#and i've spent a questionable amount this month alone

[hunkydorkling]

Do I even lay off of the bento cake for this year's birthday. Last January's was so fucking good.

[trans-androgyne]

As of today I've officially read every post in the transandrophobia tag for an entire year--in addition to running a discord server on the topic for six months--so I feel I have some amount of insight into the term and the little community we seem to have been building around it.

I've seen people stumbling into the discussion and having their mental health immediately wrecked, so I want to share a few quick and basic reminders/lessons I needed to hear a year ago.

You're not a transmisogynist for using the word transandrophobia. You're not an MRA or a TERF either and it's messed up to call you those things. I used to question myself constantly about these things, but I've also now spent hours looking at what real MRAs and TERFs believe and it is nowhere near my beliefs.

You're allowed to take up space. In physical spaces of course--your presence isn't a threat just because you're a man/masc--but also in discussions of feminism and transphobia. It isn't talking over women to share your experiences as a trans person. You experience gendered oppression and it's okay to talk about it.

People lie about us constantly. I'm always hearing things like we think trans women oppress us or so and so in the discussion said something transmisogynistic; do not take these claims at face value, look into them yourself or ask someone who has done so.

Stereotyping us is bigotry plain and simple. That includes considering us more aggressive, annoying, self-centered, toxic, attention-seeking, and misogynistic compared to other groups.

Sexism can very much target men and mascs. If you've been defining transandrophobia as solely an intersection of transphobia and misogyny, I implore you to just look up sexism to see how it can affect nonnormative men. I can give examples.

We have allies! When I found the discussion and saw the vitriol and violent threats directed at us I felt hopeless and alone, but now I know there are plenty of trans women and fems who support me having language. You'll find your people.

I have more to say and I'd be happy to talk to anyone new to the discussion, just reach out.

[kamiversee]

➶-͙˚ ༘✶ F*CK THE LIST

✧.* CHAPTER 4 || Fuck The Prequel

[ { SYPNOSIS } ] ➤ A continued tale after Gojo Satoru's blackmailing seemed to have much more to it than meets the eye.

[ { CHAPTER CONTENT } ] ➤ language, backstory, angst, & a tinge of fluff.

[ { WORD COUNT } ] ➤ 2k (this is the shortest chapter I've ever written, help)

[ { PAIRINGS } ] ➤ jjk men x f!reader. gojo x f!reader. choso x f!reader. sukuna x f!reader.

[ [ chapters mlist } ]

——IT WAS ALMOST AS THOUGH meeting you was an official game changer for him. The day you met will never not cross Gojo’s mind at least once every twenty-four hours. He remembers every detail of the encounter, despite how simple it was.

It was your new roommate, at the time, Shoko who’d introduced the two of you to one another and it felt like a goddamn fever dream to Gojo. There you were standing just a few feet away from him after he’d spent weeks getting himself together just to be able to hold a conversation with you without stumbling over his words or saying something weird.

Shoko had Gojo and Geto over at the time and you were in the kitchen when the trio walked in, brief greetings made before she took them to the living room to hang out. Gojo remembers you and Geto saying hi to one another but when you looked at him, both of you just awkwardly acknowledged one another with a wave. Of course, Gojo would learn months later that you found that little wave of yours embarrassing but to him, he always found it cute and just assumed you were shy.

After all, so was he. Or maybe nervous is the better word to put to it because his heart was pounding in his chest the entire time he was at your apartment. Even when he was taken to the living room with Shoko, he was sweating and worried that you’d magically see right through him and figure out all that he’d done in the past.

Guilt was eating away at him so much that he couldn’t even focus on Shoko and Geto’s laughter about some show playing on the television ahead. He needed a moment to clear his air and even considered leaving for a second.

With a sigh, Gojo eventually excused himself to get water from the kitchen, hoping a cool drink would help calm him down. By that time, it’d been an hour since he’s entered your home and he figured there was no chance he’d run into you again since Shoko mentioned you usually hole yourself up in your room.

As such, when Gojo got into the kitchen, he found himself searching for a bottle of water– nervously opening a few cabinets as he didn’t want to seem like he was snooping through you and Shoko’s place. He was so nervous that his fingers were trembling ever so slightly.

His heartbeat felt like it was thrumming throughout his eardrums and Gojo wasn’t sure what to do with himself. He just knew everything would blow up in his face the very second he ever spoke to you-

“Gojo, right?” The sound of your voice somewhere behind him made him flinch so hard that he almost yelped.

With yet another gulp, Gojo was slow to turn his head back over his shoulder to glance in your direction. The second he made eye contact with you it was like all his fear just melted away. Whatever nerves he had building up inside him simply disappeared and he found himself centered by your gaze alone.

He takes a second to nod at your question, “Yeah.”

You gave him the smallest little smile and he was just frozen in front of you. Though, you couldn’t really tell from your perspective, “Let me know if you need anything.”

Gojo swallows thickly and nods again, saving himself with a smile, “Yeah, actually. I uh, I can’t find any water. I didn’t wanna rummage through all your things but-”

“Did you try looking in the fridge?” Your voice was almost teasing and that small smile of yours was growing as you stepped fully into the kitchen and made your way to the refrigerator.

He blinked, “Well-, no, actually. I did not look in the fridge…” He responds with just the same amount of teasing in his voice.

The sound of your chuckling could be heard as the door to the fridge swung open and you bent down to grab a bottle of water for him. Then, you stood up and held it out to him, “Here.”

Gojo stares at you, a billion and one thoughts running through his head. Most of your body was hidden behind the still-open fridge door and you were slightly leaning on it, holding out a bottle of water for him with a kind grin on your face. Shit, you were real. It’s not like he didn’t know that already but-, hell, here you were interacting with him.

You’re real. This is real. You’re not just some girl he was watching from afar or found himself infatuated with. You are a real human standing right in front of him and talking to him. The realization hits him so suddenly that Gojo’s left staring at you for far longer than he means to, leaving you to raise a brow at his lost little gaze.

Your hand starts to retract a bit, “Did you uh, not want cold water? I think we have some room temp in the-”

“Nono,” Gojo rushes out, taking a deep breath, “Cold waters fine, sorry.” He hums as he finally takes that step forward and grabs the offered drink from your hand.

Fuck, he could only imagine how he came off just now. He probably looked so weird staring at you. You probably hate him alread-

“Right, well, let me know if you need anything else,” Your talking cuts his thoughts off again as you casually step away from the fridge and shut it. 

Gojo nods in acknowledgment and with that, you’re heading back to your room within the next minute. Left alone in the kitchen with his thoughts, Gojo begins to realize a number of things all at once. The main thought being that you’re a real person. With such an understanding of that fact alone, all the guilt he’s felt practically triplets.

His head is pounding with thought after thought of how the hell he’s going to execute this whole plan with you. He regrets everything he’s done in private while thinking about you, every time he’s placed himself in areas where he could catch a glimpse of you, and that disgusting journal of his that creepily depicts his thoughts of you over the years.

Gojo wishes he could restart everything and go all the way back to the day he saw you at that party and talk to you. He knew he was interested in you from the moment he laid eyes on you so why didn’t he just talk to you? Why didn’t he talk to you after that? Why did he grow so obsessed with a woman he doesn’t even know-

Holy fuck. It all hits him at once. Gojo’s never been obsessed with you or in love with you but rather the mere idea of you and what you’re like. He doesn’t know anything personal about you outside of what Shoko’s told him or what he’s witnessed from a distance.

Moving a palm over his face, Gojo lets out a long sigh before scoffing at himself. Okay, maybe this whole blackmail plan wasn’t going to be that hard after all. He’s not in love with you, just the you he has in his head. So, essentially, unless you turn out to be just as he sees you mentally, this should be rather easy to pull off. All he has to do is pretend to be some asshole to some stranger, in a sense.

But, as we know, these kinds of thoughts are much better said than done because you turn out to be a thousand times better than the version of you in his head he grew infatuated with. But hey, he doesn’t realize that until months later when the list actually starts.

Gojo doesn’t know what moment it was specifically that he started to realize you were much better than he thought you were– perhaps it was the first time he kissed you or the first time he had sex with you, or even every time he kissed you and that face you make when you gaze at him like he’s the most beautifully devastating thing you’ve ever laid your eyes on. The way your breathing is all soft after a kiss as if your breath was stolen, how you stare right into his eyes and so clearly get lost in them-, wrapped up in everything that’s him, it all makes his heart swell to new degrees.

Whenever you speak it’s like he can’t hear anything else but every syllable leaving your lips. Is it possible to be addicted to someone’s sound alone? When you laugh, his skin feels tingly and his heart turns to pure mush. Even when you were angry at him, Gojo found himself oh so curious. He couldn’t help but study anything and everything that was you once he got the chance to do so.

Getting entangled with you was both the best and worst thing to ever have happened to him. It was the worst because hurting you and bringing you pain was inevitable but it was blissful because in the process he found himself realizing that his obsession and level of love for you had died and come back to life within months. 

That one morning after the first time you slept with Geto lingers inside Gojo’s head. The entire thing from start to finish is the perfect way to describe how you feel inside his mind. From something so soft, gentle, and loving to a raging storm that makes him so unbearably angry at himself– you, were something indescribable for Gojo.

You’re his peace, his heartache, his pain, his joy, his literal everything, even if you shouldn’t be. The obsession he had for you was dead by the time the list started but once it was over, he felt like he was right back where he started. Hell, it was as if that longing desire to be in your presence had tripled.

His last official conversation with you will never fail to ring throughout his head, even if it were years later when he finally learned to move on. 

You were the highlighting factor of Gojo’s life. The idea of you destroyed him and yet the real you healed him. All things that you were clueless about. In one of your last few conversations with him before the two of you really parted ways, Gojo answered an important question you’d asked him by telling you he fell in love with you through his blackmailing but had also been in love with you from the start…

In reality, he finds that it was more of him trying to protect and fix himself from the start only to genuinely fall in love with you, and not just the idea, later on. Gojo thinks it was the way that even you found yourself feeling hints of such a strong emotion toward him despite the shit he was putting you through.

You fell for the simple act of him kissing you over anyone else you experienced– even Choso. Would that still have been possible if you’d known the truth from the beginning? Gojo barely even wants to think about it but it is a good question. You did tell him at one point that you would’ve liked knowing he was obsessed with you earlier on since you were lonely but, you and him both know that’s not true.

And even if by chance it is true, he didn’t want that for you; it’s not healthy.

Above the obsession, the love, the lust, the confusion, hate, anger, regret, and any other emotions experienced throughout the torment that was enduring that damn list… Gojo ever only truly wished one thing for you and that was happiness. Aside from anything else, joy was the first emotion he ever saw you display.

It was the emotion that attracted him to you. Your laughter, your smiles, your happiness, if he could in any way protect that, even from himself, then he’d do anything necessary.

…

Which is why when he receives a random call from Choso one day during the summer after the list is over, he realizes that his story with you hasn’t quite come to its end yet.

From The F*ck List to F*ck The List… It seems as though Gojo Satoru’s blackmailing really did have much more to it than meets the eye.

[ { A/N } ] ➤ In case it's not clear, this is the end of the prequel and the following events from here on out occur after the alternate ending of The F*ck List.

mlist || previous || next

tags 1/4; @lavnederr @stopmila @chelsea14 @hillmiaxoxo @choso-enthusiast

@chososdisciple @suguruologist @mitzkooni @annananamin @jakeywon

@thvema @uranometrias @gigiipeaches @isawrd @bored--boring

@soonyoung-park @oidloid @you-make-skz-stay @haesify @paintedcans

@deljojeisbackagain @heeheeswifey @s-kateboardcat @kaalyomi @rilxigh

@win2xsgf @diana4l @angelsleepinggurl @aselvaticotaku @livvyluvsyouu

@tadabzzzbee @buglikeangell @sukunadckrider @todod0kii @mua-for-now

@dazaiswaifuartisan @bee3l0v3r @blkpotionss @cranberrycosmos @cawwotta

@chosomi @gentle-roxyboo @teonawrites @interludered @wannabeotaku

@earthytreeswithc @tapinz @attackonjacksons @hovogliadisogni @hoebuns

[predestinatos]

love me down? — CL16 𓍢ִ໋ ᰔᩚ

chapter 1 chapter 2 chapter 3 chapter 4

pairing: charles leclerc x fem!reader

summary: it's time to confront feelings over mcdonald's and a beach view

word count: 4k

tags: a bit angsty not gonna lie, vulnerable!charles is so interesting to write, finally they get it together (kind of), smut at the end - absolutely filthy btw.

minors dni ──★ ˙🍓 ̟ !! warnings & note underneath

note: so so sorry for the delay in updates! i've been busy on my dissertation, staying home alone for a few days and traveling along with writing some articles for my uni newspaper so things have been crazy here. but i appreciate all the support and patience.

warnings: rough sex, kitchen sex, spit is involved, charles is very... domineering

“Thank you” you smiled softly to the girl handing you the McDonald’s bag and the two big cups of coke, which you promptly asked for Charles to hold as you proceeded to drive away.

Your hands gripped the stirring wheel as you drove – upon Charles’ insistence that he wanted to see you doing it, and also because it would raise less suspicion and attention if you both did so. The night was calm and slightly warm, allowing for the windows to be opened and the breeze ran through your hair wildly.

You felt his gaze on you, noticing how he stared unapologetically at you from the corner of your eye, a warm smile plastered across his face, his eyes half open – details that you didn’t notice but knew, out of the sheer amount of time you were now spending together, his expressions becoming familiar and recognizable, like a painting you hang on your bedroom and see every morning when you wake up.

“Stop staring, it distracts me,” you said jokingly, your shoulders tensing as you smiled shyly and tried to fix your hair with one hand, the other remaining on the wheel. “Now you know how I feel” he replied, popping a French fry in his mouth.

You allowed yourself half a second to look at him with confusion, your eyebrows furrowed as you moved your head questioningly. “What do you mean?” you asked, as you opened your hand towards him and demanded for him to give you a french fry.

“I mean when we all hang out and you sit at the back of my car and all I can see is you from the rearview mirror” he replied, his arms stretching towards your mouth instead of your hand, placing the food in it carefully. You knew the order of these actions was deliberate – first he admitted to something, then he would shush you somehow, as if to let that admission disappear or go unnoticed, or for him to think of something to say that would somehow lessen it.

The cold tone of his eyes remained on you, however, letting silence fill the car, as you noticed you hadn’t put music on, relying on each other’s voices and company instead. With your mouth still half full, you kept questioning his attentive gaze: “we haven’t all hung out in your car in ages, though.” You swallow, hoping he understood what you said between chewing and speaking.

Charles laughed softly, both at your statement and at your attempt to multitask, which he tried to unconsciously replicate by removing the Coca-Cola cup from the bag without taking his eyes off of you. “I know,” he realized that was all he could say, and that it was enough for you to understand its underlying meaning.

You were now arriving at an empty beachside, one which both of you knew because that was where you spent your teenage years amongst the people you loved. “I thought you hated me though,” you said, more seriously than you intended, your hand on the gearstick as you moved it to reverse. He shrugged as he took his seatbelt off, placing one leg under the other one, his sweatpants revealing a comfort he had acquired with you over the past months. “I thought so too,” he replied, chuckling.

You turned the car off but didn’t find his tale all that amusing, how both your and his feelings were now drifting unknowingly and dissolving, getting harder to recognize and pinpoint.

Noticing your discomfort, Charles’ hand once again went through his hair, nervousness hard to disguise, his dark brown locks suddenly in a desperate need to be fixed. You grabbed your order from the bag placed upon his lap, unthinkingly. Months prior, just the idea of being in a car with him seemed ridiculously unrealistic, and now touching him was voluntary and thoughtless, which highlighted the contrast of your words.

“I’ve always found you attractive” his voice interrupted, as he took a bite of his cheeseburger. You reflected his movements, but looking at him, eyebrows raised and interest spiking. The short seconds he took to chew and swallow seemed like an eternity, the urge to hear him continue almost as big as his urge to keep talking. “Even when you annoyed the shit out of me” he laughed shortly, and this time you did too, your head rising towards the ceiling of the car. “It’s true! It just made you even more insufferable” he repeated, his free hand adjusting a lock of your hair behind you ear in caring amusement.

Your eyes met his as you took a sip of your drink, interrupting him before he went on a full monologue. “Thank you for the flattering confession,” you joked back, mimicking him by putting a lock of his hair behind his ear – an almost impossible task. “Come on, I knew you felt attraction towards me as well,” he tilted his head and leaned back, arms crossed smugly, trying to hide the slightly damaged ego. “You were alright,” your answer made him bring his hand to his chest dramatically, a comical expression screaming ‘how dare you’ in sheer playfulness.

“Grumpy men aren’t my type” you continued, placing a French fry in your mouth with feigned innocence. “Bratty girls aren’t mine either yet here we are” Charles replied, a soft gleam in his eyes as he looked at you, the breeze entering the car through the open window and touching his hair softly, daring to caress him when you couldn’t, wouldn’t.

Here we are. That sentence reverberated through your body like an enigma you couldn’t solve. Where exactly were you two? In a limbo of unspoken feelings and mere subtle hints of tenderness, an unbreakable vow of secrecy that can only be expressed through metaphors? In a car, desperate to feel each other’s devoted affection, yet refraining to do so, like a painting in a museum you can’t get too close to?

Charles knew he had said the wrong thing, or at least not the good enough thing for the moment. This back and forth used to be amusing and entertaining when nothing was at stake. But now it seems like both of you had gambled too much, and the few chips you had were holding you together at a table where whatever happened could not be seen as a victory.

He said the only thing that came to his mind at that moment. An earnest and genuine “I’m sorry” left his lips as he looked outside the window. You let out a breath, accepting the apology despite the fact that you didn’t quite know the reason for it. Was he apologizing for the comment that ignited this tension? For letting things spiral to this in the first place? You weren’t sure he knew it either, yet you knew he meant it enough for you to not hold it against him.

But maybe it was your turn to get into his head, as selfish as this sounded. You didn’t hold it against him but that didn’t mean you didn’t have half thoughts and half feelings to let out. “It was hard not being bratty with you,” you heard yourself say, as his head turned towards you. You forced yourself to hold his gaze, despite the fact that you felt heat rushing to your cheeks as you spoke. “You got under my skin like no one else. Still do,” you bit your lip, holding back a smile that threatened to creep up on your face. It was hard to hide your amusement at his own bewildered look, incredulous at what you had said could imply.

“You don’t know how many times I wanted to be alone with you” his voice, almost a whisper, traveled through the car along with the nightly air and the soft waves crashing far away. You swallowed dryly, despite the cold cup resting between your legs and the comfort it could’ve provided you in a time like this.

“Why didn’t you?” you asked, curiosity, or maybe sheer tension, filling your body as you felt him getting closer to you, closing the gap between both of your seats. “I did, eventually,” his breath hit your neck, his knowledge of this particular weakness of yours making you even weaker, realizing you gave him the power to get to you like this. His chuckle filled your ears and sent goosebumps throughout your body like an orchestra of sensations. “And it’s not like you made it particularly easy for me,” he continued, kissing your neck lightly enough to make your body shiver, his hand now resting on your leg and caressing it with sensuous ease.

“Really?” you played along, irony lacing your lips the way you both liked to play. “How come?” your voice broke upon the sentence as his murmur of affirmation to your question mixed with his kisses down your neck and his now tightened grip on your leg blurred your senses.

Before he could properly reply, your phone vibrated in your pocket, disrupting the tension building up between you two. You cursed under your breath as you pulled it out, reading the name on the screen and locking it again, deciding to reply later. “It’s my sister,” you say, even though you knew you needn’t justify yourself. Nevertheless, you did. You hoped he’d do the same in his own case.

“Oh, is everything alright? She’s in Austria, right?” he asked, genuine curiosity lacing his words. You nodded in response. “Yeah, she’s alright. It’s a drunk selfie, I’ll text her later,” you laughed as you continued, your drink finishing just like his. He laughed, more to himself than to you, as he shook his head negatively. “That’s brave for a Linguistics student” he joked.

His words made you realize something, which you couldn’t help but point out to him, question him about. “How do you know those things? About my sister, I mean” you clarified, your eyes interlocked with his. “You’ve mentioned it sometimes when we all hung out,” he shrugged, the answer seeming so simple and uncomplicated, almost making you feel ridiculous for asking. Yet you stood, motionless. “I may seem annoyed, but I am listening, you know.”

You felt your body freeze at his words, a realization of something you had never considered before. Because it’s not only that he was listening; he remembered. Things you didn’t particularly say to him – in fact, you ignored him most times, only using the basic politeness when strictly necessary – were engraved in his mind when they did not have to be. They could’ve been mere writings on sand for him, ones which the sea would wash away carelessly, yet they weren’t.

And suddenly, you were tired. Of the breeze, of the jokes, of the hiding, of the unknown. Of crying, of laughing, of shrugging it off and trying not to think about it. Of the lack of answers, of the increasingly infinite number of questions. You’ve felt sadness, but now it was time for anger – unfortunately, you did not know whom to aim it at. To him? For not being able to admit the very same thing you couldn’t admit either? To yourself? For protecting your emotions from the person who has shown in the past his inconsistencies, his lack of commitment and emotional availability?

He felt it then. He did not know how or why – whether your breath give it away, how you blinked more rapidly than usual and your eyelashes seemed to bat away the painful realization – but he felt that if he did not do something, say something, before you did, all this would end. And in those brief seconds everything flashed before him: the endless amount of decisions and routes that he could take here, how it would be easy in the short term to accept what you had to say and let you drive him home, drink it away, fuck it away, text someone else, kiss someone else. But the long term painful knowledge of feeling your skin on his when he wakes up at 4am in your room, to witness your eyerolls when he jokes around, to witness your existence quietly – that suddenly felt unbearable.

Your fists were clenched in repressed anger, so were his, though the reasons differed – but the source of them didn’t. It had now become a race against time, daring each other to speak, to do something before the other did, scared of the words that might come out each other’s mouths.

You beat him to it – maybe the only game where you actually won, yet a victory that tasted as a loss, where the podium took more from you than it gave, no morning glory or praise in your eyes or his. “I don’t think I can keep doing this” was all you said as you forced yourself to look into Charles’ eyes, notice how you could tell something in him shifted despite his lack of movement. Despite the fact that he had seen in it coming, he couldn’t help but feel a sharpness in his chest that threatened to break his whole body apart from the inside out. He had nothing to lose anymore, and knowing this, he knew he had to at least put up a fight with himself.

“It’s a shame because I think I’m starting to get feelings for you,” he tried to act natural, almost slightly careless but it did not work, not when your eyes stared deeply into his, confusion written all over them. “I mean I can’t get you off my mind. These hang outs we have are all that I look forward to. I mean that I wish I could just tell you how much I crave your presence at every moment. That part of me feels such anger towards you precisely because you make me feel weak. I hate myself for feeling these things almost as much as I do for not expressing them to you earlier. And I care. I care so much I wish I could be brave enough to ask you to text me when you get home, when you wake up, when you go out. I want to talk to you or stay in silence or eat or do anything, I don’t fucking know what I’m saying but I want this to keep going and I am so fucking selfish for it, I know I am.”

Charles bit his lip, out of nervousness, anger, or sadness – neither of you quite knew. All you knew was that the words that came out of his mouth could never be unsaid, that whatever happened after this could never repair whatever dynamic you two had, and even though you both knew that the first time he stayed after your party, it was now a reality you had to confront.

“Don’t do this to me, Charles” you begged, your voice breaking slightly as it whispered his name, the taste of it so different from before, so foreign it seemed like you were calling someone else. “It’s really fucking mean of you to do this,” you continued, as your hand flew to the car key and started it, your intention to leave the conversation in the sand, let it be consumed by the sea, erased, cleaned.

You drove and drove, although you felt like the car was operating itself, your mind not as much on the way to Charles’ place but more on retracing the steps that brough you two here. He didn’t highlight his presence either. Both of you felt so insanely alone in that car it was almost maddening, a solitary confinement worse than any other punishment: being alone together.

And so when your car came to a halt in the parking lot and you inhaled deeply, accepting the fact that this was probably the last time you would ever have him like this, considering what you’d do differently had you known that when you woke up, he tried one last time.

His hand was so close to opening the door but refused to do so before both his body and his mind had the answer to the question that would solve it all. Every single one of his next movements would depend on how you replied, and he was, not for the first time, immediately aware of your control over him. “Knowing all this, knowing it would come to this in the end- would you have kicked me out of your apartment that night?”

For some inexplicable reason, you did not hesitate then. Your head moved, so slightly it could go unnoticed, in a nod. Then, as if you were watching your own self from afar, you nodded once more, clearly, affirmatively, and confidently, despite your runny nose and teary eyes. You adjusted your hair once again, the mess a reflection of your own thoughts and his – tangled and complicated.

Yet, your reply triggered all of Charles’ courage, made his words come out strong and reassuring at the same time, as he tried, not desperately but incessantly, to make you see what he couldn’t show. “Then why can’t we keep going? You want me to show you I need you, here I am. I need you. I need this, and this might be the most vulnerable I can be with you right now but I am trying. I’ll say it as many times as you want and I’ll leave if you want me to because that’s how much I need you. I need you so much I’m willing to let you go if that’s what you want.”

His reply made you feel your own heart speeding, its pace matching his, though you were both unaware of it. Your hands were shaking at the same rhythm as his hands, the ones that were now opening the door in defeat, but that were stopped by you gripping his arm, feeling him finally, pleading him to stay. He barely had the time to close the door again, leaving it ajar as he turned to you and felt your lips on his, soft and needy and begging for him to stay. He deepened the kiss hungrily, his teeth biting your bottom lip in confirmation of his presence before you.

Remembering where you two were, you pulled away, looking at his unusual post kiss expression. Although the red lips and blissed eyes remained, he was serious, rather than smug, questioning if this was a last goodbye or a beginning. You smiled to yourself at that, his innocent look when he lost control of a situation giving away his honesty.

The atmosphere was still tense despite the fact that the air had been cleared out by his words and the tears washed away by the foggy windows, yet you couldn’t help but bite your lip, holding back a laugh as you said, “so does this mean I have to cancel things with Oscar?”

Charles’ soft giggle and playful “fuck off” made you feel at home more than ever, as you knew now that he was comfortable with you holding that door. And as he stepped out of your car, he leaned down and popped his head in once again, teasingly asking you “want to come inside so I can answer that for you?” – to which you merely smirked as you removed your seatbelt.

As soon as the elevator doors closed and until you made all the way to the 16th floor Charles’ hands were on your waist, your legs, your chest, and everywhere possible, as he tried feeling all of you at once, greedily caressing your skin. You needed him just as much, your own arms around his neck as your hands pulled his soft hair, sometimes with enough strength his groan was audible, but so addictive you couldn’t get enough of it.

The elevator doors opened and somehow you made it into his apartment, not registering any inch of it – you had grown to know it all too well to have to look around for the last few months. With your legs wrapped around his waist and his hands holding you by your thighs, he took you to the closest spot he could find and placed you there, your ass suddenly feeling the cold surface underneath. Sitting on his marble kitchen counter, you watch as his attitude shifted back to the cocky and possessive one you knew so well. Charles didn’t hesitate to take his shirt off, followed by his sweatpants, which revealed everything already. However, the sight of his naked body between your legs drove you insane, your head spinning with the heat of desire. Completely naked, yet standing above you, his voice, so distinct from the soft and vulnerable from before, demanded: “take your clothes off”

You complied, never breaking eye contact as he fisted his own cock, its length making your mouth water and your entrance embarrassingly wet, yet that embarrassment quickly faded as his gaze lowered towards it, dark lust spreading across his eyes. Unapologetically, he eyes you up and down, eyes resting on your breasts, your nipples hard, your whole body giving away how delirious with desire you felt.

