, in his arms where he belongs. “Come on,” he says.

Bucky looks at him questioningly, but he doesn’t have a chance to resist because Gale is already standing up, crossing the room, retrieving the wheelchair. And then he’s lifting Bucky in his arms and settling him into it.

Bucky shifts in the chair, grimacing as he tries to get his leg positioned right. “What are you doing?” 

Gale puts a finger up and walks away again, leaving Bucky alone in the middle of the living room in a chair that he’s hardly any good at maneuvering on his own. But he returns moments later with the plastic cover for Bucky’s cast.

“We’re gonna go outside.”

Bucky blinks at him, then glances out the window again. “In the rain?”

“Mmm.” Gale kneels in front of Bucky, and Bucky watches as Gale gently lifts his bad leg, slips the cover up over the cast and secures the top of it at his knee. Then he helps Bucky get his leg in a comfortable position again. “Good?”

Bucky nods. Gale pats his good leg gently before getting back to his feet and wandering over to the coat closet. He hands Bucky one of his warmer raincoats so he can pull it on over his sweatshirt. “What?” Bucky asks when he notices Gale watching him do it. “I can get my own jacket on, Buck.”

What he doesn’t realize is that every time he does some menial task on his own, Gale’s heart is working to mend itself back together. Because Bucky doesn’t know the conversations Gale had to have with Dr. Huston and Smokey. He doesn’t know how terrified Gale was that Bucky would never be able to do these things again.

But outwardly, Gale just rolls his eyes, because Bucky doesn’t need to know all that. Not right now. He pulls on his own coat, ruffles Bucky’s curls as he steps behind him, and pushes him towards the front door. Pepper, finally convinced that they’re doing something worthwhile on this tired, rainy day, gets up from the couch to follow behind them.

The last time Gale stood in the rain, he was dressed in nothing but his work clothes. He stood frozen, drenched to the bone, unable to feel anything at all. Sandra had to save him. His mind flashes to that moment as he walks out the door, pushing Bucky out in front of him. He nearly freezes when he feels the cold raindrops hitting his face. He doesn’t bother to put his hood up.

But he notices something: he can feel it now.

As Gale wheels him out to the driveway, Bucky holds out his hands and looks up, closing his eyes as he feels the fat, heavy drops splashing onto his skin, soaking into his hair. Even on the Gulf, the rain is freezing in December, but it makes Bucky feel more alive than he has since he woke up in Starship half dead. 

Gale steps out from behind him and takes his hand. “So you didn’t have this on the moon?”

Bucky laughs. “If we did we’d have colonized it by now!”

Pepper runs in circles around them, darting from one side of the driveway to the other with her face to the sky, her thick fur slowly getting matted down. They both laugh as she gets down and rolls in the grass, staining parts of herself green. Gale knows he’ll have a hell of a time giving her a bath, but it doesn’t matter. 

He watches Bucky take in the vibrant world around them. The fresh smell of the rain and the salt of the bay. The bright colors of the Earth, the sound of the raindrops pounding the ground. Their house, their street, their dog, the trees and the grass and the water streaming down the road. All of it so alive. 

When Bucky’s eyes finally reach Gale again, he stops. He raises an eyebrow, a grin brightening his face even as his hair is soaked to his head and his flannel pajama pants have no hope of ever being dry again. “What?” He asks. 

And Gale realizes he’s been staring. He knows he must look like a wet dog, but Bucky looks at him like he’s the most beautiful thing in the world. 

“I missed you,” Gale says. Like it isn’t obvious. Like those words can possibly encapsulate what he means.

Bucky reaches out his other hand and looks at Gale expectantly. “Help me up.” 

Gale looks skeptical, but he hauls Bucky to his feet – or, foot. He keeps one arm around Bucky’s waist, keeping him steady, and Bucky grabs onto his shoulder for balance. They’re getting better at it. 

“Now what?” Gale laughs. 

Bucky doesn’t say a word. Just ducks his head down and presses his lips to Gale’s. Gale freezes in surprise, but it’s not even a second before he closes his eyes and has to remind himself that he needs to be the strong one, keep himself steady, even as he melts. They grip onto one another, holding on for dear life, and Bucky kisses his husband like it’s their wedding day. 

Gale sighs into it, and he feels Bucky smile. They’re both soaked to the bone, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters other than the two of them together, right here and now. 

Because, finally, they’re home. 

[formulaforza]

oh, simple thing— c.sainz

"the earth laughs in flowers" pairing: carlos sainz x female reader wc: 4.1k notes: guys remember when i used to write? back in january? crazy times. anyways.

You were five years old the first time you proclaimed that you were going to marry Carlos. It came, of course, after the implication that you would also be marrying Prince Charming (as long as he didn’t keep your glass slipper–shoes are a woman’s best friend, your mom had told you once and you never forgot it) and the gym teacher at your primary school, whose crush you’d never admit to anyone but your mom. Can you imagine the teasing? Thinking a grown-up is cute? It’s completely preposterous… or, when you were five, super-duper silly. 

All three of the loves of your life were completely coincidental, coming to your brain while your mom read you a bedtime story completely coincidentally. You’d had gym class that day, of course. Played with the rolling scooters and argued with the older kids about getting a turn on the tube slide. Scooter day was always your favorite, so it was no surprise your teacher was in your good graces that evening. A

After dinner, while flipping lazily through channels on the big square television in the family room, your dad had clicked on the Disney Channel by mistake. Cinderella was halfway through and you threw a fit every time he tried to change the channel. You just thought she looked so pretty, in her big princess dress dancing at the ball. 

Carlos, what had Carlos done to be in your good graces that day…? He wasn’t in your class, so you couldn’t enlist him in the war of the slides or crash into him on the scooters. He definitely wasn’t running around your house after dinner. If he was, your Mom would still be cleaning up after him somewhere in the house. Carlos, Carlos, Carlos… what had he–oh! That’s right! The flower on the way home from school. How could you ever forget the first flower? He’ll give you shit for it later. 

Your mom and Carlos’ mom had been best friends long before you and Carlos burst into the scene. They liked each other more than just about anyone, and you never did understand how Reyes never tired of your Mother’s antics. She was always bossing you around, forcing you to clean up your toys and read your books. Carlos got away with whatever he wanted, his parents would even lie for him on his reading logs. Anyways, stay focused. Because your parents were such good friends, you and Carlos grew up side by side. Parallel play or bust, since neither of you were particularly apt at sharing. Everyday on the walk home from school, your moms would catch up on the gossip from the night before while you and Carlos tried to kill each other with various objects found on the sidewalk. This day, there had been eleven pebbles, two rocks, a stick, and Carlos’ metal water bottle (the one with the HotWheels logo on the side). Now, Carlos was charging at you with… a flower? A bluebell, one he’d picked straight from the ground, root and all hanging from his fist. When he held it out to you, you scowled. There wasn’t anything wrong with it. In fact, it was about as perfect as a bluebell from the sidewalk can get, but, you’re a little shit. 

“It’s dead,” you said, took it from him and tossed it aside. “It’s not nice to pick flowers, Carlito. It kills them.” He burst into tears and your mother scolded you the rest of the way home, even though it was her who always told you to leave the wildflowers wild. After some time and consideration (a plate of dinosaur nuggets, half of Cinderella, and a bedtime story) you’d decided maybe Carlos was right to cry about the dead flower. 

Carlos, it seemed, had gotten over the dead flower incident pretty quickly because, the very next day, he was already making a joke of it. He’d held up the walk home for fifteen minutes while he searched through a field in the park. Both of your mothers and Blanca had already shown him what had to be a hundred or so healthy, perky flowers. Carlos shook his head at each one of them, typical. You sat on the curb of the garden and played with the ants that had built a sandy hill beside your foot. You resisted the urge to stomp it, only because you knew you’d be lectured about leaving the bugs alone in the same way you were about leaving the flowers alone. After a lifetime–or enough time to have an after school snack–Carlos finally settled on the ugliest, most wilted flower you’d ever laid your eyes on. He presented it to you with a laugh and, because you’re just as stubborn as he is, you accepted the gift graciously and let it sit vaseless on your dresser for three days before someone threw it away. 

Truthfully, though, the real reason you probably proclaimed your intent to marry him that night wasn’t some flower. It was that Blanca had defended you from his water bottle strike with a pebble to the back of his head, and you thought that would be a good kind of person to have as a sister. 

Carlos was seventeen when he figured he’d probably end up with you eventually for the first time. There wasn’t anything romantic about it. It was more of an ah, fuck. It’s gonna be her, isn’t it? 

Your families were in Mallorca, touring some vineyard–well, your parents were touring the vineyard. You, Carlos, and all of the siblings had snuck off from the group one by one and met up in the grove just outside the property. Carlos was bumming a cigarette from Blana when Ana finally turned up, stomping her way through the grass and wildflowers annoyedly. Carlos takes a puff of the cigarette and passes it over to you. 

“You’re going to start a wildfire, you know?” Ana says, crosses her arms over her chest and pops out a hip all bratty. 

“Ana,” Carlos groans, “shut the fuck up.” You exhale a puff of smoke through a laugh. 

“If you’re going to be mean, I’m going back to Mom and Dad.”

“Okay,” he says, “have fun.”

“I will,” she proclaims, visibly annoyed that she isn’t drawing a reaction from her big brother. She loves to piss him off, everyone does, because it’s just so easy. “I’ll have sooo much fun telling them about how you’re all in the woods smoking. I’m sure Dad will love that, don’t you think, Carlos?” Blanca rolls her eyes. Sometimes it’s fun to mess with Ana, and sometimes keeping her humble becomes more of a chore than anything else. 

Ana stomps away, her whole sneaky journey wasted, the group’s entire smoke session ruined by the pesky baby sister who can’t decide if she wants more to be included or to be a tattletale. “Don’t kill any more flowers on the way back!” Carlos calls after her, passes the cigarette to you again for one last puff before the lot of you have to make your way back to the winery, to the bathroom you’d all claimed to need to use over the past hour. Ana turns on her heels to make sure Carlos can see her eye roll. He just smiles, and you think if Carlos was your brother you probably would have killed him with your bare hands a long time ago. 

You squat down to put the cigarette out in the dirt and Carlos digs a hole with his heel for you to drop it into, kicks the dirt back over it and stomps on it a couple times. “Fuckin’ snitch,” he mutters under his breath. 

He snatches up one of the stomped on flowers, pulls it from the ground–root and all–and presents it to you. “You really are such an ass,” you say, take the flower and link your arm through his for the remainder of the walk back. “I love you,” you add, “but you’re an ass.”

You were twenty the first time your friendship with Carlos became a threat to one of your relationships. It wouldn’t be the last time. You’d been together for seven months, you and Mateo, Mateo and you. Met at a club in Barcelona and the rest was history. It was a simple conflict of interest, a scheduling woe. You were forced to make a decision. Your boyfriend’s grandma’s birthday party… or Carlos’ debut in Australia. To you, it seemed like the easiest decision in the world. His grandmother isn’t even that old–she’s got plenty of birthdays ahead of her, ones that you’d be happy to celebrate. But Carlos’ debut? Really? That’s once in a lifetime. It’s the shit you just don’t miss, even if you’re in the hospital or literally on your deathbed (which Mateo’s grandma is NOT, by the way. She lived seven more years according to recent Facebook posts). 

“You’re going to Australia?” He’d scoffed when you told him, mentioned it so nonchalantly over dinner. When I’m in Australia, don’t forget to water the plants, or something along those trivial lines. He was just as offended as you were utterly confused. There’s no way he thought– “What about my abuela’s birthday?”

You’d laughed. The wrong thing to do, you know, but it was an action done without thought, without intention. “What about it?”

“You’re supposed to come with me.”

“I never said that,” you shake your head and he pulls a face. You set your silverware down and prepare for the coming argument. Normally, you’d just back down, but this is Carlos we’re talking about. Carlos, and his dream. Carlos, and his reality. “I didn’t,” you reaffirm. 

He leans forward onto the table, elbows shaking the entire thing, rattling the wine glasses and ceramic against the wood. “I assumed you–”

“–I don’t know why you would assume I‘d be doing anything except supporting Carlos,” you say, more defensive than you intend to be. It’s just, you can already see where this is going, even if it’s never gone there before. You’ve watched the girls Carlos brings home look at him the same way Mateo is looking at you right now, or more importantly, how he doesn’t look at you. 

“You know, I don’t either.” He nods, but it’s more of a full body movement, like he’s rocking forward, lips pursed and jaw tight. His eyebrows raise like he’s going to shrug, like he’s surprised with himself. You doubt you read the emotion right. “It’s always about Carlos, isn’t it?”

You lean back in your seat, cross your arms over your chest, close your eyes just long enough to hide the eye roll, and then you’re piling the silverware and the napkin onto the plate and moving the party to the kitchen sink. “I’m not doing this right now,” you say when you grab the wine glass carelessly. 

“Oh, so you know what this is about, then?” He calls after you, gathers his things sloppily and follows you into the kitchen. 

“You just said it’s about Carlos,” you say, slamming the sink on and clattering the plates into the bowl. Carlos had told you about these fights, about the ones he’s had with his girlfriends. You’d laughed about them, always thought it was so funny–the idea of someone left fuming by your friendship. The crazy assumptions, they couldn’t be more wrong if they tried. You and Carlos are nothing but platonic, you’ve always been platonic, you’ll always be platonic. When you know someone as long as you’ve known Carlos, they just become a part of you, build this little home in your soul that blends in so perfectly you could never cut it out with clean margins. It’s not just Carlos, either. It’s Blanca and Ana, too. Hell, it’s even Carlos Sr. and Reyes, but nobody ever seems to understand that. 

“It’s my Abuela,” he says, like you’re supposed to be moved or something, and he sets his dishes in the sink on top of yours. “It’s her birthday, and you’re supposed to come with me. I told my family you were coming.”

“I don’t understand why you would do that,” you start scrubbing the first plate with far more aggression than required. You’re not a good fighter, you get mean, and you get mean quick. “I was never not going to Australia.”

He laughs, leans against the counter with his arms crossed, staring at the ground, at the crumbs waiting to be swept up. “Because you’re never going to choose me over Carlos, right?”

“Mateo.”

“Answer the question.”

You freeze, squeeze the soapy sponge in a fist until there’s nothing left to ring out of it. “I’m certainly not going to choose your Abuela over my friend. Over my brother.”

“He’s not your brother.”

You sigh, go back to cleaning. “He’s like my brother.”

“Yeah, if you wanted to fuck your brother,” he says, and meets your eyes with wide, proud eyes like he’d done something, caught you in some illicit love affair. You resist the urge to grab the wand from the sink and spray him with a jet of water. 

Instead, coldly, you’d replied, “get out,” and pointed to the door. 

His hands shot up in some great defense. Or maybe it was offense, you really never could read him that well. “I see how you look at him.”

In. Out. In, and then out. Deep breaths. “I said leave, Mateo.”

“Because you know I’m right.” In, then out. “You know how fucked up it is that there’s three people in our relationship,” in, out. “Four, if you count Carlos’ girlfriend! What do you think she thinks about all this? You looking at her boyfriend like your favorite candy?” In, then. In, then–in, and then you slap him with a wet hand, the contact reverberating into a splash, coating the walls and the ceiling and the entire fucking room in anger. Anger, and dirty dish water. 

The anger is deafening, the room so quiet that the sink makes the kitchen sound like it’s directly behind a waterfall. 

He storms off into the living room. You return to the dishes, hear the jingle of his keys, the door opening. “Fuck you!” You call after him, but what you really mean is Fuck Carlos. 

When you get the breakup text a few days later, you’re not surprised. You put on your best face and pretend you never read it because while your boyfriend did just break up with you in a seven word text, you’re sitting out the back of the Toro Rosso motorhome watching Carlos pace.

You’ll tell him later, you think, after the race. And then, you don’t dare ruin the celebration, ride the high out until it can’t be ridden any longer. By the time you do get around to telling him, you’re all but moved on, mentioning it nonchalantly amongst the chaos of his first season. It falls away to the backburner, into irrelevancy, and Carlos never does ask what happened to sour the relationship. He does, however, have a wilted arrangement of flowers delivered to your front door with a handwritten note–ugly and dead, just like your relationship. You’d laughed for maybe twenty straight minutes. 

Carlos was twenty-four when he realized he was in love with you, that maybe he always had been. He’d just broken up with a girlfriend, one whose name he hardly remembers now. Alessandra… Alena… Adrianna–oh, screw it. It was definitely an “A,” and if it wasn’t, he’s sure it was a vowel. Not the point. He was twenty-four and had just dumped whatever her name was because it just didn’t feel right. (What does right feel like at twenty-four? And how do you know it when you see it? The world may never know). 

It was three races into the 2019 season, and he’d been having a particularly unlucky start with his new team. He’d spent the offseason relatively alone in Woking, finding his footing in a new place, a new team, a new car. Everything is gray, you’d told him the night he announced his impending move, scrolling through your phone at Google search results for the town. “It’s not gray,” he said, and without needing to say anything or flash him a look, he backtracked. “Okay, it’s a little gray.”

