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firingstars · 2 days ago

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mission partners [one-shot]

bucky barnes x avengers!reader

summary: you have no idea why bucky has a deep rooted hatred for you. you two are paired up for a mission, and you find yourself facing the demons of your past while having to deal with bucky's mood swings.

warnings: smut, 18+, mdni, no use of y/n, enemies to lovers kinda, misunderstandings (?), reader is lowk very depressed here, mentions of trauma, depictions of violence, mentions of sa (not in detail), kidnapping, mentions of torture, consume media at your own risk

word count: 14.9k

a/n: im ngl idk what this is i just woke up the other day and kept writing this. i hope this keeps you guys happy while i try to figure out how i want neighborly advice to progress </3 -- also there's a lot of story building in here bc i like giving reader a backstory whoops.

masterlist

The wind was knocked out of your lungs before you could register the pain radiating through your body. You groan, shifting over to your side to force yourself up.

“On your feet,” he grunts from above you.

If this were any other moment, any other scene, the sight of the man before you– hovering above you– would have your heart beating fast for a different reason. A man made of both metal and flesh, strong, rough around the edges. He’s calculating, hard, and smells faintly of cedarwood and gunpowder most of the time. On rare occasions, you catch the scent of fresh linen and cotton.

Right now though, your heart is thumping against your rib cage angrily. This is the fifth time he’s had you on your back within the hour, and he’s not pinning you down in the way that you would secretly hope for. Not that you would ever admit or voice your delusions to anyone else. Just your own little secret to fester in the back of your mind when you think no one’s watching.

You bite back the curse bubbling in your throat, and slam your fist into the mat. You find yourself upright once more, ignoring the sudden rush of blood going through your head— the dizziness.

“You keep falling for the same damn thing,” Bucky clicks his tongue, bringing his hands up, ready to strike again.

“Not my fault you come at me like you’re trying to kill me,” you say with a frown, barely having the time to duck your head as his fist comes at your head quickly. You can't help but feel the shock that rushes through your body in that moment— he would’ve knocked you out with that swing.

“Everyone on the field will be trying to kill you,” he reminds you with a shake of his head. You know he's right, and it pisses you off. “What’s the point of training if you’re not prepared for the real thing?”

You dodge once more, but his wingspan is too large. He grabs onto your hair– the low ponytail that you had it in– and you let out a yelp of pain as you grab at his wrist, trying to claw his hand away.

“Your hair is too long,” he says, frowning. “You either need to cut it or figure something else out otherwise shit like this is going to keep happening to you. It’s always fucking down. Doesn’t it bother you, getting in your way like this?”

You don’t answer him. You don’t want to answer him– you don’t believe that he deserves to know the truth. You grit your teeth, and shift on your feet— one swift movement to slam your heel into the side of his head.

It doesn’t connect. He easily deflects, grabbing your ankle, and throwing you down. This time, a groan of pain escapes your throat. Bucky lets out a sigh above your head, and doesn’t even look at you, but you can feel the energy radiating off of him without looking at his face. Disappointment.

“I’m calling it for today,” he says. You open your eyes, finding him already walking away, leaving you on the mat.

You stay there for a few moments, trying to catch your breath with your eyes shut. Slowly but surely, the rise and fall of your chest evens out, and the room is no longer spinning. You open your eyes to stare at the fluorescent gym lights overhead, glaring.

What the fuck was his problem?

You’d joined the team as a healer. You weren’t necessarily first on the field— you spent most of your time hanging back and waiting for everyone else to come back to the jet. If anything, he needed to be training with Steve to get better at making sure no one would be able to get to you.

You were decent with guns, knew your way around regular hand to hand combat, and stealth wasn’t that big of an issue for you. You had more than enough qualifications to land you in your current position, and the backstory to match. You were brought into the team after spending most of your life under the radar, but you should’ve known you couldn’t have hidden for too long.

You fit in well with the rest of the team. They didn’t ask questions about your origins, and you never shared.

Steve and Sam had originally been mentoring you before Bucky took you under his deranged wing. At first, it was all business. Eventually, both men would start talking to you more outside of the gym and the shooting ranges. Sam started including you on his jokes whenever he picked on Steve.

The girls opened up to you faster, Natasha and Wanda including you on girl nights almost immediately. They mentioned something abiout needing more women on the team, and being more than happy to welcome you with open arms.

Where Natasha went, Clint went, which meant the sharp shooter had also taken a liking to you and often gave you various snacks whenever he came back from whatever mission he returned from. He reminded you of a dad, if you were being honest.

You had spent some time with Bruce in the lab. At first, it started with him examining your blood to understand what about your biological structure made you be able to heal, but then it progressed into a kind of bond. You found that your healing had a calming side effect that managed to keep the big guy away during tough days.

Tony's banter made you misunderstand him at first. He opened up right away with strange nicknames like magic hands. He once called you doctor once. Natasha had to explain that it meant he had taken a liking to you- he only joked and poked fun at those he thought were worth his time.

Thor sung your praises all the way to Asgard. Apparently, healers were rare and very precious back on his planet. He stated they were often targeted first as they were seen as the biggest threat to any war. Every time you were on a mission with him, you found yourself feeling ten times safer than usual.

It was only Bucky. Bucky fucking hated you, and you had no idea why. You didn’t even necessarily hate the man. In fact, you held a great deal of respect for him. His fighting styles, his command that he held in a room… All of it was something that you held with awe. You would never tell him that though. With how often he puts you down, your pride would never allow you to compliment him. You were certain that he would only scoff at you and dismiss you without another thought.

If you were really being truthful, you harbored the 'smallest' of crushes on him. You enjoyed watching him from afar. When he shut the fuck up and stopped arguing with you, he was handsome. When he didn’t pick apart every single aspect of your skillset, you thought he was smart. Your eyes would follow him more often than you would like to admit. Your heart would jump when you found out that he had gotten hurt on a mission, and relax to find out it was nothing major.

Your feelings betrayed your mind– which made all of his comments hurt tenfold. You didn’t know if he had any respect for you as a member of the team. If he found out you were on a mission, he would argue it. Say he didn’t need you there, that you were a liability to deal with if things ever went sideways.

It’s what led to these private training moments. Steve was fed up with his best friend’s anger, and proposed these borderline workplace abuse sessions.

“If it bothers you so much, you train her then,” Steve had said. Your eyes damn near bulged out of your skull.

“Cap?” you said cautiously.

“Just indulge him,” he said with a sigh. “If it gets him to stop complaining, then it’s better for you, too.”

You quietly hoped there was some part of Bucky that did hold a bit of respect for you. That the reason he even bothered with these training sessions was for your own good. You’d watched him long enough to know that he wouldn’t do anything he thought wasn’t worth his time. Yet, here you were, nursing your own injuries that you couldn’t heal on your own— well, that wasn’t the truth. You could. But there was always a price that came with that.

“He did a number on you,” Natasha says with a grin, coming into view. You sigh, and watch as she sticks her hand out for you to take. You take her hand with a grunt, allowing her to yank you up to your feet. Every muscle in your body protests at the sudden movement.

“It’s like he’s trying to kill me before anyone else can,” you murmur, rolling your shoulders experimentally. Nothing is dislodged or broken, thankfully.

“I mean, he does have a point,” Natasha shrugs, patting your back. You two went over to the benches, and she handed you a bottle of ice cold water. “If our enemies find out that we have a healer on our team, they’re gonna start surpassing the rest of us to get to you.”

You can’t help the sigh that escapes your lips as you take the water. You stare at it, knowing she’s right– knowing that Bucky’s right. “Doesn’t mean that he gotta act like that,” you murmur stubbornly.

“Maybe he doesn’t have to come at you like you have years of training under your belt, but it comes from a good place.”

You give her a look, and she smiles in return. “A good place?” you repeat, your voice dry.

“You don’t see him dragging Tony’s ass in here to do hand to hand,” Natasha said, tilting her head with a raised eyebrow.

“Stark has a metal suit with rockets,” you respond. “There’s no reason for him to need to do hand to hand.”

“What if the tech fails? Then what? Can’t rely on gadgets all the time. Just like you can’t rely on us to be your shield all the time,” she hums. “He’s only looking out for you, even if he’s doing it in the wrong way.”

“You know so much about him, huh?” you ask, eyeing her strangely.

“I’m observant,” she corrects, shaking her head. “Which means I also see the way he looks for you in every single room when he thinks no one is watching.”

“Yeah, probably to take out his anger on me,” you grunt, ignoring what she’s trying to hint at.

“And,” Natasha continues, “I see the way you stare at him.”

“With hatred and anger? I know the feeling all too well.”

“More like you don’t know whether or not you want to kiss him or fuck him.” She’s grinning now, and you can feel a heat begin to crawl up your neck and face.

You hate assassins, you decide at that moment. You hate them and how easy they can read people. You hate Natasha, and you hate Bucky. You clear your throat, intent on distancing yourself from the situation at hand. However, you don’t correct her. You don’t deny her statement either.

“I’m off to shower. We have a meeting soon– something about another mission?” You stand, taking a deep gulp of the water before you grab your bag.

Natasha sighs, “It’s always another mission.”

“I’m not going on a mission with her.”

You drop your chin to your chest, closing your eyes tight. You can feel the headache coming on and pulsing from behind your eyes. Your body still aches from the training session this morning– and the training sessions that you’d had together every day for the past two and a half weeks. It has been hell on Earth, and Bucky still refuses. The constant rejection is starting to wear you down.

“Barnes, the mission calls for the two of you. I need you to watch her front, and she’ll watch your six,” Fury says, eyes narrowing at the super soldier. He’s fed up. Everyone in this room is fed up. “In the event that you are injured–”

“Unlikely,” Bucky cut him off, dismissing the thought like it could never happen to him. Which, truthfully– it rarely has. Out of everyone on the team, you’d only seen him severely injured a couple of times. Other times were the normal scrapes and bruises that were sustained in battle; but he never even came over to you for those like the rest of the team did.

“If you get injured,” Fury sighs, correcting himself just to placate him, “she will be there to help you.”

“I don’t need deadweight with me. It’ll only slow me down,” Bucky argues, crossing his arms over his chest.

Your jaw clenches at the words, and you suck in a deep breath. Deadweight? You’ve been on more than a handful of missions yourself at this point. You’ve gained the respect of the other Avengers and worked alongside them easily. Your solo missions may never be a straight battle, but you have other strengths.

“Gonna keep talking about me like I’m not even here?” you demand, finally lifting your head to look at him.

“Sorry, sweetheart,” he says, the nickname coming out of his lips almost mockingly. You could feel your blood begin to boil under your skin at the patronizing tone. The anger that you’d been feeling the past couple weeks is coming to the surface, bubbling and rolling over. You’re about to burst.

“What’s your fucking problem?” you start, standing up.

“Alright, that’s enough,” Steve cut in, slamming his hands on the table. Steve’s giving you a look, telling you with his eyes to back down. Reluctantly, you sit back in your seat. “Buck, she’s going on that mission with you. Bottom line– obviously you two are paired together because she needs to be there.”

Fury nodded slowly, clasping his hands behind his back. He cleared his throat, grabbing your attention once more.

“You’re going undercover.”

“Undercover,” you repeat, eyebrows furrowing.

“Yes, which is why you need to be his partner.” Fury says before he looks at Bucky, and sighs. “She’s familiar with the area and the situation– she’s been there before, and she has the information necessary in order to make this operation go smoothly. You two will be infiltrating a charity gala that's being used to front a human trafficking scheme for enhanced individuals, and she needs a dance partner.”

“Why the hell can’t it be Steve?” Bucky grunts, frowning deeply.

“Because Steve can’t dance, now can he?” Fury snaps. “I suggest you brush up on your forties’ charm, Barnes. You need to be one hell of a convincing partner if you want to fool the other guests."

The room goes silent. There's no room for fighting, not with the tone your boss just gave you. With the lack of argument, he nods.

"This meeting is over, no objections. I’ll have the mission details be sent to your rooms by the end of the day, and you two will report to leave in the morning. You are all dismissed.”

Chairs are scraped against the carpet as everyone shifts. You listen as footsteps start shuffling out of the room, but you stay planted in your seat. Dread is building up in your gut, and you might throw up if you move too fast. It’s overshadowing the ache in your muscles, the pain and anger you felt just moments ago.

Wanda stops beside you, eyebrows furrowed.

“Hey… you okay?” she whispered, a hand touching your shoulder.

No. You’re not okay. You know this gala. You know why you’re going there– and what’s waiting for you. The argument, the blow up you had with Bucky in front of everyone is no longer important to you right now. You have to suck it up, and go back into where it all began for you. You let out a shaky breath, then give Wanda your most convincing smile.

“I’m okay,” you tell her, standing. “Head just hurts from all the yelling.”

You force your feet to move, to walk. You have to pack.

You do your best to hide your anxiety on the jet as you sit opposite from Bucky. The aircraft is being operated by F.R.I.D.A.Y., and you were already informed that it would be back at the rendezvous point to pick you two up in one week's time. If you missed the loading time, you two would be shit outta luck and need to get back to base on your own, or at least contact back to let everyone know that you needed more time for the operation.

“Romanoff said you often did espionage. Why do you look so nervous?” Bucky questions, making you look up. You blink at him, pausing. He doesn’t look indifferent. In fact, he looks curious.

“Why do you care?” you ask before you can stop yourself. You watch as his face immediately turns sour at your response, and he looks away. Uncharacteristically, there’s no response. He doesn’t say anything to piss you off. Instead, there’s only silence. You wonder if Steve made him promise to be nice to you during this trip.