“God your body is insane” he started, his hand still on his erection, moving frantically and out of pace, trying to replicate the feeling of being inside you, yet unsuccessfully. You dropped your shy attitude, replacing it instead with a newly found confidence highlighted by the confirmation of his primal desires.

“Quit jerking yourself off and fuck me, Charles” your voice sounded aggressive and soft at the same time, and caught him so off guard you saw his eyes rolling to the back of his head as he let out a ravenous growl.

Without warning, he pushed himself into you, burying his length deep inside your cunt, your wetness allowing him to move perfectly. “Fuck it’s like you were made for me” his voice, now much deeper, erupted against your neck, his face buried in it as one hand held on to your thigh tightly, and your pain was nothing when compared to how full he made you feel, how your whole body responded to him with absolute pleasure. “You were made for me, weren’t you?” he asked, pulling away from you to grip your face in his hand, a gesture so possessive and animalistic it made your eyes water in a haze. You tried nodding, although it was hard given how strong his grip was, how out of control and light-headed you felt, making it impossible for you to speak either.

His thrusts continued, aggressive and ravenous, as he unleashed all of his cravings on you. “Open your mouth” he ordered between breathy growls that pushed you over the edge. You obeyed, mouth open and tongue out as you looked at him in the eyes, some of his hair stuck to his forehead from sweat, his muscles tense and his body a complete masterpiece as it moved inside you. You knew what he was going to do, yet it still took you by sheer surprise, a cry leaving your lips as he spat directly towards your mouth, pulling your hair back to be able to look at you clearly.

You couldn’t even imagine the wreck you now looked like before him – completely blissed out and lustful, desperate for release. “All mine, f-fuck” you heard him say, despite the fact that you could barely think or even see, the sensations all mingled as one as you carved your nails in his toned arms.

“You’re mine, Charles” you tried finding your assertive voice, remind him he wasn’t the only one in charge, that you too had an upper hand in this. “All fucking m-mine, just like you want” you cried out as you felt him exploding inside you whilst your name left his lips.

The feeling of him coming and filling you was enough for you to come as well, your body shaking around his as he remained inside you, letting you keep every part of him.

As you stilled your breaths, his lips dropped a soft kiss on your forehead and his hand caressed your cheek. The change caused you to giggle, your brain still foggy from the intensity of the session you just had. “Let’s take a shower. Together” you finally said, allowing him to know that everything he had said was as reciprocate as he desired.

You two didn’t have a name or definition yet, but for now, the mutual need for each other’s presence was enough.

@buendiabebeta @janeholt3 @ruleroftheuniverse @trentsgirl @teenagedreams-cl @cmleitora @marialovesf1 @champagneholland

[rosepetalsinwinter]

Five Years That Felt Like a Millenium — Bucky Barnes

Pairing: tfatws!bucky x reader

Word count: 9,554

Summary: It’s been five years since Thanos snapped his fingers. Five years spent all alone. Now Sam is back and he has a new friend. Will Bucky be the one to uncover the secrets behind the bruises lining her body?

Warnings: illusions and mention of violence, abuse, manipulation, and cheating. Nothing explicit. Protective!bucky.

Note: It's been a while since I've posted. Here's a little slice to get you going before I continue with "Meant to Be." Hope you enjoy! 💜

Ao3│Wattpad│Ko-fi

Main Masterlist │Part 1 — Part 2 — Part 3

Happy reading!!

"Sammy!" A figure barrelled into Sam Wilson, almost making the five-foot-ten man topple over.

The girl's arms wrapped tightly around his bulky frame, hanging on for dear life. Her tears soaked his shirt, and her nails dug into his biceps almost painfully, but he said nothing. He only hugged her back with as much vigour and passion, letting his salty tears mix with hers.

Although no time had passed for Sam, years had passed for the girl—five to be exact—and he could feel all her emotions pouring out of her like a dam broken loose.

"Sammy!" she sobbed while her body shook violently. "You're back!"

"I've been back." Sam stroked a hand over the girl's hair, offering her comfort. "I've been here. Where were you?"

The first thing Sam did after he was blipped back to life was to call his sister, Sarah. Only to be told that five years had come and gone. His nephews, who were babies when he left, were now little men. The second thing Sam did was ask about Baby Girl.

He remembered when he first met her. Her family moved to the bayou when she was just five; Sam was fifteen. When her parents died, Sam's family took her in as their own, giving her the same amount of love they gave their other two kids.

So he was surprised, then, to find that Sarah hadn't heard from her in almost two years. Sam, himself, had no luck in locating her until recently. It took him eight months, but he finally found her. She had moved to New York and cut all ties with previous friends and family.

Sam wanted to ask why. Why leave Sarah and the boys? Why leave the only home she ever knew? His questions could wait, though. Now that she was here, he wouldn't ever let her go.

"Hey, Baby Girl," Sam shushed her when she sobbed louder, "I'm here. I'm not leaving again. Promise."

So fascinated by how she had aged from an awkward teen on the precipice of adulthood into a beautiful young woman, Sam did not notice the bruises lining her sides and underneath her clothes—or the circles under her eyes—from almost two years of interrupted sleep. Or the absence of light in her usually glowing irises.

When she let her entire weight fall on Sam and sobbed as she had when her parents died, he did not question it, only held on tighter and carried her towards the house.

"I've got you now, Baby Girl. Everything is gonna be just fine."

While he did not explicitly say anything, Bucky Barnes found the Wilson Family Residence quite endearing. His house in the thirties had been small, and even his current apartment in Brooklyn was compact—which he liked—but there was something so serene about the land surrounding the Wilson residence, so very peaceful.

After ninety years of constant fights, one after the other, all Bucky really wanted was some peace and quiet. And now, he could easily find it after absolving himself of most of the guilt he was carrying.

It wasn't easy, but Bucky told Yori the truth about his son's death and since then, had managed to cross a few more names off his list of amends. A weight lifted off Bucky's shoulders as everything began to make sense.

The Flag Smasher's fiasco was over with, and while the Powerbroker was still at large, there was no immediate threat. Bucky Barnes could rest for now before trouble found him again—as trouble often did. Sam had asked Bucky to stay over for the long weekend, and Bucky had happily obliged.

"It'll be good for you. Get away from that city life."

Bucky agreed. If all went well, he might end up buying his own house. He had a little... calm in Wakanda, and he missed the solidarity.

The axe was steadfast in his hands as he brought it down towards his target, and the sturdy stump was no match for the combined strength of both, the sharp tool, and Bucky's enhanced strength. In one meagre swing, half the stump broke off and landed on the ground with a muffled thump.

Bucky wiped the sweat off his brow with his right arm. It was the middle of June, and while the days were sweltering hot and sticky, the nights could get cold in comparison. Sam had tasked Bucky to get the logs for the fire, seeing as he was the most efficient.

Bucky continued with his work until he got a steady rhythm, stopping periodically to sip his still cold beer. It was then that his enhanced hearing picked up on the strangest sound. He perched the axe on his left shoulder and looked towards the house where Sam Wilson seemed to be consoling a crying girl.

"Huh." Bucky didn't find the exchange as odd as he should have. Everyone around the bayou was always coming to Sam for something. Whether it was a favour, or a shoulder to cry on. Bucky thought she must be someone special if he was hugging her like that.

When Sam took the girl into the house, Bucky shook his head and finished the last of his beer. He continued chopping more wood until the sun began to set, which is when he deposited the axe back into the shed and made his way inside to crash on the couch. Tomorrow would be a long day, what with the bonfire Sam was hosting, and all. Bucky fell to a dreamless sleep the second his head touched the pillow.

He was a light sleeper. So Bucky immediately woke up when he heard someone coming down the stairs. It took him a second to become aware of his surroundings, as it always did. He was in Louisiana, crashing on Sam's couch for the weekend.

Bucky turned his head to the left to see who it was. Probably the boys; they were early risers and loved pestering Bucky about his metal arm—not that he minded. He found their interest refreshing and loved putting a smile on their faces. He was surprised, then, to find a girl instead. The same one from yesterday.

Huh. The girl looked a mess, with only half her hair pulled back into a makeshift ponytail and black makeup smudged under her eyes. Her pants were unbuttoned, hanging precariously from her hips, and her jacket was falling off her shoulders, a few sizes too big. She was holding a pair of shoes in one hand, her phone and shirt in the other. She was also balancing a purse in the crook of her elbow.

It was the shirt that did it. Because, while the girl's own blouse was in her hands, she was wearing Sam's grey-green T-shirt. Bucky knew because that's what Sam was wearing yesterday. She was someone special then if she was wearing his clothes.

Bucky smirked. He was very aware of what the girl had been doing. He, himself, had been on both ends of the situation before. Though it was very long ago, he still remembered the embarrassment of being caught leaving a girl's room in the early hours of the morning.

The girl screamed when she saw Bucky, not expecting anyone to be up, much less lying on the couch and watching her horrible attempt at sneaking out. "Oh, God!" Her phone slipped from her grasp and landed on the floor with a loud clatter.

There was a moment of silence where the two merely stared at each other. Bucky, with poorly concealed amusement, and the girl, with mild horror. She moved first, crouching down to pick up her cracked phone.

"Does it still work?" Bucky's voice was raspy from disuse. When tears gathered in the girl's eyes as a reply, Bucky immediately sat up, dropping his amusement in exchange for concern. He knew nothing about her, but it seemed like she cried a lot.

"No," she murmured, though Bucky heard her as if she were beside him. "Oh, God. No, no, no, no, no..."

"Hey, it's alright," Bucky told her as he crouched down to pick up the purse she had thrown in her haste. He hesitated when he saw a shiny ring peeking out from one of the compartments—too fancy and expensive-looking to be something ordinary. He quickly tucked the circle back and ignored it. Had Sam proposed to her? Bucky was offended he hadn't told him. Maybe it was recent. "Is it turning on?"

"Oh God! N-no," the girl stuttered through her tears.

Bucky was convinced that this girl—who cried a lot—only knew how to say "no" and "oh, God."

"I'm sure Sam can get you a new one, no big deal. What's your name?" Bucky offered the girl his right hand, which she promptly ignored.

She shot up on unsteady legs. "I have to go."

Bucky mimicked her. "Okay?" It was turning out to be a very unusual conversation.

"I have to go," she said again, more slowly this time, as if he were a little kid who couldn't understand a word of English.

Bucky cleared his throat awkwardly, shifting on his legs before giving the girl her purse back. "Right."

The tally was now up to "no," "oh, God," and "I have to go." At least she wasn't crying anymore. Bucky hastily stepped out of the girl's way when he realized he was blocking the hall that led to the front door.

She moved as if someone lit a fire under her. One second, she was there, and the next, she was out the door with her pants still unbuttoned, her jacket still falling off her shoulder, and her shoes still in her hand.

"Nice to meet you..." Bucky dropped his hand and trailed off when he realized she couldn't hear him anymore.

Huh. Either Bucky still didn't know how to talk to people, or that girl was on something. A lot of youngsters nowadays did drugs for fun. Bucky didn't understand it, nor did he want to. He could just ask Sam about it later.

Bucky stretched his arms above his head and cracked his neck. A couch was considerably comfier than the floor but still gave him a stiff back. No matter, a quick run could swiftly solve that problem. Bucky turned on the coffee machine and was biting into an apple when a shirtless Sam came barreling down the stairs.

"You sleep good, man?" Sam asked.

"Yeah," Bucky shrugged, wiping some juice from his chin, "I slept good. Well, as good as I can, considering..."

Sam hummed before opening the fridge and taking a swig of the orange juice. "Nightmare?"

Bucky shook his head. "I don't remember it—Listen, you didn't tell me you had a girl up there."

"A girl?"

"Messy hair, pretty face. Was crying yesterday?"

"Baby Girl? You saw that?" Sam stopped peeling the banana in his hand to look at Bucky.

Bucky merely shrugged and grabbed a mug from the cupboard.

"Sorry I didn't tell you she was over," said Sam, taking a bite of his now-peeled banana. "We were up talking real late. I guess I forgot."

"Yup. Talking," Bucky muttered with a smirk as he poured his coffee. "I bet."

"What?" Sam implored.

"Uh, nothing. Just, the girl seemed nice."

"She is nice," Sam retorted. "You met her?"

Bucky nodded and took a sip of his coffee. Black, just as he preferred it.

"Didn't think she'd be awake," Sam said with a yawn. "She barely slept."

Bucky had to try really hard to keep himself from laughing. "Well, she was."

"She was?" Sam asked suspiciously. "What do you mean she was? Did she go back to bed?"

Bucky shook his head. "She left."

"She left?" Sam scoffed, propping a hand on his hip. He had never looked more like Steve.

"That's what I said," Bucky confirmed, taking another sip. "She's gone."

"Gone?" Sam grumbled. "Bucky, what the hell are you talking about?"

Sam's accusing behaviour was really starting to irk Bucky, making him think the girl's sneaking out was not mutual. Shit.

He laughed uncomfortably and put his mug down on the counter. "Your girl came running down the stairs, half-dressed. She dropped her phone, cracked it, didn't let me help. Then she said she 'had to go' and practically ran out of here, I dunno."

"When?" A vein popped in Sam's forehead as he grabbed a random shirt from the pile of clean laundry near the stairs.

Bucky hastily checked the watch on his right arm. "Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes tops."

That made Sam utter a series of colourful swears as he finished his breakfast and found his wallet.

"Wait, Sam, what's going on?"

Sam didn't answer Bucky, too busy looking for his keys in the wrong place.

"Sam!" Bucky asked louder.

"We talked about this!" Sam scoffed. "I told her to at least stay for the weekend. I can't believe this! We sat down like adults and came to an understanding." He finally found his keys on the key hook.

"Where are you going, Sam?" Bucky countered.

"I'm going to get her," Sam snapped before sighing dramatically and letting his shoulders droop. "Shit, I do not have time for this, Baby Girl."

Bucky moved over the kitchen counter and stood in front of Sam. "What about that meeting you've got?"

"What meeting?" Sam asked.

"That meeting about that thing," supplied Bucky.

"What thing?" Sam grumbled.

"You know what thing," Bucky countered.

"Oh. That. I'm gonna have to reschedule—Man! Where are my shoes?!"

"Why?"

"Why?" Sam echoed. "What's with all the questions, Buck? Because I have to get Baby Girl before she skips town and disappears on me again."

"Sam."

"I haven't seen her in eight months, man, and she hasn't seen me in five years. I'm not about to let her leave—"

"Sam!" Bucky shouted loud enough for his friend to hear. He grabbed his wallet and his keys and put on his jacket. "You're going to that meeting, Sam."

"Like hell I am," Sam retorted passionately.

"I'll go pick up your Baby Girl," Bucky said after downing the rest of his coffee. "You, go to your meeting."

Sam stopped for a moment and seriously considered Bucky's proposal. It was an important meeting. "She'll probably be at the taxi stand," he finally relented. "You know the one?"

Bucky nodded, tying up his shoelaces. "Yeah, I know the one."

"Buck?" Sam called when Bucky was stepping out the door. "You better bring her back, or else I'm gonna light a fire under your ass."

Bucky chuckled, pushing his sunglasses up his nose. "Understood, Sam."

The taxi stand was abandoned. Really, what did the girl expect so early in the morning? It was a long weekend, and the residents of Delacroix rarely needed a commute into the city on an ordinary Friday. She was arguing with the lone taxi driver, pleading with him, really, to take her to the nearest airport. But the man kept denying her. He had been up all night and insisted on napping, telling her to wait another twenty minutes.

She didn't have twenty minutes, damn it. If anything, she needed more time. Time she didn't have.

Her phone could be blowing up right now, and she wouldn't know it. She wouldn't know the consequences of her actions until she bought a new phone. But maybe—just maybe, a voice inside her reasoned—Quentin would be too busy with his work retreat to notice her absence.

The girl tried getting the driver's attention again, who shot her the most hateful look she had ever received before starting his cab and driving away. "Hey! Wait!" she called out, but he had already turned the corner.

A laugh made her spin around. It was the man from this morning, the one on Sam's couch. He stood before her with his arms crossed, a big smile overtaking his face.

"You must not be from the city," he mused, "if you're that bad at hailing a cab."

Bucky had no trouble locating the girl, what with her being the only person in a one-mile radius demanding to be taken to the nearest airport. Her feeble attempts amused him, and frankly, Bucky was having trouble believing she was Sam's girl. He didn't think Sam would've gone for someone as... difficult as her. But hey, it was Sam wanting to spend the rest of his life with her, not Bucky.

Bucky surveyed the girl from head to toe. Her hair was settled, her pants buttoned, and most of her composure seemed to have returned. However, she had gone pale once he revealed himself, her eyes wide with guilt. She was caught red-handed; now, he would be the one to deliver her to Sam.

Bucky pointed at her with his left arm. "Sam wants you home."

He was surprised to see that when she looked down at the shiny metal, recognition flared through her eyes rather than shock or disgust. Good, he thought. She knows who I am.

"No, thank you," she managed to squeak out, and Bucky was pleased to know that the girl's vocabulary extended past the three phrases he had come to know her for.

"You seem smart," he told her when he saw her looking behind him, "but not that smart."

"Yeah?" she challenged, gaining a rare bit of courage. "What makes you say that?"

"You know who I am and what I'm capable of. Smart. You think you can run from me. Not smart."

"Is that right?" she asked. Bucky nodded, and the girl took a deep breath. "I must not be too smart then."

He raised a brow in challenge, wondering where she would go from there.

Suddenly, the girl threw her arms above her head and waved them with abandon. "Mr. Thurow!" she shouted, running past Bucky. "Mr. Thurow!"

Bucky slowly walked towards the girl, unhurried in his steps. He wanted to know what she would do.

"Mr. Thurow!" the girl panted. "I need your help."

"Jesus Christ!" Mr. Thurow bellowed. "As I live and breathe! Is that you, Baby Girl?" He was a stocky man with a kind smile and welcoming eyes.

"Yes, Mr. Thurow," the girl began confidently, "it is. I need your help, please. This man," she pointed behind her at Bucky, "is—"

"Carlos!" Bucky interjected with a smile. "How are you?"

"Sergeant Barnes! Back again already?" Carlos turned his attention away from the girl.

Bucky watched with amusement as the girl's face scrunched with confusion. Her lips parted slightly, and she blinked rapidly. "What can I say, Carlos? I was missing your potato salad."

"Hell yeah, you were," Carlos guffawed.

The girl stood there dumbfounded as the two men embraced each other.

"You know, it was my great nan's recipe?" Carlos asked. "Been in the family for generations."

"I didn't know that. You bringing it tonight?"

"For the bonfire?" Carlos confirmed. "You bet I am."

"Well," Bucky gestured to the girl, "I was just taking Baby Girl here back home. She got a little lost, and Sam was starting to worry." Bucky made sure to make himself sound condescending on purpose.

He heard her scoff. "I was not lost."

"Well, you get her home safe, then. Understood, Barnes? I want to see both of you tonight." Carlos mockingly glared at the girl and winked at Bucky before departing.

"See you, Carlos!" Bucky called out to his retreating figure. "Well?" he questioned, turning his attention to the girl after a moment of silence. "Are you gonna run and embarrass yourself again, or are you gonna come with me?"

"I am not going anywhere with you!" the girl scoffed.

"I will take you kicking and screaming if I have to," Bucky warned.

The girl took a step back hastily, believing his threat. "You're a heathen."

Well, Bucky shrugged. He had been called worse. "Sam threatened me with fire, and that's not how I'd like to leave this world if it's all the same to you."

The girl seemed to consider his words for a moment. "Fire is a painful way to go," she finally mused.

"It is," Bucky agreed.

"I don't like you," she told him bluntly.

"Okay." A lot of people didn't like Bucky. One more wouldn't hurt.

"But no one deserves to die like that."

It seemed the spawn of Satan had a heart.

"Does seem excessive," said Bucky.

The girl paused again. "If I run, you'll catch me." It wasn't a question.

"Always," Bucky promised, and the girl must have believed him because her shoulders deflated, and she hung her head in submission.

"Doesn't seem like I have a choice," she whispered, though Bucky heard her all the same.

"You don't."

"Okay," she relented.

"Okay. Let's go." Bucky led her toward where he parked, and the girl followed silently.

Good, she isn't being insufferable any longer, Bucky thought. Though, luck must not have been on his side that day because not a second later, once his bike came into view, the girl started complaining.

"No. I'm not sitting on that death trap."

Bucky turned to her with an annoyed groan. "Really?"

"I hate bikes!" she told him.

"What? You rather walk?" Bucky crossed his arms.

"Yes, please," the girl replied, mimicking his posture. "I walked all the way here, didn't I?"

"Well, too bad!" snapped Bucky. "We're taking the bike." He grabbed his helmet and handed it to her. He groaned again when she didn't take it and only looked at him like she'd never seen a helmet before. Maybe she hadn't. He wouldn't be surprised. Bucky rolled his eyes and placed the helmet on the girl's head, securing the straps and confirming it fit snugly.

"It's loose," she complained.

"Your head's a lot smaller than mine..." Bucky took his previous statement back. He could definitely see the girl and Sam together. Both of them were insufferable shitheads and obviously perfect for each other.

"Sit," he gestured to the bike. And when the girl turned to him with the same blank look in her eyes, Bucky merely huffed in annoyance. He picked her up and deposited her on the seat as if she weighed nothing. And she didn't. He ignored her shouts of protest and sat in front of her.

"Where's your helmet?" She sounded worried for him.

Bucky laughed. "I don't need one."

"Yes, you do," she chastised him. "You could die."

"I'm a super soldier," Bucky said as an answer.

"Even super soldiers die," the girl retorted.

"I won't die," Bucky responded blandly before revving the engine. "Hold on tight."

"I am not touching youuuu..." The girl ended her sentence with a sudden shriek when Bucky unexpectedly released the throttle and speedily drove away. Her arms wrapped around his torso in a vice-like grip, and she hid her face in his jacket. "Oh, God!" she screamed. "Oh, my God!"

She took her flailing legs and tried wrapping them around Bucky's hips, which made him laugh in surprise. She was holding onto him like a koala bear, all while screaming bloody murder in his ears. Her nails dug sharply into his chest, but he ignored the sting. He couldn't wait to see her face once they stopped.

And eventually, they did. Bucky parked his bike in the back and told the girl to get off, which, of course, she didn't do. He got up anyway, taking her with him, though she didn't let him go once he was standing.

Bucky tapped on the hand around his shoulder. "You can let go now. It's safe."

The girl obediently unwrapped herself from his body, falling indiligently to the ground.

"See?" Bucky smirked. "We didn't die."

"Oh my God," she groaned, shaking on the ground. "I can't feel my legs."

Bucky laughed, extending his metal arm towards her, which she took without complaint. "Let's try again," he suggested once she was steady on her feet. "I'm Bucky."

The girl told him her name, and he repeated it with a smile. "I still don't like you," she said.

"The feeling's mutual, doll." And if she blushed at the pet name? Well, Bucky simply chose to ignore it.

He was on his third beer, a shame, really, since he couldn't feel it. But Bucky had developed a liking for the taste. It reminded him of better times. Before the war, and before his life completely changed.

Sam plopped down on the chair next to Bucky, a happy but tired smile on his face. Bucky turned to Sam and took a s'more from his outstretched hand, biting into the gooey center with a groan. "Man, this is good. I can't remember the last time I had one of these."

"Probably before Christopher Columbus discovered America."

"That's not funny, Sam," Bucky frowned. "Besides, everyone knows the Clovis people got here first, twenty thousand years ago."

"I didn't know that!"

"Because you're stupid," Bucky retorted.

"Whatever," scoffed Sam. He slid down in his chair and muttered "nerd" under his breath.

Bucky was preparing a retort when something caught his eye. The girl was playing with AJ and Cass, trying to catch them as they ran around the fire. Bucky cracked his knuckles and prepared to confront Sam. "You're really mean, you know that?

"Why? Because I called you a nerd?" Sam scoffed. "Well, it's true."

Bucky shook his head and levelled Sam with a glare. "Because you didn't tell me you're getting married."

A long silence followed. "Who's getting married?"

"You are!" Bucky exclaimed. "I didn't even know you had a girl."

"Because I don't!" Sam straightened. "And I'm not getting married."

"But—" Bucky was at a loss for words, then a thought struck him. "Holy shit, Sam! Don't tell me you—" Bucky leaned forward, lowering his voice considerably. "You slept with a married woman!"

Sam's face screwed up. "What the fuck are you talking about? I didn't sleep with anyone!"

Bucky was stunned, realizing a moment too late that he had completely misread the situation.

"Start from the beginning," Sam urged. And so Bucky told him what happened that morning, how the girl came down half-dressed and wearing his shirt. Bucky thought she was a one-night stand until he saw the ring in her purse, and Sam brought her back to his house.

"So, she's not your fiancé?"

"No! She's like a sister."

"But you call her Baby Girl!"

Sam rubbed his temples. "Everyone calls her that. Listen," he sighed, "maybe I should've introduced the two of you before, but I was overwhelmed by seeing her after so long. Besides, I didn't think you would start jumping to conclusions!"

Bucky rubbed his neck in embarrassment. Perhaps he was too quick to assume the girl was Sam's significant other. But if she wasn't involved with Sam, then who exactly was she?

The girl was sitting across from Bucky and Sam on the other side of the fire pit, nibbling on a s'more. The two men watched her as they talked.

"Her family lived in the plot behind ours. They were good people."

"Were?" Bucky questioned, feeling like there was more to the story.

Sam seemed to dissociate for a moment as if he were somewhere else. "Eleven years ago, my dad woke me up in the middle of the night and told me to run to town and wake as many folks as possible. There was a fire down the street, and the trucks had broken down on the highway."

Bucky tensed, hating the direction the story was taking.

"The smoke was so thick I was choking on it from a block away. Over half the house was up in flames by the time I got back. Three men went in and came right out not a second later. Folks were throwing bucketfuls of water to try and contain it, but I remember thinking that was useless. It's like the flames had a mind of their own."

It was then that Bucky accidentally made eye contact with the girl. She frowned at the intense look on his face, jerking her head as if to ask, "What?"

"What happened next?" Bucky asked without removing his gaze.

"I went towards the back, where the fire wasn't as strong. The upstairs window was wide open, and I found Baby Girl lying on the ground with twisted legs and blood oozing from her head." Sam scoffed a laugh, though there was no humour behind it.

Bucky's jaw dropped. "She jumped?"

Sam shook his head. "We found out later that her brother pushed her. My entire family was at the hospital when we broke the news that she was the only survivor."

"Shit." Baby Girl was glaring daggers at Bucky now, though he couldn't take her seriously. Melted chocolate dripped down her chin, and her hair was mussed from the wind. Bucky imagined her eleven years younger, wide-eyed and trembling as her life crumbled around her. He recalled her comment from that morning. "Fire is a painful way to go." "No one deserves to die like that." He looked away.