Three races in–an engine fire and two first lap collisions–in, and everything is feeling pretty gray, not just his rainy apartment (flat, he’s been taught to call it) in Woking. The cards felt stacked against him, and reluctantly, he’d called in reinforcements to Baku, a couple of good luck charms in the form of the people he loved. You, Ana, and Blanca flew in together and made Carlos come pick you up from the airport himself. 

You climbed into the backseat and were anything but gray. You were glowing, completely and utterly sunkissed, and your hair was messy from travel but it reminded him of what you’re like after a good nap. Groggy and sleepy and desperate to stretch out like a cat. He hates that he knows how you like to stretch after a nap, the exact pattern of movements you do. Do you know how much time you have to spend with someone to memorize their post-nap stretch routine? Too much time, that’s how much. 

You got into his car, all bright and sunny, and sure, his sisters were there and he loves them so much. But, you’re here, and you’re bright and sunny and everything feels just a little less gray. He pulls out from the airport and while he doesn’t realize that he loves you just yet, he knows something in him has been chemically altered by your smile, irrevocably so.

It’s Sunday when he realizes, somewhere between the checkered flag and the team debrief when you and the girls appear, practically crash into him like you’d been dropped down into the garage right from the sky. He hugs you, and you smell like sunshine. He wants to bash his head into the wall of his driver's room, to lay in front of Lando’s car and ask him to run him over because he’s not supposed to take note of the way you smell (unless it’s to call you out for smelling like shit). 

You kiss his cheek and shove his shoulder because you’re so happy for him, because you’re always so happy for him. He doesn’t think it’s fair for someone like him to always have someone this happy for him. He loves that about you. He loves everything about you. He loves you. Fuck, he’s in love with you. 

Lando nearly pees his pants over a tweet the next day. Carlos has reached a new level of Carlos-ing, it read, with a picture of him visibility distracted while being fed to the media pen. He can’t tell his teammate that the reason he’s so distracted is because he’s internally debating the pros and cons of ruining your friendship forever. 

You’re twenty-four when you and Carlos start dating. The two of you drag it out for as long as humanly possible, stretch the patience of everyone around you so thin they won’t be surprised (or concerned) at the idea of you and him getting together. It’s scary. Really, really scary to admit your feelings for each other, to tell the rest of the world about it, but Carlos keeps bringing you these mis-shapen flowers, ones where the dye is soaked up poorly or they’re a couple days too wilted. It’s our thing, he would always say, and kiss you while you cut the stems to fit in your favorite vase. 

He was right, it was something that was just yours. There was nobody else actively searching out dying flowers in the shops or carefully picking the dirtiest wildflower from its root on an evening walk through the city. That was just the two of you, and nobody else understood it. 

“It’s gross,” a friend told you, twiddling one of the half-dead flower stems between her fingers while you shared gossip over glasses of wine. “You got these today and they’re ready to be thrown in the bin.”

“You don’t get it,” you’d swatted her words away. The dead flowers weren’t understood, and they didn’t need to be. They were special to you and Carlos, and when it came down to it, nothing else mattered to you. 

“Seriously, though,” she’d continued, “It’s… I don’t know. Dead flowers, it’s just weird.”

Carlos is twenty-six when you break up. It’s mutual, it is. Even when it doesn’t feel like it’s mutual, when either one of you desperately searches to blame the other for the pitfalls, it’s still mutual, still two people who love each other. Who just aren’t in love with each other anymore. 

There’s a lot of reasons if you want to get into it, but his new drive is the catalyst for pretty much all of them. Carlos is with Ferrari now, which is the dream, but it's also the nightmare. McLaren is iconic and historic but Ferrari… well. Everyone knows the Vettel quote, everyone knows the kid’s car is red. Ferrari’s Ferrari and you’re just… you. Time runs out, patience runs thin, and that’s the end of it. 

You’re twenty-seven when you see him for the first time post-breakup. It’s a setup by your parents. Mallorca and the vineyard, again. You don’t think anything of it, so much has happened in the last decade and Mallorca is half of Spain’s favorite vacation destination. 

He’s sitting with his family at the bar, the whole clan of them sipping from a wine-tasting tray. His eyes shoot up to meet yours with the loud creak of the old, heavy doors. He does a double take, and your stomach turns into a ball of knotted necklaces. 

During the same tour you’d been on all those years ago, you sneak off with the same excuse you’d used. Blanca and Ana don’t follow after you to debate the environmental damages of bumming a cigarette in the grove or to threaten to snitch on you to your parents. They stay behind and listen and you stomp through the wildflowers to get some air. You’re already outside, Carlos would say if he were there. You’re my dirty air, you’d tell him, and he would roll his eyes, shove his hands deep in his pockets and rock on his heels. 

He knows you’re not in the bathroom, there isn’t a single nerve in your mind that thinks he doesn’t know exactly where you are. He doesn’t sneak off behind you. You gather your thoughts in the grove by yourself, leant against a tree older than you’ll dream of being. You pick a wildflower, one that looks picture perfect, snap it carefully from the root and stick the stem behind your ear. 

When you return to your party, they don’t notice you’ve been gone for far too long to use the bathroom or that you’ve got a flower in your hair. Well, all of them except Carlos, who slows his walking pace to drop to the back of the group next to you. “Nice flower,” he comments quietly. 

You nod, watch your feet as they move in synchronized steps with him on the grassy path. “Thanks.”

“It’s dead,” he adds, and you smile dimly. “It’s not nice to kill the flowers.”

Carlos is twenty-eight when he’s perusing the birthday card section at the local gift shop. He’s trying to find one that perfectly sums up his birthday wishes for you. It has to be sunny and happy and so, so sorry for everything (even when it’s nobody’s fault). It has to say, I’ll always love you without saying I am still terribly in love with you. It has to be subtle and obvious and endearing and serious and funny. It has to be everything his words can’t be. 

He eventually settles on one, tucks it into the yellow envelope and licks it shut. He handwrites your name on it messily, like you could get confused about who it’s for and need a label, or like he has a stack of yellow envelopes for dozens of other people sitting sealed on his kitchen counter. He goes to the florist next, picks out a stock arrangement from the fridge and a package of flower seeds. The final stop on his city tour is your apartment. Three knocks on your door, and then you’re undoing the deadbolt. 

“Hi,” you say, confused by his presence on your welcome mat. 

“Happy Birthday,” he smiles. “This is the last time I get you dead flowers.”

You and Carlos are thirty at your wedding. He cries when you walk down the aisle and there isn’t a single real flower in your bouquet. It’s all fake, and one of your friends asks if you’re worried it might look tacky or cheap. Anyone who thinks that shouldn’t be at our wedding, you’d told them. 

[bwabys-scenarios]

Pls feed us Leorio girlies, please give us Headcannons. We are starving on the side of the road with no food, nary a NSFW Headcannon to keep us warm during the cold, cold winters. Please, donate your Leorio Headcannons to feed a starving fandom. ( I luv ur work btw it gets me through senior year of uni 🥰)

Leorio SFW/NSFW HCs

!!REBLOGS APPRECIATED!!

REQUESTS OPEN

warning: overstimulation, sex toys, oral(f+m receiving), pegging, period sex, nudes, mutual masturbation, cockwarming, dry humping

A/N: THANK YOU FOR THE REQUEST I LOVE HIM DEARLY❤️❤️🙏🙏

taglist: @desiray562

if you would like to be added to the NSFW taglist, comment a ❤️!! make sure you have your AGE in your bio, and that you’re able to be tagged/mentioned!

SFW

-he’s literally the perfect man

-because he’s a doctor it’s not easy to gross him out. bled through during your period? he’s getting you a change of clothes and starting a bubble bath. threw up due to the flu/morning sickness? he’ll hold back your hair and whisper comforting words, saying you’ll be okay and it’ll be over soon

-you are his everything, he shows you off to his friends and is so happy they like you/you like them!!

-he will do pretty much anything to see your smile or make you laugh

-he absolutely ADORES you. calls you his princess, lovebug, sweet thing, sunshine

-absolute cuddlebug!! he loves cuddling with you on the couch, his palm resting on the small of your back while he gives you forehead kisses 🥰

-will take you out clubbing and make sure no one bothers you!! he’s so tall and muscular that no one approaches you while he’s standing guard over you

-before you start dating, he pines for you HARD. everyone can tell he’s in love with you but you, and it takes him months to finally ask you out

-very romantic, likes taking you out to dinners, walks on the beach, but also enjoys eating fast food together in your car while having idle chitchat. honestly any activity he does with you feels romantic to him, he’s in LOVE LOVE

-he is the best person to take care of you when you’re sick. not only is he a doctor, but he’s super empathetic and caring person that knows your needs almost better than you do

-he’s got such big hands, and they’re always touching you, whether that be holding your hand, your hip, or caressing your cheek!!

-in the morning, he usually wakes up before you and just stares at your face, caressing your cheek and pushing your hair out of your face. if you could see the tender, loving look in his eye you’d fall even more in love

-he would be such a good dad. I think he would be ready for kids in his mid twenties, so he’ll have graduated med school before he has kids.

-before he has kids though, Gon and Killua are your honorary children.

-when you do get pregnant, he’s extremely attentive, taking great care of you and your needs. he’s a doctor so if anything happens he’ll be able to help!

-buys you flowers and chocolates almost every week. he just can’t pass them off when he goes grocery shopping after a long and hard shift at the hospital.

-he likes to hold your hand when you walk together. he may be a bit shy with PDA, but he’ll show his love for you by gently rubbing his thumb against the back of your hand, his eyes full of adoration when he looks down at you

-jealous!! does not like when men’s eyes linger on your figure, or their hands get dangerously close to touching you. he’s the best guard dog, easily defending you from anyone that would try to hurt you!

-likes when you let him lay his head in your lap after a long day, rubbing your fingers through his hair and telling him what a good job he did. he’s got a lot on his shoulders, and it’s nice to be able to relax with you

-enjoys doing small intimate things for you, like washing your hair, shaving your legs, and applying lotion to your skin. anything to make him feel closer to you!

-loves the smell of your shampoo, and will always pull you a little closer when the two of you cuddle after your shower

-he’s a decent cook, and enjoys cooking with you! feels so loved when you ask him if he can taste test something for you, hearts forming in his eyes when you gently blow on the food before offering it to him

NSFW

-he’s a service dom when he dominates. he lives to please you and make you feel good! as a sub, he will let you do anything to him…

-Leorio is inexperienced and can be easily overstimulated with kisses alone. you can sit in his lap, tongue in his mouth and he’ll cum in his pants before you even touch him

-he’s putty in your hands. pull him down by his tie and he may just whimper. pin him against the wall, pull him closer by his hips and he’ll look down at you with half lidded eyes, a blush covering his face

-you’ll have to put up with him cumming really quick the first few times. he’s very shy and gets overly excited, but he can keep going! just be a little patient!

-his hands shake a little when he fingers you for the first time. he’s a little nervous, he’s scared he’ll hurt you! his fingers are big and can stretch you out plenty!

-7.5ish inches, girthy… he tries his best to be gentle and take his time with you, but he does end up moving too quick and cumming inside within the first 5 mins 😭🙏 he can go again though, and will fuck you until you’re satisfied!!

-appreciates a nice set of lingerie. send him all the pictures of you in your new panties and he’ll send back “AWOOGA” and a cumshot video 🙏

-mutual masturbation… loves to watch you play with your pussy while he jerks off. it also helps him learn exactly what makes you feel good so he can try it next time!!

-you ironically ask him for a video of him whimpering while he jerks off and he send it back within the next 5 minutes… it’s hot, and his hands tremble a little while he pumps his fat cock and moans your name

-if he needs to get off while you’re gone, he’ll call you and have you tell him about your day while he gets off to the sound of your voice

-he buys you any sex toys you want, as long as he gets to watch you use them!! he has his own toys but is a little more shy, you’ll have to convince him and get him very comfortable for him to let you watch him

-he loves your body, and will whisper words of worship and adoration when he touches you. he’s surprisingly sweet and loving, making every touch pleasurable

-he needs to be kissed and told that he’s making you feel good! he’s a little insecure and nervous the first few times you have sex, and needs reassurance!

-can be very subby… call him your sweet boy, your sweetheart, darling. cup his cheeks while you settle onto his cock and tell him just how nice he feels inside you and he’ll blush, wanting to hide his flustered face in your shoulder. hell whine and whimper, gasping when you clench around him and begging you to move faster ><

-his hands are almost always on your hips during sex. holding you in place, gently squishing and squeezing at your soft flesh. his thumbs will brush over your tummy as he kisses you, and you can feel the pressure of his fingers digging into your skin. it’s a reminder that he has you, and doesn’t want to let you go

-he would let you peg him if you wanted to. he won’t ask, but if you bring it up he’s like “yeah sure!”

-p-period sex with Leorio…

-he uses the doctor card saying something like “did you know that sex can help with cramps?” and gives you a hopeful look, playing with the waistband of your panties. he’s so tender, rubbing your back soothingly and making sure he’s gentle. he really does want to help you feel better, so the sex is very soft and sensual. he’ll never be rough with you when you’re on your period, not like he is when you’re off of it, but he’s especially gentle when you are

-literally so sweet and loving when you do get pregnant. he’ll let you cockwarm him, holding a hand over your baby bump while the two of you think of baby names. you’ve been a little hormonal lately and just wanna feel nice and full, so he’s happy to oblige

-blow jobs… he fucking LOVES when you suck his cock. look at him with those pretty eyes of yours, fondle his balls and he’ll cum almost instantly. honestly he’s really sensitive so just swirling your tongue around his tip is enough to get him off

-loves dry humping. he has you sit on his lap, guiding your hips so your clothed pussy rubs against the bulge in his pants. poor guy ends up cumming in his pants A LOT when he’s around you 😭🙏

-moans and whimpers while he eats you out. you can tell he’s enjoying himself, maybe even more than you are. he’s got his big fingers inside of you, moaning into your clit as he sloppily slurps and licks your pussy 💞💞

-he’s almost in shock when he has you moaning and squirming underneath him, begging for more. he’ll swallow thickly, pushing his cock in and kissing your forehead. “anything for you, princess.”

[moonydustx]

AHSHEUWOHDOEHEJDOEJEHD----

LAW IS SO CUTE WHEN HE PROPOSEEEDDD LIKE PLEASEEE I WANT HIM😭😭😭😭

I wonder, does he do the wedding stuff? Like don't sleep with each other before your wedding stuff like that? Old sayings?? Does he even believe them at all?

A/N: Hello! First, thank you for the request ❤️ Sorry for the delay in responding, weekends end up being a busy time for me.

About our beautiful lovebirds: I believe maybe it would be a great mix. Some old sayings like don't see the bride in white I think they would follow (for me, Law would be willing to do whatever his s/o dreamed of for the wedding). Despite this, I also think they would create their own traditions based on what they see as important. I hope you like it!

*I also decided to name this series of requests about marriage, I love the fact that in the fanfic you can travel with the idea of ​​a super romantic Law. Soon I will be responding to another request received about the honeymoon/what they would do afterwards.

The proposal - the special day (part 2)

Part 1 - Part 3

You considered yourself an anxious person. Are you, or not?

Even though you were tired after helping to clean up the scattered pieces after dinner - Law had been told that it was a tradition in his country to break dishes after dinner to ensure good luck and then for the bride and groom to clean up - sleep didn't seem to reach you. You still didn't understand if the insomnia was the result of being in a different bed, in the Thousand Sunny, if it was the fact that you had eaten almost nothing even with the banquet or if it was because the big day started the next morning.

Dress, makeup, hair, flowers, Law. The last item on your little mental list ran in a loop in your mind. You were sleeping separately that night, but it was impossible for you to close your eyes.

You put on your shoes and threw the sheet over your body, trying to hide your pajamas. Ikkaku, Nami, Robin and Chopper piled into the room. The straw hats were two of the few friends you collected throughout your time at sea and you couldn't help but have them at your wedding and with that, the whole crew came along. Despite some of Law's grumbles - which you knew was just silly jealousy - you invited Kid, after all, you got along very well and of all the trouble you got into, many of them involved him. Unfortunately he couldn't make it, but he sent lots and lots of bottles of sake.

The pier where the Sunny was moored seemed calm and a few meters away was the Polar Tang. A little peek at how Law was doing wouldn't hurt, would it? It only took a few steps before a voice reached you.

"I don't think it's safe for a lady to be walking around here at night." Law's voice scared you, eliciting a small scream from you.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"I could ask the same, my little ghost." he pointed to the sheet around you. "I mean, they say it's bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding."

"And you believe that, sweetheart?" You sat on the edge of the dock, knocking on the wood and indicating that he should sit next to you.

