#and i have mixed feelings about....sams whole thing... | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

prentissluvr · 3 months

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literary parallels — sam winchester

pairing : sam winchester x gn!reader ➖⟢ genre : light angst, fluff ➖⟢ cw : small injuries, few seconds of physical fighting (self-defense), no use of y/n, you have a dad and i gave him a name (rick lol), mentions of death of loved ones, sort of case fic, kinda ignores canon timeline in terms of a few minor things but canon doesn't matter much in this fic lol, poorly edited most likely ➖⟢ wc : 3.6K summary : sam is someone from your past at stanford university, and the last place you expect to see him again is on a case. that's exactly where you find him. i plan on doing a part two for this one in the future! :))

today is one of those days where the reality of your life feels strange, unwelcome, and somewhat foreign. it’s not as if you’re new to the hunting life; it’s just the opposite, and yet, you often feel removed from it, especially after having lived normally at college for a few years. but you were ripped back into hunting without being able to finish your degree by your father after the death of your closest cousin.

so now you’re cooped up in a crappy motel room searching endlessly through detailed lore websites and the few books you have on you, trying to make sense of the odd patterns of killings in the small california town. that’s part of the pit in your stomach for today; the beach town, cayucos, is only three hours from stanford.

being so close to your former university after almost a whole year brings back a whole lot of mixed feelings. mostly longing for the normalcy that you loved and lost, but also a renewed urgency to find what killed your cousin. she had been studying at a different college just an hour inland from you. when she died, you had wanted to salt and burn her body and move on. but when your father showed up with proof of odd circumstances, he pursuaded you to rejoin him in the hunting life.

the deaths in cayucos are certainly odd, but they lack the defining features that would allow you to identify the creature at fault. so, you’re searching for anything with a grudge against hot men and a killing cycle of seven years since those are about the only patterns so far. your dad is at the coroner’s office, meeting with an old hunter friend to check out the body of the latest victim.

that’s been another reminder of your brief time at a normal school with normal friends and normal hobbies. when your dad first told you he called in a friend to help, he’d asked you, “d’you remember john winchester? you met him once when you were a kid, he’s an old buddy of mine.” you shook your head and he shrugged, saying something about how it makes sense; you were young and only met him once. but the name stuck in your mind as he left, and it had nothing to do with hunting or when you were a kid on the road, stuck in motels, school if you were there long enough, or the town library if you were lucky.

that name, or the last name anyway, comes from the stanford part of your life, the one you keep cherished in the most protected corners of your heart. sam winchester was one of your few friends during your time there, and after hearing his family name spoken aloud, he’s floating through your mind all day.

he disappeared after jess, his girlfriend and one of your other few friends, died, mere weeks before your own cousin died and you left standford as well. you’ve always wondered what happened to him, the best conclusion you could come to being that he couldn’t bear her death. they were absolutely in love with each other, but you know jess would have wanted him to finish at stanford, then head to that law school he was bound to get that full-ride to. sam always had an air of strength about him, so it surprised you when you never saw him again. he wasn’t even at her funeral, and to this day, that’s your singular bone to pick with him.

but, you can’t afford to think about him too much as you search for answers about the case. abandoning the lore websites for the meantime, you look over the police records of all the deaths that you can find, hoping to draw together any more patterns that you can use to narrow down your research. you’re jotting down a few notes, thinking you may have found something regarding accounts of a few of the men being last seen with a woman, when your train of thought is interrupted by an unexpected knock on the door.

on instinct, you draw your gun as you cross the room, looking through the peephole and silently cursing when you realize the light out front has gone out. all you can make out is the tall, broad silluete of a man thanks to the dimness of the twighlight sky.

you wait for a moment at the door, hoping he’ll just walk away after he doesn’t get an answer. but you’re unlucky, and he knocks again before calling out, “hello? rick sent me here to … help with the case, he said his kid was here. i’m john winchester’s son, sam.”

if you were in an old-timey cartoon, your jaw would’ve dropped to the floor. sam … sam winchester. it sounds just like him. trying to keep your head, you swap your gun for a nearby canteen of holy water and slip a silver knife into your pocket for accessibility. it’s too much of a coincidence for you to believe it.

you crack the door, just enough for him to hear you a bit better. “sam winchester? like stanford full-ride, lawyboy sam winchester?”

“i– how do you–” there’s a moment of silence, and you know that he’s piecing together the few clues he has; your voice and the last name you must share with your dad, the man he knows as rick. his voice is just as cautious as yours as he says your name like he can’t really believe it.

for a moment, you stop thinking when you hear his voice saying your name after so long, and you throw open the door and let him in. the light from the motel room finally illuminates his face, and it’s him, it’s really him. and the moment you think that is the moment you realize that could absolutely not be the case.

the second he turns to you from closing the door, you’re splashing holy water in his face so fast you barely catch the look he was about to give you; eyes so full of surprise and wonder and confusion and something akin to joy. you react quickly to his lack of reaction besides the normal surprise at getting splashed in the face, slashing at his arm with your silver knife to finish testing him. but he reacts just as fast as you, grabbing both of your wrists, spinning you around and pinning you to the flat surface of the door.

his hold is quite strong, but he doesn’t have the time to bear his full weight into holding you down before you react, so you’re able to manuever out of his hold with practiced ease. you lift one arm up as you yank the other down to make it so you’re able to slip down and to the side, out of his hold. then you’ve got a strong hand to his back, shoving him face-first against the door and your other arm bringing your knife to his throat.

the thought that his profile view with his pulled-taut eyebrows and the grimace on his mouth looks pretty has the audacity to float up to the forefront of your mind before you can squash it down. the whole struggle had taken mere seconds, and he resigns the minute you’ve got him pinned down.

“it’s me,” he pants, “i swear. ‘m not a shapeshifter or ghoul or anything, it was just instinct. sorry,” he explains quickly, “go ahead, test me.”

you debate saying “don’t mind if i do,” but decide that you don’t have to be teasing or snarky about it. instead, you tamp down your hesitance to hurt him, even a little bit because he still sort of feels like innocent, regular, lawboy sam to you, and you draw a thin line of blood at the spot where his neck slopes into his broad shoulder. there’s no burning, just a normal wince from his mouth, so you loosen your hold on him and step back, internally cringing at the small bit of blood beginning to slip down towards his collarbone.

“sorry,” you say, far more sincere than you would be if it’d been anybody else. this is the norm for hunters, but you haven’t quite wrapped your mind around the fact that sam is a hunter. you’d never once would have guessed, though you suppose that was the point. you had done everything you could to hide that part of your life during your time at stanford.

“it’s fine,” he gives you an awkward half-smile, just as sincere as you. “just, y’know, your turn.” you’d been so busy taking in the sight of him standing there, looking almost exactly the same, but not quite, as he had in college, that you forgot about the courtesy of testing yourself too.

“right,” you clear your throat, “of course.” without the hesitance any normal person would have, you take the knife to your forearm and splash a bit of holy water on your skin. “there we go. no demons or shapeshifters or the like. that’s good.” you feel incredibly awkward all of the sudden, still so bewildered and thrown off balance by the collision of your two words. it feels like too much of a coincidence for you to be this close to your old school, be thinking about sam winchester, a symbol of that old life, then for him to show up and flip your whole entire understanding of him. there’s just about a million things running through your mind at just about a million miles per hour and it’s starting to make your head hurt.

the movement of his hand, reaching up to hold the small cut you gave him is what brings you out of your short lived reverie.

“god, i’m sorry. let me get you something for that.” you don’t give him the time to politely tell you, “no, it’s okay,” like you know he would before you’ve turned your back and crossed the room to grab a first aid kit from your bag and some rubbing alcohol from the bathroom. “sit down,” you urge him when you turn back to him, motioning towards the table you’d been seated at when he arrived.

he complies and once again, you’re thinking about the strangeness of sharing this sort of space with him. you’re used to seeing him in libraries so big that they’re almost grand for quiet study sessions or in the dining hall with his nose buried in a book or in the lecture hall where you first met him in a gen-ed class. you’re used to seeing him on one of the grassy quads with jess by his side or him in the big, open, and fancy old university buildings. now he looks right at home in the dingy motel room, so small it feels like his tall, broad frame shouldn’t fit in here, so dim that his sometimes blue or green eyes look sort of muddy. they’re pretty, nonetheless.

you set the first aid kit on the table and pull out a large bandaid and a bit of gauze. you reasses the cut to be sure he doesn’t need any other sort of bandaging and almost sigh in relief when you see how shallow it is. sam doesn’t speak or protest that he’s fine to do it himself as you pull the collar of his t-shirt aside just a bit. you’re sure his mind’s busy with a whole load of questions for you, just like you for him. the brush of your knuckles against his skin suddenly makes his presence feel more real. whatever contact you’d had during the short-lived fight you’d had was completely surreal; you weren’t sure he was really even sam, and if he was, it would feel like a lie anyways, for his hands to be rough or so quick in a fight.

he doesn’t so much as wince when you press alcohol soaked gauze to the cut, and though the wound is small and shallow enough that you’re sure it barely stings, it still feels like a sign of his being a hunter, being used to pain. you don’t like that thought; sweet, sincere, and ever so smart sam being used to pain. as you take care of the cut, he lets his eyes wander around the room, probably taking in how familiar it is, and how weird that it’s your motel room and all of your belongings packed into a single bag and your computer screen displaying hacked into police reports and the very same lore websites he frequents to solve a tricky case.

when you’re done he thanks you with a small smile and you take the seat across from him. as your fingers had brushed over his bare skin and felt a whisper of his strong shoulders, you’d gotten the strong urge to hug him. you missed him even more than you thought. that urge doesn’t leave when you move away from him.

you make a confused face at sam when he reaches for the first aid kit and pulls out another set of bandaids and gauze. he just hands you a gauze now soaked with alcohol and nods at you.

“for your arm,” he explains, because you’ve already forgotten about that as you accept it with a questioning brow.

“right,” you chuckle softly, swiping over the cut with the gauze, then taking and applying the bandaid that sam opened for you. when you’re done you have to drag your eyes up to meet sam’s gaze. there’s tension in the room, and though it’s not bad per se, it’s begging to be addressed and you’re not sure how to even start. it seems like sam’s not sure either.

so, you choose to jump right into the fire.

“it’s so good to see you, sam,” you confess, pushing all your sincerity into your voice, “i mean, this is absolutely insane and i can’t quite wrap my mind around it, but i guess i don’t really care because it’s so good to see you. i worried about you so much after … after jess died, i mean, you just dissappeared and … and i can imagine that has something to do with the fact that you’re a hunter, which is sort of incomprehensible to me, but–,” suddenly you’re hit with a new realization. if sam’s disappearance had to do with the supernatural, you wonder if jess’s death did too. but you don’t want to ask, not right now. “oh, god, and i never got to tell you how sorry i am. i– i mean. i can’t imagine.” there’s where your voice trails off and you look to sam to be the one to say something now.

“thanks,” he answers simply, voice gentle but a little pained, rightfully so. “she was your friend, too. i mean, we were all friends. and i’m sorry i disappeared like that. i, um, well, you’re right. hunting dragged me away. it’s complicated and i’ll explain it to you later. you deserve to know what happened to jess, but– but it’s a lot.” a moment of silence allows that to sink in; so something did happen to her, something more than just faulty electrical wiring in her apartment. sam’s genuine as he goes on, “and it’s great to see you too, really. it’s so strange, i mean all of this, obviously, but it’s even stranger how close we are to stanford. i was already thinking about it, about you all on the way over, and the next thing i know, you’re the suspicious hunter throwing holy water in my face.”

you cringe a little at that, but sam smiles a little wider than he has all night. “that’s a good thing,” he half-laughs, “i don’t care how weird this coincidence is, i’m glad for it.” his hand twitches, almost as if he’d wanted to reach over and grab your hand, but thought better of it before it could happen. “i gotta ask, did you finish your degree?” the way he asks is so hopeful, and you immediately know how much he wants the answer to be yes. he’s thinking, if i couldn’t finish, please tell me at least one of us could. that one of us poor and foolish hunter kids who thought we could escape managed to long enough to finish a degree, prove that we could make something of ourselves in the normal world. it would be so nice to see that, if it couldn’t be me, it could be somebody, it could be you.

his face falls a little when he registers the sad smile on your face. your expression is more than enough of an answer, and the fact that he wanted so badly for you to have made it makes your heart break a little, for both him and you. we deserved better, you think.

“just about the same thing happened to me,” you begin to explain, “you remember my cousin, bex?” sam nods, recalling the way the two of you acted like siblings the few times he met her, how much you liked alike when you smiled, already sad for what he suspects he might hear. “she died a few weeks after jess. she and i both grew up hunting, and we both thought we got out of it, at least for a little while. we almost lasted all four years … i didn’t think there was anything weird with her death, but … my dad showed me proof of just that at her funeral, convinced me to come back to hunting with him. she was– she was hiding something, and, honestly i’m still not sure what happened. progress on her case has been slow. real slow, so we’ve been working on others in the meantime. keeping busy, you know.”

“oh, i know,” sam sighs, and you completely believe him. you wonder for a moment what bigger things he’s digging into before deciding it’s best if the two of you stick to what’s in front of you. if you go too deep, having each other, a new kind of steady presence from better times, might start feeling too unreal again.

you want to preserve this delicate balance, where sam is still stanford sam and you’re still stanford you, but now there’s just a deeper understanding of each other. a knowing of what it’s like to grow up with a hunter for a father, to want to get away from it all, to want a sense of normalcy, and to want to learn and become something more and say “screw you!” to all of the expections. and on top of that, knowing how it feels to get so close to the finish line, only to have it ripped out of your hands like you’re a child who’s parents think they’ve had too much candy. only it’s far worse than a half eaten lollipop in the trash because people that you love died, and it was all so much more than just chasing after a momentary sugar high.

“i’m sorry about bex,” sam says, this time actually reaching out and placing his hand on yours for a moment. his voice is as full of empathy and sincerity as ever. “she was amazing the few times i met her. i could see how close you two were.”

“thanks, sam.” you give him a small smile because those words feel so much better coming from him than just about anyone else. with that, the air seems to settle a little, and it’s far more bearable. you’ve still got a hundred and one questions to ask and a hundred and one more things to say to each other, but to find out you have this near-exact shared experience is like having so much of the weight of loneliness lifted from your chest. and it all feels even better because you know sam. you know him already.

sure, there’s a whole lot you missed before, but you don’t doubt for a second that the sam sitting in front of you is as kind, funny, smart, witty, sincere, adorably awkward, and good as the sam you met and came to know at stanford. in fact, knowing he grew up the way he did just reaffirms his goodness to you. it’s not easy to live like that and continue choosing to be kind and well-meaning and true to yourself. then there’s this feeling of admiration for sam, just blooming in your chest and you hold back a wide grin because the timing’s not quite right. you still can’t shake the urge to hug him.

“well,” you smile casually, if not a little rueful as you say your next words, “i think our dads will go all hunter-dad-crazy on us if we keep playing catch up. i’ll give you a run down of everything i’ve got, then we can do what dropouts from the west coast’s most prestigious school’s do best; research.”

sam’s smile matches your own, and it’s achingly familiar. “well, we can’t have those asses ruin our not-quite-stanford-alumni reuinion. let’s get to work. we can pretend it’s like the good old days, spring freshman year, all of us cramming for the way-er exam at the back of the library and getting shushed by the librarians. we can pretend john and rick are the librarians.”

for the first time in a long time, you let out a loud laugh, surprised and pulled right out of you without warning. he smiles wide at the sound and finally, without restraint, you grin back. god, you missed him.

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nor-4 · 10 months

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Woke up feeling like i want to write colby headcannon

Pairings - Colby Brock ft. Reader

He wanted a private relationship but he can't due to his social media consumption. He wants to post everything about you especially on his ig, he doesn't even tag you. But he made your appearance on the photo using captions, it's either he says something related to you or he use the emoji that describes you.

Like i said he wanted private relationship but he's so talkative he just can't shut his mouth. He often shows off the things you own that he stole on the video.

He purposely shows your things on his room. It's like hinting people that both of you are together knowing damn well the whole world knows it.

Colby is your own personal paparazzi. He has a whole photo album full of your photos, it can be stolen, cute moments with you.

He don't smoke infront of you. That's it. He can be a jerk sometimes but come on he still have respect, he only smokes when he has your permission.

Seeing both of your aesthetics mix together makes him feral. He often ask you out for shopping like this man is begging, he wanted a matchy outfit with you but with different colors.

He doesn't want to drag you to those creepy shits he do. But sam often begs for you to do it with them, he didn't have any choice but to agree when you approved with Sam's idea.

Colby is your own scary dog privilege. This man looks like he would bite every one he sees. You know what that's a good thing cause you can walk freely, like you can hang out in the middle of the night with this man.

You hate the fact that him and sam has a whole demon up their asses every month, so you guys have to deal with it everytime.

#colby brock x reader #sam and colby #colby brock #colby brock fanfic #sam and colby x reader #colby brock x you #colby brock fluff

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buckymorelikefuckme · 2 years

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a shore thing

bucky barnes x fem reader

i decided to write it hehe

a/n: any and all mistakes are my own! feedback is encouraged & welcomed :) xoxo

Bucky calls your name for the umpteenth time, beyond exasperated as you stumble away, giggling uncontrollably as you evade capture. He's hardly tipsy anymore, having decided to nurse a single beer for the last couple hours when he noticed how heavy you were drinking. Somebody needed to be responsible, he told himself. Even Steve was letting loose more than usual. But, to be fair, they were all on vacation.

“Guys, the taxis are here,” Nat announces, yet again, leaning heavily against one of said vehicles. “Bucky, we gotta go.”

“I’m trying my best here,” he replies. Although, that's not entirely true. “Someone should've cut her off ages ago.”

“Boooooo,” you heckle as you run past him.

Bucky sighs heavily. “Fine. You can stay here by yourself.”

You pause abruptly, almost tripping over your own feet, but you catch yourself before you face-plant into the gravel. “You're leaving me?” you ask in a pitiful tone.

“Yup.” Bucky turns and takes a few steps away, hearing you whine in protest. “Have fun.”

“Noooo, wait!”

Your uneven steps come closer and closer to Bucky and as soon as he gauges you're within arm’s reach he spins around with a smirk. It makes you lurch to a stop, gasping as it dawns on you.

“Betrayal!” you shout, pointing an accusatory finger at him. You try to take off running again, but Bucky is quicker. You're swooped up into a fireman’s carry before you even register your feet leaving the ground. “Ack! Put me down, you absolute caveman!”

Sam sticks his head out of the taxi. “There's room in this one.”

Bucky steers his steps that way, feeling your tiny fists beating his back the whole way, and plops you into the open seat. You let out a cute oof that he ignores as he tries to latch the seatbelt. You're a squirmy little shit though, and he soon finds that the only way he’ll be able to get the group back to the hotel is to enter the taxi himself and pull you into his lap. He quickly shuts the door and finally latches the seatbelt around the both of you, telling the driver to go.

Sam shakes his head in amusement in the seat beside Bucky. “You're seriously the only one who can rally that firecracker of a woman.”

“Hey!” you object with a pout. “I'm drunkies, not deaf. I can still hear you.”

You and Sam begin bickering and Bucky rolls his eyes, but he doesn't do anything to interfere. He's too busy trying to think about literally anything else other than the ginormous mistake he made by placing you on his lap. You, the person he's been in love with for far too long now, who has absolutely no clue of his feelings and sends constant mixed signals.

There are days he's sure you feel the same with the way you look at him, but then the next day you go out of your way to make sure he knows the two of you are just friends. He's losing his fucking mind. He doesn't know if he should tell you how he feels or try to move on.

You're wiggling suddenly, body jostling atop Bucky’s and his mind is forced to return to the present, only to see you and Sam slap-fighting like children.

“I’m so sorry, sir,” he addresses the driver, “I swear they're actually adults when they're not three sheets to the wind.”

The driver waves off the apology with a chuckle. The fight ends with you pinching Sam’s nipple, his cry of pain and outrage making you giggle wildly and throw your head back onto Bucky’s shoulder. After you catch your breath you sit up and wiggle some more until you're sitting sideways and can look at Bucky. Your eyes are glassy and your smile is sly and a touch wonky, and Bucky still thinks you're the cutest, sexiest woman he's ever known.

“Why don't you like me for real?”

The taxi is uncomfortably quiet. Bucky blinks a few times, shifting his gaze to Sam, who’s suddenly very interested in the passing streetlights and palm trees outside the window. Traitor, Bucky thinks. With no help from his supposed friend, Bucky looks back to you.

He clears his throat. “I do like you.”

“No,” you huff, rolling your eyes, “I mean like, like me like me. Like, more.”

Bucky is silent again, his mind whirling with a million questions–the biggest one being what the fuck?

“I'm not sure what you mean,” he says carefully. He hopes playing dumb will work in deterring the conversation, but he should've known better.

“You always just joke about it, but you never mean it. Always get my hopes up.”

“What are you talking about?” he blurts, truly flabbergasted, but he cuts you off before you can reply. “No, don't answer that. You're drunk, okay? You don't know what you're saying.”

You poke his cheek roughly, pouting. “I just want you to like me back, Buck. Wanna kiss you whenever I want.”

Bucky swallows thickly, unable to take his eyes away from yours as you lean in closer.

“Don't you wanna kiss me?” you question, reaching up you play with the hairs at the nape of his neck. “Can I kiss you, Bucky?”