"She's acting like you're keeping her hostage," Bucky remarked.

"I might as well be," Sam grumbled. "She's dying to go back to New York, and she won't give me a proper reason why."

When Bucky looked back at the girl, she was chatting with Carlos Thurow, seemingly pleading with him. She waved her broken phone, and Bucky could see the cracks on the screen glinting from where he sat. Baby Girl slumped her shoulders in defeat when Carlos took his own phone out to show it had died.

Bucky felt a jolt in his chest as he watched the girl run her hands through her hair in frustration. Something was wrong.

Sam whistled beside him, waving Baby Girl over. The effect was immediate. Baby girl plastered on a shoddy smile, exaggerating a laugh as she waved back and made her way to them.

"You seem happy," Sam observed as the girl took the empty chair beside Bucky.

Bucky looked at Sam to see if he was joking. Sam was no spy, but didn't one have to be blind to not see how miserable Baby Girl looked under her fake smile?

"The party's very fun," Baby Girl answered. "It's—" guilt flashed across her features. "It's nice to see everyone after so long."

"Could've been sooner," Sam muttered.

"I told you I was busy!" she exclaimed. "I didn't have time to leave the city."

"But you won't tell me why," Sam countered. The fight seemed to leave his body, and he sighed. "I didn't call you over to argue with you. I won't bring it up again."

Baby Girl turned her nose to the sky in a way that made Bucky laugh. "You better not." And the conversation flowed smoothly from there.

Bucky offered her a beer, which she accepted with a smile, and the three laughed and joked about until tears ran unbidden down their cheeks. However, despite the mirth dancing in the air, Bucky could not ignore the lingering sadness in her eyes.

"You won't believe what this man asked me before," Sam guffawed, pointing accusingly at Bucky. "He asked if we were engaged!"

Laughter burst forth from mirth-kissed lips. "That's disgusting!" she managed between giggles. "What made you think that?"

Bucky felt flushed under her attention. "You were wearing Sam's clothes that morning," he explained sheepishly. "And I saw a ring in your purse."

Her face made a radical transformation. One moment, she was smiling in a way that made Bucky's heart flutter—the next moment, all pleasure seemed to drain away from her body, leaving her looking gaunt and haggard. Sam was too busy laughing at his untied shoelaces to notice the change in atmosphere, but Bucky felt the full force of it slam against his chest.

"I don't have a ring."

"But I—"

"No!" Her words seemed laced with desperation. Her sober eyes flicked toward Sam. "There was no ring," she stressed.

Bucky could see the hopelessness in her eyes. "Right," he muttered. "I must have been mistaken."

Sam, who had overcome his slight scramble with his shoelaces, sat upright. Inebriation laced his every move. "Right. But that made me think."

"That's never a good thing," Bucky interjected, trying to ease the lingering tension.

"Are you dating anyone? Sarah said she didn't know, but you can always tell me. Huh?" Sam teased. "Tell me. Who's the unfortunate bastard?"

Baby Girl's lips were a thin line, and Bucky anticipated the lie before she could open her mouth. "It's nothing like that. I'm not dating anyone." She finished the rest of her drink and immediately grabbed another.

"You can't lie to me," Sam wiggled his finger. "Come on, fess up. Whoever he is, he can't be worse than Beck."

Baby Girl froze, and Bucky's curiosity was piqued too much to ignore. "Beck?"

"Quentin Beck. Biggest asshole on the planet," Sam explained. "Beck and Baby Girl dated on and off in college. I would catch the bastard every other week with a different woman."

Bucky scrutinized the girl for a reaction, but she seemed to be holding her breath.

Sam began to pout like a child. "He always managed to win her over. At least I can die easy knowing they broke up before half the world blipped."

"He's not like that anymore," Baby Girl whispered to herself. Sam was too far to hear her, but Bucky had no such problem. "He's changed." She wrapped her arms around her body. "He's not like that anymore."

Bucky took in her dark under-eyes and trembling frame, her body sickly from stress. He believed her. Beck wasn't like that anymore. Perhaps he had moved on from his days of serial cheating and picked up a different hobby. Beck probably wasn't like that anymore, but he wasn't any better either.

The former spy suspected that Baby Girl was still involved with Beck. He observed her closely. Her eyes swirled with guilt, and her shoulders drooped in alarm. There was more to the story, but before Bucky could voice a question, Baby Girl stumbled onto unsteady feet. She swayed back and forth, betraying her inebriation, and Bucky reached over to keep her from falling.

Baby Girl pushed his hands away. "I'm tired," she croaked. "I'm going to bed." And she staggered away, bumping into people as she disappeared into the house.

Bucky relaxed back in his seat with a tired sigh. On his left, Sam was passed out over the arm of his chair, mouth open in a loud snore. Bucky craned his neck back and stared openly at the night sky. Stars twinkled brighter here than they did in the city. Everything was more serene and calm. However, since Baby Girl arrived, Bucky couldn't help but sense a slight shift in the air, as if the wind knew her secrets and was trying to warn them. One thing was made clear. It wouldn't be pretty.

It felt oddly like déjà vu. A light clambering of feet roused Bucky from his half-sleep, and as always, it took a second for him to make sense of his surroundings. He was on Sam's couch.

The steps were hesitant and controlled—so not AJ and Cass. Excitement and a sugar overload had kept them up late, and they wouldn't wake until a few hours later. Bucky was proven right when a lone woman descended the steps instead of two boys.

She looked a lot better than the last time he had seen her. Freshly showered and reasonably presentable in her own clothes this time—not Sam's. She hadn't seen him yet, so Bucky took the opportunity to observe her a moment longer. Her under-eye area was still dark, though not as sunken as before, and she carried an air of determination around her.

"Good morning," Bucky broke the silence.

Baby Girl shrieked, seemingly slipping over nothing. She tumbled backward, falling in an indelicate heap onto an armchair. "God above!"

Her vocabulary was steadily expanding.

Bucky sat up, regarding her with a guilty expression. "Sorry."

"I forgot you were still here," she mumbled sheepishly, straightening herself into a more respectable position.

There was a moment of awkward silence where neither acknowledged the other.

"I was wondering..." the girl started.

"Yeah?"

"Could I borrow some money? I didn't bring enough with me from New York."

"Uh, sure," Bucky replied, grabbing his wallet from between the couch cushions. "How much do you need?"

Baby Girl looked down at her hands, tracing lazy lines on her palm. "One grand?" she grimaced.

Bucky looked at her with wide eyes. "What do you need a thousand dollars for?"

"I can make do with less!" she rushed to explain. "I can try stretching an eight hundred," she murmured. "But a new phone would be too expensive, and I'm not sure I can find a cheap last-minute flight."

"Excuse me?" Bucky exclaimed. He was fully awake now, leaning forward to hear her better. "What was that about a phone and a flight?"

Her guilty eyes met his confused ones. "I broke my phone," she explained, "so I need a new one. I also need to get back home, so I need to buy a plane ticket."

Bucky eyed her skeptically. "I thought you were staying."

"I changed my mind," she dismissed with a shaky wave. "I already went over it with Sam."

Bucky knew for a fact she was lying. She wouldn't even meet her eyes. "Is that what he would say if I asked him?"

"Of course!" she proclaimed. But Bucky could hear the hesitance.

"Okay. I'll go ask Sam." Bucky made to get up, but as predicted, the girl stopped him.

"Wait! Don't!"

Bucky sat back down with a satisfied smirk. "You're a sneaky little thing."

"Don't tell Sam," Baby Girl pleaded. "I'm sorry I lied. I didn't have another choice. He locked my credit card. Otherwise, I wouldn't be asking you for this favour."

"Hmm," Bucky hummed, crossing his arms and getting comfortable. "I'd be willing to help you—Only..." Bucky stressed when she tried to interrupt. "If you answer a few questions first."

Baby Girl mimicked Bucky's posture with a frown. "That hardly seems fair."

"I can always call Sam."

"Fucking fine," Baby Girl grumbled.

Satisfied by the flow of things, Bucky started his interrogation. "Why are you in such a rush to go back home?" Bucky asked, deciding to start small. He could tell Baby Girl was thinking hard about her answer, trying not to give too much away. She squinted her eyes as if it were putting strain on her. He decided she would make a horrible spy.

"I left in a hurry. I only planned a day trip. I don't have any clothes or money on me."

Bucky shook his head. "That's not what I asked."

Baby Girl glared at him. "I don't understand the question."

"What's waiting for you in New York? Do you have a job? A prior commitment? A boyfriend?" Bucky stretched that last word, giving the girl a smirk.

"I don't have a boyfriend," she frowned.

"Fiancé, then," Bucky concluded. "I saw that ring in your purse." He suddenly leapt forward, grabbing Baby Girl's left hand and pulling it toward him to inspect.

She initially squeaked a protest but stayed still as he prodded her ring finger with his eyes. "Tan line," he observed, and she snatched her limb back, throwing the most menacing glare she could manage toward him.

"No fiancé," she hissed.

"I don't believe you," Bucky shrugged. "Job, then? What do you do?"

It took too long for her to answer, making it obvious she was concocting a lie in her head. "I work in the... customer field. Where I work with customers."

If Bucky wasn't on the verge of laughter, he might've cringed from the secondhand embarrassment.

"And... books." She was obviously lying. Even she didn't believe what was coming out of her mouth.

"I think my cat might be a better liar than you," He remarked drily.

The girl huffed but stayed silent.

Bucky decided to try a different tactic. "What year is it?"

The girl regarded him strangely. "2024."

"How many sides does an octagon have?"

"Eight."

"What's Sam's last name?"

"Wilson."

"Who was Iron Man?"

"Tony Stark."

"What colour is the sky?"

"Blue."

"Who locked your credit card?"

"Quentin Beck."

Bucky laughed. The girl stared at him, horrified. She gaped at him like a fish, only managing to make senseless sounds. "Y-you—w-what!"

Bucky laughed harder. "I told you that day. You seem smart, but not that smart."

"How dare you!"

"Last question. Does your boyfriend know you're here?" If looks could kill, Bucky would be dead. He raised his arms in surrender. "I won't judge. And I won't tell Sam. I'm just trying to understand the situation so I can help."

Her glare slowly softened to fatigue. "No. He doesn't know."

Bucky bobbed his head. "I figured as much." He grabbed his unlocked phone and tossed it to her, assuming she would catch it. She didn't. The device smacked her in the chest before falling on her lap, which she stared at dumbly.

"Call him," said Bucky, standing up to stretch. "Let him know you're safe. Tell him no one kidnapped you, and he can unlock your card."

She opened her mouth to reply, but Bucky beat her to it. "I can't get you a plane ticket out of here, so this is the next best thing. You want to leave? Tell Sam about Quentin Beck, and he'll let you. He isn't that big of an asshole to keep you hostage here. There's hope for him yet." Bucky stepped out of the living room but turned around and stopped to add one more thing. "Sam's been different since you arrived. He's happier. You're all he talks about to anyone. Do him one last favour; stay the weekend, and don't choose that Quentin Beck guy over him." With that, Bucky strode to the bathroom to freshen up, missing the first teardrop.

His phone was returned to him an hour or so later, accompanied by an uncomfortable smile and words of gratitude. "I told him I'm safe, and no one kidnapped me."

"Is he mad?" Bucky asked.

"He's a little upset," she confessed. "Promise you won't tell Sam?"

"Only if you promise not to run away." They stared at each other for a long moment, daring the other to disagree.

"Fine," the girl finally conceded. Bucky gave her a stiff nod and turned to leave. "Wait!" she exclaimed urgently. "He's still upset. Just ignore any other messages from him, okay? He should cool down after a while."

Bucky looked into her eyes. She was beautiful and unsuspecting looking. Fiery and transparent. He scrutinized her for deceit and instead found veiled resignation. He agreed and went to the backyard, leaving her in the kitchen.

It was an especially hot day, and there was much to do. Sarah wanted to landscape the back garden, and Bucky had volunteered. He didn't know the first thing about construction, but the boys had recently introduced him to YouTube, a magical place with the answers to all his questions. Bucky began to work, moving piles of dirt, levelling the uneven ground, and placing heavy slabs of concrete to form a pathway from the back porch to the lake.

Hours later, Bucky finished with the last slab of concrete, moving further away to admire his work. There was more to finish, but Sarah would be happy with his progress. Bucky wiped his brow, groaning at the sticky feeling of sweat dripping down his neck.

He grabbed his phone from the table on the porch to check the time, surprised at the number of notifications waiting for him. Bucky was by no means popular. The only person who contacted him somewhat regularly was Sam, but these notifications were all from the same unknown number. Bucky realized with a start that the barrage of missed calls and messages he was being attacked with were probably all from Quentin Beck.

Curiosity grabbed hold of him. He did promise the girl he would ignore any messages from him, but really, this was excessive. What if something was wrong and Beck urgently needed to contact her? He tapped on the message icon without another thought.

Bucky froze when he read the latest message.

You're dead when I find you.

He immediately scrolled to the top, reading the conversation from the beginning to try and gain some context to the threat. The thread started with a long paragraph from the girl detailing her situation, followed immediately with an exhausted apology.

I'm so sorry, please don't be mad. I'll be back as soon as I can.

Where the HELL are you?

Sam was asking questions. I tried to leave, but he got suspicious. I'll be back in a couple of days. I'm sorry.

You shouldn't have fucking seen him in the first place. I warned you.

Sam's career is in my hands. It'll only take one call to ruin him. I fucking warned you to never go near him.

He's trouble. He doesn't care about you like I do. He doesn't love you like I do.

The messages got progressively worse, teetering on the edge of insanity. Promising pain and broken bones, blaming it all on her.

Why do you make me do this?

Typical narcissist behaviour.

You're dead when I find you.

Baby Girl hadn't seen any of the messages after her rushed apology, but Bucky had a feeling she wouldn't be surprised by them either way. He clutched his phone tight, taking deep breaths to calm himself down.

What a bastard. What a self-entitled, psychotic prick. Everything came into clear focus, painting a detailed painting for Bucky to observe. Her behaviour started making sense. The bags under her eyes, the lack of light in her irises, the unworn ring... the secrets.

He decided then that he wouldn't tell her about the messages if she asked. Bucky would wait for the right time tonight to bring up the topic of Quentin Beck as innocently as he could, and offer her his help. She didn't need to know the extent of Beck's threats against her life.

Plan laid out, Bucky made his way inside for a well-deserved glass of cold water when the back door swung open. Baby Girl walked out with two lemonades and a plate of sandwiches balanced between the crook of her elbow. Some lemonade spilled over her hand when she abruptly stopped ahead of him. Bucky took the drinks from her and placed them on the small table.

Baby Girl put the plate of sandwiches next to the drinks and proceeded to lick the spilled lemonade from her hands. Bucky swallowed thickly, feeling flustered at such an innocent act. "You good?"

"Yeah," she replied. "I made us lunch and lemonade. Figured you could do with something cool."

"Yeah," Bucky was suddenly parched. "It's a hot day."

Baby Girl sat down at the table and took a large sip of her drink. "Sarah and Sam went to run some errands in the city. Said they'll be back late."

"What about the boys?" Bucky inquired, sitting down and taking a sip of his own. He groaned as the cool drink washed over him.

"They're having a sleepover at the neighbours." She handed him a sandwich, which he took with a smile.

"So it's just us today," he said, aware that the perfect opportunity for a less-than-pleasant conversation had just presented itself.

"Yup, just us."

An awkward silence fell over them, broken occasionally by the sound of chewing.

"The yard looks nice," Baby Girl blurted.

Bucky turned his neck to observe his handiwork. "Thanks. Still a lot to be done."

"You must be tired."

Bucky shrugged. "Not really. The heat is worse than anything else."

"Is that because of the serum?" she asked, immediately flushing with embarrassment. "Sorry! That's so insensitive of me. And it's none of my business."

"You're good," said Bucky. "I don't mind. Yeah, it's because of the serum. My stamina's through the roof."

"Wow," she admired.

"Could've been real handy with the ladies, back in the forties." Bucky flushed at the silence that followed. "During the war, I mean!" he corrected. "I could've used the stamina during the war."

The girl finished her lemonade in one long sip. "Right, of course."

"For battle. On the battlefield." Bucky finished his own drink, then stuffed another sandwich in his face to keep from further embarrassing himself.

Bucky's phone lit up with a notification, and the girl flicked her eyes toward the screen. "It's my neighbour," he told her. "He's looking after my cat."

Baby Girl visibly deflated. "That's nice," she smiled. "What's its name?"

"Alpine." Bucky decided this was as good a time as any to ask a few questions. "Listen, did you tell Quentin Beck where you are?" Bucky hated the scared look on her face.

"He knows I'm at Sam's," she started slowly.

Bucky took a deep breath and willed his expression to remain neutral. "Does he have an address?"

She shook her head in denial, and only then did Bucky find himself relaxing. He wouldn't need to worry about Beck showing up announced, which gave him more time to come up with a proper plan.

"I'm gonna take a dip," Bucky gestured to the lake. "Wanna join?"

"Maybe later."

Bucky stood up with a shrug. "Suit yourself." And he took his shirt off with one pull.

He felt Baby Girl's stare burning through his skin as he jogged toward the small lake, discarding his pants along the way. He entered the water in a running dive, letting gravity pull him to the bottom before kicking away and breaking the surface with a loud whoop. His body temperature slowly stabilized as he ran laps along the perimeter. He could still feel her stare as he stopped to tread.

"The water's amazing!" he yelled. "Join me!"

She threw her arms in the air. "I don't have a bathing suit."

Bucky floated on his back, arms crossed behind his head. "Who cares?"

After a moment's hesitation, Baby Girl laughed. "You're right. Who cares?" She grabbed the hem of her top and lifted it over her head, revealing a white camisole underneath. She stopped near the edge of the lake, fixing Bucky with a faux glare. "Well, turn around. You're crazy if you think I'm undressing in front of you."

Bucky smirked at her teasing nature and turned away, listening for a splash. After a moment, the water rippled, followed by a shrill scream. "Can I look?"

"Go ahead." Baby Girl laughed when Bucky whipped his head, sending a stream of water flying her way from his hair. "Damn, the water's cold."

"Feels good, though."

"Yeah."

They settled into a comfortable silence, floating on their backs and sneaking glances at each other. Her white camisole had turned see-through, giving Bucky a delicious glimpse of her skin and pale blue bra. He averted his gaze, trying to calm his racing heart.

"I'll miss this when I'm gone," said Baby Girl softly. "The peace and quiet."

"You don't have to leave," Bucky urged. "You could stay."

She turned to face him. "I can't," she replied sadly.

"You're scared for Sam," he observed, remembering the texts. "Why? He's the fucking Falcon. He helped defeat Thanos. Beck is nothing compared to that."

The girl's eyes widened in alarm. "How do you know that?"

Bucky didn't tell her he read the messages. He would've come to the same conclusion sooner or later. He ran his hand through his wet hair. "I used to be a spy." He fixed her with a pointed look. "And you're a horrible liar. Seriously, you are worse than my cat."

She huffed but didn't argue. After a moment of silent contemplation, she settled on her back and regarded him doubtfully. "Quentin has connections with the CIA, FBI, NSA, and Homeland Security. Any government official out there, he's probably on a first-name basis with them." Her face contorted in pain. "He could ruin Sam's life with a single phone call. I swore I would never give him a reason to."

Bucky's jaw clenched tightly. "What's the worst that bastard could do? Sam knows people too."

"Not enough. He could pin a drug charge. It wouldn't even have to stick. The bad press would be enough to ruin Sam's reputation."

"That's illegal," Bucky pointed out dangerously. Quentin Beck was turning out to be worse than Bucky imagined.

"He doesn't care about that when it comes to me," she dismissed. "Quentin can do no wrong when it comes to love."

"That's not love!" Bucky snapped, losing the last of his patience. They were floating dangerously close to one another, elbows brushing.

"Regardless. There's nothing to be done."

"You could stay," Bucky implored. "I'd keep you safe."

They were even closer now, both on their backs, faces turned toward the other, lips dangerously close. For a moment it looked like she might say yes. She opened her mouth to reply, but the sound of a car door slamming shut interrupted her.

"That must be Sam," she said, and the moment was broken.

Bucky moved first, swimming to the deck to grab his discarded pants. "I'll give you some privacy," he said, dragging the fabric up his legs. He left without another word.

Incessant knocking at the front door stopped Bucky in his tracks. Sam always carried a key. Bucky dropped his shirt and went around the house to the front. The car parked in the drive was unfamiliar and out of place. Sleek and shiny and black. Expensive. The man waiting impatiently at the door looked more out of place than the car. Dressed in a gray suit, brown loafers, and black shades, the man looked like he belonged on the cover of a real estate advertisement.

"Can I help you?" Bucky snapped, feeling on edge.

The man lifted his shades to regard Bucky with a look of contempt, eyeing his exposed chest and metal arm with barely concealed disgust. "Yeah, maybe you can. Is this the Wilson residence?"

"Depends on who's asking."

"A friend," the man replied.

"Funny. I didn't know Sam had any friends."

"That's because I'm not Sam's friend," he scorned. "I'm looking for a girl."

Bucky inched closer to him. "I know lots of girls," he quipped.

The man smiled dangerously. "I'm looking for a very specific one. Yay high, unchecked temper, tendency for trouble."

Bucky laughed without humour. "Doesn't narrow much down, buddy. I'm gonna have to ask you to leave."

"You must be the Winter Soldier," the man mused.

"I go by James Barnes," Bucky snapped. "You must be Quentin Beck." Bucky had recognized him right away.

Quentin Beck spread his arms in a wide gesture. "The one and only. I suppose she told you about me."

"She didn't have to. I can smell a bastard from a mile away."

Beck clenched his fists, face contorting nastily, and stepped forward. "You little—"

Despite the sweltering heat, Bucky felt a coldness wash over him. His advanced senses picked up on footsteps coming from around the back. His head whipped to the side just as the girl rounded the corner. She wore jeans and nothing else, her white camisole still wet and slightly see-through. Bucky watched with dread as she took in the sight in front of her, blinking confusedly. The colour slowly drained from her flushed cheeks, and she froze as her brain caught up with her eyes.

"Sweetheart?" Beck's demeanour rapidly changed, and he stalked forward with his hands raised non-threateningly. "I've been looking everywhere for you."

Bucky blocked his path with a glare.

When Beck noticed her state of undress, he became angry, clenching his fists at his side. He noted Bucky's bare chest, his low-hanging jeans, and the girl's see-through top. "What the fuck is going on here?" Beck demanded.

When he fixed his icy glare on her, she reanimated, staggering back with a loud gasp, Baby Girl tripped over a rock but continued scooting backwards as she fell over. The raw fear emanating from her was enough to undo Bucky. Bucky shoved Beck as hard as he could—without using his super strength—and slammed him against his car.

"Motherfucker," Beck hissed, clutching his side.

"I suggest you leave before you really piss me off," Bucky threatened, stalking closer.

Beck staggered away, putting his car between them. "Not without my fiancé," he seethed.

"Fiancé, huh?" Bucky turned toward the girl. She was still on the ground, carefully watching the scene with wide eyes. He waited until she looked at him, then gave her a soft smile, silently urging her to trust him. "Are you his fiancé, Baby Girl?"

She jerked her head in denial. "No."

"There you have it. You heard the lady." Bucky's voice lowered dangerously. "Now leave. Before I make you leave."

"She's lying!" Beck screamed. And Bucky got the impression he was used to getting his way. "I gave her a ring."

Bucky had cornered Beck against the hood of his car and was looming dangerously over his crouched figure. "I don't see any ring. Now leave!"

Beck unlocked the car, jerking open the driver's side and inelegantly lumbering in. "This isn't over yet, Winter Soldier," he spat, and with one last seething glare toward the girl, he sped off.

Ao3│Wattpad│Ko-fi

Main Masterlist│Part 1 — Part 2 — Part 3

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@marvelatthetwilight @hallecarey1 @ria132love

[kus-babygirl]

I am so fucking nervous to post this, as it is the first one shot that I have ever written, so please be gentle. Thank you so much to @enchantedflameandflower who heavily edited this and encouraged me to post it and also who I couldnt do it without you. I know I am not suppose to love Vincent Stevens, I can’t help but love him so much. (Think Karl is the reason for it, don’t judge me, we all love some very questionable characters) And this idea has been in my head for two days, and I had to write it (Also song isn’t mine, credit it goes to the amazing Adele)

Vincent Stevens (The Loft) x Reader

Upon entering the bar for your 15th school reunion, you couldn’t help but feel an absolutely overwhelming wave of nervous energy as you look around at all the people from your past.

You had changed since seeing your old school friends - you’re curvier, changed your hair colour and have a couple tattoos…

But more than anything - you’re nervous to see him.

Him being your ex boyfriend, from when you were in school together, Vincent Stevens.

You had dated for about 4 years while in school, and he had been the perfect boyfriend, but after graduation, you broke up as you wanted different things. He wanted to go far away to college to become a architect, which he did, and you wanted to travel. But after what had happened with the murder in his loft, and all of the affairs that came out after, he had fallen far from grace. He still had his company, but no one respected him as much. Still he was slowly crawling his way back up the respect ladder.

Of course you keep tabs on him, he was your first ever love, and still is. You wanted to travel the world, and you did, you had quite a bit of money that your grandpa had left you when he passed away a year after you graduated, and so you took off, saying goodbye to your parents, your friends and even Vincent. You traveled to the UK, Thailand, South Africa, India, Thailand, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and you spent a couple of months in each place before heading back to the states.

Now looking around the huge bar, you take everything in. There is a dance floor to the right, a curved dark oak bar with bottles upon bottles of alcohol to the left, and the bar also has a karaoke machine with a stage right in the middle of the bar and dance floor. You smile seeing some of your old friends, but not seeing Vincent yet.

So you spend a good hour, catching up and drinking with them, before finally the door of the bar opens, and Vincent walks in. It seems like everybody turns to look at him, some with happy faces and some with disgusted faces, but you…you have to turn away. It’s too much. As he approaches the bar you make a run toward the bathroom, taking a much needed breather.

You stay in there for a good 10 minutes, splashing copious amounts of cold water on your face. Taking a deep breath, you head out of the bathroom and back towards the bar, where you see Vincent having a drink with the same people you were just chatting and drinking with.

He looks over at you and gives you a small concerned smile. His hazel eyes seem to glimmer in the low light in the bar, and they’re beautiful. You give a small smile back. As he starts to head toward you, you dart away and walk over to the karaoke machine.

With a deep breath, you ask the attendant running it to put a song on for you, and he happily smiles and nods in reply. You take to the stage, gently taking the mic into your hands, and start singing:

‘Everybody loves the things you do. From the way you talk. To the way you move. Everybody here is watching you. 'Cause you feel like home. You're like a dream come true. But if by chance you're here alone. Can I have a moment? Before I go? 'Cause I've been by myself all night long. Hoping you're someone I used to know.

You look like a movie. You sound like a song. My God this reminds me, of when we were young.’

As you sing everyone stops what they’re doing and is looking at you. But you’re looking straight at Vincent, singing this to him…

‘Let me photograph you in this light. In case it is the last time. That we might be exactly like we were. Before we realized. We were scared of getting old. It made us restless. It was just like a movie. It was just like a song.’

Vincent is looking at you with a mournful expression on his face, watching you intently. He must know that it hurt you deeply when you broke up, even though it was mutual.