"For you, I would believe." he sat up, taking your hand and letting his fingers tangle with yours. "And I have you, no amount of bad luck in the world would take that away from me."

"Can I ask you something?" he immediately nodded to your question. "I know I've always dreamed of this, weddings and parties and that kind of thing. What about you? You're not doing this just to please me, are you?"

"I think it's too late for this question." a shy smile appeared on his lips. "I never expected to meet anyone, have a relationship like the two of us have and then, it happened. From then on, seeing you make your dreams come true is like seeing my own come true."

Instead of using words, you just took his lips to you, small kisses along with "thank you" smiles and "I love you" vows were said. When he moved away from your lips, you saw him take off the coat he was wearing and place it over your shoulders.

"You're freezing but anyway, what were you doing here for yourself?"

"I couldn't sleep, I needed to see you, to know that all this was really happening." You leaned on his shoulder, feeling Law's scent invade your senses. It was discreet, but it was still your favorite scent. "And you?"

"I wanted to spy on my fiancée." He spoke directly, making you smile.

"And your groomsmen let you get away?"

"Shachi and Penguin got drunk before the third bottle and fell asleep. Bepo was even now rereading the speech."

"Poor Bepo, I hope we didn't give him too difficult a mission." you laughed, feeling Law laugh along with you. A rare moment, which usually happened when it was just the two of you. Before you could continue speaking, you heard your voice being called in the distance.

"We broke a thousand plates for nothing to keep the bad things away from the wedding and you two ran away to see each other before the ceremony!" Nami's voice echoed from Sunny. "You can come back here and Law, I think it's good to go back to your place too."

"I'm on my way." you shouted back and accepted the hand that Law extended to you to put you on your feet. Before you could try to return it, Law removed the sheet still hanging from your body and adjusted his coat, so that it covered you almost completely.

"So, see you tomorrow?" He said, rolling the fabric in his hand and handing it to you.

"Yes, oh and of course, I'll be the one in white." You smiled, feeling his lips touch your forehead. "Hey!" you groaned as you watched him walk away without a real goodbye kiss.

"I'll kiss you again when you become Mrs. Trafalgar."

When you returned to Sunny, sleep came much easier than you expected, lulled by the comfort of the fabric around your body.

The day went by much faster than you expected. You spent a few hours in the shower, others getting ready and a few more rambling alone in your thoughts, anxious about what was going to happen.

With the long white dress already adorning your body and everyone already waiting for you, you and Ikkaku began to prepare the last details. For something borrowed, you "borrowed" flowers that stood ready to become medicine in Law's laboratory: chamomile, lavender, fennel, and jasmine flowers. For something old, you wore a small golden clip in your hair, one of the few things you still brought from your home island and the small stones that adorned the piece would serve for something blue.

"I believe everything is ready." You said in a sigh, feeling your hands sweat with nervousness.

"Sure you're not missing something?" Ikkaku asked, in mock distraction. "Something new perhaps?"

"The dress doesn't count? It's the first time I'm officially wearing it." you countered, seeing her deny it through a laugh.

"Close your eyes, please." As soon as you did, you felt Ikkaku put something around your neck. The cold touch of the jewel contrasted with your skin.

When you open your eyes, you can see a thin, golden chain hanging with a pendant with the Heart Pirates' jolly roger made in gold as well.

"The boys and I decided to do this. You can marry the captain, but that doesn't mean you'll stop being our best friend." your eyes immediately flooded with the statement, just as your arms wrapped around her in a strong hug. "Okay, okay, don't cry. Nami will kill us if we ruin her work and of course, the captain must be freaking out about the delay."

"You're not making this an easy task." you dried your tears with the small piece of paper she handed you.

"Good, now is the time." she walked towards the door and opened it wide enough for only her to get through. "Remember, 3 knocks on the door."

You nodded and took a deep breath, it was now or never and the second option would never be available to the two of you. The three knocks on the door felt like an eternity.

The doors to the deck opened and you could see the small space packed with your friends. The decoration was simple, flowers scattered all over the floor and some candles. You could have paid attention to the surprised faces of your fellow sailors, the huge skeleton playing the violin or how Sanji's eyes practically turned into two hearts. You could have paid attention to everything around you, if it weren't for the eyes that you loved so much and that crossed your path.

With each step you took towards the small - and improvised - altar with a huge sunset in the background, it was as if the brightness of the orange sun couldn't compare to the way Law looked at you. You had never seen him like that, so beautiful, so happy. You could bet that some of the emotional looks were more related to surprise at the expression of your soon-to-be husband than at your own entrance.

"Sorry I'm late." you whispered, standing in front of him.

"Worth every second." He took one of your hands, giving it a chaste kiss.

It could be hours, it could be just seconds, you would spend a lifetime under the way Law looked at you that almost night. The first moments of the speech were like distant words echoed amidst a blur of image from your flooded eyes, that was when a sniffle took your attention away.

"I'm sorry." Bepo asked, wiping away a tear and getting a few laughs. "I'm very happy that they chose me for this. Law was my only friend for a long time and of course, the person who brought me to this family. And you…" Bepo turned to you, laughing. "I think that since I convinced him to let you join the pack, we've been chasing too much trouble. I mean, these are two of the most special people in the world to me who have decided to stay together. And before I conclude, I need you to say your vows."

"But the votes…" Law began, being interrupted by the polar bear. By agreement, you would keep the vows just for the two of you.

"Promise that even if you get married, you two will continue to be our friends and our companions at sea. You, my dear captain and you, my dear friend, will not forget the Heart Pirates."

"We promise." you both said in unison and your laughter came out loud when you saw Bepo's cute face practically light up at the answer.

"We would never leave you big guy." you quickly let go of Law to hug him.

"We still have a lot of sea to explore." Law placed a hand on Bepo's shoulder, who broke away from you and hugged him. "Okay, Bepo… Ok, now the focus is different."

"Ah yes, of course…" he adjusted his clothes and waited for you to adjust your dress. "About the trust you two placed in me to celebrate this moment, about the presence of all our friends and of course, the sea that brought us together. I declare you husband and wife."

The "you can kiss the bride" became a distant sound as soon as you felt Law pull you by the waist. His lips captured yours with tenderness and delicacy and yet, his hands said something different, holding you firmly against his body. His lips moved away from yours and placed another chaste kiss on your forehead. Applause and whistles filled the small deck, as well as some tears too - Bepo, Shachi and Penguin were responsible for most of them.

"Now…" you began, gaining everyone's attention. "I invite you all to go to Sunny, where Luffy has kindly proposed a banquet for us to celebrate."

"Finally, food!" you only saw Luffy throw himself from one ship to another, being followed by Sanji who was already desperate with all the embezzlement he would cause at dinner.

"We'll be waiting for you." Nami walked out arm in arm with Robin.

"I think we should all go. The bride and groom deserve some time." Robin suggested.

Little by little, the deck emptied. In the end, there were only you, Law, some petals on the ground and the end of the sunset.

"I…" Law's voice started to say, but soon stopped. You were standing, leaning on the edge of Polar Tang, enjoying the few minutes of sun that remained that day. "I think this is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

"Don't overdo it, my husband." you said in a provocative tone and a laugh escaped your lips when you saw Law close his eyes and appreciate something that seemed to be invisible to you.

"I don't think I heard you right." your arms circled the back of his head, placing a chaste kiss on the tip of Law's chin.

"My darling, amazing, strong, beautiful husband. I'm happy that you are now officially mine."

"That's where you're wrong, Mrs. Trafalgar. I always have been and always will be yours." He held you in his arms again and contrary to what he had done in the ceremony, he took your lips without any hesitation.

One of his hands, which were firmly attached to your waist, began to cup your face in counterpoint, as if it were the most precious treasure he had found.

"Till death do Us part?"

"Not even that will be able to separate us." He took your lips again and you tangled your fingers in the dark strands of his hair.

"I love your hat, but you look so beautiful like this."

"It doesn't compare to you." He moved away enough so he could spin you around, analyzing every inch of your body. "The most beautiful girl in the entire Grand Line. My beautiful wife."

[hana-no-seiiki]

A Quick question My beloved god~!

How do you feel about pathetic yanderes? Like pathetic yanderes that has power (wealth, influence and all that shit) but acts pathetically towards their darling?

Cuz even tho I'm a bottom (obviously cuz i can't pull off being a top ;-;) pathetic yanderes just bring out a different side of me

I would love to see them beg and cry and it's just so adorable??? Cuz pathetic yanderes are oddly endearing even tho they're fucking pathetic and disgusting

UGH I EAT THAT SHIT UP THEY'RE SO SO SO CUTE THAT I WANNA MAKE THEM CRY EVEN MORE!!

(You can ignore this if you feel like it's kinda too much lol and apologies for being kinda redundant)

also no not cute but

Breathtakingly Adorable~ <3

- Your Junie~

PATHETIC/RICH YANDERE SCENARIO (GENDER NEUTRAL READER & YANDERE)

“PRETTY PINK PRINCESS : GOOD FOR YOU”

⚠️ By pressing the Keep Reading button you’re confirming that you’re above 18 and consent to reading dark content.

A pathetic, rich yandere? Isn’t that just me— (also im just gonna ignore that last part for my wellbeing-)

Pathetic Yanderes can be a top. Usually if you’re from a rich (asian) family there’s just a lot of drama. Like you’d think everyone loves eachother so much and everything is peaceful but once the family dinner ends the treachery begins. So they’d have to be confident, assertive and sociable to survive that kind of environment.

You know the kind that’s super headstrong whenever they’re with anyone else but you.

Your ask kinda reminds me of my ocs Crisanto Salvador and Isabel Labrador (the dors really do be the biggest masochists of Midnight Darling). While Isabel is a hard sub that’s a brat, Crisanto doesn’t even hide how down horrid he is for MC. He fell in love with her because she threw away a Birkin Bag he used to court her.

Boy has got connections 💅🏻 ✨

He can get you anywhere and everywhere. He can also get you out from any and every situation you might not want to find yourself in.

But yes back to Pathetic + Rich Yandere! I can see them ordering all manners or surveillance. They’ll take the time to survey your routine (or have someone else do it) and plan out what to do from then on. If you go outside regularly then they’ll have “bodyguards” set, if you’re more of a homebody then they’ll have cameras installed in every corner of your house whenever no one’s at home.

They’re your biggest career hyper. They will get you to whatever position you want in life. While Pathetic Yan will be practicing their at home spouse skills just for you.

(Ignore this if you’re ace) The biggest challenge however is practicing how they’re supposed to satisfy you in bed. Making do with someone else is an absolute no no. Besides, you might have a different preference entirely.

So oh well, what else could they do but kidnap you?

What do you mean they could have courted you first? They couldn’t even fathom breathing the same air as you for too long in fear that they may have a heartattack. This was the only way, you see!

But don’t worry, they’ll be the best partner you could ever look for. They just have practice not getting so aroused when you look straight at them all the time. It’s hard to focus on feeding you like that after all!

Pathetic Yandere loves to wear pink fight me. Pastels everywhere. They’re massive Rococo/Baroque interior design fanatics. Stickers are everywhere. They have a whole ass bookshelf dedicated to their sticker collection.

In bed they have cute ribbons for bondage prepared. It doesn’t do much by way of keeping you still, but boy does it look so adorable on you!

At least one person is gonna be full to the brim by the end of this, might as well make the act aesthetic.

Noisy as hell when having sex, they just have to voice how they feel about you, yknow? Shutting them up is close to impossible. And of course, tears! Lots of it. One might say they kinda look like they’re in pain sometimes from how much they mewl.

Their bed is the softest one you’ve ever been on. You find out that it’s from one of those high end Swedish brands that make em out of horse hair.

You’re tempted to stay just for that reason.

“ Never leave me okay? I promise I’ll be good for you ♡ ”

©️ hana.no.seiiki - yun | 2023

[writing-whump]

Sol, from the sickfic prompts, can I have Isaiah + "Can you please come home? I feel really bad…" where he's the one saying this? I wonder how bad things would have to be for him to admit needing others?

Feverish and stubborn

"Are you sure you don't want to come with me?" Matthew asked for the umpteenth time that morning.

Isaiah smiled at his insistence, internally cringing. He wanted Matthew safely gone so he could collapse in peace.

He had been feeling off since morning. Some kind of exhaustion, making him feel heavy to the bones and tired. Truly, he just needed sleep. He slept only a few hours every day, too busy and fascinated by some kind of assignment or homework or getting calls about lost pups, angry pack representative doing this or that. If he didn't get a job, that part of his life would swallow him whole.

Matthew eyed him suspiciously. "The pack is super friendly and they specialize in that human fighting thing without shadows, that you approve so much. They wouldn't mind me bringing you over."

Seline was at her parents during the weekend and Matthew had a guilty look on for leaving Isaiah alone as well, for a boxing meet between wolves. Isaiah was happy for him. Matt was finding his niche, friends through his interests. His confidence would grow from it, Isaiah was sure.

"I'm sure. I have homework to catch up to and I do not mind being alone. I have been living that way for the last 6 years, in fact."

Matthew bit his lip, scanning him one last time. "I'll text you the address in case you change your mind."

Isaiah rolled his eyes. "Shoo. Go already."

Matthew grinned sheepishly, threw his bag over his shoulder and left.

Finally.

Isaiah dropped the happy mask at once, sitting down on the couch. He just felt so tired. Huddling into the blanket where he sat, not pressed to go hide in his room or pretend to function at 8 am, he lied down right there, quickly asleep.

***

Isaiah woke up 3 hours later to violent shivers through his body. He was freaking freezing. His hands and legs were frozen solid, he was trembling under the blanket. Even his nose was stinging from the cold. Did he leave the windows open or something?

He wiggled his head towards the clock and the windows and the balcony but everything was shut. Maybe he should get under the covers, they were thicker, but the idea of leaving the little warmth he had under the blanket made him curl up into it.

He would need to make a run for it, but he needed to gather his strength first.

It was only after that ridiculous thought that it struck him he must be feverish. The only logical explanation.

He shivered some more, mentally playing the short walk to his bed for five times, before finally standing up. Blanket still around his shoulders, he wanted to dash to the bedroom, except his bones felt like someone filled them with broken glass. He felt fragile, unsteady, like he was about to bend over and collapse on his feet. Ow.

Finding his slippers, he made his way to the bathroom instead, taking the big bathrobe against the cold. He leaned against the sink, daring a peek at himself.

Yeah. He was pasty white, giant circles under his eyes like he didn't sleep for weeks instead of the last few hours, and he sweated through his shirt, although he was still shivering.

He was also feeling vaguely nauseous. Not sure if it was from not eating or from the fever or because this flu came with a stomach bonus.

How annoying.

Isaiah felt a little better in the bathrobe, so he devised a plan of not having to get up again for the next two days.

He gathered a jar filled with water, a glass, biscuits, thermometer, some pills and a basin for good measure. He didn't eat much for dinner and nothing for breakfast, he was empty, but his stomach felt tense and sore. Better not risk it.

With his supplies steady on his nightstand, he hunted down thick woolen socks and new PJs. Closing the curtains on the window to not be bothered by the sun, he changed and climbed into his bed with the bathrobe on. No harm done, he would sleep this off.

He took his temperature. 38.4. Yeah, maybe the ibuprofen wouldn't be a bad idea. He took half a biscuit, grimacing at the taste before he took the ibuprofen against the fever and dived under the blankets in relief.

He was shaking until he warmed up the air underneath the covers, but he felt proud of himself for being responsible and sweating this out like an adult.

***

Three more hours later, Isaiah was ready to be better already.

The thermometer showed 39.5 as if the ibuprofen didn't help at all and he was constantly shivering like he was exposed to the Antarctic air.

Not to mention he was starting to feel really nauseous from the fever. His stomach didn't hurt or protest another medication, so he could tell the fever was doing it. The nausea was a slimy presence at the back of his throat, around his teeth and jaw. He took deep breaths against it, shutting his eyes, trying to relax and will himself to sleep.

When he closed them though, all he could see were images of his work as the Executioner or his Father's voice admonishing other pups that wolves didn't get sick. Yeah, getting sick was a luxury. Taking a day off, being able to stay in bed, being able to be so open about it. Isaiah had all the luxury now, so he should be fine. Nothing to complain about.

Other times, his feverish brain made a list of people he would have liked to be here if he dared to call them. Sonny saw him sick from time to time and always knew what to do. Very matter of fact mature presence.

Arnie would probably come if Isaiah asked. Would bring him medicine and worry for him, talk his ear off into sleep so Isaiah wouldn't have to hear his own buzzing thoughts.

Matthew and Seline would come. Matt wouldn't know what to do, but he would be adorable in his efforts. He would probably sit beside him in bed, turn on some Netflix show on their TV in the room and wake him up with exclamations when something funny or angering happened in them.

He dreamed about Seline saying he was okay, keeping track of his temperature and calling him something nice, like darling or sweetheart. The idea made Isaiah sniffle, curling into himself under the covers. How pathetic was he, to imagine something like that?