This would be the first mission you go on with Bucky by yourself. Usually, there would be another person here with you to act as a buffer– to shield you from him. He usually stayed in his own head during missions, but if interaction was necessary, he would avoid talking to you. You laced your fingers together and squeezed your hands tight. This would be a long week.

You’re dropped off to the safehouse soon, and Bucky mutters something about checking the perimeter while you check the indoors. Firearm in hand, you go inside to inspect. Just as the report said, it’s a fully furnished home.

It’s an unsuspecting cabin in the outskirts of a suburban town, and you two would need to drive into the city to get into the gala. It’s small, with just a living room, one bedroom, a bathroom, and a kitchen. Just the bare necessities. Everything else you two could possibly need is yourselves.

After deeming the inside secure, you check the amenities. Running water, working electricity. Someone back at the base must have updated the safehouse recently– a lot of the furniture was new. Either that, or this place was recently built and only made to look old and rundown from the outside. You find even the pantry and fridge has enough food for the week.

“Tomorrow night is the gala’s first night,” you say as you hear Bucky enter through the door, closing the door of the fridge. “Our outfits should already be in the closet.”

“Perimeter secure,” he reports, ignoring your own comments.

“I assumed, otherwise I would’ve heard fighting out there.” You cross your arms over your chest, staring at him with raised eyebrows. Bucky lets out a deep sigh of annoyance in response.

“You take the bed.”

“We can switch off every night,” you propose. Now, he looks surprised. “We’re here for a week, and that couch looks small. I’m sure you won’t complain, but I don’t necessarily think dancing will be easy if you’re stiff from poor sleep for a week.”

Bucky lets out a breath, then nods once. “Fine.”

You turn towards the hall, ready to turn in for the night, when you stop. “Barnes.”

“What?” he asks, slight annoyance coming through.

“I know you hate me, but I really need you to hide it when we’re in front of everyone tomorrow,” you say, looking over his shoulder. He pauses, and you continue, “I can’t do my job and let you do your job if you mess me up. Just follow my lead.”

His lack of response is the only answer you get from him, pushing you into the soft mattress in the bedroom.

Bucky tosses the keys to the luxury vehicle to the valet driver as another staff member opens your door, and offers you a hand. You smile graciously– practiced, perfect. This is second nature. Nothing that you learned during your time with the Avengers. This was already instilled in your bones way before you were ever recruited.

When Bucky rounds the car and comes to your side, you slip your arm through his, and feel as his body tenses slightly. You smile and lean closer into him as you two walk up the stairs.

“Act like you tolerate me or we’re both going to get gunned down before we even pass the doors,” you whisper into his ear, still smiling.

“There are no guns aimed at us,” he whispers back. You resist the urge to roll your eyes. Did he even read the mission report? There were enhanced individuals all around, all being forced to work for the handler– and you had no idea who the enhanced were.

“Not yet,” you remind him, and he takes a deep breath, but ultimately relaxes beside you. He even rests his opposite hand on yours, leading you through the threshold and into the lion's den.

The gala is exactly as you remember it.

The dazzling chandeliers that hang overhead, lighting up the ballroom to ensure no one could hide in the shadows. The bustle of servants and staff members whose eyes are constantly watching you to ensure that every movement gets reported to upper management. The live band, playing at a volume just loud enough to ensure the screams from the tortured below are not heard by unsuspecting guests that have no idea that this is not a charity ball at all. The whispers and gossip of the elite members of the gala, all those who know why they are really here and are buzzing with excitement for the auction to begin on the last day of the party.

All of it makes you want to throw up just the same.

You two find a space on the side of the floor– not too out of the way that makes you both look suspicious, but not directly in the middle of all the action. Today is about scouting. Finding information. If you two could get an invitation to the auction, then you could forgo the next three nights of the gala, and only show up for the last night.

You’re sipping slowly on a flute of champagne as you let your eyes wash over the crowd.

“The servants are most likely enhanced,” Bucky whispers, leaning down from behind you. The action startles you briefly– the proximity. It makes your heart beat just a tiny bit faster, and you’re glad he’s behind you and unable to see your face. His chest is touching your back, his lips so close to you that you can feel his breath fanning against your neck as he whispers. “Their movements are too sharp, too calculated. They’re looking around as if they’re waiting for something.”

“They’re not,” you whisper back, getting a hold of yourself. You lean into him a little more as you notice someone glance over at the two of you. Bucky stiffens for just a second before relaxing, a hand coming to rest on your hip. He was adapting quickly to the part you two were supposed to be playing.

“What makes you say that?” he murmurs.

“The enhanced would be branded. Numbers on the back of their necks. Like merchandise to scan and check out when they’re bought.” It’s hard to conceal the bitterness that comes through your voice.

“How do you know that?” he asks, the hand on your hip squeezing you a bit tighter.

You freeze in place. You swallow down the remainder of the champagne and turn in his arms to smile at him. “Didn’t you read the report?” you ask, tilting your head. You watch as his eyebrows furrow, and his lips part to respond, but he never gets the chance.

The host comes out– he comes out– and calls for everyone’s attention at the front of the room. Everyone turns to look, the music quieting down but never stopping. Just played above a hush. He has no microphone, there are no speakers, but somehow his voice is amplified and can be heard by everyone in the ballroom.

“Thank you for coming tonight. I am your host, William Talbot,” the host grins, holding his arms out wide. Applause erupts from everywhere, you and Bucky joining in. “I am delighted to have you all here this week. All your donations are being put to a good cause; research towards children and young adults' infectious diseases and developmental studies. I beseech you to enjoy yourselves this week as we continue to celebrate each and every single one of you. We would not be able to save as many lives as we do at our lab if not for each of the guests in this room!”

Cheers and whistles join in on the applause as Talbot takes a deep bow, crossing one hand over his chest as he does. After he rises, he turns, disappearing back into the hallway that he came out from, the music one again increasing in volume. People start mingling around the two of you, and there are some that begin to float onto the dance floor with their partners.

“Piece of shit,” Bucky mutters, making you snort. “That’s our guy, isn’t it?”

You nod, and take a deep breath. “I didn’t expect to see him on the first night, though. We need him or his assistants– someone to get an invitation from.”

The plan had already been set– the two of you had finalized it in the car. After spending some time together in the beginning of the night to establish that you were a couple, you would end up breaking off naturally to find other people to mingle with to feel out the crowd. Find out who was close to Talbot, see who had the connection to get you into the auction.

Worst case scenario, the two of you would attend all nights of the gala trying to get the invitation and have to do this same song and dance. If, on the off chance, you didn’t get an invitation, you two would stake out the place and find the auction. It would be a lot messier, but it needed to happen.

So, you started. Bucky disappeared into the crowd and you hung out on the outskirts of the dance floor. You knew you looked lonely, nursing another flute of champagne with no one to talk to– it would give someone the perfect opportunity to approach you. These people always wanted to bite the bait, and it was only a matter of time until someone did.

“All alone tonight?” a voice came from your side. You turned, and paused. You knew this man– and you knew he had no idea who you were.

“My partner saw someone familiar and ended up heading off,” you say with a smile, “I’m just waiting.”

He let out a small scoff, shaking his head. Then, he offered you a hand. “Benjamin Talbot. You dance?”

“Talbot? That was your father up there?” you ask, placing your drink down on the table behind you. You take his hand, your smile widening despite the bile burning in your stomach.

“My old man is a little embarrassing at times. I try not to be associated, but unfortunately I am his flesh and blood,” he answers with a grin. Benjamin leads you to the floor, then stands directly in front of you. His hands fall to your waist as yours go to his shoulders. You feel that tingle under your skin– the power threatening to take over, to do what it did to save you all those years ago.

You push it away.

“You must be proud,” you laugh, shaking your head as he starts to lead you in a dance. “Your family is doing very revolutionary things.”

“What can I say?” he hums, standing a bit taller now. Boastful– and you realize this is a good angle.

“Can I assume that you’ll be taking over once your father decides to rest?” you hum. “You must be studying under him, if not already his right hand man.”

“The time may be sooner than later,” he says, his grin only growing larger. “We have a lot of amazing things planned. You’ll be blown away once you see it all.”

“Really?” you ask, tilting your head. “Like what?”

His lips part briefly, and there’s a look in his eyes. You know you’ve got him.

“Have you been invited to the fifth night of the gala yet?” he asks.

“There’s a fifth night?” you ask, feigning innocence.

He grins at you, nodding. “We’ll show off our best merchandise there– it’s much less a gala night and more of a business night. If you’re interested, I can get you and your partner an invite.”

You brighten at the words, and nod excitedly. “I would love that! It’s always a pleasure to see what the Talbots have in store!”

“Wonderful,” he chuckles, nodding. The music comes to an end, and he lets go of you. You quickly let go of him as well, watching as he pulls out two business cards from his pockets. “Address is on the back– don’t lose this. This is your ticket.”

“Honestly, you’re amazing, Benjamin. Really,” you smile at him. He pauses, then pulls out a pen from his breast pocket, scribbling something on it. Then, he hands it to you, leaning close.

“My number,” he whispers into your ear as he presses the card into your hand. “In case you and your partner don’t work out.”

A shiver runs down your spine– one of disgust. You mask it quickly, turning to him with a smirk before giving him a wink. He chuckles darkly before walking off. You wait until he’s far enough away before you turn to look for Bucky. The second you move, there’s a grip on your arm that makes you jump.

“We’re leaving,” he grunts.

“What? Bucky–!” you exclaim, shocked.

He’s all but dragging you towards the exit, and you’re barely able to stop yourself from tripping over your heels and dress. Bucky doesn’t stop even when you get to the exit, his grip on you strong enough to bruise. The valet is quick, your car pulling up in record time– and you’re thrown into the damn car, the door slammed shut behind you.

“Barnes, what the fuck?!” you scream at him once he gets in.

He doesn’t answer, and hits the gas, the two of you taking off. Bucky keeps his eyes on the road, and you see his knuckles turning white on the steering wheel. You pause for a second. His jaw is clenched tight, there’s a vein popping in his neck.

“Bucky?” you ask slowly. “What happened? Who did you talk to?”

There’s no response again. He only takes a slow, controlled, deep inhale. You swallow before you settle in your seat, turning to face the road. Despite the anger he’s feeling, he’s not driving like a maniac. You’re not even sure why he’s angry right now.

Once you reach the cabin, you move to get your stuff out of the bedroom. It’s his turn to sleep on the bed tonight, after all. He must need it, after whatever he’s been through tonight. When you come out into the living room, Bucky’s just standing in the middle of it. His frame is taking up the space, and he’s staring at the wall like he wants to punch it down.

“What happened back there?” you try again, frowning. “I got us the invitations, so we don’t need to go back until auction night. We’re fine to lay low or scout out the area prior to the auction–”

“Show me the back of your neck,” Bucky cuts you off, turning to look at you. Your breath catches in your throat.

“What?” you whisper.

“Your neck. Show me the back of it,” he repeats, taking a few steps closer. You instinctively take a few steps back.

“Why the hell do you need to see my neck?” you ask, trying to will your voice to be even. It takes everything in you to not cover the area with your hand.

“I read the report. There was no information about numbers on the enhanced,” he said. You were backed into a wall. Nowhere to run. “Show me your neck.”

“What does this have to do with anything–”

“I need to know if you’re too damn close to this mission to think rationally. If you’re compromised, I’m sending you home,” he cut you off again. “Show me your fucking neck.”

Your mouth falls open. “Are you serious?” you whisper.

Bucky doesn’t respond. He continues to stare at you with those same steely eyes. You know he’s serious. His body is rigid, and he’s one second away from spinning you around and pinning you to the wall to move your hair out of the way to check your neck himself. You can only feel bitterness begin to build.

“You go on every single H.Y.D.R.A. related mission,” you say with a swallow, shaking your head. “How are you not too closely related to that?”

“That’s different,” he dismisses.

“No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is.”

“How?!” you exclaim, placing your hands on his chest to push him back, reclaiming some space for yourself. To your surprise, he gives in. “It’s exactly the same!”

Once again, Bucky chooses to not answer you. Whether it’s because he doesn’t have a good enough reason to tell you why it’s different, or if it’s because he has decided that you’re not worthy of knowing why he does what he does– you don’t care. You just want to get away from him. The night has been tiring enough, and you barely were out and about.

You know he won’t let you go too far without confirming his suspicions.

With a shaking hand, you turn, pulling your hair to the side.

“Are you fucking happy? There’s nothing,” you spit, staring into the wall.

You can feel his eyes burning holes into the back of your neck– your skin. Even in the low light, you know that he’s searching for something that isn’t there. Numbers that were already gone, numbers that you removed yourself.

The touch of cold metal brushing against your skin makes your breath hitch and your body straighten. Goosebumps rise where his fingers touch, and you swallow thickly. The grip on your hair tightens. You’re trembling slightly.

“There’s a scar,” he whispers. There’s a thread of concern in his voice. “From what?”

You take a deep breath and tear yourself away from his touch. You push your hair back into place, covering your neck once more and turn to face him.

“I was sent here for a reason,” you say, trying to keep your voice even. “You have your orders, I have mine. Stay out of my way, soldier.”

You shove past him, going into the bathroom. The door slams behind you with a resounding thud.

The next couple days are filled with silence. Neither of you are talking to each other, much less speaking to one another. What he does during the day doesn’t concern you, but you assume he’s trailing your targets and checking out the auction site. Meanwhile, you’ve been running scans on the auction perimeter to see if everything is set up the same way it was before. If it was, then you know exactly where the ‘merchandise’ will be located.