Your lips graze his, a feather-light touch, and he exhales shakily. Of fucking course he wants to kiss you. He's wanted nothing else for the last year. But he doesn't want it like this. He says your name, voice low in warning. You either don't hear him or you don't care.

Bucky’s eyes flutter closed as you continue pressing light kisses to his lips, the corner of his mouth, his chin, along his jaw. He fists his hands where they rest on either side of you, praying for the will to remain strong.

“You're drunk,” he repeats, a last ditch effort in getting you to stop, but even he can hear how weak the protest is.

“I still know what I want, what I feel.” You brush your nose against his. “I want you.”

Sam coughs pointedly beside both of you. “We’re here.”

Bucky is quick to unlatch the seatbelt and help you out of the car. Nat walks over and grabs your hand, Steve walking leisurely behind her.

“Let's go to bed, please,” she begs as she drags you with her.

You begin whining again, reminding Bucky of your inebriated state. He shouldn't have let you kiss him. You're not going to remember any of this tomorrow. Guilt punches him in the gut. He's so fucking weak when it comes to you.

“I wanna sleep with Bucky,” you complain as you resist.

Natasha squawks. “What?!” Her eyes are as wide as saucers, flicking back and forth from you and Bucky. Sam fails to hide his snort.

“His bed is bigger,” you explain, “You take up too much space.”

Natasha gasps. “How dare you!”

You turn to Bucky with pleading eyes. “Bucky, please let me sleep with you.”

“I… I'm not sure that's a good idea,” he replies.

You stomp your foot. “Pleeeease?” Your pout is lethal. “I promise I won't take up too much space.”

Sam puts his hand over Nat’s mouth before she can start yelling, doing his best to frogmarch her into the hotel so they don't cause a disturbance. Steve follows languidly, which is the sign that he's quickly coming down from his drunken high and will likely crash the moment his head hits the pillow.

“You should just sleep in your room with Nat,” Bucky advises.

“I don't wanna sleep with her,” you say, stepping back into Bucky’s space. One of your hands grasps his shirt, the other trailing across his chest. He fights the shiver threatening to run down his spine. “I wanna cuddle you.”

You look up at him through your lashes and Bucky knows he's lost. He sighs. You grin and giggle, grabbing his hand to lead him inside the hotel. He's quiet the whole ride up in the elevator. Your head is resting on his shoulder, humming along to whatever song is playing in your head. You’re still holding his hand.

When you're both standing in front of his room door, Bucky pauses, about to try one last time to get you to go two rooms down to the one you're supposed to be sharing with Nat, but you snatch the key card out of his hand and open the door before a word can leave his mouth. He doesn't trust you to be alone right now, and with Sam babysitting Nat and Steve probably snoring away in his own room, Bucky accepts his fate. He enters the room, closing the door with resignation.

“Ugh, god, these heels are the worst,” you grumble as you trip your way over to sit on the bed. You fight with the small buckle before making a noise of complaint. “Buckyyy…”

“Jesus,” he mutters, huffing as he walks to you.

He kneels in front of you and carefully takes your shoes off. You hum, pleased, once your feet are free, wiggling your toes.

“Why do you wear them if you hate them so much?” he mumbles.

“Because they make my legs and ass look fantastic, duh.”

Well. That's fair, Bucky supposes.

“Can you unzip me now?”

Fuck. Bucky chokes on nothing.

“Unzip you? What are you planning on sleeping in? Your pajamas are in your room,” he points out.

“Can't I borrow one of your shirts?” you ask, blinking innocent eyes up at him.

He doesn't trust it one bit.

“Please, Bucky? My dress won't be comfortable.”

Your pout makes yet another appearance. He doesn't bother pointing out that you wouldn't have this problem if you went to your own room. You'd ignore him anyway.

“Fine,” he grumbles. He rifles through his bag to find a shirt for you, grabbing pajamas for himself while he's at it. “I'll go change in the bathroom.”

He turns to head that way, but you stop him.

“My dress,” you remind him, spinning around and pointing at the zip.

Bucky's pretty sure you could do this by yourself, but he's just ready to go to bed at this point, so he’ll do whatever he has to to get there. He tries not to put too much thought into the action, but his mind can't help but wander, imagining unzipping your dress with different intentions. The more skin that is revealed to him, the more his breathing picks up. He takes note that you didn't wear a bra with this dress, which makes him realize you'll be wearing his shirt with only your underwear beneath it. He curses mentally.

He steps away like he's been burned once the zipper reaches the bottom. “There you go,” he says, voice gruff.

He doesn't wait for your response, quickly escaping into the bathroom before anything else can be asked of him. It doesn't take Bucky long to change his clothes, but he still lingers in the small space to gather his wits, taking his time as he brushes his teeth, and even splashes some cold water on his face. He stares at himself in the mirror for a moment.

“She’ll forget all of this by morning,” he assures himself.

He's not fond of the way that statement makes his stomach twist.

When he leaves the bathroom, he finds your dress pooled on the floor in the same spot you stood as he unzipped it. You're standing next to the bed, fidgeting with the hem of Bucky’s shirt that hangs off your small frame. He raises a quizzical brow.

“I don't know which side you prefer,” you say, unsure.

Bucky feels himself soften at your expression. “I'm good either way.”

You dart for the left side, lifting the comforter and sheets and snuggling underneath them. Bucky's lips twitch, but he resists smiling.

“C’mon, Buck, I want cuddles,” you entice, patting the spot beside you exaggeratedly.

He only hesitates for a split second. It's late and exhaustion is settling in his bones. He’ll worry about consequences in the morning.

You waste no time in invading his space once he's in the bed. You nudge his arm until he lifts it, worming your way under it and placing your head on his chest, your own arm slung over his waist. Bucky goes still, holding his breath until you get comfortable. Slowly, he lets his arm fall across your back, closing his eyes with a heavy sigh.

“Bucky?” you whisper.

“Hm?”

You nuzzle into his pec. “Love you.”

Bucky's eyes snap open then. His heart begins hammering in his chest and he prays that you're close enough to sleep to not notice.

“Goodnight,” he rasps after a minute passes by.

Your only reply is a light snore. Bucky feels his heart crack in his chest.

The next morning, Bucky lies awake, staring at the ceiling. He's not sure exactly how much sleep he got, but it wasn't a lot. You only got clingier as you slept, practically wrapping your whole body around him.

Bucky is a weak, weak man.

Sunlight begins peeking through the curtains, eventually finding its way to the bed and across your closed eyes. A frown forms between your brows and he almost smoothes it with his thumb. The only reason he stops himself is because you groan and turn away before he can.

“Turn it off,” you croak.

“The sun?” he retorts with a laugh.

“Yes,” you reply derisively. “Kick its ass for waking me up.”

Bucky smiles to himself. “Whatever you want, my love.”

It feels like the room freezes in time after the endearment escapes him. With a jolt, you sit up and face him. Bucky can't read your expression, but that's mostly because he's doing his best to look anywhere but your face.

“Seriously?” you gripe. “You're still going to poke fun about that kind of shit even after what I said last night?”

That gets his attention pretty easily. He meets your gaze and hates the dejected look on your face.

“What–what are you talking about?” he questions, thrown.

Your chin wobbles slightly before you scoff, whipping the comforter off your body as you attempt to leave the bed, but Bucky sits up and grabs your wrist to stop you.

“Wait–”

“Let go of me,” you demand, refusing to look at him.

“Not until you tell me what the fuck is going on,” he replies firmly.

You turn to him with a glare. “You're still joking about my feelings for you, even though I made it perfectly clear how I felt last night.”

“Felt? You… you don't feel the same anymore?” He's grasping for straws here. “I thought–I mean, I didn't think you were serious. You were drunk, I…”

“It doesn't matter if I still feel the same or not,” you reply, the fight leaving your body.

“Yes, it does!” he exclaims. “God, of course it fucking matters. If you have feelings for me, I need to know.”

“Have I not made it abundantly clear already?!” you retort. “If you're that fucking dense, then here you go: I'm fucking in love with you, you big, stupid, gigantic ass–”

He cuts you off by dragging your body to his and kissing you. You make a sound of shock, but you don't push him away, so he deepens the kiss, tilting his head and flicking his tongue at the seam of your lips. You open for him with a gasp, your tongue meeting his and making you both moan. He pulls away, chest heaving.

“We're both stupid,” he declares. “I'm in love with you too. I thought you were the one not taking it seriously.”

Your dazed expression begins clearing and realization sets in. “Oh my god,” you mumble as you yank him back into a kiss that has him reeling.

“Do you know,” he starts between kisses, “how fucking hard it was—to be a gentleman last night?”

You giggle. “I was hoping you wouldn't be a gentleman.”

Bucky curses, manhandling you until you're flat on your back. “That can be arranged.”

“Promises, promises,” you goad, biting your lip.

“Exactly,” he replies, lips tugging into a smirk.

Needless to say, the two of you have to put up with merciless teasing for the rest of the trip… But it's worth it.

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #avengers fic #marvel fic #bucky x you #bucky barnes x you #bucky x reader

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outsideratheart · 1 year

Text

Sweet Nothing (Alex Scott x reader)

You were a blue through and through. The whole world knew it, you were captain for heaven’s sake but that didn’t mean you were immune the charm of a red, a gunner and her name was Alex Scott.

You were never one to mix business with pleasure which meant you didn’t pursue a relationship when she was still playing. At that point it was only a crush. Besides your were focused on forging your legacy at your childhood club.

But everything changed the day Alex asked to interview you one on one for her documentary highlighting woman’s football and the role you played in it. That was almost 3 years ago and you could count on one hand the amount of people that knew about your relationship.

First to find out besides your families was Fara. The Euros was one of the best nights of your life and no way was you going to do so without your girlfriend. Alex was up in the studio with the rest of the BBC team and even though she saw your ‘I’m coming to you’ text message she didn’t think you meant now. You locked the door to the dressing room or at least you thought you did. Fara’s face was priceless as she walked in to find Alex on top of the table, dress pulled up to her hips, legs wrapped around your waist kissing you as if the world is about to end and this was the last chance she’ll get to feel yours lips on hers.

The two of you knew you needed to be more careful.

“Alex I’m telling you that Leah knows” you said whilst brushing your teeth.

Your girlfriend was at St George’s Park to cover how England are preparing for the Finalissima. Right now you are in her room at the Hilton on the grounds.

“What could possibly give her the idea that we are dating?” Alex asked innocently as she leaned against the doorframe in nothing but a robe.

“I have few ideas and the first one is that. You keep looking at me like that” you point at the knowing look that is plastered on her face “and then there’s the fact that you were ogling me during the photoshoot that you shouldn’t have been at in the first place and after you slapped my arse in the hallways when Leah was right behind you”

Those three things happened in one day and would be the moments that started the suspicions of your relationship. Leah was like a dog on the hunt for a bone and luckily for you she only wanted to interrogate Alex.

Your night to slip up came when Alex had been presenting SoccerAid. The dress she was wearing filled your head with less than innocent thoughts. It’s why you sent her a text demanding that she come to your apartment straight from the game and you made it crystal clear that she was not to get changed.

The problem came when Sam turned up at half time stating that she got bored at home and thought the two of you could watch the second half together. Your night turned into a military operation. You had to get Sam out of your apartment with enough time to tidy up before Alex arrived.

The match ended and Sam was taking her time leaving. She suggested that you play a game of FIFA and after one check of your watch you knew you had time only one game turned into two and before you knew it you heard a knock on your door.

Alex looked beautiful, more so than she did on the TV. She didn’t give you chance to say hello. Alex’s lips crashed into yours with a hunger that was shared. You pressed her against the door as your hands roamed her body. The tightness and thin material of the dress allowed you to feel every inch of her. She was intoxicating, it blurred your surroundings and for a moment you forgot that you weren’t alone in your apartment.

“Well well well what do we have here?” Sam says rather smugly.

You pull away abruptly. As you turn around Alex does her best to hide behind you, her hand covering her mouth due to the shock of being caught.

“Sam” you wanted to explain what exactly your club team mate has just seen.

“I was just leaving. You two have fun but not too much fun. Remember we have training tomorrow. Bye Alex” the smugness doesn’t leave until Sam does.

You went straight back to what Sam had interrupted but Alex pushed you away. Your eyes widen because you didn’t understand what was going on.

“Y/N”

A small chuckle escaped your lips but very quickly stooped as it became clear that Alex did not find it funny, not in slightest.

“It’s Sam. She won’t tell anyone. Look at Fara she has known for months and she hasn’t said a word”

Your words weren’t enough to comfort Alex. She was worried about people finding out even though you both knew it wouldn’t change a thing.

“We need to be more careful. Remember what we said at the beginning lovers in private—“

“Friends is public. Alex take a look around, we are in my apartment which is basically our apartment at this point. This is private, it’s our home and I will kiss my girlfriend if I want to” you steal a quick kiss to prove your point.

After that night you were on your best behaviour as was Alex but it was getting harder and harder to hide your feelings for the older woman. You were reaching your anniversary and you loved her more now than you ever thought possible. Feelings that strong are impossible to hide.

It was during the champions league trip to Barcelona when Alex told you that she didn’t want to hide your relationship but that she also wasn’t ready for the world to know. You were ok with this as it meant no more hiding in bathrooms when unexpected guests turned up at your homes and at events the two of you didn’t sit on opposite sides of the table, you sat side by side. Alex didn’t flinch or panic when she felt your hand on her thigh.

The night before the London Derby Alex laid in bed actively trying to wind you up about the following days game. She was confident that her mighty Arsenal would beat your blues. It wasn’t going to happen and when your girlfriend offered up a bet you knew that you would do everything you could on the pitch to make sure she lost. It’s safe to say when Chelsea won 4-0 you were more than happy to go do pitch side media.

Alex, Fara and Karen stood analysing in the game when you snuck up behind them. You playfully pinch Alex’s waist. After greeting the other two presenters you take your place by your girlfriend’s side.

“And joining us now is Chelsea captain Y/N Y/L/N. I imagine you are happy with today’s result” Fara asks already knowing that you would be in an untouchable mood.

“More than happy. I think we showed today why we are running away with the league. It’s always a good day when we come away with three points. The fact it’s Arsenal who we took those points off make it that much better” you turn and she her shaking her head. “Alex?”

“London is blue” Erin comes in shouting with Millie, Sam and Guro not far behind her.

“I can’t” Alex ignores the new company as her focus remains on you. Her eyes begging you not to make her do this live on TV.

“Are we missing something?” Millie asks.

“Yes you are. You see Alex here was so confident that I would be beaten today that she made a very interesting bet, one which she now has to pay up”

You take the microphone out of her hands and place it on the table in front of you. The women around you watch and wait for the bet to be revealed. A huge hint comes as they see Alex taking off her coat and you taking of the rather sweaty match worn and winning Chelsea shirt.

“I made a bet with Y/N that Arsenal would win today and the bet was whoever lost has to wear the other team’s shirt”

“I wonder when this was made” Sam whispers behind you “Whilst she was in your bed, I think so” Her last comment earns her a elbow to the ribs.

“You can’t welsh on a bet Alex” you hand her your shirt and take her coat for her.

Your girlfriend smells your shirt and to anyone else the sweat might be enough to put them off but all Alex smells is your perfume.

You cannot take your eyes of her as you watch her put on your shirt. She had worn your England shirt numerous times but seeing her in blue did things to you.

Once the shirt is on she makes grabby hands for her coat but you shake your head. She wasn’t allowed to cover the badge. Alex had to wear this shirt until the moment she walked through the door to your apartment where you would take it off her, that was the bet.

“The things I do for the woman I love” It slips out before Alex realises what she has said. Fully aware that she is live on TV she does everything she can not to react to her confession. Luckily she wasn’t holding a microphone so she hoped that her words wasn’t picked up.

The people watching at home may not have heard her but the 4 Chelsea players near you sure did. When the camera cut the two of you were subject to a hoard of questions, all you vowed to answer at training but on the one condition that they remain tight lipped and to your shock they did.

This moment did make Alex realise that this luck wouldn’t always follow her and she asked if you would be happy for your friends to know, to which you said you were.

The rest of the world didn’t find out till a couple of months later when the final whistle was blown at the World Cup final in Australia. Just as she was for the Euros, Alex was in the small studio within the stadium covering the game for the BBC. It was your mistake that lead to the Spain’s one and only goal, the one that would go on the win them the coveted trophy and the all important star on the shirt.

She was live on TV when she was shown you sat on the pitch refusing support from your team mates. She could tell that you were crying and it was confirmed when you pulled you shirt down from over your face. Your eyes were red and she could feel your pain.

The rest of the punditry team was talking about the game but Alex remained quiet as she watched the monitor, mentally begging someone to stay by your side and refuse to leave. Alex realised she is being spoken to when she hears your name get brought up.

“You know this team, you know Y/N. She’s the captain of this team. What do you think is going through her mind right now?” Jonas asks her.

“She will blame herself for this. Y/N comes across as this stoic player but she had the biggest heart and this will be killing her inside” Alex turns to look down at the pitch to see you all alone and even from a distance she can see your body is racking with sobs.

“I’m sorry, I can’t do this. I need to go” Alex takes out her ear piece and hands it to one of the producers.

Nobody asks any questions as the former Lionesses walks out of the studio without saying another word.

You couldn’t believe what you had done. You, the captain whose job it was the lead the team to victory, had cost the team and the country the greatest accomplishment a national team can achieve. They had been playing the goal on the screens so you got to see your mistake over and over again. You deserved it, it was your punishment. You were never an emotional player but this defeat hurt more than any other in your career. Once again you find yourself pulling your shirt up to hide your tears.

“Look at me” you know that voice.

“I can’t. I can’t look at you Alex” your hands cover the shirt that covered your eyes.

“Please” Alex reaches for your hands expecting to be met with a fight but you didn’t have it in you. You had nothing left, no fight, no energy.

When you see her you break again only this time Alex is there to hold you. She pulls your up and into her arms, holding you tightly as your tears soak the shoulder of her pink stripped blazer. She lets you have your moment before trying to talk to you.

“This isn’t on you Y/N. You girls are a team. You win as one and you lose as one”

“But—“

“No buts. You lead this team to a World Cup final and that isn’t something to look over just because the game didn’t end how you wanted. You” Alex gently pokes your chest “will use this moment and come back stronger”

“I will” you voice is quiet but there is a hint of conviction in what you are saying.

Alex leans in to kiss you but you stop her as discreetly as you can.

“Look around, don’t do this here just because we lost” you divert your eyes to cameras that are around you.

“Who cares Y/N. If I’m not here for you now then I don’t deserve to be with you at all”

You nod you head. The game had broken you and there wasn’t anyone else you wanted to put you back together. Alex was it for you, public be damned.

“We were never the best at hiding were we?” You asked.

“No Y/N we weren’t but maybe that was the point. We wanted the world to know, we just didn’t know it at the time. Now let’s go, there’s nothing left for you on this pitch”

Alex drapes her arm around you shoulder pulling you in close. Your head rests on her shoulder as the two of you leave the pitch and into the changing room.

#woso x reader #woso imagine #woso one shot #alex Scott x reader #alex scott imagine #Alex Scott one shot

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so-much-for-the-seashells · 3 months

Text

Baking With BF!Dean Winchester Headcanons

✨ Dean Winchester x GN!Reader ✨

*sighs in 2014 was 10 years ago* Minors do NOT interact, this is not “rizz-ing!” Off you go!

A/N: I love writing these because they’re like half baked yet surprisingly endearing thoughts and it’s fun haha.

Icons by me!

All notes are appreciated! Hope you enjoy!

Content Warning: I have a bad sense of humor and make some sex jokes but nothing too explicit, at least I think so. Definitely still 18+

( ˘ ³˘)♥︎ ♥︎ ♥︎ ♥︎ ♥︎ ♥︎ ♥︎ ♥︎ ♥︎ ♥︎ ♥︎ ♥︎ ♥︎ ♥︎ ♥︎ ♥︎

-3 favorite things to bake with him

1. Pie (obvs)

2. Brownies (sometimes with pot…)

3. Cookies (all kinds)

-okay, now that that's been established...

-one day you had jokingly suggested the bunker should do a cookie jar

-this was taken seriously; not only by Dean, Sam and Cas; but also by literally every regular passerby. Even Rowena's made a batch of red velvet cookies. (We threw those ones away, we couldn't trust that they weren't poisoned, made of blood, or both)

-but if it's just the usual crew (you, the brothers, and Cas) then you have a weekly rotation

-and Dean regularly suckers you into "helping" him, even though you both knows he’s capable of being a big boy (and I mean he is a big boy if you catch my drift) and doing it himself

-those candy apple green eyes work wonders

-anyhoo

-one of his favorite, stupidly cheesy things to do is as follows:

-you’ll have a taste of the batter/dough/filling, as one does (it’s always good cause the two of you together are an unstoppable force in the kitchen) (alone is a different story- it’s usually Kraft Mac n Cheese cups)

-and while you’re trying it, making faces, he’ll look over and innocently ask if he can try it

-like “Can I get some, sweetheart?” (And yes he most certainly can get some.) (batter, I mean) (definitely batter) or “can I try some, doll?”

-and no matter how many times he’s tried it you’ll say yes

-so he’ll lean down, cupping your cheeks in his rough hands and kiss you as passionately as humanly possible

-like, these kisses could literally bake the cookies or whatever because of how hot they are

-and he’ll make sure he really gets to try it

-and then he’ll pull back with a smirk, cause he’s done it at least 30 times before and you still let him and still like melt into a puddle every single time. Without fail.

