#also the speckle fade brush is a brush I made from another brush I got from..somewhere i've forgotten where now

[peppermint-moss]

how do you make the fur patterns look so nice? is there a specific brush to use?

Thank you I'm happy to hear you think they look good! I'm not sure if there's anything specific I do ? (if there's a specific fur pattern like stripes or patches or smth you want me to go into more detail about how I do feel free to send another ask)

There's 3 main brushes I use for fur patterns, and like 90% of the time it's just the first one (which is just my triangle lineart brush):

The "glow airbrush" is just like a generic soft airbrush I only use for gradients, and I don't use it super often for fur

The "speckle fade brush" is what I use for when I want a marking to be softer than the hard line that the triangle brush gives me but not as soft as the airbrush. It's a little finicky to use tbh haha and it's very square-looking at times, but I like the feathery edges it makes

I've added the speckle fade brush to my google drive of brushes if you want to download it! (triangle is on there already too, and any generic airbrush will do for gradients lol but if you want that specific one I got it from csp assets here)

commission info || ko-fi (tip jar)

[angelatsumu]

gala (m. izuku & b. katsuki)

hello friends! it's been a while, but i am back with some bakugo/izuku x reader food <3

warnings: NSFW! minors DNI or i will eat your whole family. fem!bodied reader, izuku called izzy, izzy calls reader puppy, cucking, thigh riding, m! masturbation, oral (f! giving), cumeating, mean bakugo, dom!izuku & dom!bakugo, very subby!reader, alcohol mention

NSFW under the cut, also not proofread <3

katsuki is not the nicest guy when his gorgeous girl is being so clingy to Deku

your giggle rings through his ears as he watches from across the room, the way you clung to Izuku's arm like a fragile doll was driving him mad. that dress hugged your curves too tight, inching up your side with every keen into izuku, and without thinking he'd slide his hand down and adjust it for you, hands ghosting over your curves. he knew what he was doing, having pro-hero Dynamight's special girl draped over his arm like some prize, some prize he hadn't truly won. katsuki's blood was boiling, but he knew he couldn't cause a scene. after all, Deku had mentioned the gala to him, and he seemed disinterested. when you brought it up, begging to be taken to your first hero gala, he brushed you off, claiming he didn't want to show you off to the world just yet. so, here you were, Deku's prize for the evening. knowing you decided to go with his comrade, Bakugo swore he would only go to the gala to be sure you were safe, that he wouldn't get jealous. the seething was telling a different story.

your emerald ballroom gown that hugged your curves so tightly got hitched on the swell of your thighs once more, catching enough to displace the thigh slit just enough for Deku to blush. once again his hand snaked around your hips, tugging the dress down only slightly, and this time his hand held its place on your hip. a blush rose to your cheeks as your sipped from the champagne flute in your hand, eyes scanning the room for your lover. you knew katsuki too well, and you knew he would be at the event the moment you agreed to Deku's invitation. your eyes met his, and he cut his eyes at you before rolling them. you immediately divert your attention back to Deku as he squeezed you closer to him, clearly aware of your boyfriend's presence. Izuku's touch made you feel hot, the lingering circles he traced into your hips with each flirtacious giggle and stolen glance. you'd be lying if your senses weren't intoxicated on Izuku's hero demeanor, finding yourself at the end of this desire to be saved by Deku.

"how 'bout some water, puppy? you've had quite a few of those." the comment itself was innocent, but the thing that caught you off guard was the nickname that made your knees buckle. he knew, the sly smirk as he handed you a glass of water told it all. "hm, o-okay," you gasped softly, taking the water from him and having a few sips to clear your head. Deku's left hand never leaves your side as he watches you, drinking in your reaction to his words. you felt hot, like you were boiling under your skin. bakugo felt the same, more than aware fo the effects Deku had on his girl. still, he waited. bakugo was amazing at playing the long game, more than willing to edge you for hours to get a point across. still, tonight, watching your hands linger on Deku's chest, eyes gazing into his lustfully, chest heaving at the mere charisma of his friend, he knew something more than edging needed to be done.

just as you were collecting your thoughts from the gutter, deku reaches into his pocket to retrieve his cell phone. he grins when he sees the caller and immediately answers. "i knew you couldn't stay away," he starts, eyes scanning the room for your lover. he sighs contently when they lock eyes, listening to your lover's undeciphered words on the other line. "oh, i fully intend to," he remarks, a sly chuckle leaving his lips as he placed his phone back in his pocket. you look to deku with confused eyes, and he beams down at you, squeezing your hip an inch tighter. "puppy, we have business to attend to," he whispered in your ear, placing a chaste kiss against the shell of your ear. you blush deeper, nodding your head slowly and allowing him to lead you from the middle of the ballroom. he ushers you to the elevator, insisting he needed to stop at his hotel room before continuing the evening.

deku has you pressed against the door of his hotel room within seconds of entering, his knee coming between your legs to spread them apart. his lips immediately speckle kisses along your neck, moans leaving your lips. "i-izzy, please," you whine, eyes screwing closed as your curse yourself for allowing your resolve to fade. "i love it when you call me that, doll," he groaned against your skin, large hands roaming your body and settling one on your breast the other on your hip. "call him it again, teddy~". your eyes spring open as you crane your neck to see your beloved boyfriend sitting with his legs crossed in the chair adjacent to the window. deku lets out a groan against your skin, groping your breast over the gown as his presses his thigh into the gap between your legs. "you couldn't just stay quiet for another minute, huh, kacchan?" izuku grins against your skin, feeling your breath hitch as you realize your beloved boys had set you up once again. "daddy wants to watch, teddy. be good to izzy," katsuki scolds you and your cunny throbs at the command. deku's hands reach to bunch up your dress around your waist to reveal you had opted out of panties for the evening, and both boys let out a soft groan. "so you planned on fucking him anyway, huh slut?" deku directs his attention to katsuki, shooting him a warning glare as katsuki holds the menacing, shit-eating grin he normally held.

deku turns back to you lovingly, sliding you onto his thigh so that your bare cunny throbs against his toned muscle. he stood there, entranced by your overwhelmed expression as you worked your hips on his thigh, desperately seeking any stimulation to your swollen clit. "getting your mess all over my emerald suit, puppy~" he teased, earning a chuckle from katsuki. your eyes closed softly as your form subconsciously clung to izuku while you chased your release. you could feel their eyes burning into your skin, and that made your blood run even hotter. deku scoops you into his arms, carrying you to the mattress where he sat on the edge of the bed, sliding his thigh between your legs once more. he held your hips in place to halt your movement, left hand reaching to pinch your cheeks and make you look at him. "i want you to make a mess of my expensive pants, and then, you'll do the same for daddy, okay?" your eyes scan his face for any semblance of joking but found nothing. you sighed, realizing you were in for the longest ride of your life. you nod softly, beginning to work your hips over his toned thigh once more. your cunny dragged against the soft material of his slacks, the texture making your body tense with each roll of your hips. deku took the opportunity to slip your dress off of your shoulders, freeing your breasts for his lips to caress. izuku brought his tongue across your left nipple, sending a chill up your spine as he began circling and nipping at the sensitive bud. "izzy~" you whined, feeling the coil in your stomach begin to bend under the pressure of the brewing pleasure. you could hear the sound of skin slapping, and went to turn your head when izzy's hand stopped you, holding your head in place. "you look at me when you cum, bitch," he grunted, sending your body into a frenzy as your high approached. you bucked your hips faster against him, clit catching the ridges of his slacks with every haphazard rock. his words rang through your ears alongside the grunts from your beloved boyfriend's mouth, and you overheated, your orgasm washing over you like a tsunami. "good girl," deku grinned, helping you rock your hips through your high as your body slumped over him. when he was content, izuku's movements of your hips stopped, and he held you close to him as you took your time recovering.

once the heave of your chest slowed down a bit, izuku placed a chaste kiss to your forehead, but you craned your neck, whining incoherently about your lips. you needed the intimacy, even if you knew katsuki never let you kiss izuku, saying it was only meant for him. "what's this? puppy wants a kiss?" Izuku's sly eyes cut to Katsuki who crinkles his nose in disbelief, resolving on being meaner to you than had been originally planned. Izuku places a sweet, gentle kiss to your lips and you melt into his touch again, feeling the fire inside you reignite. without a second thought, katsuki had stood and scooped you out of izuku's lap, bringing you over to his chair where he'd been angrily steeping.

"you're not cumming anymore, so I hope that was worth it," katsuki groans, shoving you to your knees. "aw kacchan, come on-" 'shut up. she's my brat, and I decide when she's lost her privilege to cum'. you shiver at the idea of katsuki using your throat and leaving you high and dry. he takes his cock out of his pants, swollen pink tip oozing precum as his hand tangles in your hair. you peer up into his eyes, puppy dog like eyes of yours melting that hard exterior. "fuck" he moans, stroking himself in your face. you whine, knowing he's resolved to make you watch. "daddy~" you sniffle, realizing you crossed the line into unforgivably bad girl and he was not one to show mercy to bad girls. his hand moves quick along his member as he stares down at you, pliant and patient as your thighs rub together to create some sort of friction. "f-fuck, 'm close, you little bitch" he noticed the way the harsh name made your legs tremble when deku mentioned it, and the two men exchanged smirks as your shook from the build-up of your desperately needed release. his angry tip oozed more pre-cum as you writhed and whimpered below him, tongue lolling out of your mouth as you anticipated his release. "come here-" bakugo grunted, taking the back of your head and shoving his long, girthy shaft down your throat, the warmth sending him over the edge as he shot his seed down your throat. the harsh speed of the cum burned your throat, eliciting tears from your soft, fucked out eyes.

katsuki came down slowly, chest heaving as his gaze softened slightly as his beloved girl. "good job, puppy~" izuku whined, his own release creeping upon him as he stroked his cock to the sight before him. you held katsuki's member in your throat, leaned forward on your knees enough for izuku to see your glistening, soaked cunny. at the thought of your velvety walls, he shot ropes of cum all over his hands and fingers. katsuki pulled out of your mouth with a pop, a languid whine leaving your lips at the loss. katsuki grinned at his silly girl, gesturing over to deku. "go clean up izzy's fingers, and kiss him. make him taste himself, puppy," bakugo commanded, a blush rising to your cheeks as you crawled over to izzy. Izuku pressed his fingers into your mouth, drooling pooling and slipping out as he depressed your tongue. once you collected his seed, you leaned forward to plant your lips chastely. deku moaned against your lips, deepening the kiss to swirl his tongue throughout your mouth, definitely catching katsuki's residual seed in his mouth before pulling away with a string of spit. "even my cum tastes better than yours, kacchan" izuku smirks at him, and katsuki furrows his brows at him, sliding his trousers off entirely. "give me twenty minutes, i'll send my puppy over to you with a fresher load to taste, cum eater." izuku blushes at the thought, shaking his head as he pets your hair softly.

[subwaysurf45]

Winter Makes Ice (Ep.3)

Summary:  you’re captured after a brawl at the Avengers building, Bucky and others must save you before Hydra makes a new Winter Soldier out of you, Bucky has given up that title.

Words: 2799

Episode: Three

Warning: not much, flashbacks, talks of violence

Masterlist! Winter Makes Ice Episode: Two

Time: 1:00pm 

Date: October 2nd 2024

It didn’t take long for everyone to board the helicopter and for it to take off, no one was lounging around this morning so they assembled quickly. Bucky sat by himself on the heli, the file was still open in his hands with the page turned to Dr. Wright. Bucky looked over the information that was given; he double and triple checked. There was a car waiting for them when they were going to arrive, Bucky would get dropped off and then Steve, Nat, and Wanda would drive around Halifax but would keep watch for a distress signal. Bucky made it clear it would only be him talking to the doctor, he was practicing his script in his head. 

“Five minutes ‘till landing,” the pilot spoke into his headset, the sound went to their ears sounding like a 1940s radio show. 

“Copy,” everyone replied without unison. 

The plane got lower and lower until it touched the ground; it was a private tarmac for primarily military forces and other important people; SHIELD was always allowed to use it. Everyone got off the plane after the propellers began to slow down, Bucky had jumped off once while they were still at top speed and got flung forward but the air. The all black car stood a ways in front of them, they all took their bags and headed over. 

“What a ride…” Steve muttered as he ran his hand against the perfect hood, this car was brand new and probably had never been in the sun before. It wasn’t a low sport car but rather an everyday car that was bullet proof and decked out with an AI on the inside, no one would take a second glance at it but the four of them marveled at how this car could fit in amongst others. The black rims matched the black tires and the black paint, this was Bucky’s dream car. 

They all got in and the ride began, Steve drove while Wanda sat in the back with Bucky, Nat was in the passenger seat playing her music. Every so often Wanda would look over to Bucky, he could see her out of the corner of his eye, she’d give a sympathetic glance and maybe open her mouth as if she was about to say something but chose against it. Bucky had Dr. Wright’s address on the file sheet; he was giving directions to Steve as they drove through the colourful houses. 

They had never seen houses like this, around four to five houses lined up next to each other, each of them were painted a different colour but they looked the same. Flowers grew in little holders under the two window sills at the front of the house, tulips were the most popular, vines would grow on the side where the sun didn’t shine too much and pain would chip around the bottom of the houses. Some houses still had Halloween decorations up, red leaves scattered on the ground and blew everywhere. There was a brown hue to the world around them, pumpkins were scattered on some door steps while other people still had Christmas lights up from last year. 

Bucky tapped Steve’s head rest and the car slowed to a stop, they looked out to their left to see a house that looked like it belonged to the community. It wasn’t modern and square with sleek grey tiles on the outside, it was old and run down. A ghost hung from the single garage light, one pumpkin was sitting on the doorstep. This house didn’t look like one of a nazi group member, nevermind just a person with their doctorate.

Tons of leaves crunched under Bucky’s combat boots, the road was littered with them, it made it seem like it was a red and yellow road. He looked both ways as he crossed even though no cars were on the road except for the military grade undercover car, Bucky looked over his shoulder to see Wanda waving. They were going to head to a farmers market in this town to pass the time, and Bucky would walk over there when he was done. He gave a thumbs up and the car drove away and down the street, he didn’t watch to see it disappear, Bucky only had one thing on his mind and it wasn’t some apple pies Wanda was looking for. 

The driveway looked new as well as the cobblestone walkway, one car was in the driveway and it looked to match the house, no crazy sports car. There was a screen door before an actual green wooden door, Bucky pulled back the screen and didn’t bother with the doorbell, he banged on the door. When he pulled his fist away there was a flake of green paint on his middle finger’s knuckle, a quick swipe and it was gone. Bucky stood back because he saw that in the movies, his back turned to the door as he looked out to the town. It was a lovely day, most people were probably at this farmer’s market, Bucky had never been to one even though you had offered to take him. 

His head whipped back at the door opening, the same man, but only older, opened the door. He looked tired and worn out, this was probably his last Halloween. The cane he was holding was shaking in his grip, the other hand gripped the side of the door extremely tight. You could see the white through the speckled skin. 

“What can I help you with, son?” the old man spoke with a smile, he licked his gums. A Canadian accent seemed almost cartoon-ish. 

Bucky froze as he looked at this man, the sight of him brought him back to his nightmares and everything he’d been through. The name ‘son’ rolled off this man’s tongue and down Bucky’s spine and sent a shiver running all through him, it was obvious this man didn’t know who Bucky was. Bucky almost felt bad that he was bothering him, it was obvious he wasn’t a walker and standing seemed to be his exercise for the day, but at the same time Bucky couldn’t help but think about all the ways he could rip this doctor apart. 

“Son?” the name came again. 

Bucky looked up with a shake of his head, “hello, are you Dr. Wright?” he asked quietly. 

“Yes it is, what do you need?” he didn’t seem freaked out that Bucky knew his name, it was a small town. 

“My name is James Buchanan Barnes,” Bucky started but the man didn’t seem to figure it out, “I am the Winter Soldier- used to be actually…” Bucky added. 

“Are you here to kill me?” the man’s voice shook, “because if you really are him then you have every right to do so,” he stepped back and opened the door for Bucky to walk in. 

“I’m here to talk, you’re not going to die.” Bucky walked in and kicked off his combat boots, he’d heard it’s a thing in Canada to take your shoes off in the house. He also heard there was bagged milk which didn’t make any sense to him, but he wasn’t about to argue. 

“That’s always good to hear, eh?” the accent slipped out again, it was weird for Bucky to see this man who haunted him just laughing. “Would you like some hot chocolate?” Dr. Wright asked as he made his way into the kitchen. 

His house was small, not many walls as one room just faded into another. Knick-knacks littered shelves and tables, everything brought a homey feel to it all, the house was very lived in. “No thanks,” Bucky waved up a hand to signal no. 

The doctor came and sat across from him, Bucky was sitting on a chair while Dr. Wright took the sofa, they both were wrapped in plastic. It made a squeaky sound when either of them moved but it didn’t seem to bother the doctor at all, Bucky one final time before swearing he wasn’t going to move again and hear that annoying sound. Both of Bucky’s hands were clasped in front of him, he felt too large and bulky for this petite chair, his fingers fiddled with each other. He’d pick and poke at the massive gloves he wore, his long sleeve was covering everything he needed. 

“So, Dr. Wright-”

“Jacob, son,” he corrected, “though I am a doctor,” Jacob hesitated, “I go by Jacob.”

“Is that your real first name?” Bucky asked, he was met with a smile and nod, “then call me Bucky, please.” Bucky smiled back, there was a growing tension between the both of them but they chose to ignore it. 

“Nice to meet you, Bucky.” Jacob seemed to relax at the name, he was scared of Bucky and Bucky could tell. This man had seen Bucky train for years on end, and Jacob knew what the Winter Soldier was capable of. “What do you need to talk to me about?” his cane rested beside him, his hand found its way there and just held it. 

“I need to talk to you about Hydra, any information you have on the Iceland base- or any base in Halifax, Iceland, Greenland, and there’s one more…” Bucky brought a gloved hand to his stubbled chin, the leather making a rough noise when it brushed against the facial hair. “Oh! It was Newfoundland, anything you knew about those four places.” 

Jacob thought for a moment, he didn’t have stubble to rub. Though he was old it was obvious he still thought that it was the old days, hair slicked back and a very fresh shave, facial hair wasn’t allowed unless you had grown it out in private. Bucky had always remembered Howard Stark’s mustache; he couldn’t picture him without it. 

“I mean, I was just a scientist, I ran labs and tested things on animals. I didn’t come up with the world ending plans, I was never told the reason for what I was doing, I was just told to do it.” Jacob sounded worried, “when I used to work for Hydra I was worried for my life everyday, they were so paranoid all the time that someone could be a rat. If you said ‘hail Hydra’ a little too quietly then you’d have a bullet between your eyes, I just kept my head down and did what I was told.” Jacob’s hand got increasingly tighter on the handle of his cane. 

“Was there something new they were working on?” Bucky asked, and he pulled out a little flip book to keep track. 

“I quit a total of ten years ago, when I was seventy-one, the only thing they were thinking of was keeping you in their grasp, there was no other plan.” Jacob shrugged, “Hydra couldn’t see a life source without you, they never intended on losing you the way they did.” 

“So you have no idea what they could possibly be working on, at all?” the hope Bucky had was falling, this was the only lead they knew and if all he could say was there was never a plan B, you were screwed.

“I’m sorry Bucky, I really want to help, but I just don’t know.” Jacob stood and walked back to the kitchen. He filled a glass of water and grabbed three pills from a container before heading back over to his seat. 

“Out of the four places I mentioned, Iceland, Greenland, Halifax, and Newfoundland,” Bucky paused and watched Jacob mutter them to himself and then take the pills, “which one is the strongest?”

Jacob swallowed his pills with water, “Iceland.” without any hesitation, no second guess, nothing giving away he was lying for didn’t know. “Iceland was hell for me, it has the best of the best for agents, scientists, and…” he glanced out the window, “cells and tourture.” 

Bucky shot up right away, he headed to the door. Jacob followed him, glass still in his hand. When Bucky was about to leave Jacob placed a hand on his shoulder. When Bucky turned back around the hand traveled along the center of his chest, “I'm not wired, Jacob.” Bucky eased. 

“Some things just come second nature, son.” Jacob kept his head down, “y’know, I never wanted to hurt you. I thought I was making my old man proud, but I never stopped to realize what I was doing was actually wrong.” Jacob looked up with glossy eyes, “I actually wanted to find you at some point because I know I was the one who woke you up last, I remember clearly the way you looked, right then, I knew I needed to leave that place.” Jacob shuffled over and stood completely square to Bucky, Bucky just looked down at Jacob with a face of horror. The man Bucky saw every night was crying and apologizing to him, he didn’t know anyone who worked with Hydra had a heart. “I’m sorry for everything I did to you,” Jacob reached in his back pocket, he had placed the glass of water on a side table. “Here, take some money-”

“No, none of that, Jacob, really,” Bucky held his hands out, “you’re forgiven, don’t worry about all that, I just need to find someone.” Bucky reached for the door. 

“What do you mean?” Jacob fished in his wallet. 

“Hydra stole my girlfriend, I think she's in Iceland.” Bucky’s eyebrows knitted together at Jacob who was given him a coin. 

“I think you’re right,” Jacob dropped the coin in Bucky’s palm before closing the door, the screen door creaked as it shut quickly with the wind. 

Time: 2:33pm

Date: October 2nd 2024

Steve, Nat, and Wanda were walking around on the closed road, stands of every fruit and pastry lined the streets. Wanda was on top of the moon, she had a tote bag with some apple turnovers in them, that was really all she wanted. Nat had actually bought something too, Steve was genuinely surprised when Nat bought some earrings from a vendor, they were very small and dainty moons that would go in her ear lobes. Steve didn’t buy anything but just liked walking around, there was a lot to see but in a good way, no screens or jumbotrons, just people being people. 

As Bucky made eye contact with Steve, Steve’s phone rang. Nat and Wanda rushed up to Bucky and were asking how it went, but the unknown caller was what Steve was focusing on. 

“Steve Rogers,” Steve lowered his voice. 

“Captain Rogers,” an all too familiar voice hit his ear. 

“King T’Challa?” Steve turned his back to the group. 

“We have three Hydra agents in custody, they tried to take out my sister,” his accent flowed and bounced as he talked.

“Keep them in the cells, we’re on our way.” 

“Will there be more of them?” T’Challa asked before he could hang up. 

“I don’t know, but hold them and don’t kill them, they might be our only hope.” Steve said his goodbyes and hung up. 

When he turned back to Bucky and the rest of them, they seemed scared, Bucky had overheard Steve’s call, super hearing, and was looking at him weird. 

“What was that?” Bucky asked. 

“King T’Challa, says there was an attempted hit on Shuri, doesn’t know where they came from but they want her.” Steve shoved his phone in his back pocket, “what did you find?” 

Bucky just held up a silver coin, “we’re going to Iceland.” 

“We need to go to Wakanda,” Steve stepped forward. 

“Not all four of us,” Nat pulled everyone aside from the farmer’s market, “I’ll go with Steve to Wakadna, you go with Wanda to Iceland. We’ll be talking and before you ambush the Hydra base in Iceland we’ll confirm y/n is in there, deal?” She looked to the other three. 

“Deal.”

“Deal.”

“Deal.”

Winter Makes Ice tag list: @small-death-and-codeine​ @commonintrest​ @buckyys-doll​  @lil-baby-nor

let me know if you want a tag!

[taeescript]

I Promise (I)

𝔰𝔶𝔫𝔬𝔭𝔰𝔦𝔰 >> Some people have the gifted ability of music; others of mathematics; some perhaps as persuasive argumentators. You have a “gift”, if one would like to call it that. It is the ability to know when somebody is telling a lie. 

𝔭𝔞𝔦𝔯𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔰 >> hoseok x reader; ?? x reader (the whole gang joins at some point) 

𝔤𝔢𝔫𝔯𝔢 >> mafia!au 

𝔴/𝔠 >> 3.1k 

𝔴𝔞𝔯𝔫𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔰 >> mentions of drug use. nothing else much really it’s actually pretty tame right now 

𝔞/𝔫: would you believe be if i said this whole thing was inspired by this singular gif? I lost my old account (rip old fics) but here I am starting new and writing again. Nervous, but please show some love 

next part

The music is blasting in your room, and the bass rumbles causing your heart to beat to the rhythm of the song. However, your fingers are tapping to their own creation of a tempo while your other hand scribbles a note down on a piece of paper. It is the end of June and that means you have just received your paycheque.