Bucky needs to take in Talbot– that is his mission. Yours is to evacuate and get the enhanced out of there– as many as you can, safely, without having the kill switch in their necks get activated.

You can still feel the phantom ache in your own neck, from when you ripped out the small bomb before stealing the life out of your buyer to heal yourself before you bled out.

The location may be different, the country may have changed, but nothing has really been stopped. After you escaped all those years ago, they just went into hiding. You thought they’d put an end to the program after realizing that it was possible for their enhanced to rebel against their systems.

Bucky might be right, as much as you hate to admit it. You may be way too close to this operation. It’s personal. They took everything from you. The years of pain and suffering that you endured under their scalpels and bright lights and teams of scientists meant nothing– Benjamin Talbot didn’t even recognize you all these years later. How could he? You were no longer malnourished, covered in scars and bruises, and struggling to survive.

You let out a shaky breath, and buried your face in your hands. You were trembling. It was only two more days until the auction. The invitation cards were on the coffee table, staring at you with malice. You wanted to burn the place down.

A clink of ceramic covered the cards, making you pause. You looked up, seeing Bucky placing a bowl down in front of you while holding one for himself.

“Soup,” he says, nodding towards it. Your eyes narrow at the liquid.

“Did you poison it?”

“What good would it do for me for my partner to be dead, sweetheart?” he says with a sigh as he takes a seat on the opposite end of the couch. You watched as he ate from his bowl first, gulping down the contents of what looked like chicken noodle soup– then he stopped. He reached over to swap it with the bowl he had given you, and started eating from that one as well to prove that both bowls were safe.

“Thank you,” you mutter, beginning to eat as well.

“You haven’t eaten since yesterday. You need to keep your energy up for whatever’s going to happen in a couple days.”

“I know,” you say with a deep sigh. The soup is warm, flavorful. “Was this from one of the cans?”

“Hell no,” he scoffs, offended. “I had to go into the city and get this. Whatever they stock this place with is just for war rations in the middle of winter.”

“What, and you’re unable to stomach that?”

“I have learned to enjoy the better things in life, doll.” Bucky gives you a shrug that’s almost nonchalant.

“Thought you still struggled with all of that. Enjoying things.”

“I did,” he says slowly. His next words are softer, quiet. A hint of vulnerability attached to them. “I still do.”

The three words hang between the two of you in a heavy silence. It takes a few moments before the sound of a spoon hitting the edge of ceramic fills your ears again as you two attempt to eat more of the soup, pretending that his confession didn’t just break something inside of you.

“I don’t hate you,” he finally says, breaking the silence. It makes you pause.

“What?”

“You said it on the first night. And I can feel it in the way that you look at me. I… I don’t hate you,” he confesses.

“Are you sure?” you ask dryly, staring into the soup. There’s a slight layer of oil on top of the water. “You didn’t want me on this mission, and you already tried sending me back home on a single suspicion. Not to mention, you make it abundantly clear that you think I’m too damn weak for this job.”

Out of the corner of your eye, you can see him wince. Bucky lets out a deep sigh, and reaches to place his bowl on the coffee table to free his hands, and runs them through his hair before he speaks again.

“I look at you and I see me.”

“What are you talking about?” Your eyebrows furrow, and you look at him. He’s serious.

“You’re angry. Unsure. You have no idea where to put your energy to, and you’re just going through the motions of everything around you. You didn’t even join this team because you wanted to. You joined because you were tired of running from everyone and everything and this was the first opportunity that gave you a chance to go straight,” Bucky said, your jaw clenching in response.

“You don’t know a damn thing,” you whisper, hands tightening around your bowl.

You hate it. You hate him. You hate how he's able to read you so easily, and he's never even had a full conversation with you before. Were you this predictable? Was it this noticeable?

“I see you during every single mission we’re put on together,” he continues, sitting up straight. “You look like how I used to be. You don’t care if you die today, tomorrow, or the next day. You’re going through the motions–”

“Barnes. I suggest you stop talking.”

“This is the first mission that I have ever seen you be so worked up for,” he says, shaking his head. “When I went off into the gala, I slipped into one of the backrooms. I found files of the enhanced. I had enough time to go through some of them, and there were the successful cases at the very top. I read one of them- fully read one. About an A0-92.”

Your blood ran cold. You felt your heart stop in your chest. The world must’ve stopped spinning around you at this exact moment.

“There was a picture in the file… It was a kid,” he whispers, then swallows thickly before meeting your eyes. “You were a kid.”

You stood quickly, dropping the bowl of soup in your hands. The liquid was hot, burning at your skin, and the ceramic shattered on impact as it hit the ground. Your knee hit the coffee table, his own bowl of soup sloshing around with the jostle. You needed to get out here. Fresh air. The walls were closing in on you– your neck was hurting, throbbing. You could almost feel the white hot pain of the bomb beginning to detonate just moments before you took a knife to claw it out of your own body. You could feel the brand being burned into your skin again. A0-92.

You ran out of the cabin, and into the dark woods that surrounded it. Everywhere you went, it felt like you were trapped. The bite of the cold air reminded you of the cold cells, the steel tables you used to be strapped on as you were injected and cut open multiple times. The sounds of the wind sounded like the soft begs of the other children pleading you not to bleed their life away from them to heal your own wounds– but it was kill or be killed.

You ignored the pain in your feet, every scrape and stab of rock and branch that the woods gave you. None of it hurt compared to the ghosts that haunted your every waking moment. Everything that you tried to shoot down– everything that you tried to ignore and pretend that didn’t exist. Because he was right.

You were tired of running away. You wanted to go straight, do something that mattered to other people. If it meant that you were weak, by deciding to not go into the fray– by not hurting other people again, then so be it. You would heal others, offering them the endless life force that you had cultivated over your years of torture for the auction house. One day, in the distant future, it would run out. The supply you took from others would be depleted, and your task would be done. Your debt would be paid.

When your lungs couldn’t handle your sprint, and your legs gave up, you finally stopped. You didn’t notice the hot tears that were streaming down your face until you realized your vision was blurry. You leaned against a tree, covering your mouth with a hand as you slowly slid down to your knees, trying to suppress the sob.

A twig snapped from behind you– a clear indicator that he had been behind you the entire time. Bucky was letting you know he was there. You knew that he could have appeared without a single sound if he didn’t want you to know of his presence.

Slowly, you’re lifted off the ground. You don’t find the energy to fight back as he holds you against his chest, and begins the walk back towards the cabin. He doesn’t say a single word, and neither do you. The only noise between the two of you is the sound of his steady heartbeat under your ear as you listen, while trying to calm the raging storm inside of you.

Once inside, he brings you to the bedroom. The living room is still a mess from your outburst. He sits you down on the edge of the bed, disappears into the bathroom, and returns with a first aid kit in hand. He kneels down at your feet, making your heart stutter as he takes a foot in his hand.

“Wait– I can do that,” you whisper, reaching out to stop him.

“It’s my fault for approaching the situation like that.” Bucky shakes his head, gently pushing your hands away, and back onto your lap. “You wouldn’t have ran out and burnt yourself if I didn’t pry. Just sit still.”

You watch as he begins to quietly remove the debris off of your bare feet. His touch is careful, afraid of making the wounds worse. You don’t tell him that this is nothing compared to what you’ve felt before, and part of you wants to make a joke that he must know what that feels like. The look on his face makes you think twice.

He looks pained. Upset– not at you, but at himself.

“I don’t hate you,” he says again, then murmurs an apology when you flinch at the sting of the antiseptic.

“I’m starting to realize that,” you whisper back.

“I don’t… know how to comfort people,” he says slowly, clenching his jaw briefly before relaxing it. “I pulled you out of the gala after I saw the file– I took it back with me. It’s in my stuff. I didn’t want them to have anything on you.”

You bit the inside of your cheek. You could cry more, if you didn’t already dehydrate your entire body of tears. You only gave him a wordless nod.

“I was afraid someone there might recognize you,” he continues. “So I needed you out of there.”

“It’s been years. I’m not a kid anymore. I don’t look like that, you know,” you tell him, and he shakes his head.

“I recognized your photo at first glance,” he argues. “You were smaller, maybe a little starved, but you look exactly the same.”

“Natasha says you spend a lot of time staring at me. Probably why you could recognize me,” you say with a soft laugh. His hands still, just for a moment, before he continues– moving on to spread ointment on your feet.

“Romanoff said that, huh?” he grunts, shaking his head.

“Do you? Look at me a lot?”

“I do,” he answers, looking up to meet your eyes. You stare back. “Like I said– I don’t hate you.”

“You have a funny way of showing that you don’t hate me,” you whisper, eyebrows furrowing at him. At the insinuation.

He lets out a breath, and smiles slightly. “That’s my bad.”

You shake your head, and don’t fight the faint smile that comes onto your face as well. You continue to watch him as he moves carefully. It’s almost strange. Such a large man made of both flesh and metal, treating you as if you were the most delicate thing in the universe. His touch is barely a whisper against your skin, almost as if he is afraid pressure would make it all worse. Yet, he’s methodical. You suspect it has to do with his own experience from way before everything happened to him, when he was just a soldier fighting in a war for his country. Basic medical training for the field.

“The soup didn’t burn you too bad,” he murmurs as he finishes up wrapping your feet. “Your skin is a bit angry right now, but it’s just irritated. It’ll go away. Should use a wet cloth to soothe though.”

“I’ll do that,” you say with a nod.

Bucky’s no longer touching you, beginning to pack up the med kit and clean up the soiled materials that he used to fix you up. You find yourself missing the warmth that he previously had you wrapped in. Right now, he looks different from all the other times you have seen him. Is it the confession? The sudden heart to heart? You’re coming to realize the man in front of you isn’t so bad after all.

“I cut the numbers off of me,” you tell him. He pauses in his clean up, looking up at you once more. “There’s a small bomb in each enhanced’s neck. It’s what makes us unable to fight back. It’s why we’re stuck down there, in the auction, and why we get sold off. We rebel, our heads get blown off. Some of the kids down there decided that dying was better than being a slave.”

“Jesus, sweetheart,” he whispers, and your hands clenched into fists– just to give yourself a reminder that you’re real. To ground yourself back to reality. “You cut it out of yourself– of your neck?”

You let out a shaky breath, and swallowed. “Girls get sold for higher prices… and I wasn’t bought just for the enhancements. One day, my buyer messed up. Fell asleep in front of me, and had their weapons at the bedside table. I cut it out of my neck. With my last bits of remaining strength before I died, I took his life to heal myself. I was a kid. Couldn’t see or feel how deep the implant was. Then, free– I killed a lot of people fighting to get out of that mansion.”

Bucky stared at you, mouth agape. You blinked down at your hands, letting them relax. You examined the crescent shaped indents you left behind on the palms. You took one more breath before meeting his eyes, and forcing a smile on your face.

“I might be too close to this mission, but I need to see this auction burned to the ground,” you whisper.

“I’ll hand you the match, then,” he answers, placing a hand on top of yours. He gently squeezes. The comfort that rushes through your body is almost immediate.

The next two days are filled with planning. The kids are underground, and from the scans that Bucky was able to acquire, he counts there are about fifty kids. Less than what you thought, but it still makes your heart ache all the same. Only fifty made it to this point– there were countless others that were still in the lab, or died on those tables.

You would attend the auction, and have F.R.I.D.A.Y. scan each and every single guest to be sent back to base. When the time was right, each of them would be arrested and incarcerated. No one would be left without punishment here.

The children would be rescued by you and other agents on standby outside the perimeter, waiting for your instructions to go in. They wouldn’t move unless they got the green light. No one wants to risk the bombs going off.

“Would you tell anyone if I killed Talbot?” you asked him the night before the auction.

Since that night in the forest, the tension between the two of you had basically disappeared. Coupled with the fact that you two were speaking to each other, and eating every meal together– you were comfortable. It was scary how comfortable you got with him.

You’d be lying if you said these two days weren’t filled with a strange tension. You were acutely aware of him. You always were, but this was different. You saw the way his eyes watched you, the way they scanned over your body slowly when you walked out of the bathroom after a shower. When you would look at him, and catch him staring– he wouldn’t look away.

You noticed how his voice was softer now. More gentle. He wasn’t speaking down at you, but rather approaching you at a different angle. You’d be lying if you said that it wasn’t doing something to you. After him speaking to you in such an authoritative voice for so long, the quiet hush of his words brought a comfort to you that you didn’t know you would be able to feel with him. Then again– you were always at ease whenever you knew he was around.

There were multiple times in the last couple days where the two of you brushed against each other. Whether or not it was a mistake or on purpose, it left goosebumps on your skin wherever he touched.

Bucky took a long drink of his beer– one that you learned didn’t even do anything to him. He told you that he simply drank for the taste and nostalgia. The serum pumping through his veins made his metabolism burn through the alcohol.

“No,” he answered.

“You don’t think it makes me a bad person?” you press, tilting your head. Bucky snorts, shaking his head.

“If you’re a bad person, doll, then what am I?” he asks, rolling his eyes. You can only smile, then take your own drink of beer.

“Sweetheart. Doll. What else will you call me?” you ask, raising your eyebrow at him.

“Hate it?” he shoots right back, glancing at you.

“Not as much as you supposedly hate me,” you tease. He groans.

“Enough of that.” Bucky sighs deeply.

“You would say those nicknames with such malice, too,” you continue. “Really thought you were patronizing me or something.”

“My Ma’ would kill me if she ever heard I was talking to a lady like that,” he grunts, frowning.