‘I was so scared to face my fears. Nobody told me that you'd be here. And I'd swear you moved overseas. That's what you said, when you left me.’ You are tearing up badly, and knew you couldn’t finish the whole song.

‘You still look like a movie. You still sound like a song. My God, this reminds me, of when we were young. Let me photograph you in this light. In case it is the la-,’

You start crying, dropping the mic and hearing loud ringing it makes. Running out of the bar, you walk down the street, wiping your face, trying to stop the onslaught of tears.

Suddenly, you hear your name being called by the one person you didn’t want to see you like this, but you turn around anyway and look straight at him. “V, please don’t.”

“I know you don’t want to see me right at this moment, but please let me explain everything.”

You sigh, thinking for a bit before nodding your head.

“I know us breaking up hurt you badly, and I regret that every single day. I should have put a ring on that finger when we graduated. I knew it should have been you walking down that aisle, in that wedding dress, not Barbara. All through out our married life, I kept thinking of you. Even when having sex with her…I…” he lifted his hand to rub at the back of his neck, “I even muttered your name a couple of times. We had fights because of it, and I think that’s why I had the affairs. I used each woman to fill this hole in me, using them so I could mutter your name without them caring. ‘Cause if I’m being honest with you and myself, I am still in love with you.”

You gasp, looking up at him. You weren’t ready for that confessions. “What about the murder?” you ask.

He sighs. “That was horrible pay back from my friends from college, ‘cause I am not going to lie to you, I slept with their wives, but I was thinking of you each time. I know that doesn’t justify what I’ve done. Please baby girl…”

You shiver at the nickname, squeezing your hands together to try to keep from reaching for him as he continues.

“...you make me a better man. I need you.”

Vincent is looking at you with such heartfelt emotion and love in his eyes, you can’t help but listen.

“V, I don’t know if I can. What if you go back to your old ways? I couldn’t cope if we broke up again,” you say, starting to cry again.

He quickly moves in front of you, cupping your cheeks with his big hands and leaning his forehead against yours. “I promise that will never happen. I won’t go back to my old ways. I never cheated on you when we were together. I swear on my life, please, I’ll prove to you, every single day. Please, I love you, baby-girl.”

You close your eyes, but you let him wrap you up in his arms while he lets you think. He happily let you, just standing there with you, holding you.

Finally, you sigh. “Alright, I’ll give you one chance, V, but the moment you step out of line, we are done for good, ‘cause I can’t handle it, if you did. But I love you so much.”

‘Thank you, baby-girl. I promise, I will show you that I have changed, because I love you so much too.” He gently leans down, looking in your eyes for permission and you nod your head. He smiles and kisses you so gently, but still full of passion. It is like he is making every promise to you with this one kiss.

And after that night and so forth, he treats you like a queen. He shows you his phone with his private messages and his private and personal emails every day to prove to you that he isn’t having affairs, and he loves you more than you ever thought possible.

@negansbabydoll66 @urban-trek-thru-middle-earth @bohemianblasphemy @ghostwriter2203 @shirley-girly

[an--artistic--autistic]

sometimes i start to slide back into the mindset of "what if I'm not really disabled and I'm just faking it" or "what if everything could be cured by just doing x, y, z" etc.

and then i remember that during lockdown in 2020 i spent 6 months — like every single minute of that six months — focused on taking care of my health and doing everything right

i slept 8+ hours, i drank lots of water, i got a decent amount of (non-straining) exercise, i went for walks and got fresh air, i ate balanced meals, etc. etc.

and my health got worse.

i did everything right, continuously, for months, and was still disabled. there is literally nothing i could have done to "fix it". i'm not faking it, i was alone (mostly) and trying to convince myself that everything was fine, and i was still in debilitating pain.

everything has been so much better with disability aids. having my cane has been life-changing. using sensory aids, life-changing! a non-disabled person wouldn't benefit this much from disability aids!!!

i think this is coming up again for me because I've become a relatively well-known person on campus for disability (and queer!) issues, and despite having all of my lived experience and the drive to deal with things, i still feel underqualified.

there are other people who are "more disabled", or have "been disabled" longer than me (since things were really only dealt with during lockdown after my experiment, it's only been like 3-4 years with a diagnosis). sometimes i feel like i'm taking away an opportunity from someone that would be more qualified to do things.

logically though, i'm not. most of these things i have either started myself, or other people have convinced me to get involved with because i seem "qualified" to talk about it. I've had four meetings this week about campus accessibility, people actively seek me out to ask questions, i do regularly deal with ableism and inaccessibility even if it's to a lesser extent than some other people — but the stuff i'm doing is to help everyone, not for personal gain. i'm not pretending to be disabled for selfish reasons. there are clear access barriers that directly affect me as well and i am doing everything in my power to take them down.

anyways you can't really fake being disabled, especially not to yourself. ;)

[n1ghtcrwler]

When I first got my autism diagnosis a few months ago, a handful of people in my family asked if I was okay or how I was taking the news, and that confused me. "This is just data," I told them, "I learned something that is true and can give me information on aspects of myself, there's nothing to feel about that. It simply is." And I meant that, I really did. But it was also very, very new, and I don't tend to respond with snap emotional reactions.

See, this hadn't been a real consideration before. When my brother took his first college psychology course back in, would have been somewhere around 2005-2007, he went to my girlfriend (who was at the same college as him) and told her he'd learned about a thing called Asperger's and that aspects of it reminded him of me. So she told me, and we looked it up, and based on what little info we could find we determined it didn't really fit, and I dropped it there. I later learned that autism existed, and its relationship to the Asperger's I had read about back then, by meeting and befriending a number of autistic people. But because I had ruled it out already, no amount of connection to those people, or visible similarity between us, made me wonder. So I didn't have years of wondering and considering and researching under my belt. I didn't start wondering and then slowly learn it was true of me, as seems to be a commonality in other stories I hear. I only got a neuropsych test because Carol noticed during her ADHD assessment that I sounded neurodivergent, and asked me to get an assessment as well. Then the pre-assessment showed that I should get a more broad-spectrum test instead of an ADHD assessment. Then the pre-assessment for the neuropsych showed that they wanted to focus on a couple things, one of which was autism.

And that was the first time I was aware, in nearly two decades, that this was a possibility, though it was one among many. And I didn't put too much thought, or any research, into it at that point because I didn't want to get a notion in my head and then act that notion out and get misdiagnosed with anything. So the results were a bombshell that just didn't fully explode right away.

Because now that I've had a few months to think about it, and learn a little bit, I find myself sad and angry. I went 41 years of my life with no knowledge of this, and no support, and no real answers. And maybe I could have put more effort into it in 2007, maybe I should have tried to get assessed then, but I didn't have money for that! I could barely hold down a job unless it was pizza delivery (I wouldn't realize until THIS WEEK how much my love of that job hinged on my systematic understanding of plotting courses on the fly and the literal hours of my day I spent alone in my car interrupted by brief, largely scripted, social interactions), I didn't have insurance, I was in my early-to-mid 20s and heavily self-medicating. But then my parents are telling me they wish they knew, that if they had known they would have maybe understood what was going on with me better and things could have been different. And I get them not understanding! What, really, could I expect two teenagers in the 80s to have known about autism? I don't think they need to beat themselves up for not recognizing it for what it was. But Carol, talking about her ADHD diagnosis, said something shattering. She was talking about the mockery and the lack of support for her needs, and said that, while it is nice to know she had a reason to be the way she was, it didn't really change the fact that other people had no reason to be cruel. And it really highlighted the question for me, "if things could have been different, why weren't they?" Did you need a diagnosis to see I was struggling? Did you need a diagnosis to know it was cruel to mock your child? Did you need a diagnosis to want to accommodate needs that made me stand out as weird?

Why did it take FORTY ONE YEARS for you to think things could, maybe should, have been different?

We sat down with the younger two kids this afternoon. Our youngest has been formally diagnosed with ADHD, and we wanted to help him understand a little of what that means for him and how much he shares that with his mom. Our daughter, it's obvious to us, has some form of neurodivergence, but since it isn't affecting her grades or her ability to keep out of trouble in school, they haven't noticed it; and without the school noticing it, it is prohibitively expensive to get her tested. So we wanted her to know what to look for, and that she doesn't need a diagnosis to come to us. We don't need a diagnosis to try our best to accommodate her needs. And this will involve breaking some habits, because we learned how to be parents from our parents, and our oldest already lost so many years of possible support to our lack of understanding, and we can't get those back. And I understand, to some degree, why it took a diagnosis for my parents to reconsider the ways they were taught to parent; because, while I tried to break the habits I inherited, it took a diagnosis for me to find a path toward success in that.

Everyone in my household is still learning what all these things mean for us, and how to handle them. And I guess there's a degree to which I'm mourning what my life could have been if I had known, or at least had some kind of help. It isn't just data, it turns out. It's also a history, and a set of needs, and to an extent, permission to meet those needs. I started wearing sunglasses indoors more. I've always wanted to, because the light hurts, but when it was just a stupid thing that's weird, I couldn't justlfy dealing with the fallout and assumptions from others about it. But now that it's an accommodation to a sensitivity, I can maybe get comfortable with it. I feel like there's a long road ahead, and a lot of baggage to unpack, but at least that's possible now. And who knows? Maybe, among my family, things will finally be different.

[grandwretch]

only i must wander, pt. 3

[on ao3] [pt. 1] [pt.2]

content warnings: conversations about and references to genocide, murder, cannibalism, kidnapping, drug use, human trafficking, racism, war, and bullying.

Steve and Robin weren't exactly best friends.

They tried. Or, well, Robin did. Steve kinda did what he had always done at work, which was keep out of everyone's way and try not to fuck up too hard. Robin, though, was putting in the effort. Not an hour went by without Robin popping out of nowhere to try and start a conversation. Usually about some gossip she'd heard about their classmates or one of the few movies they'd both seen. Steve usually did his best to keep up with her, never being the first to stop talking and walk away, but it felt–

It felt a lot like high school did. Robin's smile never reached her eyes, and it only put more pressure on Steve to follow suit. Be normal, the weight on his shoulders whispered, and everything will be okay. So when she spoke, Steve answered, a smile on his face.

No matter how plastic and saccharine it tasted.

The kids didn't exactly make it easier. Dustin was even more desperate for them to be best friends than Robin was. It was hard to begrudge the kid the connection, though, when he had spent the longest in isolation. He'd been alone amongst humans before El and Steve even had any words for what was wrong with them. What was Steve supposed to do, tell him to stop showing up and asking questions?

Max was worse. She forgave a lot less than Steve and Dustin, and still showed up at least once a week. She enjoyed her shift of threatening glares. Steve had tried to warn her off of it, and Max had snorted.

"If I can take down my brother, I'm not worried about a bitchy fox demon, or whatever." Max was unimpressed by monsters as only a pre-teen could be. Steve wasn't even sure when El had told her about the Wesen thing. He couldn't exactly pretend to be surprised; They'd never been very subtle around her.

So, yeah, they were both under a lot of pressure to be besties. Enough pressure to guarantee they would never be anything even approaching 'close'. Which Steve was fine with. He was finally getting used to all his friends being nerdy middle schoolers. What would he even talk to a friend about? … Basketball? Steve hadn't watched a game in months. March had flown by without Steve even catching a single game. Not that Robin would even be interested in basketball, and–

Steve shook his head, and focused on wiping bits of ice cream off the glass counter.

He did not want to be friends with Robin.

Dustin didn't care, though, as he came in and slammed his backpack down in an empty booth. "Steve!" he greeted, if that could even be called a hello. "Where's Robin?"

"I don't know," Steve said, even though he knew Robin was in the back room. She was socially allergic to the food court downstairs. That wasn't the point, though. "Why do you care?"

"I've got news!" Dustin crowed, "Big news!"

"What's he talking about now?" Robin asked from the door, arms folded.

Steve rolled his eyes. One day, the universe would teach Dustin that his antics wouldn't always get him what he wanted. One day. Steve hoped he was there to see it. "I've got no idea," Steve said, throwing his towel down on the counter in resignation. "He came in and started screaming."

"So El was telling me and Max about your big plan," Dustin said. Steve watched Robin's eyebrows shoot way up behind her bangs.

"Jesus Christ," Steve muttered. "You guys gossip more than every cheerleader in our school put together."

"What 'big plan'?" Robin said, an appropriate amount of sarcasm behind Dustin's emphasis of the phrase.

"There's no big plan. There's a–" Steve turned to Dustin, trying to get the words through his thick little skull. "There's an agreed upon procedure between me and Hop, should there ever be a threat large enough–"

"What the fuck do you think procedure means?" Dustin asked, every inch as bitchy as Steve had trained him to be.

"Yeah, well it sounds a lot less fucking ominous. I can't have a thirteen year old going around talking about my big plans with the police chief." Steve hissed. He knocked his knuckles on Dustin's shoulder, following him as Dustin tried to squirm away. "Did you even think about trying to explain why Hop would be working on a plan with me?"

"Can someone please explain this plan to me?" Robin said, volume increasing to be heard over Dustin's squawks of protest.

"Steve's going to be a good Grimm!" Dustin said, cheerily, dodging Steve's swiping hand.

"Jesus," Steve cursed again as Robin turned a disbelieving stare onto him. "It's not like that! I was talking to Hop about what happens if my parents show back up. We decided we should have a plan in place if they or any other Grimms start sniffing around Hawkins. That's all."

Robin looked at Steve for a long moment. "You said that Hexenbiest friend of yours was Chief Hopper's daughter, right?"

Steve winced. "Kinda. She was part of a case a couple years ago, and she hasn't been allowed outside much, but–"

Robin shook her head. "Believe me, I don't want to know. Hexenbiest blood can be used in all kinds of potions and shit. The last thing I need, as a Fuchsbau, is to get involved with whatever all that's about."

Steve didn't even know what to say to that, so he turned to Dustin. "Why are you here, Henderson?"

"I'm calling the plan into action!" Dustin said, his limbs flailing as if he'd been saying that this entire time, Steve, you idiot. "I would have called in a Code Red, but it's not…" His eyes darted to Robin, then back to Steve. "You know."

"There's a Grimm in Hawkins?" Steve asked, his voice flat with disbelief.

"... No?"

Steve rolled his eyes. "Henderson…"

"No, come on! There's– Look," Dustin said, holding one finger up as he reached for his backpack. He pulled out one of last semester's folders, green with 'English' crossed out on the front. Underneath, he'd written 'Wesen stuff'.

"Subtle," Steve said.

Dustin ignored him, pulling a stack of newspaper clippings out of the folder. They were rather large, not at all like the small sports write-ups that Steve's mom used to clip out for him. No, these were big, front-page articles, with big black-and-white pictures accompanying them. Dustin's handwriting was in the margins, tiny scrawled notes and circles and arrows and–

Steve shook his head, trying not to let the sudden wealth of information overwhelm him. He felt like this should be the kind of thing Nancy had done in the past few years. Definitely not the job for him, who had trouble pulling together a decent book report.

"So I was spying on my mom's phone call," Dustin began, which inspired a new round of cursing from Steve. "Shut up, Steve, this is important."

"Your mom not killing us is important," Steve hissed.

"My mom is a middle-aged beaver woman. You're a nineteen year old killing machine," Dustin said, ignoring Steve's flinch. "You'll be okay."

Robin came around the counter to stand on Dustin's other side, leaning over his shoulder to peer at the collection of wrinkled newspapers. "Focus, boys," she said, her hands smoothing out the topmost clipping, which featured a large black and white photo of a kid. He was about the age Dustin had been when Steve first met him, grinning wide in front of Fort Worth Elementary. "What is all this?"

"This is what my mom was talking about," Dustin said, his gaze snapping back to his research. "He went missing last week."

Nausea roiled in Steve's stomach, and he forced himself to look away from the bright grin as he struggled with his own gag reflex. It was a little silly, since he hadn't even known Will when it happened– had been a fucking shit about it, even. He hadn't been able to stomach missing kids since '83. Not even in movies. That was one of the reasons O'Donnell hated him so much– She'd tried to make him read some awful book about a missing little girl, and he'd refused. Hired some nerd to write the report. She knew it, and he knew she knew it, but he couldn't read it. Couldn't think about some mom, sick to death with worry, and a bunch of men who thought she was crazy. It made him want to crawl out of his skin. Made him want to launch the book through the police station window with Lucas's slingshot. Made him want to make every teacher who'd whispered behind the Byers' backs eat the pages the words were printed on.

It made him want to pay for the words he couldn't take back with blood.

"Dustin, not every… Kids go missing all the time, buddy." Steve tried to be calm, the reasonable older brother, as his own hands started to shake. "Will was a special circumstance, you know that, right?"

"Oh, shit," Robin mumbled.

"This isn't about Will," Dustin said, although Steve could tell from the way that Dustin's eyes were big and round that it had been very much about Will. "My mom called her friend in Fort Worth, and they were talking about the investigation, and they– He's a klaustreich."

Steve had no idea what that meant, but the German was enough of a giveaway to get the gist. "This kid is a Wesen?"

Even as Dustin nodded, Robin was snorting and shaking her head. "If he's a klaustreich, it was the dad. It's always the dad."

"Hey," Steve said, voice weak. It was hard to fight Wesen prejudice when he had no idea what the stereotypes were supposed to be. It certainly didn't sound flattering, though.

"It's almost always the dad for humans, too," Robin said, a flush of embarrassment across her face.

Steve and Dustin exchanged a look. "Dads aside," Steve said , because talking parents never went well for him. Especially with any of the kids present. "It doesn't matter who did it, because this isn't any of our business. The police will handle this, Dustin, I don't know why–"

"Because he wasn't the only one!" Dustin moved the newspaper to the side, revealing another black and white photo of a smiling child. And then another. And another. More and more pictures were revealed, until the children devolved into a blur of gray and sepia. "In the past four years, more than 38 kids have gone missing in adjacent counties alone."

"That's impossible," Robin said, immediately. "Someone would have done something. They would have caught the guy. There would be– There would be fucking dogs and search parties–"

"Oh, like there was for Will Byers?" Steve said, his tongue numb. He almost didn't mean it, didn't want to be saying it, but all he could think about was that fake body of Will's. His own voice, asking if Jonathan had killed him. "Kids go missing all the time," he repeated.

Robin was quiet for a moment. "So the guy who took Will…"

"No," Steve and Dustin said at the same time.

"That was completely different," Dustin said, "and it's handled."

"One of us would have noticed if there were that many kids involved," Steve said, trying to make himself believe it. "And they wouldn't still be going missing."

"I thought they never caught the guy who did it?" Robin asked.

Another glance. "I made sure of it," Steve said, his voice firm enough to broadcast that he would not respond well to pushing. Not exactly stellar for his new serial killer reputation, but there was no way in hell he was telling Robin about the Upside Down. She wouldn't believe it, anyway, in spite of all the Wesen and magic and shit. Whatever created the Upside Down, it wasn't a furry little guy. It was something sinister, and the last thing he needed was it to get its claws into Wesen society.

Robin's eyes narrowed, her gaze analyzing Steve's face, before she nodded and looked away. "Alright, so what's your theory, beaver boy?"

Dustin sighed. "After I left the library, the trail went kinda cold. It's not like a thirteen year old can call grieving families and expect answers, you know?"

"That's why you should bring this to Hopper," Steve said, tapping the folder. "You know, an actual adult? And a cop, by the way. The people who would actually have a good chance of–"

"A Wesen family would never talk to a human cop," Robin said, then shrugged at Steve's sharp look. "Sorry, man, it's true. We have a thing about handling our own disputes."

"Alright, well…" Steve huffed. It wasn't that he couldn't appreciate the sentiment. He was pretty sure that when Robin said 'handling it', she was using a definition like his own-- Beating the shit out of it with a bat and then setting it on fire. "That's one family that won't talk, but that leaves almost two dozen–"

"More are Wesen," Robin said, and then leaned over to tap at a picture on the table. The kid was older than Dustin, around Robin's age. He beamed out of the gray, wearing his letterman's jacket, a football tucked under his arm. "That's Carter Ridley. Goes to school in Jackson. His mom comes into my dad's shop sometimes. They're jagerbars."

"Hunter bears?" Dustin translated, his nose wrinkling.

"They used to be berserkers, in the old country. Now they're mostly yuppies," Robin said, shrugging. "Still built like a fucking mountain, though."

"Huh," Dustin said, looking thoughtful.

"Alright, so two families…" Steve tried, but Robin shot him a look that left him feeling small.

"If someone is hunting Wesen kids, two is enough."

"Hunting any kid is bad enough," Dustin corrected, but his face was still unfocused in deep thought. "It does take a special kind of person to capture two predator kids, though…"

"What?" Steve frowned down at the picture. "He's, like, fifteen, sixteen? He's big, but he's not going to take out a full grown man."

"He's a sixteen year old jagerbars," Robin repeated. "They used to hunt humans for sport at that age. No dad with a beer gut is going to be able to take a jagerbar raging on teenage hormones."

"So what?"

"So it's a Wesen that's doing this," Dustin said, determined. "Something powerful. Something evil."

"That's your job, right?" Robin said, turning to Steve.

"I'm not a fucking–" Steve paused, frazzled. "I mean, I am. But, like… ethnically. I'm not going to start hunting criminal Wesen and killing them! That's insane!"

"So we're supposed to let them keep doing it?" Dustin said, whirling around.

"No! Or… maybe? I don't fucking know, Dustin. Why didn't you take this shit to Hop? He knows about this Wesen shit, now. I'm sure if he knew about this, he would do something about it." Not as much or as fast as Dustin wanted, but Steve had never known Hopper to sit around and let a kid hurt like that. He would stop this. He would.

"You want to send your father figure after a monster that'll tear him apart?" Robin asked. She didn't even sound upset about it, just… curious. Which Steve thought was rather rich, considering she'd never even met Hopper in the context of Steve. Rich and cruel.

"Steve," Dustin said, before Steve could even gather his thoughts enough to tear into Robin like he wanted to. The kid's voice was solemn, deep in the way he only got when he was on the edge of tears. "I know. But when has bringing an adult into this ever fucking solved anything?"

Steve wanted to protest. They'd helped– Hopper and Joyce and even those stupid science guys, they had all helped. Been instrumental, really. But Steve couldn't deny that sometimes it made things harder. They didn't understand, sometimes, why things had to be done a certain way. Whatever help they would give had to be wheedled out of them, piece by piece, usually at a cost greater than anyone guessed. And that was only if they didn't die. Steve hadn't known Bob, but he had watched Joyce cry into Hopper's chest about it, which was more than enough to solidify the danger in his mind.

He loved Joyce and Hopper. He did. But they weren't the reason they were all still alive. Nancy was. El was. And, sometimes, when someone needed to take the hit, Steve was.

"Okay," Steve said, his shoulders going lax in resignation. "Alright. But if we're going to look into this, we're going to do it right. Now…" What would Nancy do? he asked himself. "We need to know how many of these kids are actually Wesen. Any ideas?"

"You could show up to their house and see if their parents woge?" Dustin said.

"No."

"I have an idea," Robin said, "but you both have to promise not to fucking touch anything."

"There is no way you can make me promise that without telling me what it is I'm not touching," Dustin said, seriously. "That's entrapment."

Robin sighed, chewing off all the lipstick on her bottom lip. "Okay," she said, finally, "my dad's shop is the only Wesen apothecary outside of Indianapolis. If any of their families have ever needed anything a human shop wouldn't handle, they'll be on his ledger."

"Alright, so…. " Steve shrugged. "Would he let us see it?"

Snorting, Robin replied, "Absolutely not. But if his darling daughter were to leave the back door unlocked the next time it's her turn to clean…"

"Oh, good, another crime," Steve said, rolling his eyes. A quick glance at Dustin proved he would be no help in finding an alternative. Glee was written across the kid's face so patently that even Steve didn't have to puzzle it out. It's for the kids, Steve reminded himself.

"Since when do you care about what's legal, Harrington?" Robin said. "You've been drinking since the cradle."

"Like you said," Steve said dismissive. "Police chief. Father figure."

"Steve has, like, chronic parental issues," Dustin informed Robin, sotto voice.

"Dustin…"

"They're fucking terminal," Dustin continued, ignoring Steve's sighs of complaint.

"When are we fucking doing this?" Steve cut in, voice harsh with frustration.

Robin's face went blank in thought for a moment, running through the days in her head. "I'm supposed to clean up after inventory on Thursday," she said, shrugging. "That's the earliest I'll be able to get you in."

Six days. That was more than enough time for the more rational parts of Steve's brain to take back over, more than enough time to talk Dustin out of this heroism kick. He found himself nodding, more than willing to put this off for another week.

"It'll have to wait, then," Steve said, and tried not to sound too pleased about it.

Despite Steve's efforts, the next six days didn't lessen Robin and Dustin's insistence on playing the hero. In fact, Steve found himself on tenterhooks every night. He watched the evening news with an intensity he had given very little since graduation.

The six o'clock news, then the ten– The morning news on the weekend, anchors and time slots that Steve usually slept through. He watched them all with his heart in his throat, every cell of him focused on the prayer that he wouldn't see another sunny, ignorant smile on the screen. Every night passed without a new addition to their list, but that did nothing to soothe the mounting frenzy in Steve's chest. Instead, he could only wonder what they were missing, if there were kids slipping through their fingers unnoticed.

Saturday morning when the anchors said goodbye, the local channel started reruns of old episodes of Batman. Steve, numb with anxiety, stayed curled in his father's pristine armchair and let them play. Primary colors and musical stings blurred together in his bleary mind.

He'd never been a huge superhero kid, not like Dustin and Mike, but there had been no one in his elementary school who didn't sometimes watch Batman. There wasn't much that he remembered. The characters were all unfamiliar and cartoonish, but the apathy made Adam West's booming voice softer. It soothed the shake of Steve's hands.

In one scene, Batman rushed onto the docks, a bomb in his hands. There was nowhere to go, no way to save the unbothered masses around him. It was supposed to be funny; Steve recognized the slapstick body language, the sigh in West's voice. There were baby ducks in the water, for fuck's sake. He had thought it was hilarious, once, in the way sheltered little kids always did.

Steve pulled his legs a little tighter against his body, watching the fuse burn down. The exaggerated resignation had grown too familiar to be laughable. He sat and he watched Batman accept that this bomb was going to go off in his hands, so it wouldn't go off on anyone else's, and it didn't make Steve upset. It didn't make him uncomfortable.

It made him nod, approving. Because Steve knew that if he found himself with a bomb in his hands, he would keep holding it. Would curve himself around it, letting it go off.

"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb," Batman told him, and Steve clicked the television off. It was time to go back to bed.

The rest of the week wasn't easier. Work helped, the distraction as good for Steve as it had ever been, but Robin didn't. Her obsession had gotten its teeth into Dustin's little mystery, and there was very little else she was willing to talk about. Even when Steve managed to change the subject, he could see the missing smiles in the shadows behind her eyes. In time, she would lapse back into theories and ramblings about some story she had heard, once-upon-a-time. Steve was never sure how many of these stories were facts and how many were legends. The both seemed equally real to Robin, and by Thursday night, he had heard every word the Buckley clan had to offer.