-you guys like to put on Disney soundtracks in the background when you bake. High school musical and Moana primarily, but he’s also taken with the soundtrack of Julie and the Phantoms. (He complained about the show being unrealistic supernaturally speaking and then was adamant that there should be a season two and cancelling it was a crime worthy of hell)

-also, rock, obviously. As a fan of Bon Jovi, you best believe you sell him on them and slow dance to Bed of Roses while things are in the oven. It’s only right.

-if you’re listening to heat of the moment and Sam the baby giraffe walks in he will get those sad eyes, making both of you scramble to make him something else, like some keto hidden veggie brownies or some shit, to make him feel better

-now, in specifics

-pie is for fun. You two usually make one to split for after dinner. Roughly once a month, but should be more often. Well, that’s not fair if you count creampies

-apple is his favorite, ofc. You use Mary’s recipe, and you’re the only person in the whole wide world that he trusts with modifying it in any way

-you also make them for him if he’s sick or if you guys have for some reason had a fight. The latter is rarer, but does still happen on occasion

-it’s okay though, because pie will always make things better

-cookies are almost exclusively for the jar. These are made on random frequencies, usually a lot at a time.

-he likes butterscotch a lot, and you find a way to mix your favorite flavors into either one monstrosity or one beauty of a cookie

-you guys have in fact made your own recipe. It’s awesome. Like, prized possession material.

-and then brownies

-they’re literally just pimped up store bought mix. Preferably Ghirardelli, for maximum bougie-ness

-and then sometimes you guys add some fun time grass

-you’ll do that when you just want to have a soft night. You’ll always way up to him laying on you and holding you like a koala though- may your back be prepared

-overall he just really enjoys spending time with you in any way that he can and baking is a great way to do that

-Dean Winchester is precious

-I rest my case

If you have any ideas for more headcanons, send a request! My box is always open!

#dean winchester x you #dean winchester fluff #dean winchester x reader #dean winchester headcanon #dean winchester fanfiction #dean winchester #dean winchester is a queen in the kitchen #supernatural x reader #supernatural fanfiction #dean winchester smut

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t-lostinworlds · 2 months

Text

Warm Winter & Fiery Frost [2] | Bucky Barnes

》 PAIRING: bucky barnes x ex-HYDRA assassin!female!reader

》 TROPE/GENRE: grumpy x grumpy, enemies to lovers-ish, slow burn-ish, angst, fluff-ish

》 SUMMARY: They say opposites attract. You and Bucky were so alike—He was called The Winter Soldier and you were called Frost, for fucks sake—that it's probably the reason why you hated each other. Or was it the denying of powerful feelings in fear of getting hurt? You know, like how the cliché goes. Because you know what they also say: There's a fine line between love and hate.

》 WARNINGS: read full warnings here

》 WORD COUNT: 16.4k+

A/N: here's part two! this starts off right where the other one ended. this is also the last part, BUT BUT if you want to see more of these two or like more detailed scenes that were just mentioned in the fic just lemme know so maybe i can write it as a blurb! <3 enjoy reading!

📘 READ ON AO3 | ★ FIC MASTERPOST

📍 BLOG NAVIGATION✩ B. BARNES MASTERLIST ✩ MAIN MASTERLIST ✩

⊱ ─────.⋅♚ *｡･ﾟ.★. *｡･ﾟ✫*.

When the rest of the team was ushered into the conference room for a debrief, you and Bucky were ordered by the Captain himself to go into a separate office. It was obvious in Steve's tone that he was serious about it. So there was no room for argument. The second Sam ended up leading the way for you both, Bucky immediately knew what this was about.

Sam gestured towards the two seats in front of the desk. You didn't bother arguing and just took your place. Bucky sat across you with a sigh.

You wouldn't even look at him.

If this was any other day, you two would've been deep into a glare-off by now.

But nothing.

Even though Bucky was looking right at you, you couldn't even do as much as lift your head. You were just fixated on the one spot on your knee, picking at it like there was some loose thread when there obviously wasn't.

Bucky couldn't stand watching you act so timid and defeated like this, so he looked away.

"Nobody wants to speak? Fine, I'll speak." Sam said after a moment, hands clasped on the table. "What the actual hell, you two?"

It was such a vague question. But somehow, both of you already knew how out of line the whole argument was because you both looked at each other without much thought.

You were quick to avert your gaze, though.

"Look, I get it," Sam sighed, looking at you two pointedly. "Everything was tense back there. We definitely weren't in high spirits when things didn't go the way we wanted it to. But was that anyone's fault?"

You both shook your head no.

"And as far as I'm concerned, you were only looking out for each, just like how teammates would correct?"

You both nodded.

It honestly was starting to look like some preschool principal's office. Bucky would've found it funny if there weren't harsh words haphazardly thrown in the mix.

"Both of you said things out of anger, and I think we can all agree that both of you went out of line," Sam continued. "But I think I'm right in assuming that neither of you meant it, either."

Bucky nodded. You didn't respond.

"Now, look each other in the eye and apologize."

"I'm not going first," he grumbled out of stubbornness.

It was becoming a bad habit, one that only ever shines around you.

He wasn't proud of it.

"You started it, asshole," you huffed, the fire in your tone slowly coming back.

Bucky rolled his eyes. "Wow, that's real mature of you—"

"Quit it," Sam interrupted, crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned in his seat, making himself comfortable. "You're not leaving here until you both apologize."

There was a beat.

You sighed deeply, your body slumping on your chair.

Another beat before you finally met his eyes.

"I'm sorry," you said, uncharacteristically gentle. "None of it was your fault. I know you didn't have a choice. I shouldn't have said what I said."

Bucky's face softened, brows raising in surprise.

He didn't expect to see guilt in your eyes, nor did he expect to hear absolute sincerity in your voice.

It made him feel even worse.

Of course he knew you didn't mean what you said. After his comment, despite not exactly planning for you to hear it, your reaction was to be expected.

It was never pleasant to be called a 'Useless bitch,' no matter the language.

But despite only saying it out of anger, and not at all meaning it, he wasn't quite sure if you knew that.

"What I said was out of line. I'm sorry," Bucky said, his heart aching when he saw the slight mist in your eyes. "I know he double-crossed you and if you hadn't pulled that trigger, countless young girls would've been sold to God knows who. You did the right thing."

You nodded and looked away.

"And you're not useless, Y/N," he said softly, your eyes snapping up to meet his.

It was the first time he ever said your name. Bucky never truly called you by anything before apart from the occasional printsessa just to get on your nerves. Your name felt so new on his tongue yet so right that he wanted to say it again and again.

"You never were."

You didn't say anything.

You simply looked at Sam, as if begging for this to be over with.

Bucky wouldn't lie and say that didn't sting a little.

"Alright, how about a truce?" Sam said, nodding at you both. "Shake on it."

Bucky put his hand out and you took it. But he only felt your skin on his for a second before it was gone. So brief he might as well have imagined it.

He tried saying something. But before he could even grasp what exactly it was he wanted to say, you stood up and walked out of the room.

Through the glass walls, he watched you wrap your arms around yourself, head down and never looking back.

He'd never seen you look so small.

Bucky hated that he was the cause of it.

•••

He couldn't sleep.

Bucky had been staring at the wall for hours now. The very wall that connected your room to his. He wasn't quite sure what was keeping him awake—the guilt, the worry, the longing, or everything else in between.

Sighing, he got out of bed and quietly went to your shared kitchen. He didn't want to wake you up in case you were already asleep.

But as he reached the end of the hallway, he saw that the hanging light above the island was on, a figure sitting on one of the stools with a bottle of some cheap wine on the counter.

He instantly knew it was you.

Bucky wasn't sure if you noticed him yet, contemplating if he should just leave you be and give you some space. Though he should've known better. You were a trained assassin—one of the best in his opinion. So of course you already knew he was standing there, despite being in the shadows of the hallway.

"Luka," you said, eyes glued to the something on the counter. "His name was Luka."

It took him a second to realize who you were talking about. Perhaps it was sheer curiosity, or perhaps he sensed that you probably needed this. Either way, Bucky crossed the distance and sat across you on the barstool.

That was when he noticed the brown folder just sitting there, all worn and discolored as if it's been through years of handling.

It was obvious what it was.

You took a swig of the bottle, Bucky's gaze swiftly moving over your face, his heart stinging at the sight of your bloodshot eyes. Whether from the alcohol or from crying, he wasn't quite sure. It was probably even both. Still, an air of sadness surrounded you, a melancholic look sketched on your beautiful features.

Bucky hated it.

"He was a few years older than me—nine years if you want the specifics—but the youngest leader of any operation HYDRA has ever done," you continued, still nothing meeting him in the eye. "He was the son of the Red Room's head scientist, Lyudmila Antonovna Kudrin. HYDRA recruited Luka, which gave him all the resources he needed to recreate his mother's genius."

"But you two became close," he asked.

"Luka was my teacher and my best friend," you said with such longing and grief that there was no doubt that you two had grown a strong bond. But then you met his gaze, a sad smile on your lips. "Or something you're probably more familiar with, my handler."

A chill ran down Bucky's spine.

He knew that there was something else going on, that it wasn't just a normal relationship. He just didn't expect it to be this deep and well, fucked up.

"Acted differently with me, though. He was sweet and kind—never laid a hand, never even raised his voice. He was patient, encouraging, affectionate. He'd make me laugh over the stupidest things, but also firm enough to make sure I give the best that I can. He was—" Your voice cracked, a sound so vulnerable it made his heart ache. "He used to sneak some snacks into my room at night even though it was against my training regime. We'd watch movies on this old, beat-up television until we'd fall asleep, cuddling with each other because my room didn't have a heater. He gave me cute nicknames—printsessa, was his favorite."

Bucky felt his throat dry up.

That explained so much of the animosity you had over the nickname.

Maybe that was why you weren't phased when people called you Frost, because it was a different name entirely that brought you harsh memories.

And Bucky was the only one who taunted it every single time.

"If people were to ask you to think of an evil scientist, he's never going to be the person that'd cross your mind."

"You never saw it coming," Bucky sighed.

You shook your head. "It was innocent at first, a friendship. But as I grew older we became more…intimate."

He hated how you looked so guilty and ashamed. None of it was your fault. It was obvious enough that this poor excuse of a guy manipulated you to a point where you thought there was something real between you two.

If this guy wasn't already dead Bucky couldn't even begin to describe what he'd do to him.

"That night was probably what he was waiting for. It was the best proof he could get that trusted him completely by giving him my—" You bit your lip and looked down.

Bucky didn't need you to say it to know.

He thought he'd be a little jealous to hear you talk about the intimacies of your relationship, with anyone for that matter. But all he felt was pure sadness and hurt. You gave all that you could to this guy—your trust, your affection, your love and he just spat it right back to your face.

"And I did. I fucking trusted him because I was young, impressionable, and stupid—"

"Stop that," Bucky said firmly. "You were not stupid."

"I still fell for it, didn't I?" you scoffed, shaking your head. "But when you get that little bit of sunshine in a cold harsh world, you hang on to it."

Bucky already knew what horrors HYDRA was capable of. Hell, he'd live through decades of it himself. But just as he thought they couldn't get any more cruel, they pulled something monstrous like this.

It was pure evil.

To make you believe that you had someone in your corner during those moments, that someone actually cared for you, someone who showered you with affection and made you feel like you were free, someone who made you laugh despite your circumstances.

Only for that person to end up being a complete monster who only ever used you for personal gain.

With Bucky, he always knew that all of them were evil bastards, that they never truly cared for him, and that they didn't even see him as a human. He always knew that he was just an asset and nothing more. HYDRA did so many wicked things to him, from physical, mental and emotional torture to countless abuse. But at least he knew what it was from the start.

With you?

They gave you warmth and hope only to snatch it away like it was some useless toy and slap you with it.

He couldn't even imagine how it must've felt, the betrayal, the hurt and heartbreak on top of all the physical and mental torture that was inflicted on you because they sure as hell weren't going to exempt you from that.

And all of this because of one person.

"I trusted him, blindly and completely. I let him lead me into this lab every single day even if I come out of it not knowing anything they were doing because I trusted him."

It was probably subconscious, the way you had been scratching the back of your neck from time to time.

Bucky understood why.

He used to do the same with his shoulder whenever he was recalling something from his past.

"A month in that lab, I woke up to something stinging in the back of my neck," you continued. "He told me not to worry about it, that it was going to help me be the best in my field, that it was there for communication Purposes. Well, he wasn't lying," you scoffed. "Not exactly."

"What did they give you in that lab?" he asked, despite already having an inkling. HYDRA was never one to stray too far away from their old ways.

"A variation of the super soldier serum, administered in small doses. They didn't perfect it yet, and after I've—" You took a deep breath. "The program was delayed after the incident since Luka was mostly the brains of the operation. So I ended up being more than your typical human, but not quite close to a super soldier. I was a бесполезная середина. They loved calling me that."

Bucky shut his eyes as the guilt punched him in the gut.

Useless middle.

How has he managed to do it twice?

"Ironic since I was their most used asset during my time there," you said, shrugging. "I mean, I've got a great immune system so it's rare for me to get sick, enhanced stamina, have that bit of extra strength. I age slower than most, not as slow as you and Steve but, slow enough."

No wonder why you were able to hold out your own during that spar against him. And while the serum did give you an advantage over most, Bucky didn't doubt that it merely aided your deadly skills. He truly did believe you could still give him a run for his money without it.

"And the chip?"

"Learned that the hard way. It did nothing for the first few months that I had it—not yet, I supposed since I was still willingly compliant with whatever they wanted me to do," you explained, shaking your head dejectedly. "It should've been enough of a warning that I was the only one who had it.

"The missions they assigned me to weren't much at first. Most of the time all I did was just steal technology or whatever it was they needed to build their weapons." A shadow crossed your face. "At least that was what they made me believe."

Bucky frowned. "Until that night."

You nodded. "As I was getting ready to do the op, one of the scientists was talking about how this shipment was crucial to the start of Program Six. It piqued my interest. Not only that but, despite being highly trained since he was part of the military, Luka preferred to be in the lab than out in the field. Yet somehow he wanted to join me during this one. So I was extra wary that night, looking for something even though I wasn't quite sure there was something to look for. But then I heard it—faint whimpers and sniffles and then a very tiny, sweet voice saying 'It'll be okay.'

"I was under strict instructions not to mess with the shipment in case some chemical might get displaced or whatever. But something in my gut just told me to open this one. So I did," you breathed out, blinking back tears before taking another swig of the bottle. "When I opened those doors and saw those little kids, not older than six or seven, mostly young girls…I was just so angry."

Despite your choice of words, the only thing that coated your voice was pure sadness. Bucky wanted to reach out to you and provide even the tiniest bit of comfort. But he figured it was best to just let you finish before anything else.

Besides, you weren't close.

He didn't know how you would react to any physical affection from him, no matter the intention.

"I felt so betrayed because he kept saying that it was only weapons we were stealing, it was only chemicals we were transporting. I was foolish enough to not look into it because I trusted him," you gritted, harshly slamming the bottle back on the counter, the glass cracking but not breaking.

"But he was feeding me half-truths the entire time. There were weapons they took for storage, I just wasn't made aware that it was going to be used for training these young kids. Chemicals were being transported, they just never mentioned the fact that it was used for the recreation of super soldier serum. But with the kids—" You shook your head. "I never knew. They were taking notes from the Red Room, I supposed. But with this program, they were going to be more merciless, get them used to wielding heavier artillery and fight like a soldier and be undetectable and cunning like a spy—a deadly combination of the Black Widow Program and the Winter Soldier Program."

"And you're the first," Bucky said, voice coming out rougher than he intended it to.

"His best and newest weapon," you laughed sarcastically. "I thought he cared about me—well, he did. Not me as his friend, not even as a person but as a symbol of his success, living proof of his genius, to make his мама proud. I was nothing more but his naïve little plaything."

Bucky's jaw clenched.

He would never wish for you to see that man ever again. But if Bucky could bring him back to life, he would—just so he could kill him again in the most brutal way he could. That monster didn't deserve your mercy of a quick death. It should have been very slow and excruciating. He would've made sure of it.

But, what's done was done. The bastard was gone, leaving you here with nothing but the ghosts and demons that were so fucking hard to escape from when they lived inside your mind.

"It was smart, making himself seem vulnerable with me, letting me believe that I had freedom, that I was his equal. After all, the best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he’s in prison."

"Fyodor Dostoyevsky," Bucky grumbled. "Yeah, HYDRA tends to live by that."

"He probably thought he had me wrapped around his fingers that tightly when he told me all of this straight to my face. He was always proud. He underestimated just how much anger and heartbreak can do to a person. And that night all I saw was red and then he called me printsessa in the most condescending and degrading way and I just—" You breathed in shakily. "I shot him. No hesitation. No second thought. Right in between the eyes."

In the years that he'd been on this planet, Bucky had realized that the one thing that men like Luke had in common was the stupidity that only an unchecked ego can bring. They always get so high off the power they have over a person that they tend to forget that they aren't invincible.

This Luka bastard simply forgot what you were capable of. It was quite ironic since he technically created you—as fucked up as that sounds. He probably got a kick out of it, watching your heart break into pieces right in front of his eyes. He probably thought that by being so blatant with his betrayal, you were going to be weakened, that you were going to submit to him.

But everyone knows how the saying goes:

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

Bucky only saw a glimpse of this anger you were speaking of, and he would never want to be on the receiving end of it. He wasn't a genius, but he was smart enough to know that you were way too powerful. You could easily make him suffer if you truly wanted to, it didn't matter if he was a super soldier.

"That was how I knew what the microchip did. It sends signals to your brain that your body is in excruciating pain even when it's not," you explained. "It tricks your brain into feeling like you're getting shot without any trace of a gunshot wound. It's like torture without any physical consequences. No damage to my body meant no time wasted on recovery, so they were able to throw me into mission after mission, nonstop."

"How—"

"I was able to fight the pain long enough to grab his radio," you breathed out shakily, eyes everywhere else as your fingers picked at the torn label of the bottle.

Bucky couldn't even imagine what that experience was like. To stare at the corpse of someone you care about whose death was at your own hands, the searing pain that your mind was tricking you into, trying to save these young children as quickly as possible—all of that while harboring the guilt, the feeling of betrayal, the grief, the heartache at the same time.

"I don't know why but HYDRA liked to keep tabs on SHIELD so any information about them was known to most in the facility, including ways to contact them and intercept their lines," you elaborated. "For some unconscious reason, I was able to memorize one of their channels. Luckily enough, my call went straight to Nat's communication line. She traced it back to my location and was able to get the kids out."

"That's how she found you?"

"No." You shook your head. "I wasn't there when they arrived. I knew the chip was also a tracker. I couldn't stay there and lead HYDRA straight to the children. So I got into one of their vans and drove as far as I could go, trying to tell my mind that I didn't have any injuries, that it was a trick. I didn't know how long I was driving until I passed out from the pain. It wasn't long after that HYDRA inevitably found me and they were not happy."

That was an understatement.

HYDRA never took it lightly when one of their prisoners escaped. They were egotistical bastards. A crack in their system was unacceptable and they were going to try their hardest to rectify that—torturing escapees was just the start.

What more if said escapee killed the leader of their current program?

"After that, they returned to old ways," you said, your teary eyes finally meeting his. "Wiped my memory and controlled me with the chip like I was their real life video game character and all I could do was let them. Every time I fought it and gained consciousness and fought back—"

"The chip hurts you."

"I became their new favorite asset, molded me to become even more like their all time favorite," you snorted, raising the bottle to him with a nod before emptying it in one go. Despite everything you'd just told him, some humor managed to sneak into your tone. "At least they didn't name me Winter Soldier II. That would've been so fucking annoying."

"It would've." Bucky cracked a small smile. Though it was gone a second later. "How did you get out?"

"Natasha Romanoff and her stubbornness," you hummed, the corner of your lip lifting a little. "That night when I called her, a proof that I was actually still alive, it gave her enough courage to keep looking for me."

"But you've met before?"

"Briefly." You nodded. "Back in the Red Room. I was only nine when she was already close to graduating. Left an impression on her when I beat her at a spar."

"You didn't," Bucky couldn't help but chuckle. That must've been a sore spot for the Widow.

"I did," you hummed, smiling a little. It made his heart warm despite the gloomy atmosphere. "I was a feisty little girl, an absolute terror. Managed to cut her arm and it caught her off guard. It gave me enough time to pin her down."

Bucky wasn't surprised one bit.

There was an extremely valid reason why HYDRA took interest in you.

"She took me under her wing for most of it, me and this other girl, Yelena. It wasn't long until I saw them as my sisters. Sometimes you just bond quickly in that environment. But during Nat's graduation ceremony, a deal got closed. I was traded to HYDRA and I never saw them again," you continued, the sadness seeping back into your body. "She didn't stop looking for me though. Even more when she found a lead through the Red Room's system before destroying it. But then it was all just dead ends because HYDRA didn't stay in one place for long. They grew paranoid after what happened to Dreykov. Nat was starting to lose all hope until that call."

"But she didn't find you right after?"

You shook your head. "Not after years later. HYDRA kept me in the shadows as much as they could. So most of my missions were quick and under the radar. But when word got around that The Winter Soldier was now walking amongst civilians, they saw that as an opportunity. They thought it was worth the risk to send me even though I would be out in the open more."

Bucky straightened in his seat. "You were sent to kill me?"

"Do you really think they wanted their favorite child out of the picture?" you said, brow raised. "They just wanted me to extract you and take you back."