“You’re a mama’s boy?” you ask, surprised.

“No,” he says, looking at you. “I had a little sister. I had to be a good example of what a gentleman was like. So, I treated women with respect and care– that way my sister had a nice foundation to use when she grew up and went out into the world to find herself a husband one day.”

You made a face. “I don’t think you respect me by calling me weak.”

“Okay,” Bucky says, rolling his eyes as he admits defeat. “I had an awful way of trying to get you out of the line of fire. You’re a walking 51-50 waiting to happen.”

“I don’t think you should be the one talking right now,” you point out, fighting the smile that was threatening to grow on your face.

“Well. Takes crazy to know crazy.” Bucky shrugs without a care. There’s a smile playing on his lips as well. “I’m surprised they don’t have you in some sort of mandated therapy.”

“Unlike you, I didn’t commit war crimes against the entire world, so,” you remind him. You watch as he contemplates your words, then nods in agreement. “Therapy may be helpful though.”

“Nah,” he denies immediately. “Don’t do it. Well– maybe my therapist just sucked.”

“Ever thought about getting an emotional support animal instead?” you suggest. “You’re good at taking care of people, so maybe having a little kitten around would be more healing than trying to talk out your feelings with a stranger.”

“Me? Taking care of people? You’re really good at jokes, you know that?”

“I mean, I can count all the civil conversations we’ve had on one hand, but after we’ve cleared our misunderstanding, I think you’re a pretty decent person. Besides that, you’re not the only one that can observe the other.”

Bucky let out a small laugh, and smiled down at his bottle. “I noticed. Except, you were always killing me in your head when you looked at me. I guess I can’t blame you.”

The air between the two of you was nice. Comfortable. Both of you were sitting on the couch together. On the coffee table were the plans and maps of the auction house, a reminder of what was the beginning of the end of this madness. Beside it were remnants of the Chinese food that Bucky had picked up in the city, once again proclaiming that the safehouse food was too shitty to consume. You quickly realized that he was lying to you. Bucky just wanted to feed you good food.

“Don’t get hurt tomorrow,” Bucky says, making you look back at him. He’s already looking at you. There’s something soft in his eyes when he says the words, almost pleading.

“You can get hurt tomorrow,” you tell him, trying to lighten the mood once more. “I’ll put you back to normal if you do.”

Bucky shakes his head. “I need you to steel your emotions tomorrow. There’s a chance we might not be able to save them all.”

“... I know,” you whisper, and nod once at him.

“Don’t go trying to die in there either,” he warns. “I’ll yank you out of there before you can detonate with any fucking bomb.”

You crack a smile. “How romantic. Is this how you used to flirt with girls in the forties? Were you raised on the belief that boys who were mean to girls had a crush on them?”

“You’re not as dense as I thought,” he grunts.

“You’re not denying it, you know?" You raise an eyebrow at him then clarify, "That you hold a candle for me in your heart.”

“I’m not a liar, doll.”

“I get a free pass to throw you on the mat when we get back home. To make up for all the times you had me on my back,” you say, and down the rest of your beer. It’s a flimsy attempt to try and distract yourself from the butterflies in your stomach. “Let’s call it the start of your courtship.”

He raises an eyebrow at you. “Just because I have the smallest crush on you doesn’t mean I’ll go easy on you. I push you hard for your own safety.”

“Fine. I’ll just go back to avoiding and ignoring you when we get back,” you huff, turning away from him again. You can see him tense out of the corner of your eye.

“One time,” he finally relents. “Just once.”

You grin and look at him. “Only a small crush?” you ask, tilting your head. Bucky stares at you for a few moments before clearing his throat and looking away. You swear there’s a slight tint of pink on his cheeks that you know cannot be blamed on the alcohol.

“Shut the hell up.”

“Can’t admit how much you like me, Barnes?” you ask, humming. “Should I text Nat and ask her how often you stare at me when I’m in the room?”

“Yeah?” Bucky sits up straighter. “I don’t recall you denying her question when she asked you whether you’re trying to decide if you wanna make out with me or fuck me.”

The grin is wiped off your face and transferred onto his. He looks smug now, enjoying your reaction.

“I hate assassins,” you whisper in disbelief. “You were listening? I thought you fucking left!”

“You were having an abnormally loud conversation,” he says with a shrug. “And if I’m not mistaken– you’ve also been quite mean to me. Seems that I’m not the only one with a crush. I might be the only one between the two of us to admit it, though.”

You could only stare at him, feeling your face warm. You could say it was the alcohol– something that he couldn’t do. Your pride was getting in the way again. There was something in his voice that irritated you to no end.

“I never not said it,” you mutter, crossing your arms over your chest. “I’m not a liar either, Sergeant.”

“Sergeant, huh?” he asks, raising his eyebrows at you teasingly.

You roll your eyes at him. “Shut the hell up, Barnes. I really could just go back to pretending you don’t exist. Maybe I’ll pick fights with you again. For fun this time, since I know how you feel.”

“Yeah? And how do I feel?”

“You like me. Romantically. Maybe you wanna kiss me as much as I do,” you challenged.

“Oh, sweetheart, I wanna do more than just kiss you,” he chuckled, shaking his head.

“Then why don’t you?” you ask, tilting your head. It’s his turn to pause, to stare at you. You know you’re daring him– pushing him now. And you’re waiting with bated breath to see if he pulls through.

Part of you wonders if he actually does like you, or if you've been somehow misinterpreting his words this entire time. That was always the possibility. After all, it was only last week that you were cursing out the man into hell.

After a few more beats pass between you two without any movement, you let out a small huff and stand. You grab your plate and your empty bottle, heading towards the kitchen.

“Knew you were full of shit, Barnes,” you say, throwing the tease over your shoulder as you go to clean up your mess.

You often forget how quiet Bucky is when he wants to be. You barely got the plate in the sink before he’s behind you— both hands on either side of your body, caging you in against the sink as he presses his chest to your back. You can feel the warmth of his body radiating against yours, the thump of his heartbeat. Then, his lips are near your ear.

“Would you let me?”

His voice is barely above a whisper. If he wasn’t so close, you wouldn’t have heard him. You wouldn’t have been able to pick up on the husk of the words, the slight desperation behind it. You can only swallow before you nod once. A metal hand slides over your waist, pulling you even closer to his body.

“Gotta hear you say it,” he murmurs, dropping his forehead to your shoulder.

“Yes.”

A moment passes between you before his lips press against the side of your neck. You let out a sigh at the feel. It’s exactly like when he tended to your wounds– a ghost of a touch, barely brushing against your skin. Almost as if he’s afraid to hold you closer.

“Is this okay?” he whispers, and you nod again, leaning into him. Bucky hums, and then he shifts a little. He moves your hair out of the way, and presses a soft kiss to the scar on the back of your neck. You tense slightly at the feeling, and he feels it. Immediately, he rubs circles into your waist with his fingers, trying to comfort you. You let out a shaky breath, and allow him a few more kisses at the sensitive spot before turning in his arms.

��All you’re gonna do is kiss my neck?” you ask quietly, resting your arms on his shoulders.

“If that’s all you want,” he replies, and you know he means it. He won't go any further if you tell him not to. You shake your head.

“No. Want more,” you tell him, and his grip on you tightens just slightly. He’s hesitating, and you can feel it. You decide to move forward, to close the remaining distance between the two of you.

His lips are soft, just as you thought they would be. They feel even better against your own. You give him one soft kiss, just to test the waters, but he comes back for another one. Bucky fully crowds your space, his flesh hand cupping your face as he tilts your head upwards to him, to make it easier for him to deepen the kiss.

You sigh against him, relaxing in his embrace. He’s warm. This is the same warmth you felt in the forest, the same warmth he gave you when he wrapped your wounds. You were certain he would continue to wrap you in this warmth if you gave him the chance.

Bucky’s tongue swipes against your bottom lip, just slightly, quietly asking for entry. You grant it, and meet his tongue with your own. He lets out a soft groan against your mouth, and the feel and sound of him sends shockwaves through your body. You want more of him– you want him closer to you.

He seems to feel the same, both hands reaching to pull you upwards, easily taking you into his arms. Your legs rest on either side of him now, and your ankles lock behind his back to help hold yourself in place as he begins to move out of the kitchen and towards the bedroom.

All the while, he never stops kissing you. Your lips, your jaw, your neck, and your collarbone. By the end of the night, you’re certain that there will no longer be a part of your body that Bucky has not claimed as his.

You’re gently laid down onto your back with such care it almost makes you want to cry. He hovers above you, a hand stopping just below the hem of your shirt. He’s touching your skin directly, but not moving any further. He’s pressing himself onto you, and you can feel his growing length against your thigh. You need more of him. You push on his chest, freeing yourself momentarily.

“Shit– I’m sorry–” he quickly scrambles to say, but you cut him off with the swift removal of your shirt.

“Your turn,” you tell him, tugging on his t-shirt. His eyes trail over you, the exposed skin you graced him with, and he wets his lips before nodding wordlessly.

“Yes, ma’am,” he finally speaks when he finds his words. You smile– Bucky’s a soldier through and through.

After discarding his shirt somewhere behind him, he descends upon you once more. His hands are touching you again, this time without anything stopping him. The metal has already warmed up from its constant tracing of your body, from kneading your breast while his mouth takes hold of the opposite. You let out a needy whine, hands threading through his hair as you close your eyes.

He nips at your skin, making you jump briefly before looking back down at him.

“Eyes on me, sweetheart,” he whispers to you. His eyes seem darker– pupils blown out and swallowing the steely blue eyes that you adore. The pure need all over his face makes you shudder, and your heart jumps in your chest again as you nod at him.

You feel him before you see him. His hand trailing down to the waistband of your shorts, then dipping down and beneath the fabric.

“Bucky,” you sigh as his fingers come into contact with your core. He’s ghosting again; simply spreading your slick over your folds to get a feel of your arousal. He lets out a soft moan, and swallows thickly.

“All this for me? I’m flattered,” he tells you with a small smirk.

“Bucky,” you say again, with more desperation.

“I could probably slide right in without even doing anything to prepare you,” he continues, trailing kisses up your chest. “You want that? You want me to stretch you and fill you with my cock?”

Despite his words, he presses a single digit into your entrance. You let out a gasp, your hips bucking to meet his hand. Bucky coos in your ear, the heel of his palm pressing against that sensitive bundle of nerves to stimulate it just a little as you grind against his hand.

“Don’t tease me,” you whine, though relishing in the way he nips at the space just below your ear.

“Need you to tell me you want me, doll,” he hums.

“Your hand is in my shorts, and you still need me to say it?” you ask, dumbfounded.

“What’s with the sudden attitude?” Bucky clicks his tongue in disapproval, and a second finger joins in, making you moan. He hums, satisfied with your reaction. “I like you better when you’re like this.”

“Oh, fuck you,” you breathe, eyes fluttering shut as his fingers find a slow, lazy pace to thrust in and out of you.

“That’s the plan. Did you forget–” Bucky pulls out his fingers until only the tips are left inside, before slamming them hard inside of you. You can’t help the moan that escapes your lips, and you grab onto his arms for support. "-to keep your eyes on me?”

You comply because what else are you supposed to do? He has you under him, at his mercy, and you simply need more of him. Bucky can see it on your face, the way you’ll fall apart for him. He’s craving it.

“Good girl,” he whispers, humming with approval now.

“You’re so fucking annoying,” you tell him, though your body is betraying your words. Bucky only smiles in response, and catches your lips with his own. His fingers leave you moments later, and you find yourself regretting your comment. You’re about to pull away, and take it back when he starts sliding both your shorts and underwear down your legs in one fluid motion.

You didn’t even realize he had taken off his sweatpants earlier.

“Not so annoying now, huh, sweetheart?” he chuckles against your lips.

“Can you shut the fuck up and fuck me?” you whine, wrapping your arms around his neck.

Bucky pulls away from you. You’re breathless, confused, and looking at him. He has his hands planted on either side of your head, and he’s staring at you. His face is suddenly serious. It makes your heart stutter with anxiety.

“This can’t be a one time thing,” he whispers, his jaw clenching. “If you don’t feel the same about me– I can’t do this.”

“Wouldn’t even let you touch me like this if I didn’t feel the same way,” you tell him, reaching to touch his face. Bucky lets out a breath, one of relief, as he leans into your touch. His eyes close as his head drops just slightly, like the weight of the world had just been lifted off of his shoulders. “You still need to let me throw you on the mat. Want you on your back.”

“You can have me on my back anytime you want, doll. Right now, you’re staying on yours,” he replies, and comes back down to you.

He’s warm. Extremely warm. His skin is on fire, but you’re not sure if that’s heat that’s radiating off of him or if it’s you. Either way, you feel like you’re about to explode when he finally presses into you. Bucky’s forehead presses against yours, mouth agape as he slowly stretches through your walls.

“Tight,” he grunts, hands on your hips tightening, “so fuckin’ hot and wet– God, doll. You tryna kill me here?”

“Maybe,” you manage to answer him. You’re struggling as much as he is. The stretch is delicious. He’s just as long as he is girthy, and he really didn’t do much to prepare you earlier– but it makes it all the more pleasurable.

He takes a few moments to breathe when he finally bottoms out, pelvis pressed right against yours before he sets the pace. It’s slow, calculated. He’s savoring every inch of you, not wanting to miss a single moment. It’s driving you insane in the best way possible. You can feel every vein in every thrust, every twitch and every jump of his cock as you clench around him.

Bucky never stops praising you throughout.