  “$9.74,” you repeat after your calculation, “I’ve got an extra $9.74 to spend.” You lean back in your chair and continues to bob your head. The wall behind you thumps to its own tempo; not of the song that is playing but its own rhythmic pattern. Your roommate is at it again. You close your eyes and allow yourself to drift. $9.74. You could get an extra meal. Or an extra drink at the bar. Or maybe you could just put that into your bank account. But that’d be useless, just sitting there. In the very distance, you hear the thumping of your roommate stop and its door creaks open. Another set of doors creak a couple of seconds later. You get out of your seat and open the door to your own room.

  Seohyun, your roommate, brushes past you wearing only a pair of shorts and her favourite black laced bra. She walks to the door of the apartment and kisses the man on the lips before taking a drag of the cigarette she is holding in the other hand. He stands with a hand in his pocket and the buttons of his shirt undone. You watch as Seohyun bites his lip before ending the kiss.

  “You’re the best,” you hear the robust mint-haired female say.

Cue the all too familiar buzzing.

“Love you, babe,” he says, kissing her one last time before leaving.

The buzzing halts.

“Love you too,” Seohyun kisses him one last time before gently pushing him out the door, closing it when he leaves.

And there returns the buzz.

Seohyun turns to walk back to her room and notices you standing there. “Hey,” she greets.

  “You know, he actually does like you,” you comment, coming out of your room. You rub the back of your neck and rotate it once to get rid of the stress. Seohyun sits down on the brown couch in the small living room and takes out a tin box. She crosses her legs and rummages through its contents. A cigarette leaves its embers on the ashtray in the table in front of her. “Right. And I like him too,” Seohyun replies, taking out what she had been looking for, “Him and his drugs.” She shakes the white packet before opening it up. She sniffs the contents once and sighs. Making a motion towards you, she offers its contents to you.

  You shake your head. You return into your room briefly to turn off the music and grab your phone and jacket. When you walk back out, you see that the packet is empty and Seohyun is passed out on the couch, fingers still speckled with white dust. You make a quick stop into Seohyun’s room to grab a blanket for her before locking the keys to the apartment.

  Your apartment, technically. You had been the one to pay full payment and was content in living alone until Seohyun showed up one night, begging for a place to sleep. You couldn’t let her sleep outside so you agreed. That one night turned into a week and finally a year, where Seohyun still stays.

  It isn’t like you didn’t enjoy Seohyun’s company. She is nice to be around, always engaging in some next level philosophical topic, particularly when she is high. It is, however, slightly annoying whenever she brings her “boyfriend”, or boyfriends at times, to the place, but you have learned to drown out their voices and actions by blasting your music. But what you like about Seohyun the most is that she doesn’t ask questions. The buzzing in your head is also always strangely quieter around the other girl as well.

  You trudge up the stairs and immediately brings a hand to shield your eyes from the bright sun. It is about seven in the evening but still way too bright for your liking. You like the darkness night brought with it. Serene. Solemn. Locking the gate to the building behind you, you walk down the streets all the while rolling your neck due to its tense state.

  No matter how many times it happened, you’d still feel its pain.

  The lingering pain left as a reminder of your unique power; gift; thing. Whatever people wanted to call it.

  You knew whenever somebody told a lie.

  You would feel this strange buzzing at the base of your neck when a person said anything but the truth around you. The buzzing didn’t come every time you talked to somebody - you couldn’t catch all the lies that came out of people’s mouths - but it occurred often enough to be a nuisance to you. While the buzzing wasn’t painful in itself, it always caused your neck to be in sore pain. The pain was not indicative of how big the lie was, however. A lie that involved so many twists and turns that even its creator could not keep track would give you pain. A small white lie would give you the same pain. To you, it was just pain.

  You quickly turn the corner and made your way down the stairs into the subway station. The man at the window gives you a small smile in which you did not return but hastily walk through the gate. One hour. It took 46 minutes to get to the station and another twelve minutes to walk. You had one hour. The subway could not be late.

  You were not always a walking human lie detector. In fact, you had only been living like this for the past six years of the total of your twenty-six. At least consciously aware of this ability of yours for that time period.

  If you really had to pinpoint when it started, you would connect it to approximately four more years prior to that: first year of high school. The prime time of adolescence.

  You could hear the first subway leave, vibrations through the sole of your feet and its wheels screeching on the tracks. That left two minutes for you to make it to the opposite platform which was for the direction you wanted to go. You glance at the elevator you are currently standing in front of. It had not budged from “G” for a while now. You glance at the stairs just a couple of steps away. Sighing, you leave your spot and make your way down the stairs. One and a half minute.

  The first year of high school sucked. Your parents had always screaming at each other and your brother was constantly skipping school. You did not want to be a second disappointment to your parents so you spent all her time studying in the library. It was also an excuse to be out of the house. One day, you returned home and found your mother crying on the steps of their house.

  “Mom, did you and Dad fight again?”

  Your mother did not meet your eyes. “Are you okay?” you had asked, wrapping an arm around her shoulder, trying to console your mother as best as a fourteen year old could do.

  “I’m fine,” your mother answered. That was when you first heard a faint buzzing. It was strange for bees to be around their flowerless yard.

“You don’t look fine,” you had pressed on, “Will you and Dad be okay?”

  Your mother shifted her position and wiped her tears with the back of her hand. She looked at you with a bruised eye and said, “Your dad will be okay.” The buzzing seemed to fade.

  You patted the still damp cheek of your mother and hugged the fragile women. You slowly rubbed your mother’s back in small circles. “Mom, you and Dad will work things out. So promise me you guys won’t leave each other.”

  “I promise,” your mother had reassured you. That was when you cried out in pain as the buzzing attacked you. Your mother had been alarmed and you had laughed it off, saying that a bee had probably stung the back of your neck while she wasn’t aware. The duo then got off the floor and held hands as together, you walked back into the house.

  Your parents split a week later.

  You had never found it in herself to forgive your mother after that. You hadn’t even known that you had been lied to until you really thought about it in your years as an adult. You just hated the fact that your mother had promised something that she had been planning to break. When high school ended, you picked a college as far away from your mother’s house as you could. You poured all of your time into your academics and never bothered making friends. Throughout the four years there, you had occasionally felt the buzzing but did not really associate it with anything around her. It only became prominent when you started working at your first job.

  To any fresh graduate, this was a hire that was ever only dreamt of. It was a position with a high status in the company: Assistant Director of Internal Affairs. The company had been extremely impressed with your grades and all the extracurriculars you participated in. You had flown to three different cities outside of your own country as an intern and placed first in multiple conferences. It was no mistake that you had gotten in. You had been ecstatic when they spoke to you. You could finally move out of your mother’s house, in which you had temporarily been staying in while job searching; live in a city a thousand miles away from where she currently was, and was able to be somebody whom nobody knew about. It was your dream come true.

  That turned out to be a disaster. Every day you went into work, the buzzing would surround you and send you moaning in pain to the bathroom. You could barely speak to any of your coworkers without wanting to strangle them and tell them to be quiet. You could not attend any of the meetings and you had to call in multiple sick days within her first week there. Needless to say, this affected your work performance and after an agonizing four and a half months, the company fired you.

  Being without a job meant that you had no steady income. So, you moved out of the luxurious apartment you had just bought with your new salary and used the remaining money to buy the dank, run down one you were currently living in. You searched everywhere and finally found a waitress for hire at a bar close to the middle of the city. It was an hour from where you lived, but at least there you could dull the buzzing with alcohol. And this was how you lived for the past two years.

  You cursed. You missed it. The subway left you in its smoke as you got off the last step of the descending staircase.

...

The other man was slouched against the pillar of the building, blood running freely down the side of his head while his hand tried to keep in the rest of his blood from escaping out of the hole on his side. He panted, gasping for whatever oxygen was available.

  “Tell me,” the younger man towered over him, “Where did you hide the stash?” “I didn’t hide it, man. I swear. It’s where they asked me to leave it,” the bleeding man held his remaining hand in front of him in defense. “Please don’t hurt me.” There was a swish and cold metal sliced the air. He was not taller than the man, nor any stronger. But he had youth and a quick mind. More importantly, he had a weapon.

“Trust me. I wouldn’t want to hurt you, so don’t make me do something I don’t want to do,” he crouched and put his face close to the other man’s. He pressed the knife against his throat.

  The man whimpered as a thin line of fresh blood was drawn. “Please, I beg you. Don’t hurt me,” he said again, voice barely a whisper.

  The two stayed in that position until the younger abruptly stood up. “Fine, I won’t hurt you,” he stepped back, “But it’ll be on you when she gets hurt.” His movement is fast and he grabs the wrist of the single other person in the station.

...

  You stand with your back against the man, the knife held against your neck this time.

You dare not to move. You swallow once and glance down at the bleeding stranger. He is staring right back at you.

  From movies and dramas, you know not to fight back in scenarios like this. You also know not to scream as this would agitate both parties. You return the strangers stare: “Help me”.

  Your capturer’s voice rumbles through his chest and onto your back as he speaks, “Your choice. I can kill this girl and have it pinned on you, or you can just tell me where you put the stash.”

  “Please,” the bloody man pleads, “I’m just a carrier. I don’t know where any of the merchandise is. I… I admit it, alright? I disobeyed the instructions this time. I didn’t leave it where they told me.”

  You feel yourself being dragged closer to the subway tracks. Maybe you should kick or flail around a little. You try, but the man holds you steady. The blade is dangerously close to cutting your skin.

  The bleeding man can only watch in horror as the other man stands precariously on the edge of the tracks. “I’m going to push her down,” he is warned. His mind was frantic. He had been told that his task would be simple. He did not know that it would involve another human being to be hurt in the process. His mind flashes back to his little girl, probably still waiting for her father in their small flat.

  “I got another message right before I left,” he starts saying, “Please don’t hurt the girl. Please don’t hurt me. I’ve got a family.”

  “Don’t we all,” the voice behind you drawls in sarcasm, “Give me another excuse of why I need to keep listening.”

  You kick your assaulter. He grips you tighter. She look back at the bleeding man on the ground. He is still staring at you with wide eyes.

  “The message told me that the location had changed. I wasn’t sure if I should trust it, but an hour before the pickup time, another note showed up on my doorstep and said that if I brought it to the second location, I’d get an extra $150, so I did it,” he continues.

You feel the tension in your neck slightly subside amongst the chaos. You kicked your assaulter again.

  “Exact location. Now,” the voice demands.

  “Corner of 16th and Main,” he stammers.

  You kick a little harder this time, trying to wiggle out of the tight grip. It is really starting to hurt you. You feel yourself being pushed towards the bleeding man. Both you and your assaulter get extremely close to the man lying on the ground.

  You sniff once and instantly regret it. Mixed with the blood, you can smell the acidity of urine. The man is now crying and you think you could see the pool around him widen ever so slightly.

  “Please sir, I’ve told you everything that I know. I followed the instructions and left it there. I did not hide it. Somebody else must’ve used me to get it. I swear, Sir, I swear,” he holds his hands out and rubs them, a symbol of asking for mercy.

  The two of you stand up, or rather you are hauled up for the man. The knife nicks your neck and you swear under your breath. You can feel the two men stare at each other for a long time.

  “Scram,” the one behind her rasps. It takes a while for the bleeding man to stand, but adrenaline does wonders when the body is in danger. He limps out and up the stairs before he can be told twice. There is a rumbling in the distance to indicate that the next subway is arriving.

  “There’s a train coming,” you finally talk, “A train means there’s people.” Your assaulter still does not let go.

  “You’re hurting me,” you wiggled in his grasp. He loosens it and you finally get away. You turn and glare through your bangs at the man who has been holding you captive. You touch a finger to where the knife had nicked you, then examined it: there is blood.

  The man standing has put his knife away. He is studying you with eyes as intense as yours while bringing the lighter to the cigarette in his mouth. He takes a long drag and blows it in your direction.

  Standing only a few inches taller than you, he is of slightly above average height. He wears the iconic baggy shirt and jeans of the common gangsters that prowl the area. Even in the dim light of the subway station, you can make out the tattoo of a dragon spiraling up his arm. He does nothing to hide the fact that he is affiliated with the mafia.

  You are not particularly intimidating yourself. You stand at 164cm but wear a constant scowl. With your broken nose from a fall in your childhood, the feature makes your whole facial symmetry shift ever slightly to the left, accentuating the scowl even more. In a black t-shirt, black dress pants and black shoes, you wave her hand to rid herself of the smell of smoke.

  “So, was he lying?” the man finally speaks after a period of silence.

  “Fuck off, Jung Hoseok,” you growl.

[spencerreidsmiles]

Skater Boy Spencer Reid

Written by: spencerreidsmiles

Howdy, howdy! I am very slowly going through my remaining requests. This request was for prompts 38, 41, and 47 on the fluff prompt list here. You’ll see them bolded throughout the story!

Also, a short side note that I have no idea how to skateboard at all! This is solely based off my intensive research (/s) on how to skateboard, so if this isn’t accurate, I’m sorry!

Summary - The reader teaches Spencer how to skateboard.

Content Warnings - blood, minor injury, light teasing

Word Count - 1737

MASTERLIST // WATTPAD VERSION

“Skateboarding? Of all things you could’ve chosen, skateboarding?”

“Oh come on, Spencer, you never know, you might be good at it,” you replied, yanking at his shirt sleeve. 

Spencer glanced at you with a slightly withering glare. It was a look you were very familiar with; if there was one thing you enjoyed more than anything else in the world, it was teasing Spencer. It was just so easy to tease him, so why wouldn’t you?

But amidst all the teasing about the skateboarding, there was a part of you that knew Spencer Reid would make an excellent skater boy. 

You leaned closer to Spencer, looking up with the biggest puppy eyes you could muster and a big pout. 

“Remember when I saved your ass? You owe me, Spencer,” you said, emphasizing each word with a poke to his chest. “You said you would do whatever I wanted.”

Spencer glanced away with a pout. “Fine, whatever you like.” 

“Hm, I knew you would say that.” You grinned with satisfaction and squeezed his cheeks. “I’ll see you at the skate park tomorrow! Don’t forget your knee pads!” 

Spencer did not, in fact, forget his knee pads. (Not that forgetting things was something Spencer usually did.) And even though you had told him to bring his knee pads, you couldn’t help but laugh when you saw him walk - no, waddle - up in matching purple knee pads, elbow pads, and a helmet. He looked long and gangly and awkward in his gear with his usual converse and for once, a tee shirt and shorts. You hadn’t ever seen him in any of these clothes before but you had to admit, you definitely weren’t disliking it. 

“You look really good. Color coordinated too,” you said with a big smile as you knocked the side of his helmet with your knuckles. 

“You like it?” Spencer beamed. He did a little spin, the clasps of his helmet twirling around. 

“It’s perfect for you. Honest.” You kicked up your spare board, catching the top. “But let’s get down to business. I’m going to make you a skater boy by the end of the day, Spencer Reid. That is a promise.”

You handed the board over to Spencer. It was old and scraped up from years of use and many, many wipeouts. When you’d first bought it years ago, it was red and shiny, but now the red had faded away, leaving only a wooden board with strips of red remaining. The wheels were still functional, if a bit wonky, but perfect for learning on. 

For someone who claimed to have absolutely zero athletic ability, Spencer was quite good at skateboarding. Well, to be fair, he hadn’t actually started skateboarding for real yet. You started him off by placing a single foot onto the board with the other still fully intact with the ground, but it was a start. He got a feel for what it felt like to bend his knees and push his weight around to move the board. But now he had to put both feet on the board and actually skateboard.

“Y/N, look! I’m doing it!” Spencer said as he hopped around on one leg while scooting with his other on the board. 

You couldn’t help but smile. The childlike glee Spencer was exuding could make anyone smile. He carted himself around the perimeter of the skate park as you trailed behind him, keeping a careful eye on him. 

“Alright, Spencer. Well here comes the hard part. Give me your hands, you’re going to put both feet on the board now.” 

Instantly, Spencer’s smile was replaced with a worried expression. He put his foot down on the ground and paused in front of you. 

“What?” he asked. You brushed aside some of Spencer’s hair that had escaped his helmet, accidentally brushing his cheek as well. Shivers tickled your spine and unfamiliar goosebumps covered your body. 

“Hey, I got you. Trust me, okay?” you said.

“Okay.” Spencer nodded and placed his hands in yours. 

“Now push off with your right foot, then put it back on the board, and I’ll pull you, got it?” you directed. 

With a silent gulp, Spencer did as you said. He bent his knees and pushed off with his right foot before placing it back on his board. You started walking backwards and pulled Spencer forward. Slowly, you started walking back faster and faster until you had started to jog. 

“Spencer, you’re doing it! You’re doing it!” you exclaimed. 

Without saying another word, you let go of Spencer’s hands. And for a minute, he was actually doing it, actually skating around with both feet firmly planted onto the board and arms spread out like wings. You were so busy admiring him you didn’t even notice that he had begun to lose balance and wobble.

“Y/N! How do I stop!” he shouted, reaching his hands out for you.

“Oh shoot! Hold on!” 

You started running back towards him, but you were too late. Spencer had already leaned too far ahead. He started making circles with his hands, flapping around in an attempt to keep his balance. Just as you grabbed his hands, the board kicked out from under him and both of you fell flat onto the asphalt. 

You had your eyes closed while you were falling, so when you opened them to find Spencer’s face only a couple inches above yours and his body on top of yours, you nearly screamed. You had never been this close to Spencer in your entire life. Surely if he was this close, he could hear your heart beating out of your chest, no? You were breathless but you weren’t quite sure if it was because you were being squished by Spencer or because of how close you were to him. 

Spencer, however, was completely frozen. His hands were placed right beside your head and he was staring, just staring, straight at you. His caramel curls hovered right above your face, blowing gently from the wind. 

“Hi,” you said breathlessly. 

“Are you okay?” he whispered. 

“I’ll be honest, you are crushing me right now.” 

“Oh, sorry!” Spencer rolled off of you, landing on his butt, cross-legged on the ground. You wriggled yourself up and watched as Spencer dusted himself off. 

When you finally made eye contact, you couldn’t help but start laughing. You were just replaying the image of Spencer slipping over and over again. It was incredible. 

“That was the most ridiculous fall I’ve ever seen, Spencer, my god.” 

You leaned back, holding your stomach as you laughed. Just before you fell over completely again, Spencer caught your hand. From that single touch, electricity shot from your fingertips into the rest of your body. The sensation nearly scared you for how good it felt, how alive it made you feel. Touching Spencer felt like you were skating without even getting on a board. You never wanted to let go. 

But Spencer did. He pulled back, forehead scrunching as he winced. 

“What’s wrong?” you asked. But then you saw it, his poor hands all torn up from the fall. They were rubbed raw with speckles of red dotting his palms. “Oh my gosh, Spencer, your hands!” 

“I’m fine,” he said. He looked at his own palms, flexing it, moving it around.

“No, come here, at least let me clean it,” you said as you stood up. “Come on, I have a first aid kit in my bag.”

You led Spencer to a bench with all of your things. As you cleaned his palms, wiping them with antiseptic wipes and bandaging them, you could feel Spencer’s eyes watching you. 

After years of working for the FBI, going on case after case for years, Spencer’s hands were rough and calloused. There were scars, too many for you or him to remember where and when they came from now, blending in with the creases of his hands. But still, they were comforting, familiar.

“One more try, okay? I believe in you. No more wipeouts.” You finished bandaging his hands with a gentle pat. Spencer pretended to pout, giving you a half-meaning glare. 

“Oh come on, you’re okay. Do you need a kiss to make it better?” you teased. 

“What?” Spencer’s face flushed. 

“I’m kidding.” You pushed his shoulder lightly all whilst thinking that for the first time (or at least the first time you had truly acknowledged it) you weren’t really joking at all. “Now come on, one more try.”

Spencer was more hesitant this time, but he reached for your hands again. He placed one foot on the board, already beginning to wobble. Come on, Spencer, you can do it, you thought to yourself. He glanced at you as he took a deep breath. 

And he did. Spencer soared around the whole park. He was like a natural as he swerved around with outstretched arms. The sound of the wheels sliding against the pavement surrounded you as Spencer removed his back foot from the board and stopped without flying off the board right in front of you. 

“You did it, Spencer!” You ran up to Spencer and enveloped him in a massive hug. 

Spencer returned your hug, throwing his arms around you tightly. His knee pads knocked against your legs as he pulled you closer to him. He smelt of coffee and baby powder under the sweat and dirt and twinge of blood that lingered in the air. As you stayed there wrapped up in his arms, you wondered if it was possible to stay here forever in the comfort you never knew was so close. 

The two of you finally decided to leave when the sun started to beat down on your backs. While Spencer was prepared for almost everything, apparently the two things he hadn’t thought about were guard gloves and sunscreen. Spencer grabbed the board, resting it comfortably under his arm. 

As you went to get your bag, Spencer tapped your shoulder and spoke. “So uh, can we do this again next week?”

Your heart skipped a beat. “I would love that, Spencer. And who knows, you might be better than me soon.”

Spencer looked down with a growing smile on his face. 

“Come on, let’s get out of here.” you said, fearlessly grabbing Spencer’s hand.

You walked away with satisfaction, thinking to yourself only one thing; you were right, Spencer Reid did make an excellent skater boy.

TAG LIST - @reiding-and-writing @twelveyearoldchildprodigy @philsreidingglasses @marshmellow-mouse  @huntynut-queerios  @sierra—king  @thnksfrbuckybarnes  @hope-hopr @rosyreid @scbcar @ultrarebelheart @headshotsandcanons @lyrasilverroseelizabethamanti @heyitskatrina @mainstreamqueen @prettyrickyreid @theresnothingformehere @donuts1324 @lookingforgalifrey @doyouheardeansing @stunudo @captainreid @little-pan-trash-can @the-one-and-onlyqueenasf @the-and-sign-anon @princesswagger17 @spoonsandthings14 @nerdyfandom20 @spencerreidsbitch @irjuejjsaa @philspinkyfinger @peter-parker-steve-bucky @biscottibitch @bucky-smiles @youngmalfunctionarts @spacedustdoll @shotarosleftpinky @jjwrites @rosyreid-blog @essayzine-blog @spencerreid9 @madsgraygubler @no-alarms-no-surprises-silence

[thatslikely]

Seeker Pt. 2 - D.M.

Seeker Part 2- Draco Malfoy x fem!reader (unspecified house but not Slytherin)

Warnings: None! Just a fluffy sequel :)

Word Count: 3.0k

A/N: You can find part 1 here if you haven’t read it already!  Sorry this took so long, I’ve just been trying to make sure its a worthy sequel.  I wanna thank everyone for over 150 notes on Part 1, I never expected such astounding support!  Also keep your eye out for the mini surprise at the end ;)  Also I would really love feedback since this is my first sequel, especially to my first ever fic.

Just a reminder: Y/N is Your Name and Y/L/N is Your Last Name

----

Meet me at our spot tonight at 11.  I’ve missed you.

D.M.

You slid the perfectly-written crisp parchment back into the expensive black envelope it arrived in, to hide it from your nosy dorm-mates.  Draco’s owl perched patiently at the open window of your dorm, barely making a chirp. You handed the well-trained bird a small piece of chocolate, which was previously stowed away in your nightstand, before sitting down at your desk to pen Draco a response.   

The holiday break had been relaxing, especially since you got a long break from Quidditch practices.  You loved Quidditch, you dare say almost as much as Oliver Wood did, but your muscles were perpetually sore, much to your displeasure.

You hadn’t seen the Slytherin Seeker, who you now affectionately call your friend, since the day before break began, and you were desperate to see his handsome smile again.  You missed the glow of his hair in the moonlight, the ambitious and determined look in his eyes before a match, the soft touch of his hands as he held your shoulder or less frequently, your hand.

The line between friend and lover had always been blurred with him; often people accused him of being your boyfriend.  Some days he reluctantly denied it, but some he just gave you a charming wink as he grasped your hand firmly.

It would be idiotic to deny your abundant feelings for him.  At first, it was the subtle ways you’d pick up the little habits about him: how he fiddled with his rings when he was nervous, or how he always polished his broom every afternoon before a game or even the way he swiftly brushed his hand through his platinum blonde hair the moment he saw you walk towards him.