The fever must be making him delusional. To imagine it would demand his roomates to be here, when he was a completely normal functioning adult who could handle a little fever.

It was a very rude one at that, not wanting to climb under 39.3, even after the second dose of medication.

Isaiah made himself drink some of the water, which made him reach for the basin and gag over it for a cruelly long time, but nothing came up. He curled up around it, breathing harshly as he drifted back to sleep.

***

Next time he woke up to the feeling of liquid in his throat.

Isaiah shot to towards the basin immediately, gagging over it, before a few drop of blood fell on the surface instead.

His nose was bleeding, that's what he could taste at the back of his throat.

Ah damn, he had no paper towels on the night stands. What a stupid thing to forget.

His heart was also beating really fast. Isaiah turned to lie on his back, pinching the bridge of his nose. The nausea was drowning him, his heart thumped painfully against his ribs, the only force left in his body and he was going to make a mess on his sheets with the nosebleed.

For some reason the last part made him want to cry.

He was so glad he was sick with something else but his heart episodes for a change and now the fever might initiate one for him. Or was the nosebleed from the fever?

The more he lied there, the stronger the blood was running, flowing freely down his face and throat. He felt like he was choking on it.

He heaved over the bucket at the taste again, strained over it with no relief for several minutes, face all wet and slimy from the red liquid.

Isaiah slid down from the bed, the basin and covers in his lap. The shivers doubled immediately. He hugged himself, rocking back and forth. He couldn't remember when was the last time he felt so rotten. And if he didn't calm down, he would cause himself a heart episode no less.

Feeling utterly pathetic and ashamed, he reached for his phone, dialing the number he had been craving for the whole day.

Seline picked up on the second ring. "Isaiah, hey!"

Isaiah cringed, the joy in her voice when she said his name squeezing his chest in longing. "H-hey...."

"I was just telling my mom about the theater show we were going to? If we like it, I could get them tickets and next time we could- Isaiah? Is something wrong?"

He could hear voices in the backround, a female and a male and Seline answering something back in Slovak.

"I just..." Isaiah sniffled against the blood clogging his nose, cupping his hand over it to catch some of the mess. "I'm sorry, I..."

"Wait, hold up a sec." The noise of a chair being pushed back as Seline got up and left the kitchen. "Isaiah, talk to me. What's going on? Is everything okay?"

"I'm sorry. C-can you please come home? I feel really bad..." He hated what he was asking. She was an hour away by train, enjoying her weekend with her parents and he was calling for her like a child.

"Oh sweetheart," Seline voice dropped to lowest, sweetest, softest coo. "I'm on my way, okay? Dad will take me to the station, it's 4.30 right now...that means the train at 5.15 should be doable by car...I'll be there at 6.15...Anything I can bring you? What's wrong exactly?"

Isaiah sniffed pitifully. "I don't...I- it's just the fever won't go down and I feel sick and now there is blood everywhere-"

"Blood? What do you mean blood?" She said in alarm.

"'s nothing, just my nose is bleeding for some reason."

"Okay, okay, okay. Everything is going to be fine, you hear? I'll be there as fast as I can."

***

Isaiah woke up on the floor, throat and nose clogged up with dried blood, covers and bathrobe covered in it, shivering and sweaty.

None of that mattered, because he was greeted by the nicest sight he could wish for.

Seline was crouching next to him, jacket half open, frowning in concern.

Isaiah looked at the watch. 5.30 pm. "You made it early," he croaked.

"Dad drove me all the way here. Better than the trains." Seline cupped his cheek with her hand, lifting his face towards her to study him.

"Is he still here? I should-"

"You should nothing," she interrupted sternly. "The nosebleed stopped? Can you get up on the bed?"

"No...I'll make a mess like this." He pointed at his face.

"Is that why you are on the floor? Honey, the sheets can be washed, that's not a reason for you to sleep on the carpet."

Isaiah focused in her voice. She still changed the pet names frequently, like she couldn't settle on her favourite one. He loved it.

Seline's hands on his face felt divine, even though they were way too cold. He shivered under her touch, breath hitching.

"Okay, arm up. We will take your temperature, while I get something to clean you up with, alright?" She put the thermometer under his arm, kissing him on the forehead before leaving.

Isaiah closed his eyes, shivering under the sudden heaviness of her absence.

"Okay, come on, sweetie. Back in the bed." She was really insistent on that, huh?

Seline grabbed his arm and pulled and he followed, standing up and then falling back on the bed with a moan.

"What is it?" Seline sat down next to him with a wet towel and a bunch of those soft paper towels for colds.

"Ugghh. My skin hurts."

"Your skin?"

"Yeah. It's like broken glass all over," he whined.

Seline shook her head. "Your fever is super high, I can tell all the way from here. It's okay. It will pass." She took the towel and started to clean the dried blood on his face.

Isaiah winced at the coldness, but she was so gentle, he couldn't protest.

"I got you all the good stuff. Best rehydration drink ever," she said with a small smile, taking his thermometer, scowling at it without comment, and putting it away.

"I feel nauseous. Not sure I can drink," he said tiredly, closing his eyes. It wasn't his concern anymore. She could decide what he could and couldn't do.

"Just a few spoons, okay? It will really help with the fever. There. Face all clean. It really bled a lot, huh?" Isaiah didn't dare to glance at the ruined towel, but the wet skin left in its wake was stinging with cold. The feeling of cleanness comforted him.

Seline put another, bigger towel soaked in cold water around his forehead and neck. He hissed at the touch, but she took his hand in hers. "I know, I know. But this will help, darling. Please, trust me."

He squeezed her hand back, propped up on the pillows and closed his eyes.

"Open your mouth, sweetie."

Isaiah squinted at her. She really sat there with a mug of transparent liquid in her lap and was offering him a spoon of that salty smelling water.

He sighed but obeyed, letting her spoon feed him four times, before he pressed his lips together as he waited for his stomach's reaction. It sloshed angrily inside him, a cramp making him double over.

Seline's hand was cupping him his face immediately, her lips on his forehead murmuring something into his ear.

He breathed harshly, melting against the contact, then curled up at his side. "No more."

"Okay. That's enough for now. Such a good job. You will be up and about in no time."

Seline put the mug away, patting his face, readjusting the cold towel on his forehead, before standing up.

"Sel?" He whined, afraid she would leave. "Stay? Please?"

"I'm not going anywhere."

She cluttered with some of the things on his bedside table, before switching off the lamp and climbing into the bed beside him.

He shifted closer on his side, and she pressed herself against his back, arm around his chest. He took the hand in his, curling it against his heart like a talisman.

"It's beating really fast," she said softly.

"Hmmm. I'm sorry."

"Why are you apologising?" She said in disbelief, voice going higher with emotion.

Isaiah's throat closed up. "I'm sorry I called, I-"

She lifted herself up to loom over him. "You can always call me. I'm glad you called me." Her voice suddenly grew more heated. "No, in fact, you have to call me, when you feel bad like this. How long has this been going on? Why were you alone and not telling me sooner?"

Isaiah blinked in the dark, taken aback.

"When you get better, I'm gonna kill you, you hear? You feel off or like you are coming down with something, you are supposed to tell me before you black out from a fever with a nosebleed. You tell me immediately. I don't care if I'm on the other side of Europe, I'll come."

Isaiah swallowed, eyes burning, heart somewhere in his throat. "I didn't want to be a both-"

"I forbid you from having such thoughts," she said indignantly. "You are never a bother. You matter to me, Isaiah, do you understand that? When you are hurting in secret, alone, away from me, you are hurting me. You want to let me bleed out by not telling me of the wound?"

Isaiah didn't know what to say to that, eyes wide in the dark.

"You don't have to toughen it out," she said more gently, palm on his cheek, caressing it with one finger. "Let me take care of you. It's the least you can do, when part of me is hurting there with you."

Isaiah took in a shaky breath, chest hurting from her words. It hurt, it hurt to face such proclamations, such absolute belief they were true. "You are so bossy," he said, voice wavering on a sob.

Seline pressed herself closer to him still, spooning him, tangling their legs together. "Shhhhh. Yeah. You better get used to it."

[castawavy]

November Save MEGA summary (part 2)

before / next

hope you all enjoyed the previous summary, it was a nice walk down memory lane for me 😁❤ anyways let's just jump into the next one

so basically overall steve was really HATING working at Hogan's but June was just doing really well in general (enough to be the main earner in the household essentially so steve was able to quit his job)

june attempted to wingwoman raj again because things didnt really work out with kamala... LMAO

on friday she took a day off and decided to go for a job interview to join an in-house legal team

and very quickly she learned shed got the job 😁🤸‍♀️💖

on monday she let her manager Margot know she was resigning and officially handed in her resignation to the boss, boss, Jared. they were all super happy for her, and june was grateful to have had a good time working with them all

THEN, after that she visited her mom for awhile (who lives in Brindleton Bay, and caught up with her without steve or the kids)

that same weekend it was adelaide's birthday and they threw her a modest party (they are always paycheck to paycheck kinda ngl but june's recent job change / promotion means that things are getting better

bonus shot of the kids being EXTRA cute (they get on really well) 💖

very VERY soon after that, june attended a conference in Tartosa with her new team, which was a great chance to get to know everyone...

UNFORTUNATELY things got a bit flirty at the dinner 🌹😢 and the brunette guy behind june flirted with June and she did it back 😵 and yeah... nothing else happened but YIKES. my interpretation of june is honestly that she got a taste of what her life could have been like, without steve... the kids... bills etc, and she got a bit carried away by the glitz and glam of it all 🤷‍♀️ (sorry I do like my sims to have flaws, & like everyone else june is not perfect </3), but yeah as I said nothing else happened and june immedietaly felt AWFUL about it as she should (shes a loyal trait sim) 😘 but she did look stunning that night

when she got home it was extra bad as well because she had to face steve (and the kids) and it made he realise how lucky she had it, cuz steve also got her some champagne to celebrate her new job ☠😂

so... june confessed and told steve about what happened, and ngl even I was suprised he took it so well and was understanding + I think he appreciated she told him right away

also right after he mentioned marriage??? I think the two of them needed to talk about it cuz june always saw herself getting married I think and steve hadnt really considered it...

BUT YEAH drama / crisis averted AHAHAH sorry this seems really fast but I promise it had been brewing for some time - I think out of the two of them, unfortunately june is just a little bit more insecure than steve, because she has set so many expectations on herself & her mother growing up was very strict with her </3 overall I know she invisioned her life going differently, but when faced with that actual opportunity she didnt take it 😘❤🤸‍♀️

bonus picture of steve because we havent seen him for awhile now and hes gotten a lot healthier recently / working on himself and his mental health a bit (not quit smoking yet though) also raj came over and june seemed more like his best friend than steve because they were joking around so much 😂😂😂

also omg then adie had a bear phase...

😁 and that's a wrap for this summary but PHEW a lot of focus on june this time (I always love giving my sims really complex spouses)

before / next

[barefoothighlander]

OMG I loved your ghost and sunshine wife headcanons! Can you please also do one similar with Gaz with a wife that’s kinda goofy and a total optimist? Like she’s the type to put googly eyes on random objects or leave to go to the store real quick to buy milk and come back with an alpaca saying that she “was super lucky and got the last one!” I feel like Gaz is a total realist in a relationship and him having glass half full type of wife is a perfect fit for him :)

um of course! Gaz is so cute, such husband energy.

warning: none just some fluff

to most outsiders, Gaz was a man of few words, but once he got home you almost couldn't get him to stop talking. The two of you spent countless nights on your back porch just laughing over stupid jokes, enjoying each other's company.

he hated leaving you at the house when he had to deploy but it always made him smile when he'd reach into his tactical vest and find a picture of you two with a note on the back, always signed the same, 'all my love' right beside a small heart you had drawn.

it wasn't uncommon for him to return home and find new pets living at his residence.

"Oi love" he called, eyes glued onto the small orange cat pressing against his ankle.

"You're home!" you practically screamed as you ran across the room, throwing yourself into his arms, feeling him wrap around you in a tight embrace as you planted kisses all over him.

"Who's this?" he had asked, head nudging toward the feline.

You giggled a little, "This is Price" you say, picking the cat up to hold him in your arms, while Kyle bows his head, palms rubbing at his eyes.

"You got another one, and named it after my captain," he states plainly, eyes focusing on your beaming smile.

"He's so cute though, I couldn't not take him home, plus I figured kinda orangey-brown, long whiskers, he's totally Price" You fight the laughter that threatens to erupt from your chest.

"Had I known leaving you alone would mean I'd come back to 9 different animals, I'd quit the service"

You fake a gasp, "You love them"

The days you two spent at home mostly consisted of him chasing you around, stopping you from buying more plants for the house, or costumes for your pets. He loved how spontaneous you were, he was used to order and rules, and you threw both those out the window, often urging him into the car so you two could drive out to some lookout point and watch the sunset.

His favourite days were when you'd surprise him at his office, he'd always hear you coming down the hall, engaged in conversation with whoever was near, you made him see the good after the years he spent in warzones.

You rarely asked about work but were always open to talking about it if he had something to get off his chest.

He'd bring you home flowers purely to watch your smile grow wide as you grabbed the bouquet and dragged his lips to connect with yours.

The two of you had been married only a few years, but he had fallen head over heels the second he laid his eyes on you. Your energy was infectious, he felt like you were some bright glowing light over the sea, calling him home.

The team attended your wedding, it was small but bright, strings of flowers hung anywhere they would stay, Price of course standing in as Kyle's best man, he even shed a tear when Gaz had read his vows.

He had promised to love you forever and all of the typical things, but he also vowed to always come home to you, which given his typical circumstances meant so much more.

Often times he'd come home exhausted, just wanting to collapse into bed but then he'd see you, hair a mess, barely dressed and hips swaying to whatever music you had on while making dinner.

He'd immediately forget about the fatigue that had settled in his muscles and promptly pull you into a tight hug, whispering into your ear about how much he missed you, how good you looked, et cetera.

Birthdays were a big thing in your home, Gaz didn't much care for them but you went all out. Sneaking out of your bed before dawn to hang balloons and streamers, always cooking his favourite breakfast.

One year you had fashioned all the pets in matching hats to celebrate, waking him up with soft kisses over his bare chest.

He woke up eyes tired but full of love as he pulled you tightly into his form.

"Can't stay long, have a surprise for you" you told him, a mischievous smirk on your face.

He quirked his brow in intrigue as he let you guide him out of the bedroom, opening the door to a scene of bright decorations and scattered animals, all donning birthday caps.

You had turned to him to see his reaction and he just started laughing, hard enough that it turned into a small wheeze as his arms snaked around you again to hug you, his lips pressing onto the crown of your head.

"I love it, hun, thank you"

You hid your wide smile, pressing your face into his chest.

"Oh! One more thing" you say as you pulled away, crossing the room to open the front door.

Loud shouts and chants filled the room as the rest of the 141 rushed in, headed by Soap who was also wearing a birthday hat and rushing over to grab Gaz, practically lifting him into the air.

You stood back, hands over your mouth trying to muffle your fit of laughter as Kyle simply shook his head.

He loved that you balanced him out, for every negative thing he saw in the world you saw two positives, he'd let you influence him with your optimistic view on life.

The only thing he wouldn't let you change his mind on was sharks, you thought they were so adorable and misunderstood, but Kyle was terrified of them. On one vacation you had insisted on swimming out into the ocean to see the small sharks, trying to convince him to join you but he stood firm on the beach.

He watched you explore the waters with so much curiosity, giggling when some creature would brush against your leg, he couldn't help but smile, looking at you treat everything in the world with such kindness.

He couldn't understand why someone as cheerful as you would choose to be with him, he had seen and done such terrible things, he had so many regrets. But marrying you, he'd never regret that. He loved everything that came with you, the heart-shaped pancakes you'd make (you made special skull ones for when Ghost visited), your impulsive desire to always pull him in to dance with you, that fact that more than a few rocks in your garden had googly eyes on them.

He had thanked whatever higher power that he had met you, and that you loved him just as much as he loved you, even if it meant getting woken up at 3am because you simply had to drive 2 hours out of town to visit a petting zoo that had alpacas.

[luveline]

hi hi lovely girl, can I please request more for Eddie and his daughter Roan? I'd love to see more from before Eddie and reader are dating, where Roan acts like a leech on a date and Eddie's both embarrassed and amazed? thank u! 🧡

ty for ur request!!!! single dad Eddie FOREVER ♥︎ eddie and roan | fem!reader

Eddie's sick to his stomach. Like, threw up before he came, nearly called you to cancel type sick. He didn't cancel because he's not dumb, he knows that the first few dates are the most vital, and he also thinks it would've been worse than just showing up. So he's here, outside of Morgan's dessert emporium for your third date, and he has an excited Roan in his lap. 

She's in her second nicest outfit, having already worn the first for the first date, and then again for the second. Her hair is in primly done bunches that he knows from experience won't look so prim in about half an hour, the hair ties a cherry pink to match her pretty dress. 