“So pretty,” he says, eyes roaming all over your body as one hand lets go of your hip to begin to thumb at your clit. You gasp at the feeling– the contrast of tight, quick, small circles being rubbed against the slow and controlled movements of his hips. “So good for me.”

“Shit, Bucky,” you moan, fingernails digging into his shoulders. He groans at the feeling, eyes closing briefly before he opens them and looks between you two– looks at the connecting point where one of you starts and the other ends.

There’s nothing rough or hard about the moment. He doesn’t take you like a wild animal– he’s cradling you in his arms and holding you tight, letting you feel exactly what you do to him. You feel warm under his gaze.

It’s only a matter of time before your release catches up to you, and threatens to shove you over the edge. Bucky can feel it– the fluttering of your walls and the way your body is beginning to tense under his.

“There you go, doll,” he urges, panting. There’s a sheen of sweat on his body as he swallows, taking in the full sight of you. “Let go. Wanna see you fall apart under me.”

You can’t deny him what he asks you so nicely for.

Moments after, Bucky follows you right off the same cliff. You feel his thrusts grow sloppier, hear his breaths go ragged, and then the warmth of his orgasm filling you completely full.

He’s kissing you throughout the whole thing, continuing to sing your praises as he rides out his high before he pulls you into his arms with his cock softening inside you. You almost whimper at the feeling of him leaving you.

Bucky’s hand is in your hair, massaging your scalp and the base of your skull as he holds you to his chest. You sigh into him, closing your eyes as you let his warmth once again wrap around you and keep you safe.

“I like you,” you finally confess to him, your voice just barely above a whisper. Bucky lets out a laugh, the rumble of his chest comforting you as you listen.

“I figured,” he chuckles. “I like you, too.”

“Mhm. I know,” you say with a grin. Bucky shakes his head, but you’re certain that there’s a smile on his face.

“Rest up, sweetheart. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”

Your ears are ringing, and the world is spinning around you. You can’t see properly. Everything seems blurred for some reason. There’s two, maybe four of everything around you. In the distance, you can hear the sound of crackling and fire, and someone screaming out your name. You blink slowly, or at least you think you are. Time is moving at an unnatural speed.

All at once, everything comes crashing back to you, just as you are brought back to your feet, hands on your arms. Bucky is in front of you, a gash on his head with blood rushing down the side of his temple. Worry is painted all over his features, and you’re unsure why. He’s saying things to you, but you can’t understand him. You can’t hear him over the ringing. From the shape of his lips, it looks like he’s saying your name.

Bucky gets increasingly frustrated, but you do have to admit he still looks handsome even like this. There’s dirt and soot on him, along with sweat on his brow from how he must have been fighting his way down to you, down to the cells.

Fighting?

You gasp sharply as reality hits you once more, steadying yourself in his grasp.

“You back with me, doll?” he asks, his voice gruff.

“Yeah, yeah,” you nod quickly, and immediately regret the movement. You close your eyes tight, trying to will away the dizzy spell that comes over you.

“Fuck happened here?” Bucky whispers, looking around. “Where are the enhanced–”

Bucky cuts himself off, and looks back at you. Your jaw is clenched as you stare down at your feet. Your breath is ragged. You’re trembling in his arms. You’re injured in several areas, but you’re alive. That’s more than you can say for the fifty children that you came down here for.

“Where’s Talbot?” you ask, trying to keep your voice steady.

“Apprehended,” Bucky answers. “He… mentioned another kill switch. I ran down here to try to warn you, but I heard the explosion...”

You laugh dryly, nodding. Just moments ago, the kids were crying to you. You were telling them you had the release on their necks– that they were free. They were safe now. One of them asked about the one in their hearts. Your blood ran cold, and you froze. You didn’t even have time to turn around and search. The first child exploded in front of your eyes, and the rest followed like a chain reaction.

“There was another one. In their chest. They put another fucking one.”

“It’s not your fault, doll,” he whispers, and you shake your head. You don’t want to hear it right now. You can’t do this.

“We need to get out of here,” you say, changing the topic. “We’re several feet underground and that explosion definitely fucked up the infastructure. We’ll be buried if we don’t leave soon.”

Bucky doesn’t waste a second before scooping you in his arms, and sprinting to where he came from. You don’t fight him this time, either. Your body is protesting from just his movements alone as he carries you. There has to be a broken rib or two in your body, along with another fracture somewhere in your leg. You were too close to the explosion. Whether you like it or not, your enhancements wouldn’t let you die so easily.

The lights above ground let you know the operation was a success, all things considered. The mastermind was taken in. Now, they would be able to go through his personal assets and find out where his labs were and put an end to everything. Maybe they would be able to free those children.

You don’t think you would ever be free of the faces of the kids that you saw down there.

You’re carried into the jet, and you vaguely hear Bucky say that your part of the mission is over with. The two of you would be heading home now– you both sustained injuries that require immediate attention. It’s only then that you snap out of your own head.

You look at him– really look at him. There’s more than just the blood on his head. There’s a bruise and cut on his cheek. His tactical gear is ripped and cut open in some places. There’s dark spots on his body that could or could not be his own blood. You see the slight limp in his walk when he finally sets you down in a seat.

The two of you are in the air before you know it, a heavy silence between the two of you. Bucky’s across from you. His eyes are closed shut, head leaning back against the wall of the jet. You know what he’s thinking of, too.

Then, you shift. You ignore the sharp pain in your body screaming at you, and you sit down next to him. He opens his eyes to look at you, questioning. Then, he sees it. The soft golden glow from under your palms, and the change of colors in your irises.

“No, sweetheart,” he says, shaking his head as he tries to lower your hands. “Save your energy. Your injuries are a hell of a lot worse than mine.”

“Let me help someone tonight,” you whisper– no, you beg him. Bucky’s lips part, and he lets out a shaky breath before he relaxes in his seat. He doesn’t make a move to argue with you again.

You let your hands hover over his temples first, concentrating your powers on the gash on his head while also reaching for the rest of his body. You can see it. The broken rib, the fractured wrist, the sprained ankle. There’s multiple, deep cuts on his body from when he must’ve gone against several armed guards, and maybe a few older enhanced humans.

Slowly but surely, each pathway to the injury closes off. You can see the stiffness in his body disappear, the crease in his forehead begin to smooth out as you take his pain away. You reverse the damage that had been done to him, and you save one person tonight.

When he opens his eyes, you watch as his face softens. He reaches for you now, hands cupping your face. His thumbs brush right under your eyes, wiping away tears that you didn’t know had fallen.

Just like that, you crumble and fall apart in his arms. He holds you tight on the way home, careful of the injuries that he isn’t sure you have, but keeps his hold strong to ground you all the same. He’s the only one listening as you wail in the jet, and no words pass between the two of you.

When you arrived at the base, there was already a gurney and team of medical staff waiting for your landing. Bucky carried you out of the jet, and laid you there, barking out orders to hurry up and get you examined.

You spent a week in the medical ward. Dr. Cho was flown out from Seoul to take care of you, and get you back into shape as soon as possible.

“It’s not what you can do, but it’s the next best thing,” she told you with a gentle smile.

In that same week, you denied all visitors to your room. You wanted to be alone. You got alerts from F.R.I.D.A.Y. that each of the team members had tried visiting at least once, but you didn’t allow access. Even to Bucky– who came by every single day. Sometimes, he came multiple times a day. It was only Fury who came in, the only person that you couldn’t just turn away without proper reason.

“The labs have been found,” he informed you as you stared at the pristine white sheets you were under. “Another hundred kids were taken in, all under the age of twelve. All of them are alive, as they haven’t had the final stage of the experiments done to them yet. They’re in recovery in a safe location to rehabilitate.”

“And their parents?” you asked him, your voice small.

“We’re working on locating all of them,” Fury said. “Along with all the parents of the deceased.”

You nodded slowly, biting the inside of your cheek. “I want to quit.”

“Rejected,” he denied immediately. Your head snapped up to him, and he’s staring at you with a raised eyebrow. “Those kids need someone that understands what they have been through to teach them how to live. How to survive the shit they’ve been through.”

You pause, the words weighing in your mind. “I killed them, Fury,” you whispered, desperation in your voice. You feel like crying again. “I– I don’t even know how to survive the shit that I’ve been through!”

“Give it some thought. If you really want to quit, come talk to me after you’re discharged,” he told you, then turned to leave.

You’re discharged within another week. In that same week, Tony bypasses the order you gave to F.R.I.D.A.Y. and storms into your room with a gown in hand. He’s throwing another party– one to celebrate you and Bucky’s successful mission and to gather donations for the rehabilitation center for the children.

You really tried to skip out of it, tell him that you weren’t interested in a party after everything that you’d been through. You even asked him if he read the mission report.

“I did,” he said with a nod. “And all I can say is that I’ve fucked up, too. I have blood on my hands that I’ll never be able to wash away. You, me– all of us on this team. We’re all the same.”

“Tony, please,” you begged. “I can’t just go to a party after that.”

“Then, don’t think of it as a party for your honor,” Tony said, and hung the dress up across from your hospital bed. “Think of it as a distraction. One night to get away from the demons in your head, to enjoy yourself. You deserve a break, too.”

You couldn’t fight against him on that. Not when you realize that he was just trying to cheer you up in the only way that he knew how to.

The party is the first time you see the rest of the team since your departure for the mission. Once again, no one asks questions. No one pries. You’re certain they all read the mission report, and they know why you requested for the time to be alone while you healed.

The girls greeted you with a smile, Natasha immediately mixing you a drink of something fruity that was strong, but not strong enough to make you dull the ache in your chest as you watched the world continue to spin around you without you moving in it.

“Barnes has been distracted these past two weeks,” Natasha says, bumping your hip with her as you stand at the bar in between her and Wanda. “He jumps at the mention of your name.”

“Just worried,” you say with a sigh.

“Sure, but he never was like that before. Did something happen while you two were out on the field?” Wanda grins at you.

You want to smile at them. You really do. You want to indulge in the girl talk. You want to feel the embarrassment and shyness as you confess that you do have feelings for Bucky and that you both had acted upon those feelings, but you just can’t.

It was nothing against Bucky, or anything that he did. You don’t feel worthy of those feelings for him. The last two weeks of silence, of being in your own head– you realize that the words he used to spit at you with fire may have been more true than you wanted to admit.

You were a liability. You were too close to the mission. You were emotional and reckless– you didn’t double, triple check the situation. You wanted to be a hero, to save lives. At the end of it, you didn’t even walk out of there on your own two feet.

You didn’t even succeed in your own mission– to save the hostages. He succeeded in his– to apprehend Talbot. He was right, at the end of the day. You knew he was. Even if he had already reassured you, whispered to you in your ear that he didn’t mean it like that, you were starting to believe there was someone out there that did.

How could you face him now?

You excuse yourself, murmuring something about fresh air. You ignore the way both of the girls share a look with each other, and let your feet carry you out the door to the rooftop.

You sat out on the terrace, watching the skyline. The compound was far away from the city, but you were still able to see the twinkling lights in the distance.

Here, you thought about everything. Your place. Your thoughts were taking a dangerous turn. You no longer felt worthy of this team. Of having these powers that could help people when nothing you did aided. You didn’t feel worthy of the feelings that Bucky had for you– the respect and care and worry that he secretly held all this time.

“Been waiting everyday at the gym for you to throw me, you know?”

Just his voice alone was enough to melt away the self loathing that you threw yourself into. You looked over your shoulder, seeing him walk towards you, a hand in his pocket, a whiskey glass in the other.

“Been drafting up my resignation letter,” you respond softly. “Don’t think we need to continue training anymore.”

Bucky comes up beside you, placing his glass beside yours on the ledge. He lets out a breath as he leans against the stone, and looks at you.

“I’m really not good at comforting people, doll. Can you help me out here?” he asks. He’s trying to make the tone light. Trying to cheer you up.

You give him a tight smile, and shake your head. “I couldn’t save them.”

“If you’re going to blame anyone, blame me. My earpiece– it broke. Got knocked out. I couldn’t reach you fast enough. If I was more careful–”

“I should’ve done more research,” you cut him off. Bucky looks helpless at your words. “It was my mission. Not yours… And it will haunt me forever.”

Bucky lets out a deep breath through his nose, then wets his lips. Thinking. Then, he reaches for your hand, tugging on it. He’s pulling you away– bringing you somewhere else.

“What are you doing?” you ask. Your voice sounds tired. It doesn’t sound like you.

“I can’t make the nightmares go away,” he whispers, looking down briefly as he continues to lead you away from the edge of the terrace. “I can’t make it all stop hurting, but I was sent on that mission with you as your dance partner. We didn’t even dance. You're gonna let me fail at the mission given to me, sweetheart?”

You can’t help the laugh that exits your lips as he brings you to the middle of the rooftop. He smiles at the sound, and stops before you. He guides your hands onto his shoulders, then comfortably rests his on your waist.

“Just for right now, you and I can forget all the bad stuff,” he says.

“Is that really okay?” you ask him, lifting your eyes to meet his. He shrugs a little, and smiles more.

“They’re playing our song right now, doll. Can’t be sad when we’re together,” he tells you, and leads you in a dance.

The music from inside is loud enough to carry outdoors, to where the two of you are. At this moment, you let Bucky take the lead. He holds you against him as you sway together, breaking away only for a moment so he can take your hand and spin you around like a princess in a movie. The action makes you giggle just a little bit, and you miss the soft look in his eyes as he watches you.