He wished he could blame her. That terrible feeling got its claws into him every time, the paranoia and the guilt and the shame, and it would feel so much better if he could take it out on her. Steve knew it would. He couldn't bring himself to do it. He could feel the frustration bubbling up in his chest, taste the bitter words on his tongue. It didn't matter how long she rambled, though, every time he turned to face her, his voice refused to cooperate. It was too easy, he thought as she rambled through another legend too horrific to listen to. Even as Robin spoke, she broadcasted her fear louder than her voice. Every curiosity revealed another nightmare she'd never beaten. It wouldn't feel as good now, when he knew she was so fragile.

Or maybe he didn't want to be an asshole anymore.

So listened to every awful theory she had, and then drove home to find Henderson on his doorstep with his own set of ideas. Dustin's were at least a little less gory, but he had even less to work with than Robin did. Most of his 'theories', if they could even be called that, were cribbed from cop shows and nursery rhymes. The kind of thing his mother filled his head with so he wouldn't talk to strangers. They had never worked, because Dustin had never met a problem he didn't want to interrogate to death, but they left their mark all the same. So Steve soothed his fears, did his best to not sound too sarcastic when he assured Dustin that the bogeyman didn't exist, and then shooed Dustin off to bed.

Every night was the same, a shift of horror movie plots followed by a thirteen year old's best attempt at paranormal theory.

When the sun finally set on Thursday, Steve expected to feel relieved. After a week of fending off the worst of Robin and Dustin's impulses, he would finally be able to prove this wasn't their problem. All it would take was a quick look at Mr. Buckley's ledgers, and all three of them could finally move on.

Steve tried to remind himself of that, blocking Dustin's chattering voice out as he turned the thoughts over in his mind again and again. They did little to help the rising anxiety, though, the edges worn smooth with handling like well-eroded stones. Steve's fingers flexed against the steering wheel. The closer it got to go-time, the worse Steve felt. The air felt heavy around him, so thick he could imagine it darkening like in one of Dustin's movies.

"You are, like, the worst criminal in the world," Dustin said, halfway through shoving a Twizzler into his mouth.

"Is that supposed to be an insult?"

"You look like you're about to throw up," Dustin said, poking at Steve's cheek with his licorice.

Being able to grab the candy out of Dustin's hand without looking was the only thing Steve's Grimm abilities had ever been good for. He tossed it through his open window, his other hand covering Dustin's mouth– Well, the kid's entire face. Steve wasn't trying to shut him up as much as annoy him into submission.

"You know, you could stand to take this a little more seriously," Steve said, frowning. "Jesus, where is Robin? She said eight, right?"

"It's only 8:15, man," Dustin said, leaning his seat back. "Chill."

"How is it that I'm the only one who believes there isn't a fucking serial killer on the loose and I'm still the only person taking this shit seriously?" he muttered to himself. He needed a fucking cigarette, but he knew Robin would bitch incessantly if she smelled smoke on him. Steve had no idea how he'd picked up another nerd to tell him what to do, or why he even cared about what she said–

"Steve, fucking breathe."

Steve heaved, realizing his lungs had stopped working a thousand thoughts ago. "Thanks," he wheezed.

"No problem."

They lapsed into silence. The moment stretched out between them like the infinite increments between one and two, until Robin's head popped out of her back door. She already looked mad, the too-familiar furrow between her eyes, and Steve sighed under his breath.

This hadn't been his idea, but he was pretty sure that it was going to end up being his fault when they all got caught.

"Come on, before she has a fucking heart attack," Steve said to Dustin as he opened the door. They sprinted across the road, looking twice as suspicious as if they had walked. Steve looked over his shoulder as their feet finally hit the sidewalk on the other side. Though the street was empty save for the Bimmer, he couldn't shake the feeling of something at his back. The feeling had been lurking for weeks, though, even in his own house, so he forced himself to shake it off and slip into the door behind Dustin.

"Took you long enough," Robin hissed.

Steve barely held back an offended squeak, turning it into a grunt in the back of his throat that left him feeling nauseous. "Did you want me to fly here, Buckley? We were waiting for you."

"Yeah, well, we don't have all night." Robin rolled her eyes, but her hands fluttered in front of her chest, as if she wasn't sure how she was expected to hold her arms during a B&E. Steve deflated. It was hardly worth the fight if Robin was picking it to hide how scared she was. It occured to him, for a moment, that it was odd for Robin to be so scared of being caught in her own home. But then Steve thought about getting caught in his dad's office, and winced when his stomach lurched.

Maybe that was the life of a predator kid, Steve thought. Maybe the fear he'd kept just under the skin for most of his life was... normal. Robin had it, El had it. Maybe that was the price you paid for sharing a roof with a monster.

Dustin didn't let Steve mull over that one for long, turning and glaring at Robin in the dim light. "So where are the records, then?"

"The ledger is in the back office," Robin said, casting a glance over her shoulder in the blackness of the rest of the store. "We move it there so Dad can balance the books--" Without listening to another word, Dustin pushed past them both to stalk into the shadows. Robin hissed, the most animalistic sound Steve had ever heard her make, and chased after him.

Steve tried to follow, but the heightened senses he had come into recently did not extend to his vision. He was as lost in the dark as he had been the rest of his entire life. He stumbled into the Buckleys' storeroom using only what little lamplight shone through the windows.

Squinting at the shelves on either side of him, Steve struggled to make sense of what little he could see. The closest Steve had to reference was a librar. The shelves were too cramped and close together to resemble any kind of store he'd ever been in, especially the familiar aisles of the Big Buy. Rather than books, though, every inch of available shelf space was taken up by jars and boxes. Some held dried herb leaves or pills, like Steve had seen in pictures of old pharmacies. Others looked like they would be more at home in his chemistry classroom, right next to the preserved pig fetus. Glad the shapes in the jars were shadowy and dark, Steve shut his eyes and followed the sound of Dustin and Robin's bickering voices.

Who needed to confront the vision of that jar of suspiciously eyeball-shaped soup when you had enhanced hearing? Not Steve, that was for sure.

Luckily, the storeroom wasn't as big as the looming shadows made it seem, and he only took a few steps before he felt the familiar prickle of Dustin and Robin's presence against his skin-- Wait, was that familiar? When had he started noticing that? Why did he not notice himself noticing that--

"Thanks for joining us, dingus," Robin said, muffled around the thumb she currently had shoved in her mouth as she chewed at her cuticules.

"You are going to get scars," Steve said, frowning down at her free hand. It was already ragged around her nails, as if she'd chewed through one hand and kept on going. "And a yeast infection. In your hands. Just so you know."

"Can we please focus?" Dustin huffed as he flipped towards the back page of an enormous, cotton-bound book. It was filled with all kinds of words and numbers that made Steve's head swim, so he was more than happy to look away when Robin snorted at him.

"I hope you get fired for your weird diseased fingers," he whispered, and didn't even grunt when Dustin punched him in the side.

"I get that you two have some weird sexual tension to work out," Dustin said, and Steve and Robin flinched, making twin noises of disgust. "--but I don't actually have any idea what I'm looking for, here, so I could use some help."

"I have the list of the missing kids," Steve said, pulling it out of his chest pocket. He'd kept it there all week, moving them from shirt to jacket and back. It had felt wrong to leave them behind. "We're looking for their last names in here, right?"

Dustin frowned at the book, index finger tracing a line down the page. "No, this is by date, not name. If we use this, we'll be here all night."

"The last few months will--" Robin started, but Dustin wasn't having it.

"I'm not going to leave someone behind just because they didn't need heart powder for exam season this year," Dustin huffed, slamming the book shut. "Your dad has to have, like, a client list or something, right?"

Robin shrugged. "I mean, we have the address book we use for deliveries, but if they come into the shop--"

"Sorry, heart powder? Like, human heart powder? Like, from humans?" Steve interrupted.

"Not always. It's an Eisbiber thing," Dustin replied. "My mom says it got her through college."

"Your mom microdosed?" Robin said, her voice rising an octave.

"Mrs. Henderson might have eaten people?" Steve took a moment. "And I'm the bad influence?"

"That is, like, so not what we're talking about," Dustin said, pushing away from the desk. "Show me this address book."

Huffing, Steve stepped back as Dustin and Robin pushed past them towards an ancient filing cabinet in the corner of the office. Robin was nattering about her father's extensive record-keeping system, and it reminded Steve so strongly of his own father's boring dinner sermons that he tuned it out almost on instinct. Their voices faded until they were swallowed up by the fuzz in the back of Steve's brain, like someone turning the volume of a static-y television all the way up.

Why was he even here? As desperate as Steve had been to get in here and get it over with moments ago, he could feel the frustration starting to build in his chest. This was getting them nowhere, and even if Mr. Buckley did have some computer-level organizations going on here, how the hell was Steve supposed to help? The last time he'd checked, Grimm powers hadn't healed his stupidity yet. He should be home in bed, pretending it wasn't absolutely pathetic he was already under the covers.

"This is it!" Robin hissed as she yanked some monstrous, stained book from underneath a sheath of papers. So much for Mr. Buckley's filing system, Steve thought. "All the addresses should be in here. The ledgers get replaced every year, but this should be everything since we opened."

"Excellent," Dustin said, rubbing his hands together like a cartoon character.

"Okay, so--" Impatient, Robin laid the book on top of the cabinet with a thwap, opening the book straight down the middle. "Alright, so, what's the first... Oh. Huh."

Dustin peered over her shoulder, legs straining as his tip toed feet wobbled. "Huh," he agreed.

"What?" Steve asked. The double act was starting to wear on him.

"It's not just names and addresses. There's, like, dates and stuff? These must be sale and payment logs?" Robin didn't sound confident, and that, at least, made Steve look at the moldy book twice. "It's not a ledger, though. There's not a single dollar marked anywhere in here."

"Right, and we care about that because..."

"Because it might be a clue!" Dustin said, and began to scramble to open the list of names once again.

Steve rolled his eyes. "Sorry, are we putting Robin's dad at the top of the suspect list because he keeps records?"

"The first name on the list is Altheide," Dustin said, ignoring Steve. "Are they in there?"

"Cool," Steve muttered, starting to pace behind them. "Let's waste time trying to figure out if the most German last name we've ever heard is part of the German monster conspiracy in our town. Great use of our time, team."

Robin glanced his way, but turned back to the book without a word. With a little grunt of effort-- Steve was beginning to think the book got bigger every time somone looked away from it --she turned to the first few pages. After a moment of skimming the pages, Robin nodded. "Alright, here's one. We've got a G. Altheide from Lafayette."

Dustin grinned, his body barely containing his triumphant glee. He was practically vibrating out of his shoes. "That matches our missing kid-- What else does it say? If we can find some kind of connection between them, it might help us find out why they've been targeted."

"Assuming they were targeted at all," Steve reminded him.

Both of the excited detectives ignored him. "Altheide isn't exactly a regular," Robin said, her fingers following the rows of entries down the page. "He hasn't bought anything since 1982, but in '79 there was a rash of purchases for..." She paused, biting her lip.

"For?" Dustin and Steve prompted in unision.

"Milz," Robin said, looking a little grossed out. "It means 'spleen'. He bought 350g of it over the course of six months."

"Is that a lot? That feels like a lot," Steve said, looking between Dustin and Robin's blank faces.

"That's at least three full organs," Dustin said, shrugging. "Not exactly common, but..."

"No," Robin said, her voice sharp. "It's not common. And I'm sorry, Dustin, I know we were joking about your mom, but--"

"I wasn't joking," Steve muttered to himself. "It's weird."

"--It's exactly the kind of thing we aren't supposed to do. It's exactly the kind of thing that gets you run out of town again. Exactly what people expect us to be selling, and exactly the thing my dad always told me he would never..." Robin's voice trailed off. She flipped through the pages of the book, shaking her head. Steve and Dustin watched her in silence, the horrific humor of the situation completely gone.

They had gotten used to death, gotten used to staring it in the eye and making jokes. But it was different, when it was your dad. They both knew that.

"It's all like that. Every single purchase in this book is... Milz. Gehirn. Gallenblase. Herz. Not a single fucking herb or poultice in sight, just..." Robin shook her head. "How is he even sourcing this?"

Steve and Dustin traded a look.

"Let's solve one mystery at a time, okay?" Steve suggested, , when the question had hung over them for too long.

Robin shook herself, and Steve watched her pull focus over her face like a mask. He had no idea how she did it; Every time he even thought about his father with a Grimm's rage in his veins, it made him vaguely ill. He couldn't imagine holding proof of it in his hands. The mere thought had panic clenching around his throat like a fist.

"Give me the next name," Robin said, solidifying herself as one of the strongest people Steve had ever met.

"Barrett," Dustin said, and Robin was off.

They went through every name like that, one after the other. Some of the names were in there, followed by sales and dates the same as the first. Some of them weren't, although there was no way to know if the kids were human, or their parents were good people. They found more than Steve would have liked. Two dozen cozy little cannibal families in Indiana, most of them a twenty minute drive where Steve's kids went to school.

He didn't say anything, though. Didn't bitch and moan and protest as he had before. He didn't have to. Dustin no longer smiled when they found a name, all the victory of a lead paying off sucked out of it. Now, every confirmation deepened the frown on Dustin's face, made the lines between his brows go tight with worry. Every name was no longer proof that his theory was right, just another danger to Hawkins.

"I'm starting to think Mrs. Henderson is right about, like, everything," Steve mumbled to himself once they'd made it to the end of the list. It wasn't even much of a joke as a dawning horror. More and more, it was beginning to seem like Robin, Dustin, and El were actual outliers, not just proof that stereotypes were wrong.

"Don't say that," Dustin said, despairing. "You don't have to live with her when she's right."

Robin was still staring down at the book, shaking her head. "Out of the 40 missing kids, almost half had parents willing to eat human flesh for a cheap high." She slammed the book shut, and glared up at Steve. "I fucking told you it was the parents!"

"Okay, let's not leap to any--" Steve began, but Dustin cut him off with a rough snort.

"More like your parents," the kid said with a sneer.

Robin woged for a half second, fur rippling across her face and then away again. The gold in her eyes stayed, though, glowing eerily in the dim light. "Excuse me?"

Dustin pointed at the book, his eyebrows almost flying off his face with emphasis. "Your dad is peddling human body parts, and he just so happened to be selling to half the families whose kids are missing?"

"Yeah," Robin said, "Wesen families, not human ones. Why would that--"

"I don't know, the fact that he was collecting blackmail on them?" Dustin rolled his eyes when Robin growled. "There's no reason for him to keep evidence of illegal activity if it's not for blackmail or spying, and I think--"

"No one cares what you think," Steve said, stepping between the two of them. When a smug smile began to spread across Robin's face, he shot her a glare. "Either of you. You're both being stupid."

"Oh, good, the keg stand king of Hawkins High is going to preach to us about being stupid," Robin muttered under her breath but her gaze finally filtered back into its hazy blue, the sharpness of her teeth dulling as she spoke. Steve resisted the urge to sigh in relief.

"No offense, Steve, but you're not exactly--"

"I'm gonna stop you right there, Henderson." Steve drew himself up to his full height, a display that would have been more intimidating if his hands hadn't instinctually found his hips. "Because what I am is a Grimm, and that's as close as we're gonna get to an official on this thing, so what I say goes. More importantly--"

Robin tried to break in, a protesting whine to her voice as she said, "I don't think being born--"

"More importantly," Steve repeated, a little too loud for someone who was trying not to get arrested by his own father figure, "I'm the son of a business man. Do you know how many lectures I've had to sit through?"

"What does that have to do with any--"

"Getting rid of your own clientele is bad business. Especially if you can still get something out of them. And given that Mr. Buckley has blackmail on nearly every single wesen family in the state, I'd say that he has a lot to gain from keeping them around and no motive to speak of."

"Thank you," Robin said, relief evident in her voice.

"You weren't right either," Steve sighed. "Look, I-- I think it's as weird and gross as you both do, okay? I have no idea what we're going to do about this, but.. One mystery at a time, alright? These kids have to come first, and I don't think this--" Steve gestured to the book, so unassuming with it's tattered cover "--actually has anything to do with it. It was a good lead. It was. But this isn't a game."

"But all the names--"

"Less than half of the names, Dustin," Steve interrupted. He paused to put a gentle hand on the kid's shoulder, squeezing gently. "It's enough to prove that wesen are getting targeted. But we can't force everything into connecting because it's convenient. That's how people get hurt."

"Then what does it mean?" Robin's voice was muted, her gaze still stuck to the floor. "If it's not a part of it, then why--"

And Steve got it, he did. It would be so much easier to swallow if this was part of some grand conspiracy. So much easier to accept that her father was a terrible person if there was a fantastical story to back it up. If Robin could pursue this thing and claim that the anger in her chest was for the kids, not for her own frightened heart. If there were a bigger evil out there, something she could focus it on that wasn't someone she loved. Steve understood it better than Robin could probably ever imagine, but there was nothing he could do to fix it for her.

"It means that there's a lot of stuff for us to fix," Steve said, "and it's going to take more to fix it than we thought. That's all."

Dustin sighed, slumping forward. He faceplanted into Steve's abdomen, hat tumbling off his head with the sudden jolt. Steve caught his weight, keeping him steady with one hand flat on his back. Dustin was getting taller, Steve realised with a pang. Next year Steve wouldn't be able to hold him up so easily.

There were no thoughts of his own impending adulthood in Dustin's head, yet. "What do we do now?" Dustin said, every inch the child he had been two years before. Steve looked over his head at Robin who shrugged, still looking lost.

It rankled that Steve didn't know how to help her. He couldn't pull her into his side to offer the support that the kids so eagerly took. The things he did with Hopper were no help, either; Steve didn't know much about her interests but beer and a game on the television didn't help much with forgetting that your dad was the most fucked up version of a drug dealer.

"We should go home, get some rest." Steve ruffled Dustin's hair. "We can try to figure out our next steps tomorrow, okay?"

"We're running out of time," Robin said, motioning at the list. "There's no way they're keeping those kids ali--"

"Stop it," Steve said, pulling Dustin further into his chest. "It's late, and we're all on edge. There's nothing we can do right now that's of help to anyone, alright? We need to get some sleep and come at this when we aren't freaking out."

"I'm staying with you tonight," Dustin said, muffled by the fabric of Steve's shirt.

"Dustin," Steve began, sighing, but Dustin wasn't willing to be swayed. He tilted his head up, frowning as he made eye contact with Steve.

"There's no way I can see my mom tonight, man," he whined. "She's going to know something's up, like, immediately. Call her and tell her I'm staying over because I ate too much lasagna and fell asleep on your couch again."

Fair enough. Claudia Henderson had an almost supernatural nose for danger, one that would be on high-alert when Dustin started asking too many questions about the illicit substances she may or may not have taken in the 60s. There was nothing that gave a scheme away like questions with too much specificty, and Dustin had never understood the meaning of the word 'casual'.

Steve looked toward Robin, resigned to not actually getting any sleep tonight. "What about you, Buckley?"

Robin's face creased with disgust. "Oh, ew, Harrington. Tell me you are not using this as an opportunity to pull."

"As if you would be so lucky," Steve said, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. "Come on, you're telling me you want to make eye contact with dear old dad over the breakfast table tomorrow morning?"

Robin apparently hadn't thought of that. He watched it settle over her, the fact that this was her life now. That nothing, not Friday mornings or family games or birthday parties would ever be free of the knowledge of what her father had done. He watched her truly understand it, watched the nausea cause her jaw to work, watched her hands flex at her side.

Steve had spent the last two months dreading the day his parents came back home. Not even because he was worried about how they would treat Dustin and El-- That, Steve could handle. He had gotten very good at keeping secrets over the last two years. No, the worst of it was that it was very different, it turned out, knowing that your dad was an asshole who hurt people and having to acknowledge it.

Being a Grimm didn't make Bradley Harrington a monster; Steve had always been very aware of who his father was. Not that it had ever been much of a secret. Every dinner Steve had ever been forced to have with the man had turned into a lecture on how to screw the most people over, how to use it to control the narrative around you. It was framed as a lesson, but it was bragging-- A list of people whose lives he had ruined to buy Steve a shiny new toy he hadn't asked for, to keep him clothed in fabrics that made him itch and feed him expensive dinners that made his stomach churn.

Robin's father was closer, and kinder. He didn't want to think about how much harder this would be for her.

"That's... nice of you, Steve," Robin said. "But I should go home so no one suspects anything."

Steve nodded. "Then we can meet up at my house tomorrow afternoon," he said. "We'll go over our options then. Until then, we keep our heads down and try to forget everything we learned tonight, okay?" Robin and Dustin both nodded, and Steve felt something in his core finally unclench.

It was a long, hard night. Long after he'd gotten Dustin home and tucked into a guest room, Steve was wide awake. He found himself walking up and down the halls of the second floor. He kept his footsteps as quiet as possible, but he couldn't make himself stop. He wished he could blame it on the nerves that had made him so jumpy earlier, or even fear-- That, at least, would be familiar. Sleeping for months after the demodogs and Billy had been rough; Every time he closed his eyes, his heart would lurch with adrenaline.

That night, Steve felt calm. His brain turned every shadow and creak into an enemy, but with a confidence that shook him. He was in his own home, lancing at windmills, confident that whatever beast crept out of the corner wouldn't last long in front of him. They wouldn't touch Dustin. Every other Wesen kid in Indiana might be in danger, but not his.

Steve had never had a lack of self-assurance, exactly, but the complete belief in his own victory was new. And, if he was completely honest, unnerving.

That didn't stop his feet from moving.

He drove Dustin to the Wheeler's the next morning, the both of them silent and sleepy-eyed. Dustin hugged him for a little too long before he got out of the car, uncaring about embarassment or teasing in a way Steve could never fathom, but he returned every ounce of affection as long as the kid would let him. The drive home was lonely.

At least with Dustin out of the house, Steve could sleep. He didn't even bother going up to his room, just sprawled himself out on the couch and let the rising heat of the morning lull him into unconsciousness. By the time he woke, it was almost time to pick Dustin up.

Apparently, a single day with his friends was enough to shake Dustin from his fear. "So it's got to be another Wesen, right?" he said before he'd even closed the Bimmer door behind him.

"We're not talking about it without Robin," Steve said, absently adding, "and put on your seatbelt."

"Come on," Dustin whined. "We don't need a stupid girl to figure this out for us!"

"I'm going to tell El you said that the next time a monster crawls out of the ground to kill us all." Steve didn't even bother looking over at Dustin as they spoke, his eyes fixed solely on the after-school traffic milling around them. "See if she helps your ungrateful ass after that."

Dustin huffed and threw himself back against his seat, arms folded. "Sorry, it's-- Why does everyone have to be so stupid about girls all the time? They're just... they're just girls!"

Steve winced. He still kinda regretted the advice he had given Dustin about girls the year before. Sure, it had been true, but Steve had only recently learned that because things got you the results you wanted, didn't mean you could do them. Even if girls liked it. Even if it kept you safe. Hopper had laughed his ass off when Steve had confessed that he wasn't sure how to take it back without embarassing himself. In the end he had told Steve to keep an eye on it and help when Dustin ran into trouble, same as he would anything else. The problem was, of course, that Steve himself hadn't figured out a different way to talk to girls.

He could talk to them, yeah. Ring them up and ask them about their day, then send them off and never see them again. But dating? Steve couldn't exactly claim to be an expert anymore, especially since he hadn't given it a single thought in months.

"Oh, man," Steve said. He could feel his face twisting with discomfort. "I mean... it's kinda just what... boys do?"

"It's not what I do," Dustin grumbled, kicking at the floor in front of him. Usually, Steve would have snapped at him to not wreck the Bimmer, but it had been a rough week, and it was shaping up to be an even rougher day. Steve didn't have the energy.

"That's funny, because I remember a kid who wanted to talk to Max even when his weird pet was terrorizing the town," Steve joked.

Dustin didn't laugh, just looked up at Steve with big, sad eyes. "I don't know," he said, a little fear starting to creep into his voice. "I just don't care anymore. I feel like it's all Mike and Lucas even think about, anymore, and even Will... all Will ever talks about anymore is Mike and Lucas talking about girls! And it's stupid, 'cause there's so much other stuff to think about, you know?"

"Well, for one, Mike and Lucas and Will don't have to deal with the same things you do," Steve said, trying to talk around Wesen issues and medical scares as gently as possible. "Plus, well. It was pretty much the same way when I was your age, right? Everyone, even all the adults, expect you to talk about girls and sports at your age. And some people, you know, are more interested in others, and then some people just... pretend, because they like to fit in. Does that make sense?"

Dustin made a small noise of confusion. "Should I start pretending, too? Is it, like-- Is it important?"

"No, you--" Steve sighed, his fingers tapping on the steering wheel. "It's good, that you don't pretend. Seriously, man, sometimes I wish you'd pretend to care about, like, volume control, but I like that you don't pretend. Your friends like that you don't pretend. Just, you know, you have to understand that not everyone is able to be that cool about it. Give it a few years, and people will stop caring about it so much."

"So were you pretending? Is that why you haven't been on a date in a while?" Steve squirmed at Dustin's question, feeling thoroughly grilled by the thirteen year old in his passenger seat, but it was better than the fear he'd had earlier.

"Not, um--" Steve cleared his throat. "Not exactly. I mean, sure, for a long time, yeah. I was... I was expected to behave a certain way, and when everyone else started going on about girls then, like, yeah. I put on a show for a little while. But, you know, then I met Nancy, and I liked her more than I've ever liked another girl. More than I had ever liked anyone, at that point. I haven't really... I mean, people kinda expect it from me, because I was a little too good at pretending, but it hasn't really felt like that again. It's not realistic to expect yourself to be crazy over every cute girl you meet. Even the really, reall cute ones. So, you know, don't be so down about it. Maybe you'll meet your own Nancy one day."

"I think Nancy was already my Nancy," Dustin said, frankly, and Steve snorted. Yeah, the kid's childhood crush had never been super subtle. "I don't know, man. There was this girl, you know, at camp? Her name was Suzie. And she said she liked me and I... I liked her, too, but there was just so much going on at home, and there's so much going on now-- How am I supposed to care? It just doesn't seem worth it."

"This is going to sound like shitty advice," Steve said, continuing over Dustin's eyerolling. "But you're young. You're probably not going to meet the love of your life in middle school. You're allowed to not care about it for a few more years, if that's what you want."

"What if I never care about it again?" Dustin asked in a small voice.

"Then you're luckier than the rest of us," Steve said as he pulled into the driveway. "Because, you're absolutely right: it's not worth it."

"Wow, you're such a romantic," Dustin said, hand already on the door handle. "I have no idea why you're still single."

"Mystery of the century," Steve said to his own black eyes in the mirror. 

They spent the rest of the afternoon in the kitchen, where they usually spent most of their time snacking. Steve hadn't had the stomach for food in days, really, but he made Dustin a sandwich while nibbling on a package of stale Keebler crackers. 

Robin finally showed up thirty minutes after they'd agreed to meet up. She stomped into the house with the heavy gait of the thoroughly exhausted, and Steve eyed her sweat-damp hair and mussed clothes with a little frown.

"You know, I could have picked you up." He was well-aware that his house was a fair piece to bike to, even to people who technically lived close. Being in the woods didn't help, with less people to find you if you fell off your bike. Steve never let the kids cycle to his house, forever worried about finding one of them in a ditch the next morning, and it didn't sit right that Robin had made the trek clear across town on her own. 

"If my mom had seen me being picked up by Steve Harrington, she'd have a heart attack and then spend the next five years trying to 'cool mom' her way into finding out if we had sex," Robin said with a huff as she readjusted the plaid shirt tied around her waist. 