"Roanie, Roanie, macaroni," he sings under his breath, one of his hands encapsulating hers, swaying her chubby arm from one side to the other. He's looking out the window as he does, waiting for you to arrive. "Roanie, Roanie, Ro. Roanie, Roanie, macaroni, where'd your macaroni go?" 

She cheers, "I ate it!" in her clumsy baby voice. 

He squeezes her tiny cheek in tender fingers. "You did. My big girl ate all her dinner after daycare, because you're the best." 

She climbs up to stand on his thigh, Mary Jane's he'd scrubbed clean earlier digging into his muscle. Or lack thereof. He doesn't exactly work out. 

"When can we have– have cake?" she asks, rubbing her cheek into his. 

He knows she's trying to be sweet. Too bad she almost knocks his front teeth out. He groans and drops his head into her shoulder, and she takes that for a hug. 

"Thanks," he mumbles, big hand covering nearly the entirety of her back. "Cake? We're gonna have cake right now, babe, two minutes." 

"You 'lready said two minutes," she says. 

"I already said two minutes?" he asks. She pulls away to frown at him. "I did. Those two minutes are going super slow today, babe, that's not my fault, that's gravity." 

She stares at him. He stares at her. You knock on the window and startle him out of his skin, though Roan isn't nearly so surprised. She sets her gaze on you through the dusty glass window and her lashes kiss the skin under her eyebrows, her eyes are that wide. 

Eddie doesn't know if Roan knows your name, but she knows your face, throwing herself at the window with a great, electrifying squeal. 

"Can I open the door?" you ask. You must be speaking loudly to be heard through glass and Roan's excitement. 

He meets your eyes by accident and can't look away. "Yeah!" he shouts, and then winces. He can open the door himself. Loser, he thinks. You fucking loser. 

The very first thing that had endeared him to you does the trick again: you're smiling like you aren't sure you should be smiling at all, more nervous energy than a bus of sixth graders on their first day of middle school, and he's a goner immediately. 

Roan holds her hands out insistently and you hesitate to pick her up, waiting for his cue. When he nods enthusiastically you pull her up into your chest, graceless but well meaning. She takes your shoulders into small hands and stares at you, speechless. 

It's not often Roan Munson finds herself with nothing to say. She's the chattiest girl alive now that words are in her palm, even if she's speaking straight gibberish. 

"Hey, princess" you say, in your best approximation of a kid friendly voice, which isn't half bad, "Your daddy's got you all dressed up again, oh my goodness!" 

Eddie gets out of the car and tries to retuck his shirt before you notice. 

"Why was she in your lap?" 

"What?" he asks, looking up, one eye squinted against the sun as it slinks behind the emporium.

"You don't drive around with her in your lap, right?" Your hands tighten in Roan's dress. "I mean– oh, I'm so sorry, not that you aren't safe–" You clear your throat. "I just mean, why was she in your lap? Obviously you don't drive around with her there. Unless you do." 

He leaps in to save you, grateful that it's his saving you and not you saving him. "No, no, God, I strap her into her car seat. We were just waiting for you, that's all." 

"Oh my gosh," you mumble, hiding your face in Roan's hair. "Well, that's good, isn't it? Can't embarrass myself anymore than that." 

His relief starts to course in. While Eddie finds you funny and charming and so, so pretty, he'd forgotten the best thing about you — you're a loser, too. A huge dork, and a bona fide softie. 

"Roan, you smell really nice." Your voice softens into some bubbly baby talk. "You smell yummy, almost as yummy as the emporium. I hope you and dad left room for cake." 

"Chocolate," Roan says happily. 

"Exactly." You smile up at him over her head. "Ready? I got a reservation by the ice cream, so Roan can watch them scoop it." You wiggle your eyebrows. 

Roan is as mystified by the scoops as you'd thought, pulling against Eddie's loose grip on her waist and whining to be let down. 

"Baby, we need to stay in our seats," he says, "so they know where to bring the cake." 

He's telling the truth, mostly. It's been a long day and he doesn't wanna chase her around the room for the next half an hour. 

"I can take her up to look?" you offer.

"No, you don't have to," he says. 

"I'd like to. If that's okay?"

Eddie waves you off before he can think any better of it. You've plenty of time to talk. You've called him at home just to call him twice now, so he isn't too worried. He thinks things are going well. 

You and Roan fast walk to the front of the parlour and watch the dessert makers scoop ice cream, blend milkshakes, and drizzle cake with melted chocolate. Roan says something, too far away for Eddie to hear, but you laugh and crouch down on your knees, your hand behind her back. Your other hand points at one of the dessert makers as they roll a waffle cone. 

"You want one of those, too?" he hears you ask. 

Yeah, Eddie would say things are going real well. 

[cressthebest]

Crimson Rivers thoughts pt. 14

chapter 25:

1. james accepting his own death will forever and always be heartbreaking

2. “Though, honestly, James had meant it when he said that he wishes it had been Regulus. Maybe it's a strange, pyschosexual thing, but he feels like he's sort of been flirting with Regulus and his daggers this entire time, so to be stabbed by him would surely have been more satisfying. Regulus would have made sure James felt it, adrenaline or not. He isn't sure why that's so attractive to him, but it really is. Maybe James is in shock. Maybe James actually does have a knife kink. Maybe James is just in love, and he wants anything he can get from Regulus, even if it's literal death.”

ik this is a big chunk of quote, but like what. james. james. james my boy. these are wild thoughts to have. also, you definitely have a knife kink, but only for regulus. not on anyone else. james. you. dear, wtf (i love you) 😀 sir.

3. god, james is so earnest on his death bed. i am also, fyi dramatically sobbing

4. shit shit shit shit no. SIRIUS!!! SOMEONE!! HELP SIRIUS! HES LOSING HIS BEST FRIEND AND HE IS NOT OKAY

5. zar is correct. it is sock-sock-shoe-shoe. that is the correct way.

6. 😀😧 regulus is troy. not the trojan horse, but instead troy. i-

7. “James is dying, and Regulus hates him. James is dying, and Regulus loves him. James is dying, and Regulus hates and loves him, because they were always one and the same.”

stop no, this is actually cruel. this is heartless. i don’t know how someone with a good conscious or loving heart could write this

8. god no shit no. i finally stopped sobbing. then there was the line about james asking reg to go to dinner with his parents because effie and monty are used to feeding two kids. i- shit. shit. no

9. HE’S TELLING REG TO TAKE BACK THE HAT??? NO THIS IS CRUEL

10. i actually want to quote this entire chapter, but i cannot do that. so therefore i would like to offer up my tears. and reg deciding there’s no point in going home if james potter wasn’t with him, because james potter was his home

11. 😐 he threw food away, but kept the handcuffs? reg dear, wtf

12. REG IS GONNA SACRIFICE HIMSELF TO LET JAMES GO HOME?? HELL NAW

13. HE CALLED JAMES BABY??? AGAIN??? (fwi i have voice recorded and sent sobbing over this fic to my irl marauders friend. hi iko!!)

14. 😟😟 oh god damn. he actually went in the crimson river. wait shit. how the hell is he gonna survive this?

15. “In his panic, in his haze of pain, it's Sirius he instinctively calls for.” 😀😀 just rip out my heart, it would be less painful

16. THE VENOM!! THE THREAT TO KILL HIMSELF IF HE DOESN’T GET REGULUS BACK!! THIS IS LITERATURE AT ITS FINEST

17. regulus is just tossed out the fucking river. they both survive. lmao this is kinda funny

18. not the symbol of the hallows being the deathly hallows. yikes.

19. i’m kinda disappointed that slughorn gets a POV cause like, that POV needs to be given to one of my faves, so they can be guaranteed to live.

20. dorcas my beloved. she’s such a bad bitch

21. okay wait, i might actually grow to like slughorn as a character. he’s being brought to the phoenix. so like, maybe he’ll be super helpful

22. LMAOOO DORCAS MY QUEEN!! “”How does it feel gamemaker? … Are you entertained?”” AHHHHHHHHH

23. unnamed woman: my guess is mcgonagal

24. after reading the authors notes, i realize we have been blessed. zar decided that reg would not die in the arena. and thank fucking god. thank god. i would not be okay if i read ahb then this. yikes

[v5b5]

Sinner coming back from a good match all giggly and excited. I’m thinking lots of cuddles and smiles :)

I think there's no warnings, if there are... Please tell me.

English is not my first language, if you find some kind of mistake, please let me know.

~°•~°•~°•~°•~°•~°•~°•~°•~°•~°•~°•~°•~°•°•~•°•~

Melbourne was hot during the day, and that didn't help to be out all day. But when it comes to Jannik's matches you always try to be there in his box, supporting him like a good Wag.

Jannik's schedule was a bit tight today, early training, a tough match against the N.1 in the world, Novak Djokovic. And those kinds of days, meant not seeing each other in a long time or even in any moment of the day. But you tried to ignore that and just tried to enjoy the match peacefully.

Last night, you indeed got time to see each other, and you enjoyed the most you can, because You don't know what tomorrow has in store for you guys. Jannik invited you to eat some Italian food to get some good luck in the match. And during the dinner you talked and ignored everything around, but you noticed him a bit nervous, so you just put your hand on top of his.

"I know you're nervous, but no matter what happens tomorrow... I will always love you.". You said in almost a whisper, trying to comfort him. He just looked you in the eyes and gave you a small smile.

"you always know what to say. But no matter what, if you're gonna be in my box, I wanna impress you. I'll win for you." He said caressing the top of your hand with his thumb. Both looking at each other in the eyes and enjoying their presence, not wanting to let go of each other and just hopping for the time to freeze or just go slower to get more time with their loved one.

After a romantic and comforting dinner, Jannik felt a little more encouraged. So the next day, he woke up earlier than usual to have more training, but he couldn't help but keep staring at your beautiful and peaceful cute face while sleeping.

The match was gonna be rough, but he was ready, he knew he could win, nothing was an Impediment. Before walking down the tunnel to get out onto the court, he just tried to remember your sweet words and the feeling of encouragement you gave him. As the match developed, Jannik felt more and more tired, but he didn't have himself up. You tried to comfort him, by talking sweet things or just blowing him a kiss when he won a good point. For the time of 5 sets, the match ended with a big win for your loved one, but as much as you wanted to just go and hug him and cuddle, you knew you would have to wait a couple of hours just to have some contact with him.

Almost at 10 pm, you heard a knock on your hotel room door. You opened and when you saw Jannik, you just felt a rush and hugged him super tight. He picked you up and carried you to the bed. He threw himself there with you and just started cuddling and giving little pecks around your neck.

" did I impress you today?". He asked sweetly while hiding his face in your neck, also having his arms around you, not wanting to let go.

" you always do". Your whispered in his ear before kissing his cheek lovingly. "Don't ever leave me". He said like a little kid, not wanting his toy to be taken away. "I won't, believe me. I have no intention to do it". You simply answer before sticking even more at him and in some minutes you were both asleep, together, cuddling.

~°•~°•~°•~°•~°•~°•~°•~°•~°•~°•~°•~°•~°•°•~•°•~~°•~°•~°•~°•~°•~°•~°•~°•~°•~°•~°•~°•~°•°•~•°•~

I hope I didn't curse his match. God Bless him to win this match. If he loses it is NOT MY FAULT. I support him with all my heart.

Jannik, do this for Charlie.

[shadfanfic]

Silent treatment?!

Daddy!stucky x little! Reader 

Daddy:bucky papa:steve

Summary: you had a really long week and you had a fight with the other littles (Peter and loki) but no one wanted to listen to your side of the story since you were so grumpy for the whole week

warnings!: angst, happy ending tho really mean daddy!stucky, reader is so sad in this story

I wrote this when i was sad so yeah ehehe hope u enjoy !! 🖤🖤

————————————

You sighed and glupped at the way your room looked, it’s been a whole week and you didn’t even think about cleaning it you know papa gonna be super upset but you just can’t clean or even think about another work to do you just want to sleep .. After the party off course,

You were sitting on the couch patiently waiting for your daddy to be back with your clothes 

“Baby girl why your room is so missy hmm?” Your daddy came from your room cause he was picking up your clothes since your were lost in your thoughts.. 

you looked up and glup nervously “you had a war in there?” Papa joked trying to make you smile but nothing works your in a bad mood today “sorry papa.. sorry daddy” you looked down nervously and start playing with your fingers and they smiled completely understanding that your went threw allot this week 

“All good my baby but you must know that there’s no tv for a whole week alright?” Steve said after sitting on his knees just to be your level 

“Yes daddy” you obeyed and he smiles softly “good girl” he removed your hair from your face and start dressing you 

You are now setting on the couch in the living room waiting patiently for your daddy’s too finish getting ready 

“my baby is  such a smart one huh? Waiting Bucky said and immediately picked you up placing you in his hip, you smiled at the way he looked and giggle shyly “mm daddy is handsome” you said avoiding eye contact giggling shyly, he giggled can’t handle your cuteness and kisses your forehead “well you look beautiful too my baby” he whispered “hey what about me!”steve poked both of you in the side and giggled when you both flinched “ey!” Bucky reacted but you only giggled more covering your side “papa is also handsome” you smiled big with red cheeks making steve smile and kisses ur nose “thanks cutie” steve said 

——————

After 2hours

You tear up flustered at peter and loki, they just had their cookies but now they just want you too share yours! It’s so unfair! you waited as the good girl you are until after dinner just too enjoy your cookie now you have to split it between you three! No way

“nu! Go ask wanda” you shook your head no and answered them annoyed and they just looked at wanda who was sitting next too her mommy just too eat in peace, you looked at wanada and smiled at her smart idea why don’t you go to your daddies! 

You stepped back holding your cookie with both of your hands producting it from peter and loki then start running

Loki uses his magic and he was in front of you so you accidentally hit him with your body and he was on the ground tearing up so bad 

“oh no!, Why y/n !! You so mean!!” Peter came too help loki and he yelled at you catching all the grownups attention and you immediately start crying silently closing your fist hard “no cookies for you! It’s mine!!” You yelled too only feel a big arm on your shoulder when you looked up you saw an upset daddy “y/n i need you too apologise too loki right now!” Your daddy said in stern voice and you just shock your head no flustered “y/n” papa said only to make you throw the cookie on peter and loki “i hate you!” You yelled and papa immediately picked you up “alright angry girl let’s talk in private shall we?”papa looked you straight in the eye and talked really angrily, you didn’t clean your room for a whole week and he let that slide  just because he didn’t want to punish you,  but you treating others like that wasn’t a good thing specially for your papa

“N-..no!! No!” You started hitting your papa’s chest weakly trying to push him away “y/n!” Your daddy yelled at your for the first time in months making everyone immediately go quiet even loki crys.. the last time he yelled didn’t end up well at all 

You flinched and immediately stop moving “go to the naughty corner right now” daddy talked and steve put you down and you walked to the naughty corner and stand there facing the wall 

“hey buddy you okay?” Bucky leaned down too loki and loki nod slowly hesitated, bucky helped loki up and wiped his tears “I’m sorry about y/n pushing you but she’s been super grumpy lately” bucky said and smiled gently “you had your cookie but i think you deserve another one for being so brave!” Thor talked and hand loki a cookie, loki split the cookie into a half and gave peter “Thanks loki your the best!”peter hugged loki happily making him giggle happily and everyone start smiling seeing loki happy again 

—

“y/n?” Finally after a long 20 mins someone said your name, you turned around slowly too see wanda smiling at you sadly since you have been crying silently for this whole time 

“Your daddies said it’s time to go they are waiting for you outside” wanda said quietly and hugged you then immediately went to her mommy not waiting for your response 

You walked slowly ashamed of something you don’t even know, you found your daddies and immediately start running for them happily but you immediately stopped when your daddy picked up a giggly peter and threw him up in the air, that was your game! How can your daddy do that 

“papa?” You were in front of your papa but he was talking to clint.. why everyone is not looking or talking to you? 

“Papa up ups pwease” you said and put your arms up and you put the biggest puppy eyes you can put but still no one gave you attention.. not only your daddies 

“mmm..” you whimpered quietly and look around with teary eyes, everyone was busy with themselves and no one was looking at you or talking to you 

“Get in” you daddy said after opening your door but he wasn’t looking at you he was looking at his phone

You decided too listen to him and you get in the car, you gonna explain to them everything on the way .. there’s no way they’re giving you a silent treatment! Not all of them this is so unfair! 

You looked out from the window too see your daddies being so sweet to the others little hugging them goodbye .. you wanted a hug from everyone before you leave too!, you tried to open the door but it was locked, you knock on the window too get your papa’s attention but he only gave you his back completely , you swallowed hard trying not to cry and Ignoring your chest pain 

——————

“Daddy.. papa i can explain please listen to me!” You begged but bucky turned the volume on the radio up so he can’t listen too you.. 