"But you never got close enough," Bucky said, unable to push aside his ego. "I would've noticed if you did."

You rolled your eyes. "No, I didn't. Not only did that intel leak, Nat has been tracking everything under the sun for any signs of me. So she and Steve got to me first."

Bucky vaguely remembered that mission.

He'd only been at the compound for a year when Steve and Nat suddenly disappeared for a couple of weeks. They said it was a simple recon mission at first. But then they never got back during the time they said they would be, kept saying that something new came up. The team was kept updated that they were fine and alive, but was never told any details.

When they did get back, the two of them would be in and out of the compound every other week and for days on end. They always did it together and Bucky found that a little suspicious. So he asked Steve if something was going on between the two. Even though Steve turned bright red he told Bucky it wasn't like that, and that whatever it was they were hiding, he'd find out soon enough.

Nine months later, the whole team was called for a meeting. Turns out, Steve and Nat had been looking after someone in Wakanda, someone who they heavily vouched to be a great addition to the team. There was a lot of back and forth during that time, especially given the background provided. But ultimately, they decided to give a second chance because, as Nat said so pointedly at everyone, that's what the Avengers were for.

The day after that meeting, you arrived at the compound.

"Nine years," Bucky said, gaze holding your confused ones. "You were controlled by the chip for nine years."

"I know. You went through it far longer than I have—"

"It's not a competition."

"Then why have you been acting like it is?" you scoffed. Bucky could do nothing but watch as you slowly build your walls back up. "Nat promised me a fresh start when I joined the Avengers, and it has been like that for the most part. But you can't seem to let go of where I've come from."

"Can you blame me?" he said, starting to get defensive.

"I get it, alright. An ex-HYDRA assassin just waltzing into your lives calls for extra precaution," you scoffed, shaking your head. "But you didn't have to be a fucking asshole about it."

Bucky clenched his jaw, glare now starting to match yours.

Why does it always end in an argument?

"You know what's funny? Steve talked so highly of you. He was so excited for us to meet, said how we both would get along, how we're going to be fast friends or whatever. But then I met you and you just hated me from the start."

"Don't fucking act as if you liked me," he argued.

"I just fucking couldn't!" you admitted, breathing starting to become heavy. "Because you remind me of him too much."

He scoffed, throwing his hands up. "How the fuck is that my fault?"

"Do you even remember what your first words to me were?"

Bucky looked away.

Of course he remembered.

It was the shittiest thing to say to a person at the first meeting.

"Luka was holding a file when I first met him," you gritted. "My file."

It wasn't intentional.

None of what Bucky did was ever intentional.

He didn't know.

But that somehow made it even scarier, how he was able to emulate a ghost from your past without much thought, hesitation or any effort.

"So that's why you hate me?" he said, defeated. "Because I remind you of him?"

You looked away.

It was an answer in itself.

Bucky deflated in his seat, any signs of mending whatever this was with you, to be civil or hopefully have a friendship, thrown out the window. Because how was he meant to compete with that? You hated him because seeing him reminds you of a trauma from your past. These things were out of his control.

Or were they?

Did it count when he'd been wearing a mask in front of you this whole time?

"Why tell me all of this then?" he asked glumly.

"That's why you don't trust me, isn't it? Because you didn't know much about what happened?" you said as if it was obvious. "Well, now you know. You can finally leave me alone." You hopped off your stool, pushing the folder towards him. "Your favorite thing to read."

As you were walking away, he called out,

"Y/N?"

His heart ached a little when you tensed.

You stopped but you didn't turn around.

"For what it's worth," he said, eyes carefully trained on your figure. "You're a good person and none of that was your fault."

He saw your shoulders drop a little. But you didn't say a word. You continued walking, leaving him there alone under the kitchen light.

Bucky looked at the file for what seemed like hours, just staring at the bold letters of a foreign language that covered the front. Still, he didn't need to be fluent in Russian to know what it was about. He was battling with himself, if there was any real need for him to read it, if he even wanted to.

Yet curiosity got the best of him.

The second he opened it, his blood ran cold.

The first thing he saw was a Polaroid photo of two people. He recognized you, obviously. You looked so much younger, though. Bucky didn't know if that was because this picture was taken so long ago, or it was the fact that you were smiling, so wide and bright, so innocent.

But that wasn't the unnerving part.

It was the man standing next to you with an arm around your waist, looking at you with a charming, almost boyish smile.

Bucky has never met this man in his life but dear God he looked too familiar it was fucking terrifying.

When you said Bucky reminded you of Luka, he thought you meant it as the way he'd been acting around you.

He didn't expect it to be physical too.

The man in the photo might as well have been Bucky.

If the picture wasn't faded, then maybe the difference would be obvious. But he doubted it. The same stature, the same bone structure to the face, the same eyebrows, the same hair—when it was longer, at least. He couldn't get a clear look of the eyes but he wouldn't put it past the universe that it was the same color as his as well. The resemblance wasn't close enough for them to look like identical twins, but this man could definitely pass as Bucky's brother.

It was so uncanny it made his skin crawl.

No wonder why you could barely look at him when you first got here.

With a shaky breath, he closed the folder without venturing further.

He left it outside your door as he went back to his room. Though, it was obvious he was going to have a hard time sleeping tonight.

•••

It was like being back to square one.

Well, not like you two truly ever moved past that phase.

You still left tiny traces of you around your shared floor so it wasn't like you'd turned into a complete ghost. And, unfortunately, your nightmares have been more frequent than before.

He felt a sense of guilt about that. Maybe him making you relive your past was the reason for it.

Either way, the arguments and bickering had been happening less. It was simply because you didn't say a word to him whenever he was around. You only acknowledged his presence whenever he would speak to you first—or should he say, got on your nerves.

It wasn't like he was picking fights with you out of the blue like a schoolboy trying to get your attention—okay, maybe it was close enough to that.

Bucky was being pedantic when it came to you. Whether that's correcting your stance during training when there really was no need, arguing about your choice of strategy out in the field, harping about why you changed the setting on the dishwasher to the wrong one, or complaining about the show you were watching despite not knowing anything about it.

He honestly wouldn't be surprised if you'd suddenly throw a knife at him one of these days.

You hadn't, though. You'd simply look at him calm and composed, get your final word—or insult, whichever came first—and walk away.

Somehow, your level-headed response annoyed him more than your quips and comebacks.

He couldn't truly explain why he was acting this way.

It could be that there was just something different about arguing with you now, like somehow there was no real animosity behind the words.

Despite you confirming that you did in fact hate him—for reasons he thought were quite unfair—Bucky didn't necessarily feel said hatred. Annoyance? Absolutely. But did you despise him? He wasn't quite sure.

He wasn't calling you a liar by any means. He simply thought that maybe, just maybe, there was something else hidden beneath the surface.

And in the days that followed, his assumptions had only been proven right more and more each time.

•••

Bucky jolted up from his bed drenched in sweat.

His nightmares had been happening so far in between lately, which he was grateful for. Getting to work on it daily in therapy definitely helped.

But that didn't mean they disappeared entirely.

Taking a deep, shaky breath, he closed his eyes and listened.

Whenever he woke up from a nightmare, he would always find a way to ground himself back. That was the advice given to him and it did work from time to time. Lately, he'd been doing it quite differently.

Ever since you moved to the room next to his, to be specific.

He didn't know why, but hearing your heartbeat or your calm breathing was enough to ground him in some way. Sure, it might have been a little creepy but, it wasn't like he was making his way into your room, standing there until he calmed down.

At first, he thought he was hearing your heartbeat through the wall. With his enhanced hearing, it wasn't far-fetched for that to be the case. But the more his senses slowly refocused, he realized that the sound seemed to come from a different direction.

Bucky stared at his bedroom door, brows deeply furrowed.

As quietly as he could, he got out of bed, making his way towards it and then pressing his ear against the surface.

Bucky felt his heart stutter when he heard it, heard you—soft yet shaky breaths, heart beating a little faster, fingers tapping nervously against the door that separated you both.

You were right there.

Have you always been right there?

You were fighting with yourself in your head, wondering if you should knock or just walk away. There was no need for him to be able to read your mind.

Bucky knew.

He knew because he'd done the same thing for you.

Sure, it was presumptuous. But why else would you be doing this, standing outside his room in the middle of the night, close enough that he could hear the loudly erratic beating of your heart through the thick and solid hardwood door?

Bucky contemplated opening it even if he didn't know what would happen if he did, so many possibilities because whatever this was between you two had always been unpredictable.

Or maybe it wasn't.

Maybe it was painfully obvious what this was, you two were simply too in denial and downright stubborn to admit it to yourselves, let alone, each other.

But before Bucky could come to a decision, he heard you sigh, long and deep, something akin to relief. You probably mistook the silence as him falling back to sleep. Not long after that, he heard your footsteps slowly fade away, and then your door closing.

Bucky was awake for the rest of the night.

Not because of the horrors that haunted his dreams, but because of the woman that made him so confused in more ways than one.

Yet this discovery simply pushed him to be more observant about things, to not let his emotions drive first, which has always been the case when you were in the picture.

It was then that Bucky started to see things differently.

During the day, you were the same feisty firecracker, never looking in his direction unless with a glare, only speaking to him in a tone of disdain.

But pushing all your hostility aside, he was now seeing the little things.

And Bucky has never felt so blind and stupid.

It had always been there, the little acts of kindness that most would overlook. He always appreciated it since it was something new to him after decades of only ever receiving horrible things from others. He simply assumed it was from everyone else. Whether that was from Steve or Sam or Wanda or Nat, or maybe even Tony from time to time when technology to enhance his comfort was involved.

Never you.

With how you two were with each other, it shouldn't have been surprising that he put you last on the list of people who would actually do something nice for him.

But as he stared at the pre-made coffee waiting for him in the morning, he couldn't stop wondering just how long you'd been doing this for him.

Sam, despite having a kitchen of his own, always seemed to migrate to yours every morning and ate his breakfast there. And whenever Bucky would wake up to the ruckus, there was always a cup of coffee already waiting for him while Wilson sipped his own mug. So he simply assumed that the man had made one for him, too.

But Sam wasn't in the compound at the moment, and wouldn't be for a couple of weeks.

Yet the coffee was still there, waiting for him.

How could one person be so blind?

Bucky should've clocked it the second he teased Sam about doing something nice for him for once. Wilson had looked confused at first, a split second where his eyes widened before nodding frantically. Saying stuff about it being the least he could do for always raiding the fridge.

You walked past Bucky a second later.

He didn't think much of it at that time, especially when you two started bickering immediately.

Now, it made so much sense.

Sure, this might all just be in his head and he was way off the mark. That was also plausible.

But then there was the reappearing tea on his bedside table when he was having a particularly hard week.

•••

Bucky jolted awake, grabbing the wrist of someone who was reaching over his bedside table.

His grip immediately slackened when he met the eyes of a very startled you.

"What are you doing?" he asked, voice gruff from sleep, especially when he hadn't been leaving his bed for some time now.

He wasn't exempted from having off days. He might not get sick due to the serum in his veins, but that didn't extend to the mental side of things, unfortunately. This week had been tough on him, especially after a rescue mission that didn't go as smoothly as planned. There were no casualties, thankfully, but when the injured involved the innocent, it was simply hard to deal with.

Given that he was at the forefront of said mission, he mostly took it more personal than the others. He was grateful the rest of the team was letting him be and leaving him alone. They knew it was what he needed so they didn't pester him about getting out of his room or simply didn't bother him at all.

Well, most of them.

Seemed like a certain someone couldn't resist any longer.

He hadn't seen you in days, so this was quite a lovely surprise to see you in his room. He couldn't even be bothered to think about how you got in.

Bucky was just happy that you were here.

"Steve ordered me to give you these so," you reasoned, shrugging to seem nonchalant but you wouldn't meet his eyes.

Bucky glanced at the mug you set on his nightstand, the smell of chamomile slowly invading his senses. Then it was followed by something chocolatey, which he later would find out was a slice of brownie.

As his eyes drifted back to you, he couldn't stop his lips from twitching into a small smile.

He had never seen you so flustered and most of all shy before.

It was adorable.

While Steve did check on him earlier today, he wasn't quite sure if he had something to do with your sweet gesture.

Nobody made you do anything, much less, something nice for him.

“Steve ordered you?”

“Mhmm,” you said, still looking anywhere but at him. "I—He wanted to see if you were still alive."

Bucky could tell you were lying. If not for the unsureness in your voice, then the way you looked so caught definitely gave it away.

"He busy or something?" he asked anyway, enjoying the way you squirmed.

Sue him, alright. He'd never seen you like this before. It was such a rare sight and you looked so fucking cute. He couldn't help but prolong it a little bit longer. It was making his heart warm.

You shrugged, your sock—one with bunnies on them—clad feet rubbing on your ankle. "Something, probably."

"Hmm." He tilted his head, eyes still carefully on you. "Are those brownies?"

"Yep. Store-bought," you said, nodding far too quickly for it to be convincing.

"Did Steve buy them?"

"No, I—" you paused, pursing your lips before sighing, "Yes."

He couldn't contain his chuckle.

That made you even more flustered.

"Can you—" You glanced at his fingers still wrapped around your wrist, wiggling it softly, silently asking him to let go. "—got, uhm, stuff to do."

"Okay, well, tell Steve thank you." he hummed, thumb softly stroking your wrist before he let you go. "I really appreciate this."

You only nodded, scurrying out of his room without even bothering to close his door.

Bucky chuckled at that.

Later that night when he went to the kitchen to grab a quick snack, he found the rest of the brownies in a glass container, sitting in the fridge. But what put a smile on his face was an empty box of brownie mix sitting in the trash.

Bucky was sure you baked them yourself.

Was it too presumptuous to say that you did it solely for him?

Maybe.

But one thing was for sure, things were starting to get clearer for him because the more he observed your behavior, the less complicated things seemed to be.

It was getting obvious, how your hatred for him was a façade—as time moved past anyway. Perhaps there was some disdain the first few months, especially when you started on the wrong foot.

He couldn't say when exactly it happened, but he could see that your animosity towards him had turned into a heavily enforced wall to protect yourself.

From what? Probably the same reason why Bucky's distaste towards you was nothing more than a shield.

Looking back to the first time he laid eyes on you. The emotions he felt were simply so intense and happened so quickly that, well, it scared him. So what did he do instead of confronting these feelings head-on? He denied, denied, denied—tried so fucking hard to find all your flaws and imperfections to put a damper to it.

It was a poor attempt to not get closebecause there obviously was something there, something that if left unattended, would grow powerful, leave him utterly vulnerable and at your mercy, so much to a point where it would be dangerous.

When he had already, wholeheartedly, admitted that he would let you burn the world down, how could it not be?

Yet as dangerous as it could be, would that really negate the fact that this thing with you—if it were to blossom—had the potential to make him so happy?

Bucky flopped back on his bed with a sigh, glancing at the now-empty mug on his bedside table. It was the fifth one that appeared on his nightstand this week, along with either a brownie or some other sweet treat.

And to say that he truly believed that these secret acts of kindness were one-sided.

He could almost hear Steve's all-knowing voice in his head.

"The two of you are more alike than you think."

•••

"The tea and brownies. She said you made her do it. Is that true?" Bucky decided to confront his best friend on one of their morning runs together.

Steve's eyes widened, cheeks turning red but he still refused to say anything.

He shot him a look.

"Buck…"

"I just want the truth, Steve."

"I caught her baking brownies when I went to check on you. I jokingly said how nice it was to do this for you and she immediately made me swear not to tell anyone. So, she's going to kill me for this," Steve caved, chuckling. "I didn't know it was a regular occurrence."

"Well, it kept appearing until I felt better," Bucky said, cheeks heating up. He turned to the other person who was watching the conversation with amusement. "And you?"

"Me?" Sam blinked.

"The coffee in the morning."

"She was giving me the death glare, what was I meant to do?" Sam defended before smirking. "And no offense, Buck, but I'm more afraid of her than I am of you."

"Great," he sighed, glaring at them both with no real heat behind it. "Now I see where both your allegiances lie."

"I genuinely thought you figured it out by now?"

He looked at Sam confused. "Figured out what?"

"The nice things she's been doing for you?" Sam said, eyes widening when Bucky didn't have a moment of clarity. "Oh wow. I didn't know you were this oblivious."

"What Sam is trying to say," Steve interjected. "She has done some nice things for you. Sometimes you're just too busy being angry or annoyed at her to notice."

Bucky already knew that.

It didn't make it less embarrassing to have someone else point it out for him, though.

"She gets angry and annoyed at me first," he grumbled—much like a child, he was aware.

"Probably on purpose." Sam shrugged, elaborating when they looked at him confused. "She probably doesn't want you to know in case you'd make fun of her for it. You two don't exactly have the greatest track record when it comes to being nice to each other. So she probably thinks you're going to take it the wrong way."

Was that why you were rendered so shy and perhaps, nervous when he caught you?

"Don't worry, Buck." Steve patted his back. "You two will figure it out eventually."

He didn't know what exactly he meant by that, yet somehow, Bucky felt hopeful that it would.

Eventually.

•••

"Wanda, can I ask you something?"

"She does," she answered before Bucky could even elaborate. "She does look out for you in the field. You're just too focused on keeping her safe to notice it."

Bucky's heart stuttered at that.

Since Wanda always had a high vantage point during missions so she could help whenever she was needed most, it wasn't farfetched that she'd actually see this play out.

It was probably quite an amusing sight to see you two watch each other's six discreetly enough to not let the other notice.

"Did you read my mind?" Bucky narrowed his eyes teasingly.

"No," she laughed. "Sam's just a blabbermouth."

"Yeah, figured it out as much."

"He couldn't stop talking about you debating if Y/N has been nice to you or not," Wanda elaborated, smiling into her tea. "But I can guarantee you that she has, evidently so. Which surprises me how you haven't noticed."

"Has it really been that obvious?"

She nodded. "You two have been defending each other behind your backs. It's always amusing to see her get so angry when someone insults you, especially when you're not there. She's been starting to get really specific with who she spars with just so she could avenge you in her own little way," she elaborated, tilting her head with a grin. "And I know for a fact you do the exact same thing."

"How are you so sure?" He narrowed his eyes.

"Well, that Liam guy didn't get that black eye out of nowhere, did he?"

"He was being a fucking pervert," Bucky grumbled, blushing when Wanda's grin widened.

"It is kinda cute," she hummed. "How you two somehow came up with this unspoken rule that nobody else gets to be mean to you except each other."

"But she has always hated me?"

"I don't see her action as her hating you," Wanda said. "I see it as someone who deep down cares, but is too afraid to even acknowledge it. Because the second you come to accept it, then it becomes real, right?"

•••

Bucky couldn't go back to sleep.

He usually never could whenever he'd get woken up by you having a nightmare. But maybe this time, he didn't necessarily want to go back to sleep.

When he heard your door open just as he entered his room, he'd been wondering if he should follow you.

Perhaps he was curious where you went, or maybe he was downright concerned. This was the first time you ever left your room after a nightmare, so Bucky could deduce that this one was difficult to shake off.

Sighing deeply, Bucky threw the covers off himself again because fuck it.

What could possibly go wrong?

Grabbing a shirt, he ventured out of his room and into the desolate halls of the compound. He had an inkling as to where you were, the sound of a punching bag being brutalized getting louder the more he walked proving him right.

Compared to the training room in the facility, the gym below the Avengers' residences was far smaller—well, enough to fit one boxing ring, at least.

Bucky found you in the middle of it.

Your movement wasn't calculated, nor were they graceful. Punches were thrown for the sake of it, kicks with power but no technique.

There was quite the distinction between training and exercise, over letting out sheer anger before it could consume you.

What you were doing was clearly the latter as your bare knuckles hit worn-down leather.

"Where are your gloves?"

You spun around with a yelp at the sound of his voice, eyes wide with shock as it landed on him.

It must've been quite the rough nightmare when you didn't even notice him walk in, especially when he wasn't at all discreet about his presence.

You immediately glared at him when the surprise wore off. "Will you ever leave me the fuck alone?"

"So you own the gym now?" Bucky scoffed, arms crossed before he shrugged. "It was just a question."

"Didn't feel like wearing one," you said, throwing a harsh jab at the bag.

"Can't sleep?"

You rolled those pretty eyes of yours. "Isn't that obvious?"

Bucky hummed, parting the ropes as he got in the ring.

You ignored him and continued your assault on the bag. That, until he walked over to the opposite side and grabbed it.

"What are you doing?" you huffed.

Bucky reached up, unclipped it from its hanger and tossed it to the side with ease.

"I was using that!"

He ignored you until he was standing in the middle of the ring, arms out as he faced you.

"Picture me as him."

It took you a second to realize what he was implying.

"Have you lost your mind?"

"You want to let off steam?" he said, going into a southpaw stance, nodding curtly. "Go for it."

Hands on your hips, you raised a brow. "What makes you think I won't seriously hurt you?"

"I trust you enough not to."

That caught you off guard.

"Unless you're scared—"

"As fucking if, Barnes."

Bucky smiled to himself.

Always works.

You threw the first punch.

Bucky never threw one.

He knew you needed to let this anger out so he let you. He was mostly on defense—blocking, evading, sidestepping and the occasional ducking whenever you'd throw in a kick for the fun of it.

Just your personal punching bag, really.

He could tell it was helping, though. The tense nature you had when he walked in was slowly fading, your punches and kicks now getting more precise instead of haphazardly thrown.