Steve could feel a grimace crease his face, both at the second-hand embarassment and what that said about his own reputation. Had the exaggerations of his sexual conquests really spread so far as to make it to the middle-aged population of Hawkins? Did people talk about his sex life with Hopper or the Sinclairs, or worst of all, Karen Wheeler? 

He hoped not. He really hoped that Mrs. Buckley was either just paranoid or extremely invested in Robin's love life, because the alternative was too stomach churning to bare. 

"Okay, ew. I didn't need to hear that," Dustin said, his face pulling into a mirror of Steve's.

"Sorry," Robin said with a shrug that didn't seem that sorry at all, actually. 

Rolling his eyes, Dustin said, "Since Steve promised me there would be no weird teenage romance energy tonight, can we please get to the point of this meeting?" 

"Which is?" Steve asked, leaning against the breakfast nook. 

Dustin picked up his folder of 'research' and slammed it down on the island in the middle of the kitchen dramatically, both hands splayed onto the paper. He leaned forward, making eye contact strong enough with Steve that he was almost sure the kid was trying to trigger a woge for dramatic effect. "We are going to find out the culprit of these kidnappings tonight or die trying." 

"Dustin, could you please stop predicting our deaths?" Steve groaned. "You're a total jinx. If I die because you said that, I'm going to invent ghosts just to haunt you." 

"Do you honestly believe in that stuff?" Robin scoffed. "Like, ghosts? Magic universe manifestation or whatever?" 

Which was rich coming from someone who had spent four days telling Steve about every fairy tale creature she could think of. 

Steve didn't even look her way as he shrugged. "Robin, I am literally friends with a wizard. I watch you turn into a giant fox creature daily. Of course I fucking do."

"Guys, can we please focus?" 

Under Dustin's militant reign, Steve and Robin dutifully helped him re-read all the newspaper clippings. There were a few commonalities that Dustin had missed-- All of them found by Robin, who had a better geographic memory than Dustin and Steve put together. However, there was nothing that would establish a functioning territory for a Wesen, or even a motive or means. Just a few common street names, a lingering presence for a month or two before it jumped across the county line to lurk somewhere else. 

It would be helpful, Steve thought as he listened to Robin and Dustin debate about jurisdiction laws, if he had access to any files Hopper might have in the station. He knew all it would take was a quick call and an explanation, but the last thing he wanted was to get Hopper and El involved in anything that involved missing Wesen kids. Anyone who knew the truth of what El was knew that she was the cream of the crop, and Steve wouldn't be able to think past the sheer worry. It was going to be hard enough to keep Dustin safe, and there would be no convincing Dustin to keep himself safe if El kept rushing into danger. And she always did, no matter what anyone told her.

Even worse would be dealing with Hopper, who had the tendency to be even more overprotective than Steve himself.

Eventually, Robin threw the newspaper down on the table. "I give up. There's literally nothing in here that we haven't considered, like, a million times before." Steve was only halfway through his own stack, but he had to agree. 

"There has to be something," Dustin said. "There's always a clue, we just have to find it!" 

Robin pushed a hand through her hand, her bangs sticking out from the top of her head at an angle. After a moment of silence, she said, "I think we're looking at this the wrong way. I was reading this book last year, about how the cops find big serial killers. You know, like last year, when Larry Eyler--" 

"Let's not talk about that." The last thing Steve wanted to talk about with Dustin was Larry Eyler. Even if he was comfortable telling his teen friend about a rampant serial killer, he wasn't exactly keen to find out what Dustin's opinions on gay people were. Or, even worse, have to explain what a leather community was. He shot Robin a look. 

"... Okay, fair," Robin said, giving the thirteen year old in the room a glance before moving on. "Anyway, when they look for these guys, the first thing they do isn't to try and figure out exactly who did it. They try and figure out what kind of person would do it, and go from there. You know, to narrow it down." 

Steve frowned. "We already know what kind of person did it. It was a Wesen; We already decided that." 

"No, not like that. Like-- What kind of personality traits do they have? Are they bold or are they skittish? Are they charming? Creepy? Stuff like that." The explanation didn't exactly make sense to Steve, but he supposed the general concept was reasonable enough. There had to be some way to find out who commited a crime when there were no witnesses, and the cops certainly put enough people behind bars without them. It might as well be psychology, Steve supposed, although to him that was about as meaningful as witchcraft. 

Dustin sounded more convinced. "How do we even find out something like that?" 

"Ugh. A psychology degree, I guess," Robin said, as if she had never thought about it before. 

"It's not a terrible idea, though." Dustin said. His eyes had gone hazy and unfocused, staring through the newspaper on the counter instead of at it.  "If we stop focusing on exactly who the kidnapper is, and maybe focus on what kind of Wesen they might be, that would definitely narrow it down..."

"Can we?" Steve asked. His frown grew deeper. "I mean, it's kinda messed up to just decide that one kind of Wesen is more likely to kidnap kids than another kind, isn't it?" 

"Steve, you're new to this, so I get it," Robin said. She had that tone in her voice that Steve hated, the one that said he was being a new level of stupid previously undiscovered by man. The kind that said they couldn't even blame him for being so unable to compute reality, because who would ever expect Steve Harrington to be capable of thought?  "You're still thinking about people as humans. We're all the same, we all bleed red, yadda yadda. But Wesen aren't like that. Some of us literally bleed different colors." 

He wasn't sure what that had to do with anything. "That doesn't seem like a good enough reason to--" 

"It's like zoology," Robin interrupted. "Cats and dogs aren't inherently good or bad, right? There's a mix, made up of enviromental and social influences. But they have specific instincts, and specific responses to certain stimuli. There's no changing that." 

"Yeah, but-- Cats and dogs aren't people, Robin," Steve said. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, unsettled as always by the Wesen impulse to dehumanize each other. Maybe it made sense to them-- After all, they literally weren't human --but as someone raised completely in the human world, no amount of woge could  make Steve look at someone with two legs and a smile and think 'animal'. Even remembering the way demogorgon flesh collapsed under the weight of his bat still made Steve vaguely ill. 

"They're not human, you mean. Neither are Wesen. Look, I get it," Robin sighed. "But when a Maushertz dies, the first person you look at is the Klausreich. That's all I'm saying." 

Dustin jumped in, patience worn thin by their impromptu ethical debate. "So, what? You think we need to look through every species of Wesen and find out exactly who would be compelled to hunt the species of Wesen that are missing?" 

"It's better than our other idea," Robin reminded them, "which is literally absolutely nothing." 

"I still think this is a terrible idea," Steve said. This sounded like a good way to get their asses kicked. Or an even better way to end up like his parents. 

"When we start looking to you to be the ideas guy, Harrington, that's how I know we're really fucked," Robin said, rolling her eyes. 

"Great." 

"Do your parents have any books on wesen species?" Dustin asked, ignoring Steve's glare. 

"No." Robin shook her head.  "Maybe one about anatomy or something, but nothing general like this." 

Dustin looked thoughtful for a moment, and then began, slowly, "Is it possible that it's..." 

Steve stopped him before he could complete the thought, completely uninterested in revisiting last night's near meltdown. "Dustin, if Robin's parents were using the kids in a weird drug scheme, there would be bodies literally all over Indiana. Let it go." 

"Fine! Fine..." Dustin said, throwing his hands up in the air. "What then? We can't exactly go the library for this kinda shit. What else do we do? Call Owens? My mom?"

"Who's Owens?" Robin asked, turning to Steve. He almost wanted to rub it in her face, that he knew something she didn't, but Dustin looked all too willing to answer her question. 

"Someone we literally can't talk about without getting our asses kicked by Reagan," Steve said quickly. "Shut up, Dustin." 

The kid didn't look all too upset about Steve's intervention. If anything, he looked excited, as if Steve had reminded him of something great. "Hey, wait, what about your parents, Steve?" 

"My parents haven't been in town in months," Steve said, although Dustin already knew. Robin had probably already guessed, by the way Dustin talked about them like they were strangers, and for once Steve was glad to confirm his parents had all but abandoned him to Hawkins.  "There's literally no way this could be them." 

"No, I know that. But they probably have research or something, right?" 

Robin visibly brightened, straightening from her previously defeated slouch. "Oh my god, Dustin, you're a genius!" 

"Isn't his ego big enough already?" Steve sighed. Dustin was already giving him the smugest eyes imaginable, as if Robin's praise proved what Dustin had been telling Steve all along. He was starting to wish these two had never met.

"No, seriously, there's literally no way that professional monster hunters wouldn't have information on which monsters are more likely to commit which crimes," Robin said. "That's like if cops didn't keep info on gangs. And that's exactly what we're looking for! If we're gonna play the Grimm game, then we need to start thinking like a Grimm." 

"And that starts with getting a Grimm's information," Dustin finished, a gleam in his eye. 

Steve thought this was all rather rich, coming from the boy who hadn't known what a Grimm was mere weeks ago and a girl who had been ready to write him off forever for being one. Not to mention, Steve had absolutely no interest in actually being a Grimm. He might have been born with a Grimm's powers, but that didn't mean that he had to go around acting like one. If anything, trying to protect these kids was his first step in making sure he never followed that path. 

"This is insane," he told them, his voice brokering no room for negotiation. "What do you want me to do, call them up and tell them a bunch of Wesen kids have gone missing? Because that's going to either end up with them here, which we definitely don't want, or they're going to hang up the phone because, again, it's Wesen kids." And the guy they were trying to find probably wasn't doing much worse than whatever his parents had been doing in Prague for the last six weeks. 

"Doesn't your dad have a study upstairs? I mean, have you even looking in there since you found out?" Dustin said. 

Steve's stomach sank. His father did have a study, yes, on the far end of the hallway from Steve's room. He hadn't been in there since he was very little, not yet old enough to understand why rules existed. The bubbling rage on his father's face had been clear, made even keener by the fact it had nowhere to go. Steve's father hadn't laid a finger on him, but Steve never forgot the rule again. While the rest of his memories of that age had been washed away by time, that one had remained, far clearer than Steve was technically comfortable with. 

He wondered, now, if his father had woged at him, his child's mind unawakened to what he was truly seeing but keen enough to know he was in danger. 

��"I'm not allowed in there," Steve said, quickly. Without another word, Robin stood and walked out of the kitchen, Dustin scrambling after her. Steve leapt to his feet and overtook them with a few large strides, using his body to block the way up the stairs. "No, Robin, seriously. My dad will lose his fucking mind if he finds out anyone's been in there." The anger hadn't had anywhere to go when Steve was a kid, but who knew what he would do if he came home to find his 19 year old had been rummaging around in there? Even worse, what about kids that weren't even his? 

"Steve, I literally helped you break into my dad's store and look through his secret blackmail book," Robin said, her mouth curling into a snarl.  "Forgive me if I don't really care that your daddy might be mad at you when he gets home." 

"Sorry, am I the only one remembering that my dad might be an actual murderer?" Steve asked, looking from Robin and Dustin and back. Neither of them looked very impressed, and once again, Steve felt like the only sane person in the universe.  "Hello? Are you even-- Seriously, guys, this isn't cool." 

"Steve, chill out," Dustin said. "We don't even know when your dad will be back. You told me literally a few months ago that they said they probably wouldn't be back until Thanksgiving! We have, like, so much time. They're literally never going to find out." 

That was true. It would be months, probably, before his parents found their way back home. The dust would have more than enough time to settle, and Steve could spend as much time as he wanted trying to clean everything up. That didn't rid him of the queasy feeling in his stomach, or the panic tightening around his throat, but it was enough to make him quaver under Robin's glare. He stepped out of the way, rubbing at his nose while Robin pushed past him. 

"... Fine. Fucking fine," Steve muttered under his breath. "This is so fucking stupid." 

He followed Dustin up the stairs, eyes glued to the familiar carpet under Dustin's sneakers. It was getting harder and harder to swallow down the panic that always sprung up when he thought about his parents, a sign that did not bode well for Steve's career as an anti-Grimm. It was odd, he knew, but until all of this, Steve's feelings had been pretty neutral to his family. He hated it when they were around, of course, but didn't every teenager? That was why they all complained, right, because their parents made them feel like a rat in a cage, and they didn't have Steve's good luck of months and months alone? Even after dinners with the Wheelers and the Henderson, after he had learned that most kids loved their parents, he didn't examine his own feelings too closely. There was no reason for it, after all; They were gone, and had never hurt him. What would be the point of thinking about it now, when everything else in the world was out to get him? 

It wasn't until he realized what being a Grimm meant to his parents, meant for his relationship with them, that he realized how truly fucked he was, being afraid of his parents. Because how was he supposed to stand up to them if he couldn't even make himself walk into an empty study? All Steve could really do was hope it got better as he got a little older, and that his parents would stay out of his business until then. For now, his palms sweat as he thought about what they were about to do. Wiping his hands on the leg of his pants, Steve tried to ignore the panic. 

Robin didn't wait for permission to throw open the study door, immediately heading for the large bookshelves that lined the room. Steve looked around before stepping over the threshold, his heart in his throat. The room seemed normal enough, like the home offices on television shows. The walls were a boring beige, unmarred by his mother's personal touch, and the only furniture besides the shelves was a large antique desk, a high-back chair, and an over-large ottoman to the side. It was all brown and white and boring, covered in a thin layer of dust. 

Steve felt sweat pool on his back as he took two shaky steps in. 

"It's all business junk," Robin said, her fingers skimming over leather-bound spines. "And encyclopedias. Honestly, I don't think most of this stuff has ever been touched before."

"My dad's not exactly a huge reader," Steve said. For the first time in years, Steve felt the urge to chew on his bottom lip. The only thing that stopped him was the knowledge that his mother hated it even more than his father hated a broken rule. She hated the chewing and the fidgeting and the sounds, all things that Steve had driven her crazy with for the first ten years of his life, and she wouldn't put up with it for a second more. 

She couldn't hear or see him now, but Steve didn't dare break the habit. 

"Help me check the desk," Dustin said, and Robin darted across the room to join him. 

For a moment, Steve thought about stopping them, the intrustion feeling even riskier than opening the door had been, but what was the point? No one kept anything important in a desk they never used. Steve couldn't remember the last time his dad had spent more than a few minutes in his study. It wasn't a place meant to contain any semblance of real life. Steve had to imagine that even the dust mites suffered. 

He watched them rifle uselessly through marked pens and blank papers, every drawer unlocked and useless. 

"I don't get it," Robin muttered to herself as she stood, hands on her hips. She didn't even seem to be talking to either of them, too absorbed in her own thoughts. "There should be something. Why isn't there something?" 

"Because my parents aren't a movie. They're real people," Steve hissed, a little fed up. "They are also, unfortunately, my problem, so if we could get the fuck out of my dad's study--" 

"Hold on," Dustin said, breaking through the brewing spat. "I think I found something." He was standing over the too-large ottoman his dad kept in the corner, the matching upholstered top torn off the base and set to the side. Steve felt the air rush into his lungs, ready to lose his fucking shit, and then he noticed that the base was hollow. Well, it had been hollow, once. It was full, now, crammed to the brim with books older than Steve had ever seen before in his life. 

"Holy shit," Robin said, rushing to Dustin's side. Steve, despite himself, followed. 

They surrounded the disguised trunk by unspoken accord, all of them kneeling to get a closer look. Most of the books were trashed, the cloth covers water-stained and the pages wrinkled. Other than that, there was nothing common amongst them. Every book was a different size, a different shape, the pages cut differently or just a tad more yellow than the others. Some were worn white by time, while others had gone grey with dirt. Despite all that, they looked recently well-taken care of, and they were free of dust. The holes in some of the bindings had been neatly stitched with clean, white thread. 

"God, some of these look ancient," Robin said, reaching for one of the oldest. Steve and Dustin leaned to peek into the pages as she opened it slowly. Steve could smell decaying paper and stale ink as the pages flipped through the air, and he squinted as the stench made his eyes water. The letters swam in front of his face, but even as he blinked them away, the spindly handwriting on the yellowed page refused to make sense.

"Is that even in English?" Dustin asked, and Steve silently sighed in relief. 

"This is an old German dialect," Robin answered. She set the book to the side, perched on the plush ottoman top. The next few were in English, and Steve could tell she was disappointed, but then she reached for another. It was so old that the pages crumbled at the corners when Robin picked it up, and the words inside reminded Steve of the one time a teacher had given them their assignments in some old version of English as a joke.  "This one is even older than Modern German--" She reached for a another, her eyebrow furrowed in thought. "And I think this one's in Yiddish?" 

"Can you read that?" Steve asked, shocked. 

Robin shrugged. "It might take a little time, and the dialects might throw me off a word or two, but most of them, I can. I think." 

"Okay, great!" Dustin said, "So you can focus on those, and me and Steve can split anything in English between us." 

Steve picked up the nearest book carefully, holding his breath as he opened the front cover. He had never been a huge book person, and he had certainly never cared about the condition of a book when he finished reading it, but something about these books felt important. Not just because he was sure his father would kill him if he ended up ruining it. 

To his surprise, there was no title inside the book, just a name and a series of dates. "I think the ones in English might be diaries. This one is, at least." 

"They must be your ancestors, or something," Dustin said, grinning at Steve over the the trunk. He looked thrilled, like they had found actual treasure instead of a stack of dusty old books. "It's kinda cool, when you think about it. Having all this history in your blood." 

Steve could understand why Dustin, who had been cut off from the Wesen world completely, might think that. But Steve could already feel a pit forming in his stomach, "Something tells me I'm not going to like finding out what 'my blood' has been up to. But, uh, I think I should be the one to read these. Just in case." 

Dustin looked a little disappointed, but nodded. "Sure, man. They're your books."

Luckily, there were only a few proper diaries in the pile. At least, ones in English, anyway. The rest were almost like dictionaries-- "Bestiaries," Dustin corrected -- little more than impersonal lists and facts about the different kinds of Wesen. Steve listened to Dustin read a particularly sarcastic passage about Eisbibers, and then turned back to the books in his hands. 

If he had to be honest, Steve was a little thrown off by the fact that he now had physical proof that his parents were Grimms. He'd been preparing himself for the truth for months now. At least, he'd thought he had. Now, with the proof in his hands, Steve didn't feel very prepared at all. At least none of the books had been his parents' diaries. He wasn't sure if he could handle reading their thoughts, when they hadn't bothered to call in months. He wasn't sure if he could handle facing that they even had thoughts, when they'd mostly amounted to ominous shadows in the corners of his life.

He certainly couldn't handle thinking of these books in his father's hands, what his dad must have been thinking as he read them for the first time. Steve could feel his brain slip into fuzziness as he begins to flip through the first few diaries. The entries were short, and he found himself skimming over them, lingering on the ones with small pictures and diagrams scrawled in the margins. 

In one, he found a perfectly drawn and unfamiliar heart, every valve and aorta clearly labeled. Underneath, his great-grandfather said it was the heart of Siegbarste. Steve flipped the page, not wanting to find out whose heart he was looking at, but the entry only continues. The handwriting has changed, the ink a little fresher-- And Steve would be surprised, because it's not exactly how diaries are meant to be used, but apparently that wasn't how Grimms worked. Every single one he's looked through so far has had a note or two written by someone else. It would almost be heart-warming, the generations of collaboration, if it weren't a legacy of murdering people that now rested on Steve's shoulders. 

So, no, the presence of a second author wasn't what shook Steve. It was the familiarity of the handwriting that turned his stomach. Most of the contact he'd had with his parents had been in writing. Not in letters, of course; Steve didn't expect his parents had that much time for anyone, least of all him. But through the years, they'd talked to him mostly through notes. Simple lines explaining they would be back home in a few months, impersonal birthday wishes, a few kind lies of affection. Always written by his mother, of course, when she missed the easily polished child that Steve used to be. 

And that same writing was here, her looping 't's and slanted 'r's, only now instead of soothing the loneliness in Steve's chest, it told the tale of a particularly stubborn Siegbarste, who had been so unwilling to die that she had to take a crowbar to his ribs and-- 

Steve closed the book. 

Suddenly, he was nostalgic for the days when Nancy and Jonathan were the ones who did all the research. Sure, Steve had resented it a little at the time-- He'd meant it when he'd said that all he really wanted was for Nancy to be happy with the person she loved, but it had also stung, that Nancy had picked someone smarter than him, someone who could keep up with her. If this was what it was always like, though, he was grateful that he and Nancy hadn't worked out. He wasn't sure he could stomach this every single year. It was so much easier to just pick up a blunt object and keep some kids alive, even if he was the one who always ended up in the hospital afterwards. 

If this was what being 'smart' meant, Steve genuinely thought he preferred being stupid. 

Robin and Dustin had settled in with their books, though, and there was no way that Steve was leaving them up here alone. There was no telling what they'd get up to, and he wasn't exactly about to let them dig through his family's secrets. He looked from diary to diary nervously, with no real idea of where to start. Eventually, though, he looked to the cleanest diary, almost pristine except for what looked like a singe in the corner. On the outside, embossed in gold, was the name 'Otis'. 

Steve had known, intellectually, that if his dad was a Grimm then so, of course, was Grandpa Otis. Something in his brain, however, had rebelled against the thought. Because while his parents had triggered every prey instinct Steve had ever had, Grandpa Otis had never made Steve ever feel anything but safe and loved. Even though Steve had literally heard his grandfather's stories about the war, about the terrible things Otis had done and seen, he couldn't imagine him hunting someone. He had gone to war because he hadn't had any choice, and he had fought with honor and righteousness. At least, that's what Steve had always been told. That's what he wanted to believe, more than anything in the world. 

At least if he was wrong, though, he wouldn't have to look his grandfather in the eye again. There were some advantages to losing the one family member who cared about you, he guessed. 

Curiosity getting the better of him, Steve opened the diary to the first page and began to read. 

Otis' diary entries started in his first days of boot camp, desperate to keep some kind of record since the family's grimoire-- Steve had to assume that was some kind of fancy word for book --was no longer available to him. At first, there was almost no mention of Wesen at all. He wrote about Steve's Grandma Mary, mostly, and how much he regretted marrying her only to make her wait for him. A few weeks later, though, things changed. 

The longer Otis served, the more Wesen he met. His fellow soldiers, his commanding officers.... It seemed that Otis couldn't go more than a few days without forcing someone into a woge on accident. To Steve's surprise, Otis didn't seem upset or disgusted by being surrounded by Wesen. If anything, he seemed guilty to be causing them problems, and worried that his presence might keep his unit from performing at their best when he was shipped out. 

Then, the entries became more and more sparing, only appearing when Otis had met a new Wesen. Sometimes, they would be French or English allies. Usually, they weren't. Steve wasn't the greatest history student, the dates mixing themselves up in his head at every opportunity, but he had thought that the Second World War was mostly fought with bombs and guns. Apparently, Otis' unit hadn't been informed of that. It seemed every entry was now about Otis having to wrestle some Wesen enemy into the mud, feeling their hearts stop underneath his hands. 

He never talked about the humans he had to kill. Only the Wesen. 

Steve didn't know how he did it. He didn't know how Grandpa Otis could drink with a Wesen one night, and the next pretend it didn't matter when one died by his hand. But he couldn't hate him for it, either, because if he hadn't... If he hadn't been able to pretend like that, then the faraway look that he used to get in his eyes might have been so much worse. It wasn't what Steve would have done, but it meant he lived long enough to meet his grandson, and how was Steve supposed to judge that? 

After a few years of entries, they became vague and wistful. At one point, there was a long, rambling entry about a beach that Steve didn't really understand, and the next day, there was only a list of names. After that, there was scrawled poetry in German and English, followed by sketches of men long dead. Steve was almost tempted to put the book to the side, a little ashamed of snooping through his grandfather's worst memories. He hadn't been able to put it down when Otis was in the thick of it; That felt too much like abandoning him. But Steve's own search still loomed, and it seemed obvious that nothing he needed was in these pages. 

Steve flipped through the next few pages, eyes skimming over awkward verse and floral doodles, until his gaze caught on one entry in a heavy, unfamiliar hand. He sat straight up as he read, eyebrows raising so far in shock that it hurt a little to blink.

"I think I found it," Steve said, breaking the long silence that had settled in the room. "Blutbader! We're looking for Blutbader." 

"What? No, I already--" Dustin looked down at the book in his hands with a frown. "There's literally nothing in any of these books about Blutbader hunting other Wesen except for very specific blood feuds with the Bauerschwein." 

Robin didn't look convinced, either. "Yeah, I've never heard of a Blutbad pack picking fights with other predator species like this." 

"I don't think they usually do," Steve said, and flipped back to the beginning of the entry. "But I found a journal in here from Grandpa Otis. I don't remember him ever talking about it much, but I guess he spent some time in Europe after the war? One of his friends wrote some information down for him while he was in the hospital.  Turns out they were tracking some French soldier who gave them a bad feeling, and it turned out to be a Blutbad. Luther-- His friend's name was Luther -- said that the guy didn't hunt humans, which was weird because it should have been super easy in all the chaos. Like, he specifically says that literally almost every other predator species in France was on the hunt, but instead this Blutbad guy focused entirely on this species called... Waages?" Steve's tongue tripped over the pronunciation, and he looked to Robin for help.

"'Scale'," Robin translated, and then said: "I've never heard of them." 

"Good reason for that," Steve said, grim.  "Luther says that before Grandpa Otis could take him out, this Blutbad had killed nearly every Waage in Europe." 

"That's..." Robin looked sick.

Dustin had no such compunction, focused entirely on finding answers. "So, what? Sometimes a Blutbad just comes out the wrong way and goes after Wesen instead of humans?" 

Steve shrugged. "Luther doesn't go into a lot of detail, and said that he mostly avoids Blutbader, but he does kinda hint that maybe humans are just an easy target. And, yeah, some of them go after Bauerschwein because they're loyal. But a brave Blutbad, or an angry one--" 

"Or a crazy one," Dustin interrupted.

"Yeah, or that," Steve said. "They might go after literally anyone." 

"If there was a Blutbad pack in Indiana, I feel like I'd know about it," Robin said. She crossed her arms and sat back on her heels, frowning. 

"There is," Dustin said. 

"What?" Robin frowned. "No there isn't. I mean, there are the Munsons, but--" 

"What, Eddie Munson?" Steve interrupted. That was the last person he'd expected to be dragged into all this nonsense. Or maybe the first person, and he'd just dismissed it as being far too obvious. Steve would have pegged him more for 'vampire' than 'magical German animal monster', though. 

It was Dustin that answered. "Yeah, he's the reason Mom won't let me join the D&D club. He and his uncle are Blutbader." 

"Sorry, Eddie Munson is a werewolf?" Steve clarified. He just couldn't accept it. What kind of werewolf wore that much silver? "Eddie 'The Freak' Munson?" 

"Don't call him that," Robin snapped. 

"Sorry!" Steve said, his hands flying up in supplication. "It's just... He's not exactly subtle about it, is he? I'm pretty sure he wore fangs to school for like half of my freshman year. Not how I would pretend not to be a monster." 

"I think we're all very aware of how you pretend not to be a monster, Harrington," Robin said pointedly. Steve rolled his eyes. "And that's super not the point. Eddie and his uncle don't count as a pack. They're barely even really Blutbader." 

"How do you--" Dustin began, but Robin didn't entertain the thought of letting Dustin loose on a new theory. 