You don’t know how much time has passed like this– with him. All you know is your head is against his chest, fitting perfectly in the crook of his neck. He’s humming along to the song as he leans his own head against yours. You can feel his heart beating, and distinctly realize yours is beating in the same time.

“Stay here. Stay with me,” he finally speaks, breaking the silence between the two of you.

You’re quiet for a few moments. The pain won’t go away in one night. Bucky isn’t claiming that he can make it disappear, either… but being in his arms dulls the ache in a way that you know that you can’t do by yourself.

“Will you complain if I go on a mission with you again?”

Bucky lets out a small laugh before lifting his head, pulling back to look at your face. A hand comes to cup your face. “How long will you be holding that against me?”

“Depends on how long you think we have together,” you respond, leaning into his touch.

“Forever, then,” he confirms, smiling down at you before the familiar feel of his lips press against yours.

taglist: @duacruel @natsomens **let me know if you would like to be added to a general bucky taglist for whenever i post a fic for him :)**

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witchywithwhiskey · 2 days ago

Text

what good girls get after movie night

pairing: bucky barnes x female reader

summary: movie night in avengers tower gets interesting when you and bucky barnes test the limits of your secret relationship.

warnings: 18+ content (minors dni!!!), thunderbolts* spoilers, smut, pwp, piv sex, unprotected sex, creampie, vaginal fingering, edging/orgasm denial, multiple orgasms, come eating, semi-public fooling around (under a blanket during movie night), 'need to be quiet so we don't get caught' trope, sneaking around/secret relationship, dirty talk, light degradation, praise kink, teasing, biting, pet names (sweetheart, baby), established relationship, both bucky and reader are members of the new avengers—let me know if i missed something!

word count: 3.1k

a/n: here's my first ever entry for @buckybarnesevents's Hot Bucky Summer event!! idk yet how many weeks i'll be able to write for, but i'm gonna try to do a couple at least. and to start us off, we've got a very dirty Bucky Barnes and some New Avengers tower shenanigans 😅 hope y'all enjoy! ♡

prompt: “Mind your own damn business.” | [Secret Sex/Relationship | Embarrassment | Denial]

It was movie night in Avengers Tower—or rather, New Avengers Tower—and you plopped down in one of the end seats of the overstuffed couches in the lounge.

You always made sure to show up early so you didn’t end up crammed between John Walker and Ava Starr. Their bickering could ruin any movie.

Sure enough, the pair entered the lounge not long after you, arguing about who won some sparring match during their training that day, and whether it was cheating for Ava to use her powers. She was threatening to phase into his room and stab him while he slept as they took their seats on another couch.

You breathed a sigh of relief that they weren’t sitting near you. The seat next to you was still open, and you had hopes for who would take it—though you tried not to look hopeful as the others filtered in.

Alexei Shostakov, Yelena Belova and Bob Reynolds entered the lounge a few minutes later. Yelena flopped down on the floor, while Bob sat on the couch closest to her, the two of them having a conversation that was much more civil than the continued bickering between John and Ava, which had devolved into threats of bodily harm.

Alexei went straight for the remote to the massive TV before settling into the lounge’s only recliner armchair. Everyone had long ago agreed that was always his spot because he fell asleep five minutes into the movie and snored like a fighter jet mid-battle.

Just before Alexei hit play on the movie, Bucky Barnes slipped into the lounge and took the empty seat next to you. Immediately, your heart began to beat a little faster, and you tried to hide your joy as you looked around at the others on the team.

You’d spent hours wondering whether everyone else knew you and Bucky were sneaking around together, trying to keep your relationship secret so it wouldn’t get back to Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. Neither you nor Bucky knew how Val would react, and you both figured it was easier not to find out.

That night, no one was paying you and Bucky any mind—Yelena was snapping at John to shut up while Alexei’s recliner creaked loudly as he settled into it. You figured they either hadn’t noticed how close Bucky was sitting to you, or they didn’t care.

Knowing The New Avengers as you did, you truly couldn’t determine which was more likely to be true.

Finally, the movie began. The sound was turned up to a nearly deafening level, and you let your worries about what the team did or didn’t know fall away.

A few minutes in, Bucky grabbed a blanket from the back of the couch and he casually tossed it over the two of you. When you looked at him and caught his eye, the ghost of a smirk danced at the edge of his mouth, and you shot him the barest smile in return.

Glancing around the room, you made sure everyone was engrossed in the movie before curling into Bucky’s side. You threw your legs over his thigh while his metal arm wrapped around your shoulders, tucking you into his body.

Ducking your head, you hid a pleased smile as you got comfortable. Your body relaxed into Bucky, your fingers holding the blanket up to your chin so it covered as much of your entwined limbs as possible.

Snuggled up with your secret boyfriend, you settled in to watch the movie in peace. But Bucky had other ideas.

While everyone else was focused on the TV, Bucky shifted so he was curled more around you, his hand slipping onto your knee beneath the blanket.

Just that touch had tingles of warmth dancing up your thighs to settle heavily between your legs, your body already beginning to crave Bucky’s. But with the team littered throughout the room, you did your best to ignore your reaction to Bucky’s touch.

Then, oh so slowly, Bucky began to slide his hand up your thigh. His palm was blazingly hot through the thin cotton of your leggings, teasing you with his heat when you truly wanted him to be touching your bare skin.

The higher his hand got, the less you could ignore it. Especially when his fingers dug into the soft flesh of your thigh, earning a choked whine from you.

“Bucky,” you gasped on the softest exhale you could manage, well aware that there were two other super-soldiers in the room. No matter how loud the TV was, there was always a chance someone would hear you, or—god forbid—sense you another way. “We can’t.”

Lifting your head, you looked around the lounge with quick, sharp eyes.

Thankfully, Alexei was already asleep, the loud rumbling of his snores drowning out the quieter moments of the movie. Bob looked totally engrossed in the TV and Yelena was playing with one of her knives while she kept an eye on Ava and John, who were bickering again, though about what you couldn’t tell.

“Shh, sweetheart, watch the movie,” Bucky murmured teasingly in your ear, clearly having done his own sweep of the room and noting that no one was paying any attention to the two of you.

Bucky took advantage of the team’s distraction to slide his hand even higher up your thigh, until his big palm was cupping your pussy through your leggings. It was all you could do to bite down on your plush lower lip and hold back the sharp gasp that wanted to escape. His hand was so big and it felt so good pressing between your thighs.

A smirk slashed across Bucky’s face, his hungry eyes watching your expression closely so he could devour each and every one of your reactions. He pressed his fingers into your throbbing slit, watching as your lips dropped open and your eyes went hazy from the pleasure pulsing in your pussy.

He kept rubbing your cunt, and you knew the moment he realized you weren’t wearing any panties under your leggings because a soft growl rumbled in his chest. You’d already soaked through your leggings, and you were certain his fingers were growing wetter and wetter with every swipe of your pussy.

“You’re such a little slut, baby,” Bucky purred, ducking his head so his mouth was right against your cheek. You could feel the rasp of his stubble against your skin, and you squirmed on his lap, trapping his hand between your thighs, which only made him chuckle. “You wanted this, didn’t you, sweetheart?”

His words were so condescending and filthy, they had your heart racing in your chest, battering against your ribs. Embarrassment heated your cheeks, but you didn’t protest Bucky’s accusation—because he was right. You had foregone wearing panties hoping it would give Bucky easier access to do exactly what he was doing.

“You wanted to fool around during movie night, didn’t you, baby?” Bucky murmured, his impish grin pressed into your cheek. “You wanted me to rub your bare pussy through your leggings while the rest of the team are right here.”

It was so dirty, what the two of you were doing, but you didn’t want to stop. So even though his last words weren’t a question, you nodded. You lifted your eyes and looked at Bucky from under your lashes, letting him see all the naked desire in your expression.

Bucky’s grin widened, turning wolfish and hungry as his eyes sparkled in the dim blue light of the TV. His hand rubbed your pussy harder, thumb pressing tight circles into your clit, dragging you tenaciously toward the edge of your release.

“They could catch us at any second,” he warned, his voice still low enough that only you could hear. “And then they’d know just what a filthy little slut you are for me, huh?”

“Bucky, please,” you rasped on a stifled sob, turning your head and burying your face in Bucky’s neck. Your shoulders trembled, fingers curling into fists as you clung to his t-shirt. The pleasure rolling through your body was made even more overwhelming by the need to keep quiet.

“Don’t worry, baby, I won’t let them catch us,” Bucky rumbled soothingly, his hand between your thighs slowing to draw out your pleasure. “You just be a good little slut—stay quiet and let me play with your sweet, greedy cunt during the movie.”

“Yes, sir,” you whispered into Bucky’s neck, pressing a kiss to his skin as you spread your legs wider for him beneath the blanket.

“Good girl,” he cooed against your temple, making you quiver from the pleasure.

For a long while, Bucky rubbed your dripping cunt through your leggings, getting the fabric soaking wet while stoking your pleasure to a constant, burning heat. He was merciless, playing with your clit and your puffy pussy lips as if trying to get you to slip up and make a sound.

For your part, all you could do was try to be good. You muffled your moans in the warmth of Bucky’s neck, huffing out soft mewls and breathless whimpers that were drowned out by the movie playing on the TV and Alexei’s snores.

When you thought Bucky was going to edge you like that for the entire movie, he pulled his hand from between your thighs. Without warning, everything sharpened around you, your mind surfacing from the haze of constant pleasure.

Despite the reprieve from his torture, you nearly whined at the sudden loss of Bucky’s touch. Your fingers curled tighter in the soft cotton of his t-shirt and you were about to say something—but then he hooked his fingers around the waistband of your leggings and slid his big hand inside.

Bucky’s warm, calloused fingers pushed between the messy, swollen lips of your pussy, and the feeling was so good—so filthy and exquisite—that you were nearly helpless to it. At the last second, you ducked your head and sank your teeth into the hard muscle of his pecs to stifle the moan that demanded to spill free.

A grunt came from Bucky when you bit him, and you lifted your head in time to catch him glancing furtively around the room. When it was clear that everyone else was distracted by the movie or each other, you both breathed a sigh of relief.

Bucky’s fingers, which had stilled against your pussy, slipped deeper between your thighs. Two pushed into your hole, spearing you open and sinking inside you to the knuckle. They stretched you deliciously, stroking against your sensitive inner walls, and for a moment, you forgot yourself.

“Oh god, Bucky,” you breathed on a sigh of delight, pushing your face into his neck in a belated attempt to muffle your sounds of pleasure. He smelled like salt and leather and you wanted to lick him and moan with abandon.

“Shh, ya gotta be quiet, sweetheart,” Bucky chided you, his tone warm with affectionate teasing. “You don’t want anyone catching us, do you?”

Pleasure was throbbing through your body, so sharp and insistent, you could hardly bring yourself to care about getting caught anymore. You just wanted some relief—you wanted to come.

“Need you,” you whined as quietly as you could manage. “Please,” you begged pitifully, tugging weakly on Bucky’s shirt, as if that would sway him toward giving you what you wanted.

A reprimanding growl rumbled in Bucky’s chest and when he spoke, his mouth brushed against your ear, his words filling your head.

“If you can be a good girl and be quiet for the rest of the movie, I’ll take you back to my room and show you what good girls get,” he said, and then, as if deciding to make his point even clearer, he went on. “Good girls get to come on my big, fat cock while I spill my seed in their greedy, hungry cunt.”

His words were a lightning bolt straight to your pussy, and you nearly moaned again. You had to bite down on the base of Bucky’s throat to stifle the sound, and as soon as it passed, you pulled your mouth away to respond.

“I can be good—I can be good, I swear,” you promised in a rushed babble, a whine in your tone as you nodded your head against Bucky’s shoulder.

“Good girl,” Bucky purred in your ear, his metal arm tightening around your shoulders and tucking you deeper into his chest. All the while, his fingers fucked your dripping hole slowly, torturously, ramping up your pleasure before easing you back down.

Bucky brought you to the edge three more times before the movie ended, rumbling in your ear to be a good girl and not come on his fingers so he could reward you later. It was a near thing each time, but you managed it, your body trembling more and more beneath the blanket concealing your bodies.

He’d let you wind down after each edge while he slipped his hand from your leggings and licked your desire from his fingers. His eyes would glimmer with barely leashed lust as he held your gaze, making you watch him taste you while you quivered in his arms. Then he’d start the process all over again.

By the time the movie was over, you were wound so tight, you knew you’d explode the second Bucky slid his cock into your aching, hungry cunt. And you couldn’t wait another minute for that release.

The second the credits began to roll, you yanked Bucky’s hand from your leggings, the super-soldier letting you free his fingers with a low chuckle. Then you tossed the blanket off your overheated bodies and hopped up, heading straight for the door with Bucky hot on your heels.

“Where are you two going?” John called as you tried to make a hasty escape, drawing all eyes to you and Bucky. “Don’t tell me you guys are tired already, we only watched one movie! Bucky might be ancient, but what’s your excuse, rookie?”

“Mind your own damn business, Walker,” you snarled, hurling the comment over your shoulder as you picked up your pace.

You didn’t care anymore if the team knew about you and Bucky and what you got up to when you were alone in the tower. All you could think about was the pounding pulse between your thighs and your need for release.

Looking over your shoulder, you caught Bucky’s eye, and he looked just as desperate and hungry as you felt. With a jolt of understanding, you realized he didn’t care if anyone else knew either, and the thought made you smile happily at him. His wolfish grin answered you and urged you on.

As the two of you retreated from the lounge, you heard John whining to the others, “What’d I say?” The last thing you heard was everyone else—save for Alexei, who was still asleep in his chair—laugh at him.