The blush that crept up on his alluring face every time you were near signalled that the feelings were thankfully mutual.  He was painfully obvious, as you were sure you were too, so it was only a matter of time before he’d ask you out on a date to Hogsmeade.   Hopefully, it will even be tonight.

The blonde’s owl had flown away by the time you realized that you had yet to jot him down an answer.  You could always send him an acknowledging wink at dinner since you always purposefully made sure to position yourself for a picture-perfect view of him in all his glory.

Dinner came and went.  The food was delicious per usual, you were constantly glancing at Draco from across the Great Hall, you chatted with your friends about the upcoming Potions test, which Draco would surely insist on helping you study for.  And of course, you sent him a playful wink as promised.

His silver eyes weren’t off you either.  He loved to admire the way your face morphed into a lively laugh or the soft, warm glow that bounced off your face, courtesy of thousands of floating candles overhead.  He loved everything about you, inside and out, and he was ready to show it.

By the time eleven rolled around, you were thoroughly prepared.  You ensured your hair was perfect and your outfit was warm but eye-catching.  You clasped a delicate hand-wrapped forest green box, which’s lid was held on with a beautiful piece of starlight-silver twine.

It was a tradition to get your friends presents upon returning from the snow-speckled break, and Draco would be no exception.  You were certain you would receive no gift in return, but you didn’t care.  Draco, for lack of a closer term, was your friend, so he was no exception to your tradition. 

----

Draco had definitely gone soft on you, and his fellow Slytherins didn’t fail to notice.  Every time he snuck out even a second past curfew to see you at the Owlery, or Astronomy Tower, or anywhere really, they’d crack some sort of joke at both his and yours’ expense.  

He had not only gone soft on you but perhaps the whole school, in a way.  He was less prone to impulsively hexing first years, instead opting for slightly rude remarks.  He was even a tad bit nicer to the Golden Trio. 

He was still smart and sharp as ever though, maybe even paying a little bit more attention in class, in case you needed help studying.  

One thing didn’t change about him though, and that was his attitude regarding Quidditch.  He was fierce and strong as ever, and there was no way he’d back down during a game, even for you.  Even when he wasn’t playing against you, he’d play extra competitively, in an attempt to both intimidate and impress you.

And whenever it was you on the broom and him in the stands, he always cheered for you as loud as his lungs allowed.  You always wondered why his voice was hoarse after you won a match the night before, not thinking that it was his yells that rang the loudest through the pitch.

----

The steps up to the Owlery were icy, just as you were afraid of.  Your knuckle was white from gripping the freezing stone rail up the endless steps.  Finally, though, you reached the top, unsurprised to see that Draco had beaten you up here.  He was always one step ahead, after all. 

“It’s felt like ages since I’ve seen you, Y/N.  How was your holidays?”  His face lightened at the sight of you peeking elegantly through the cracks of moonlight.  You looked as gorgeous as ever.

“It was wonderful!  I got a brand new Quidditch broom, so be prepared to eat my dust, Malfoy,” you said with a smirk.  Your hands rested suspiciously behind your back, carefully concealing Draco’s present. 

“Don’t get too ahead of yourself, Y/L/N.  Remember, I won’t hesitate to push you off your broom, even if it kills you.”  Draco’s words, even the taunting ones, sounded like the most eloquent poetry to your love-struck heart.  

“Right back at you.  I actually practiced my shoving techniques every morning back home.  I bet I could push you off your broom 23 different ways if I really wanted to.”

Draco chuckled at your comment and you let your sarcastic expression fade into a genuine smile.  The blonde slowly inches even closer to you; your face is eventually so close to Draco’s that you can see every detail imprinted on his pale skin.  He accidentally brushes his ring ornamented hand against yours, causing your cheeks to become pink and warm, imitating the effects of sipping some freshly-steeped tea.   

“Well anyway, I have something for you.  For the holidays, you know.”  Draco pulls out a small black box from his matching black trousers with a charming smile.  His rings reflect the pale moonlight magnificently, and you catch yourself staring at the back of his hands.

You slowly accept the box from his hand, your hand half holding his as you take it.  You say quietly, “You didn’t have to get me a gift, Draco.”

 “I didn’t have to.  I wanted to, love.  I care about you, more than you’ll ever know.”  You felt the corners of your eyes prick with tears at his kind words.  Everything he said somehow managed to hit you directly in the heart.  

You carefully opened the inky-black box.  Draco looked down at you anticipatedly, a hopeful grin painting his face.

Laying perfectly inside of the box was a beautiful, ornate, and expensive silver serpent necklace, identical to the rings that he wore daily.  The glimmering eyes of the snake were magnificent, crystalline emeralds, which precisely matched the bold hue of Slytherin’s Quidditch robes.

Your eyes continued to grow misty; your hand that wasn’t admiring every microscopic detail of the necklace was covering your mouth in awe.  Draco’s lips quirked into a cocky smile at your reaction, clearly pleased with himself.  

Without hesitation, you clasped the necklace around your neck.  You couldn’t stop fiddling with it until Draco grabbed your hand, using the connection to pull your chest into his slowly.  He softly muttered, “I like you, more than you’ll ever know” before leaning in for a kiss.

Draco’s lips on yours were like nothing you’ve ever felt.  He felt magnetic.  You would never be able to let go of this moment, the way his hand cupped your cheek gently, the way your hand glided from his chest to his shoulder, pulling him impossibly closer.  You felt whole.  

When you finally pulled away, your electrified lips yearned to touch his’ again.  Instead of kissing him again though, you barely managed to squeak, “I like you, too.”

----

The next Quidditch match came by faster than you expected, and you were scrambling to prepare for your battle against the Slytherins once again.  Draco had been gloating all day about how much he and the team had improved since your previous game.  

“You may have gotten lucky last match, Y/L/N, but this time you’ll like a first-year learning how to fly next to me.  Do you think the gold of the Snitch will compliment my hair?”  Draco swept his hand through his perfectly-styled platinum blonde locks, a cocky expression unsurprisingly on his face.

“You won’t even have to worry about whether it matches your stupidly gorgeous head of hair or not since it’ll be me who gets it in the first place!”  You retorted, rolling your eyes at him instinctively.    

“Oh, really?” he asked flirtatiously, before giving you a small peck.  The sudden kiss caused you to become so flustered, that you couldn’t do anything but shut up; he grinned triumphantly at your reaction.

The game started not long after yet again another boastful interaction with Draco.  You hovered high above the ground on your new, polished broom, ready to beat your Slytherin ‘rival’ once more.

Draco could be seen across the field, cracking his knuckles in an attempt to look intimidating.  While his Quidditch record would ordinarily frighten a Seeker such as yourself, you knew the real Draco, and he didn’t scare you one bit.  

A booming “brooms up!” echoed through the pitch, and immediately you flew directly to the top of the pitch, looking down at the whizzing flashes of green like a cat peering attentively through a fishbowl.  

Draco soon joined you up at the top of the pitch, following your exact movements just as he had done before.  He spat, “Scared, Y/N?” almost identically to the last match.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” you said with a knowing smile.  He playfully rolled his eyes at you, and the corners of his mouth raised to an adorable and goofy smile.  

“Remember, I won’t be going easy on you, even if things are different.  Just because I fancy you doesn’t-” he was quickly cut off by the shimmer of gold seen out of the corner of his eye.  His expensive and sleek black broom immediately flew him to the well-manicured grass that lined the ground of the pitch.

By the time you had caught up with the cocky Seeker, he was mere feet from the Snitch.  You quickly flew to his side so you two were parallel, both of your hands, which had been intertwined so many times before, now opposing each other in the battle for the elusive winged sphere.

It seemed the game that you and Draco had played against each other last time, which results you wished so desperately would repeat, was doomed to change.  He clashed his torso into yours harshly, in an attempt to throw you off.  

Instead of toppling off your broom, you tried to give him a taste of his own medicine; you felt your bones shake after jerking your body weight into him, but he looked as if he had only been hit with the force of a leaf languidly fluttering in the wind.

Draco emitted a snarl after you rammed into his side, but he was undaunted in his pursuit of the Snitch.  His pupils were practically glued to the medal-colored blur, which was darting rapidly in any direction it could.

You knew you couldn’t beat Draco this time.  At least, not like how you had been playing so far.  Your arm was too short, your broom too slow, so you used the last of what little energy you had within yourself to pelt all of yourself, including your heart, at him. 

Instead of colliding into your green-glad admirer as you intended, you were only met with the cold and terrifying emptiness of oxygen.  

The ground felt so close, your tongue could almost taste the metallic copper bite of blood.  You could vividly see the way your side would slam into the spiky grass like a ragdoll, your bloodied nostrils filling with the smells of grass and the morning sun. You could envision players draped in uniforms of clashing hues dashing to your pain-ridden body, ready to carry you to Madame Pomfrey. 

But due to Draco Malfoy, that horrifying situation remained trapped only within the confines of your mind.  

You never thought you could love Draco as much as you did right now.  

His arms were outstretched and strong as you landed into them, light as a feather.  The blonde strands of hair that clung to his forehead in sweat and the unwavering confident look in his eyes drew you closer to him unconsciously.  His biceps, which were nicely toned due to his years of Quidditch, set you gently in front of him on his broom.

He wrapped one of his arms securely around your chest, which soothed your increasingly rapid racing heart exponentially.  His other arm was held high above his head, valiantly boasting the Snitch that resided within his glove-covered hands.

The crowd that resided in the green and grey towers of the pitch were erupting with joy.  You were almost too shocked from your near-fall to roll your eyes at his huge display of cockiness and pride, keyword being almost.  You leaned your head against his chest, listening to the ego-boosted beating of his heart, a stark contrast from your own.

The final moments before the two of you drifted to the ground were spent with him cheering in pride, and you taking comfort from his compassionate embrace.  And maybe you were wafting in a bit of his pleasant-smelling cologne, too.

----

Your house’s common room looked dreary and deflated, comparable only to that of a seven-year-old’s birthday party- where nobody bothered to show up.  While everyone was sympathetic for you, you couldn’t help but sense a slight tinge of resentment hidden beneath every soft pat on the back or obligatory smile.  

The Slytherin common room, however, was filled to the brim with its cunning house-members.  Firewhiskey was flowing through the crowd like pouring rain after centuries of drought.  The music was pounding so loud that the intricate chandeliers hanging from the top of the dungeon were shaking violently along with the beat. 

Draco and his posse stood at the corner of the alcohol-drenched room, leaning against the signature green walls, away from the large mob of partiers that had accumulated in the center.  

While the Firewhiskey normally would have clouded the blonde’s head by now, tonight his mind was crystal-clear.  

He couldn’t get Y/N out of his head, and frankly, he didn’t want to.  He should be focused on how utterly heroic he was during the Quidditch match or his huge victory for Slytherin.  But instead, he thought about how you felt under his arm, how your head softly rested on his chest.  It felt like the final puzzle piece had been placed, his love and need for you cemented.

He wouldn’t be able to live without your embrace again, he was sure of that, but maybe he wouldn’t even be able to last five more minutes.

He muttered a quick, “I’ll be back,” to his surrounding house-mates before shoving his green half-full cup of Firewhiskey into one of their hands.  He walked confidently through the mob of intoxicated partiers towards the enchanted stone wall exit.  

His eyes darted around the corridor as he paced towards your common room.  You wouldn’t be found in your common room, however, for the sulking of your house-mates was too much to bear.  

You instead could be found seated at a desk in the library, channeling your pent-up guilt from your performance at the Quidditch match into vigorously studying for a Potions exam on Monday.  

Your beat-up textbook was littered with dog-eared pages and bookmarks scribbled with helpful messages; it lay open on the page for Amortentia.  Your hand gripped your quill tightly, carving notes onto your piece of parchment.  Your eyes were briskly darting from one word to the next.

You were so wrapped up in your work that you didn’t notice that Draco had taken a seat next to you, enraptured in your presence.  His elbow lay pressed on the desk, head in his hand.  Your concentration was broken with a clear of his throat, followed by, “Hey darling, what’re you doing?”

“I’m studying,” you said, before adding meekly, “for Potions.”

“Oh love, you know I could’ve helped you,” he said with a disappointed smile.  His eyebrows furrowed as he flipped through your notes, noticing you were writing about the infamous love potion.  You let the quill in your hand go, letting your hand melt under Draco’s large palm. 

In an attempt to cheer you up, he said, “You know, I have a hunch on what I would smell in Amortentia, want to know what it is?” you nodded, “tea, warm autumn’s breeze, and maybe the faint smell of sweaty Quidditch robes.”

You let out a small laugh, adorning your now-pink face with a genuine smile.  “You know what I would smell?  Expensive cologne, green apples, and maybe a bit of sweetness under a cold exterior.”

“I’m not sweet, but if I was it’d only be for you,” Draco said with a sarcastic grumble.  

You looked up at Draco, who simply let his eyes take in all of you, adoring every single angle of your body.  The loving look in his eyes was enough to make your heart explode; your legs felt like jelly and your heart was beating out of your chest so loudly, you were sure he could hear it.

And soon he could, as his body grew slowly closer and closer to yours.  You pressed your forehead against his’, his molten silver eyes piercing through your own.  

Finally, after moments of staring longingly at each other, you tugged his green and grey pin-striped tie in for a kiss.

----

(Bonus) Epilogue:

The Three Broomsticks was filled to the brim with students from the Wizarding School across the bend.  Tables were littered with half-drank glasses of butterbeer; a few students could be seen snogging in the back booths of the tavern.  

You sat across from Draco Malfoy, your amazing boyfriend, as he rambled endlessly about Potter.  You weren’t listening to a word about the famous Gryffindor, instead, you were watching the way his lips articulated every word that spilled from his mouth.

“Right, darling?” Draco asked expectantly.

You nodded supportively.  Draco, instead of looking satisfied, quizzically asked, “so you think I should poor my butterbeer all over your head?  I’d be happy to.”

“Sorry, I wasn’t listening.  You just look so good when you talk, I got distracted.”

“It’s fine, love.  Well, I’m glad we finally got to go to Hogsmeade together.”

“After three months too!  Why couldn’t you have taken me sooner?” you asked overdramatically, tugging on your bag full of sweets from Honeydukes.  

“I’m sorry, but I seem to recall it’s your fault.  Study, Quidditch, study, Quidditch, study, Quiddit-”

“Okay, okay.  I get it.  I’m just not as naturally smart as you, Mister Potions Master.”  You rolled your eyes as he grinned at his title.

“Do you only flatter me so I do your essays for you?  Because if so, I hate to admit it’s working.”  He tucked a loose piece of your hair out of your face and behind your ear tenderly.

“Oh, Draco.  You don’t need to know.”  You fiddled with the silver serpent necklace that hangs around your neck that had been kissed so many times.  

You were head over heels for Draco.  Luckily, you were all his, and you would be forever. 

[kaiparker-avengerssmut]

Our Doll 12// Illusion of a dream

B.Barnes x S.Rogers, B.Barnes x Stark!Reader, S.Rogers x Stark!Reader

Series Synopsis | After the events of the horrific past, y/n Stark, Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes have finally admitted their feelings for each other. But is life as an avenger whilst dating two super soldiers any easier than anything y/n’s experienced in the past?

sequel Series to Their Doll

Series Warnings | smut, violence, torture, swearing, threesomes, drug usage/substance abuse

Chapter Summary | Wanda helps you stay out of HYDRA’s control

Warnings | kissing, swearing (maybe?)

A/n | This is a sequel book/series to my fic Their Doll! This book loosely follows the mcu timeline, starting in CAWS in book one and starting just before AOU in this book. Bucky had been recovered and is safe, and Peter was taken under Tony's wing when he was much younger.

Masterlist | Series Masterlist

Hands interlaced, fingers tangled together and arms brushing lightly, y/n and Bucky wandered leisurely down the streets of Brooklyn. Casting shadows of burnt orange swooped down from the apartment blocks which towered high above them, the thin smattering of clouds blotched across the sky and petered out to reveal the star-speckled night-sky.

A soft sigh filled the space between them, a content smile stretching y/n's lips as she felt Bucky squeeze her hand a little tighter. The sound of her kitten heels clicking on the pavement echoed beautifully, the sound bouncing behind them as if someone were following them.

A squeal, high and playful, slipped through y/n's lips as Bucky suddenly jerked her to the side, her body caving to follow his.

"Bucky!" Y/n gasped, grunting softly as her back settled against the scratchy bricks of the tall building, the darkened lighting of the small alleyway engulfing them as Bucky chuckled.

"What?" The soldier grinned, a mischievous sparkle to his eye as he pulled his bottom lip between his teeth. Y/n's face broke into a grin of her own, the smile stretching wide over her face as her eyes darted between Bucky's.

"Kiss me." She mumbled, hands resting flat on his chest, the dirty-green uniform soft beneath her touch. "Kiss me, soldier." Y/n whispered as he leaned further into her, his breath hot on her cheeks as his nose bumped against hers.

When their lips met it was awkward, clumsy even, with teeth clashing and giggles shared between mouths. Bucky finally pulled away, a hint of adoration could be found within the depths of his steep-blue eyes, a shadowy hue to add to the mesmerising merge of colour.

"I'm sorry - I don't really know what I'm doing." Y/n admitted sheepishly, cheeks growing hot as she looked away from him. Bucky's fingers found their way to y/n's chin, lifting her head up so she was looking into his eyes once again.

"You're doing perfect, doll." The soldier murmured, leaning forwards to connect their lips again.

This kiss was better, less messy. It was slow, languid, lips massaging lips and tongues slipping into each other's mouths. Y/n couldn't help herself from moaning into it, something that made Bucky's lips curls into something of a smirk as her hands grasped his uniform tighter.

"So much for not kissing me on our first date." Y/n mumbled as she pulled back this time, a little breathless as she let both Bucky and the wall behind her carry her weight. Bucky flashed a boyish grin, pearly-white teeth on display as his hands gave her hips a little squeeze.

"I couldn't help myself, doll."

...

"Do you have to go?" Bucky mumbled against Steve's neck, lips pressing to the column of his throat. Steve sighed heavily, hand rubbing soothingly against Bucky's shoulder as he leaned forwards and pressed a kiss into the brunet's hair.

"I'm sorry, Buck. But sadly the world doesn't stop when something bad happens. We've gotta find these guys, if even just a few HYDRA members are out there, we could be in danger. All of us." Steve explained, his heart aching at how tired Bucky sounded.

Sure, he was probably just knackered from how hard he had just been fucked, but Steve knew there were other factors contributing to his boyfriend's dropping eyelids and weak voice.

"I love you." Steve mumbled, interlacing his free hand with Bucky's, their legs tangling together.

"I love you too, punk." Bucky murmured, the ever-growing urge to sleep consuming his words with a lace of exhaustion.

"Jerk." Steve shot back, but a fond smile had found a way of twisting his lips as the word fell from him mouth.

...

The music was loud, but the boisterous sound of clicking heels and joyous laughter were louder. Y/n giggled, hand clasped tightly in Bucky's as he dragged her onto the dance floor.

"May I have this dance?" The soldier asked once they'd got out into the crowd of dancing people, holding y/n's hand still as he dipped into a bow before her. Y/n felt her cheeks grow hot, the sight of Bucky's blue eyes peering up at her through his lashes one she decided that she'd never grow tired of.

"You may." Y/n smiled back, voice playful as Bucky stood up straight and placed a hand on her waist.

"Bucky!" She gasped as he tugged her into him, her body flush against his as his feet begun moving. Y/n quickly found his rhythm, her feet gliding over the floor in time with his as she clasped his hand in hers, her other hand resting against his shoulder.

What she didn't expect, was for him to dip her. He dipped her low, so low that her hair fluttered over the wooden floor and their noses mingled. Bucky paused, and the room seemed to melt away.

Their eyes captured each other, breathing low and laboured as Bucky dared a glance at y/n's slightly parted lips.

"Can I kiss you?" He mumbled, lips almost brushing over hers as he spoke.

"Please." Y/n breathed back, and his lips were on hers. The kiss was sweet, loving. It was more tame than the one in the alley, but no less passionate.

I love you, soldier, is what y/n wanted to say in that moment. But she couldn't will herself to do so, she'd only known the man a few months - was it too soon?

The room seemed to fade back in as he pulled away, the song ended and a break for the band being announced and y/n took a deep breath. The moment was gone.

...

Wanda sighed, her hand turning the door handle before she was walking into the lab. Bruce looked up as she walked in, a small, sympathetic smile tight on his lips.

"Hey, Wanda. Do you need something?" He spoke, placing his clipboard on the table before leaning against it and facing the girl.

"Yeah- I, uh, have you had any luck with y/n's blood yet? Have you found anything?" Wanda asked, tugging at her sleeves as she spoke. Bruce's brows pulled into a brief frown before he was standing straight again, striding across the room.

"I'm getting there. It seems to me that whatever HYDRA did to her, is very similar to the super soldier serum. When I compared her blood to both Steve's and Bucky's, they all have it in common." Bruce said, fiddling with something on his desk for a moment.

"So why is she losing control? Bucky said they never used mind control on her like they did on him." Wanda pondered. Bruce huffed a sigh.

"Well, that's where it gets more complicated. I think she's being...tampered with." Bruce explained, scratching the back of his neck.

"Tamper with?" Wanda repeated.

"My theory is that they must've implanted something to help control her if need be, but it's been damaged or interfered with so instead of actually controlling her, it's making y/n lose control over herself." Bruce elaborated and Wanda nodded slowly.

"So we need to keep them out." She continued, and Bruce nodded. "I can do that. If I keep her mind occupied, you can find a way to fix her, right?"

"I think so. But it may take some time."

...

After dancing, Bucky insisted on walking y/n home. Of course, she wasn't going to argue. The streets were empty, slightly dark as the faint orange hum of the street-lights hovered over them like a halo.

All of a sudden, Bucky stopped. Y/n looked at him confused, her confusion only growing when Bucky grinned at her.

"What are you doing, soldier?" She tilted her head to the side, squealing a little gasp as he pulled the file into his and spin her around. He ended her movement with a dip, her hair brushing over the floor once again as Bucky's hot breath hot her face.

"I missed my chance earlier. So I thought I'd give it another shot." He mumbled, placing another sweet kiss to her lips before pulling away. "I love you, y/n."

Y/n couldn't contain her smile, eyes alight with joy as Bucky smiled down at her.

"I love you too, soldier."

...

Peter was...guilty, to say the least. He was sat wallowing, head in his hands and knees tucked to his chest. He couldn't stop thinking about it, thinking that everything happening was his fault.

Sure, y/n was the one that almost killed him, but he also provoked her. He lit the fuse, he made the fuse with tears of torment, exclusion and neglect. He made sure that Tony paid her no attention, because he wanted it himself.

And now, y/n was locked up, the CIA wanted to read charges, and it was Peter's fault.

And he hated it.

The boy took a deep breath, closed first hovering an inch or two away from the closed door. He'd been stood there so long, fist curled so tight that his knuckles where spotted with patches of bleeding-white, trying to muster the courage just to knock.

When his hand made contact with the wood, the sound was dull. Hollow. Fuck.

Peter instantly finding himself retracting his hand as if it had been scalded with hot water, his teeth gnawing on his knuckles in nervousness as he slowly backed away from the door.

But then, it swung open.

He looked exhausted, to put it politely. Bucky's hair was ragged, strands falling out of his lose braid to frame his face whilst the actual plait was fraying with frizz. His eyes were heavy, pulled and dragged by offensive bags hanging low to crown his cheeks, whilst his brows knitted together with a mix of confusion and fatigue.

If anything was clear, it was that Bucky hadn't slept well since y/n had been locked up.

But then again, neither had Peter.

"I have a plan." Is all Peter said, weak and frail as his voice cracked.

Bucky nodded, his large frame tilting as he stepped to the side with an outstretched arm. Peter spring to step, feet moving quickly over the carpeted floor as he made his way into the super soldier's room.

[wiypt-writes]

Stark Spangled Banner

One Shot: Vanilla

Summary: A year on the run following the events in Siberia has changed Steve…but not too much. He’s still a man of simple tastes… Warning:  Language, SMUT (NSFW, 18+)

Pairings: Steve Rogers x OFC Katie Stark.