You were crying and rubbing your tired eyes, why they don’t want to listen to you just why! If they only told you the reason it would be much better then them staying quiet! 

—

You were now getting ready for sleep.. your daddies didn’t come yet.. you know too read you a story and cuddle you before sleep 

You decided to get up and try to call them maybe they forgot, right?

“papa? Daddy?” You talked quietly  only too hear loud music being played, you start crying silently and knocking the door 

“Dats So mean!! Pwease listen ! It’s not fair u dunno what he did! “ you sobbed 

After long 15 minutes you sat down in front of their door and look up tiredly 

“mm papa? Daddy? Please cuddle me…i no need a bedtime story” You called but no one answered, you decided to knock the door but still no answer 

You stayed in front of their door really quietly waiting for them to open the door .. 

10 minutes no one answered.. 30 minutes still no one answered and you were really tired.. 3 hours later pass your sleep time .. no one answered 

“I’m s-..sorry p..papa .. i..I’m so-..sorry daddy .. I’m s-..sorry I really m-..mean it p-..pwease t-..talk to me” you talked while sobbing uncontrollably and hiccuping, you walked to your room you didn’t close the door behind you just lay down and immediately slept 

——————

you opened your eyes tiredly and looked at the time tiredly with teary eyes.. it was only 4am why your daddies is here? And why aren’t you in your bed? 

“hey, your up?” papa’s voice was behind you and you felt his arms in your back 

You turned around too face him, he smiled with red face and teary eyes 

“I’m so sorry baby I shouldn’t have ignored you.. i threw all my stress at you that day” he cried a bit and pick you up and hold you tight in his lap  and bucky hold you both tight now you were between their warm bodies 

“W-..why I’m in here?”  You asked confused and look up at them “because it’s been two days since the last time you were up” bucky said and smiled sadly 

You looked around confused “h-..huh?” Two days? How? You just lay down? Two hours ago!

“We were dummies for not listening to our baby, right?” Bucky whispered and plays with your hair “Mm daddies are not dummies” you said while shaking your head no and hug them both and they immediately hugged you back smiling big “we’re so sorry” steve whispered in your ear and kissed the side of your head long and you smiled softly feeling happy butterflies on your stomach 

“I forgive you” you whispered and look up at them and they both smiled big and hold you for the rest of the day! With so much cuddles and kisses

[lieblingspulli]

Evenings: SKZ

w/c: 1.3k

Leeknow* x Fem Reader＊

Summary: You wake up from a long nap in the early evening before your boyfriend, so you decide to make dinner. However, he also wakes up shortly after and sneakily doesn’t say anything and begins to help you without being noticed. When you do, he showers you with affection

A/N: The way that I kept putting off Leeknow’s WIP is embarrassing omg. Anyway,,,, here she is! I don’t know why I found it so incredibly hard to write and characterize Leeknow as he is in my bias line?? I don’t know, maybe it's cuz he’s goofy but also super private! I respect that. I hope you enjoy this piece. I really relate to Leeknow’s demeanor and tried to convey his goofy but gentle side here. 

*sidenote: I use the name Minho here instead of Leeknow because it feels more personal and intimate to call/ think about someone by their personal name.

＊Usage of pronouns She/her maybe like twice at most.

SKZ Masterlist

Masterlist!

-

The time read 5:14pm. The house was dead silent except for the quiet hum of the dishwasher and the gentle tapping of raindrops on the window. You felt warm and cozy being bundled up in your favorite duvet and being tucked into your boyfriend’s embrace. The only real reason you woke up was because of the undeniable feeling of hunger in your stomach. You sigh, thinking about having to leave such a comfortable position. Based on the time, you estimate that the both of you slept for about two hours. After a long workweek for both you and Minho, you felt pretty good about not sleeping too long. Giving in to the hunger, you resign to making some dinner to at least have it ready for Minho when he wakes up. 

Slowly, you pry yourself away from the warm arms of your partner and amazingly, he doesn’t make a sound. As careful as you can, you tuck the blanket over him and turn around to tiptoe outside of the bedroom before carefully closing the door. 

Once outside, you are greeted by Dori who was waiting for one of you guys to wake up. 

“Hi my love.” You whisper before scratching the top of her head and scanning for the other cats. Once spotted, both tucked into their bed, you quietly walk over to the kitchen. You are on a mission. 

There doesn’t seem to be much in the fridge as you scan for leftovers or possible ingredients. However, there are a few veggies and some noodles among other ingredients. You get to work right away.

In the process of trying to quietly take all your utensils and tools out, you don’t even notice the bedroom door creaking open. You are so engrossed in trying to stay quiet as you begin to chop vegetables that Minho takes this opportunity to really appreciate his partner. 

As soon as you left the bed and closed the door, Minho felt the space you had left behind and cracked his eyes open. Not usually one for naps, he slept strangely really well. Maybe it was all that recording his team had been doing lately, or the excessive gym activities that Changbin had made them all do for their SKZ code episodes. Either way, Minho felt heavy, like a rock, after his nap. 

Minho’s first post-nap thoughts were that one, he was sleeping with way too many blankets because of Y/n, and two, speaking of Y/n, what was she up to? Stirring and stretching, Minho didn’t have a lot of thoughts to think about since it was Friday evening. He groaned and threw the blankets off the bed a little too excessively because they ended up completely on the floor. Whoops. 

He could hear the sound of soft clunks as he opened the bedroom door. It was Y/n, chopping some bell pepper. Minho got so caught up in thinking about how grateful he was to have you that he failed to move for several minutes. It wasn’t until Dori rubbed up against his leg that he snapped out of his sleepy trance. That nap really did wonders for him. He just sighed and leaned down quietly to scratch Dori’s chin. 

Thankfully, you were so focused on the veggies in front of you, Minho was able to sneak behind you and take one of the sheet pans you had laid out with the spices. Opting to help, Minho began to spread out some olive oil and butter with spices onto the pan so you could just toss the veggies in it and not have to use a bowl. Minho turned to you and was slightly amazed you hadn’t noticed him yet. 

Minho decided to speak up just as you set down the knife. 

“Did I do this right, Jagiya?” 

You jumped about a foot into the air, almost dropping the mushroom in your hand. 

“Minho! You scared the crap out of me oh my god.” You took a breath and laughed. Minho smirked in satisfaction before placing the pan down and pulling you into him by the waist.

“You just looked so pretty, I couldn’t disturb you looking so peaceful.” He cheekily pointed out and tapped your sides. You rolled your eyes and ran your fingers through his god awful nap hair.  Naps always made his hair stick up everywhere. You always argued it was his cat pillow case, but he absolutely refused to get rid of it. 

“I was going to make us dinner but you woke up before the surprise was done.” You pouted. He smiled and started swaying with you in his arms. 

“You could have woken me up to help you. You know I love helping you.”

“I know, sometimes I just love doing something for you. And besides, you looked like an angel just sleeping and dreaming so peacefully like that.” You scratched his head and he melted into your hands. 

“Mmmmm, I love you.” He purred. You chuckled and kissed his lips lightly. “I love you too Minho, but I am so hungry right now. Can you help me finish?” You challenged him like one would do with a five year old. 

“I love a woman who knows what she wants.” He giggled and you smacked his shoulder. 

“Yah, I will throw a mushroom at you.” 

“Oh no! The evil mushroom! I’m so scared.” He laughed and tapped your butt to let you know you could continue on with your mission. You shook your head and turned around to continue dinner. Now, with Minho to assist you, you made significant progress and took one more step to finishing dinner. 

About an hour later, you were finally seated at the dinner table, waiting for Minho to bring the mango juice carton. 

“Hurry uppppp, I’m hungry.” You jokingly complained and leaned down to give Soonie some head pats. “Soonie is hungry too.” 

“That’s ridiculous, I just fed them.” Minho tsked and closed the fridge behind him. 

You glared at him. “Do you not love your kids? I’d feed you again if I could, my little baby.” You spoke to a curious looking Soonie. Minho sat down and rolled his eyes. “Why can’t you treat me like that?” You scoffed. 

“What? I already do! Do you know how many times I’ve been late to the bus stop because you won’t stop asking for kisses?” You loved teasing him back. He scoffed back and poured you a glass of mango juice. “Hey, those are important. I can’t let you leave without at least four of them. It’s like a good luck thing you know.” He said this so indifferently, almost like it was common knowledge. Taking the cup, you nodded to feign agreement. “Yea, okay Minho. Does that mean if I only get three, I’ll get run over by a bike?” You stared at him and he promptly nodded. “Absolutely. I can’t endanger you like that,” Minho stated with resolution and quickly dug into the food. 

You smirked and began to eat before you felt a tap on your arm. You looked up to see Minho with his hand out and with baby eyes. 

“Oh my gosh, we just cuddled for like the past two hours Minho.” But you quickly indulged him and for the rest of the time you both ate with one hand in each other's hands. 

((I've come to the conclusion that I can't write for Leeknow without feeling very cringey because I know he would make fun of anyone for writing fanfiction LMAO))

[whiskey-tango-matcha]

Cry Wolf (m, cold)

Buckle up, y’all, it’s 5k words of ~pure drama~. Lmao, but for real this one is long, dramatic, and a little snz-light (apologies). Also, there isn’t a sneeze until like 2500 words in (oops). Greyson fakes a cold to try to get out of trouble with Elijah, and is instant-karma’d, as one would hope lol. It’s a little more flowery, there’s a lot of snarky dialogue and inner monologuing... idk. I like this one, even though it’s not super snz-heavy. I hope you guys do, too. Let me know what you think :) 

cw: male, cold, coughing, fever

Cry Wolf

“Not to be dramatic, but that sounds like literally the worst event on planet earth and I think I would rather be entirely consumed in flames than do it.”

Elijah turned around slowly in his chair and gave Greyson an incredulous look. “‘Not to be dramatic’? What would being dramatic sound like if not that?”

Greyson shrugged and reached around his boss to click out of the email displaying the event details. “Probably me saying, ‘If you make me do that event, I will cut off my own arms and legs and feed them to you’,” he said, sliding back into his own rolling chair. “But that seemed a bit much, even for me.”

“Yeah, that’s a bit much,” Elijah said, grabbing his mouse back and reopening the email. “Consumed in flames is so much more chill.”

“Agreed.”

Elijah snorted. “Grey, I’m sorry but this isn’t an event we can turn down. I know it’s a lot of work, but the press it gets is unparalleled.”

Greyson groaned and threw his head back theatrically. “Liiiiiij,” he moaned, “c’mon, dude. A ten-course dinner for a bunch of blowhard millionaires throwing pocket change at kids with cancer? Seriously? It sounds like my literal definition of hell. Plus, you know anytime I step into one of those stuffy, soulless banquet halls I break out in hives.”

“Genuinely, and I mean this with all the love in my heart, I have never met anyone as dramatic as you are. And I have a twelve-year-old niece, so that’s saying something,” Elijah said, placing a faux-caring hand on Greyson’s arm. The chef shook it off, annoyed, and Elijah laughed. “Grey, I get that the people who pay to go to these things are assholes, but it really is a good cause. Plus, the American Pediatric Cancer Society seriously has the crème de la crème of social media teams. They promote you for months before and after the event.”

Greyson bit his cheek to keep from laughing. “Creme de la crème?” he asked. “Seriously?”

“Oh, fuck you, Chef.” Elijah said, shaking his head. “You’re doing the damn event. Get used to it.”

***

“Chef?”

Elijah looked around the corner, behind the line, and in the prep kitchen, but Greyson was nowhere to be found.

“Greyson!” Elijah called, pushing through the swinging doors to the dining room, and running directly into the chef, who was innocently making coffee in the server’s station.

“Yes…?” Greyson asked, putting a lid on his coffee and making his way past Elijah, back into the kitchen. The GM followed behind him, annoyed.

“Have you ordered anything for the dinner this Friday yet?”

Greyson raised an eyebrow. “I thought we were closed Friday?”

Elijah gave Greyson a look of complete exasperation. “Yes, we’re closed, Grey, but you remember why we’re closed, right?”

“Uh…” Greyson said, eyes darting towards the calendar. “...winter break for the staff?”

Elijah pursed his lips and closed his eyes; he took a deep breath, pressed his hands together, and readdressed the chef in an entirely too-calm tone. “Greyson. No. Not winter break for the staff.”

Greyson rubbed the back of his neck, nervous. “You’re… out of town?”

“The cancer awareness dinner, Greyson, oh my fucking god,” Elijah slapped a hand on the desk beside them and Greyson cringed. “How could you forget this? The fuck is your problem? We’ve had it on the calendar for months.”

“Dude, I’m really sorry, it just slipped my mind! I’ll be ready, it’s only Monday, this shindig is in four days, I’ll order the stuff now,” Greyson said. He turned towards the desk and started rummaging through the mess of papers by his computer, before looking up at Elijah again, guiltily. “...did we send them a menu?”

“Jesus fucking christ, Greyson, yes we sent them a menu in September. Seriously, are you okay? How in the ever-living fuck could you forget such a huge event? I know you don’t want to do it, but fuck, Greyson, this is my restaurant and my reputation on the line!” Elijah couldn’t seem to ebb the anger now that it had started flowing. He slammed himself into his chair and pounded the computer keys until a PDF popped up – the menu they’d had approved three months earlier. Greyson visibly shrunk back.

“Oh,” he mumbled. “Yeah, I… now I remember. Shit, Lij, I’m so sorry, man.”

Elijah pulled a hand down his face and pressed his fingers into his eyes before addressing the chef. “I’m asking in earnest this time,” he said, his voice small and controlled. “Are. You. Okay. Because you never forget shit like this.”

In hindsight, Greyson knew he shouldn’t have said it; he should’ve told Elijah that he’d put the dinner out of his head the moment he’d halfheartedly slapped together a menu and hoped that Elijah would do the same. He should’ve said that he’d hoped Matt would want to take it over, even though he knew Elijah would never let the sous chef take care of such a high-touch dinner. He should’ve said fucking aliens had abducted him and stolen that one piece of information from his mind, for fuck’s sake, anything other than what actually came out of his mouth.

“Actually, I uh… I haven’t been feeling great. Maybe I’m like, coming down with something?”

In what universe, a tiny voice in Greyson’s head whispered, is this a good idea?

Elijah’s face softened at the false admission. “Shit, Greyson, really? Why didn’t you tell me? What’s wrong?”

Greyson felt the guilt pool in his stomach the moment Elijah’s voice turned to one of concern. Shit. “Uh, I mean, it’s probably nothing. Just like a, uh…sore throat and headache. Just not feeling 100% myself. I’ll be good, just, y’know… a little foggy. But I promise, I’ll order the stuff now and make sure I have cooks for this weekend, okay? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to forget.” At least only half of that was a lie, Greyson thought to himself, grimacing. He and Elijah never lied to each other – as a rule.

Elijah sighed. “I’m sorry for yelling,” he said, “and I’m sorry you aren’t feeling well. Did you take something?” Greyson nodded, the guilt pool in his gut growing larger. “Okay,” Elijah said. “Just… I mean, let me know if it gets worse, okay? Take it easy today. I’ll close the books.”

Greyson nodded as his boss stood and placed a firm hand on his shoulder. He swallowed hard, a swallow that probably looked painful, and Elijah winced in sympathy. You fucking asshole, Greyson chastised himself. “I’m good, boss. Thanks, though.”

Elijah gave the chef a small smile and headed out to the dining room to talk to the host. Greyson let out a little ‘fuck’ and sat down to call purveyors. Why would he say that? If there was one thing Elijah was sympathetic of, it was illness. Greyson had essentially phoned in sympathy points because he didn’t want to be yelled at. What was he, a child?

Greyson tried to shake it off; maybe Elijah would forget the fake-sickness in lieu of the big event this weekend. Maybe this wasn’t a big deal at all. The chef put his head down and called the first purveyor, made an excel sheet, began preparing for the dinner he desperately did not want to do.

He was so wrapped up in preparations, he didn’t see Elijah sneak in to the office; didn’t see him stealthily switch out his coffee cup, or leave just as quick as he’d come in. He didn’t notice until he lifted the cup, took a big swig – and swallowed down a hard lump of guilt with the lemon tea Elijah had brought him. Oh, fuck, Greyson thought, placing his head in his hand. This is not going to end well.

***

The shift felt long.

“Get some rest, okay?” Elijah said to Greyson as the chef packed up his bag. “We need you at 100% for Friday.”

Greyson nodded, somber, and hiked his backpack onto his back. “You got it, boss,” he said; he’d been a man of very few words tonight, which didn’t help the long shift feel any shorter. “I’ll be all good tomorrow. Promise.”

Elijah gave his friend a small smile and nodded back. “See you in the morning,” he said, and Greyson gave a wave behind his head as he walked out the door. Once the chef was out of earshot, Elijah sighed.