And when you gave him a look to say you needed more of a challenge, he gladly obliged.

This would mark the second time he'd sparred with you. Since the first one was extremely heated, nobody really tried to instigate another one again.

But this time around? Bucky could sense your playfulness.

It was both surprising and so addicting.

There was no ego and no animosity. Obviously, there was still a hint of competitiveness but it never truly felt serious. You weren't truly aiming to get a proper hit on him nor was he trying to one-up you in any way.

It was an innocent bout, a friendly spar.

Even when you suddenly pulled out a knife when he had you in a headlock.

Youtapped the flat of the blade against his right forearm, the very one he had around your neck.

He loosened his grip, letting you spin in his hold. You stepped back as you faced him, the tip of the knife pointed right in his face.

Tilting his head to the side, he met your eyes with a raised brow.

"You're not playing fair."

You shrugged, flipping the knife in the air and catching it on your other hand.

"You have a metal arm."

Bucky cracked a smile, one that widened when he saw the corner of your mouth lift just a little.

"Touche," he hummed, moving swiftly to disarm you but you clocked his attack right away. You countered with a sidestep, hitting his side with the butt of the knife and jumping out of reach.

"Gotta be faster than that, old man," you teased.

He scoffed, rolling his eyes. "Oh, so now we're playing the age card?"

"You're a hundred years old."

Shaking his head, he went after you running. You used the ropes to your advantage, climbing onto them and using their elasticity to jump over him. One hand grabbing his shoulder, your legs locked around his waist from behind, the knife immediately up against his neck.

He grabbed your ankles that were right on his abdomen, pinching the blade with his metal fingers. You jumped off his back before he could attempt to shake you off himself. Bucky turned only to be met by the knife right up his face.

Again.

"Do you always have a knife with you?" he asked out of genuine curiosity.

"Maybe."

"Where do you even keep them?"

"Places."

His brows shot up before he could even try and school his boyish reaction.

You gasped, "Don't be gross!"

"I didn't even say anything!" he chuckled, using the slim moment of distraction to grab your forearm. With one swift motion, he pulled it past the side of his head and held it against his shoulder, making you stumble forward. The knife fell with a soft clank. "Your mind went there."

"You were implying it!" you argued, the corner of your lip curling up. It was so small that if he hadn't been so close to you, he wouldn't have noticed.

Still, the twinkle in your eyes was unmistakable.

"Implying what?" he asked. "I mean, who knows where a woman keeps her knives."

You laughed.

For a stupid joke, you let out such a carefree laugh.

It made his heart do somersaults as it burst out of his chest and landed right at the palm of your hand.

To say you glowed would be an understatement—head thrown back, the corners of your eyes crinkling, a little scrunch of your nose with your smile so wide and breathtaking.

And for a moment, it didn't look like you had demons haunting you at night. It didn't look like you bore so much anger and pain in your well-being, valid yet all-consuming. It didn't look as if you had built so many walls around yourself, much less your heart.

For a moment, you looked so free of it all.

And at that moment, he couldn't hold it anymore.

For once ever since you first met, Bucky didn't let himself think too much. After everything that had happened, he'd always wanted to be in control from here on out. He always tried to plan everything, always trying to evaluate things before making the decisions—he always ran on logic.

Right now, he let his heart take the lead.

You were still smiling as your laugh turned to small chuckles, eyes shining as it settled back on him.

Carefully, he placed his hand on your waist.

He saw your smile dwindle, irises holding both shock, confusion and a touch of curiosity, your brows faintly knitting when he squeezed ever so softly.

But you didn't pull away.

Maybe it was a trick of the light, maybe it was purely his imagination, but he was sure you stepped even closer.

Still, it gave him that sliver of hope. Just enough to give him courage, for him to cup your face with his right hand, your shaky breath warm against his thumb as he ghosted it over your lips.

You glanced at his lips before hurriedly moving back to his gaze, your eyes covered in many emotions but he didn't see any doubt in them. So he leaned in, so close he could count your eyelashes if he tried. His nose was brushing against the bridge of yours, foreheads touching as you leaned into his palm.

Then, he paused.

It was his way of giving you the choice—to walk away if you wanted to. His hold on you was featherlight. And even if it wasn't, there was no doubt how easily you could escape him with how skilled you were.

But you stayed.

You tilted your head up as your eyes fluttered closed, your lips just a hair's breadth away from his own.

Bucky closed the distance and kissed you.

Slow, careful, tentative, lips just gently pressed against yours.

You were still for a moment, and Bucky was sure you were about to push him back as your free hand moved to his chest, palm right above his erratically beating heart.

But then…

You kissed him back.

Bucky couldn't stop his smile, warm and giddy as a satisfied hum rumbled in his chest.

He wrapped his arm fully around you then, the hand on your cheek gently cupping the side of your neck, his thumb softly caressing your jaw.

You tilted your head, your arms slowly wrapping around his shoulders, pulling him closer as your lips moved with his.

God you tasted so sweet.

His knees nearly buckled when your fingers got lost in his hair, a groan deep in his throat when you tugged.

And Bucky wanted more.

Hands taking home on your hips, his thumbs found their way underneath the hem of your shirt, stroking circles on your warm and soft skin. Then, he walked you backward towards the ropes.

Yet as soon you touched the rubber foam, you gasped and pulled away.

Bucky only saw it momentarily, the shock on your face before he hit the ropes with a grunt, your warmth leaving him completely.

Only a second ago you were so close to him.

Now you were an arm's length away, the tip of the knife against his throat adding distance between you two.

Yet the moment he met your eyes, Bucky could tell you were much, much farther away than that—into a place well guarded that he would have difficulty reaching you.

His heart ached at how quick and high your walls got built in only a few seconds.

"Do that again and I'll kill you."

Bucky stepped forward, the tip of the blade touching his skin.

"You won't."

You narrowed your eyes. "Yeah? What makes you so confident?"

"The fact that you don't hate me."

Your hand lowered slightly, a look crossing your face for a split second before you raised the blade with a glare.

"The knife against your throat begs to differ."

"Then tell me." Another step forward, he challenged, "Why do you hate me?"

Your glare turned sharper than the knife you held at his throat, speaking through gritted teeth, "You know very well why I hate you."

"Is it because I've been an asshole to you?"

You shrugged.

"Or is it because I remind you of him?" he said, shaking his head when you shrugged again. "We look the same, but that's where the similarities end."

"You didn't know him," you argued.

"No. But I'm not him and deep down you know that," Bucky pushed back, watching as the blade moved away from him little by little. He could tell you didn't even notice that you were doing it, slowly pulling it away the more he got closer.

With so many emotions swimming in your eyes, Bucky could only imagine what battle was happening in your mind.

"So tell me, why do you hate me?" he asked, voice soft yet eyes determined as they never left yours.

"I already told you—"

"No. I want the real reason," he interrupted, tilting his head knowingly. "Or do you want me to guess?"

You scoffed, eyes rolling. "You don't know me enough."

"Maybe," Bucky hummed, taking another step closer.

Your blade managed to prick his skin then, the distance between you closing in. But he didn't care. All he cared about was getting past this hard exterior you'd been wearing for years that now, it was starting to feel like second skin.

"But you remind me of someone I know," he said.

"Really?" you gasped with sarcastic enthusiasm. "Fine, I'll bite. Who?"

"Me."

Bucky saw your features soften ever so slightly, that if he wasn't so close to you, if he wasn't actively looking for a sliver of your reaction, he would've missed it.

But the small chip against your walls only had you placing two more bricks to cover it.

"We are nothing alike," you growled, as you took a step, unknowingly pressing the knife harder on his skin.

Bucky could feel the smallest drop of blood trickle down his neck.

His eyes remained on you.

"Aren't we?" he challenged. "You have a hard time trusting anyone because you never know who you could truly trust. Yet the second you even have that reassurance you shut it down. You build your walls so high so no one could get to you, telling yourself that you're safer and more protected that way but I know it makes you feel lonely too. I know because I've been there."

He saw your fingers loosen around the hilt, your eyes glistening under the light despite your sharp glare.

"You have this guilt in your heart you can't quite shake off, despite knowing, deep down, it wasn't your fault. There's a small voice that's telling you that you deserve better, that you deserve to be granted kindness, that what you did was completely out of your hands and you deserve to forgive yourself, and that you deserve happiness. But as that voice gets louder, the guilt comes back tenfold because how could you think these things after what you've done?"

"Stop," you gritted, your fingers now starting to tremble.

"You push away any person who gets too close to you because of the things you've gone through. You think anyone who tries is only doing it to gain something. But you also can't control how you feel, that despite trying so hard to deny it, despite doing everything to list out cons, despite telling yourself they will only hurt you, reminding yourself that you should never give them that power, you can't stop it because it's just too fucking strong."

You shook your head angrily, trying so hard to deny it but Bucky could see your resolve start to crumble.

So he kept going.

"I'm tired of this game, doll," he said, softly. "I'm tired of masking what I truly feel for you with hate just because I'm scared."

The surprise that crossed your face was so quick he might as well have imagined it.

"You hate me," you pressed, as if saying it would cement it as truth. But he knew it was simply your way of denying it.

"Because the second you come to accept it, then it becomes real, right?"

He was done denying it.

"I hate the way you smile at everyone but me. I hate it when you laugh at everyone's stupid jokes because I want to be the one to make you laugh. I hate that every time you look at me it's always with anger and annoyance or maybe even disgust. But you know what?" he sighed, gesturing at you with a small smile. "I'll take anything you give me as long as you're looking at me.

"And fuck, you make me feel so weak with a simple look, what more if you did as much as smile at me? You could hurt me any time, break my heart as you wish, and it's terrifying because I know I would just let you without hesitation as long as I get to be this close to you even for a second. That's how crazy I am for you."

"Stop manipulating me," you pleaded, voice starting to shake.

"I'm not, doll," he confessed. "I'm just finally being honest with you. I'm finally being honest with myself."

"No! No," you denied angrily. "You're just playing with my emotions."

It broke Bucky's heart just how conflicted you look. But he knew it all steamed from fear.

You just didn't want to get hurt again.

"It's confusing, isn't it?" he continued. "How your heart skips a beat whenever they're near, how you want to be closer to them but your brain immediately shuts it down. You're not used to being vulnerable so you mask it with the best way you know how and the only thing you've known for most of your life: You fight. With insults, with glares, with harsh words it doesn't matter what it looks like as long as you're fighting it.

"But deep down you care and you just can't help it," he said, eyes never leaving yours just so you could see how much he meant his words. "I know I haven't been showing it in the best way but maybe that's because I've been trying to bury it so deep. But it doesn't even matter how many times I try and hide it because I care about you so fucking much it just keeps coming out anyway."

"Stop," you gritted yet your voice trembled, eyes glistening under the light as the knife slowly started to lower.

"I can't," he admitted, wholeheartedly and unabashedly. "I'm falling for you and there's nothing I can do to stop it."

The knife fell on the floor.

Bucky gently took your hand, squeezing it softly before he placed your palm right above his heart.

"I know you feel it too," Bucky said softly, slowly dropping to his knees in front of you.

To show you how he meant every single word he said by letting his guard down, showing vulnerability in hopes you'd meet him halfway.

"Tell me I'm wrong," Bucky whispered. "Tell me I'm the only one and I'll leave you alone. For good."

His heart skipped with hope as you reached for him, your fingertips brushing against his lips before you cupped his cheek.

Instinctively, he leaned against your touch. Gaze holding yours, he turned his head to press a soft kiss against your palm.

But then you pulled back with a gasp, eyes wide with panic as if he had stung you.

You stepped back in haste, eyes brimming with tears as you shook your head frantically.

Before he could even say anything, you turned on your heel and rushed out of the gym, leaving Bucky kneeling on the ground—vulnerable and alone.

In the deafening silence, he could hear his heart break.

A stab from your knife would've hurt less.

•••

Everyone could sense the gloomy, gray cloud that followed you both.

He wasn't sure if anyone knew what transpired. Most of the team had merely looked confused about the whole thing. The only exception of the bunch was Natasha. Bucky had been met with her sympathetic eyes more than enough times for him to know you'd told her about what happened.

Still, everyone knew something happened.

How could they not when the usual loud arguments and nonstop bickering had now been reduced to the cold quietness?

It was such a glaring difference and Bucky was right at the center of it.

Your silence was far more painful than any of the spiteful words you'd thrown at him.

It wasn't for the lack of trying on his part. But how was he able to talk to you when you'd been so determined to avoid him?

The second you would even sense that he was nearby, you'd immediately leave the premises.

It was still the case as he entered the kitchen.

Sam was in the middle of telling a random story when your chair screeched, an excuse to leave tumbling out of your mouth before you hurriedly walked past Bucky and down the hall, the sound of your bedroom door shutting behind you.

You didn't even finish your breakfast, your bear coffee mug still half full. You left a toast that was barely eaten, the fading warmth of your presence and the lingering smell of your shampoo.

He didn't even hide his dejectedness as he prepared himself some coffee.

"You know, I'd take the arguing over this tense silence any day."

Bucky shot him a glare over his shoulder.

"What? I don't like seeing my friends looking like sad, kicked puppies," Sam simply said, eyeing him suspiciously when he took a seat across from him. "What did you do anyway?"

Bucky rolled his eyes. "Really? It's immediately my fault?"

"Hey, I'm just being observant," Sam elaborated. "When I mentioned your name she had this look on her face so…I'm assuming her mood has something to do with you."

"She didn't tell you anything?"

Sam shook his head. "Barely even said a word."

Bucky frowned.

If Sam himself couldn't even get you to talk then it was only a testament to just how much things had been weighing on you.

While Bucky didn't regret telling you the truth, he wondered if there was a different way he could've done it. But then again, you were so stubborn. He had the assumption that no matter how he went about things, you would've reacted the same way.

"I just—" His frown deepened as he shook his head. "I told her how I feel about her."

"Buck…"

"I told her how I'm falling for her and she—" he sighed, rubbing a frustrated hand over his nose. "She walked away."

Sam was too stunned to speak—well, not enough to resist throwing in a little joke, apparently.

"Damn, she didn't catch you huh?"

"Why did I even bother," Bucky grumbled as he stood from his seat.

"Hey! Come on, I'm kidding. Just wanted to cheer you up a little, man," Sam rushed, hands up in surrender before he shot him an honest smile. "But seriously, just give her time to process things. I'm sure her emotions are just as all over the place as yours."

Bucky nodded, sitting back down as he sipped his coffee and grimaced.

It didn't quite taste the same as how you made it.

•••

A week had gone by yet the clouds had no sign of dissipating any time soon.

Bucky had been respecting your space, knowing it was what you needed. But at the same time, he was scared that he might push you further away if he kept insisting.

Still, he missed you so fucking much.

His heart had been aching with longing when all he'd been able to do was simply catch glimpses of you.

It's been too long since Bucky had looked into your eyes, and the only time he had the chance to hear your voice was when it was far away, speaking to someone else. But there wasn't much he could do when you always found yourself leaving once he entered the room.

He could only watch as you walked away from Natasha as he stepped foot into the training room.

"Sam wasn't kidding with the looking like sad puppies part," the redhead teased when he got to her.

"Does he ever just…shut up?" Bucky sighed.

Natasha laughed, "It's all for the best of you. He's looking for reinforcement on how to fix this whole situation you'd got going on."

"Him and me both," he grumbled, eyes steady on you as you went down the hallway and disappeared into a corner.

"You know, I never thought I'd get to see two of the most emotionally constipated people exist at the same time, let alone be in the same room," Natasha hummed, shrugging. "Well, almost the same room."

"Shut up," he muttered. With a sigh, he asked, "How is she?"

"Conflicted and confused, a little tired and everything in between. But otherwise?" Natasha offered him a reassuring smile. "She's doing okay."

Bucky wondered how much you'd been sleeping. He barely heard anything from you despite still being in the room next door. It was either you figured out how to enable the soundproofing through FRIDAY or your nightmares had finally stopped.

Despite hoping it was the latter, Bucky knew it most probably was the former.

"Do you think I did it wrong?" he asked, a sense of doubt and insecurity settling in his heart. Bucky knew you told Nat everything, so he didn't feel like he needed to elaborate on what he meant.

"Honestly? I don't think it would've changed much if you did it a different way," Natasha said, confirming what he'd already been thinking. "Feelings are difficult to deal with as it is. In both your cases, it's even more complicated given your past trauma, especially hers."

Bucky nodded.

He knew all of these already. But it felt nice to have that validation.

Still, maybe he read everything wrong. Maybe he got way too into his head and concocted an idea out of nothing.

Maybe you simply didn't feel the same.

"Don't worry. She's just processing things," Nat said with a knowing smile as if she read his mind. "She'll come around eventually."

When she probably knew you better than anyone else here at the compound, Bucky could do nothing more but trust her word.

But he wished you would just give him the chance to prove himself to you, to show you that you could trust him. Bucky would do anything you asked of him, would give everything to you—his loyalty, his care, his whole being. He just wanted to let you see that he was yours, utterly and completely for the taking.

Bucky just needs that one chance.

The thing with the universe? It has quite an interesting way of granting what you wish for.

Bucky never expected his wish to be granted in the most cliché way possible.

•••

Things were not looking good.

He supposed, finding the nest and beating it with a stick—or in this case, heavy artillery and super-powered individuals—was never going to be good.

The fucking cockroaches in the form of HYDRA agents wouldn't stop appearing.

"Buck! Five more coming your way from the east wing!"

He grabbed an agent by the collar and threw him at full force towards the other one, both of them falling on the ground alongside the dozen he'd already taken care of. Bucky then turned towards the east wing hallway, ready to take on more only to find it empty. Yet in that split second of confusion, he was able to dodge the bullet hurtling towards him from behind.

Bucky rolled his eyes when he turned the other way and met the agents Steve was warning him about. "That's the west wing, punk!"

"Do you even know your left and right, Steven?"

"Probably not. At least you know my in and out, Natalia."

There was a collective protest of disgust over the connected comms, and Bucky wholeheartedly agreed with everyone.

"You've corrupted America's sweetheart, Romanoff. I hope you're happy," he teased, grabbing an agent by the collar and slamming them against the wall.

"Oh I am absolutely ecstatic."

"Loving the chit chat guys! If you have spare time I could use some assistance!"

Bucky was immediately on high alert at the sound of your voice, struggling and out of breath. His heart picked up the pace when you yelped.

"Where are you?!" he demanded, shooting an agent in the leg before hitting the side of their head with the butt of his gun.

You didn't say anything.

"Frost!" he gritted, slightly annoyed because he knew you were hesitating simply because it was him. "Location!"

You hissed, a gunshot, before you finally answered, "Outside the right exit."

"Hang in there. I'm headed your way."

Knocking out two more agents to the ground, Bucky immediately ran towards the exit.

•••

You were surrounded by a couple agents when he got there.

Cars were around the area, the black, armored vehicles a stark contrast to the white snow. They likely would've used them to get away if you hadn't gotten to them first. There were two agents to your right, three to your left who were closer to Bucky, and a man in a lab coat standing in front of you.

All of them were armed except the scientist.

All of them were aiming at you.

Bucky assumed that the only reason why nobody had opened fire was because of the gun you were pointing at the scientist's head. He recognized him as the same person who got away on the last mission.

So this definitely was someone very important to HYDRA.

Thankfully, they hadn't noticed him yet. He was glad he didn't come through guns blazing like he actually thought of doing. When it was you in danger, it took a while for his rational mind to function. Either way, he was glad for the extra time to think of a game plan.

While assessing the situation, he noticed you hugging your left arm to your chest. A white cloth was wrapped around your forearm, probably some poor man's lab coat. But he could see that your blood had already soaked through. There were a couple of cuts on your cheeks and a bruise forming on your lower lip. But you didn't seem fazed by it. If anything, you simply looked angrier.

"You haven't changed much at all, printsessa," the man taunted, hurriedly raising both hands when you clicked your safety off. "Oh sorry, my bad. Luka simply called you that too often. I was beginning to think it was your name."

"Still jealous he considered me more as his right-hand man than you, I assume?" you said, voice leveled despite your state. But then again, you were highly skilled. It wasn't a surprise that you'd be able to keep yourself calm under pressure. "You know, I always thought you were kinda in love with him, Dominik."

"Zakroy svoy gryaznyy rot, ty bespoleznaya suka!" the man hissed.

Shut your filthy mouth, you useless bitch.

Bucky was ready to throttle the man right then and there. But he waited. He figured he needed to find a way to alert you he was here as discreetly as he could.

"We were partners," Dominik boasted, taking a daring step closer to you. "He wouldn't have gotten close to cracking the code with those serums without my help. You wouldn't be where you are today if it wasn't for me."

You rolled your eyes. "Gee, thanks. I appreciate it."

Bucky carefully moved behind the parked vehicles. When he reached the one beside this Dominik guy, your gaze flickered over to him for a split second. Bucky raised his gun, ready to shoot until you every so subtly shook your head. Then, without as much as a wince even though he knew how it hurt, you brought your injured arm down to your side, hands open to show five fingers.

He immediately knew what you were doing.

"It wasn't me who was in love with him," the man smugly said. "Though, foolish of you to believe he loved your back."

Four.

"I wouldn't call infatuation love but what do you know about that." You shrugged, tilting your head with a grin. "At least I wasn't sleeping alone in my bed jerking off to my lab partner at night. Quite pathetic if you ask me."

Three.

"I'd be careful if I were you," Dominik taunted with a sarcastic laugh. "What is given can easily be taken away."

You scoffed, "What is it with you guys and these riddles?"