A/N: This sits alongside SSB Ch 35: Not A Perfect Soldier, But A Good Man. I had it in my head for a while and couldn’t quite fit it in. And those of you who read “Leave No One Behind” might recognise a little of the scenery, so to speak.

Disclaimer: This is a pure work of fiction and classified as 18+. Please respect this and do not read if you are underage. I do not own any characters in this series bar Katie Stark and the other OCs. By reading beyond this point you understand and accept the terms of this disclaimer.

Stark Spangled Banner Masterlist // Main Masterlist

August 2017

Another day, another under-the-radar mission. This one breaking up a gang that had been terrorising locals, running guns and arms, raiding local refugee camps and kidnapping children to ship out to god knows where, for god knows what.

Frankly, it had knocked Katie sick, so she had been only too glad to get out of there once they’d ‘dispensed’ the ring leader into the care of Fury’s contacts. Well, by that they mean they’d left him hog tied in the middle of the African desert at the co-ordinates they had been given. What happened to him, well, even the world’s sentinel of justice, honour and truth couldn’t find it within him to give a shit. Not after what they’d just seen anyway.

Katie stole a glance at Steve as they drove the ‘borrowed’ jeep back to where Sam had landed their jet. Their time on the run had hardened him. Over a year now spent in shadows, and it was almost as if those shadows had claimed part of him for themselves. His hair was longer, far longer, usually worn pushed back off his face but the exertion of the fight they’d just had, left the front strands flopping over his sweaty forehead. His beard was dark, and thick, speckled with the odd bit of copper and blonde here and there, hiding his jawline entirely and leaving his face almost completely unrecognisable.

To the average man on the street he looked like just another person, maybe worthy of a second glance for bearing a passing resemblance, maybe, to the fugitive Captain. The one thing that remained unchanged were his eyes. Whilst they were tired, carried a heavier burden than before, they were still the same eyes Katie had noticed and fallen in love with, and they still flashed with warmth and a sparkle whenever he looked at her.

And as long as that was there, she knew he was okay.

They reached the jet, Sam hopped down from the back of the jeep and headed in first over to the coms system, swiping at the screen.

“Hey, Steve?” He turned to his head back over his shoulder. Steve walked up the ramp, looking at Sam expectantly. “Fury’s patched us through the co-ordinates of a place to stay. Looks to be a hundred or so miles North. Might be worth holding up there for the night?”

Steve hesitated for a while, they’d been running missions back to back now for almost three weeks. He was desperate to get back…well, home he supposed. To their cottage in Scotland where they’d holed up for the past twelve months, where Wanda was currently waiting. But, as he glanced around, Sam’s face was sporting a nasty gash above his eyebrows, Natasha had taken a few hard digs too and was clutching her side and Katie had taken a heavy blow to the face, the bruise already forming on her cheek.

They were tired, whacked, maybe it was best they got their heads down and headed back in the morning.

“Alright.” Steve nodded. “Bring it up on the map.” Sam pressed a few buttons and then the holo-display sprang to life. Steve and Natasha observed the image, Natasha pointing to something, Steve agreeing before he straightened up and looked at Katie and Sam who were waiting patiently. “We were just staying it looks like a good spot we can land the jet. There’s nothing for miles, and it’s coastal.” “Coastal?” Katie frowned, before her eyes lit up “Like, there’s a beach?”

“Yeah.” Steve smiled, not bothering to point out that their cottage in Scotland basically had its own private one. “There’s a beach, Sweetheart.”

“It looks to be an old Diving Resort on the Red Sea.” Natasha mused, swiping at the screen. “According to Fury, one of his contacts in Mossad said they used it as a front for smuggling Jewish Refugees out of Ethiopia. Operation Brothers. You heard of it?”

Katie, Sam and Steve both exchanged glances before they shrugged.

“Not surprising, I think the information surrounding it was only declassified recently.” Natasha scratched her neck as she straightened up. “Long story short they saved thousands of lives. Smuggled refugees out of camps, and then shipped them out by boat back to Israel.”

“And they used a hotel as a front?” Katie arched an eyebrow.

“Diving resort.” Natasha nodded “Was fully functional too. Pretty damned clever if you ask me.”

“Is it safe?” Steve asked.

“Fury wouldn’t tell us to head there if it wasn’t” Katie replied simply, “We can go, check it out. If we don’t like it we can head home.”

***** Sam landed the jet expertly on the beach which was hidden in a large cove. They stepped off the ramp onto the sugar white sand and Katie looked around at the various huts scattered along the shore. The main body of the hotel itself seemed to be boarded up. The four of them split up into two groups of two under Steve’s instructions, and made their way around, carefully, making sure there was no one else there, checking each out building thoroughly. Eventually they met one another at the front of the sandstone building, all nodding to signal that there was no sign of anyone else.

“The Red Sea Diving Resort.” Sam read the faded red lettering over the top of the boarded up entrance “Imaginative.”

Katie gave a scoff as she shook her head “Well I don’t know about any of you lot but I need to wash up and get changed. I’m disgustingly hot in this.” She pulled at the collar of her combat-top and turned to head back towards the jet. Steve caught her up, sliding an arm round her waist and pressed a gentle kiss to her temple.

“We haven’t forgotten.” Sam called from behind them. They both stopped and Katie glanced at Steve who met her puzzled look with one of his own.

“Forgotten what?” He asked as they turned to look at Sam.

Sam blinked, then turned to Natasha who gave a snort “Clearly they have.”

“Have what?” Steve pressed again, his tone slightly less patient than it had been.

“It’s your wedding anniversary you pair of dumbasses.” Sam snorted “God you two are…”

Clearly he couldn’t decide what it was that Katie and Steve were, instead he trailed off and headed up the ramp into the jet. Natasha followed him as Katie and Steve remained on the sand, simply looking at one another, before they both burst out into laughter.

“Oh my God.” Katie stuttered “We forgot!”

“Well, we have kinda been busy, Doll.” Steve teased, before he shook his head and smiled “I haven’t forgotten that day though. Happiest day of my life.”

Katie smiled, “Mine too.”

He gently raised her hand to his mouth, brushing her knuckles with his mouth before they too headed onto the ramp and grabbed their kit bags.

The four ex-agents walked down the sand, towards the huts they had checked earlier. They selected one each, the fact that Natasha and Sam headed a little further down the beach away from the one Steve had picked for him and Katie didn’t go unnoticed by the super soldier. Something Steve had noticed when he had looked around was how reasonably clean it was. He’d expected things to be covered in a layer of dust but it was fairly habitable. As Katie set about searching the drawers for something to make the bed with, he headed into the small bathroom at the back, turning the taps on. After an initial cough and a splutter, the system kicked in and the water began to run. Orange from sand and rust at first as it splattered the white porcelain bowl. Steve left it going whilst he moved back into the main room and saw Katie was holding what looked like an old polaroid photo.

“Look at this.” She smiled gently. “I found it when I was looking for some bed sheets.”

Steve glanced down at the photo which showed a tall dark haired, bearded man stood with his arm round a shorter, dark haired slim woman, both looking at the camera, smiling . At their feet sat, quite frankly, the ugliest dog Steve had ever seen. It was hairless, but he still couldn’t help but admit it was cute in a strange way.

“They must have been part of the team that ran the Mossad Op.” Katie shrugged. “He kinda looks a bit like you actually.”

“I don’t see it.” Steve wrinkled his face and she shrugged, moving to put the photo back in the drawer. “I found the bathroom, water is still running but not sure if it’s gonna be heated or…”

“I don’t need it heated.” Katie shook her head. “Frankly the colder the better. Now, help me get this bed sorted and then we can wash up and maybe we can spend what’s left of the Anniversary we forgot sat out on the sand?”

Steve chuckled, pulling her closer to him, both hands on her hips. He dropped his face to hers, catching her lips in a soft kiss. “Sounds good to me.”

After a quick shower each they headed back outside, where Sam and Natasha were already sat. And it turns out their friends were indeed far better at remembering their anniversary than they were. Along with their normal supplies, Sam had stashed a crate of beer on the jet, hidden in the cooler and Natasha had also managed a bottle of the same champagne they had served at the wedding, although instead of drinking it out of crystal flutes, it was sipped from mugs Natasha had dug out of the jet, which bore the Avengers symbol, a harsh reminder of the life they had all run from little over twelve months previously.

The four of them sat on the up turned logs, dotted around what, Steve correctly guessed, had been some sort of fire pit, talking quietly, watching the sun set over the ocean. It was peaceful and Steve felt like they could almost have been on vacation.

Almost.

Steve felt Katie sagging next to him and turned to see that she had her eyes closed, head resting on his shoulder. He placed a soft kiss to her head and then looked at the rest of his team. Sam’s head was drooping a little and Natasha’s eyes were heavy. He issued a soft instruction to go to bed and they both looked at him, giving him a nod and Katie stirred a little. In a graceful movement, Steve had swept her into his arms and he carried her, not unlike the way he had done two years ago that very night, to their accommodation for the evening. She sat on the edge of the bed, removing her shorts leaving her in her panties and tank top as she climbed under the scratchy sheets, Steve settling down besides her.

“Night sweetheart.” He muttered, kissing her neck as he pulled her to him, her back pressing into his chest.

“Night Soldier.” She whispered back, closing her eyes.

**** Steve turned over for what felt like the tenth time in as many minutes. He couldn’t get comfortable, and then there was the simple, yet slight complication to the situation that he’d woken from a particularly graphic dream about their honeymoon, and now he was fucking horny as hell.

He rolled onto his back, his head turning towards Katie and his eyes scanned over her face as she slept. He took in the shape of her nose, soft curve of her lips and his eye-line flickered down to the swell of her breasts which were visible under the cami she was wearing.

Okay, so that wasn’t helping. At all.

She gave a soft sigh, moving a little, her legs kicking down the sheets slightly so they fell around her hips and that was the point Steve’s already fraying self-control snapped. Shuffling closer, he pressed his lips to hers, before he moved his mouth to her jawline, down her neck, leaving soft, hot kisses on her skin as he went. His hand gently curled around her hip, fingers digging into the flesh ever so slightly and she gave a little murmur, her eye lids fluttering as his lips moved back to hers. And this time, she reciprocated slightly. His lips dropped downwards, his tongue dipping into the hollow of her throat before his affections turned to her delicate collar bone. With a gentle shift of his body, he went even lower still, his calloused hands sliding along her ribcage as he slid her cami top upwards, exposing her breasts. His large hands cupped them, thumbs brushing over her nipples and at that he felt her really respond with a soft whimper, her back arching slightly into his touch.

With one hand he traced the curve of her hip down the outside of her thigh, before he trailed his fingers across her belly, and then her soft whimpers became a harsh gasp as his fingers entered her, curling softly against her insides, coaxing more and more wetness from her as he moved, his mouth continuing to lick and sucking at her breasts. She arched her back, writhing, desperately moving her hips as she sought out the friction she needed between her legs and Steve obliged, moving his hand so the heel of his palm brushed against her clit. With a strangled moan, which she stifled slightly by turning her head into his arm, she came, her body shaking on the mattress, sheets now pushed well out of the way.

Steve’s mouth claimed hers once more, in a searing kiss as he let out a groan of his own when he felt Katie dip her hand into his boxers, wrapping her hand around his achingly hard cock.  Every inch of him was on fire and he wanted her.

“Need you.” His voice was low with desire as he pressed his lips back to her neck, nipping at the spot beneath her ear. “Want you.”

“You got me.” She whispered. “I’m yours, Stevie.”

At her words he gave a low groan, sitting up slightly so that he could pull her underwear down. He wriggled out of his own, before he settled over her, his mouth finding hers again the pair of them letting out a shaky sigh and a moan each as he entered her.

Her hands gently slid down over his back, feeling the expanse of muscle which twitched under her finger tips as he moved, slowly, deeply. Every roll of his hips sent his pelvis rocking up against her spot. Katie glanced up at him, his lips kiss swollen, eyes blown with desire, hair falling forward over his forehead. She reached up to brush it back, her hands tangling in the long strands and she pulled his face down to hers, locking their lips in a sloppy, filthy kiss.

Fuck, Steve Rogers loved sex with his wife anyway he could get it, but this, well, he was a sucker for simple vanilla and Katie was too. There was something about this position, the boring missionary one that drove both of them wild. The way Steve could cage her in his arms, fuck her into the mattress one day or make love to her the next. The way his large frame engulfed hers completely surrounding her, filling each one of her senses.  The way he controlled the pace completely, driving into her again and again until she could no longer think straight. The way he controlled the depth, sometimes using his arms under her knees to hold her open, or slinging her legs over her shoulders.  

It was a plain, vanilla flavoured heaven. One that they could visit time and time again, and would never get bored of tasting.

Steve drove as deep into his wife as he could get, rotating his hips slightly whilst he was fully seated, causing her to gasp and emit a frankly sinful moan which he swallowed with his mouth. Her hands dug into the skin of his shoulder blades and he moved, grabbing her wrists and pulling them round so he could lace his fingers between hers. Pinning her hands either side of her head he picked up his pace slightly, carefully watching her face as he felt her tightening around him slightly, a tell-tale sign she was close.

“Come on, pretty girl.” Steve panted, his lips by her ear as he gave a soft nip to her neck. “Give it to me, baby.”

The sensation and heat which was building in her core was impossible to ignore. Her breathy pants of his name became faster, as did Steve’s movements, and with a last, broken cry of his name the fire exploded in her belly and she came, hard, her orgasm rolling over her in wave after wave of white hot pleasure, which left her boneless underneath Steve, her nails digging into the backs of his hands. The sensation of feeling her around him was enough, and Steve gave a single, strangled cry of her name as he too reached his peak, his hips faltering as the ribbons in his belly untangled, the pleasure spreading from the toes to the very hair on his head.

He pressed his face into Katie’s neck, placing another soft kiss to her pulse point which left his lips salty from the slight gleen of sweat which coated them both. He pulled back slightly, releasing Katie’s hands as she flexed her fingers, knowing full well what she wanted. And, sure enough, her fingers threaded through his long hair, scratching softly at the nape of his neck. His eyes closed, and the pair of them lay in silence, completely blissed out and relaxed, hearing only each other’s gradually steadying breaths which mingled with the sounds of the waves lapping against the shore outside.

Katie felt Steve’s lips press to her forehead and she smiled softly, opening her eyes to look straight into his, those baby blues spattered with green.

“Happy Anniversary, Gorgeous.” He muttered, his lips catching hers.

“Its past midnight.” She replied gently

“Not at home.” He replied softly, before he swallowed and hung his head. “I’m sorry it has to be like this.”

“Steve, I am home.” Katie looked at him, her hands moving to cup his face “My home is with you.” She guided his head down so that his lips met hers again, her hands gently tangling in his beard “It always will be, you know this.” She whispered against his mouth before she kissed him, deeply, wriggling a little. Steve gave a short grunt and she felt him starting to twitch inside her again. With an arch of her eyebrow she tipped her pelvis up and in a flash Steve had reached up, pinning her wrists down by her head.

“Keep going and imma be hard again in about five seconds flat.” He whispered, and Katie grinned.

“I’m counting on it, Soldier.” She smirked “Because I’ve got a hankering for some more plain old vanilla.”

**** Chapter 36 Part 1

**Original Posting**

[marshmallow-phd]

Catching Rain

Part of The Untamed - EXO Wolf Universe

Genre: Wolf!AU

Pairing: Minseok x Reader

Summary: You were more than satisfied with your life. You attended a nice college, had nice friends, a nice boyfriend. That’s what your life was: nice. You weren’t looking for anything more, so what were you to do when this seemingly harmless boy walked into your life and turned your nice little world into one much more dangerous?

Part: 1 I 2 I 3 I 4 I 5 I 6 I 7 I 8 I 9 I 10 I Epilogue

**

The theatre was loud, opposite of its normally hushed nature. People were yelling back and forth, saws and drills screeching as they tore through wood. In the background, sewing machines could be heard, along with the occasional curse as the needle got stuck in the fabric. One person, however, was quiet, focused. The paintbrush in his hand was small. The hairs tightly pressed together in order to create the perfect details on the backdrop. Erik was hunched over, sitting cross-legged on the stage floor as he squinted at the distant forest he was perfecting. Setting your bag down in the second row, you headed up the stage stairs.

“Hey,” you said softly in order not to scare him. 

Blinking, he turned around. His glasses were on the very tip of his nose, having slipped from the slight bit of sweat that had conjured on his face from the glaring stage lights. With a green speckled finger, he pushed the frame back up to its proper position. “Hey! I thought you had a project?”

You shrugged. “I did, but… I kind of hit a wall and needed to give my brain a rest. I’m sorry, I guess I should have gotten lunch with you anyway.”

“That’s alright. If you want, I still have half of my sandwich left.”

Smiling, you ruffled his hair. “Thanks, I’m not really hungry.” Minseok’s dismissive response had ruined the idea of food for you. Later you knew you would be starving, but right now food sounded like a great way to churn your stomach and see what it had been brewing all morning. “I’m just going to go hang out in the seats, if that’s okay?”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “No one will bother you or question it. Not that anyone would notice in the first place.”

“It’s pretty crazy around here, isn’t it?”

“You missed the big explosion when Dorothy couldn’t find the armchair for the second act. Turns out, someone just leaned a piece of wood for the set against it and hid it from view. Still took us half an hour to find it.”

You snorted. “Wow. I’m actually kind of sad I missed that.” You kissed his cheek, careful to avoid a smear that you were sure he had no clue about. That stupid guilt knocked once again.

The seat was only slightly comfortable, the cushion long ago worn down from a thousand performances. You stewed there in the second row. Though it wasn’t appropriate during shows, you didn’t think anyone would care if you set your feet on the seat in front of you. Folding nearly in half, you hid your face from those who might look your way as you cranked the handle to get the gears in your head to turn. 

Confusion seemed like too weak a word to describe what was going on in your head. You were angry, frustrated, sad, relieved. There had to be some language in the world that tied those emotions all together. You just didn’t know it. Perhaps that one word could be the pill you needed to no longer feel this way. If you could shove all of that into a single box, you would be fine. But is it ever that simple? When you closed your eyes and tried not to think of anything in particular, Minseok’s face faded into view. You’d shake your head to drive the image away. It came back anyway.

You felt powerless against this unseen pull, this innate desire to see him again, even after what had just happened in the courtyard. Your mind made excuses, told you that if you simply asked him to explain then he would. Looking up at Erik, you sighed. 

There was no comparison because they were two different people. Erik was the sensitive artist, the kind who went to coffee shops on Friday nights to hear a mediocre guitar player sing his “poetry” because he believed everyone deserved an audience. Minseok, on the other hand, was a strange combination of math lab nerd and soccer team captain. He was goofy and dorky, easily amused by corny jokes, but also had the physique of someone who ran five miles in the A.M. for the fun of it. What you couldn’t figure out was what drew you to him in the first place. In any normal, not-already-dating-someone situation, you wouldn’t have been interested in his type. Yet, it was almost… effortless, being around him. Even after all these years, you sometimes had to force yourself into conversation with Erik. Comfortable silences didn’t exactly exist in your relationship, but you always chalked that up to your own personality. Now you wondered if those moments would be better with Minseok. 

Was this a normal thing? You heard stories of college sweethearts all the time and for the last few years, you thought you and Erik would join that club. You hadn’t thought about marriage, per se, but you hadn’t seen an end either. The idea of coming to a fork in the road had never occurred to you. While logic and third party advice you’d casually picked up over your life told you to stick to the left, you were being drawn to the right. One road you could easily see where it led, signs, clear pastures, and everything. The other way wasn’t as clear, disappearing into thick woods that were both inviting and foreboding. You didn’t know if there was another side for the road to come out to. The only way you would ever find out would be to follow it. 

You were able to sit there in that second row seat for a few hours, surprisingly, with your phone and the internet as your companion. Only occasionally would you contemplate that fork again. Left, right, left, right. Easy, hard, easy, hard. In the end, you decided you needed to see Minseok again to really decide. 

The stage manager called it quits late in the afternoon. Erik washed up his brushes and came to meet you. “Hungry yet?” You nodded, more for something else to do before you were alone again. “Good. I’m starving.” Taking your bag like the gentleman that he was, he waited for you to stand up and then walked you out of the theatre.

Dinner ended up being a small burger joint that Erik had been craving all day. You gave no complaints as you started salivating at the thought of their fries. Surely they had to have some sort of secret, addictive ingredient to make fried potato sticks so incredibly delicious. The two of you ended up splitting a large basket of the side. It stayed equally in the middle of the table so no one could say that the other was hogging. Yes. Safe. Easy. Seeable. 

Erik offered a follow up to dinner, but you feigned exhaustion (though there might not have been any faking truthfully, as your mind was tired from constantly running throughout the day). He walked you all the way to the door of your room. As usual, he told you goodnight and leaned in for a kiss. But unlike your normal anticipation, you flinched back to avoid his lips. He stared at you in confusion. Clearing your throat, you made it up to him by kissing his cheek before running for cover in your dorm. From the light of the hallway, you could see that Erik stood on the other side for a few seconds, hesitating to understand what had just happened, before finally walking away. 

Teeth clenched down on your bottom lip, you pulled your phone out of your back pocket. Thankfully, Willa was still out so you were alone. The glare of your phone burned in the darkness. You squinted as you moved your thumb across the screen, unlocking it before opening the contacts. The number you wanted was easy enough to find. The pad of your thumb hovered over the little green phone. It accepted the slightest touch and switched over to calling mode. You placed the speaker to your ear. 

Rrriiinggg. Rrriiinnngggg. 

“Hello?”

You sucked in air. He’d answered. You didn’t have a plan for this. You didn’t have any sort of plan after pressing call. You’d hoped that he was one of those people who didn’t have a voicemail set up. 

“Hello? (y/n)?”

You hung up. 

**

Minseok watched you stalk off in the exact direction he wished you hadn’t. Anywhere else; he would have been fine with you going anywhere besides the theatre where your boyfriend was. His wolf growled and clawed with jealousy. Why was he so stupid? Since when was keeping his mate a secret more important than being with you? Of course he wanted to eat lunch with you, to see how you got along with his brothers. But the idea of Baekhyun figuring it out had caused him to panic. As obnoxious as Baekhyun could be, he wasn’t stupid. At some point during the meal, Minseok would have done something a little overprotective and Baekhyun would have started to connect the dots. Unfortunately, he’d already picked up on something. 

“Oooo, breaking the rules, are we?” The brat even had the audacity to wiggle his eyebrows at the eldest wolf. 

Not holding back, Minseok swung, hitting a good target on the upper arm. 

“Ow!”

“First, it's not a rule,” Minseok grumbled. “Junmyeon simply suggested that we don’t date. Besides, you’re one to talk. How’s Daisy?”

Baekhyun was hardly phased. He sported a cheeky grin. “She’s great.”

Bored, Sehun asked, “Can we just go eat now? Who cares who Minseok was flirting with?”

“I wasn’t flirting with her!” Minseok shouted. He explained in a lower voice, “She’s having trouble in her math class so I’m doing Sungkyu a favor and helping her out so she can pass. That’s it.”

“So why didn’t you want her to eat with us, then?” Jongin asked innocently. 

Minseok flinched. Jongin was more observant than anyone would give him credit for. Not that Minseok was subtle in any sense of the word. “I didn’t say that I didn’t want her to eat with us. Knowing you all, you would have let something slip about what we are.”

“Minseok, we all caught that she was willing to join us,” Chanyeol said. 

Huffing, Minseok grumbled, “Are we going to go eat or should I just go by myself?”

Shrugging off the odd behavior, Baekhyun turned and headed for the parking lot. Minseok was quick to follow, feeling smaller than normal surrounded by his pack members. In his head, he pictured himself running back towards the theatre, bursting through the doors, and - in true dramatic fashion - declaring you his. 

That would be a complete disaster. He should only do that if he wanted you to never talk to him ever again. 

Minseok hardly paid attention as Chanyeol drove them to his favorite pizza place. He was in a trance as the others took control of what to order. Physically, he sat in the booth next to Sehun with Baekhyun on the other side. His shoulder was pressed into the chipped wooden guard rail that ran along the wall but he hardly noticed the uncomfortable poke in his skin. His mind was still back at the campus. He was driving himself crazy trying to figure out how he was going to make this up to you, how he was going to explain his bizarre switch up to you. He hardly ate, which was fine since the others were more than happy to devour the three large pizzas with varying toppings. The others weren’t bothered by his quietness since it was nothing new. Minseok was always more of an observer than a participant. In a time like this, it worked to his advantage.