He wouldn’t deny the fact that he was worried. Greyson was the king of pushing through illness, but he had a tendency to push himself too hard too quickly, and end up absolutely destroyed a few days into whatever ailment he was fighting. Elijah wanted to make sure that didn’t happen this time; all day, he’d tried to keep Greyson seated if possible, to keep him hydrated, to bring him lozenges and Dayquil and make him ingest them. Care-taking was far from his strong suit, but today he’d really tried; not only to keep Greyson from careening into a worse illness, but to make up for the fact that he’d yelled at him. That had been uncalled for, and he felt like an ass.

An hour or so after the kitchen staff had departed, the final server closed out her check and brought Elijah her paperwork. He finished filling everything out, filed the daily report, and shut off the harsh kitchen light. As he waved the last server goodbye, he found himself thinking, I need a drink. It wasn’t something he did often, but occasionally he’d stop by the club three doors down for a beer and the possibility of spending the night with a real person instead of a glass of whiskey and late-night talk shows. Tonight, when he didn’t have the option of grabbing a burger with Greyson – his only real friend, if he was being honest – at the dive bar, felt like a perfect night to scout for some booze and a warm body to fall asleep next to.

Elijah pulled his jacket on, locked the back door of the restaurant, and set out for the club. The air was frigid this evening; he huddled further into his jacket and upped his pace, reaching the front door of Zed in record-time. He was practically salivating at the thought of a neat whiskey as he yanked open the heavy door – fuck the beer. Let’s get right to the good stuff.

The club was full, but not packed, and Elijah managed to get a seat at the bar – rare here, especially since the club’s bar was tiny by design. They wanted you on the dance floor, mingling, sweating, working up a thirst for another, and another, and -

“Can I get another double Maker’s?” Elijah’s ears perked up at the sound of someone ordering over his head; if there was one voice he knew for certain, it was that one. The GM turned slowly around and to his left – oh, you mother fucker.

“Greyson?” Elijah called over the thump of electronic music. From about a yard away, Greyson’s  head snapped around, searching for the voice that said his name. When he and Elijah locked eyes, Elijah noticed he was sweating and panting – and certainly not from any feigned fever.

“Oh… fuck,” Greyson said, obviously too drunk to realize how loud he was being. “Oh, shit. Fuck. Lij, I -”

Elijah shook his head. “I see you’re… feeling better,” he called over the heads of the people seated next to him. “Asshole.”

Greyson couldn’t seem to form words after that, and the bartender interrupted him anyway by placing a full glass of whiskey on the bartop. “Name on the card?” the bartender asked. Before Greyson could answer, Elijah called out to the bartender.

“Put it on me,” he said, and the bartender nodded before moving to help another guest. Greyson stood, seemingly stuck in place, before taking a tentative step towards his boss. Elijah put a hand up, as though to say stop right there. “No need to thank me, chef,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Enjoy your… medicine.”

Elijah slapped a fifty on the bartop in front of him. He drained his whiskey, slammed down the glass, and breezed past Greyson, his face flaming with embarrassment. What an ass he was, not realizing he’d been played. What a complete moron.

“Elijah, wait -” he heard Greyson call behind him – but he wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction. Without looking back, Elijah pushed open the door and immediately hailed a cab outside. When Greyson finally made it past the throngs of people and into the street, Elijah was long gone.

***

To say the next few days were awkward would be the understatement of the century.

The morning after the club, Greyson had barreled into the office, spewing apology after apology before Elijah could even say hello. The GM had accepted, albeit coldly, and hadn’t mentioned it for the remainder of the day. He hadn’t mentioned much of anything, truly, and when the shift ended Elijah walked out without saying goodbye, leaving Mark to close the restaurant down.

“What did you do?” Mark had asked Greyson when their boss had departed. Greyson just shook his head.

“I fucked up,” he said. Mark snorted.

“Clearly.”

The next day had continued in the same fashion; Elijah giving Greyson the cold shoulder, Greyson attempting to apologize in every way he could think of. They barely spoke Thursday, as well – and by then, Greyson was starting to worry that they’d never speak again.

“He’ll talk to you tomorrow,” Mark promised when Elijah walked out for the third night in a row without saying goodbye. “He can only hold a grudge for seventy-two hours, max.”

Greyson wasn’t so sure. He’d never seen Elijah this mad before, not even when Greyson had fucked up and only bought two tenderloins for a party that requested nothing but steak in his first month of working together. Plus, Greyson was dealing with a bit of a sticky situation – a situation that he was sure would make Elijah ten times angrier at him. A situation that literally could not have arisen at a worse time.

“Hhh...hhNGTSH-zue! HTSHH-ue! NGTZSHUE!”

“Bless,” Mark said, distractedly, his eyes trained on the computer monitor in front of him. “You feeling okay?”

He wasn’t. He’d woken up that morning with his throat sticky, and his head pounding. Instant karma, he’d thought as he chugged tea in place of his usual coffee. When he remembered the tea Elijah made for him a few days before – a gentle kindness, a peace offering, a showing of care for someone who’d blatantly lied to his face – his stomach soured. Greyson had dumped the tea down the drain and forced himself to chug an energy drink instead; the bubbles made him cough until his ribs were sore.

“I’m good,” Greyson said, stealthily managing to keep the congestion out of his voice. “Allergies.”

Mark turned to the chef, an eyebrow raised. “It’s December,” he said.

“Right,” Greyson answered, though it wasn’t an answer at all. “Yeah, it is.”

The event was tomorrow; Elijah had spoken to Greyson long enough to remind him that they needed to be in the van by three PM for a six PM call time at the banquet hall. Greyson had said he knew, had said he’d be in at ten to get everything finished and packed and make sure Matt was well-versed on their menu, as he was the second set of hands Greyson would need to plate up. Elijah had nodded, obviously done with the conversation, and that had been that.

“Alright, Chef, I’m out of here,” Mark said, snapping Greyson back to reality. “You need anything before I go?”

Greyson shook his head. “Thangks, Mark,” he said, internally cursing the congestion that had wormed its way into his voice. Mark pursed his lips.

“Yeah,” he said. “Get some sleep, Chef.”

A parroting of Elijah’s sentiment at the beginning of the week; a mockery. One that Greyson most certainly deserved.

***

When Elijah got in the morning of the event, Greyson was already in the prep kitchen tightly wrapping his food for the evening and briefing Matt on the menu. The GM sighed; it was finally time.

“Chef,” Elijah said, knocking politely on the wall. Matt and Greyson looked up, surprised, and gave their boss matching smiles.

“Morning, boss,” Greyson said, his voice low. Something seemed… off, but Elijah couldn’t put his finger on it.

“I just wanted to say, I accept your apology,” Elijah said. “Thanks for letting me sulk the past few days.”

Greyson raised an eyebrow, but nodded. “Thanks, boss,” he said, simply. “I appreciate it. Sorry againd.”

Elijah nodded back and made his way towards the dining room to begin packing up dishware for the dinner. Something was weird about Greyson today; he’d really expected a bit more fanfare when he’d announced his acceptance. A bit more gushing, maybe a signature Greyson pick-you-up-off-the-ground hug – but he got none of it. If anything, Greyson seemed more reserved than Elijah had been in the days leading up to the dinner. Maybe he was angry that Elijah had held the grudge for so long – though that didn’t seem like Greyson in the slightest.

He decided to drop it; most likely, he was putting weight on a situation that required none. Elijah finished packing the dishes into milk crates, and headed back into the kitchen to ask Greyson and Matt for help loading them in the van.

“Grey?” Elijah called into the kitchen. “Matt? Can you guys come give me a ha -”

“HNGTSSHHH-ue! HTSHZUE! NGTSH! Huh-! Huhh...HUHESTZHUE!”

He wasn’t cut off, because Greyson clearly hadn’t heard him speaking before unleashing a seemingly-unending volley of sneezes. Elijah’s heart first sunk deep into the pit that was his stomach – and then his face flamed with an anger he hadn’t expected.

“Oh, you’re shitting me,” he muttered, stomping his way into the back kitchen. “You are absolutely fucking kidding.”

Greyson, who was posted up at the sink blowing his nose, nearly jumped when he saw Elijah storm into the prep kitchen. “Christ,” he said, trying to nonchalantly throw the paper towel he was holding away, “give a guy a heart attack.”

“Is this some kind of joke to you, Greyson?” Elijah asked, crossing his arms. Greyson sniffled, rubbed his nose on the back of his hand, and raised an eyebrow, clearly waiting for Elijah to continue his diatribe.

“Is… what a joke?” Greyson asked when he realized he wasn’t getting any more context clues from his boss. Elijah huffed out an angry laugh.

“You’re trying to fuck with me. Right? You’re trying to make me look like an ass, see if I’ll once again feed into your weird little game.” Elijah was practically snorting with anger; he couldn’t help it. Fool me once, and all that.

“Lij,” Greyson said, holding his hands up as though to surrender, “I… I don’t kndow what you’re talking about.” Elijah laughed – a mean, ringing sound.

“I get it; you’re making a point. You don’t want to do this event and you never have. Well, Greyson, it’s too fucking late now, so just stop. I’m not in the mood for whatever fucking ruse you and your little minion have up your sleeves. So get rid of whatever it is you’re using to make yourself sneeze – we get it, ha ha, Elijah’s a moron, so goddamn funny – and cut it out. In fact, hand it over. Clearly you’re too much of a fucking child to know when enough is enough.” Elijah held out his hand, waiting on Greyson or Matt to fess up and slap a pepper mill or something into his hand, but neither of them stirred. After an awkward moment of the three of them standing, all waiting for something to happen, Matt cleared his throat.

“Um…” he said, “I… I don’t know what’s going on here, but we don’t, like… have anything.”

Elijah threw the sous chef a dirty look, then looked back to Greyson. “You’ve got him trained well,” he said, not giving it up. Greyson opened his mouth to say something, but his face collapsed before the words could make it to his mouth. He crumpled to the side and used an elbow to cover his mouth.

“HRRTSHH-uh! Huh...huhhNGTSHH-ue! ITZSCHUE! Huh! Hhh…” Greyson didn’t allow himself the luxury of waiting on the last sneeze to make its appearance; instead, he pinched his nose to ebb the fit and coughed into his palm – a hacking, congested sound. Elijah’s anger dried as quickly as rain in the Sahara desert – oh, fuck.

“Oh… fuck,” Elijah muttered as Greyson grabbed another handful of paper towels to blow his nose into. “You’re… you’re not actually sick, are you?”

Matt started to answer for him, but Greyson cut his sous off. “Ndo,” he said, curtly. “Allergies or sombething. Ndot tryigg to fuck with you. Sorry, Lij.” He finished with another painful-sounding cough, while behind him Matt shook his head, eyes wide; a silent miming of he’s sick as a dog.

Before Elijah could say anything else, Greyson tossed the paper towels and headed out towards the dining room. “Were you sayigg you ndeed help with plates?” he asked, wiping a hand under his nose and swallowing painfully. Elijah, unsure of how to handle this situation, simply deflated, a balloon in the harsh summer sun.

“Um. Yes,” he said, following behind Greyson. “Yeah, I… help would be great.”

Greyson nodded, turned, and headed to grab the plates. Elijah held back, and turned to Matt.

“He actually has a cold now, doesn’t he?” he asked, though it was soft enough to not know if it was to Matt or himself. Matt shook his head.

“No,” he said, giving Elijah a disapproving look. “It’s definitely not a cold.”

With that, the sous followed behind his boss, side chosen – leaving Elijah standing stalwart in the back of the kitchen. This, he thought to himself, is not going to end well.

***

If he was being honest, Greyson wasn’t sure how he was going to make it through this dinner.

At the beginning of the day, he’d been fairly sure he could hold it together; sure, his throat was on fire, and he couldn’t stop coughing. Yes, he was stuffed up to the gills and every little movement triggered another sneeze fit. But he hadn’t had a fever, and he’d been plying himself with cold meds, so everything had been fine.

...that is, until the Elijah-explosion.

Things had gone downhill quickly after Elijah’s screaming fit. Greyson started attempting to hold back all of his sneezes and coughs, resulting in a headache that made his eyes feel like two swollen golf balls lodged inside a too-small head. He’d stopped pounding ibuprofen, cough syrup, and dayquil after Elijah’s freak-out, too; didn’t want to seem like he was egging his boss on. Now that they had arrived at the event, he had a new problem: it was incredibly difficult to medicate in a banquet hall filled with stuffy, old assholes.

“Mbatt, is that everythi – NGTSH! TSH! HTSH! Huh - ! HRSSH-uhh!” Greyson tried desperately to hold back yet another string of sneezes, to no avail. Whatever shit he’d picked up was persistent; persistent and fucking annoying.

“Yes, Chef,” Matt said, giving his boss a pointed look. Greyson meant to return the look, but instead sunk down below their prep station to cough into his sleeve. From the ground, he heard Matt sigh – then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a bottle of cough syrup in his sous’ hand. Without thinking, Greyson snatched it and chugged.

“Chef,” Matt said, quietly, “we’re all set here. Just waiting on people to arrive – why don’t you go have a cigarette or something?”

The last thing Greyson wanted with this bitch of a cough was a cigarette, but he nodded anyway; he knew Matt. He knew what he meant was go outside and collect yourself, you’re in for a long night.

“Thanks,” Greyson muttered, standing. “I’ll be back ind ten.”

“Take your time,” Matt insisted.

Greyson stumbled out of the building, clutching his chef’s coat close to his body; he’d left his jacket in the car, but he desperately needed some air. Fortunately or unfortunately, he’d already caught his death; no need to worry about the cold infecting him further.

Whether it was luck or just the fact that it was too cold for anyone else to dare venture outside, he couldn’t be sure, but either way he was glad to see that no one else was in the courtyard when he pushed through the heavy banquet doors. Greyson sat heavily on a bench arms wrapped around his middle, and took a few deep breaths. On second thought, he found himself thinking, maybe a cigarette does sound nice.

The chef pulled his pack and lighter out of his jeans and brought the cigarette to his mouth with a shaking hand. It took a few clicks to light it; once it was finally lit, he only got one good pull before he heard the door open noisily behind him.

“Are you seriously smoking?”

Elijah.

Greyson turned around, sluggish, and gave his boss a coy you-caught-me smile. “Addiction’s a hell of a thigg,” he said, turning to cough once again. “You wandt one?”

Elijah sighed, clearly thinking twice, but ultimately nodded and sat next to Greyson. The chef handed him the pack and the lighter.

“If you wandt it today, trust mbe you don’t wandt mbe lighting it,” Greyson joked, holding up a shaking hand as proof. Elijah bit his cheek, then slid out of his heavy outer coat and placed it over Greyson’s shoulders. Greyson went to protest, but Elijah held up his hand.

“You need it,” he said, taking the lighter and producing a flame immediately. “Just as much as you don’t need that,” he pointed to the stick between his friend’s fingers, but didn’t go to grab it.

“Yeah,” Greyson said, “you’re probably right.”

They sat in an awkward silence after that, punctuated only by Greyson’s coughs and sniffles; a game of chicken neither of them seemed keen on losing. Finally, Elijah finished his cigarette and stomped it out beneath his foot. He stood, and turned to regard Greyson.

“Thank you,” he said, holding out a hand. Greyson gave his boss a look, then took his hand and allowed the other man to pull him to his feet.

“Dond’t mbention it,” Greyson said, sniffling. He tried to hold the eye contact Elijah was giving him, but his nose seemed to have other plans. “Huh! HuhhhETSHHZUE!” Greyson sneezed, hard, into the sleeve of Elijah’s coat, then groaned when he realized what he’d done.

“Bless,” Elijah said, apparently unfazed by the coat’s untimely demise. Greyson nodded, wiped his nose on the back of his hand, and sniffled. “Grey, I’m -”

“Please dond’t say it,” Greyson said, holding a hand up. “Please. I’mb the boy who cried wolf, y’kndow? Instant karma. I did this to mbyself.” He rubbed a tired eye, attempted a light cough, then dissolved into a full-on coughing fit.

“Christ, Greyson,” Elijah said, patting the chef on the back. “That sounds fucking awful.”

“Weird,” Greyson said once he’d composed himself. “Because it honestly feel ambazigg.”

“Seriously?”

“Ndo. Ndo, I feel like I’mb going to keel over at any second.”

Elijah couldn’t help it; he burst out laughing. Greyson laughed, too; tension broken. They caught each other’s eyes, and burst out laughing once again; friends once more.

“I’m sorry you’re sick,” Elijah said. “And I’m sorry about this event. You’re right; these people suck ass.”

“Mbost people do,” Greyson said, chuckling. “I’mb sorry for being such a dick about this dinner, though. And forgetting. And pretending to be sick.”

“And then actually getting sick,” Elijah finished for him. Greyson smiled.

“And that,” he said. Elijah shrugged, gave a short little laugh.

“Very typical ‘us’,” he said, looking through the window into the banquet hall. Greyson nodded.

“Yeah,” he agreed, sighing. “You ready to get this shit over with?”