Two.

"It takes a great mind to understand these—"

One.

You shot Dominik in the chest while Bucky took down the three agents near him. You immediately turned to shoot the last two before he could react, but not without taking a graze on your thigh.

Bucky rushed to you in long strides, fussing over your form. "Shit. Let me see."

"I'm fine," you insisted, hissing when you did as much as move your arm and your leg.

He rolled his eyes. "Don't be stubborn."

"I'm not being stubborn. I—"

The movement behind you caught Bucky's eye. When he saw the barrel of a gun, he immediately pulled you behind him.

Bucky shot Dominik in the head with no hesitation.

When he turned back to you, he felt confused.

You looked panicked.

Bucky cupped your face hastily, worry seeping into his bones once he saw the tears brimming in your eyes.

"You okay?"

Bucky blinked.

Why did his voice sound like he was underwater?

You nodded frantically, your uninjured hand pressed against his stomach. He saw your lips move but he couldn't hear you. This dull ringing in his ears was preventing him. With knitted brows, he tried blinking away the haze that covered his eyes, a slight fog muddling his brain as he tried to decipher what was going on.

When you pressed harder on his stomach, Bucky glanced down.

Your hand was covered in blood.

His blood.

And when he met your fear-covered eyes, he wiped away the tears that ran down your cheeks, barely recognizing his own voice telling you he was going to be okay.

It was the last thing he saw before the darkness consumed him.

•••

Bucky couldn't remember the last time he lost consciousness over a wound. When he healed fast, it was rare to come by. He also didn't remember ever feeling so groggy after a few hours of sleep.

Despite the ache in his whole body, the first thing he realized was how heavy his right arm felt. He obviously remembered what happened so he was sure his injury wasn't anywhere near there.

Glancing down, the heart monitor beeped a little faster at the sight of you.

You were practically cuddling his whole forearm.

Eyes closed with your hand in his, your cheek pressed against his skin, you were hunched over his bedside table, fast asleep.

You looked so adorable and peaceful.

Even with the bandages that covered your face, even with that little drool escaping your parted lips.

"She hasn't left that chair in a while."

Bucky's head snapped toward the direction of the voice, finding Steve leaning against the door frame with a knowing smile.

"Well, apart from Nat dragging her out to eat and take a shower," he added, closing the door behind him as he walked towards the opposite side of the bed.

Bucky frowned at that.

He couldn't have been in the med bay for that long, right?

"You were out for two weeks, bud," Steve answered as if reading his mind.

"What?" He stared at him, waiting for him to say he was joking. But he only gave him a sad smile. Bucky shook his head. "But the serum—"

"Well, if it weren't for the serum you would've already been dead," Steve said grimly. "The bullet was laced with some poison. Banner ran some tests on it and he suspects it's designed to neutralize any fast healing and to kill the person immediately. But since the blood they probably tested it on didn't have the full super soldier serum, it only affected you mildly. So you were healing slower than usual but still faster than most humans."

A shadow crossed his face. "So you mean if the bullet had gotten her—"

"She would've been killed on the spot."

Bucky nodded grimly, eyes landing on you.

"Good thing I took it for her then, huh," he hummed, squeezing your hand that was placed in his. He couldn't help his concern about your position though. "Her back is going to kill her."

"Yeah well, every day I've been trying to take her place so she can rest properly for a few hours. Wouldn't budge," Steve said, smiling. "She's almost as stubborn as you."

Bucky shook his head with a chuckle, "Maybe I can see some similarities."

He tried reaching for you with his left arm but he couldn't. Then he saw the prosthetic lying down on the bench, now shiny and devoid of any dirt or the blood of his enemies—as dramatic as that sounds. But they were on the battlefield the last time he used it.

"Cleaned that herself, too," Steve said when he caught where he was looking for it. "Do you want me to—"

"Please." Bucky nodded, heat covering his cheeks when the heart monitor started beating loudly again due to the somersaults his heart was doing.

After helping him put his arm back on and handing him a glass of water, Steve called in Dr. Cho. Once she was done with her round of check-ups, the rest of the team slowly filtered in and out to check up on him. All of them spoke in hushed tones when he shot them a glare when their voices got too loud. It was a task to eat a sandwich—which Steve gave him—with one hand, but he managed.

Because even with all the commotion happening, you were still asleep.

It could mean you were a heavy sleeper by nature, you were extremely tired given the situation, or both.

Bucky was also inclined to think you were a cuddly person when you never let go of his arm. He didn't even care if the muscles were dead asleep at this point.

When the sky started to tint orange, and his room had gone quiet after they finally left him alone with you, Bucky couldn't help it. He found himself stroking your face as softly as he could with a smile painted on his lips.

You were here, bearing the uncomfortable position because you cared.

It was then you started to stir.

He remained still and watched your eyes slowly blink open. Brows furrowed, you reached for some tissues on his nightstand, wiping away your drool with a curse.

You never let go of his hand when you did so. And you also didn't notice that he was watching you fuss around, mumbling how embarrassing it was to drool like some dog.

He couldn't stop his chuckle.

You jumped at the sound, eyes wide when they landed on him.

Blinking once, twice, you blurted,

"You're awake."

You tried to pull your hand away but Bucky only held it a little tighter.

"Hi," he murmured, stroking the back of your hand with his thumb.

"How long have you been watching me sleep?" you joked, eyes refusing to look at him.

Bucky tilted his head, grinning. "Not as long as you have, apparently."

You shot him a glare before turning away. He noticed your gaze settle on his stomach, the blanket covering his legs barely hiding the bandage that was wrapped around it.

"You shouldn't have done that," you said.

The corner of his lips quirked up, head tilting to try and catch your eyes.

"A 'thank you' would be nice," he teased, squeezing your hand reassuringly. "I don't regret it, if that's what you're wondering. And I'd do it again without question."

You nodded, lip caught between your teeth as you let out a shaky sigh. It took five seconds for you to meet his eyes.

His heart ached at the sadness and worry along with a few specks of guilt that coated your irises. He could only imagine what you went through with the whole thing.

Steve told him how you didn't want to let him go when the rest of the team finally came to help. The captain got scared out of his kind when the first thing they saw was you crying over Bucky's body lying on the snow, the white ground tainted with his blood. It took Wanda having to use her powers to hold you back for just a few seconds so they could get him into the Quinjet. You didn't leave his side the whole journey home, still crying.

It must've shaken the whole team because they have never seen you cry.

When they finally got him into the med bay and had to roll him into surgery, you put up a fight again and obviously, you were winning. So they unfortunately had to sedate you. They used that time to patch you up as well.

Then you waited two weeks for him to wake up.

If you felt the same as he did, Bucky didn't even want to think how scared you must've been.

He sure as hell would have acted much worse if the roles were reversed.

"Thank you for saving my life, Bucky," you whispered, voice vulnerable but not any less sincere.

His heart skipped the sound of his name falling from your lips.

It was the first time you had called him by that name and God did it feel like a finally.

Bucky shook his head with a smile, interlacing your fingers together.

"I'd do it again in a heartbeat."

You nodded with a grateful smile, one that faded as you regarded him, guilt now swimming in your eyes.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?" he asked, confused.

It took you a few seconds before you spoke again.

"I know I hurt you that night," you elaborated. "When I walked away."

"It's okay—"

You shook your head vehemently, "It's not."

"It is," he insisted, tugging you out of your seat, pulling you closer so that he was able to cup your face and wipe away the stray tear on your cheek.

"I just—I got so scared," you let out a shaky breath, leaning into his touch. "Everything was just so overwhelming a-and there were so many things happening in my head and it kept arguing with my heart. I just—I wanted to trust you, I wanted tobelieve you but I'm just so scared to get hurt again because everything I felt for you was just too strong. I didn't want to lose control of it in case it's only going to end badly. It would kill me. But still, it's not an excuse to hurt you and then ignore it—ignore you for weeks. I could've just handled it like a normal fucking person—"

"Hey, hey," he interrupted softly, taking your face in both his hands. "It's okay. I know, doll. I understand you, remember?"

You nodded with shaky deep breaths, wrapping your fingers around his wrist, not pulling his touch away but simply holding it there.

It made his heart warm.

"I don't like saying you're right." you let out a teary chuckle.

Bucky laughed at that, "It doesn't happen often."

You nodded, smiling timidly. "Let me make it up to you?"

"Yeah?" he hummed, grinning. "How are you going to do that?"

"How about dinner?" you asked shyly.

He couldn't help the smug smirk that played on his lips.

"Are you asking me out?"

You groaned, trying to pull away.

"Hey! Nope, you stay here," he chuckled, scooting a little to the side before tugging your hand so you would sit beside him. You did, and he immediately wrapped an arm around your waist. "So, are you asking me out or not?"

"Can you stop—"

"It's a simple yes or no, doll."

"Yes," you grumbled, rolling your eyes when his grin widened. "Don't get used to it, Barnes."

"I would be honored to go out with you," he said with a teasing tone but with a sincere smile before tilting his head knowingly. "But since I'm bed-bound, can I ask something in advance to make me feel better?"

You narrowed your eyes, suspicious of his request. "What?"

"A kiss."

"Really?" You rolled your eyes, yet the smile on your lips widened.

He groaned suddenly, clutching his stomach with his left arm.

"Shit! Are you okay?" you asked frantically, checking him over as worry colored your face.

"It hurts," he whimpered. "Jumping in front of a bullet for a girl you're falling for really hurts and she won't even give me a kiss to make me feel better."

You froze.

Then, you smacked him on the arm.

"Jesus Christ," he chuckled, rubbing his skin which barely even stung. "Have you no sympathy, woman?"

"Asshole," you muttered.

He pouted with his best puppy eyes. "Why are you so mean—"

Bucky wasn't able to finish his sentence when you more or less shut him up with a kiss.

The feeling of your lips on his again was like a huge breath of relief. It was soft and sweet, unhurried yet still a little careful. But it wasn't short of all the emotions you wanted to convey, the appreciation and adoration, your gratefulness to the utmost care you could muster. All the things that you still weren't ready to voice out loud you poured into the kiss.

Bucky did the exact same thing as he tilted his head, moving his lips against yours in a sweet caress as he held your face in his hand to be closer.

"You look so cute when you're worried," he hummed once you pulled away for air, nudging your nose with his.

"And you're more insufferable than I thought," you muttered, rolling those pretty eyes of yours.

Bucky was now starting to see the action as something affectionate.

"You like that about me," he said smugly.

You sighed in feigned dejection. "Unfortunately."

Bucky only kissed you again in response.

Of all the times he had wondered about ways to just get you to shut up during your random arguments, this was definitely at the top. And while he hoped for it to be the case, his expectations were quite low. He never thought it was actually going to be a reality, especially with how you two were with each other.

Yet look at him now, grinning from ear to ear with your lips pressed against his.

Bucky knew things weren't going to be smooth sailing from here on out. There were still a lot of conversations to be had. You two still had your issues that needed working through, whether that was individually or together.

You were definitely still going to bicker, it simply seemed like it was part of your dynamic. Albeit this time, it'd be more out of affection than animosity.

But as he pulled away and was met by the hopeful glow on your face and the adoration in your eyes that reflected his, he knew that no matter what, this was where he needed to be—with you.

Bucky knew that through thick and thin, through the fire that would light you both aflame, the ups and downs, through spring, summer, fall, Winter and Frost—

You two will be okay.

✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.★.*｡･ﾟ♛ *.

↬ thank you for reading lovely! reblog & leave a comment if you enjoyed! feedback is always appreciated! ++ consider supporting me on ko-fi if you can!

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#ww&ff #bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes one shot #bucky barnes fluff #bucky barnes angst #bucky barnes x female reader #bucky barnes oneshot #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes reader insert #sebastian stan #my writing

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isycamor · 3 months

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i do kind of have mixed feelings about the armand reveal i will not lie. but at the same time, I think we forget that we still do not have all the information (lestat’s pov, and armand’s unfiltered pov of the trial, maybe even sam’s pov loool). also i don’t think this was particularly ooc nor do i think that it flattens armand’s character.

one,i think him doing this is completely in line with what we have seen from his character thus far. at this point (ep4/6 in paris) imo it is clear that he is feeling unloved/rejected on some level by louis [dreamstat haunting their relationship was the proverbial shoe waiting to drop; there was always a lingering feeling of inadequacy armand was feeling in his relationship with louis and considering his history (his trauma) we know how deeply this would affect him]. madeleine semi-confirms that there’s a sort of wall in the vulnerability of the loumand relationship when she asks louis why he doesn’t tell armand he loves him. armand is a character that desperately wants to be wanted, is desperately insecure, and on top of that, like assad said in an interview, very forward thinking. i think he really did not think his relationship with louis would survive — not with the burden of lestat, the burden of claudia/madeleine, and honestly i think it was coupled with a lot of self-hatred. the coven was a far more reliable decision for him. louis, throughout their relationship, was not a very consistent partner if we’re being honest (and i say this as a ldpdl apologist every tongue that rises against louis shall fall unless in defense of claudia). he refused to join the coven, he was constantly haunted by lestat in vital moments of loumand relationship development, he and armand were on verryyy different wavelengths about the labeling of their relationship, madeleine’s turning in itself i think also put a major strain in their relationship, etc. i don’t say this to excuse armand, but to contextualize his feeling of isolation within the relationship.

and thinking about his history, his trauma, i really do think that he would latch onto whatever seems to be the most consistent. he yearns for that commitment, and to feel wanted; and if he was not feeling that with louis, he would make the decision to stay with the coven. years upon years of abuse, and having that abuse be tied with a twisted sense of worship with marius, I believe has stunted armand significantly. armand is cunning, manipulative, whatever, but he really does not like being a leader. he leans into subservient positions constantly, and i think this is a pattern of learned helplessness that would explain why he perhaps may have felt as though he “could not prevent it” wrt the trial. i think him honestly believing he could not prevent it and also directing the whole thing are not really mutually exclusive here.

i don’t think this diminishes his love for louis at all either, he loved louis before during and after the trial, and the trial’s preparation. this was done in response to feeling unloved by him, not in response to not loving him. and i think, at least within the show’s presented narrative thus far, witnessing the actual trial along with lestat’s action versus his own inaction at its conclusion perhaps really put his guilt and regret into perspective which led to him saving louis from the wet room. and after finding a way to be with louis again (claiming to have saved him), and having louis speak to his commitment to him (even if it was done as a way to torture lestat), made armand solely focused on preserving his relationship with louis in any way possible - and unfortunately that meant also preserving this big lie. armand isn’t some supervillain that secretly wants louis dead - he did genuinely spend his life trying to make up for it. he is desperately desperately lonely and he has lived centuries feeling inadequate and unloved. this deep deep insecurity and attachment to preserve feeling loved/wanted drives his actions in paris, in san francisco, and in dubai.

so no! i don’t think it reverses any development of his character at all! honestly, apart from delainey’s claudia, armand was my shining star of season 2. assad played him brilliantly, and i don’t think this finale diminished the complexity assad (and the writers) gave to this character at all.

(i also think having this revealed and what this will do to armand’s psyche (as a character who i think is really really afraid to look inward) is such fun setup for season 3)

#interview with the vampire #iwtv #armand #armand de crippling insecurity #iwtv finale #iwtv spoilers #loumand #honestly reacted so viscerally to the reveal and then sat with it for a second and was like wait this is kind of cool actually #assad zaman #i stand with my cancelled wife #iwtv 2x08 #is this too long of a post maybe this is too long of a post #louis de pointe du lac #ldpdl

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supernaturalistthings · 8 months

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Season 4 Dean Winchester Headcanons

Lazarus Rising- Having a reunion with Dean after hell. You wouldn't believe it's him at first but after reassurance from Bobby and Sam you’d run into each other's arms. He'd be holding back tears while holding you like he needed you to breathe, and THE KISS? The kiss is magical and mixed with tears because you just can't believe you got the love of your life back. The relief you both feel is top tier. “Don't worry baby i got you” But really you'd have him and you know this is the start of a hard road of recovery for him.

Are you there God? It's me Dean Winchester- comforting and reassuring him after his fight with the ghosts of Meg and Hendrikson. Slowly running your hands through his hair and singing his praises because he deserves that.

Monster Movie- You’d accompany the boys on this case and actually be the one to get taken by the “vampire”. Once Dean fights to get you back safe you'd laugh at the shifter together after everything is said and done and just be in awe of your lives and the things that happen.

Yellow Fever- You'd also be on this case with the boys. You'd comfort Dean about his ghost sickness and promise to keep him safe from any angsty teenagers that come your way. He really believes you and clings to you for any comfort he can get. You and Sam do the heavy lifting on the case, sharing the load of your worries about Dean together. You can't help but giggle a little when he gets scared of the cat jumping out of the storage thing. Vowing to tease him for it later, and you do when he's okay. “I had freaking ghost sickness okay?! Let that cat try it now and see how little I care…” he'd say.

Wishful Thinking- He wishes for you to be right there with him which results in the sudden urge for you to drive for hours to get to him. The downside of the curse is that you were not happy about the drive or being mind controlled by a coin so you're livid when you show up. Of course when the curse is broken you both laugh at the whole thing together and needless to say he’ll do ANYTHING to make it up to you;)

The Monster at the End of This Book- You’re shocked to learn that you and your boyfriend are full frontal in a book “youve got to be kidding me” was all you could say. You'd be even more shocked to learn that you have fans and they are “shipping” you and Dean. You'd be grossed out to find out that people also “ship” you and Sam. “Ewww” you'd both let out in unison. “Yeah it better be eww” Dean would huff out in disgust with an added eye roll. Dean would secretly re read the chapters where it talks about your feelings towards him, he secretly loves that its written by a prophet how much you love and care for him. It's a huge reassurance.

When the Levee Breaks- You help him try to detox Sam and are there to calm him down when he's alone. He doesn't tell you that he gave himself over to the angels wanting to enjoy his last moments with you. You constantly have a hand on him and just hold him through the whole Sam demon blood detox telling him it's going to be okay no matter what happens.

Lucifer Rising- You're on Dean's side with the whole Ruby thing of course, you always saw through her and got the feeling she was just trying to manipulate Sam for some reason. You were with Bobby when Dean was teleported to the angels and you both were freaking out knowing there was nothing you guys could do. You sat with him panicked, waiting on any signs of life from either of them. Cas pops in to reassure you guys that Dean is somewhere safe which does nothing for the both of you and you freak out telling him to bring him back which then Cas just vanishes with no answers. Eventually Sam and Dean turn up pretty beat up. You're beyond pissed at Sam when you hear the whole story. You're beyond worried when you hear Dean say the devil is out and it's their problem.

#dean winchester #dean winchester headcannons #dean winchester imagine #dean winchester moodboard #dean winchester x reader #dean x reader #dean x you #supernatural #supernatural headcanon #supernatural imagine #dean winchester headcanon #dean #dean winchester x you #dean winchester x female!reader

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talesofesther · 1 year

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souls tied, bound to burn | ch 1

Samantha Carpenter x Reader

Summary: Your move to New York came suddenly, in the hopes of getting closer to what was left of your family. What you weren't expecting was to fall for your sister's roommate, Sam; and little did you know, she'd be your doom, in the prettiest of ways.

A/N: I feel like this story is told in moments, but I do like how it turned out; it is, after all, a story that I poured my heart and soul into. This is one which took many of my sleepless nights, but it was so worth it bringing this idea to life. Cannot thank @iamnicodemus enough for basically being my beta reader and helping me with everything. There will be two more parts to this storyline, but I can't say when they will be posted, as I'm still writing them.

Word count: 10k (limit? never heard of her)

Masterlist

One thing that Sam was still trying to get used to after moving to New York was the lack of calmness.

She had just finished her session with yet another therapist, it was past 10 PM, and the streets were still as busy as ever. There was no shortage of cars or people passing by her as she walked back to her apartment. Sometimes it could be overwhelming and she couldn't get home fast enough. Sometimes it helped to keep her mind a little quieter.

Sam was still unsure of what it felt like today, maybe a mix of both.

Things haven't been easy after everything that happened in Woodsboro, every day the weight on her shoulders worsens and she has no idea how to even start dealing with it. It only became worse after the rumors started.

The steps up the stairs to her apartment felt like a whole workout, after working the entire day Sam was absolutely drained. The hunch on her posture and faint dark bags under her eyes said as much.

Nearing the door, she could hear faint voices coming from inside, one of them she didn't recognize. The tensing of her muscles was inevitable.

Sam turned the doorknob and slowly made her way inside, she closed the door behind her without turning around. There wasn't anything different about the place — TV turned on, cheap yellow lights in the kitchen illuminating the dirty dishes on the sink, low music coming from Tara's room — except Quinn was talking with someone on the couch.

Though Sam didn't know who it was, she already relaxed at the fact that there was no trouble in sight.

She ran a hand through her hair whilst walking to the kitchen, there were leftovers of dinner on two pans over the stove; but despite only having lunch on her stomach, she wasn't hungry. Picking up a clean cup, she filled it with water on the sink and gulped it down.

"Hey, Sam's home," Quinn announced with a chipper voice.

Sam closed her eyes with a sigh before managing a smile, she really didn't feel like socializing right now. But she turned to Quinn anyway.

The girl was perched over the back of the couch, waving Sam over, "come here, I want you to meet someone."

Involuntarily, Sam's eyes drifted to the one who sat beside Quinn; it was a girl she had never seen before, but the gentle smile on her lips made Sam hesitate in her steps. She did walk up to them though, making herself comfortable on the loveseat beside Quinn.