Once you were out of sight of the team, Bucky hauled you over his shoulder and took off. He jogged through the winding hallways of the tower until he got to his room. There, he pushed quickly through the door and locked it behind him, before tossing you down on the bed.

“Leggings off now, unless you want me to tear them off you,” Bucky growled, already yanking his clothes off.

You grinned at his impatience, as if he wasn’t the one who’d tortured you for the last two hours by edging you during movie night. But you decided to save your teasing for later, because you wanted him too badly to say anything. Instead, you just tore of your own clothes as quickly as you could.

Then Bucky was on you, his hips bullying between your legs, his cock smacking against your wet, needy pussy. Your thighs spread wide to welcome him into your body, your lips parting on an obscene moan when he crushed you into the bed with his heavy form.

In one thrust, he was inside you, and you let loose an uninhibited scream of pleasure that filled his room, bouncing off the walls and shattering the stillness of the night.

Just as you’d predicted, you came the moment Bucky slid home inside your pussy, your release helped along by the way he was grinding the base of his cock into your clit. He knew exactly what he was doing, pushing you over the edge with relentless efficiency.

And you were helpless to it. The pleasure coursing through you, crashing over you in blissful waves had you trembling and whimpering beneath him, riding out the overwhelming release with your thighs wrapped tight around his waist.

“That’s it, sweetheart, you’re coming like a perfect little slut on my cock,” Bucky praised you, brushing kisses to your cheeks before capturing your lips in a filthy kiss. “You were such a good girl, so quiet and perfect for me while I played with your pretty pussy.”

Bucky started rolling his hips, thrusting into you with deep strokes of his cock, filling you up over and over again. You could feel the twitching and throbbing of his hard length, but he didn’t let up, just set a brutal pace, pounding into your cunt. Before your release had even fully subsided, he was urging you toward another.

Gripping your jaw in one hand while he braced himself on his metal arm, Bucky held your face still, his eyes locked on yours. There was a promise of pleasure in his feral gaze, in the slash of a smirk on his face, and you couldn’t help the eager grin that pulled at your lips at his next words.

“Now it’s time for me to show you what good girls get after movie night.”

Bucky Barnes was a man of his word, and show you he did. He fucked you long and hard, making you come so many times you lost count, until the evidence of your pleasure was seen in the uncontrollable quivering of your exhausted thighs and the amount of come—both his and yours—making a mess as it spilled from your body.

Meanwhile, the rest of the New Avengers team gave Bucky’s room a wide berth for the night. They all had a good idea about what the two of you got up to when you slipped away from the others to be alone; they all knew about your “secret” relationship and your not-so-secret cuddling during movie night. (Thankfully, that was all they knew about.)

Well, everyone knew about you and Bucky Barnes except John Walker. But he was always the last to figure out anything.

All told, it was a pretty standard movie night in the New Avengers Tower.

thanks for reading!! comments and reblogs are always appreciated ♡

#hotbuckysummer2025 #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes smut #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes fic #witchywithwhiskeywork #established relationship #sebastian stan fanfiction #sebastian stan smut #sebastian stan characters #sebastian stan #thunderbolts #the new avengers

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shouyuus · 1 day ago

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I have a request based off of something that happened to me with my gf LMAO but if you could write a Vi and reader having ✨sesbian lex✨ and Vi suddenly gets a phone call. Instead of Stopping Vi covers reader’s mouth and answers the call, chatting normally as she continues to strap reader down and reader is struggling to stay quiet 👁️👁️ thanks pookie!

that's so hot pookie bless so glad u got to have that experience 👁️👁️

+18, mdni, carmech!vi bc i miss her wow

"n-ngh -- vi... r-right there --"

"yeah sweetness? like it when i fuck you right there?"

vi sounds a bit breathless, there's a light quirk to the side of her lips as she works her hips into yours, her strap hitting against a spot inside you that has your vision petering out at the edges. there's a heat curling in the base of your belly that makes your toes curl, your spine bend. you reach for her, sinking your fingers into her tightly corded forearms as she leans down to pin you back.

"fuck -- fuck -- you're so tight, pretty girl -- y'hear how wet you are for me?" she asks, even as you nod, a desperate bob of your head as she hoists your thigh over her hip to drill in all the deeper.

it's saturday afternoon, the air conditioner on full blast, the car garage empty for the heat. it'd been a slow kind of day, the kind where ennui tickles at the summer-stained corners of the imagination, threatening to set in. and when it does... well, there's only one thing for it --

"please, vi -- i'm gonna --"

she lets out a low groan, leaning down to suck a sloppy hickey against your shoulder. even though the pair of you have been together more than a year now, she's still as insatiable as when you'd just met her.

"that's it, c'mon princess -- cum for me, cum all over this strap like the good little girl you --"

the phone rings; her pace stutters.

you keen, squeezing your thighs around her hips, your heels digging into her back as she reaches for her cellphone and frowns down at the caller id. you shake your head vigorously, tugging at her arm.

"vi -- vi -- no don't --" you beg, because there's a dangerous smirk cresting her lips even as she presses a finger to them.

"shh... quiet princess, unless you want someone to hear," she murmurs, before swiping up and pressing the phone to her ear.

"heeeyyy silco, what's up? y'lookin for vander? he's out at a show in kansas -- oh yeah -- sure, we should still be good for dinner -- 7, at the bar, right?" vi rocks her hips down into yours and has to press her palm over your mouth to muffle your squeak.

"huh? no nothing -- just uh --" vi cocks an eyebrow down at you, swirling her hips, the feel of her strap dragging inside you nearly makes your eyes roll back. you clench down around her, biting down hard on your own lips to keep from making noise. she nods her approval before letting go of your mouth and straightening back up, resting her free hand on your hip to hold you still as she tugs back for a particularly hard thrust.

"-- doin' some maintenance work," she chuckles, "some of these screws are in a bit tight," she winks, pulling back and thrusting forward once more, "y'know how things get when they're not... worked out properly once in a while."

you squeeze your eyes shut, feeling the coil tighten inside you with every soft shallow thrust of her hips, the tip of the silicon strap nudging up against your g-spot till it's all you can do to keep from falling apart. you scrabble for her wrist, giving her a warning tug as she laughs at something silco says, glancing down at your with dark, blown-out eyes.

"yeah, i know, i know, you've always hated the shop talk -- kay, we'll see you at dinner -- yep, she'll be there too," vi says, before bidding her goodbyes and clicking off her phone. she sets it face down on the bedside table and before returning to the shape of you pinned beneath her.

"f-fuck vi... th-that's not --" you try to force out a coherent sentence, but vi only coos as she reaches down between you to flick playfully at your clit. immediately, your mouth falls open, and you jerk up against her. she laughs.

"mmm... i really do love it when you're tryna keep quiet for me princess..." she says, leaning down to brush her lips against yours. you yank her down for a kiss, fingers fisting in the choppy pink hair at the base of your skull. she groans into the kiss, fucking into you now with the kind of wild abandon you've come to know all too well.

within a minute, she has you shuddering apart, coming hard enough for the world to blink out for a few seconds, the air in your lungs to taste sweet and bitter all at once. she holds you down and chases her own climax, muttering the entire time about how hot you look, how much she loves it when you soak her strap like this. you keen as she collapses into you with a long breath, groaning into the sticky skin of your shoulder.

you run your fingers through her hair.

"really?" you ask, after a few steadying breaths, "a few tight screws?"

vi chuckles, pulling back with a lopsided shrug.

"what? wasn't exactly a lie."

"yeah? you really wanna compare our sex lives to car maintenance?"

vi pulls out and you crinkle your nose at the sudden loss of feeling. she leans down to press a kiss to the side of your knee before reaching for a napkin to wipe you down.

"'s not that different -- good, timely maintenance gets you a good, healthy, long run with your car," she says, tossing the napkin into a bin in the corner before offering you a mug of water. you take a sip before holding the mug up to her lips. she lets you tip some into her mouth, licking her lips as she works the harness off from around her hips.

"thanks princess," she says, leaning forward for a kiss. you watch her pull her tanktop back on, shimmying back into her boxer shorts.

"oh, you're good for dinner at silco's right? at 7?"

you cock an eyebrow, "you mean the dinner you already agreed to for me on the phone right now? while we were fucking?"

vi shoots you a cheeky smile.

"so... 7?"

you roll your eyes, tossing your underwear at her with a huff.

"get me a new pair of panties."

vi laughs, snatching your crumpled up underwear from the air and considers them for a brief second before pressing them into the back pocket of her cargo shorts.

"nah, think i like you without them."

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grotesquevi · 1 day ago

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ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ I WANNA BE THE TATTOO INK THAT SWIMS ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ DOWN THROUGH THE NEEDLE IN YOUR SKIN.

cw # 18+ mdni, public sex, use of strap-on (it’s refered as cock/dick too) strap sucking, use of pet names.

side note # if you recognize this, might be because this is a request from my previous blog vicorices (terminated blog 2025-2025 r.i.p) this is my new account. i'm trying to get all my writing back up slowly and with my whole heart. check out my arcane directory to see the process of re-uploading fics.

to be fair, sevika did want to marry, the thing was organizing a wedding.

you've been running non-stop the last months so she gets you're burnt out. your fianceé can be many things, but her patience it's a golden treat even when she don't have time to properly fuck you lately, she knows you'll be back to your own self after the celebration, and sevika’s not afraid of having to put up with your grumpy side any time of the day.

she can handle you, simple as a summer day with the air conditioner turned on. what she cannot handle instead, was that backstabbing shit you were pulling on her after being so well behaved, playing the part of an understanding wife until one of your friends give her the first photo and she has to look at it twice to be sure she's looking at it right, cause there's no way you're standing in a tiny polaroid picture wearing a purple set of underwear, comfortably laying around in bed — a bed you share with her every night.

it sends her into a spiral. the music is loud in a room full of celebrating guests and still, her mouth is suddenly dry and she feels like it has been a fucking year now without having sex, so dramatic as she's searching for you even when you're already looking at her, raising your champagne glass in a silent toast with a playful smirk.

and she thinks you'll have the decency to be kind to her after all, but your friends kept the photos coming, and each one seemed to be more obscene than the last one as she looked at them a couple of times afraid someone else could see it before tucking it away in the safety of her suit. at first a casual set of purple lingerie that scaled insanely quick to a very close frontal shot of your full lips slightly parted, and sevika can recognize your hands squeezing your tits together for the picture, you fucking tease — the third picture steals the air from her lungs at the sight of you already on your knees, looking up to the camera with nothing on top.

did your friends see them too? do they know how low they are helping you play? you're making her put up a show ‘cause you're laughing at her face, her erratic movements, how she forgot to keep on talking to the guests, show some manners from a zaunite already in the council, but shit she's so weak. you've deprived her for what? a month or two? can you really expect her to behave and not to act up stupid? you're wearing this beautiful white gown and sevika cannot help but wonder, truly wonder, by the look in your face, what are you wearing down all that expensive fabric.

low.

you're looking at her while you talk to your close ones and sevika fights the need to drag you away from everyone as the photos kept appearing randomly, hitting her in the worst moments, cause she thinks she got it figured it out, that she finally collected herself as the minutes pass until another friend appears with a sinful picture and she thinks to herself, she's going to have a word or two with you about that teasing game she didn't agree to be a part on.

how can she be mad at you anyway? when you're so good at taking those photos for her? when you look so beautiful making your underwear to the side to have a look of your soaked pussy you so eagerly show to the camera lens? you're biting down your lip cause you really are enjoying it, showing that nasty side you cannot hide and she just loves to have every single time.

her devotion to you knows no barrier at that point, cause people are laughing loudly, singing and dancing under the changing lights and the bands playing in the background, yet sevika's blatantly stealing you from the rest and there's no point in saying no when she's pulling you to the tiny photobooth you thought it'd be cute to take up pictures for the guests and have a little token of your union to your wife to take home, closing down the red curtain to corner you against the camera wall.

"did you like the photos?" you have the audacity to ask with a smile on your lips — "it's a reward for being so good to me all this time."

"is this your idea of reward, doll?" sevika cannot hide the smirk on her face, not when she’s actually enjoying all the talking for once. "haunt me the whole night until i can finally get you alone?"

"it's fun" you try to defend yourself, but you already lost the whole case as her big hands fall against your figure, tracing your sides as she mocks your words: you have different views of fun clearly. "i was going to make it up to you later, vika. the two of us."

"make up to me you say," she chuckles, almost not believing you "well take care of me now then. i deserve it."

she does it really, so you let her push you around, use force to pin you down against the wall as she takes what she's been anxiously craving, cursing against the complex fabric of your wedding dress until she's able to grip it in one hand, noticing the same purple set she saw before in the pictures.

"fucking slut doin' this on purpose" sevika shakes her head in disbelief as she takes a look of your body in the colorful lingerie "and you were going to be cruel and make me fucking wait to have you? on our own wedding day?"

"vika-"

“you took the photos, fuckin´ deal with it.”

“what if someone comes in?”

“i’ll tell them to fuck off,” she promises quickly like she thought about it all already “it’s our day, our wedding.”

there’s something about the way she’s saying it that makes you oblivious to the rest, makes your head spin cause you forgot about your worrying, the guests, the cake and everything in between. so you're not aware of when you pushed the red button on the screen of the photobooth, nor when it activates it's original purpose when sevika's fully into making out with you, capturing the sight of your figures blending together in the same picture — by the second shot you can notice the smirk on her brown lips and in the third, it's not really visible as she seems to be too close to the camera lens, making the image blurry as she attacks on your neck.

maybe it's the thrill of being discovered, the fact sevika can feel the flash of the photos being taken, but she wishes to be patient again — have it in at least a couple of hours on her actual wedding night for a chance, privately, but the strap she choose willingly to wear in a way of fully teasing you, was now pushing against your leg and you have to stop for a second with your brows furrowed.