"Eddie and I have been in band together for the past three years. I've never even seen him squish a bug, much less hunt anything," Robin said, making stern eye contact with Dustin that honestly reminded Steve way too much of his own mother. "And like Steve said, he's not a subtle dude. I'm pretty sure if he had an aggressive bone in his body, he would be hunting jocks in the hallways." 

Alright, that was a much more believable reason, Steve thought. 

Dustin looked at Robin, donning that 'mysterious' expression he practiced in the mirror, the one that Steve had told him multiple times only made him look constipated. "Maybe he's more clever than you give him credit for." 

"Absolutely no way. No Blutbad would be able to deal with Hargrove for more than 15 minutes without throwing a punch back," Robin said, and Steve found himself nodding along. Dealing with Billy was hard enough without supernatural rage behind it. Even at his most human, Steve hadn't been able to keep his cool. There was no way that a roided up killing machine was going toe to toe with Hargrove and simply walking away. Robin continued, "There's a reason Eddie hates the basketball team, and it goes to the tune of daily swirlies until he hit his growth spurt." 

Steve winced at the reminder of his old friends' idea of fun, but he had to admit that Robin was right. Eddie had always been loud and in everyone's faces, all leather and smoke and pounding bass, but the moment any actual conflict started, he was the first to disappear. Eddie was always just... gone. Never apologized, never took anything back, but just disappeared, as if he had never been there to begin with. The rest of the team had always accepted it, content in knowing that their authority was no longer being challenged, but Steve had watched him as he walked away, always wondering what was happening in the freak's brain that made this cycle so unending. 

Then again, if Eddie was really a Wesen, was it really so surprising that he didn't want to fight a group of teenage assholes that included a baby Grimm? Steve wasn't sure how obvious it was to people, before he'd started wogeing. Sure, El and Dustin hadn't noticed until his eyes came in, but they were hardly experts on the subject. And Robin hadn't known, either, but she and Steve had hardly spent much time together before Scoops. 

Suddenly, Steve wanted very badly to know what Eddie Munson thought when he looked at him. 

He said none of that outloud, instead turning to Dustin and saying simply, "She's right. He and Tommy H. always had it out for each other, and Eddie was always the first to run. Not exactly the sign of a cold-blooded kidnapper." 

"Okay, fine," Dustin said. He scrambled up from the floor to put his hands on his hips in what Steve was surprised to find was a mimicry of himself. "What about his uncle, then?"

Steve and Robin exchanged a tense look. This kid and his theories were going to get them all killed if they didn't play their cards right. 

"Look, Dustin, you're right," Robin began, slowly. Her voice was the kind of gentle that Steve associated with kindergarten teachers and small children who were about to turn into the elementary equivalent of an emotional atom bomb. "Just because there's no pack in Indiana doesn't mean there are no Blutbader at all. But there's also absolutely no proof that the Blutbad we're looking for is from Hawkins, or even that it was actually a Blutbad-- This is all just supposition, remember?" 

"What was that quote you were telling me last winter?" Steve reminded him. "Something about forcing the proof to fit your idea instead of the other way around? Let's not have a repeat of last night, buddy." 

"So what are we supposed to do, just sit around with absolutely no idea of who it might be?" Dustin asked, his face flushing red with anger. "Wait for another kid to disappear? Just because we don't have any evidence? Jesus, Steve, you're not the fucking cops! You're a Grimm. Do something Grimm-like for once!" 

Steve blanched, his grandpa's words flashing through his head. "No thanks." 

Dustin shook his head. "I think maybe we should--" 

"No, this is stupid," Robin said, frustration leaking into her voice. The mom act had been abandoned just as quickly as she'd picked it up.  "Just because you think it isn't the Munsons doesn't make that true." 

"Ever heard of something called 'innocent until proven guilty', dickhead?" Steve said, immediately following Robin into the new plan of shaming Dustin into submission. 

To Dustin's credit, he at least gave it a few moment's thought. For a second there, Steve was almost relieved by the look of doubt in his face. Of course, he shattered Steve's dreams for a peaceful evening pretty much immediately. "Even if it's not them, we can at least talk to them, can't we? They've gotta no more about other Blutbader in Indiana than we do." 

"No," Robin said, immediately. "No way. Just because Eddie doesn't fight in school doesn't mean that his uncle is the same and, uh, they would make mincemeat out of an Eisbiber, and there wouldn't be anything Steve or I could do about it." 

"If anything, me being there would make things worse," Steve said, grimacing as he imagined a fully grown Wesen with the same rage El and Robin had shown when Steve forced a woge out of them. "A Grimm poking around and asking questions is going to make a lot of people mad, especially when you accuse them of a crime."

"We have to be smart about this," Robin agreed. 

Dustin huffed. "I'm sick of being smart about things and watching other people get hurt because of it." 

Guilt curled in Steve's chest. Maybe they weren't being the most sensitive about Dustin's clear trauma, here. Steve honestly wished he could make it all better for him. Wished it was as simple as Dustin wanted it to be, a bad guy for Steve to fight and make everything okay again. He wanted that, too; Wanted to be able to kill the monster that made Dustin afraid. 

But it wouldn't change anything for Steve to go fight a werewolf, even if he won. Most of those kids would still be dead. And Dustin would still be afraid. 

There was nothing Steve could do about that. His only job was keeping Dustin alive.

"Dustin--" He started, but Dustin could hear the weakness in his voice, and immediately leapt on the opportunity. 

"Can we at least drive down to the trailer park tonight, and look around?" he said, looking at Steve with shining, hopeful eyes.

"The trailer--" Steve repeated, stopping halfway through to look at Robin in disbelief. "The werewolf lives in the trailer park? Jesus Christ, what kind of weird ass horror movie bullshit plot--" 

"Not the time." 

"Fine, whatever." Steve turned back to Dustin. "Even if we do go down there, what exactly are you expecting to find? What do two grown men in a single-wide trailer even have room to hide? Not fifteen kids, I'll tell you that much." 

Dustin's face was flat and serious, but Steve could see the desperation bubbling in his eyes. "I don't know what we're going to find, Steve. I don't. But I'm so sick of having to know something for sure to be taken seriously." 

"That's not--" Steve tried to explain, but Dustin was already turning to Robin with a different tactic. 

"Do you think we knew what we would find when we went to look for Will?" he said, as if Robin had literally any point of reference for everything that had gone down in 1983. She knew what every other person in town knew, and Dustin knew that, and was using it against him. Steve's guilt about Will warred with the new rage against being played. Dustin continued, "No! We went out to find him, by ourselves, because all the adults were too busy sitting around and talking about proof and profiles instead of looking for him." 

"From what I've heard," Robin began slowly, shooting Steve wide-eyed glances to gauge his reaction to every word, "you and your friends got really lucky finding Will. And I'm not saying that it was a wrong decision, or that you shouldn't have done it, because you found your friend, and that's-- That's great, Dustin. It really is. But we can't rely on luck again, especially with so many kids missing." 

Steve jumped back in, a new level of anger in his voice. "What happens if you get hurt, Dustin?" he asked, trying to remind Dustin of the reality of what happened to Will. He didn't just go missing; He was attacked. This wasn't just going out and looking for someone. This could end up leading to war. "Whoever took those kids is actively going after Wesen, and you want to just knock on the door of the guy you think did it? I'm supposed to be the adult, and I'm not letting you be that stupid. Sorry." 

Dustin drew himself up to full height, and Steve was struck for a moment with the realization that Dustin had grown while he was away. He was still nowhere near catching up to Steve, but he wasn't the little kid who couldn't see over Steve's shoulder, either. He was going to be fourteen soon, Steve remembered, and the thought made his stomach churn with anxiety. The bigger they got, the harder they were to protect. There was no more scooping Dustin up to keep him safe. There was no more holding him back with one hand and a weapon in the other. In two short years he would be as old as Steve had been when all of this had started.  

The way Dustin held himself, chin high and feet planted, said he knew all that and more. "I'm going to Forest Hills whether you like it or not, Steve," he said. There was no more anger in his words, just simple fact. That, more than anything, told Steve just how grown up Dustin was becoming.  "The next time you leave me alone, I will get on my bike, and I will find my answers. It doesn't matter if it takes days, or months, or if I have to skip school or jump out of my window to do it. So you can give up and let me go now, or you can come with me." 

Steve knew he would do it, too. Wouldn't even think twice before he did it. Even worse, he would probably drag El and Mike and who knows else into it. And though Steve knew that, more assuredly than he knew anything else these days, he also knew that Dustin knew he knew that. As dizzying as that logic was, it all came down to Steve being manipulated by this punk kid, and part of him wanted to fight back out of sheer spite. 

But that would leave Dustin on his own, facing off against who knows what. 

Steve sighed.

"This is so fucking stupid," Steve said, throwing his hands up in defeat.  "Jesus. Okay, fine. Sure. Let's go talk to the fucking goth werewolf. Sure. I hate this plan. I hate you." 

Steve stood, pointedly ignoring Dustin's cries of triumph. One of these days, when the stakes were a little less high, he was going to have to figure out how to take that kid down a peg. He rubbed a hand over his face, trying to rid himself of the sudden exhaustion that had descended over him, and when he opened his eyes he saw Robin, still on the ground, glaring up at him.

"I can't believe you gave up so easily, Harrington," she said. "That was pathetic." 

It had already been a long day of having his every opinion and boundary walked all over, and Steve had been itching for a good reason to put his foot down. The kids were always his best reason, so it was with a certain amount of glee that Steve snapped at Robin. "You have no idea what I've been through with these kids, and to be honest, I'm not all that interested in telling you. The only thing you have to understand is that it's my job to make sure Dustin isn't hurt, and if I have to drive down to Forest Hills to get my ass kicked to do it, then that's what I'm going to do."

"Or you can lock his ass in his bedroom until he turns 40 like the rest of the helicopter parents," she said with a fake smile. 

Steve huffed. "No one's making you come with us," he pointed out. Honestly, he would feel better about Robin staying behind. It was one less person for him to look after, and Dustin would stop trying to go over his head if there were less people involved. "You can stay here for the night, if you're nervous, or I can drop you off at home on the way." 

She stared at him, blankly, for just a moment before rolling her eyes and pushing herself to her feet. "You're just as crazy as the kid is if you think I'm letting you both run off and die without a braincell to share between you," she said. "Of course I'm going with you." 

"Of course you are," Steve repeated, and resigned himself to a repeat of the night before. 

Steve's only victory of the day was that they, at the very least, listened when he demanded they all eat something before heading out. It seemed that even Wesen with no self-preservation instincts didn't want to die on an empty stomach. Usually, Steve would cook something, but it seemed like a bad decision to leave dirty dishes behind when he wasn't sure if he was coming back to clean them. Despite his misgivings, Dustin dug up a frozen lasagna from the bottom of Steve's freezer, where it had been laying in wait for what might have been months. 

Usually, ricotta cheese made Steve's stomach tie itself in knots, but he couldn't even feel the oily, grainy texture on his tongue as he chewed. Every cell in him was focused on trying to think of anything other than what they were about to do and failing. None of them ate well, but Steve was determined to keep trying until he realized that Robin had disassembled her lasagna layer by layer and was restacking them in new, weirder patterns. 

It was a short drive to Forest Hills. Loch Nora was a richer part of town, sure, but it wasn't exactly a well-inhabited one. It was largely sought after for the privacy it afforded, surrounded by the woods on the edge of town. Turns out the edge of town was also a pretty great place to put all the people no one wanted in town, too. Steve tried not to think about that too much as he pulled into the lot, parking his car behind the diapalated sign. 

"You know which trailer is his?" Steve asked Robin, looking from home to home as if Eddie's would be as big and obvious as he was. 

"I don't know if I like us being parked so far away," Robin said instead of answering. "I mean, what if something happens and we need to make a getaway?" 

"Then you run," Steve said, dryly. "The Bimmer isn't exactly inconspicuous, Buckley. If I park this shit at Eddie's front door, he's either going to run or come through the windshield." 

"There's got to be a reaction somewhere in between, there," Dustin piped up from the back seat. 

"Shut up, Henderson," Steve said, glaring through his rearview mirror. "This is a conversation for adults who aren't actively trying to get everyone killed." 

As Dustin grumbled, Robin looked at Steve with wide eyes. "You really think Eddie would attack you out of nowhere like that?" 

"No," Steve admitted. "At least, not without seeing my eyes, first." 

Robin grimaced. Steve could still remember the way her forced woge had made her bare her fangs. If he hadn't seen her like that, he would have never believed that Robin was capable of violence, either. But he had seen proof of it-- In fact, the only Wesen who had ever not reacted with violence to his woge was Dustin. 

And, let's be honest, Dustin could hardly be counted when it came to Steve. Or having his guard up. Or really... anything. He was a weird kid. 

"Alright, fair enough," Robin said. After taking a deep breath, she looked toward the back of the park, where the older, dingier models stood. "I've only been over for like five minutes one time, but I think I remember he was in the very back. Big and white, wheels still on." 

"Right. Right, okay, come on." 

All three climbed out of the car silently-- Well, as silently as Robin and Dustin were capable of --and began to walk down the dirt path that cut through the center of the trailer park. There was no use in being sneaky, Steve thought, even as his hind brain scrambled to find a way to camouflage himself here. It was barely night, the last of the sun still painting the horizon a dusky purple. They were in plain sight of nearly every window in the damn place. There was no play that could give them any kind of advantage, outside of just... walking. 

It was what they were going to do when they got there that was the hard part. 

Maybe he could get Robin and Dustin to step back a little, Steve thought, and then he could just... knock. Sure, whoever opened the door would still freak the fuck out, but Steve had enough of a handle on his own powers that he could talk them down from attacking.... probably. 

He squared his shoulders, bracing himself to mount the rickety stairs to the trailer, but Dustin stopped him with a hand on his elbow.

"Wait, wait," Dustin said, voice hushed, "we should look around outside first. You know, do a perimeter check?" 

Robin sucked her teeth in disbelief and muttered, "Where do you think we are?" 

"Yeah, man," Steve had to agree,  "this isn't Fort Wayne. It's a trailer park." 

"I just want to be thorough!" Dustin insisted. "Come on, it'll be really quick."

Looking back at Robin, Steve lifted his eyebrows, receiving only a shrug in return. Fine. It was Dustin's stupid recon mission, anyway. They could play it Dustin's way. At least it was just looking around in some overgrown grass and not something dangerous, like plunging the depths of underground tunnels infested with demonic dogs. 

Sure, it wasn't likely that he would make the same mistake twice, but Steve couldn't be too careful around his little shits.

Dustin darted in front of Steve, leading the way to the back of the Munson's trailer. There wasn't much to be seen, especially in the dark. Even Steve, whose vision had been getting better with every day, couldn't see much besides a few pieces of plastic and rusted metal. Whatever they had been before, their forms were now almost entirely covered by the wild growth of the Munson's 'backyard'. Dustin tried his best, poking at any suspicious lumps, but there was nothing to be found. No weird smells, no unexplainable prints. There weren't even any out of place sounds, which was usually Steve's first clue that things had gone terribly. Even when he strained, Steve couldn't hear more than a few muffled conversations and a Reds game. 

Dustin crept towards the edge of the lot, where the foliage went from unkempt to wild, overgrown with ryegrass so tall it almost rivaled Dustin himself. Steve almost called him back, unnerved by the shadows in the weeds, but bit his tongue. It was fine, he told himself, heart pounding. Everything was fine. It was just plants and the summer wind. Everything would be okay. 

Robin sidled up to him, muttering under her breath. "This is a waste of time." 

"I know," Steve said, turning to her. "Just let him--" 

In the future, Steve will say that the Blutbad jumped out at them. It's a simpler story, and one easy to believe. Sometimes Steve believes it himself. Most times, though, Steve knows the truth. In one heartbeat, he was certain that they were alone, and in the next he knew they weren't. 

They moved at once, him and the shadow-- Steve was pushing Dustin behind him before he could even see what he was racing against. At first, it was just a shadowy form at the edge of the weeds, a blur in the corner of Steve's vision,  but as the figure leapt at them, it shifted into focus. He saw the eyes first, burning red in the monochrome night, and a flash of fangs in a snarling mouth. Claws extended from thick, swollen hands. Long, curling hair that covered a little too much face to be human. 

And then he saw the glint of silver jewelry, the moonlight reflected off a familiar leather jacket. 

Blutbad, Steve thought, and then: Eddie.

It was nothing like when he had first met Robin. That had been a standoff, nothing but time for his mind to think of a thousand ways to fend her off. This was nothing but a moment, nothing but a split second for Steve to figure out what to do next, and all Steve could think was how he didn't want to hurt anyone. 

He didn't want to hurt Eddie. Didn't want to have to, but he couldn't let him touch Dustin or Robin, either. Couldn't just sit back and do nothing, couldn't let them watch him be torn apart-- He remembered, vaguely, something Grandpa Otis had said about Blutbader having weak backs, but he couldn't remember enough to make use of it. 

Even if he had, would he even be able to make use of stomaching it? 

For the first time since he'd come into his Grimmhood, Steve was paralyzed with indecision.

Which was why it was somewhat of a relief when the moment passed, and Eddie rushed past all three of them without sparing them a second glance. 

"Um," Robin said. Steve could feel her fur brushing against his arm, just for a moment, before it melted back into skin. 

"Follow him!" Dustin barked. He tried to sprint off after Eddie himself, but Steve had never let go of Dustin's sweater. He pulled ineffectually at Steve's grip, but Steve only tightened his fist and hauled him back.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"  

Dustin sputtered, gesturing after Eddie. "He ran! That's a sure sign of guilt!" 

"Or a sure sign of a Grimm being in the vicinity?" Robin said, voice dry. 

Steve took a deep breath, trying to calm the pounding of his heart. While he really, really hadn't wanted to hurt Eddie, now that the initial shock had passed, the instinctive adrenaline was a little harder to deal with. His hands shook against the fabric of Dustin's shirt. "Look, I agree we should talk to the guy--" If only to apologize for scaring the shit out of him in his own backyard "--but if we're going to do it then we're going to do it slowly. And you're both going to stay behind me." 

The only thing more dangerous than a feral animal was a cornered feral animal.

Reluctantly, Dustin nodded, and he and Robin fell into step just behind Steve. Even before they approached the corner of the trailer, Steve could already hear Eddie's voice, hushed and hurried.

"I'm serious, Wayne, we have to get out of here," Eddie said. Whoever he was talking to only hummed thoughtfully, and there was an upset little huff that reminded Steve so much of Mike Wheeler he rolled his eyes on reflex. "There's a Grimm on our ass, and he's got Wesen with him. I have no idea what's going on, but if it's Mom's shit, then I don't wanna be here when they figure out we don't have anything for them." 

That sounded exactly like the kind of thing Steve wasn't supposed to be hearing. Chest stinging with guilt, Steve walked a little faster. As he stepped into the dimmest circle of light from the Munson's front porch, the other man spoke up. 

"I don't think that's what they're here for, Ed." An older man stood next to Eddie on the front porch. He was everything Eddie wasn't, bald and solemn and plainly dressed, but there was something in their faces that seemed to match. Eddie's uncle, Steve realized, the Blutbader they were really here to talk to.  He already seemed to know they were here for him, because he was looking over the railing, meeting Steve's eyes before Eddie even had a chance to turn around. "Is it, son?" he asked Steve. 

"Uh, no, sir," Steve said, as Eddie turned around with what could only be called a squawk of surprise. "It isn't." 

"Oh, good," Eddie said, his cadence still familiar from the countless rants that Steve had been helpless to avoid for the past four years. "It's one of the Harringtons. Great, this is exactly what I needed. To get fucking thrown out of town--" 

Eddie knew his parents were Grimm, Steve realized with a start. That almost made sense, except that there was no way Eddie or Wayne had ever met his parents. Not in a normal, human way, anyway. They didn't exactly spend their days taking leisurely strolls down the streets of Hawkins. Hell, Steve was pretty sure even he wouldn't have been able to meet his parents if he didn't live in the place where they stored their birth certificates. 

But Eddie knew they were Grimm. More than that, he was scared of them, but not that they would kill him. 

For the first time in months, a hope sparked in Steve's chest. 

"Hush, boy," Eddie's uncle said.  "Let him speak." 

"We're not here to cause any trouble, sir," Steve said, trying to put on the voice that had once charmed so many respectable Hawkins parents. It was a rusty skill, but it was one he had spent years refining. He tried to smile. "Really, we're not. But there's been something weird going on lately, and I don't think I can ignore it anymore." 

Mr. Munson didn't look impressed. His bushy eyebrows drew together, and Steve resisted the urge to fidget under his gaze. Eddie, apparently, had no resistance at all. It was hard to focus on the elder Munson, and not Eddie, who was chewing nervously on a lock of hair. "And that brought you to our door?" 

"Well, Mr. Munson," Steve said, hesitating as he tried to figure out how to sound like a competent Grimm, "my... my parents aren't really home to take care of it, and it's not like the cops know half of what's going on in this town." Sorry, Hop. "I wasn't really sure where else to start. We just need some information and then we'll be on our way." 

It didn't take years of obsessively puzzling out peoples' attitudes to know that Mr. Munson wasn't entirely on board, no matter what he'd said to Eddie. "And who's 'we'?" he asked.  

Robin stepped forward. Steve could practically feel the vibration of her nerves, and he swayed into her space slightly, bumping their shoulders together. "That would be us, sir." 

On his other side, Dustin was much more enthusiastic. "My name is Dustin Henderson, sir. I go to Hawkins Middle. I'm really excited to meet you and your nephew, sir, because I'm pretty sure you can help us, even if I'm not allowed to join the D&D club next year, which is total bullshit, by the way, and--" 

"Dustin," Steve said, voice tense. "Now is really not the time." 

Ignoring them both, Robin waved up at the porch. "Hi, Eddie." 

Eddie dropped the hair he'd pulled into his mouth and stepped closer to the railing, eyes flashing red as he squinted down at the trio. "Buckley? The fuck are you doing running around with Steve Harrington?" 

Steve tried to ignore the flash of hurt. It didn't matter that Eddie obviously thought he wasn't good enough to hang out with. It didn't matter at all. Steve had absolutely no interest in hanging out with Eddie Munson, or even Robin, except in emergencies like dozens of missing kids-- 

"Well, uh. We work together," Robin said, and Steve stared into the Munson's porch light, frowning. "You know, at the ice cream shop in the mall?" 

There was a beat, and Eddie turned to his uncle, pleading. "Wayne, come on. There is no way you're actually buying this bullshit. None of this even makes any sense. What the hell is a Grimm doing running around with a Fuchsbau and whatever flavor of rodent this kid is?" 

"Hey!" Dustin protested, and Steve hated the way he felt a little relieved that Eddie had briefly killed Dustin's enthusiasm. 

"If anything, son, I think they speak very well to our ability to make it out of this night alive," Wayne said. He finally looked away from Steve, his gaze darting over Robin and Dustin before finally meeting Eddie's. "I don't think anyone coming here to cause trouble would bring these two along with them. No offense, of course." 

"Isn't that a good thing?" Robin whispered in Steve's ear. He shrugged, waiting for Eddie to argue. To agree. To do something, anything.

Whatever Steve was waiting for, however, it never came. He just stood there, glaring at his uncle and refusing to give the rest of them a second glance. It made Steve want to scream, just to see if he could get Eddie to flinch. Just to see if he could get Eddie to look.

"I'll tell you what, Mr. Harrington," Wayne said, after the silence had dragged just past the point of comfortable. Steve tried not to flinch at the address, hands clenching by his side as he thought of his father. "You sound like you're in a right pickle, and you at least had the good sense to come here unarmed. Why don't you come sit down a spell, and we can talk about what's got you climbing around in my weeds so late at night?" 

And didn't that sound like a recipe for disaster? Steve didn't think of himself as a very suspicious person, and he was all for giving the Munsons the benefit of the doubt, but he'd read a few fairy tales in his time. He didn't remember most of them, but taking invitations from wolves had stuck with him as a pretty stupid thing to do. 

Of course, there was no need to be impolite.  As Steve considered how he could suggest a more neutral territory without offending anyone, Dustin stepped forward. 

"That sounds great!" he chirped, and before Steve could stop him, he was rushing for the stairs. 

Steve met Robin's wide, nervous gaze. Into the wolves' den they went. 

tag list: @i-write-stories-not-sins-bitch @suddenlyinlove @plasticcrotches @adizzycollegekid

[criticallyacclaimedstranger]

Fic: Thank You For Waiting For Me

Read on Ao3

My Frankie Morales masterlist

Fandom: Triple Frontier

Ship: Francisco “Catfish” Morales x Reader/you (cishet woman)

Warnings: generic non-graphic piv sex, Sweetness and Fluff, mention of disagreement, FRANKIE IS CONSENT KING

Summary: Frankie always thanks you for waiting for him when he returns from deployment.

Words: 910

A/N: For @missredherring for expressing an interest.

The first time Frankie said it, you got mad.

"Thank you for waiting for me." The whisper, delivered into your ear as he embraced you tightly, was heavy with relief and a sorrow that you didn't understand.

"Of course I did, why wouldn't I?"

"I'd never expect you to."

What was supposed to be a happy reunion turned into an argument when you questioned his statement. Did he think so little of you and your commitment to him? Did he not see himself as worthy of your love? Were you wasting your love on someone worthless? Was your love worthless?

The fight wasn't a long one, the physical need for each other after months apart drove you to make up very quickly, and in your favorite way: with you on your back, Frankie pinning you down and sweating for fucking his cum deep inside you. After, you talked about it, and he managed to somehow explain what he meant and why.

"I've seen so many wives and girlfriends leave." His chest rose in a deep sigh, and you passed your hand over it, as if you could touch his breath. "Even the most solid of marriages dissolve because of what we do for a living. And I've lost girlfriends because of it, too."

You didn't know what to say to that. It still felt like he didn't believe enough in your devotion to him to think that you'd stay.

"I just don't want you to wake up one day and regret all the time you spent waiting for me. Or staying because you feel obliged to."

The words cut messily into your heart, like a dull blade through a loaf of bread with a crisp crust. But instead of hurting, your body was flooded by a sense of assurance.

"I will wait because you make it worthwhile," you told him with all the confidence you could muster, to let him know that you were certain of what you were saying.

"You are the one who makes the effort. You may be away from home for months at a time, but you make up for it when you're home." You place a soft little kiss on his lips. "You are present when you're with me. So attentive, so loving." Another gentle kiss lands on his lips. "And that requires a lot more work than me sitting here alone does."

"It's not hard, not with you," he shrugged shyly. You nodded, a smile growing on your lips.

"Exactly. It's not hard, not with you. Frankie, I wouldn't wait for anyone but you."

He was happy with that. But he never stopped saying it. Even now, a couple of years later, when you open the front door just as Frankie is digging in his pockets for the key, and instead releases his bag on the ground to hold you as tightly as he can in the doorway. Even now does he say it.

"Thank you for waiting for me."

The words are whispered with a different kind of security than before. Now he knows you'll wait, but he still thanks you for it, because that's just who Frankie is.

"Thank you for coming back to me," you reply in an equal whisper, and only then does he brush his lips over yours in the first hint of a kiss. You back into the house and close the door, and that's when he kisses you properly. He pours all the kisses he couldn't give you over the past few months into this one. And you kiss him back with equal amounts of longing and lacking, relishing the first prickles of his mustache that he stopped shaving as soon as he was back stateside. As you stumble into the bedroom, he makes only one pit stop before pulling your sweater over your head.