There was no consulting Minseok when the lunch was through. They all simply piled back into the car and headed out of town towards the woods. Vague mentions of going for a run were tossed around. Minseok didn’t voice any sort of agreement. He wasn’t in the mood. Ha. A wolf not in the mood to run wild among the trees? He really was turned upside down because of you. While the younger ones headed straight for the trees, Minseok headed up the porch and through the front living room until he came to the kitchen. Oh, thank god. There were still beers in the fridge. He grabbed one and immediately opened it, still chugging as he walked over to the breakfast booth. 

“Did you have fun?”

Junmyeon slid into the booth across from him. Minseok put the can down. “Yeah. At first. We had fun with the project. It was when the others showed up that things…  went bad.”

“What do you mean?” Junmyeon asked with a frown. 

“I… panicked. The others invited her to join us and I….” Minseok shrugged. 

“Worried that the others would figure it out?” Junmyeon guessed. The response was a nod. 

“Figure what out?” 

Shit.

Baekhyun stood in the entryway, looking back and forth between the eldest and the alpha. Minseok gulped. He thought that all four of them had gone out on a run and he hadn’t heard anyone else in the house. Stepping further into the kitchen, Baekhyun asked again, “Figure what out?”

Minseok looked to Junmyeon for help. None was to be found. 

“You should probably tell them.”

“I’m not going to tell just Baekhyun so he can go running and tell the others and exaggerate.”

“I can always call a family meeting.”

“I don’t want to make that big of a deal out of it.”

“Too late on that. Besides, that’s the best way to get everyone here. Get it out of the way.”

“Or to get none of them here.”

“I’m still standing here,” Baekhyun scoffed.

Minseok looked at him. “I know.”

Junmyeon sighed. “Baekhyun, will you go get the others? Tell them it's important?”

He nodded. “Sure. Be back in a flash.” He left, already shedding the hoodie over his head. 

Slumping down in the booth, Minseok felt defeated. Junmyeon sensed this immediately. “It really won’t be that bad. And they need to be prepared.”

“Prepared?” 

“Yes. Once a pack member finds the first mate, the others will slowly start to find their own. It won’t be immediate. It could take years, really. But it’s like a domino effect. They should be aware that it's their turn next.”

It made sense. The pack was always connected, both in mind and in instinct. But it had been just them for so long, the idea of bringing in mates to the fold was odd. Minseok wasn’t sure how the others would react. Fists clenched on the table, he leaned his head down. It took almost half an hour before the rest of the pack came back. Yixing had arrived first, coming back from a lab he was making up from earlier in the week. The rest came into the kitchen ten minutes later. They were knocking into each other as they yanked on shirts and pants. 

“Okay, Junmyeon, what’s the emergency?” Jongdae asked, very prepared to be his usual sarcastic, troll self. 

But Junmyeon didn’t reply, letting Minseok take the reins instead. Minseok didn't want to do this. He wanted to run, to keep his secret a little while longer while he figured this whole thing out. But Junmyeon was right. It was time.

“(y/n) - the girl that some of you met today… she’s my mate.”

It was pure silence in the kitchen. It was unnatural in this household. The only time it was ever this quiet was when the house was empty. 

“I’m sorry,” Jongdae said. “You said… mate? Right?” Minseok nodded. He growled.  “Fantastic.”

“You really found your mate, Minseok?” Yixing was more enthusiastic about the news. He looked elated, even. A small smile was creeping up. 

Despite the stunned silence, Minseok found Yixing’s energy infectious. “Yeah. I did.”

“Have you told her yet?” Chanyeol asked. 

“She has a boyfriend,” Jongin reminded him. 

“Oh. Right.”

“I’m working on it,” Minseok said. “I just-” His phone vibrated in his pocket. Pulling it out, his eyes widened at the name popping up on the screen. With sixteen eyes on him, he answered, frantic. “Hello?” A gasp on the other end. “Hello? (y/n)?” You didn’t answer. Two seconds ticked by and you ended the call. He stared at his now black screen in shock. Then his brain started again. “I got to go.”

“Was it her?” Junmyeon asked. 

“Wait, I have more questions!” Baekhyun whined. Minseok was out of the kitchen in a heartbeat, jumping into his car and flying down the road. He didn’t know if you were hurt or in trouble. Why had you called him? Why didn’t you say anything? He was determined to find out. There was only one problem. 

He didn’t know your dorm number. 

You’d briefly mentioned the shared campus housing with your best friend, but that was all the information he had. Looks like he would have to find it the old fashion way. 

Asking. 

As soon as he parked, he headed towards the dorms, thankful at least that the two large housing buildings were close in proximity. He headed for the smaller cafeteria located in the lobby of the first building. The kitchen was closed but there were still students taking advantage of the open seating. Okay. Here it goes. 

The first few groups that Minseok asked had never heard of you. He was starting to berate himself on what a stupid idea this was. He should have called you back and asked you to call him when you were ready because it most certainly would have gone to voicemail. But his luck soon turned around. He approached a group of three girls sitting in a corner. One of them had a camera. 

“Excuse me?” They looked up. Minseok cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, but I’m trying to find (y/n) (l/n)’s room. Do you happen to know her?”

One girl narrowed her eyes. “Why do you want to know?”

Minseok swallowed. “I… I have her notebook. She’d left it behind earlier at study group. She really needs it for class on Monday but I can’t get a hold of her.” Please believe his stupid lie. 

The girl who’d spoken made eye contact with her two friends. “She’s in room twenty-three-nineteen. If she doesn’t answer, just slide the notebook under the door.”

He could almost jump from elated joy. “Thank you!” 

Taking off, he headed for the stairs. Your dorm room was only on the second floor so it didn’t take long to follow the signs until he was right outside your door. Only now did the possibility that your roommate would be the one to answer cross his mind. What lie would he have to come up with then? He had to take the chance. 

After knocking, he waited, shifting from foot to foot in an attempt to release the nervous energy surging through his body. The door swung open. 

It was you. Thank goodness. 

You were not the same level of relieved. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Crap. He probably should have thought of that. “You called me.”

You looked back over your shoulder before stepping out into the hallway, letting the door shut behind you. “So? That doesn’t mean you can just show up here!”

“I need to talk to you.” 

You licked your lips. No, please don’t do that. It’s too tempting already to grab your face and kiss you against the door. Without speaking, you went back into your room. Well, that was a bust. But before he could walk away with slumped shoulders, you came back, this time with shoes on and your bag. “Let’s go.”

He gave no protest as you led him out of the dorm and into the dark. He had no idea where the two of you were headed, but he planned on embracing whatever came his way. The two of you were going to talk. His heart was thumping hard against his sternum. He was getting more alone time with you. Who knew what would end up flying out of his mouth in these next few hours. Would this be the night of truths and revelations?

[softlighter]

Blake feels haggard, and world-weary, but a passing painter asks her to pose for her a few times and the resulting painting is a masterpiece. Blake doesn't understand how Yang sees her as anything but weather-beaten, while Yang doesn't understand Blake's inability to see her own beauty or self-worth.

I hope you know how much I adored this prompt, nonny friend!  I hope it was worth the wait.  Also posted as “sketch of hope” on Ao3!

~~~

Blake takes a drink of her tea.  It’s over-seeped and bitter, something no amount of milk or honey will fix, but it’s tea, and it’s warm going down.  Still, she squeezes more honey into the chipped ceramic mug and stirs it in.  Her eyes feel heavy, but she flips open her book once more and begins reading where she left off.  It’s something she’s read before but it’s as worn and familiar as her sweater; just what she needs right now.

Another sip of tea, her nose crinkling as she’s hit with the sour and sweet syrupy taste, but she still downs half the cup.  She would normally go to her favorite cafe, a ten minute’s walk away from her apartment, but it’s too much effort to exert right now.  Everything is too much effort right now, hell, she’s just happy she managed to leave the apartment today.   It’s something, it’s an improvement, even if this tea is awful and she wants to crawl back to her bed.

She puts her book down and sighs, rubbing her forehead.  It’s a beautiful day.  The sky is a crisp blue with fluffy clouds like cotton candy, and the spring wind is sweet with florals.  Blake is at an outdoor cafe, and it’s a beautiful day.  It’s a beautiful day, and she should be grateful.  

But she’s not, and she’s tired.  

Blake leans back in her chair, picking apart her croissant with her fingers and popping a bite in her mouth.  At least their croissants are decent.  She takes another bite, directly from the pastry this time, and casually brushes the crumbs off her sweater.  Blake scans her surroundings and the few other occupied tables at the cafe.  It’s still relatively cold, and not many are apparently wanting to brave the sharp nip of the rickety metal table and chairs.

But there’s a couple speaking in hushed tones and giggling every few minutes, even if their noses and cheeks are pink.  There’s a group of boys across the patio playing some kind of game with dice and they shout loudly every once in a while, even with the couple sending them dirty looks.  There’s another woman across from her, also sitting alone, but she is scribbling in a notebook.  

She drifts back to her tea and croissant, but the back of her neck prickles, and her ears instinctively stiffen.  Blake looks up once more, and she meets eyes of bright lilac.  Her cheeks feel hot, but she doesn’t look away, despite herself.  The other woman is blushing too, though, and she smiles sheepishly at Blake.  “Guess I should’ve known better,” the woman says.

Blake’s brow furrows.  “Pardon?” she says, more on instinct than anything else.  

The woman’s face turns a deeper red, and she gestures toward her notebook.  “I know I should’ve asked permission, but-”

“Were you drawing me?”  

The woman nods sheepishly.  “Sorry.  It’s a bad habit.  One of my old art teachers always encouraged it, said we got more natural looking sketches that way, but people don’t exactly like it.  But, well, I couldn’t help myself.  Hard habit to break, and you’re a perfect study.”

“I am?”  Blake snorts.  “Hardly.”

The woman frowns, her pink mouth curling downward.  “Well, I say you are.”  The woman hesitates before scooting closer to Blake’s chair.  “You’re not upset?”

Blake shrugs.  She doesn’t feel much beyond the heat in her cheeks and curling in her stomach, doesn’t feel much at all these days.  Her eyes drop down to the notebook before looking back up at the woman.  “I feel like there’s a compliment in there.  Somewhere.”

The woman smiles, and she looks over her shoulder before getting up and taking the seat across from Blake at her table.  Blake raises her brows, but she says nothing as the woman slides  her notebook to her.  “What do you think?” she asks.

Blake studies the dark lines, the way they curve and dance across the page in sketches and hatches.  It’s obviously just a sketch, but the word just demeans the art before her, ignores the simplistic beauty of something in progres.  The woman is talented, obviously so, but Blake still frowns.  “That’s not what I look like,” she says finally, even though it, obviously, her.  

“Maybe it’s not how you see you, but it’s how I see you,” the woman says.

Blake scoffs, but her eyes linger over the page before she forces herself to slide the notebook back.  “You don’t know me.”

“I’m a good sense of character.”  The woman closes the notebook and smiles at her, tucking a long blonde strand of her back behind her ear and underneath a purple hat the same color as her eyes, but even the electric lilac of the wool dulls in comparison to her eyes.  “Can I ask a favor?”

“You can ask whatever you want, doesn’t mean I have to answer.”

“Would you consider posing for me?”

Blake blinks.  “What?”

The woman nods brightly.  “Come to my studio, with proper lighting and stuff like that.”

“Again, what?”  Her brows knit together, and she’s not sure if she’s amused or concerned.  “I don’t know you.”  And you’re not going to want to know me.

The woman shrugs.  “Are you a serial killer?”

“No, but-”

“We can stay here if you’re more comfortable with that,” the woman presses.  “You’re just- well, you’re exactly who I’ve been looking for.”  Blake’s stomach turns, but the woman quickly adds, “I mean, just, wow, that sounds so creepy, but seriously.  You’re a delight to draw.”  The woman laughs.  “That’s not much better, is it?”

Despite herself, she smiles.  “No,” she agrees.  “It’s not.”  She considers and tilts her head, her fingers tapping against the cool metal of the table.  “If you want to, I’ll be here for a bit longer.  So do whatever you like.”

The woman’s face breaks out into a bright grin.  “Thanks!”  She laughs, scratching the back of her neck.  “I’m Yang, by the way.”  

“Blake.”  Yang extends her hand, and Blake nearly gasps when she sees Yang’s arm.  Yang’s smile fades.  Blake stumbles for her words, her tongue feeling thick and clumsy.  “That’s beautiful,” Blake says finally, taking her hand in her own.  The metal is cold in her hands, but smooth.  “I take it you designed it?”  

That warm smile returns.  “Yeah, I did,” Yang admits, and she rolls her sleeve up to her elbow.  The prosthetic is sleek, but there’s a thousand images all painted onto the metal.  Sunflowers, roses, and lilacs all creep up and over her fingers to her palms, bright and abundant, before the blooms swirl into gleaming golden scales and, finally, crackling flames.  She’s never seen anything like it, and she can’t help but stare.  “Painting with my left hand is hell, though.”

“Well, you did an amazing job,” Blake says, forcing herself to wrench her eyes away from the breathing art to meet Yang’s eyes.

“I mean, if I’m gonna be wearing it all the time, it better be, you know?”  Yang shrugs, but she opens the notebook once more.  Her pencil appears from nowhere, and Yang starts sketching, her eyes on the page.  She looks up at Blake and smiles.  “You can keep reading, if you’d like.”

And she would’ve, but instead she says, “I thought you wanted me to pose for you.”  Yang’s jaw slackens, and Blake smiles to herself.  “Tell me what to do, artiste.”  

Yang laughs.  “Pick something comfortable for you,” Yang says.  “This can be my proper warm up.”  

Blake straightens her shoulders and leans her elbow onto the table before resting her chin on her hand.  She’s staring at Yang in this position, she realizes, but Yang just smiles again and resumes sketching.  Her pencil flies across the paper, sure and steady but light, and Yang looks up at her, but it’s different.  Her eyes are appraising now, still warm, but studying her.  Studying her like she’s a piece of art, like she’s something beautiful.

“I thought you said this was your warm up,” Blake says a few minutes later.  “This looks pretty intense to me.”

Yang shrugs, still looking down at her paper.  “You speak to me,” Yang says simply.  Blake’s stomach clenches.  “Maybe I’ve found my muse in you.”

“I’ve never believed in muses.”

The corner of Yang’s lip quirks up.  She’s so quick to smile.  “Well, I do,” Yang says.  Yang checks her watch, frowns, and looks up at her, and her eyes are soft.  “I gotta go, but if you’re ever around Sixth Street, I work on thirty-eighth.  You’ll know it when you see it.  Feel free to drop by to see the finished product.”

“Alright.”  She doesn’t address the offer, just lets it sit between them as Yang packs up.  “Have a nice day, Yang.”

But Yang rips out the first drawing and hands it to her with that bright smile.  “Just so you remember how I see you, Blake.”  Yang winks, and then she’s gone.  Blake swallows hard, her eyes unexpectedly hot, and she stares at the sketch.

When she gets home, she tapes it to the wall next to her bed before burrowing back under the covers and letting oblivion take her.

~~~

Blake tells herself that the bakery on Sixth is why she’s there, that she’s had a craving for their challah bread and the bakery’s bread closer to her apartment isn’t what she’s craving.  She tells herself that, but she still takes the long way to Sixth and walks around so she’s on the higher end of stress addresses.  The apartments here are nice and made of bricks, colorful and inviting.  Perfect for Yang.

But thirty-eight takes the cake.  There’s a mural on the bricks, and it’s a collision of paint and color and wonder.  Even in the overcast day, Blake’s eyes can’t get enough of it.  She instinctively knows Yang did it, and a smile tugs at her lips before she can stop it.  

She bites her lip, but she can’t stop herself from walking up the stairs to the door.  Blake knocks, and she hears a voice within call, “One sec!”  Her heart skips a beat, and her hands bunch into fists.  This was a bad idea.  This was a very, very bad idea.

But the door opens, and Yang is there.  She’s in a tank top and paint-speckled jeans and her long blonde hair is tied up in a ponytail.  Blake weakly waves, and Yang just grins at her.  “I’m happy you’re here,” Yang says, holding the door open.  “Wanna come in?”

“I was in the neighborhood,” she says, trailing off, but she still steps through the door.  “Should I take my shoes off?”

“Whatever you’re more comfortable with.”

Blake looks down to Yang’s bare feet and slips out of her shoes, all too aware of her pastel lemon-patterned socks.  But Yang doesn’t even give her or her feet a second glance before ducking deeper into the apartment, and Blake’s stomach clenches.  

This is a bad idea.  This is a very, very bad idea.

But she follows Yang deeper into the house, and with every step she has to stop and stare.  Art is everywhere, but she can tell it’s not just Yang’s.  There’s monochrome paintings and stunning glossy photographs and sketches done in smeared charcoal over every square inch, and Blake wonders what it must be like in Yang’s mind, what it’s like to see beauty everywhere she looks.  

Yang leads her through a small kitchenette and into the real show.  There’s canvases everywhere, leaning against the walls and blank and ready to be painted, in all sizes.  The easel is already set up with wet paint.  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Blake says, biting her lip.

Yang waves her off and tosses her a bottle of water, which Blake manages to catch somehow.  “You’re not, trust me,” Yang says.  “This can wait.”  Yang takes the canvas off the easel and smiles at her.  “So, you here to pose or to see what I did with the sketches?”

“Both, I guess.”

Yang laughs and grabs a smaller canvas, carefully handing it over to her.  “Take a look.”

It’s of Blake’s hands, the paint thick and chunky but somehow creates an incredibly smooth picture despite the obvious physical texture.  Her hands seem delicate but sturdy, like Yang had snapped a photo of her in movement, acting with purpose and surety and certainty.  Her hands have been painted with light haloing around them, a soft buttery gold that warms the icy blue background.  Like she’s a saint.  Like she’s capable of being a blessing, of blessing someone.  Like she’s good.  

Her fingers hover over the smooth whirls of paint that seem to arch off the canvas and beg her to touch them, to feel what she imagines is silky soft.  But she pulls her hand back, even if she doesn’t dare wrench her gaze away.  “Beautiful,” she whispers, her throat thick.  Yang even noticed the small scar on her right ring finger from a papercut that somehow left a pale scar and the freckle on the inside of her left index finger.  

“Thank you,” Yang says, and when Blake looks up, Yang is smiling.  “But this is just the start.”  Yang takes the painting from her hands and sets it back down before gesturing Blake over to a chair by the window.  “Here, just sit down here and look up or down, your choice!”  

Blake gives her a quizzical look, but she still sits down.  Yang’s hands hover around her but don’t ever touch her, something she appreciates.  The stool isn’t the most comfortable, but she quickly settles in a position.  “Is this what you’re looking for?” she asks as Yang settles behind her canvas.  She’s looking at the feet of the easel, but when she raises her eyes she can make eye contact with Yang.  

“You’re perfect.”  

~~~

Blake comes back the next day.  And the next day.  And the next day, and the next day, until she’s been by Yang’s every day for two weeks.

“You know, I need to pay you,” Yang says suddenly one afternoon.

“What?  Why?”

“I mean, you’re spending hours sitting in the same position.  You’re providing a service, the least I can do is pay you for it.”  

Blake shakes her head, her mouth dry.  “No,” she says.  “Please, don’t.”

“Are you sure?” Yang asks, her brow furrowing.  “I mean, like, I’m pretty sure it’s unethical to not compensate you for doing this.”

Blake doesn’t say that she doesn’t have anything else to do, doesn’t say that she enjoys Yang’s quiet and loud company, doesn’t say that this is better than laying in bed and gives her a reason to shower.  Instead, she says, “I don’t need the money.”  It��s true, she doesn’t.  When she sold the publishing house, she knew she would never have to work again, but, until a few months ago, she had still worked as an editor.  Coco sometimes still texted her asking if she wanted to read manuscripts, but Blake usually gave her a noncommittal response.  “And you buy me lunch, so call it even.”

Yang snorts.  “Lunch is the least I can do,” she says, but she’s picked up her paintbrush once more and resumed.  “Let me make you dinner one night.”  Blake opens her mouth to respond, but Yang keeps going before she can.  “I make a mean lasagna, and I always make too much, so you’d be doing me the favor.”

“Are you sure?” Blake asks.  She’s barely eaten anything besides pastries and readied meals for months, and the sound of a home-cooked meal makes her stomach rumble.  

“Yeah,” Yang says.  “Least I can do.”

“It’s really not,” Blake says.  Yang raises a brow, but she keeps painting, so Blake continues.  “You’re just nice, Yang.  Not everyone is as nice as you.”

“Well, I just want to treat you the way you deserve to be treated.”  Yang shrugs.  “And maybe a little better than that if I can, but seriously, Blake.  I don’t know who you hang out with, but you deserve nice things, and, dare I say, good things?”  Yang winks at her.  “You’re my muse.  I think I’m allowed to give you as much as you give me.”

“I just sit here,” Blake says, but Yang is already shaking her head.

“No, Blake.  You do so much more than that.”

~~~

Yang doesn’t show her any of the finished paintings after she sees the hands, but Blake knows she’s made several.  She doesn’t mind not knowing, even if it makes her stomach twist.  She wants to know what Yang sees, even if she doesn’t understand her perspective.  How Yang can see her as anything good.

“So, uh, I have to tell you something,” Yang says one night after dinner, scratching the back of her neck.

Blake freezes up, but she nods.  “Shoot.”  She’s sick of you, she doesn’t want you, she’s done with you.

“Well, um, tomorrow is my mom’s birthday, and I won’t be around until after lunch.”

“Yeah, of course,” Blake says, her shoulders sagging.  She’s washing the dishes, which Yang always protests her doing, but she still manages to get in there before Yang can.  It’s the least she can do.  “Is your family doing anything?”

“Not really.  My, well, my mom died a couple years ago.”  Blake stills, but Yang keeps talking.  “And my sister is with my dad, but I got class in the morning, and I didn’t want to cancel.”

Blake pauses, setting the dish down on the drying rack.  “Do you want to do something?” she asks.  “Something for her?”

“Well, I usually get dinner at her old favorite restaurant here with my family or some friends, but I was thinking we can meet here and-”

“You should do that.  Go out to dinner, I mean.  Don’t- don’t feel obligated to hang out with me.”

“Obligated?” Yang repeats.  “Blake, I do this because I want to.  I want to be around you.”  Yang’s voice wavers.  “Do you not want to be around me?”

“No, I do, I just-”  Blake sighs, rubbing her forehead.  “I don’t want to be a burden for you on a day like that.  And you should see your friends.”

Yang is quiet for a moment.  “Well, maybe I am,” she says carefully.

Blake turns around.  “We’re friends?” she asks.

“Well, yeah.”  Yang shrugs.  “Unless you don’t wanna be friends, I mean.”

“No, I do!  I really do, Yang.”  She clears her throat and averts her gaze.  “How about we go out to dinner?  Celebrate her life and her wonderful daughter.”

Yang laughs, but the sound cracks briefly.  “I’d like that.”