"Sam, this is Y/n, she's my sister," Quinn motioned to you with a grin.

"Sister?" Sam's eyes were huge as she looked between you and Quinn.

"Well, half-sister," Quinn concluded, "it's a long story."

You then gave them a tight-lipped smile, raising your hand in an awkward wave whilst looking at Sam, "it's uh- a pleasure to meet you."

There were several question marks twirling around in Sam's head, but the biggest one seemed to be why she found herself quite trapped in the way the images on the TV highlighted the lines of your jaw, cheeks, and lips. "I'm Samantha- Sam," she stumbled out quickly.

Quinn raised her eyebrows in amusement, a beat of silence passed before she tilted her head towards Sam, "yep, that's Samantha Sam."

The older Carpenter kicked herself internally about ten thousand times. That was awful.

A weird weight filled the air after that. Sam didn't know what to do with herself, she didn't know if she should stay or just go and lock herself in her room. She ended up settling for pretending to watch the TV while you spoke with Quinn. From what Sam heard, you had just arrived in town and were staying in a hotel until you could find an apartment, because apparently, your mother had left a significant amount of money in your name; she also overheard that you were yet to go visit your father.

When it was nearing midnight, you decided to leave, saying something about it already being too late.

Sam watched as Quinn walked you to the door and bid you goodbye with a brief hug. And before the door clicked close, your gaze caught Sam's and you gave her that same gentle smile she'd seen earlier; all the same, it froze her, and Sam saw herself just staring back at you with an emotion even she couldn't place.

Quinn dragged herself back to the living room then, laying down on the empty couch to wait for the inevitable interrogation.

"I didn't know you had a sister," Sam started eventually, mindlessly switching through channels. The room was dimly lit, with the only other lights coming from the kitchen, the brightness of the TV hurt her tired eyes.

"Neither did I."

At that, Sam's attention was fully on Quinn, her brows furrowed.

Quinn shook her head, dismissing the worry, "I mean, I knew, sort of," she explained, "she's from a fling my dad had before he met my mom, I think they broke up when she was born and her mom took her to Boston. Never met her until like, yesterday."

Now, the pieces from what Sam had heard were starting to come together. She wondered just how detached you were from this side of your family until now. "And your father never told you had a sister?"

"He did, in passing, sometimes I heard the calls he'd give her to check in. But she's always been distant," Quinn shrugged.

Sam mulled over the words in her mind, part of her couldn't help but feel wary, "why is she here?"

"Her mother died, she has no other family left."

︵‿୨♡୧‿︵

It didn't take long for Sam to bump into you again. It happened actually only two days after your visit to Quinn at their apartment.

It was a mildly calm afternoon at the coffee shop Sam worked at. At least for a Thursday, it felt calm. Just a few booths had people sitting on them, and every few minutes someone would stop by to grab a cup of coffee to go.

What the place lacked in fanciness it made up for in coziness — between her shifts here during the week and at the bowling alley on the weekends, it was easy for Sam to pick a favorite, nothing beats the vibe of a coffee shop — the place held warm tones to its decor, brick walls here and there with a few black boards hung up that had order choices written on them with white chalk; there was also a vintage radio on the corner that Sam always sneakily changed the songs of.

Against her own beliefs, she became rather good at preparing lattes and cappuccinos. She mentioned it to Tara once, and the girl said she'd believe it once she drinks it; Sam has been waiting for her to stop by.

Though as with everything, it wasn't perfect. Even before the rumors blaming her for the murders started, Sam was already an outsider, not quite allowed to fit in. She had no friends amongst the staff, only colleagues; and after the rumors, she even considered that to be a stretch.

Sam doesn't mind. She tells herself as much every day before walking in for work. But feeling judgemental eyes burning into your back at least once a day tends to take its toll on someone.

So she keeps to herself, she does her job, and she tries not to give them more reasons to bother her.

The small bell above the door dinged as someone came in, pulling Sam back to the present when she realized she would be the one taking the order.

She straightened her posture and smoothed down her uniform, looking around on the counter for her notepad and pen. Upon finding them, Sam finally glanced up and felt her breathing get momentarily stuck, the usual 'what can I get for you' dying on her tongue.

Part of Sam thinks she'd ironically recognize you anywhere. She realized you had that about you, something that felt unmistakable.

Same thing that happened to her apparently happened to you as well, as your lips hovered yet no words came out. It was that weird moment of I know you but I don't actually know you yet.

You were the first to talk, and Sam wanted to thank you for it. "Hey," you chuckled, somewhat awkwardly, "it's uh- Sam, right? It's nice to see you again."

Try as she might, Sam wasn't able to hold your gaze, she glanced down at her hands before looking at you again, "that's me," she gave you a small smile, "can I get you anything?"

"Yeah…" You dragged on, stuffing your hands on the pockets of your jeans as your gaze skimmed over the order options, "just a simple cappuccino to go, please." You eventually decided.

Sam felt your eyes on her as she scribbled your order down, even if it was just a cappuccino, she had the habit to write them all down. "Coming right up," she said, before turning around to make your order.

Ever since she started working here, she has probably made more than a hundred cappuccinos; yet she found herself checking things twice over. Espresso, steamed milk, foam. Everything carefully poured down on the cup.

You were standing right where she left you once she brought the order to you. That same gentle smile she saw two nights ago was present on your lips when you paid her and bid her goodbye.

Secretly, Sam wondered if you'd be back some other day.

︵‿୨♡୧‿︵

It was never your plan to come to New York, let alone on your own. But tragedy strikes when you least expect it.

When, on one of his monthly calls to check in on you, you broke the news to your father that your mother had passed, he told you you should come live closer to him if you wanted to. And honestly, not feeling so alone in the world felt appealing.

So you packed everything you had of value, and took the leap. You had your mother to thank for being able to simply do that out of nowhere, she'd left everything of hers in your name, including her company's income.

But money hardly solves all problems, because you never actually met your father's side of the family. All you had were his phone calls, where he would sometimes briefly mention a sister you'd get along with if you were to meet, and not much else.

Upon knowing you'd be coming to the city, he gave you Quinn's contact, promising she would help you find a place to stay. You weren't exactly keen on meeting your sister for the first time all by yourself, but Quinn had been surprisingly easygoing; telling you all about how cool it was to have a sister instead of another brother. And the question 'I have a brother too?' lingered on your tongue, but you thought it would be a weird thing to ask. That was a few days ago, and you settled in a hotel for the time being.

In any way, you had a lot of catching up to do.

And now, anxiety was bubbling relentlessly in your stomach and you clutched tightly at the straps of your backpack. The police station was kinda busy at this time of day, but it was exactly the time he asked you to come in, so you did.

You didn't know exactly what to feel other than anxiety. How is one supposed to feel when they're about to see their father for the first time in their life?

It's a weird situation, though you couldn't really blame your mother for it; yes she took you away shortly after you were born, but from what she told you, she and your father didn't end on the best of terms. From the moment you were born, she'd been protective.

You reached the front desk, worrying your lower lip between your teeth. "Hello," you greeted the woman there.

She glanced up from the pile of papers she'd been sorting out, "hi there, what can I do for you?"

"Um- Detective Bailey asked me to stop by," you explained, and the woman in front of you raised an unamused eyebrow. Even before saying it, the words already felt somewhat strange in your mouth, "he's my father."

︵‿୨♡୧‿︵

Your first two weeks in New York were hectic. Meeting a whole new side of your family was a strange experience, but you'd say it went well. Quinn was the easiest of all, she treated you as if you were one of her friends from university and you appreciated it. Ethan was distant, he was kind and polite, but you could tell he didn't want much to do with you. Your father was, essentially, what you expected him to be; he was kind and attentive, obviously a little awkward just as you were, but he seemed to genuinely care about you; as much as one can care about a daughter they'd never met.

Quinn had been quite insistent on having a sister bonding time with you, so you'd find yourself at her apartment more often than not. This led to you being acquainted with Mindy, Anika, and Chad, who were around just as much as you; plus Sam and Tara, of course.

The youngest of Quinn's roommates took an instant liking to you. Your personality matched Tara's quite well, you were happy to hear every gossip she liked the share about her colleagues at the university and the usual rant about her sister.

Sam, she was not an easy one to read; at first, you thought she might not even like you, but Tara explained that 'that's just how she is, she'll warm up to you eventually'.

Maybe that was part of the reason why you found yourself creating a habit of stopping by a certain coffee shop — after all, they served delicious food and drinks and the place was really cozy; the doe-eyed brunette who worked there was a bonus.

You'd usually stop by later on in the afternoon, when the sunlight had that deep golden glow just an hour or so before disappearing behind the horizon. It was a time of day the coffee shop was a little more crowded, but not as much as it was in the mornings.

Every time you walked in, you found yourself involuntarily looking for Sam; deep down feeling like a schoolgirl with a crush because of the butterflies that invaded your stomach whenever she remembered your order.

You quickly realized the importance of details with Sam. The more you came to eat at the coffee shop, the slightly more comfortable she became with you. It started with her serious expression changing to a small smile whenever she saw you, then she started greeting you by your name, and recently, she has been drawing little smiley faces on your cup.

The usual booth you'd sit at was tucked in a more reserved corner, just beside one of the windows; you liked the privacy. Each time that Sam brought your cappuccino and apple pie, you held yourself back from asking if she could sit down and have a coffee with you.

Maybe tomorrow, you'd think to yourself.

︵‿୨♡୧‿︵

The smell of freshly made lasagna filled the whole apartment. If you had a good enough sense of smell, you'd be able to tell it was just the slightest bit burned, but no one seemed to care.

Mindy and Chad could be heard bickering about how to properly take said lasagna out of the oven without causing a disaster, Tara was opening up a cheap wine bottle while Anika set the dining table, and Quinn was switching through channels on the TV.

It was a pleasant sight for someone who wasn't used to many of those.

Sam had just gotten out of the shower, towel in her hands as she finished drying off her hair. She had managed to get out of work earlier today and ditched therapy so she could have dinner with her found family — which honestly felt more like therapy than actual therapy.

A chuckle escaped Sam's lips when Mindy called her brother a moron with a halfhearted slap on the back of his head.

And then, three soft knocks came from the front door.

"I got it," Sam told them, hanging her towel over her shoulder as she got over to the door and steadily undid all the locks in it. She knew who it was, Quinn warned you'd be coming for dinner today too. Sam felt a little childish when anticipation started twirling in her stomach.

Selfishly, Sam wanted to think that this specific smile of yours belonged to her.

"Hi," she greeted you with the same softness you stared back at her with; for the second time today, the first being at the coffee shop. Sam figured she wouldn't mind seeing you more often, "come in, dinner is almost ready."

"Hey Sam," you smiled timidly as you walked past her and inside the apartment.

Sam has known you for a little over two weeks, and there should be alarms blaring inside her head for the way she felt so naturally drawn to you. But there wasn't, there was only the softness of your presence and the way she wanted to drown in it.

"Hey new girl," Mindy called, her voice ringing loudly through the room as she peeked over from the kitchen with a grin, "you like lasagna?"

"Of course," you grinned, taking off your jacket and failing to see the way Sam's gaze lingered a little too long on you, "who doesn't like lasagna?"

Mindy pointed a finger at you, "right answer," she quipped before disappearing back into the kitchen.

Sam awkwardly cleared her throat next to you, "let me take this for you."

You glanced beside you to see the girl subtly gesturing for your jacket, unsure if the redness of her cheeks was a trick of the light or not. "Oh, thanks, Sam."

"Alright y'all, dinner's on the table," Mindy announced, getting everyone to flock to the dining room.

It was maybe after the second or third time you'd stopped by that you had unconsciously assigned a seat for yourself at their table. Ironically, it was the one beside Sam.

If you were being honest with yourself, you had a lot to thank this peculiar group of friends; if it wasn't for all the laughs they managed to pull out of you at each dinner, maybe settling in on the new city wouldn't have gone so smoothly. They sure took away the feeling of loneliness that had been steadily collecting in your chest ever since your mother passed.

And you had found a reason to like every single one of them; Mindy was naturally funny and made you feel as welcome as if you'd known her your whole life, and so did Anika; Chad was the exact opposite of what you'd picture him to be, sharing his sister's tendency for kindness; Sam was… you couldn't find a word to describe her quite yet, maybe entrancing could work; and Tara, well, you'd just found out tonight she shared your penchant for horror movies.

That's how, after dinner, you found yourself laying with Tara on her bed as you watched a movie of her choosing.

"You know, I'm glad you decided to come to New York," Tara told you out of the blue, the sound coming from her TV almost covering her voice.

Her room was dimly lit, the only source of light being the TV itself and a small lamp on her desk, you could barely make out her features. "I am too, I'm sure glad I met you guys."

Tara chuckled fondly at that, "Sam seems to like you," she told you quietly, her voice sounding as if she was letting you in on a pretty secret, "she could use a friend, you know."

You caught the hidden words in her soft tone. You weren't blind to how lonely Sam tended to be sometimes. Isolating herself even in a room full of people who cared about her.

Though it stunned you for a brief moment that Tara was asking that of you, you wondered if she saw something you didn't. At this point, you already knew of their story, at least partially; from articles online about the Woodsboro killings, and consequently, from the rumors circling around about Sam. Needless to say, your heart broke for them.

"I'd be happy to be her friend, if she'd have me," you meant it.

The movie extended longer than you predicted and Tara was already dozing off on your shoulder by the time the credits rolled. So you carefully turned off her TV and sneaked yourself out of her bed, your steps as light as a feather touching the floor.

You closed the door to her room with extreme delicacy and only as you turned around, did you notice the absolute darkness of the rest of the apartment.

It looked like everyone had already called it a night.

The only thing illuminating your steps was the soft orange glow coming in through the windows from the street lamps outside. The apartment held an eery silence to it, the clean plates and cutlery you all had used earlier rested on top of the table, there was an occasional sound of water droplets falling from the kitchen sink, and the red numbers of the clock on the coffee table read 12:37 AM.

The darkness and silence were a striking contrast to the commotion from earlier.

You opted for turning on the lights in the kitchen so you could look for your jacket and go home for the night; though after a good five minutes of unsuccessful searching you were almost considering leaving without it. That's when a soft, barely there whimper caught your ears.

It got a cold shiver running up and down your back, momentarily making you imagine yourself in a horror movie.

Until your eyes landed on the bigger couch of the living room and you saw Sam; she was curled up there, fast asleep with her hands under her head and knees tucked up to her chest, looking much smaller than she actually was, just barely being highlighted by the kitchen light.

You couldn't help the swelling of your heart. She was undeniably endearing.

There was the sound of a siren passing by in the distance. You looked out the window by instinct, but you couldn't see where exactly it came from.

When your eyes settled back on Sam, you found her clutching at the cushions under her head, a frown etched unpleasantly on her eyebrows. Her hair was messy, you realized; maybe from tossing and turning too much.

You were genuinely not sure what got into you, it's not like you have enough intimacy to even be seeing her like this. But you crouched down in front of her, one hand coming to rest gently on her shoulder.

Before you could even fully touch her, Sam was already stirring awake. Her body was visibly tense and her eyes a tad too wide and alert for someone who just woke up.

"I'm… sorry," you said quietly, feeling embarrassment crawling up your neck and to your cheeks, "sorry I woke you up."

Sam held herself up with her elbow, her free hand running through her messy hair. She wasn't looking at you, attempting to regulate her unsteady breathing.

You could see it from the way her chest moved up and down quickly. And there you followed a single drop of sweat running down from her neck to her collarbone. The night was far too cold for her to be sweating.

You wanted to reach out, but didn't. "I was just wondering where you put my jacket," you continued when she remained quiet.

Sam felt bare in front of you, somewhat timid. There were goosebumps rising on her skin. She nearly didn't find her voice, "I'll go get it for you."

You waited for her by the front door, shifting on your feet. She came back with your jacket in her hands, clutching tightly onto it so you wouldn't catch the shaking of her fingers. But you did, you also caught onto the hollowness of her eyes and the hair clinging to her damp forehead. You knew it wasn't your place to ask, but Sam looked so alone in the darkness of the apartment, that you feared she might let herself be swallowed by it the moment you leave.

"Are you okay?"

Sam's expression did something complicated, unsure of how to feel. Several beats passed in silence, as if she was considering how to answer you. Eventually, she nodded softly, "I'm alright, just tired from work."

It was a half-truth. You had been there today when a group of teenagers came into the coffee shop, one of them casting accusatory glances at Sam as he whispered — quite loudly — the word 'murderer' to his friends. You weren't able to wave her goodbye after that. She stayed hidden in the back.

Maybe your heart felt something it wasn't telling you yet, because it was hurting, for her. "For what it's worth," the words rolled off your tongue in a soft whisper, "I don't believe them."

Sam's lips parted, her mouth going dry and her doe eyes glinting with a sudden vulnerability. The grip she had around your jacket tightened.

Your smile was bittersweet this time, "the rumors, I don't believe them."

︵‿୨♡୧‿︵

"I don't think I see you," you spoke on the phone, squinting at the evening sun shining on your eyes as you walked the busy streets of New York.

Last night your father had called you just before he left the police station, asking if maybe you would like to have an afternoon snack with him today; stop by at a popular bakery to catch up on lost time.

You felt an unfamiliar warmth on your chest at the request, agreeing promptly. He was trying to form a connection with you, and honestly, it was something you wanted too. You already lost one parent, you didn't fancy losing the other.

"I see you."

He spoke over the phone.

"Look to your right."

You followed his instructions and sure enough, he was on the other side of the street, his arms up and obnoxiously waving you over so you'd see him.

A chuckle escaped you as you hurriedly crossed the street, tucking your phone into the back pocket of your jeans. You smiled tentatively then, slowly closing the distance between you and him without knowing if you should lean in for a hug or extend your hand for a shake.

Bailey decided for you, he was opening his arms before you even reached him.

The hug was brief but welcomed. He kept one hand on your shoulder when he pulled away, seemingly taking a good look at you as a sincere smile appeared on his expression; "thank you for coming, I know we've never been too close, but I would like us to be."

You reached up to the hand he still had on your shoulder and squeezed his wrist in reassurance, "I would like it too."

That was enough to cut through the awkward bits of tension still lingering between you. Part of you felt like you were fifteen again, giddy for having your father dedicate a whole afternoon for you and you only.

It didn't make the pain of losing your mother go away, but it engulfed it into something more bearable. Something you could get used to.

︵‿୨♡୧‿︵

It was about an hour after lunch that Sam received a rather urgent call from Tara. The only words she managed to focus on were "asthma attack" and "inhaler at the apartment."

The problem? Sam was basically on the other side of town.

Her first option was Mindy, but the girl wasn't picking up her phone. And then neither was Chad. Her last resort was calling her own apartment in the hopes that Quinn was home and could drive to the university with Tara's inhaler.

The line ringed, and ringed, and ringed. Until…

"Hello?"

The thought about why she recognized your voice so easily flew by. "Y/n?" Sam stopped in her tracks, forcing the other people on the sidewalk to walk around her.

"Sam?"

"What are you-"

"No, I didn't break into your apartment."

Sam heard your chuckle from the other end of the line.

"I stopped by to bring something to Quinn."

"Y/n, I need you to-" Sam took in a deep breath, running a hand through her hair and gripping at the roots of it. She closed her eyes tightly, "Tara is having an asthma attack and she left her inhaler at the apartment, could you ask Quinn to-"

"Sam, calm down."

Your soft voice made Sam realize she was having trouble breathing.

"Breathe, okay? I'll take it to her, I'm less than five minutes away by bike, I'll let you know when I get there."

Sam bit at the inside of her cheek, nodding even though you couldn't see it, "thank you."

Only mere minutes passed by — though they felt much longer than usual — until Sam received a text from you, it read 'hey' and she could see you were still typing.

Sam held onto her breath and only released it once you sent her the next text, which read 'all is good'. Instant relief washed over her and she leaned back on the wall of the random store she was standing in front of.

Her cellphone vibrated again, and this time it was a picture of you and Tara making silly faces while you held her close.

The smile that came to Sam's lips was as big as ever, her heart beating painfully against her ribs as if it was trying to leap from her chest and into the screen of her phone; all so it could reach you.

Sam typed back; 'I owe you one.'

She held back on sending a heart emoji.

It was becoming increasingly harder to deny the way she started feeling about you; how you seemingly occupied a place in her heart no one else could have; or how she hoped to see you walk into the coffee shop every day, because, on the off chance you didn't, something felt out of place, missing.

Maybe it was time for her to do something about it.

And the opportunity presented itself on the very next day.

It was a cloudy Tuesday afternoon, the coffee shop lacking its usual golden rays that came through the window at this time of day. There was a slightly colder breeze in the air, it came through each time a new customer opened the door and it forced Sam to wear her jacket on top of her uniform.

Sam had been anticipating your arrival ever since the clock hit 4 PM, which was the time you usually stopped by. She couldn't help looking up at the door each time she heard the bell above it.

It scared her, to take a chance like this. Trusting people with your heart only opens room for them to break it. She knows it.

But oh you made her want to turn a blind eye to every single risk, and fear, and doubt.

Sam wondered, for a moment, if destiny was playing with her. Because when the clock hit 4:47 PM you walked through the coffee shop's doors and the sky just so happened to have a crack in its clouds, casting a faded glow that bathed you aureate for a moment.

Sam's eyes were unfocused, caught in a daze that was only broken when you were already standing in front of her.

"Good afternoon, Sam," you smiled, your cheeks flushed from the cold wind outside.