"May I?"

"If you don't, I'm sending you back out there."

Francisco Morales, king of consent. Even when you're practically ripping his shirt open, he will stop to make sure you want it.

The first time always borders on desperate. Frankie wants to slow it down but gets carried away by your hurry. You always want him a little too soon, need him to push his way into your core with a stinging forcefulness that assures you that he is indeed back, he is here, cradling your cheek as you whimper from the stiff intrusion.

"I'm hurting you." The alarm in his voice is prominent. You shake your head vigorously.

"You're loving me."

You pull him down on top of you and move your pelvis, make him fit inside you as you kiss him, your tongues dancing together as your walls become slick, allowing his cock to slide more freely.

He takes you fast, and you allow him to let go with no thought of your own climax. He'll see to you later, right now you simply relish how he wants you, claims you, loves you, fucks you - if it goes too fast, so fast that you don't get to cum, that's okay. You whisper your I love yous into his ear when he's about to cum, and that is his undoing: he spills with a sobbed moan, his lips on yours without kissing, just exchanging warm breaths.

Waiting for him is not a duty, or a chore, or a burden. It is what it is, and you do it because it's him, it's Frankie, and he makes it worth it.

[leiawritesstories]

Stick Season (Part 1)

Rowaelin Month 2023, Day 1: Song Fic

inspired by "Stick Season" by Noah Kahan (giggles in Frederick) I've had so much fun writing this and I am beyond excited to share it with all of you! happy Rowaelin Month once again! <3

Word count: 2,480

Warnings: swearing, bad decisions, heartbreak, not-great parenting, angst, simmering sexual tension, pining idiots in love but they won't admit it

Enjoyyyy! (yes there will be more, i promise)

@rowaelinscourt

Prologue

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Downtown Orynth, Vermont, still looked exactly the same as it always did when Aelin paid her occasional, brief visit to her hometown. Same “cozy” wooden buildings, same storefronts lining Main Street, same pine boughs wrapped around the light posts, same dusting of snow brushed across the rooftops in a postcard-picture kind of perfection. Same kindhearted shopowners waving at her as she strolled down the cleanly swept sidewalk. 

If she smiled hard enough, maybe she could pretend there wasn’t a gaping hole in her heart. 

Three years since she cut the other half of her soul out of her life, and no amount of friendship and laughter and girls’ nights could fill the empty chasm that leaving Rowan left in her. 

“Aelin?” The voice came from her left as she passed the local bookstore, a place where she’d spent some of the happiest hours of her youth. 

She turned. “Philippa!” A genuine smile curved up her lips. “I didn’t think you were still working here all the time.” 

Philippa waved off the mild protest with a flippant hand. “You know how busy it gets at this time of year, my dear.” She pulled Aelin into a warm hug. “It’s so good to see you again!” 

Aelin melted into the older woman’s motherly embrace. “Want to know a secret?” 

“Is that even a question?” Philippa laughed, opening the bookstore door and nudging her inside. “I live to collect secrets.” 

“Of course you do,” Aelin chuckled. “Well, here it is: I wasn’t planning to be back home this year. Or next year. Or anytime soon, really.” She blew out a short, sharp sigh. “I’m only here because…well…” She trailed off, not fully ready to voice the reason she’d returned. 

Philippa patted her arm. “It’s alright to let yourself grieve, dear. Your mother’s passing was a shock to all of us.” 

“And something of a relief,” Aelin mumbled under her breath. 

Ever tactful, Philippa pretended not to hear. “Will you be here through New Year’s?” she asked, smoothly changing the somber subject. 

Aelin nodded. “Yes. I’ll drive back to New York sometime around January fifteenth, unless Dad needs me for longer. I’m working remotely until then.” 

“Thank goodness for modern technology, right?” 

“Right.” She half-grinned. “I don’t suppose you’re still resisting that modern nonsense, hmm?” 

Philippa pretended to hide. “You caught me.” 

Aelin fake-groaned. “How many times have I told you that it will help the bookstore grow? Think of all the customers you could reach with something as simple as a website and maybe an Instagram profile!” Pasion seeped into her words, coloring her thoughts with excitement. “And you could easily keep up with the online orders–that crappy old monitor you have barely runs basic word programming, let alone internet.” 

“You be nice to Mort, now,” Philippa teased. She’d named the bookstore’s ancient computer Mort in honor of the many times it had brushed with death. 

“Mort deserves to be laid to rest once and for all,” Aelin laughed. “Are you trying to keep me in town or something, asking when I’m heading home?” 

“Maybe.” The older woman’s laugh lines crinkled as she grinned. “Or maybe I’m just planning to offer you a job here while you’re in town.” 

“You know I work in publishing, right?” Aelin raised her brows. “I’m pretty sure that’s enough books and book stuff for one woman.” 

“How long has it been since you remembered why you work in publishing in the first place?” 

The question made Aelin stop in her tracks, mind whirling as she sifted through years of memories. “I…years. God, it’s been…years.” For a moment, yearning flickered across her face. “Maybe not since the last time I volunteered here at Christmas.” 

“Exactly.” Philippa gave Aelin’s hand a motherly squeeze. “Christmas season is far too busy for one old woman to handle alone. So…will you help me?” 

A fond smile curved Aelin’s lips. “Of course I will.” 

~

Snow-dusted evergreen boughs adorned the lampposts of downtown Orynth, weaving their crisp pine breezes through the early evening air. Hands tucked into the pockets of his quilted flannel jacket, Rowan strolled down Main Street, determined to avoid being sidetracked into one of the golden-lit shops that smelled invitingly of cedar, maple sugar, pine, and spiced cider. Christmas scents always had been his weakness, despite the pain he couldn’t separate from the holiday. 

A single paper bag dangled from his left wrist, the only sign that he’d been out shopping for the holidays. His entire brood of cousins was about to descend upon Doranelle, the next town over, for the next few weeks, so he’d come into Orynth to pick up a few things. He refused to admit that the massive canister of peppermint hot cocoa mix was an impulse buy–it had been on sale, and he knew how much his relatives adored all the sweet holiday treats. 

It had nothing whatsoever to do with peppermint hot chocolate being Aelin’s favorite. Nothing.

“Whitethorn?” The call came from his left. 

Rowan turned towards the voice. “Who–” 

“Whitethorn! It is you!” Aedion Ashryver stepped out of Staghorns Tavern, a popular local brewery. “Come inside, man, have a drink.” He pulled Rowan into a brief, back-slapping hug. “Good to see you again.” 

“Good to see you too, Ashryver.” Rowan returned the hug but hesitated at the offer of a drink. “I dunno about the drink, though.” He raised his shopping bag. “Gotta go home and prepare the place for the Whitethorn horde.” 

Aedion snickered. “You’re still letting them crash at your place, huh? Thought you would’ve liked the house to yourself every once in a while.” 

Rowan shrugged. “It’s a big house, and I live alone all the rest of the year.” He flashed Aedion a smirk. “Besides, Sellene and Enda would just barge in anyways, so I might as well allow it.” 

“Fair enough.” Aedion glanced into the brewery, waving off someone inside. “You sure you don’t want to grab a quick drink? I feel like we haven’t seen each other in forever.” 

“Yeah, give me a rain check on the…” Rowan trailed off into silence, his brain stalling at the sight of Aelin Galathynius opening Stag’s door and grabbing her cousin by the arm, halfway through a teasing jibe about Aedion wasting his body heat trying to warm up the December chill. 

“...not worth it to–oh.” Her wide-eyed turquoise gaze slammed into Rowan with all the force of an avalanche. 

“What are you doing here?” The question, though whispered, tore out of him with the force of a deafening scream. 

Aedion brushed a protective touch over Aelin’s shoulder, murmured something softly into her ear, and slipped back into the brewery, wisely leaving the two of them alone. 

She swallowed thickly and steeled her spine, meeting his stare head-on. “I’m home for my mother’s funeral and the holidays.” Her tone was cool, detached, nothing more than an old acquaintance responding to a casual question. 

“I–I had no idea,” Rowan murmured. “I’m so sorry, Aelin.” 

“Don’t be.” She snorted quietly, her shields snapping back into place as swiftly as they’d fallen. “About Evalin, Rowan. Don’t be sorry.” A pause, a crack in her controlled exterior. “I can’t say I am.” Her expression sharpened. “Can I ask what you’re doing out here…um, by Staghorns?” 

He read the unspoken question, finding himself surprised that she hadn’t asked outright. “I was in Orynth to pick up a few things before my cousins get here tomorrow, and I was heading down towards the parking lot.” Downtown Orynth was strictly car-free, so the town had built parking space by the edge of the no-traffic zone. “Your cousin saw me, so I stopped for a bit.” And held off the alcohol, he added, silently. 

She nodded in understanding. “I…I should go.” She turned. 

“Wait!” Unexpectedly, he reached for her hand, stopping himself with bare millimeters between his skin and hers. “I…when are you leaving?” 

“After New Year’s.” The words were clipped. 

The shields encasing his heart slammed back down with finality. “So you’ll just up and leave again, no warning, not telling anyone?” He laughed, a sound as brittle as the winter air. “I don’t know why I expected any different.” 

“Some things never change,” she whispered, half to herself, her voice teetering dangerously close to anguish. Without another word, without a backward glance, she yanked open the brewery door, walked in, and vanished into the crowd packed into the bustling space. 

His heart a tangle of stormy emotions, Rowan turned on his heel and strode down the rest of the street, not stopping until he reached his pickup. There, he dropped his shopping bag in the back seat, leaned himself against the truck’s battered old green frame, and breathed as deeply as he could. Eyes screwed shut, he allowed the flood of memories to wash over him, sinking into the aching familiarity of her golden hair and wild laugh, her burning resilience and unwavering strength. The watery croak of her voice when she told him she was sorry three years ago. The tsunami of anger and rage and grief and torment that had ripped through his whole being for weeks after that afternoon.

Then he locked those precious, shattered memories back into the dark recesses of his mind, swung himself up into the truck, and drove off into the December night. 

~

Three Years Ago

Rowan pulled into his driveway in shell-shocked silence, muscle memory guiding him out of his truck and into the house. He kicked off his boots in the mudroom, shook the loose snow off the soles, and placed them neatly on the rack. Numbly, he shed his thick winter jacket and hung it on its peg, made sure he was free of tray snow and ice, and walked into the warmth of the wood-paneled house. 

A beer bottle shattered at his feet the second he came through the door. 

“The hell y’been, boy?” His stepfather’s slurred words were barely distinguishable. 

“Work, then the store.” Rowan had learned years ago to keep his words as brief and subdued as possible, lest he face another of Arobynn’s famous eruptions of drunken wrath. “Picked up another six-pack.” He placed the case of beer bottles on the kitchen counter. 

Arobynn squinted at the six-pack. “Leas’ y’did one thing right,” he sneered. “Clean up the fuckin’ floor, boy.” He grabbed two bottles of beer and stumbled back out into the living room, where he collapsed into his reeking, tattered old leather recliner and lost himself in his usual world of alcohol and blaring television. 

Rowan clenched his fists and jaw and picked up the broom. He made quick work of the broken glass, dumped it in the trash bin, put away the broom, and grabbed some food as he hurried off to his room. Arobynn’s alcoholism was a blessing, in a way–he confined himself to that side of the house, not moving much between the den, the kitchen, and his bedroom and bathroom. It meant that Rowan could stay in the master bedroom, which was at the other end of the house, and keep the rest of his family home as clean as possible. 

Every time he looked at the single portrait of his parents that adorned his bedroom wall, he swore he could hear their sorrow at the state of their once-beautiful home. 

That goddamn crash had taken so much from the Whitethorn family. 

Rowan was only a child when he lost his dad, and his mother had been so buried in her grief that she’d failed to see the giant blaring red flags of the first man that showed her any affection. She’d married Arobynn Hamel partially out of what she thought was love and partially out of necessity; the property needed another pair of adult hands to maintain it, not to mention another income. It was only a few months before Arobynn’s true colors showed themselves. 

For five years, Rowan’s mother had stayed strong, protecting her son by sacrificing herself. She’d protected her son from his stepfather’s fits of drunken rage, from the anger that reverberated through the house, and even from the knowledge of her medical diagnosis. When he lost her, too, Rowan lost all hope that his life could be anything but alcohol and anger and abuse. 

Then he went away to college and met Aelin, and her warmth rekindled his frozen soul. 

Watching her drive away from him mere hours ago had ripped the fragile, carefully patched scraps of his heart into bleeding shreds. 

Fuck it. If he didn’t blow off some steam now, he’d do something he’d regret later.

As silently as possible, Rowan slipped out of the house, crossed the snowy yard to the barn, hauled open the door that desperately needed some oil, and flicked on the overhead lights, illuminating the large, chilly, wooden-beamed space. He’d slowly transformed the barn into a gym over the years, picking up old equipment at estate sales and local gyms who were remodeling or getting rid of old machines and other stuff. Right then, he only had eyes for the punching bag–his favorite way to release the pent-up anger his fists itched to rain down upon Arobynn’s worthless face. 

He took off his jacket and sweatshirt, pulled on his well-loved boxing gloves, and strode over to the punching bag. With a grunt, he launched into a punishing round of strikes and punches, pummeling the taut leather sandbag with enough force to send it rocking on its chain. That first volley loosened the knot of tension in his chest, opening the floodgates, and every tangled, indecipherable, raw emotion he’d bottled up came pouring out in the erratic rhythm of his gloved fists (and occasionally his shoes) against the punching bag, interspersed with hoarse yells, broken shouts, curses, groans, and grunts. He lost himself in the slap of leather on leather, barely remembering to draw breath, slapping and punching and kicking until the flood of grief and pain and rage had subsided enough for his head to clear. 

Chest heaving, rare tears seeping hot and salty down his face, Rowan sank to the weathered wooden plank floor, buried his head in his hands, and felt the crushing weight of abandonment, an old familiar companion, press down upon his shoulders once again. 

Although he didn’t know it, Aelin was curled in the same position on the floor of her childhood bedroom, her face buried in her hands, tears streaming unchecked down her cheeks. The same anguish tore through her ruined heart, a white-hot knife of grief and guilt piercing her to her core. Leaving him was the last thing she ever wanted to do; it was like splitting herself in half. Yet she had left him, tossed him to the snowy curb without a backward glance. Leaving him shell-shocked on the edge of the highway, heart in his throat and the winter wind whistling through his empty hands.

~~~

TAGS:

@live-the-fangirl-life

@superspiritfestival

@thegreyj

@wordsafterhours

@elentiyawhitethorn

@morganofthewildfire

@backtobl4ck

@rowanaelinn

@house-of-galathynius

@tomtenadia

@julemmaes

@swankii-art-teacher

@charlizeed

@booknerdproblems

@chronicchthonic14

@earthtolinds

@goddess-aelin

@sweet-but-stormy

@clea-nightingale

@autumnbabylon

@darling-im-the-queen-of-hell

@llyncooljones

@silentquartz

[comorbidityqueen]

Hi! Hello! my name is Taylor and i'm a 31 year old brain injury survivor. I haven't used tumblr since i was a teenager and im not sure if i can pin this post so it comes up first so excuse my lack of tumblr navigation.

I wanted to create this space as a gentle reminder to myself that my writing matters and also as a way for other disabled folk to find some relatability or relief knowing they are not alone. I'm hoping it could also educate others on just the severity of what we go through on a daily basis.

i'm not sure if anything will eventuate from this but if i give one person insight into something they previously knew nothing about then hey, that's cool. So a little bit about me...

i am a scorpio sun, aquarius moon and capricorn rising with a sag merc + venus and cancer mars (oof, right?!). Astrology aside, im a 31 year old living with an acquired brain injury in Adelaide, Australia (Kaurna Land).

When i was 12 years old, 3 days before my 13th birthday, i suffered a right MCA (Middle Cerebral Artery) CVA (Cerebral Vascular Accident). Basically, i had a massive stroke deep in the middle right side of my brain. I was at school at the time and my school didn't call an ambulance straight away. Negligence (sprinkled with ignorance) aside, i was unable to receive medical intervention leaving me permanently disabled for the rest of my life. I suffered with full left side hemiplegia, seizures, cognitive deficits and a substantial amount of teenage angst at the time along with some hysterical laughter. I have now learnt that was something called the pseudobulbar affect and that i wasn't actually losing my mind, that i had just suffered a significant trauma and my brain was like "nah man". My nana died on the same day and i hysterically laughed when my parents told me a few weeks into my 3 month inpatient stay where i had physiotherapy, speech therapy, and occupational therapy. I like to think she was my guardian angel. I learnt to walk and talk again, actually, i had to learn everything again and after numerous tests and scans, the hospital informed me that a genetic mutation was the cause. A compound heterozygous MTHFR (Methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase) which can predispose to thromboembolism to be exact, and yes I still interpret the acronym as motherfu*cker, because it sure was to me and my family at that time.

Over the last almost 19 years i have spent working hard on a body i never signed up to have. I have survived not only an ABI but relentless bullying, substance abuse, trauma's and grief along the way. As i've aged i have regressed, and in 2021 after sustaining a concussion and being diagnosed with concussion syndrome, things got a lot harder and my mobility suffered greatly. With that came debilitating daily migraines, stroke regressions, chronic pain and worsening mental health problems.

I do weekly physiotherapy and have been very fortunate to benefit from NDIS here in Australia. My goal is to eventually become a disability and mental health advocate, while still somehow working on my mobility on a daily basis and trying to survive.

i'm not sure how often this will be used depending on the availability of spoons, but if anyone has any questions about brain injury please don't hesitate to use the ask me anything button ☺️

[andypantsx3]

Hi Andie!

I've been on tumblr for a while now (though still a newbie compared to others) and I think you're the most logical, unyielding creator who isn't afraid to speak your mind and be yourself.

In this month alone, 3 of my favourite creators have talked about the discourse on their blogs (hate from other writers, drama, death threats even) and the prospect of archiving/deactivating, 2 of which have already done so. Many creators have also talked about how tumblr is different from before and from what I see, some people on this app can get really petty, hostile, insensitive and straight up delusional. I initially joined this app because of all the fics and thirsts, but knowing the nature of some people here makes me disappointed.

With all this negativity swirling around, I was just wondering, how do you handle any hate you receive?

p.s. can't wait for updates on sitw!

Hello my love! I'm sorry to hear you also feel like the vibes are off!! I think we've all sort of been feeling this way lately, and I know it's all made especially unmanageable by the dark cultural moment we're in. This is supposed to be a fun, safe, collaborative space, and instead many of the writers I know are being plagiarized left and right, receiving totally batshit anons, or going on hiatus because of burn out.

And I appreciate you saying that I speak my mind, because I do on occasion. But honestly barely a fraction of the things I feel make their way onto the dash because I try to keep the vibes fun here. I'm still sort of formulating my own ideas on how I think we as a community can collectively deal with the bad vibes on here, but I think it's a spicier take and I want to take the time to get it right before I say anything, if I say it at all. Because it might not be worth it in the end, and it might just be better to keep trying my best to add fun to the space instead!! But we will see!!

As for how to deal with individual hate, I really do think it's up to the individual what their comfort level is in addressing the things that come their way. For me, there are two types of mean messages I think you can get: people out to take their own issues out on you, and people who express themselves badly but have a genuine question or concern. And to me, I think possibly those messages are worth addressing in separate ways.

For the first type, my main m.o. is basically just to delete and block anything I get. For every anon you have seen me address, there's probably ten times that amount with far meaner messages that I've just blocked, deleted, and then bitched about in the group chat lol. In cases where they've made it obvious they are another writer or at least associated with another writer, I will also go block that writer. I think it's important to protect your individual space from people who don't mean you well, and it's honestly usually not worth giving them your energy. Because their end goal is just to upset you, not to express any sort of genuine concern, and any energy you direct into that is just feeding into what they want. So in my opinion the best way to stop this particular type of anon in their tracks is to just ignore them.

The anons I usually end up addressing publicly are those that I think have phrased things badly but might actually mean to ask a genuine question or express an authentic concern. Those to me are possibly worth the time spent digging into their concerns, although to be honest this can be exhausting as well because people can be extremely caught up in their own feelings and get incredibly nasty. I wish this wasn't such a common method of interaction these days, but it is what it is.

If you can stomach it, I think addressing these sorts of questions can help you learn about things you yourself have done badly (see: that time I utilized common smut phrases to try to clarify an ask and ended up sounding like I was making fun of smut writers :/) or help the anon understand where you are coming from if they feel you're on the opposite side of a particular issue. It doesn't always end positively but it has for me more than once, and I think it's worth it in the interest of fostering a patient and good-faith culture of interaction on your blog. I think it can also help prevent such interactions in the future if people come to understand you are trying to be open and trying your best.

Anyway that's what I think is best done on an individual level. Unfortunately, I think real, wide-spread change is going to have to come from a collective mindset shift but again I'm not ready to address that in full. I don't even know if it's possible because I think a lot of the issues we see in the community are direct results of hyper-competitive, materialistic, individualistic capitalist culture seeping down into the fandom. But I'll think on it more and maybe share my thoughts if I think they're worth it after some careful consideration.

In the meantime I am forcefully beaming you good vibes in hopes that they mitigate some of the crap we've seen on here recently!! I am manifesting a nice, calm, healing weekend for you and everyone who reads this!!!!! ❤️✨🌴

[inkofamethyst]

December 13, 2023

New financial plan! I'm going to start 2024 off by sticking ~15% into savings (most generalized, some goal-based) and investing 10% of my stipend each month into my down payment account (up from 5% and 1.5%, respectively). I've done the math based on my spending this first semester, and it checks out. Plan to meet with my (my dad's lol) financial advisor(?) over break and I'll see what they say.

I do think my Spotify Wrapped under-reported the amount of time I spent on vgm, especially in the last couple of months, as I've been using youtube "relaxing walk across..." and various themed music compilation videos recently while working (recently started on The Witcher 3 versions (after watching the skyrim one six or seven times hehe) which are new and fun!).

I think the way that my desire to take up and become good at dancing being at consistently odds with my stiff nature followed by shying away from it is reflective of something fundamental about me: I want to be more spontaneous than I am. Or maybe I want to be more comfortable when it comes to going with the flow. My whole life feels like one choreographed and blocked show with me moving stiffly between the defined beats. I want to add soul to it, to be better at life's "partner work" and improvisation. Detour off the path a bit and find my way back after having some fun. But I keep not being able to do it because I'm scared. Of what? Good question. Not in the mood to think too deep right now tbh. Maybe later.

I watched Skeppy's video about Techno. It was very sweet. I don't know why Techno's loss continues to hit me so hard. I had only watched his stuff for a few months, I don't even think I was officially subscribed. Maybe it's because he was my age. Maybe it's because he was so clever. Maybe I hate being reminded of how unfair life is. It's sad and scary and even a little anger-inducing.

I also watched hbomberguy's video on plagiarism and it was really good. Worth every second.

Today I'm thankful that there was an osteologist in the room with me while I took my measurements on human remains. I've handled countless animal remains and casts of human and fossil bones. But there was something a very eerie about handling the human remains. I remember telling students every term to treat all remains whether real or casts with respect, and I handle everything with so much respect. But it was still weird. So I'm thankful I wasn't alone (the experience was very different, and perhaps rightfully so, from when I was working with the non-human primates last week).

[edit: oh ya i also took my anatomy exam and i will not know peace until i get my final grade back]

[thymelessink]

Something I've been thinking a lot about these past few months - since my best friend is about to get married - is how my friends having relationships, getting married, having kids is going to impact our friendships and my life in relation to them and my future in comparison.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for them and I'm sure we'll stay friends for a long time (hopefully forever), but I'm not a very social person, I'm an introvert and I'm not good at making friends so I really rely on the ones I have as my entire social circle, so to say. But I know that people have less time after they have kids for example and a good amount of their time is spent caring for them obviously. Seeing my friends starting their picture book future gets me anxious. It makes me question what will happen to me. Should I be interested in a relationship because I do enjoy the idea of spending lots of time with someone with the same interests as me? Should I be interested in a qpr to not be alone? Then at the same time I cannot imagine having to deal with a person 24/7.

So in the end seeing other people living out their romances is really making me question if maybe it's my fault that I'm gonna be alone because what if I'm not aro but just not putting enough effort in even though I've never even had a crush and don't feel comfortable with the idea of a relationship. It feels like it's gonna be: Be in a relationship or be alone eventually because my friends will have less and less time and will say that I can't understand their lives and problems because I'm not married, don't have kids etc.

[100dayproductivity]

93/100.

Grief Days 10-14.

Two weeks Tumblr! It's been exactly two weeks since I had to say goodbye to my cat forever. I have made it through these two weeks okay and I feel I should acknowledge myself for that.

Let's take stock.

I've gotten over the initial deep sadness of seeing my cat take his last breath. I am starting to get used to him not being around. (Just starting to; I still have a long way to go.)

My other cat is also grieving in his own way. I've noticed that he has been more clingy, wanting to be around me almost all the time. He is not generally a cuddler, never wants to be in your lap, but these past two weeks he settles down beside me as close to me as possible without actually being in my lap. He and his brother napped together all the time, always cuddling up to each other, especially during the winter months. So I think he definitely misses the company of his besty. I am trying my best to reassure him and make him feel safe and loved, and that helps heal my heart.

I've gotten over the initial deep sadness of my eldest leaving home for university. It seems that a community of her fellow students already started to form in the two days before classes even started, so she has not been feeling alone as far as I can gather. She has unpacked and settled into her little dorm room, sent me a video of what it looks like, so I can picture what her mornings and evenings will look like as she studies and relaxes, and this gives me comfort. We have texted almost daily, usually in the evenings before bed, and we will soon fall into a new rhythm of communication as she settles into her class schedule and establishes her daily routine.

My youngest got through his first day of high school without any pomp or circumstance. I asked whether he was nervous or excited and he said he was neither, so I think he will quickly adjust to the new school year. During the couple of days between his sister leaving home and the first day of school, we spent some nice quality time together. It was a different dynamic without his sister present. Different but nice. I can see how he is quickly maturing and how I am quickly adjusting to being a different kind of mother to this boy who is becoming a young man. I am still grieving the end of being a mother to little ones, but I'm beginning to feel joyful about being a mother to adults. I will still have moments of deep grief, I'm sure, but maybe less intense and less often with time.

Still looming on the horizon is my ex's wish to move my son overseas with him. I have received encouraging counsel and support from my lawyer, so I'm tentatively hopeful that things will work out without any raging battles.

I've just realized that another thing weighing heavy on my heart right now is my living situation. I'm beginning to feel like it's time for me to move house. The location and size of my house was amazing when my kids were little, but more and more now I'm beginning to wonder whether it still makes sense for me to continue living here. If I was awash in wealth it wouldn't be a question, but I'm not, and it's getting less and less affordable for me to live here. Did you know that moving is among the most stressful life events? It's right up there with death of a loved one and divorce. So yeah, yet another facet of this grief I am feeling. The challenge for me here is that I have a lot of clutter. The thought of having to move gives me a huge amount of anxiety. It would be less if I got organized and cleared stuff out. Which actually is the initial reason I started this blog. But the need to declutter and clean up has felt more urgent these past two weeks.

All of this and more is what makes me feel on the verge of a panic attack. Still going to continue with the increased anxiety medication dosage!!