“Then tell me when and where, and I’ll be there.”

~~~

“No painting today?” Blake asks, slipping off her shoes as she enters Yang’s.  Yang is wearing a jumpsuit the same color as her eyes, and there’s golden earrings cascading down onto her shoulders.  She looks fancy.  She looks good, and Blake can’t take her eyes off of her.

“Nope,” Yang says, smiling.  “I wanna show you something.”

“Alright?”

Yang leads her to the upstairs with the actual kitchen and living room, spaces she’s practically lived in for the past few months.  There’s a laptop open, which Yang silently slides to her.  Blake raises her brows, but she reads the article title, and her heart stops.

“It’s not published yet,” Yang says, the words distant.  “I wanted to surprise you but show you first.”

XIAO LONG’S ANGEL the title reads, and Blake silently scrolls through the unpublished article.  There’s pictures of paintings, and she instantly knows they’re the paintings Yang did of her.  

There’s none of her face.  Nothing that could identify her.  But there’s more of her hands, reaching and praying and receiving.  There’s her silhouette in golden light, and she seems to be breathing and moving.  There’s her bare shoulders and back, and there’s sharp golden shards of wings growing from her body.  There’s her mouth curled in a smile and soft and shining, pink and rosy.  There’s her dark hair cascading down her back as she reaches for something out of frame.

Pieces of her, and not.  This isn’t her.  She’s too broken to be this beautiful.

“Blake?” Yang asks, and that bright smile fades.  

Blake wrenches her gaze from the laptop and stares down at her hands, her eyes hot.  She’s not that, she can never be that.  “That’s not me,” she says hoarsely, her voice shaking.  “That’s not me, Yang.”

“It’s how I see you,” Yang says, her words a burning balm.  “It’s you, Blake.”

Her throat closes up.  “I’m not-”

“You are beautiful,” Yang says firmly.  “You are beautiful and kind and amazing.  And this is how I see you.”  Yang hesitates, but she hands Blake a wrapped box.  Her stomach turns, but she can’t stop herself from opening it with shaking hands.

A broken sob leaves her mouth.  It’s her eyes.  

Blake sets the canvas on the counter and closes her eyes, trying to breathe.  “You don’t know me,” she says, and her voice cracks.  “I’m not this person you see.”

Yang cups her face and leans down to look her in the eyes.  “You are,” she says.  “You are.”  Her eyes dart to her lips, and Blake’s face flushes.  “You are beautiful, and kind, and amazing,” Yang repeats.  Her mouth parts.  “And you are worthy, Blake.”  Yang thumbs away a tear on her face and smiles sadly.  “I just want you to see yourself the way I see you.”

“Yang-”  She cuts herself off with a shaky breath.  Instead of speaking, she leans into Yang’s touch.  Her hands are soft but calloused with her work, but, most importantly, they’re Yang’s hands.  “I don’t deserve you,” she whispers, but she still reaches back for Yang.

Yang smiles, and there’s tears in her lilac eyes too.  “Yes, you do.”

She isn’t sure which one of them leans forward, if one or both of them do, but Yang’s mouth is on hers, and she can’t think.  She doesn’t want to think beyond Yang.  So Blake keeps her eyes closed and kisses her back, her hands grabbing onto Yang and not letting go.

Blake doesn’t deserve Yang.  But Yang thinks she does, and maybe that can be enough.  Maybe that will be enough, and Blake can love her.  She doesn’t know, and there’s no way to know.  But for the first time in months, in almost a year, she feels hope being sketched into her chest.  

[currently-exsisting]

Coins & Coffee Shop (Akaashi Keiji)

Pairing: Akaashi Keiji x Fem!Reader

Warnings: Pure Fluff, Second Hand Embarrassment

Word Count: ~1.5K

A/N: You can't tell me Akaashi's demeanor doesn't scream dark academia vibes and I'm totally here for it. Also, this is my first post here so I hope you guys like it and I'm always open for constructive criticism! (ꈍᴗꈍ)

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Everyone has little aspects about them that make them unique. No one has the same features as anyone else but people do share common traits among each other. (Y/N) was known to be many things. She was intellectual, indecisive, inquisitive, sometimes lazier than she would like to admit. But above all these things, (Y/N) was an honorary member of the klutz society. It’s not that she chose to constantly trip on her own feet or overlook the miscellaneous sock that somehow found its way out of the laundry basket, it was just that the universe had placed some unspoken curse on her that bound her to these actions in her everyday life. Some days seemed to consist of fewer misdemeanors than others. Today was seemingly one of those.

(Y/N) had just finished her second interview of the week and so she went to treat herself at a small coffee shop located in the quieter part of town. Although it is labeled as a coffee shop, the young woman was never a fan of the bitter drinks most adults fawn over. Her typical order consisted of a medium-sized hot, Darjeeling tea. She preferred to use honey as a sweetener because it added a unique flavor otherwise unattainable.

She entered the small coffee shop and made her way to the barista to place her order. She didn’t give her surroundings much thought, her mind was wandering, thinking about the latest article she wrote for the local newspaper.

“Hello miss, how may I help you today?” She placed her order with a lopsided smile, her mind still not completely present.

“That will be $3.25 please.” (Y/N)’s fingers fumbled around as she was reaching for the correct amount of change, causing a few dimes and pennies to fall on the haphazardly cleaned floor.

She muttered a small sorry as she scrambled around to gather the few coins, mentally cursing the mere existence of them. Just as her finger reached to pick up the last coin, a stranger’s long, skinny fingers brushed up against hers.

“Oh thank you!” (Y/N) pulled her hand away after the stranger gave her the discarded coin. She hadn’t looked at his eyes yet, far too embarrassed to even look at his face.

That was until her stranger let out his first few words. “It was no problem.” Quickly (Y/N) raised her head, causing a sharp pain to shoot up her neck. Her slight grimace faded into a nervous smile, completed with wide eyes. The boy- no, the man in front of her was nothing short of angelic. His face could easily be mistaken for that of a Greek god. His slightly shaggy, raven hair fell on his forehead, framing his face. His cerulean eyes looked like they were unintentionally piercing into (Y/N)’s thoughts. And, as if he was able to use those eyes to read her thoughts, a small smile gracing his lips. (Y/N) were in the presence of an angel, there was no doubt about it. However, her heavenly daydream quickly crash-landed back on earth when the barista let out a forced cough.

(Y/N)’s eyes widened even more- if that was possible- as she realized her situation. She quickly tore her eyes off the stranger without another acknowledgment and turned back to the counter. She grabbed her tea, nodding her head in both gratitude and apology. (Y/N)’s mind, still hazy from the multiple levels of embarrassment she caused herself, didn’t conceive the idea that the man standing behind her was also in line and didn’t, as she previously thought, move away after helping her.

She whipped her whole body around yet again, itching with the idea of escaping the immense tension she created and misplaced her feet. Her legs tangled together like a braid, causing her to lose what little balance and dignity she had left.

It’s not that she meant to trip and spill her tea all over him; it was just the way of her people. People that she never disliked more than in that singular moment. (Y/N) looked up at the stranger, who was now holding her shoulders back to keep from falling over, for the second time in the span of two minutes. Except, this time he was covered in a light yellow-brown drink, his face contorted due to the hot tea burning his skin.

“Oh my goodness! I’m so so sorry!” (Y/N) scrambled to grab some napkins that were placed on the counter. She pushed him down into a nearby chair as she dabbed the napkin over her shirt. Her hands came across his abdominal area and she felt the hardness of his abs. Her indecipherable tangent of apologies paused and her cheeks flushed to an even brighter red.

It seemed as if the tea had cooled off because the man let out a small chuckle. His hand reached down to grab her wrist but he didn’t pull it away. (Y/N)’s eyes were still stuck gazing at the light brown shirt, speckled with unorganized dots of darker brown. When he grabbed her hand she slowly lifted her face. And without meeting his eyes, she let out another meek apology.

“It’s alright, you won’t be able to remove the stains or the dampness with a napkin. I was on my way home anyway so don’t feel bad about it.” His face had returned to the relaxed, nonchalant expression he had on previously. His cheeks were tinted a faint light pink color but he attempted to force the color to seep back into its typical hue.

“But I have to make it up to you somehow.” Her eyes wandered around the small cafe, thinking of something she could do for the gorgeous man. “Oh! Let me pay for whatever you were about to buy! It’s the least I can do and I am not taking no for an answer.” (Y/N)’s expression lit up as she stood back up from her crouching position. Her cheeks that had just started to lose their pinkish tint flamed up again when she realized the man hadn’t let go of her hand.

He slowly, almost reluctantly, let go of her wrist as he let out a small nod and stood up alongside her. “What’s your order?”

“A medium Earl Grey tea” The man, as (Y/N) had picked up, didn’t say or do more than was necessary. It wasn’t that he was careless but rather extremely reserved. Noticing this, (Y/N) let out another smile.

“Do you prefer tea over coffee as well? My favorite is Darjeeling but Earl Grey is delicious as well, it has a sort of musky yet elegant taste.” The man shook his head in another slight nod but this time it seemed as if he was more intrigued by the conversation. His eyes were focused on her as she placed the order yet again, this time paying in full bills instead of reaching for change.

(Y/N) turned her head around, slowly this time, after she got both their drinks. Her eyes caught on his piercing blue ones yet again and she felt her heart skip a beat. She acknowledged the upward tilt of his lips but decided not to comment on it. “Do you mind if I join you?” Heading towards a pair of chairs set around a mini coffee table by the window. The man simply shook his head and sat across from her. They conversed about their lives for a bit until their drinks had cooled down and they seemed to be well acquainted with each other.

“Oh, where are my manners? My name is (Y/N) (L/N), and again, I'm so sorry for inconveniencing you.” She took a sip of her tea and placed it down on the table.

“Akaashi Keiji; and like I said, don't worry about it. You do have a way of attracting clumsiness though.” (Y/N) looked away, embarrassment creeping up on her again.

Nodding her head she let out a sigh, “I can’t help it. The more I think about fixing my klutzy nature, the more it becomes prominent.” She reaches her hand to grab her cup. “I need some sort of anti-klutz device.” Rolling her eyes, (Y/N) wasn’t exactly paying attention as to where her hand was headed. Just as her wrist knocked the edge of her cup, Akaashi’s hand jolted out to hold the drink steady. (Y/N)’s brows crinkled and she rested her head in her hands in frustration. “See!”

Akaashi’s smile grew larger.“I don’t know about an anti-klutz device but I’ve had my fair share of clumsy friends so I can be of some assistance.”

(Y/N) peaked out from between her fingers, “You mean you want to willingly spend time with a hazard such as myself.” She said that as a joke of course, but Akaashi still nodded in his nonchalant manner.

“ Did you know that it is a person’s nervous system that causes them to be more or less clumsy?” he hummed and continued, now looking at the young woman in front of him that had him infatuated in her, “I can’t change your clumsiness, but I can be there to catch you if it causes you to fall.”

[gryfon-spanish-werewolf]

Frozen(elsanna)x Prey au Snippet 2

Because I’m insatiable here’s another

(And here’s Part 1, for those who missed it)

Context: This is before containment break, before the events that take place during Prey canon. Anna gets downtime every once in a while between bouts of testing, and this would be an example of time off. Restful and relaxing.... not ;-; This is the early days of Anna’s memory loss, and Elsa’s burgeoning guilt

Similar characters to last time, but three new ones (also in Prey canon): Dr. Igwe, chief neuroscientist assigned to Psychotronics, Head Nurse Goldcrest, and Dr. DeVries, Chief Surgeon, who both work in the Trauma Center

Slight content warning for blood and injury, specifically regarding the eye. No graphic description, but it’s in there

——————— 

There is something here with her.

Anna presses her bare fingers against tempered glass. The translucent substance ripples under her touch, vibrating slightly in purples and reds and yellows before accommodating, and slipping back to it’s sleek, clear form. This glass, this… barrier, has been tested against wrench swings and shotgun blasts and bunker busters - engineered to self-heal and withstand the vacuum of space for decades if necessary. It’s all over Talos I, beautiful and secure. It keeps everyone safe and sound.

But the shape in the dark is already inside.

Or it… wants to be.

Anna strains her eyes, trying to see beyond the billions of stars that pinprick the black, endless cosmos. She ducks her head and puts a hand over her brow, trying to block out the outline of her reflection. She tries not to blink, lest she miss something, some wisp or shift in that massive vastness. There’s a presence. It lurks and hums in her mind, roiling like ink dark waves.

It’s hungry. It’s so hungry.

The effort of looking too hard for too long catches up to Anna. Her eyes hurt. She’s only human.

She blinks.

She blinks and all the stars are teeth and all the teeth are stars and they bare down on her with the weight of the universe.

—

Anna gasps as she bolts upright in bed. It’s dark here too, but warm instead of cold. Not stars but stained wood paneling and soft carpet. Not endless space but walls, a dimmed desk light, and a tangible sense of scale. Anna swallows, breathing harshly in the night, half under the covers of the bed in her sister’s personal quarters. Sweat covers her skin and gooseflesh shivers across her body from head to toe in waves. Anna’s body shakes, trembles, her arms on the verge of collapsing her backwards.

Back to the dark. To the dream.

There is… movement, beside her.

Adrenaline crashes into Anna’s system again as the bed dips. Something moves closer.

It’s… Elsa. Rolling over in her sleep.

Her sister’s arm falls across the space Anna should be. Her fingers splay out, and in the dim light, Anna sees Elsa’s brow furrow slightly, even asleep. She murmurs, and after a moment her eyes open, hazy with fatigue.

“Anna?” She asks into the room, quiet and small. Anna takes a breath and puts a hand out towards Elsa, letting herself be found. Her sister takes it immediately, grip tightening when Anna can’t stop the shaking. “Was it that nightmare again?”

“...Again?”

Elsa tilts her head, slow in her stupor. Anna hears her shift and her free hand comes into view. Her thumb brushes the pads of her fingers and a blue glow emerges, floating gently between them. Elsa’s snow glitters in it’s own aura, illuminating their faces like an incandescent bulb under water. In this wavering light, Elsa searches Anna’s face. “The one about the stars.”

Anna bites her lip. The dream still wraps it’s tendrils around her, brushing against the back of her brain. Surely she would remember a nightmare like that, yet she can’t recall having it before, much less telling Elsa. When Anna was little it was the endless hallways that narrowed and choked her young mind until she burst into tears and ran to their parents’ room - but as she’d gotten older, and moved away, those nightmares had faded into more mundane things, if she dreamed at all.

But the terror of that open night sky in her mind. The one that looks back at her.

No. That is horrifyingly new.

Maybe her mind is playing tricks on her, still mired in the black. She would remember telling Elsa about this later, when she was calm. For now, she simply nods.

Elsa hugs Anna’s arm to her, pulling her down, back into bed. “You never used to have nightmares,” she says softly. “You used to sleep so soundly, here with me.” She combs sweat soaked bangs back, her hands warm against Anna’s chilled skin. “And you used to love the stars.”

Anna exhales, grounding herself with Elsa’s touch. “They’re unsettling.”

“You always thought they watched over us.”

“Now they just watch us.”

Elsa’s hand stops. “They’re just balls of gas, Anna,” she states, though her tone is patient. “Burning millions or billions of miles away. As fascinating as they are, there’s nothing more intelligent about them.”

Anna remembers the universe of  teeth and doesn't answer.

“These tests are taking their toll on you,” Elsa says finally. “Maybe you should stop.”

“I can’t.” Elsa knows this. Anna can’t give up. Won’t. The technology they're bringing into the world, the discoveries made - all of this is for something greater. These neuromods are going to change people’s lives, they just need some fine tuning.

And if more people could do the extraordinary things Elsa could, what more might humanity be capable of?

Anna --powerless, human-- has to try.

Elsa sighs before she replies, cupping Anna’s jaw with both hands and looking into her eyes in the darkness of their room. “I’ll ask Bellamy and Dr. Igwe to slow down, then. Just a little,” she adds before Anna can protest. “You’ll burn out, Anna, and then who will you be helping?”

Anna huffs;  Elsa has a point. But before she can speak a stinging pain lances through her right eye and she flinches. She rubs the spot as Elsa makes a concerned noise. “And I think I’ll email nurse Goldcrest about that. The redness is getting worse.”

Her eye.

It’s been bothering Anna for a while now. At first they thought she was developing an allergy. “An allergy,” she’d laughed with Elsa over coffee in the Lobby, overlooking the incredible, blue and green sphere that was Earth. Close enough to fill any person with awe, but far enough away to cover with one hand. “An allergy, in space!” It was funny.

Then it got worse.

Itchy, irritated, dry, but above all, sore. Painful. It throbbed during her tests and in her sleep, keeping her awake, sometimes for hours. Sweeping past Anna’s stubbornness, Elsa had scheduled a consultation with none other than Dr. DeVries, the head surgeon, but even he had come back with inconclusive results. “Stress might be a factor,” he’d said, “but we’ll need to monitor her to be sure. For now, we’ll put in a request for medicated eye-drops to help with the more common symptoms.”

Those had worked. For a week.

It was strange though. Sometimes Anna would forget the redness was there at all - in fact, sometimes it wasn’t. She’d look in the mirror and her eye would be perfectly fine, and she’d think maybe it was just a passing illness or bad reaction. But other times the pain would spread from her eye to her temple to the base of her skull and just press, like her head was in a vice. Worse than a migraine or a hangover because it squeezed, and left Anna short of attention and breath.

And then one morning she woke up alone, a note from Elsa on the bedside table, wishing her good morning and good luck on a new slew of tests…

...and on the paper fell a single, red blot.

Bellamy barred Anna at the door to Psychotronics and sent her home. Elsa was back from the labs within the hour.

Anna had spent the rest of the day in a blur of check ups and people talking over her, her head buzzing with heat and white noise, her vision speckled with black dots. Goldcrest had prescribed medicine and recommended two weeks off work. Despite the circumstances, and Anna’s state, Elsa had been relieved by that decision.

Now, a few months later, Elsa draws Anna close, pressing a kiss to her temple. She wraps her arms around Anna’s head, pulling her love to her chest, feeling as well as hearing the deep rhythmic breaths of slumber washing over Anna. She’d fallen back asleep fitfully, though it seemed true rest had stolen over her at last. Her hands clutch loosely to Elsa’s nightgown, and her exhales ghost over her sister’s collarbone.

Elsa’s eyes remain open, gaze on the far wall as the clock hands tick the night away.

This time, it was she who cannot sleep.

Trepidation churns in her stomach. She knows Anna would move the Earth, moon, and stars for her if she asked. That Anna has a heart of gold and hope, and a determination to put all of that to use.

Elsa just worries that someone.... or something… is taking advantage of that goodwill.

Not that Elsa suspects any of her co-workers in particular. While they may work in many different fields, everyone aboard Talos I’s goals are the same: the betterment of humanity through their research. These neuromods, with their ability to teach any skill provided they can find someone to model and copy, could change everything. They could give people abilities that they’d only dreamed of before. Elsa looks up at her glowing snow sphere, twinkling as it spins.

Neuromods could even make more people like her.

The thought puts a crease in her brow and she waves her hand, dispelling the magic and drenching the room in darkness once more.

Because the truth is: Elsa hadn’t asked Anna to do this. Anna had volunteered, knowing TranStar wanted what Elsa had, but that the risk of researching on the only person they knew of to have such a gift was too great. Anna, already a talented and intelligent scientist in her own right, had sacrificed her own job for Elsa’s sake, without hesitation.

And it is hurting her.

Elsa’s heart pangs with remorse. She buries her fingers in Anna’s hair and cradles her close. “It’s for the greater good,” she whispers to herself. “It’s for the greater good.”

When Anna had returned from Psychotronics that fateful day, Elsa had found her curled on her side, clutching her head and sweating bullets. Blood in her hand and blood on the sheets.

After the medical review, Anna had slept.

And slept.

And slept.

For two days Elsa could barely rouse Anna long enough to eat or drink, and when she finally recovered it was as though a pall had been cast over her. Grey and listing, muted as though through a screen.

“It’s for the greater good…” Sorrow wells in Elsa’s throat. Anna breathes deep against her and Elsa wishes that her powers were something else. Something to keep Anna here, safe and sound. To keep her... hers.

Anna’s spark had tempered those two days, and Elsa isn’t sure that it fully returned. She fears that it never will. Her sister is chipper and bright, but like a gas stove with a faltering igniter, Anna’s flame is struggling to catch.

“Greater good,” Elsa’s voice breaks, tears tracking down her face to fall on Anna’s head. “It’s for the greater… good…”

Sleep comes for Elsa too, jagged and broken and troubled. She dreams of a star in her sister’s chest.

She dreams of that star going out.

[what-is-your-plan-today]

Stark Spangled Kinks: Vanilla

Summary: A year on the run following the events in Siberia has changed Steve…but not too much. He’s still a man of simple tastes… Takes Place within the timeframe of SSB Ch 35:- Not A Perfect Soldier, But A Good Man. Warning: SMUT SMUT SMUT- This entire series is SMUT so NSFW and NO UNDER 18s!!

Pairings: Steve Rogers x OFC Katie Stark.

A/N: So in honour of their Wedding Anniversary (5 years today!) I came up with this. It’s total nonsense, and just a load of badly written smut but, whatever.

SSK Masterlist // WIYPT Masterlist

August 2017

Another day, another under-the-radar mission. This one breaking up a gang that had been terrorising locals, running guns and arms, raiding local refugee camps and kidnapping the children to ship out to god knows where, for god knows what.

Frankly, it had knocked Katie sick, so she had been only too glad to get out of there once they’d ‘dispensed’ the ring leader into the care of Fury’s contacts. Well, by that they mean they’d left him hog tied in the middle of the African desert at the co-ordinates they had been given. What happened to him, well, even the world’s sentinel of justice, honour and truth couldn’t find it within him to give a shit. Not after what they’d just seen anyway.

Katie stole a glance at Steve as they drove the ‘borrowed’ jeep back to where Sam had landed their jet. Their time on the run had hardened him. Over a year now spent in shadows, and it was almost as if those shadows had claimed part of him for themselves. His hair was longer, far longer, usually worn pushed back off his face but the exertion of the fight they’d just had, had left the front strands flopping over his sweaty forehead. His beard was dark, and thick, speckled with the odd bit of copper and blonde here and there, hiding his jawline entirely leaving his face almost completely unrecognisable. To the average man on the street he looked like just another person, maybe worthy of a second glance for bearing a passing resemblance maybe to the fugitive Captain. The one thing that remained unchanged were his eyes. Whilst they were tired, carried a heavier burden than before, they were still the same eyes Katie had noticed and fallen in love with, and they still flashed with warmth and a sparkle whenever he looked at her.

And as long as that was there, she knew he was ok.

They reached the jet, Sam hopped down from the back of the jeep and headed in first over to the comms system, swiping at the screen.

“Hey, Steve…” he said gently, turning to his head back over his shoulder. Steve walked up the ramp, looking at Sam expectantly. “Fury’s patched us through the co-ordinates of a place to stay. Looks to be 100 miles North. Might be worth holding up there for the night?”

Steve hesitated for a while, they’d been running missions back to back now for almost 3 weeks. He was desperate to get back…well, home he supposed. To their cottage in Scotland that they’d holed up in for 12 months, where Wanda was currently waiting. But as he glanced around, Sam’s face was sporting a nasty gash above his eyebrows, Natasha had taken a few hard digs too and was clutching her side and Katie had taken a heavy blow to the face, the bruise already forming on her cheek. They were tired, whacked…maybe it was best they got their heads down and headed back in the morning.

“Alright.” He nodded. “Bring it up on the map.” Sam pressed a few buttons and then the holo-display sprang to life. Steve and Natasha observed the image, Natasha pointing to something, Steve agreeing before he straightened up and looked at Katie and Sam who were waiting patiently. “We were just staying it looks like a good spot we can land the jet. There’s nothing for miles, and it’s coastal.” “Coastal?” Katie frowned, before he eyes lit up “Like, there’s a beach?”

“Yeah” Steve said, not bothering to point out that their cottage in Scotland basically had its own private one. “There’s a beach.”

“It looks to be an old Diving Resort on the Red Sea.” Natasha said, “According to Fury, one of his contacts in Mossad used it as a front for smuggling Jewish Refugees out of Ethiopia. Operation Brothers, you heard of it?”

Katie, Sam and Steve both exchanged glances before they shrugged.

“Not surprising, I think the information surrounding it was only declassified recently.” Natasha scratched her neck “Long story short they saved thousands of lives. Smuggled refugees out of camps, and then shipped them out by boat back to Israel.”

“And they used a hotel as a front?” Katie arched an eyebrow.

“Diving resort.” Natasha nodded “Was fully functional too. Pretty damned clever if you ask me.”

“Is it safe?” Steve asked.

“Fury wouldn’t tell us to head there if it wasn’t” Katie replied simply, “We can go, check it out. If we don’t like it we can head home.”

***** Sam landed the jet expertly on the beach which was hidden in a large cove. They stepped off the ramp onto the sugar white sand and Katie looked around at the various huts scattered along the shore. The main body of the hotel itself seemed to be boarded up. The 4 of them split up into 2 groups of 2 under Steve’s instructions, and made their way around, carefully, making sure there was no one else there, checking each out building thoroughly. Eventually they met one another at the front of the sandstone building, all nodding to signal that there was no sign of anyone else.

“The Red Sea Diving Resort.” Sam read the faded red lettering over the top of the boarded up entrance “Imaginative.”