Elijah smiled. “Yes, Chef,” he said. Greyson laughed, which dissolved once more into a crackly cough. “Then let’s get you to bed.”

Greyson nodded, a hand pressed into one of his aching eyes. “Boss,” he said, “You read mby mbind.”

The two men headed back inside and took their places. It certainly wasn’t the first time they’d do an event with one of them on the brink of death, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last; that was the way of this industry. Greyson sucked down some more cold medicine, Elijah fixed the table settings, and Matt gleaned that all had somehow been forgiven and visibly relaxed. Just another night. The show must go on.

[thelonechaosgoose]

I have recently learned that I like pretty much every book I have to read in English class so have this short long rambling essay on The Great Gatsby.

The whole story makes me sad. It is full of missed opportunities and greed and rich people who have no concern for other people. It's about hope and dreams and a false sense of happiness. Gatsby throws these elaborate parties for one person who doesn't even know he's there. He invites important people to try and get the attention of one girl. When that girl finally sees him, everything begins to fall apart. There is a short period of happiness and hope and light. But that ends almost as quickly as it began. Daisy and Tom's marriage was never real. It was never full of equally returned love. Tom was always with someone else. Even if Daisy said she loved Tom, it wasn't always sincere. Things could've been so good. But the morals of all of these people messed things up. Nick being caught up in all of this made things even sadder. He just wanted to get away from the boring life he had and sell bonds. He didn't deserve any of this. He was stuck inbetween people's secrets and messy lives. It's no wonder he wanted to leave New York and all of them behind. They're all terrible. I mean Gatsby wasn't awful but his obliviousness to the situation and his endless hope and belief that Daisy would go with him after the fight made him a frustrating character. Especially to Nick. The way Gatsby made his money wasn't entirely lawful but I know for a fact he wasnt as bad as Tom. Nick tried to help Gatsby but in the end he gave up. Another point is that if Daisy had waited just a little longer, she could've had a happier life. Even if Gatsby made his money in an unlawful way, they probably would've been happier than she was with Tom. Her happiness was a mask to how she really felt. We only really get glimpses of this but when she talks to Nick about the birth of Pammy, Daisy's daughter, she wants her to be a fool. She wants her to be a fool so that she won't have to deal with the terrible-ness of the outside world. Daisy also was involved in 2 (two) murders! The obvious one being Myrtle. The irony of this is that she kills the woman her husband is having an affair while she's having an affair. The other possibly less obvious one is of course Gatsby. Since she hit Myrtle, she caused Wilson to go to Tom who told him it was Gatsby which then gives Wilson the ammo to shoot Gatsby in his pool. Tom could've told Wilson that it was Gatsby for two reasons. One, he actually thought it was Gatsby. Or, two, he said it was Gatsby to protect Daisy. I think it was the second one. After the fight, Tom knows that Gatsby has lost and he has won. He wants everything to go back to how things were. When he had control over his life. He probably figured out it was Daisy and threw Gatsby under that bus so that they could leave and start over again. Moving on from that mess, I want to talk about Jordan and how awful she is. She was not phased about anything that happened. After the fight and the accident she asked Nick if he wanted to come inside for dinner and hang out after they had literally just seen a dead body. It definitely helps to show that the only people effected by any of this are Nick, Gatsby, and Wilson. Two of which are dead. Gatsby spent the past five years of his life trying to get Daisy back for it only to end in his premature death. Also the fact that Nick was all Gatsby had makes this even more tragic. Even After all the parties and all the business associates, he is still alone and nobody cared about him. He dedicated his life to Daisy and all he got in return was a tiny sliver of happiness.

thank you for coming to my super long Ted talk <3

[drarrily-we-row-along]

I got SUPER sick right after school ended for break and then there was the usual family drama at holidays so I didn't get to posting any of the little Christmas ficlets I'd been working on.

Draco loved being a dad.

Truly. There were few things that he got more fulfillment and joy out of than being a father to a wild, rambunctious, precocious, sweet little almost three year old. He worked hard at being a good father, at not making the same mistakes his own father had; he worked hard regulating his own emotions so he could help his child.

But there was always more to be done and Draco felt like he could never quite keep up with work and Scorpius at the same time, and then when he threw in dating Harry Potter seven months ago, well. Things had gotten busier, but also somehow easier.

In his teen years, he'd often mocked Harry by calling him Saint Potter, but honestly, his gentleness and selflessness was working out pretty well for Draco and Scorpius.

So well, in fact, that Draco sometimes felt a little guilty for all of the ways that Harry spoiled them. He was always doting on Scorpius and hanging on his every word like he was always the most important person in the room. As for Draco, he helped with all sorts of mundane tasks (dishes, tidying, cleaning up), he was always a second adult when Draco needed a hand with his child, he was always gentle and encouraging. The way he loved Draco was unthinkable, honestly, and he wouldn't believe it if he didn't experience the constancy of his love every single day.

Draco decided that Harry deserved a perfect, quiet evening. They deserved a perfect, quiet evening. Everything was so busy in December, and Scorpius had been sick for pretty much the entirety of the month one thing after another, that they'd hardly had any alone time together.

Pansy was watching Scorpius over night, which pretty much guaranteed that he would come home in a sugar coma, cranky from having too much fun and too little sleep, but it was a price Draco was happy to pay for one night of quiet time.

She'd picked Scorpius up at 4:00 and Draco had spent the last two hours cleaning his house and making dinner. Well, he'd spent the last two hours attempting those things.

It wasn't going well.

His son's toys seemed to multiply every step that he took, the list of rooms and spaces in need of cleaning only seemed to grow as he cleaned and found more and more neglected corners, he ended up burning the meat and overcooking the pasta, and the cheesecake that he'd made hadn't really come together; it was still just a runny mess inside the spring-form pan.

The entire kitchen looked like a bomb had gone off and Draco had food and mess all over him when the doorbell rang.

Glancing at the clock, he took a shuddering breath and headed to the door, vanishing everything with one flick of his wrist in spite of the way it made his heart twist uncomfortably in his chest.

When he opened the door, Harry grinned brightly at him, holding out a lovely winter bouquet, "Hey, love," he said warmly.

And Draco couldn't breathe quite properly, his chest a little too tight, as his eyes stung. It wasn't fair that Harry was always so charmingly perfect and he was such a fucking mess.

"Hey," Harry whispered, moving into the house and taking Draco in his arms.

He inhaled the cold, crisp scent of the snow off Harry's coat; and the warm cinnamon, spice, spruce scent of Harry's body wash and cologne beneath. "Sorry," he said softly. "Everything's still a mess, and I completely ruined dinner, and I'm probably covering your coat in food, and-"

"Hey," Harry said again, pressing him back so that he was caging him against the wall, "Can I kiss you for a minute?" he asked, looking in his eyes, desire and love plain as day.

Draco nodded and Harry leaned in and kissed him, slow and tender and gentle. His toes curled against the carpet and he pressed up into the kiss, wrapping his arms around Harry's neck and letting the rest of the world fall away for a minute.

"I love you," Harry murmured into his mouth. "You don't have to do anything to make me love you."

"I know," he groaned, stomping his foot because he'd done it one day with Scorpius to let out some frustration and it did actually make him feel better.

Harry grinned and kissed his cheek.

"I just wanted to give you nice things."

His smile turned a little sharper as his hands strayed down Draco's back, "You're a very nice thing," he said, nipping Draco's chin. "Give me you and I'll take great care of you."

He laughed, he couldn't help it, it was such a terrible line (even though it was true). Harry smiled at him like that had been the point all along. "Take of your coat, come inside. Let me try dinner again," he sighed.

"Or," Harry said as he took a step back and stripped out of his coat, "I could just order us dinner and you could change into comfy clothes."

He looked down at his outfit, he'd picked the trousers because the accentuated his arse, and the blue button up because it complimented his skin, and the waistcoat because it made his waist look narrow and his shoulder look broad. Draco had imagined that Harry was going to like this outfit. And sure it did have several spills on it at this point, but it was nothing that a couple of quick cleaning charms wouldn't take care of.

"You look very handsome," Harry said, as if he was reading Draco's mind. He caught Draco's hand in his, "so handsome," he repeated. "I just thought maybe you'd like to be more comfortable? I don't want you to feel like you have to dress up for me, or clean for me, or cook for me," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "I was just thinking it would be nice to just relax with you."

Draco nodded, feeling disappointed and like he very much wasn't enough. "I'll go change," he said, not quite able to meet Harry's eyes.

"Draco-"

"It's fine," he said quickly, "I'll be right back."

"Draco-"

He shook his head, "I need a minute," he said because it was the truth. "It's not you," he added quickly, still fleeing toward the bedroom, "I just need a minute to process. I'll be fine," he assured as he closed his bedroom door.

He sat on the bed for a minute just breathing in and out. Harry didn't think he was failing, Harry didn't think that Draco didn't love him because he made a mess; he slowly reminded himself of the things Harry had said and stopped the cycle of degrading things his 'mean voice' was saying to him.

It would be nice to spend time together, Draco didn't actually want to try making dinner again, and he would rather be wearing sweatpants and a Christmas jumper like Harry had been. Taking another slow breath and pushing aside all of the pressure to be perfect, Draco changed out of his dirty clothes and into his comfy ones before meeting Harry in the living room.

Harry looked up from where he was perched on the edge of the sofa, scrolling through food options. "Hey, baby," he said, standing as soon as he saw him and wrapping him in his arms again, "I'm sorry," he said softly. "Thank you for working hard to do all of these nice things for me and to make the evening special. I didn't mean to trivialize your efforts," he added.

Draco sighed and leaned into his hug, "It just feels like you are so much better at loving me than I am at loving you. You're always doing nice things for me and taking care of us, and-"

"But Acts of Service is your love language," Harry said. "Well, Words of Affirmation a little too," he added with a little shrug.

He frowned, "So you just do things to help me because it's my love language?"

He nodded, "In part, because it's your love language and the easiest way for me to tell you that I love you in a way that's easiest for you to receive. It's also because I love you and I love Scorp, and I am genuinely happy to help you. I'm happy to make things a little easier."

"What's your love language?"

Harry laughed and rubbed his hands over Draco's back, "Physical touch," he said softly. "Followed closely by quality time."

"So," Draco said, "A night cuddling on the couch, eating a take away pizza, is just as satisfying as coming into a space that's been tidied for you with a meal that was made for you?"

"I mean, I appreciate the effort," he replied, "but honestly, I would have been just as content to snuggle on the sofa and eat pizza straight out of the box." He pressed a kiss to Draco's forehead, "Especially if it could have saved you the frustration of this afternoon. I never want to be something that adds more to your already too full plate."

"You're allowed to have needs, too," he protested, and perhaps this was more the heart of the problem for Draco than anything else.

Harry blinked at him, "I have needs," he said.

"Well, I'm not sure who's meeting them because I am clearly failing spectacularly at everything!" he threw his arms up in the air and pulled away from Harry, "I'm stressed and exhausted, and you're always having to help me and support me and-" he shook his head, "What are you even getting out of this relationship?"

"What?" he asked incredulously.

"Because, I swear to Merlin, Harry, if this is just your martyr complex, or-"

"Shut up," he said, voice sharper than it had been with Draco for a long time.

Inwardly Draco recoiled a bit, taking another step back from him and trying to catch his breath.

"Sorry," Harry said immediately, running his hand through his curls and mussing them. He rubbed a hand over his mouth next, not quite looking at Draco. "Sorry," he repeated, "I shouldn't have spoken to you that way. I didn't mean to snap at you." He looked over at Draco then, eyes burning, "That's a really specific trigger for me," he said, "but I shouldn't have snapped. I'm sorry," he said again.

Draco nodded once, not quite willing to say it was okay, but understanding why he'd spoken so harshly to him.

"I have worked really hard not to live my life for everyone else. I love you and I choose the things that I do out of that love. It's not out of a sense of guilt or obligation, or the need to serve. I give what I have, not what I don't. And," he continued, "I don't harbor any secret frustration or resentment. I help because I love you and I want to. Okay?"

"Sorry," he whispered, arm wrapping around his stomach. Why did he always have to push? Why was he always shoving people he loved away?

Harry took a step toward him, "Draco," he said softly. "It's okay to ask me when you feel like things are imbalanced. It's okay for you to feel worried, or whatever else you're feeling. I am happy to tell you all of the love and fulfillment that I get out of this relationship. I'm not going anywhere."

He blinked up at him through his tears, "I'm a mess."

“You’ve got a lot on your plate,” he said reasonably. “You’re so used to managing everything,” he added with a little laugh, “but you don’t have to manage me, love. I just,” he shrugged, “you making time for me when you have a thousand things on your plate means more to me than anything else. You holding my hand, or touching my shoulder when you walk past me, or brushing my hair off my forehead,” he shook his head, “you tell me you love me all the time.”

He reached out for Harry’s hand, “thank you.” He shook his head, “sorry my anxiety-brain gets the best of me.”

Harry took his hand and tugged him over to the couch, wrapping him up under his arm and pressing a kiss to his head, “you don’t have to be sorry. Just talk to me,” he added, “I’m glad to reassure you. I love you,” he said again.

“I love you too,” he replied, turning his head to kiss Harry’s hand on his shoulder. “Let’s order dinner.”

“What do you think of Thai tonight?”

He hummed but before he could politely say yes, Harry continued.

“Alright, that’s a no. What about Italian?”

He nodded, “I was really in the mood for pasta.”

“Perfect,” Harry said. He put in his order, then handed his mobile over to Draco. “I’m going to get us a bottle of wine,” he said.

Draco sat up to let Harry out and put in his order as Harry came back with two wine glasses, filled a bit fuller than was strictly polite. “Thank you.”

“Mmhmm,” Harry replied, handing him one and settling back in beside him on the sofa, pulling a blanket over their laps.

They chatted quietly, about work and Scorpius, about their friends and all of the busy-ness of the season and they laughed together.

And Draco realized that Harry was all but glowing, he watched the way his smile stretched almost too wide for his mouth, the way his eye crinkled at the corners, and his dimples appeared. His green eyes were so bright that Draco couldn’t stop himself from leaning up to kiss him softly, right on the corner of his mouth.

“Hi,” Harry murmured, grinning at him as he leaned in to return the peck.

“Hi,” he replied. “I see it now,” he said softly.

“Hmm?” Harry asked, tracing the curve of Draco’s jaw with his index finger.

He leaned his forehead against Harry’s, “how this is you love language.”

Harry hummed happily and let his forehead rest against Draco’s, “you make me really happy.”

“The feeling is quite mutual.”

“Would you-” he started before the doorbell rang and interrupted him.

Draco started to stand but Harry waved him off.

“I’ve got it,” he said, standing and making his way toward the door.

He looked over at the Christmas tree and laughed at a clump of ornaments all clustered together in the corner. Scorpius had been determined to fit as many on as possible and he’d hidden little pockets of clustered ornaments all around the tree. It was one more thing that Draco would have been trying to fix an hour ago if he’d noticed, but that he had no desire to fix whatsoever anymore.

Harry returned with their food and summoned plates and silverware from the kitchen.

As he was dipping, Draco said, “what were you going to ask?”

Harry glanced up and shook his head, “it’s silly.” He looked back at the food. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Hey,” he said, reaching over and stilling Harry’s hands, “look at me.” When Harry looked up he said, “there’s nothing too silly to ask me. I want to know.”

Harry searched his face for a long moment, “I know your last marriage was one of your parents’ choosing and left a sort of bad taste in your mouth,” he rushed out all at once. “But would you ever consider maybe getting married again?”

He sat there, floored, completely speechless, mouth opening and closing without any words coming out because that sounded unbearably like a proposal.

“It’s fine,” Harry assured quickly. “This is great. You’re amazing. I love you. We don’t need to change a thing-”

Draco closed the space between them and made Harry stop talking, stop saying all of the ridiculous words in his head, by kissing him.

Harry melted into the kiss, one of his palms cupped Draco’s cheek.

“Yes,” he said when he pulled back. “Salazar, yes, Harry.”

“Really?” he asked, “are you sure? We don’t have to-”

He shook his head, “I love you.”

“Shit,” he said, patting down his pockets, “I don’t-” he broke off. “Hold on,” he said, kissing him giddily, “don’t move.”

He disapparated and then reappeared a moment later with a little blue velvet box, “this was for someday. I hadn’t imagined it would be so soon.” He laughed and knelt in front of Draco, “you have my whole entire heart. I promise to love and care for you and Scorpius, to cherish you, and to make you feel seen. Will you marry me?”

He nodded, eyes flooding with tears. “Harry,” he whispered as the other man slid the ring over his finger. “I love you too.” His heart was fuller than he could ever remember it being and for the first time in years, Draco wasn’t worried about what the future might hold.

Nothing that evening had gone according to plan, but everything was impossibly right.

This story is set in the same universe as Against An Endless Tide because I loved that story and I love that Harry and Draco. If you enjoyed their characterization here, you might enjoy that fic too (it's a personal fav of mine).