"Hi," Sam stumbled out, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear as she cleared her throat, "the usual?"

"Please," you confirmed, already reaching inside your backpack for your wallet, but Sam's hand on your forearm stopped you.

The touch of her skin on yours felt electric. Sam pulled her hand back quickly, timidly curling her fingers to try and keep the feeling of you a little longer. "This one is on me," her voice wasn't nearly as confident as it needed to be for that line.

You were about to open your mouth to protest, but she beat you to it; "please, let me do this. As a thank you for you helping Tara yesterday."

A sly smile crept into your lips, your eyes roaming over Sam up and down before you spoke; "only if you drink something with me."

Your boldness surprised Sam, in the best of ways. She was burning up inside, her heart working overtime to keep up with her feelings. Despite the cold, she felt suddenly warm.

"I have a break in ten."

When Sam brought your order to your table — the usual table in the far right corner near the biggest window — she sat down in front of you. She carefully placed down your cappuccino and apple pie before closing both her hands around the simple cup of coffee she had for herself.

You took your time with taking a sip from your drink, closing your eyes when the slightly sweet, warm beverage hit your tongue.

Sam followed each movement, from the way your fingers closed around the mug to the way the corner of your lips lifted just the smallest bit after tasting the coffee she made — for a moment you were all she could see. Though she shook herself off of it pretty quickly, realizing how it might be creepy. Sam took a generous drink of her coffee as well.

"Do you like it?" Came the sudden sweetness of your voice, "working at a coffee shop?"

A faint smell of burnt bread reached Sam's nose, it was probably Enrique forgetting about the oven again. She could hear loud chatter happening at the entrance of the coffee shop, it was probably the five students who usually stopped by at this time of day. Sam was hesitating. Between apartment visits because of Quinn and everyday meet-ups for her to make you coffee, Sam didn't plan for herself coming this far with you.

"Could be worse," were the words that eventually escaped her mouth, "beats the bowling alley."

You chuckled, a lovely sound as you sheepishly glanced down, your thumb tracing the edge of your mug. Sam wanted to pull her cell phone out and trap this moment in time; it felt precious enough to do so.

"I definitely prefer coming to coffee shops instead of bowling alleys," you smirked.

Sam somewhat mimicked your smile, "are you liking New York?"

You hummed, choosing to take a bite of your pie before answering, "all things considered, I am. It's a lot of getting used to," you had a faraway gaze out the window then, leaning your chin on your hand, "meeting a whole new side of my family is… strange. But we're getting along surprisingly well, I've been going out with my father at least once a week, Ethan is more distant but still nice whenever we meet, and, well, I've been visiting Quinn quite regularly, as you know."

Sam took in each of your words, softly nodding along, "it's good one of us is feeling at home, sort of." She gulped, mulling over her next words, "you know you're welcome at the apartment whenever. Tara adores you… everyone does."

If you caught Sam's 'I adore you' you didn't comment on it. Instead, you asked; "how are you settling in? Tara mentioned you guys moved in only a few weeks before I did."

That had Sam holding back a sigh. She leaned back on her side of the booth, "feels like all the shit that happened in Woodsboro followed us all the way here."

Some days were better than others. Some days the weight on her shoulders felt more bearable and the people around her weren't as menacing with their baseless accusations. Some days were worse.

"I'm sorry about everything that's been going on the internet about you," you said.

Sam met your eyes and found there a gentleness no one had ever looked at her with.

"You don't deserve it, Sam."

Being with you was as easy as breathing. For a fleeting moment inside the walls of the coffee shop, there were no rumors crucifying Sam for something she didn't do; there were no bad memories taking her sleep at night; there were no permanent scars marking her skin — there was only Samantha, the girl who had almost forgotten what it felt like to just worry about which words to say next to impress the girl she developed feelings for.

And if she went to bed that night with the ghost of a smile on her lips because you kissed her cheek goodbye earlier, that was nobody's business but hers.

︵‿୨♡୧‿︵

"Guys, what do you say we order pizza for tonight?" Sam threw the idea into the night.

It was nearing 7 PM and it was a Saturday, meaning it was the unofficial girl's night of the week. Sam, Mindy, Anika, Tara, and Quinn sat together in the living room of Sam's apartment watching a random action movie. Dinner time was nearing and none of them really fancied cooking tonight.

"I think it's a good idea," Mindy agreed, leaning back on the couch and pulling Anika with her, "do you think one is enough for the five of us?"

"Six," Sam spoke without looking up from her phone, already searching for the pizza place's number, "I invited Y/n over."

Save for the movie playing in the background, there was a sudden silence in the living room. It stretched on until Sam found the number and looked up to see everyone staring at her.

A frown slowly came to her eyebrows and she chuckled awkwardly, fidgeting with her phone, "what?"

"You invited her?" Quinn started.

"You two have been growing quite close," Mindy added, an all-too-knowing grin on her lips.

Tara had her lips hung open, being the last one to catch up on her sister's painfully obvious crush.

"We're… friends, she's nice," Sam shrugged, feeling herself grow self-conscious with the attention and involuntarily curling in on herself a little. She got up from the couch then, deciding to go make the call to order the pizza outside in the hallway as she figured she wouldn't have much peace inside right now.

She put on her house slippers and walked to the front door, hearing Mindy shout; "I've heard that before," right as she closed the door behind her.

Sam found herself slowly roaming to the lobby as she spoke on the phone, a cold air came from the entrance doors of her apartment building as she spoke on the phone, making her hug herself to preserve the warmth.

The pizza would be arriving in about thirty minutes, and just before Sam turned around to walk back inside to the coziness of her apartment, her cell phone dinged with a message from you letting her know you were here.

Sam saw herself smiling at the screen of her phone, at the small heart emoji you added beside the text.

The main doors of the entrance hall hinged as you walked in, and the first thing Sam noticed was that you were quite underdressed for the weather outside; only a thin jacket kept your body warm, your hair was all tousled from the wind and you had your hands buried in the pockets of your sweatpants. Still, you smiled brightly when you spotted Sam coming towards you.

"Aren't you cold?" Sam chuckled as she met you in the middle, coming to a stop a little closer to you than she should. Her eyes involuntarily roamed up and down your body, always engraving the image of you in her mind as if it was the first and last time she'd be seeing you; even if she has known you for nearly two months now.

"You bet I'm cold," without much of a warning, you brought one hand up and cupped Sam's cheek; the coldness of your skin contrasted with the warmth of hers.

Sam shivered from head to toe, and it wasn't because of the coldness of your fingers, for she could feel her cheeks warming up even more.

Unable to hold your gaze as she did so, Sam took hold of your freezing hand, "come on, let's get you warmed up. I ordered pizza."

You followed her willingly, nuzzling against her shoulder as you walked.

You're both not sure when this newfound intimacy happened. But you weren't complaining. Your heart was so full of Sam that you could hardly call it your own anymore. And Sam doesn't know what happiness means if it isn't written with the letters of your name.

Though it wasn't until a whole week later, that you did something about it.

This Friday was a rainy one, the skies had grey clouds looming over everyone on the streets as heavy raindrops fell steadily. Water splashed around people's shoes as they walked, holding their coats close to their bodies and their umbrellas above their heads.

Sam didn't have an umbrella. She'd given hers to Tara this morning because technically she wouldn't need it, she'd catch a ride with one of the nicer coworkers at the coffee shop when it was time to leave.

Sam was walking in the rain.

She never made it to 7 PM, which was usually the time she'd get off work. Her boss had dismissed her much earlier today; 'it doesn't look good to have a barista covered in coffee' was what he'd said.

Now, the huge coffee stain on her shirt was barely there, being replaced by the water falling from the sky. The pouring rain had already soaked through Sam's clothing; it trickled down her chin and made her hair stuck to her forehead. It was cold, she was shaking, and her fingers were becoming numb.

Today had been one of those unfortunate days. It was a group of teenagers, Sam can't exactly remember what they looked like; she had been the one to bring their orders to the table, and when their eyes met hers she could instantly see the hatred there. Various false accusations left their lips as one of them 'accidentally' spilled their coffee all over Sam. Today wasn't a good day.

Sam didn't know where she was going to, she was almost sure she was walking in the complete opposite direction of her apartment. She didn't stop, keeping her head low in hopes the rain would completely engulf her being.

"Sam?" The call of her name sounded like a hallucination at first. Too sweet, and too far away to be real.

"Sam!" Now it was closer, clearer between the heavy raindrops hitting the pavement.

It made Sam look up, one hand brushing over her eyes to clean the rain stuck to her lashes. Instantly, she forgot how to breathe.

You were coming towards her, one hand holding your coat and the other holding a faded pink umbrella above your head. You looked distressed, there was a frown on your eyebrows that Sam wanted to smooth away with her fingers.

Between the smell of coffee on her shirt and the rain on her skin, Sam had forgotten this was the time you usually came to the coffee shop.

Sam was suddenly shielded from the falling rain. You had to stay close so your umbrella would cover both of you. "Sam…" Your tone was sorrowful as your evident worry escaped you, "what are you doing out here like this? What happened?" You looked her up and down, taking in her purplish fingertips, her soaked clothes and hair, and the barely there coffee stain of her shirt.

The image of you in front of Sam started to blur over; she opened her lips to speak, tasting the raindrops there, yet the words were clogged up on the lump in her throat. A feeling of shame was crawling inside her guts, piercing through her heart for having you see her like this. Sam avoided your eyes, focusing on her boots instead.

Your sneakers inched closer and Sam felt your gentle fingers pushing away strands of her wet hair; the softness of your touch amidst all the harshness she was used to nearly made her crumble.

"Did someone do this to you?" You asked even softer.

Another beat of silence, and then; "I don't know why they hate me so much." Was all Sam told you, her voice nothing but a whisper that broke in the middle.

In the same heartbeat, with the hand that wasn't holding your umbrella, you took hold of Sam's waist, pulling her body close to yours in a warm embrace.

Sam clung to you as if you'd vanish into thin air any minute. Both her arms instantly came around your shoulders in a close-knit grip as she bunched the fabric of your coat between her fingers.

You adjusted your hold around her waist, mimicking the same strength she held you with. Part of you knew she needed to feel that kind of reassuring pressure, shielding her away from reality.

Her body was worryingly cold, the wetness of her clothes was seeping into your own but you couldn't find it in yourself to mind. Because Sam buried her head into the crook of your neck and you could feel steady wet drops falling into your skin, and you knew they weren't from the rain.

Sam's sobs were muffled against you. And as her body trembled in your hold, your heart shattered.

"Let me take you home," you whispered, your lips brushing the skin of her shoulder until you placed a kiss there.

Sam's grip on you tightened, bringing your bodies closer together if that was even possible. "Okay."

And you did take her home. Sam only didn't imagine that when you said home, you meant your apartment, not hers.

To say your place was better than Sam's would be an understatement. Your apartment wasn't overly luxurious, but it was evident that it was expensive.

Admittedly, Sam felt out of place. Not necessarily in a bad way; only in the way that you were clearly much better off in life than she was, and it made her feel a little self-conscious to think she'd been fantasizing about a chance with you, when, admittedly, you could do better.

You let go of your umbrella but kept holding onto Sam's hand, leading her to your bedroom, "come on, let's get you some dry clothes."

Your bedroom was the most 'you' room in the house. There was a double bed in the middle, a dresser, a desk with a computer and a whole lot of other things on top — books, a collection of pens, a couple of sketchbooks, small fantasy figures such as soldiers on horses and dragons — a mirror just beside the dresser, a bookshelf, and several pictures and fairy lights stuck to the walls. Everywhere Sam looked, there was a bit of you.

She hovered in the middle of it all, shaking from head to toe because of how cold her body was, and hyper-aware of the water still dripping from her soaked clothes and into the wooden floor.

You rummaged through your dresser until you found a comfy pair of purple sweatpants and a hoodie of the same color. You handed them to Sam, "the bathroom is just down the hall, feel free to take a shower and warm yourself up okay? I'll be in the kitchen."

Sam gulped down the lump still stuck in her throat, nodding along with your words, "thank you, you didn't have to do all this," her voice still held that same rawness to it, though the corner of her lips quirked up.

You let out a breathy chuckle, tilting your head to the side as if she just spoke a foreign language. "Yeah I did, that's what people do when they care about each other."

Under the warm orange glow of the fairy lights of your bedroom, Sam could count the specks of color in your eyes. She could drown in the ocean that was you and everything you made her feel.

Sometimes, you look at each other as if you're about to kiss.

Sam wondered if it was the same for you when she caught your eyes drifting to her lips. Before she could figure it out, you were sheepishly avoiding her eyes and walking off to the kitchen.

When Sam walked out of the bathroom, her skin now warm and her hair with the smell of your shampoo, you had just finished making two mugs of hot chocolate.

You heard her bare feet approaching you, felt her lingering gaze on your back. You could tell Sam wasn't allowing herself to be completely comfortable here yet. You hoped to change that.

Turning around, you were met with the endearing sight of Sam in your clothes, her hair still damp and cheeks now flushed from the hot water of the shower. She looked like your favorite dream.

You walked up to her, handing her one of the mugs, "now it's my turn to serve you," you winked.

Sam closed both hands around the mug, an inevitable chuckle escaping her.

You leaned back on the counter of your kitchen, hearing the rain that still poured outside hitting the windows. "Feeling better?"

Before answering, Sam took a sip of her hot chocolate, humming at the sweetness and warmth of it. "Much better."

"You can stay as long as you'd like," you told her, because you knew she needed to hear it.

Sam's thumb traced the rim of her mug. You could see her lips pulling thin, feel her uneasiness.

"I would like you to stay, Sam."

Thunder started rumbling in the distance as the rain picked up even more. Sam would be stuck with you for a while; maybe you should make the most of having her all to yourself.

You put down your mug and pushed yourself away from the kitchen counter. Sam could be fragile sometimes, you realized; there was a part of her that always remained guarded, waiting for the next blow to come. Yet you could almost feel the desperate calls of her lonely heart.

When you took a step closer to her, Sam didn't take one away from you, and it was all the confirmation you needed. She had a white-knuckled grip on her mug, though it relaxed immediately when your hand enveloped hers and you took the mug, putting it aside on the counter.

Sam was holding herself as stiff as a corpse; if you were anyone else, she would have taken her chance already, but you were you, and the fear that she might fuck it up spoke louder. Her eyes followed each of your movements though, her pupils blown wide and reflecting the vulnerability of a heart that started beating for you, for you, for you.

Both your hands eventually reached up to her cheeks, your fingers tracing her jaw and your thumbs brushing the skin beneath her eyes.

Inevitably, Sam melted in your hold, a breath leaving her lips as she closed her eyes for a beat. No one ever held her as if she was something precious. You always did.

First, your lips met her forehead in a kiss that felt like a promise. Then, your nose brushed hers when you leaned in; your breaths mingling as your hands found the back of her neck to pull her in.

You were gentle, so much so that Sam hardly felt your lips. You guided her into a chaste kiss, just a touch of your soft lips that fitted perfectly with hers. So perfectly, she'd dare say you were made just for her.

Small as it was, the gesture of affection got Sam grasping at your waist; her hands holding onto you with the same desperation as before. As if happiness, for her, was limited.

Sam didn't dare open her eyes when you pulled back. It was foolish, but she wanted to utter those three words just for the fact that you didn't go far, choosing to keep your forehead leaning against hers.

"Are you sure?" The words stumbled out of Sam's lips in an unsteady whisper as she took to memory what it felt like to have you this close.

You pulled away and she felt like crying.

It was only enough so you could look into her eyes, and there you saw everything she didn't want you to see. In those dark doe eyes that shone with the dim lights of your kitchen; you saw her fear, her loneliness; you saw the way she thought of herself as a person who doesn't deserve to be taken out of the rain, but who longs for someone to do so anyway.

"More than I've ever been in my life," you whispered back, pulling her in before you even finished speaking. You clashed your lips together, not holding back this time, because if she didn't believe your words, she would believe your touch; she would believe the way your hands tangled in her hair and how your tongue brushed over her bottom lip, tasting the lingering sweetness of hot chocolate there.

Yet, between each breathless kiss, you'd mumble, "I promise."

And Sam would hold you more firmly, her arms encircling your waist as she traced a path down your neck with her lips, confessions rolling off her tongue.

You had her at your mercy; she was yours. But you were hers too.

︵‿୨♡୧‿︵

It's been fifteen minutes already. Fifteen minutes of Sam glaring at her phone as if it would relent and type the message for her.

"Sammy, this is getting sad," Mindy popped a popcorn in her mouth, side-eyeing Sam's figure; who was huddled in a blanket on the couch beside hers, "just ask her already."

"Yeah, I will," Sam groaned, hugging her blanket closer to her chest, "just… finding the right words."

"The words are: 'do you want to go on a date with me? Yes or no?' Simple." A popcorn flew in Sam's direction as Mindy explained, "stop making a big deal of it, it's not like you guys never went out together anyway."

Sam pursed her lips, staring at the little picture of you in her contacts. It's true, you've met for outings multiple times already; but there was something more now, an incessant swarm of butterflies in her stomach whenever Sam thought of you.

"It's different," she said quietly, "I don't wanna mess it up." Her vulnerability dripped from each syllable.

Mindy softened at that, forgetting about the movie playing on the TV and properly turning to look at her friend; "you won't mess it up, Sam. She likes you, everyone can see it."

It felt nice to hear the words out loud, it made them all the more real — as if your make-out session from a few days ago wasn't enough. Sam could feel her cheeks growing warmer by the minute as she finally typed her message and hit send before the small bit of courage went away.

Mindy had been right, after all.

That night, Sam took you out for dinner and a movie; classic, but she learned that you loved the classics. Especially when you pressed your lips to hers again before saying goodbye, in a kiss that Sam would be happy to live in forever.

︵‿୨♡୧‿︵

The stairs that led up to her apartment weren't the most comfortable seat, but the empty hallways provided much-needed peace.

Sam buried her head in her hands, clawing at the roots of her hair. Her shirt was still damp, the smell becoming annoying. She could feel the back of her eyes stinging but she gulped back the feeling.

"You know you don't always have to wait for me down here."

It was almost magical, how your voice sent a wave of easiness through Sam's body. It was almost as if you carefully reached inside her chest and took away the burden there.

You were walking up to her, a smirk on your lips and a backpack hanging from your shoulder, "I know the way to your apartment."

Sam mimicked your smile, getting up with more haste than usual and meeting you halfway in the empty hallway. She didn't give you much of a warning before bringing you into a searing kiss, her hands cupped your cheeks and she had your bottom lip trapped between hers; chasing the feeling only you could give her.

A gasp escaped you when she collided with you. Your giggles got muffled by her lips and you took hold of her waist to steady yourself.

It's been four months since Sam started calling you hers. Four months since she's been able to gloat because you're her girlfriend. Four months in which she's been the happiest she's ever been in her life.

"I missed you," she spoke against your lips.

You kissed the words, frowning playfully, "you saw me this afternoon."

"Exactly," Sam's smile stretched further, "too long," and then she was leaning in again, and again, and again.

Sam could be intense sometimes, but you knew how to recognize when she was doing it for fun, or to forget about something else.

You took hold of one of her hands then, breaking the kiss she had you trapped in so you could place one to her knuckles, "is that cherry coke I smell on you?"

"Maybe," she dragged the word, her fingers intertwining with yours.

"Are you making a habit of having people throw drinks at you?" You raised an eyebrow at her before squeezing her hand reassuringly, "what happened?"

Sam let out a halfhearted groan, shrugging her shoulders as she avoided your eyes, "just some conspiracy psychos… and Tara is pissed at me."

"Did you guys have another fight?" You asked sympathetically.

"She was at this party and I tased a guy who was trying to take advantage of her, and now she's mad at me," Sam distracted herself by playing with your fingers as she spoke, "keeps telling me I should let her go."

In your four months with Sam, you learned how protective she could be of those she cares about, especially after what happened in Woodsboro. You learned that because you were now on that list too. You'd lost count of how many guys she threatened because of you already, each time you went out for drinks together and a strange dude decided to try his luck with you Sam would pull out her taser and aim it right where it hurts most.

In truth, you understood both sides. Yes, Sam could be overprotective sometimes; but she had her reasons.

"Family can be complicated, I would know," you pushed back strands of Sam's dark hair, never having enough of how she leaned into your touch, "but Tara will come around soon."

You felt the shape of Sam's smile on your palm right before she placed a kiss there. Part of you lived only for these sweet, precious moments.

"Hey guys," Chad's voice suddenly broke your peaceful bubble. You and Sam looked up to see him on the stairs, "come up here, quick."

Sam walked into her apartment holding onto your hand, and her grip only tightened when she saw what everyone was watching on the TV.

A student from Blackmore University had just been murdered, Mindy recognized him from their film studies class.

Tension lay heavy in the room, but especially, it radiated off Sam; you could feel it in the tremble of her hold on your hand when the reporter spoke about the several Ghostface costumes left at the scene of the crime.

⋆* ☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ

Thank you for reading this little story. Feedback and reblogs are literally what keep me motivated to continue posting here, so I’d appreciate it if you could take some time to reblog and comment if you want. <3

Sam’s taglist: @milkiane @v1ci0us @alexkolax

#sam carpenter x reader #sam carpenter imagine #sam carpenter #samantha carpenter #scream #sam carpenter x you #sam carpenter x female reader #samcarpenteredit #imagine #fanfic #fluff #angst #sam carpenter fanfic #melissa barrera #melissa barrera x reader #my story

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