Katie gave a scoff as she shook her head “Well I don’t know about any of you lot but I need to wash up and get changed…I’m disgustingly hot in this.” She pulled at the collar of her combat-top and turned to head back towards the jet. Steve caught her up, sliding an arm round her waist and pressed a gentle kiss to her temple.

“We haven’t forgotten.” Sam called from behind them. They both stopped and Katie glanced at Steve who met her puzzled look with one of his own.

“Forgotten what?” he asked as he turned to look at Sam.

Sam blinked, then turned to Natasha who gave a snort “Clearly they have…”

“Have what?” Steve pressed again, his tone slightly less patient than it had been.

“It’s your wedding anniversary you pair of dumbasses.” Sam snorted “God you two are…”

Clearly he couldn’t decide what it was that Katie and Steve were, instead he trailed off and headed up the ramp into the jet. Natasha followed him as Katie and Steve remained on the sand, simply looking at one another, before they both burst out into laughter.

“Oh my god…” Katie stuttered “We forgot…”

“Well, we have kinda been busy Doll.” Steve teased, before he shook his head and smiled “I haven’t forgotten that day though. Happiest day of my life.”

Katie smiled, “Mine too.”

He gently raised her hand to his mouth, brushing her knuckles with his mouth before they too headed onto the ramp and grabbed their kit bags.

The 4 agents walked down the sand, towards the huts they had checked earlier. They selected one each (the fact that Natasha and Sam headed a little further down to the one Steve had picked for him and Katie didn’t go unnoticed by the super soldier) and headed inside. Something Steve had noticed when he had looked around was how reasonably clean it was. He’d expected things to be covered in a layer of dust but it was fairly habitable. As Katie set about searching the drawers for something to make the bed with, he headed into the small bathroom at the back, turning the taps on. After an initial cough and a splutter, the system kicked in and the water began to run. Orange from sand and rust at first as it splattered the white porcelain bowl. Steve left it going whilst he moved back into the main room and saw Katie was holding what looked like an old polaroid photo.

“Look at this…” she said gently. “I found it when I was looking for some bed sheets.”

Steve glanced down at the photo which showed a tall dark haired, bearded man stood with his arm round a shorter, dark haired slim woman, who was looking at something to her left and laughing. At their feet sat, quite frankly the ugliest dog Steve had ever seen. It was hairless, but he still couldn’t help but admit it was cute in a strange way.

“They must have been part of the team that ran the Mossad Op.” Katie shrugged, “He kinda looks a bit like you actually.”

“I don’t see it.” Steve looked at her and she shrugged, moving to put the photo back in the drawer. “I found the bathroom, water is still running but not sure if it’s gonna be heated or…”

“I don’t need it heated.” Katie said, shaking her head. “Frankly the colder the better. Now, help me get this bed sorted and then we can wash up and maybe we can spend what’s left of the Anniversary we forgot sat out on the sand?”

Steve chuckled, pulling her closer to him, both hands on her hips. He dropped his face to hers, catching her lips in a soft kiss. “Sounds good to me.”

After a quick shower each they headed back outside, where Sam and Natasha were already sat. And it turns out their friends were indeed far better at remembering their anniversary than they were. Along with their normal supplies, Sam had stashed a crate of beer on the jet, hidden in the cooler and Natasha had also managed a bottle of the same champagne they had served at the wedding, although instead of drinking it out of crystal flutes, it was sipped from mugs which bore the Avengers symbol, a harsh reminder of the life they had all run from little over 12 months previously.

The 4 of them sat on the up turned logs, dotted around what Steve correctly guessed had been some sort of fire pit, talking quietly, watching the sun set over the ocean. It was peaceful and Steve felt like they could almost have been on vacation.

Almost.

He felt Katie sagging next to him and turned to see that she had her eyes closed, head resting on his shoulder. He placed a soft kiss to her head and then looked at the rest of his team. Sam’s head was drooping a little and Natasha’s eyes were heavy. With a soft instruction to go to bed they both looked at him, giving him a nod and Katie stirred a little. In a graceful movement Steve had swept her into his arms and he carried her, not unlike the way he had done 2 years ago that very night to their accommodation for the evening. She sat on the edge of the bed, removing her shorts and climbed under the scratchy sheets, Steve settling down besides her.

“Night sweetheart.” He muttered, kissing her neck as he pulled her to him, her back pressing into his chest.

“Night Soldier.” She whispered back, closing her eyes.

**** Steve turned over for what felt like the 10th time in as many minutes. He couldn’t get comfortable, and then there was the simple, yet slight complication to the situation that he’d woken from a particularly graphic dream about their honeymoon, and now he was fucking horny as hell.

He rolled onto his back, his head turning towards Katie and his eyes scanned over her face as she slept. He took in the shape of her nose, soft curve of her lips and his eye-line flickered down to the swell of her breasts which were visible under the cami she was wearing.

Ok, so that wasn’t helping. At all.

She gave a soft sigh, moving a little, her legs kicking down the sheets slightly so they fell around her hips and that was the point Steve’s already fraying self-control snapped. Shuffling closer a little he pressed his lips to hers, before he moved his mouth to her jawline, down her neck, leaving soft, hot kisses on her skin as he went. His hand gently curled around her hip, fingers digging into the flesh ever so slightly and she gave a little murmur, her eye lids fluttering as his lips moved back to hers. And this time, she reciprocated slightly. His lips dropped further downwards, his tongue dipping into the hollow of her throat before his affections turned to her delicate collar bone. With a gentle shift of his body, he went even lower still, his calloused hands sliding along her ribcage as he slid her cami top upwards, exposing her breasts. His large hands cupped them, thumbs brushing over her nipples and at that he felt her really respond with a soft whimper, her back arching slightly into his touch.

With one hand he traced the curve of her hip down the outside of her thigh, before he trailed across her belly, and then her soft whimpers became a harsh gasp as his fingers entered her, curling softly against her insides, coaxing more and more wetness from her as he moved, his mouth continuing to lick and sucking at her breasts. She arched her back, writhing, desperately moving her hips as she sought out the friction she needed between her legs and Steve obliged, moving his hand so the heel of his palm brushed against her clit. With a strangled moan, which she stifled slightly by turning her head into his arm, she came, her body shaking on the mattress, sheets now pushed well out of the way, leaving her bare bar her summer yellow panties underneath him.

Steve’s mouth claimed hers once more, in a searing kiss as he let out a groan of his own when he felt Katie dip her hand into his boxers, wrapping her hand around his achingly hard cock.  Every inch of him was on fire and he wanted her.

“Need you…” he said, his own voice low with desire as he pressed his lips back to her neck, nipping at the spot beneath her ear. “Want you…”

“You got me.” She whispered “I’m yours, always.”

At her words he gave a low groan, sitting up slightly so that he could pull the rest of her underwear down. He wriggled out of his own, before he settled over her, his mouth finding hers again the pair of them letting out a shaky sigh and a moan each as he entered her.

Her hands gently slid down over his back, feeling the expanse of muscle which twitched under her finger tips as he moved, slowly, deeply. Every roll of his hips sent his pelvis rocking up against her spot. Katie glanced up at him, his lips kiss swollen, eyes blown with desire, hair falling forward over his forehead. She reached up to brush it back, her hands tangling in the long strands and she pulled his face down to hers, locking their lips in a sloppy, filthy kiss.

Fuck, Steve Rogers loved sex with his wife anyway he could get it, but this…well, he was a sucker for simple vanilla and Katie was too. There was something about this position, the boring missionary one that drove both of them wild. The way Steve could cage her in his arms, fuck her into the mattress one day or make love to her the next. The way his large frame engulfed hers completely surrounding her, filling each one of her senses.  The way he controlled the pace completely, driving into her again and again until she could no longer think straight. The way he controlled the depth, sometimes using his arms under her knees to hold her open, or slinging her legs over her shoulders.  

It was a plain, vanilla flavoured heaven. One that they could visit time and time again, and would never get bored of tasting.

Steve drove as deep into his wife as he could get, rotating his hips slightly whilst he was fully seated, causing her to gasp and emit a frankly sinful moan which he swallowed with his mouth. Her hands dug into the skin of his shoulder blades and he moved, grabbing her wrists and pulling them round so he could lace his fingers between hers. Pinning her hands either side of her head he picked up his pace slightly, carefully watching her face as he felt her tightening around him slightly, a tell-tale sign she was close.

“Come on sweetheart…” Steve panted, his lips by her ear as he gave a soft nip to her neck. “Come on baby…”

The sensation and heat which was building in her core was impossible to ignore. Her breathy pants of his name became faster, as did Steve’s movements and with a last, broken cry of his name the fire exploded in her belly and she came, hard, her orgasm rolling over her in wave after wave of white hot pleasure, which left her boneless underneath Steve, her nails digging into the backs of his hands. The sensation of feeling her around him was enough, and Steve gave a single, strangled cry of her name as he too reached his peak, his hips faltering as the ribbons in his belly untangled, the pleasure spreading from the toes to the very hair on his head.

He pressed his face into Katie’s neck, pressing another soft kiss to her pulse point which left his lips salty from the slight gleen of sweat which coated them both. He pulled back slightly, releasing Katie’s hands as she flexed her fingers, knowing full well what she wanted. And, sure enough, her fingers threaded through his long hair, scratching softly at the nape of his neck. His eyes closed, and the pair of them lay in silence, completely blissed out and relaxed, hearing only each other’s gradually steadying breaths which mingled with the sounds of the waves lapping against the shore outside.

Katie felt Steve’s lips press to her forehead and she smiled softly, opening her eyes to look straight into his, those baby blues spattered with green.

“Happy Anniversary gorgeous.” He muttered, his lips catching hers.

“Its past midnight.” She replied gently

“Not at home.” He replied softly, before he swallowed and hung his head “I’m sorry it has to be like this.”

“Hey, Steve…I am home.” Katie looked at him, her hands moving to cup his face “My home is with you.” She moved his face so that his lips met hers again, her hands gently tangling in his beard “It always will be, you know this.” She whispered against his mouth before she kissed him, deeply, wriggling a little. Steve gave a short grunt and she felt him starting to twitch inside her again. With an arch of her eyebrow she tipped her pelvis again and in a flash Steve had reached up, pinning her wrists down by her head.

“Keep going and Imma be hard again in about 5 seconds flat.” He whispered, and Katie grinned.

“I’m counting on it soldier…” she smirked “Because I’ve got a hankering for some more plain old vanilla.”

[op-peccatori]

adamō (M) | IkeVamp Isaac

Fandom: Ikemen Vampire

Pairing: Isaac Newton/Fem!Reader

Rating: 18+/NSFW/Explicit 

Summary: Isaac decides to surprise you with something you’ve been wanting to see, thereby earning himself a wonderful reward.

Word Count: 3400

adamō (latin): (verb) I love truly, earnestly, deeply / to fall in love with, conceive desire for, desire eagerly

a/n: This work may contain themes/elements you might not be comfortable with, so please, please read the warnings/tags under the cut, and skip it if you’re uncomfortable with them!

Also, I’m going feral for Isaac. This started out as a thirsty little thought and was fostered by Faa’s NSFW HCs for Isaac ( ͡≖ ᴗ ͡≖)

Warnings/Tags: explicit sexual content, oral sex, pegging/anal sex, rimming, minor crossdressing (underwear), butt plugs, might be OOC because I haven’t finished his route

The fading sunlight spills in through the open window. The softest hues of orange and gold, the sweet spring air at its heels, and you try to be discreet in the way you watch Isaac as he runs his fingers over the soft fabric; it’s a lovely mint green, just a little patch of it visible where he’d tugged the waistband of his pants down.

The sight of it a gift you’d been waiting for.

You had discussed it a few days back, but you hadn’t been expecting him to show up wearing them and rob you of all sense.

“Have you been wearing them all day?” you ask, voice hushed even though you’re within the safety of your room, as if one of the other residents would break in and witness what has to be one of the top ten moments of your life. You don’t want to share this with anyone, ever.

“Yes, they’re surprisingly...comfortable,” he admits, eyes lifting just the slightest to take in your expression before they avert once more. “Very soft.”

“They look great too.” The words, not adequate enough to convey the way your mouth waters, or the way your fingers burn with the urge to touch. 

“I can see that from your face,” Isaac mumbles, the corners of his mouth quirking faintly. “Why are you standing so far away?”

It’s true, you realize. Your fingers dig into the surface of the desk behind you, as if they’ll disobey and try to grab him. 

“Can I-?” You hesitate, stumbling toward him; after weeks of watching him study your underwear with increasing curiosity, you almost can’t believe you’re here. 

You’re sure the flush on his cheeks matches yours as he takes your hands in his, pulling you closer. The brush of your fingers, featherlight, but the weight of your stare is an intense, fixed thing. 

“Is it really so fascinating?” he asks, tugging at his hair until he’s managed an excellent imitation of the fruit he’s teased for so relentlessly.  

You drop to your knees in answer; he looks taken aback when your fingers brush the backs of his hands before curling around them loosely. “May I?”

“You needn’t a-ask...for permission,” Isaac says, and trembles when your lips brush the palm of his hand, and over his clothed erection.

Breath stuck in his throat, he lets his hands fall to his sides, content to let you drink him in as you unbutton his pants. You pull them down to his feet and he steps out of them, quiet. The air between you is heavier, your desire for each other never really ebbing away completely. The velvet pads of your fingers caress his skin, and it feels like static, makes his cock twitch, and it still confuses him a little, the way it seems to create little sparks along his spine.

Isaac never understood people, or feelings. But he trusts the way his consume him, he trusts the vulnerable whispers in the dark, stories exchanged along with tender kisses. He trusts the friendship you forged together, the love you both tumbled into, the way your bodies react when arousal drips heavy from you both.

You watch the way his eyes darken.

Is it really so fascinating, he’d asked, standing there in his shirt and vest, hair still a little rumpled, creamy skin flushed warmly, his socks mismatched. How comfortable he seems in his skin, at this moment, trusting you so deeply.

The fabric around his hips is so very soft, hugging his skin perfectly. There are two tiny bows on each side and it looks a little tight but—your fingers nearly spasm—that’s surely because he’s half-hard, the pretty underwear you’d picked out for him a little too snug around his bulge.

You don’t think you could ever get enough of this, you think, eyes sliding shut for a second when you feel his fingers in your hair. 

“I-is it how you imagined it?” he asks, looking a little self-conscious now as you continue to gape like a complete fool. 

“Isaac,” you begin, and your voice cracks. “Isaac, you look beautiful.”

“...You tell me that nearly every day,” he mutters, but when you look up at him there’s that pleased little smile dancing along his lips. It’s oddly similar to the one he wears after solving a problem, and after he’s made you come on his tongue more than once. It’s triumph, edged with desire and devotion. 

He likes to see you happy.

“Well, I mean it every day. But, god, you look so good.” Your lips meet the warm skin of his thigh and his palm settles on your head. 

“I’m going to need another meal before I let you tempt me any further,” he says, stern, but desire clear in his pale eyes. You lick along the edges of the cloth and his grip tightens.

Your teeth graze the curve of his growing bulge.

“...Blast it. Have at it, then.” With a loud cheer in the privacy if your mind, you tug the panties down swiftly; there’s not much time. Your mouth wraps around the head of his flushed length, sucking with a desperate kind of determination. His hips jerk frantically, slipping in deeper, spurred on by your moans.

“Gods, I won’t last too long if you d-do it like that,” he gasps, and you hollow your cheeks further, head bobbing fervently to meet his thrusts. Your intention was never to draw this out, and your eyes crack open just enough to catch the way his expression contorts helplessly when he spills himself onto your tongue.

You take a moment, chest heaving, the taste of him still strong in your mouth, and then you waste no more time before guiding him toward the bed. He looks a bit dazed, but catches on fast when you begin to undress him. He tilts his head towards you, and you press your lips to his chastely before pushing him back onto the mattress.

With one eye on the clock, you let yourself taste him.

Admiring the curve of his spine, you watch the way Isaac trembles before you. With his cheek pressing into your soft pillow, hands curling into crisp sheets under his chest, his knees spread and bum pushed into the air-he looks exquisite.

You had told him so, while peppering reverent kisses all over his back; he told you your sincerity was rather embarrassing, especially with your fingers tracing his sensitive cock lazily.

It’s a little strange, to be fully clothed while he has not a single garment on his body. Marks bloom all over his body, speckled across his chest, his inner thighs, his lower back. His length hangs, hard and leaking once more between his legs.

Another soft moan, quickly muffled, fights its way out his throat as the tip of your tongue traces the tight ring of muscle at his entrance. A single, lube-slicked finger pushes its way in, and you marvel at how tight he always is. 

“It’s been a while since we did this, huh?” you hum, sympathetic, the pumping of your digit slow and precise. He squeezes hard, sucking it in, and you caress his thigh gently. 

Isaac mumbles something, but you don’t quite catch it. “You’re going to have to be a little louder, darling.”

“I said—you can put another.” 

“Sure?” He wouldn’t say so unless he was sure, but Isaac does get a little too impatient at times; vampire or not, you like to prepare him thoroughly.

“Mm. I’m not fragile,” he arches his back a little, looking back at you over a shoulder. His gaze, half-lidded with lust, is unwavering as it meets yours, blush strands falling haphazardly over his forehead. You resist the urge to smooth them away. You revel in the pure comfort of your relationship; exploring, working through things with him is always a delight. You stand together, shoulder to shoulder, no shame at all when you try new things in the bedroom, only curiosity and eager hands.

The first time you had touched him, he had come all over your fingers, and chin, before you could take him in your mouth. He had blushed so hard you had worried he would pass out, but instead he had watched keenly as you licked every drop from your skin. And then, he pressed your body into the bed and buried his face between your legs.

The way he moans when you acquiesce and slide in another finger makes your mouth water. The way he writhes when you add another, pumping steadily, the wet squelches loud in the silence of the room—makes you squirm, your own walls clenching desperately at the sound. He is so sensitive, the needy sounds he makes are dangerously addictive, and it makes you greedy.

“There,” he gasps, at a twist of your wrist. His hips push back into your hand, urging you. “There, there.” 

But it isn’t quite time yet.

And so you withdraw your fingers with a whispered apology, much to his consternation, reaching for the little toy you’ve chosen for him today. It slides in without much effort, and you take a moment to admire the little jewel nestled between his cheeks. 

“You’re-wicked,” Isaac accuses, breathless and blushing, as he collapses onto his stomach. He looks mutinous, eyes that usually remind you of the rose quartz you used to keep on your coffee table now edging into a furious garnet.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to go clean up before dinner,” you tell him, massaging his lower back. “But I’ve got tomorrow off. I promise I’ll take care of you, tonight and tomorrow.”

Isaac scoffs, stretching languidly and watching intently as you right your clothes.  “...Promise?”

You press a quick kiss at the base of his spine. “I’m all yours, darling.”

You enjoy pampering Isaac, but you have to admit, watching him squirm through dinner is extremely enjoyable. 

Or, perhaps, you’ve been spending too much time with Theo. Where else could this sadistic streak have come from?

The blush on his cheeks seems near-constant, and he can’t seem to look anybody in the eye for more than a second, let alone you, who seems to be watching him with an almost hungry glint in your eyes. 

It does not go unnoticed.

“Ugh, save the bedroom eyes for the bedroom, hondje,” comes a complaint from your right, and you look back down at your plate as Theo grumbles. Vincent shoots you an apologetic look, but even he looks a little curious. “He can’t even eat with you looking like you want to eat him.”

You laugh, careless and innocent, fingers digging into your thigh as Isaac makes an odd, choked sound and drops his fork, looking mortified immediately after. Next to him, Arthur seems to be watching the two of you, looking extremely entertained. At Isaac’s reaction, he blinks, jaw slackening as he looks at you. 

You narrow your eyes at him in warning, and he just looks dumbfounded.

The food tastes better than usual, and you wonder if it’s because of the knowledge that just an hour ago your mouth had been buried between Isaac’s legs.

Cleaning up after dinner took a while, and despite Sebastian’s attempts at shooing you away, you stayed until the kitchen and dining rooms were spotless. Bidding him a good night, you make your way up to your room with slow, measured steps. 

You hadn’t gotten a chance to speak to Isaac after dinner, as Leonardo had whisked him away to have a look at something. They usually spend a while on whatever objects they tinker with; satisfaction settles in your gut, however, when you open the door to your room to find him stretched out on his stomach, bare feet hanging over the edge. 

“I thought you’d be busy for hours, with the way Leonardo was talking.” You settle next to him on the bed, palm sliding down the length of his spine and back up. He looks relaxed, leaning into your touch as your fingers slide up to weave through his hair. 

“I told him I’ll have a look at it tomorrow. He’s not the sort to ask questions.” He cracks open an eye, looking a bit sullen. “You took a while.”

“I’m sorry I kept you waiting. We can go straight to bed, if you want. You look so sleepy,” you murmur, fingernail raking across his scalp. He shudders, the softest of sounds escaping him before he seems to process your words, blinking slowly, eyes narrowing.

You’re on your back before you can speak any further, wrists pinned above your head, an incensed Isaac looming over you. He presses in, chest to chest, hips meeting yours and—

“Oh,” you moan when he rocks into you.

“Yes. Oh. I assure you, sleep is the last thing on my mind,” he hisses like a wronged feline, before withdrawing. A baffling, contradicting blend of bashful and wicked, your Isaac. “Unless you’d like to, of course.” 

“And leave you like that?” you exclaim, aghast. “Do you really think I’m that cruel?”

“Well, then. Why are you still lying there like a fool? Are you going to fuck me or not?” he asks, cheeks reddening as frustration overtakes any shame. 

“Isaac!” But you get up even as you laugh, heading over to your drawers to get the equipment out. He comes up behind you, working the ties of your dress open, warm lips pressing to the nape of your neck. You step over it as it pools at your feet, reaching for the buttons of his shirt, slipping it off his shoulders smoothly. The pants come off, leaving him in the panties, your eyes fixating on the trail of soft pink hair, the end of which is only just visible beneath the sheer fabric.

You kiss, softly, then frantically, your breasts pressing into his chest. 

“I ate extra, today. Just in case,” he tells you, kissing down the slender slope of your neck, nipping gently. 

“Okay. I trust you.” Your nails rake down his sides and he nearly melts in your arms.

“Fool,” he mutters, kissing you gently, gratefully. 

“Yes, but I’m your fool,” you return breathlessly, smile just a touch impish.

You can only blink then, as you’re pressed back into the drawers, and whimper when he sinks down and licks into your cunt. He’s unrelenting, two fingers pushing in to join his mouth as it slides up to your clit, hands curling around the back of your knee and lifting it to get better access. It’s a testament to how well you’ve come to know each other that he knows where to touch you, tongue circling maddeningly, to make you come on his mouth.

You’re not entirely sure how you end up on the floor, but his arms are around you, your face buried in his chest.

“What was that for?” Your words are muffled by his skin, but by now both of you have learned to decipher most of the other’s many variations of mumbling.

“Couldn’t go wrong with another snack,” he retorts, kissing the side of your head. “And just in case I fall asleep right after.”

He has never fallen asleep right after sex, no matter how many waves upon waves of pleasure you’ve drawn from each other. 

You’re grinning even as he helps you with the strap on, and it still feels a bit funny, but comfortable as you both work through it together. 

“You’re so considerate, Zack. I’ll give it my all tonight,” you nod resolutely. “I’ve been doing a lot of squats.”

“...Be quiet.” He looks like he’s trying not to laugh.

“But Isaac, you like it when I talk-”

Isaac takes your hand, pulling you along to the bed as you laugh at his disgruntlement—it dies in your throat when your eyes catch sight of the soft swell of his rear. You hook your thumbs into the delicate waistband of the panties, tugging them down his legs with the utmost care, lips pressing warm kisses into the lean muscle of his thighs.

He’s patient, resting on his back, legs bent in the air as you slide the plug out and press slick fingers into his hole, stretching him open. Eyes bright, he’s good to go, but he knows your need to check, just in case.

He studies the way your brow furrows just a little before smoothing out, satisfaction in your eyes as you look back up at him, wiping your hand clean on a small towel. There’s a pillow under his hips, a jug of water on the bedside table.

He feels so warm, inside and out.

“Okay, that’s good enough. Are you ready?”

He thinks for a quick second and pulls you down, body curving over his as he crushes his mouth to yours, kissing you messily.

“Now I am.” 

Your smile is more tender than lustful as you pull back and take hold of the dildo, pressing it into him carefully. It slides in without much resistance at first, with you only slowing to a halt halfway through. He can’t quite think, but he can hear your soft whispers, the feel of your fingers combing through his hair.

“We doing okay?”

“Ngh,” he replies—groans, really—and you nod seriously. 

“Okay, good.”

You roll your hips in small, controlled motions that help you slide in deeper and squash his ability to form sentences. He moans, and moans, and moans, reaching for your hand blindly. You lace your fingers through his, your other hand tight on his hip. 

“You’re doing so well, baby.”

He whimpers in response, eyes squeezing shut when you begin to fuck him slowly. He hasn’t gotten any less sensitive, his cock feeling ready to burst already. 

You can’t stop staring at him, his length bouncing as you thrust harder; he’s twisting and whimpering but he’s surrendered completely, mind blissfully overtaken by pleasure. Your hand slides over firm skin to cup his balls, heavy in your palm, and your lips curve into a tiny smirk as his eyes fly open.

“You’re ready to come, aren’t you, darling?”

At his frantic nod, you increase your pace, thrusting harder, eager to see him unravel. His mouth falls open noiselessly, but with a slight change in angle, he’s keening, back arching as your fingers squeeze his balls gently, not touching his cock. 

You don’t need to.

He comes on a broken whisper of your name, thick ropes of come spurting over his chest, his eyes wet and legs trembling. You pant with exertion, pink and sweaty, watching as his eyes flutter open. He looks gorgeous, wrecked and so blissed-out it makes you a little giddy.

“Hey, you,” you murmur, propped up over him, pressing your lips to his forehead, grinning a little at how he offers his cheek next, sighing as you pull out.

“Hello,” he croaks, voice still raspy, and you collapse next to him with a loud, contented exhale. You both take a moment to breathe, hands clasped together, one of your legs thrown over his. But your mind will not let you rest until you’ve cleaned him up, and you do so with an admittedly besotted little smile at the way he dozes softly. 

Putting the harness away, and the dildo for a thorough cleaning session, you return to bed to find Isaac watching you. You coax him into sitting up, handing him a glass of water as you rearranging the pillows behind him. 

“I’m fine.”

“I know, I know,” you reply distractedly. “Should I bring you something to eat?”

He peers at you over the rim of the glass, before setting it aside quietly. Slender fingers curl around your bicep, pulling you onto the bed until you’re sprawled beneath him. Bright-eyed and far from groggy, he smiles at you, fangs peeking through. 

“I take it you’re not sleepy after all?” You’re a little embarrassed by how squeaky that was, but he’s looking at you like he’s ready to devour you. You realize, pleasure sinking low in your belly, that you’re dripping.

You watch as the wicked parts of him take over, pale pink eyes pinning you in place as he licks down the soft planes of your abdomen, nuzzling your belly. 

“Mm, no,” he affirms, crawling up to flick his tongue over a taut nipple, a shiver breaking out across your skin as his fangs graze fragile skin ever so softly. “I do, however, find myself in need of a quick bite.”

A wolf in sheep’s clothing indeed—one you’re hopelessly in love with.

ending notes: I wrote most of this while running on no sleep but ngl I had a lot of fun! 

[viktor-noctis]

Servitude (One-Shot)

I have. No. Excuses.

So, I was watching The Three Musketeers (1973), where Sir Lee plays the sexiest Rochefort to ever grace the screen, and got to enjoy his tender relationship with the Lady de Winter (you see like only a few instances of it, but I enjoy it immensely).

Then, of course, I watched The Four Musketeers (1974) in which their relationship has quite a bit more screen time, and Lee even has a kiss! I love it!

Of course, after this I had to watch The Return of the Musketeers (1989) where it's revealed Rochefort and the Lady de Winter had a bastard daughter named Justine. Now, obviously, she wants revenge on the men who killed her mother, but her overall character was just... quite interesting. Not only that, her getting revenge on the main four musketeers wouldn't feel complete without a bit of eerie, weird revenge on her father, whom she also seems to blame for the death of her mother, which inspired this one-shot...

Warning for... uhm... incest. Nothing explicit (for now), but there's implication.

He should have known when he made the offer. She possessed too much of her mother, too much of the same ruthless cruelty that had seen nobility fall, men more powerful, and far more wealthy than himself. Perhaps it was that, just that, the fact that she could have any and every man that had allowed him to convince himself that she cared for him at all. He, the Comte de Rochefort, the one she returned to, the one she asked for, the one she made room in her bed for, whenever she entertained the Parisian court with her majesty. A woman that could level empires, yes... it made sense, why the Cardinal had always regarded her as a threat, a sharp-fanged serpent he allowed to dine at his table, waiting for the opportune moment to orchestrate her downfall. If only he had been faster, had made himself wiser, he might have avoided their combined plummet. Vengeful, beastly woman... It was her own greed for vindication that had done her in, the crushing spite that not even he was capable of assuaging without the blood of those she coveted. There was only one way she could be satiated, his darling, winter moon, bright and golden as the sun in mid-summer. He, along with half the fools in Europe, burned for her, but it was her own splendor that put everything to the torch, and found him submerged in the tortures of the Bastille. "Father," her voice - that voice - entreated him from the half closed door behind him. Rochefort's jaw clenched, nostrils flaring as he inhaled, his brow set and hung as he glared at the far wall. She had already made her demands known, her great plans... she would kill the King in the morning, with her own hands. He swallowed as he turned, forcing the drink, acrid and burning, to slide down the tight, hot expanse of his throat. "What is -" His hand gripped the door handle, pushing against the oak with his other, only to find himself confronted with the pale, naked back of - "Come, help me with this." Her golden hair was swept away, revealing the ivory expense of her shoulders, down, the smooth lines of her shoulder blades, the subtle curves of her vertebrae. The curls he had held, tangled between his calloused knuckles, coiled on the tips of his fingers, were twisted over one shoulder, a ribbon clinging to a few of the strands. Her dress was half peeled off of her, azure petals to compliment her razor blue orbs, narrowed upon him, still standing in the door. "Well?" Justine's voice splintered the illusion, making his heels hiss over the stone beneath them. Rochefort tore his gaze away, his interest growing keen and enraptured by a rather hideous painting on the far wall, obviously made by some simpleton with a brush. "Justine, forgive me, I thought I heard you call and -" He never bumbled like this. Not in front of the Cardinal, long since deposed, or her mother, not even with a grave to mark her... "And so I did." Rochefort's eye widened, ripped from the travesty of oil and pigment on the wall, back to the cut and curve of that face. Yes, they were so alike, in more ways than one, but he had long ago learned to distinguish the bow of the lips, the rise of a cheek and brow, the tip of the nose... But those differences, at once so apparent to his eye, had been obscured in the firelight, the shadows, and the moon. "Why?" He couldn't restrain his rasp, the touch of shock no doubt present in his risen brows, the slope of his mouth, and the slack of his jaw. "To help me dress, of course." She raised a blonde brow at him, lips pinching into a line, though there was no disguising the fullness that awaited within them. "Surely you're capable of that?" Rochefort's teeth clicked, resounding in his ears. His hand felt... hot, knuckles turned to ice around the handle, which dug, unforgiving and harsh into the crests of his palm. "Do you really believe that proper?" The position of a lover, of a husband, not the aging father he had become. He was no handsome rogue anymore, no devilish creature, and though his sinew had not wavered, his hair had faded into steel and sulfur. And there was always the

matter of -

Cyclops. He swallowed, lingering still by the door, held askew only by his lean frame. No, even if those weren't reason enough, the fact it was his daughter kept him bound to the spot. "And since when have you known me to care for what was proper?" His gaze, having slowly fallen to the floor, snapped to hers... that damned sky, bright and dazzling, promising not a shred of rain. But it was that same blue, that same endless expanse that would swallow a man's conscience, make him feel as if he were falling, slamming through the clouds into the maw of the ethereal blackness. "Or you, yourself cared?" That cutting smile should have been his retreat, the glint of pearls to match those around her neck, shining instead, within her full, rose colored mouth. He should chastise her, for once in her twenty years upon the earth, behaving like a whore in front of her own father, but they both knew he had no right, especially when she, like her mother, would only laugh in his face. He should retort, give into that temptation to tease, if only to remember, for she had placed the agony of sentiment upon him, what it was like to hold her attention, that bright, glorious, scorching woman's affection. He should flee, find refuge within a bottle of port or scotch or even English whiskey, to drown out the sight and sound of her, damned to wonder if she smelled and tasted the same as the hellcat that had birthed her from his own loins. Under her gaze, the weight of her expectation, he came forward, swallowing down the lingering burn of the wine on the back of his tongue. Rochefort watched his hands rise. He knew they were his. That knot of scar above his right knuckle, the puncture in the left palm, the slash of white across the back to his wrist, a series of memories lacerated into his skin of battle and victory and defeat. She had tended a few of them, washed and bandaged them, seen and kissed many others. Sometimes, he convinced himself he had forgotten which was which, but - Such lies never lasted long. "Come now, father, I don't have all night." Whispered, breathy, a mixture of exasperation and... anticipation. Rochefort's fingers twitched, reaching forward just to hear her giggle - "Come now, darling, what are you waiting for?" A playful question, the quick dart of her tongue over her teeth, as if to lessen the sting of her bite. "I'm afraid I simply prefer to do the reverse." His reply was easy, even as his fingers pulled with a gentleness that seemed foreign, encasing her body in silk and satin. "This part is far too tedious." Rochefort noted that the strings were lighter, yet didn't fray, a hidden strength to conceal a dignity that she was said to have lost. The proof lay there, disguised under a sleeve or slip of black cloth, the mark of a traitor in one regard or another. "And far less enjoyable. "Is this chore too boring for you, father?" Rochefort's hands paused, knuckles twined with the fabric, grazing the intricate fold of white lace and blue silk. He inhaled, the realization that he had denied himself breath until that point found in the color that speckled his vision, the scent of jasmine invading his lungs, slamming into the chambers of his heart. His chest tightened, expelling that scent, that damned flower back into the evening air with a low rasp. "You said you would come as my servant." Her voice was still too low, too patient for the vixen she had exposed him to back in Paris. "Did you think I would not make use of your services, father?" Rochefort could see the fingers twitching, the palms wavering, the whole of his hands shaking against her gown. He dare not reach out, breach the remaining gap of inches, the tension of the indecency already so close to breaking. "What would they think, if I did not make you earn your keep?"

Have I not done that already? He had given her what she wanted: the names of the men who judged her mother, finding her guilty, and by extension himself. But his own plight, the brush with death, the fall from grace, his imprisonment and now virtual banishment, meant nothing to her. No, he had to accompany her, act as her accomplice in the killing of four men he wanted nothing more than to be as far from as physically possible. And now, now this. What did she gain from it all? What satisfaction was it all worth? Rochefort remained silent, the shift and hiss of her dress as she turned away from him filling the gloom. He pulled to close the space, hiding the smooth arch of her lower back, all the way up to her shoulders, taking the laces in his still quivering palms. Over, under, drawing them taut till they knotted, the twin loops forming a charming bow at the base of her spine. He stepped back, refusing to open his mouth, and she turned to observe his handiwork. "Marvelous work, father." Still that gentle, tormenting tone, the underlying promise of a woman. "I should like you to help me dress from now on." She stepped around him, pausing only when she reached the door. "And tonight as well, when I change..."

×××

For those of you who are wondering, it was quite common in ye-old days, for men - husbands - to help their wives by knotting their dresses (this is also how some adulterers were discovered) or helping them undress, hence Rochefort's apprehension about the situation. Not to mention, knowing her parents were lovers, this is obviously intruding upon the intimacy they must have shared.

There's a lot of psychological stuff to this, some very twisted mind game madness, but yeah... this was an exercise, one I enjoyed. You can actually watch The Return of the Musketeers of YouTube right now (one of those lovely, random fan uploads). It's not as good as the first two (Rochefort doesn't have a single sword fight and they turned him into something of a coward), but still quite enjoyable.

[twistedsinews]

Cyberpunk 2077; V/Jackie; PG-13 (AO3 Flavor)

The dregs of the evening dripped by slow and unhurried as they made their way through the neon-drenched streets. Rainwater mingled with the bloody handprint staining V’s neck, and soaked into her shirt. Jackie draped arm over her shoulders as they walked, comfortably enough.

It wasn’t enough to keep her dry, but that wasn’t why he did it.

Between the street and the upper levels of her building, she had slipped out from under his arm again, but she only pulled away from him in sight of home. The door slid open under her touch. On reflex Jackie moved to follow her, and nearly stepped right into her when, halfway through, she half-turned, blocking his way.

“You stayin’ the night?”

“Was planning on it being that way, yeah.”

It blindsided him, because when was that ever a question?

But a soft smile played across her lips, warming his heart, even though it faded out again almost as soon as it appeared. She stepped into the apartment, and once he’d followed her through the door hissed closed behind them.

Jackie shook his jacket out near the door, and V let hers slump near the couch, rainwater and all.

He drew her into his arms, pressing a kiss on her forehead as she turned into his embrace. Her fingers tangled in his shirt, then her hand flattened against his chest. She huffed a little breath right up against his mouth, and pushed herself away.

“Um. I’m gonna go... get washed up.” That sounded like a plan, until she followed it up with, “Order dinner, would you please?”

Already stripping out of her damp shirt, she stepped in the direction of the shower.

Jackie found he couldn’t argue, because dinner sounded like as good a plan. “Anything particular you in the mood for? Pizza?”

“Pizza would be perfect,” she called back.

Raising an eyebrow at the trail of clothes in her wake, Jackie smirked at the answer.

It took him a handful of minutes to connect the call and wait, and another few to place an order. By the time he was finished and moved to join her, V was stepping out of the shower again.

“I should have some clothes that’d fit you if you wanna get clean,” she remarked, slipping past him. On a second thought, she smiled wryly. “I... think they might be yours, come to think of it.”

Again, he couldn’t argue. Not with logic, anyway. It might not have been the usual way he expected things to go around here by now, but clean sounded nice.

And once he was finished getting clean – pulling his hair back up and finding the towel she’d left for him on the sink and the clothes beneath it – he thought she must’ve been right – these were his. His other clothes were gone, and hers were gone from the floor – all bundled together down the laundry chute he supposed.

Pizza had been delivered, and V was sitting on the couch, watching the bright rainy midnight outside the window. There was a strange wistfulness to her expression as she picked her bites, a melancholy that didn’t fit.

Then she noticed him, and it was gone. But it left behind that strange sort of a distance now between them; one that wasn’t there before. Jackie didn’t think it’d been there earlier in the evening, and not even on the job.

V slid herself over to make room for him, and nudged the pizza boxes and paper plates stacked on top of them.

“S’good,” she told him, before taking another bite of her slice. “Still warm.”

She didn’t curl up next to him like Jackie might have otherwise expected, simply went back to watching the window as he served himself. He watched her through his entire first slice, and partway into the next before wiping his hand on his jeans.

At length, he reached up to brush his the back of his fingers across her cheek, and she shivered; flicking his eyes towards him, she froze under his gaze as though she only just now remembered he was there.

You’re acting kinda weird, you know that? he wanted to tell her. He also wanted to know, Everything alright with you?

All he asked was, “V?”

“I, um... It’s just that...” sucking in a breath, she staggered through, “I’ve been thinking some shit through, and it might it’d be better if we chilled it... maybe, for a little while. You know?”

It sent a cold bucket of ice down his back. Shifting in his seat, Jackie forced himself to settle down again. He split his attention between her and his food.

“Yeah... sure, whatever you want.”

V nodded once, curtly, forcing a smile that nowhere near reached her eyes, and...

That was it.

He wanted to ask the details, but he knew better.

They ate in silence. Jackie barely tasted whatever flavor it was the pizza was meant to emulate. There was a dull ache of loss in his chest where there shouldn’t have been, because that was never what this thing between them was meant to be about in the first place.

Then he chuckled, sitting up straighter.

“Oh. I get it now, I see what’s going on – you went and fell in love, didn’t you?”

Her head snapped towards him, her eyes wide and a question of How did you...? all but written across her face. Caught, she took in a shaky breath, and shook her head.

“I... kept wanting to tell you, but I couldn’t figure out how...”

“Ah huh,” Jackie followed his lead, “And now this guy is telling you that if you wanna be with him, he doesn’t want you fooling around with anyone else.”

V blinked at him, mouth open until she thought to close it.

“No...” She ventured, “Actually, he’s been really understanding about that part. I just... I feel like I’m being unfair to him, you know?”

“Yeah, alright. I guess I can see where you’re coming from.”

Jackie took a thoughtful bite of pizza as he mulled it over. V sat still beside him, eyes drifting closed, only to snap open again when he nudged her with his elbow.

“So tell me about this guy of yours.”

“He’s... uh...” V itched the skin surrounding her neural port. “He’s... kind. Caring. Generous... just... been really, really good to me since I’ve known him. I think he gets me better than anyone I’ve ever met...” Her shoulders dropped, and she fell to playing with the hem of her sleeve. “Might even know me better than I know myself, sometimes.”

“Guess there’s no way I can compete with that,” Jackie admitted. “Anybody I know, or...?”

“I... yeah,” she sighed harshly, “You introduced us.”

“...I did?”

She nodded, flashing him a shallow smile that didn’t last. A moment to think it through, and Jackie made a sharp ha! of triumph, snapping his fingers, and pointed to her.

“It’s Vik, isn’t it?”

“...no, it isn’t Vik.”

“¿No?”

“No.”

“Ah.”

Jackie blew out a breath as he wracked his brain.

“It is a guy, right? Someone I introduced you to...” She’d said he, and wasn’t contradicting him, so he presumed. He squinted at her. “It’s not my cousin, is it?”

“No. It’s not your cousin.”

...which was a slight relief, if he was about to be honest. “Good for that.”

Going down the options in his mind, Jackie scratched his chin. The list of guys he’d introduced her to wasn’t terribly short, but it was mostly business, and apart from Vik he couldn’t remember her ever so much as talking it up with any of them.

Or if she had, he hadn’t noticed. And he thought he would’ve noticed something like this.

Wouldn’t he have?

If so, why hadn’t he noticed before now?

Moreover, none of them seemed to fit her description.

“A'ight, I give up, V. Who is it?”

V had abandoned her plate, staring into space where half a slice of pizza sat on the coffee table.

“You’re not even gonna tell me, are you?” Jackie asked. “Come on, you think like I’m gonna hurt the guy or somethin’? I just wanna congratulate him, you know? Tell him how lucky he is to have gotten in good with my partner.”

“Jackie just... drop it. Alright?”

“Tch. Fine, have it your way.”

Jackie finished the crust of his pizza, and crumpled up his plate, carrying it with him as he got to his feet. It went in the garbage on his way to retrieve his jacket.

V didn’t seem to want him here, and he wasn’t about to impose.

He had one arm through a sleeve when behind him he heard her move; a faint rustle of her clothes and squeak of faux leather as she moved off the couch and the electric whisper of the door to her stash.

Jackie froze.

Licked his lip.

Swallowed.

Shrugged the rest of his jacket on, before turning around to face the glass door.

Something was wrong with all of this. V wasn’t acting like a woman in love; she was hurting something fierce and trying to stem the damage.

Jackie couldn’t leave her that way. Wouldn’t have forgiven himself ever if he had.

He caught up to her emptying out the pockets to her jacket – of all the junk she’d picked up that evening, and then some – onto her workbench. As he watched, a glass marble rolled over the edge, bouncing once before continuing across the floor.

Jackie leaned down to snatch it as it rolled right up to him, and straightened again, turning the marble this way and that.

It was clear, speckled with a cloud of sparkling little stars. Jackie smiled faintly, despite everything else – it was exactly V’s kind of treasure.

“Hey, V?” he asked, distantly, “This guy you’re sweet on... he even know you got a thing for him?”

“What...?” Her sorting grew slower, and V roused enough to answer a small, lost, “...no.”

The little stars in Jackie’s palm caught in the light. He blinked, and closed his fingers around them.

“He does now.”

V stilled.

The door closed behind him, his deceptively light steps carrying him to her side at the table. She squared towards him; holding out his hand, he offered her the marble back. She stared at it, and for a moment her hand hovered over his before she forced it back down to her side.

Jackie dropped his hand.

“I’m right, aren’t I?”

She didn’t answer, but she didn’t need to. It was written in the way her eyes narrowed, and the grim set of her mouth.

“How long you been bottling this up, V?”

“Six months? A year?” She scoffed, then sighed. “From the beginning? I think I felt different once, but... now I can’t even remember what that was like.”

“That’s a long fuckin’ time.”

Not like he was one to talk from experience or anything.

But it explained things. Some things. Not everything. In some ways, not anything.

The marble had grown warm in his palm.

Again, he offered it back to her.

Again, V didn’t take it.

Jackie glanced at it, then back to the glass door. He placed the marble on the table amidst the rest of her collection, and scratched behind his ear.

“You, uh...” he managed to choke it out without sounding too strangled, “want me to go?”

“Of course not.” It came out in a rush of breath. “I want you to stay, I want to be close to you, I wanted to tell you, but... I just... It feels like I’m breaking what I’d promised you; like I’m taking more than I....”

She trailed off, and when nothing more seemed forthcoming, Jackie sighed.

He reached for her hand, and felt a little flutter of hope when she didn’t pull away. He rubbed his thumb over her knuckles.

“So what’re we gonna do about this thing of yours you been keepin’ all to yourself over a year?”

V shook her head. She twisted her hand in his, slowly, until she had a loose hold. Then she raised his hand up to press the heel of his thumb to her lips.

A deceptively gentle little, “I don’t know,” whispered across his skin.

Jackie returned the sentiment, drawing her hand to his mouth. “Really, chica; what’s not to know, eh?”

She didn’t answer, not in an immediate rush, and he let her have her hand back, tracing the ink up her arm before letting his arm fall. When she did find her voice, it cracked, and V admitted softly, “I liked what we had. I didn’t want anything to change.”

“...who sayin’ anything’s gotta change?”

V blinked at nothing, then at him. Incredulity stained her voice. “You really think this doesn’t change anything?”

He thought about it for a few seconds, then acquiesced a nod. With a burst of laughter, he swept her off the floor, and V gave a sharp squeak of surprise, holding on as he spun her around. Loose cards and trinkets scattered, brushed from the table by the arc of her legs, and one of her feet smacked into a box of ammunition, clattering it over.

Mindful of none of it, Jackie dipped her forward, and she stretched out her knee in counterbalance.

“You’re right, it changes everything,” he let on with a grin. “But hey, who ever told you change has to be a bad thing?”

She managed to get her arms around his neck as he righted them. Hooking one arm under her knees so she was braced against one side, Jackie carried her back out through the door.

“Fuck’s sake. What if it didn’t work out? What if we ended up hating each other? Jackie, I couldn’t-...”

Jackie shrugged. His grip loosened, and he let her slide down beside the window. “What if you miss all the best things in your life ‘cause of what if, huh? What then?”

She reached to touch his arm, and her fingers curled as she dropped her hand again, falling back against the window.

“I don’t know,” she whispered again.

Jackie tsked.

“Hey, V, you wanna know a secret?” He pushed her hair back over her shoulder, and leaned in close to her ear to divulge, “I like you, too.”

She huffed – a sharp, shaky little breath that skimmed his shoulder.

“So really,” Jackie asked, “what’re you gonna do about it?”

Raising her chin as though to meet the hint of a challenge in his voice, V fixed her gaze on him, expression inscrutable. For half a moment longer, besides the tracing of her eyes, she remained still.

Then her fingers were bunched up in his shirt, and he let himself be pulled down to her level as she drew herself up against him. Her mouth found his in a demanding question of fervor and desire, tinged with something soft like adoration, and he pushed her right back up against the window.

A sense of relief flooded through him as her hands slipped over his shoulders, locking behind his neck, and he drew her into his arms, tucking his face against her shoulder and enfolding her in a tight embrace.

“Fuck,” V breathed, “what did I almost do?”

“Nothin’,” Jackie chuckled. “‘Cause I was here to rattle some sense back into that gonk-brained crazy head of yours.”

V made a small sound in her throat. Not even an argument.

“Just don’t ever let go.”

Her arms tightened against his neck, and he pressed his arm a little more firmly against her back.

“Never,” Jackie promised. “Never ever.”