"is that-" sevika's nodding and you want to say something, but you find amusing to know your wife is wearing a strap-on to your wedding celebration, one you surely have seen already.

"make up to me," she repeats once again, serious this time "for being cruel. after that you can explain me how you took those pictures."

no one interrupts anyway. the music's too loud, the sweat in the air is too strong and guests already drank a lot so no one gives a shit when you're getting on your knees, when sevika's toying with your hair as you're the one to unbuckle the belt from her pants, the one who kisses the happy trail of her lower belly without protesting, noticing the blue silicone as her pant pools in her ankles and your wife cannot seem to care about anything but the sight of you on your knees.

"get it wet" sevika's less gentle now as she's pointing to her fake cock, licking her lips like she can taste yours in them before adding: "so i can fuck you good, okay?"

to be fair — it's just an excuse, cause she knows you're dripping in your pretty purple panties, that the dildo would split you open yes, stretch you out even without making much effort, but she just wants to see how you do it, how you become a drooling mess, salivating all over the floor, getting your dress wet totally unaware of everything else.

and hell she wishes she could feel it all, cause you look so pretty with your mouth full it's insane, pushing against the rubber to take it in your throat further until you make yourself gag, and your wife takes care of you, so she's pulling away but in all honestly the sight of you debauched already only spurs her on 'cause the amount of saliva coating your lips connecting you to her dick makes her insane, cleaning the corners of your mouth with her thumb.

"easy there, get used to it and take it slow," her voice is rough as she helps you put your hair up in a ponytail vika holds in her mechanic fingers, watching your polished moves as you get to work again, relaxing until the tip of your nose is touching her skin, and your eyes are watering but she can feel your breathing on her, the friction between her legs every time you move to take her deeper, the fabric of the harness consistently rubbing between her legs — "there you go bunny. s'good taking it all, go on keep sucking and don't get distracted."

you want to do good, desperate to please her over and over again, you can take it. that's what she says as her hips involuntarily thrust against your mouth, and it's so slippery the rubber cock slides inside your bucal cavity and she's roughly hitting on the back of your throat until there's this sound you make involuntarily each time the strap invades your mouth and makes you choke, leaving you a mess as you're drooling all over your tits.

her flesh hand does a good job on making you move, fingers tightening in your hair as she sets an steady pace against your mouth, swollen lips that close around the shaft as she pushes it deeper, cleaning up your tears cause she don't want your make up to be ruined, all pretty trying hard for her.

she's going to cum like this, inevitable. you're looking up to her with your big eyes, a damn smirk cause even when you're struggling you're having so much fun you cannot help it, and once again she's needy for more than what she'd like to admit.

the movement of her hips rubs her right in the spot when sevika's already so sensitive soaking her inner thighs, forcing her cock in your mouth — it's so good, you're so damn good.

so she cums around nothing, your sloppy movements as you suck on her strap, that zoned out look you have that only makes her moan hastily, leaning against the photobooth to press that fucking button again that's been randomly taking pictures now capturing the features of your wife as you now disappear from the frame, the pleasure on sevika's face she's unaware before pulling you upwards again, making you stand as she parts your legs with her knee forcing you to turn around to have a good view of your ass.

"my good little cocksleeve, always ready to be stuffed," she praises, leaving wet kisses on the expanse of your shoulders, going down your spine as she don't bother to take your panties off, no, she wants to fully fuck you in them "spread yourself open, help me sink in you."

your hands come up to grip on your asscheeks, pulling them aside to help your wife reach deeper, use you better by all means. the tip of the cold silicone wet with your own saliva kisses your entrance, and you melt away when sevika's finally fucking you until the base of her cock disappears inside your warm cunt, holding you still even in a secluded space.

she's shoving her fingers in your mouth, making you suck on her digits with a hungry look: lame, she's gonna cum again and she's acting up so fucking lame.

"fucking take it," the damn camera flashes again and sevika has lost count of how many pictures are waiting outside the booth of you two, but she's too busy to say something when she's sinking inside your drenched pussy, pulling on your hair as she grips on the curve of your hip, making you move with her as her movements get rougher, each time more demanding, deeper — "that's it. make space for me, it's not that hard, isn't it?"

she's on a sinking ship either way: slow is now overrated and she would rather dive in headfirst to openly drown in you.

was that so bad? i mean, you're married to her now.

#⋮ ⌗ ┆ grotesquevi ᵎᵎ ✮#riva's remaster ⋆.˚#sevika x reader #sevika arcane #arcane sevika #sevika #sevika lol #arcane sevika x reader #sevika x you #sevika x y/n #sevika league of legends #sevika arcane x reader #sevika smut #arcane smut #arcane x reader #arcane au #arcane #sevika arcane smut

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zstartrixxx · 3 days ago

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𝐋𝐄𝐓 𝐌𝐄 𝐓𝐀𝐊𝐄 𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐄 '𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐔, 𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐍'.

ʳᵉᵐᵐᶦᶜᵏ ˣ ᵛᵃᵐᵖꜝʷᶦᶠᵉ ʳᵉᵃᵈᵉʳ

𝐑𝐄𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐒𝐓: 𝐘𝐄𝐒 | 𝐍𝐎

𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘: If being loved by a vampire means carrying eternity within you, what you have with Remmick is incarnate: his poison lives in your flesh, you are blood of his blood, a creature of his making. And because you are a part of him—a fragment that broke free and passed into you, sometimes even a sliver of his ancient soul trapped inside that dead body—everything you feel, he feels, and vice versa. Fleeing the imminent extinction of these lands, you and Remmick seek refuge in each other once more, bound together. Eternally, for he would never let you sever this tie—unless he were dead. Past and future memories knot inside you. Here, now—all blood and teeth—you fuse with your maker, your sacrament, your eternal groom. 𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑'𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐒: this particular piece was a deeply interesting and special writing experience for me: not only did i get to explore the hivemind concept, but i also played more freely with language and the essence of remmick as a character. so let me make one thing clear: it’s never my intention to distort the film’s canonical portrayal, but rather—through poetic license combined with the possibilities of fanfiction’s universe, PLUS the way i’ve absorbed and interpreted the character—my version of remmick (at least in my fics) might not be as literal as the original script. that said: here we have this scenario with a wife, which i initially imagine takes place before the film’s events, but the specifics of when, how, and where she was transformed are entirely up to your interpretation (before his arrival in the us in 1911? somewhere between the early or late middle ages? the modern era? europe, asia, or africa... let your imagination run wild ;) i’ve also paraphrased/incorporated certain very specific lines and moments from the film. 𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒: +16 CONTENT. i think there's a lot of angst here and reader melancholy, so keep that in mind. use of some words in gaelic, i had to resort to good old google, if there is something wrong please tell me. remmik here it's (super) protective, almost toxic; hivemind concept explored, lots of internal dialogue, some gore (explicit description of blood and bruises), vampirism (blood consummation), and a slight sexual innuendo thrown in. 𝐖𝐂: 6k for whoever is going to read it, a great read! <3 likes, reblogs and comments are greatly appreciated :)

𝖱𝖤𝖬𝖬𝖨𝖢𝖪 𝖯𝖫𝖠𝖸𝖫𝖨𝖲𝖳

"turn to me, and love me like you lacerate; just hold me down like i don’t need air." (air, shedfromthebody)

Your skin burned like Hell itself, which was kind of funny to think about: back when you were human, you loved spending your days under the hot sun, lying on the grass in the late afternoon and gazing up at the cloudless sky, where strange shapes would form just for you. You wasted away the days at the lake, naked, floating between water and sunlight, between cold and heat, simply existing.

Now, all you could feel was the searing pain ripping through your skin, sizzling in your ears like meat in a frying pan. Weak, you tried to run, but your legs wouldn’t obey, and your feet tangled with every step across the dry land, scattered with dead corn leaves. The rustle of the leaves irritated you, but what truly drove you mad were the screams echoing from behind, drowning out any coherent thought, merging with the heavy air that entered your lungs that no longer breathed. And that felt like a death sentence: not only the sun was paralyzing you, but also the distorted sounds that confused you, like a wounded animal, utterly disoriented.

You stopped in the middle of the cornfield, glancing around, trying to stay grounded, trying to reconnect the thread of thought between the two of you, searching through the suffocating haze for Remmick’s voice, calling him with panic and urgency, desperate for him to come save you. You looked at your shoulders: raw, scorched, smelling the acrid scent of burnt flesh rising from your own body. You shut your eyes, trying to find him, your voice lethargic: “Remmick… Remmick.”

Your vision began to darken, your body no longer felt like your own—it felt like it was floating, detaching, as if your soul—or what was left of it—was slipping out of you. Just like you’d felt a piece of yourself dying the last time you glimpsed sunlight through your human eyes, maybe ceasing to exist in that land would feel the same. All you had to do was slowly close your eyes, embrace the darkness once again, surrender to the searing fire that would extinguish you—and that would be it. You opened your eyes slowly, staring at the mighty sun before you: scorching, like your mother’s hugs, your grandmother’s kisses. Like Remmick’s grip when you were still human. Your entire body burned, tiny flames piercing through you, tears of blood trickling from your eyes. How long had it been since you felt even remotely human? All you had to do was give in, speak the one name that echoed in your mind, etched into your blood.

Remmick.

In poison and blood, within you. He was you and you were him. Remmick.

‘—Remmick, if you can hear me one last time, know that I—’

“Got you!” his voice came, rough and wounded, behind you. Firm hands grabbed you by the waist, your body partially covered by another, pressed against Remmick’s rigid frame. He whispered against your ear: “You’re safe, mo chroí (mu khree / my heart). Come with me.” He pulled you even tighter against his scorched body, shielding you like a protective shell, guiding you with quick steps into the heart of the cornfield. In the distance, the furious screams of some villagers echoed behind you. But despite the world turning into hell around you and everything seeming like the end, you felt safe in his arms.

Remmick looked back, staggering, using his sharp senses to search for any possible escape for the two of you. His left eye was swollen from the punch he took, combined with the sun’s deadly effect, and even with limited vision, he managed to find a way out from the horde chasing you.

You couldn’t stay upright. The sun’s weakness made it feel like your bones were nothing but dust beneath your scorched flesh. Tears of blood stung your eyes and soul, or whatever was trapped inside that immortal body, sharing a collective mind with Remmick and so many others before you. It longed desperately to escape this life and finally rest. But Remmick wouldn’t let that happen—oh no, let the pagan gods or the Christian God himself punish him with the harshest tortures if he did. You could feel that wrathful pain mixed with ancient rage flowing from him, harshly projected in flames and poisonous blood from him to you, as he nearly threw himself on top of you like a (scorched) leather jacket just to protect you. Madness. The voices grew longer, more indistinct, the hateful chorus fading, as Remmick, with his one good eye, searched for shelter.

Then, as if by magic, fate, or just the luck of some devil who still wanted to see you both wander through God's vast lands, there it was—a house beyond the edge of the cornfield. The perfect shelter. ‘Living food, darkness... —Remmick, don’t get your hopes up.—’ you thought back, replying to your creator’s voice with a sarcasm that didn’t quite match the moment. As always, he laughed—loudly, though the laugh came with dry, desperate gasps. He laughed. Even all fucked up, more than you, sizzling in pain and crying in despair to stay alive, he still found humor in his own misery.

“You’re getting real cheeky, huh, my little thing?”

“You’re the one who taught me to be like this, Remmy,” you managed to say, despite the bitter taste of blood rising in your throat—extremely unpleasant when it was your own blood boiling inside you. Remmick glanced over his shoulder, noticing for now that you were safe. He looked forward again, at what seemed like a mirage of a desolate wooden shack, dark, with the door and windows shut. It looked uninhabited to you. ‘—Love, don’t be so hopeless. Of course, there’ll be someone in there to be dinner. Or rather, lunch, given the time.—’ his voice cut through again, tugging you sideways, his hot and battered hand grabbing your forearm, where deep layers of your dermis were starting to show, making you let out a faint whimper. Remmick gave you an almost hurt look, immediately releasing his grip.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“It’s fine. What’s a squeeze compared to almost melting under the sun, right?”

“You’re something else...” he muttered in disbelief, though his voice was laced with distress and anguish—a soft hint of the pain he was enduring. —If he died, you’d go with him by extension, in the worst possible way.— That was what was running through his disturbed mind, making you wonder whether you’d ever have a happy ending under those conditions. Remmick quickened his pace, and you followed beside him, feeling like the path to the house was more of a road to Hell than a material refuge. You were starting to believe it was a mirage and the Devil was waiting on the other side to welcome you both into his lap. ‘—Pathetic, darling. Pathetic.—’ ‘—Just like you, sweetheart.—’

Remmick ignored your retort, dragging himself up the steps, changing his expression as he began to shout for help. A wounded animal, fatally injured, a hoarse rasp clawing out of his throat, begging for help, pounding on the door with force. The sun’s haze was poisoning him—and therefore you—draining what little strength was left, forcing your bodies to absorb the foul smell of rotting flesh; even if your lungs didn’t breathe, they still had the cursed privilege of smelling. And even as supernatural beings, defying all human logic, you were still condemned to be inside those fragile bodies, exhaling the scent of flesh, blood, bone, thick saliva, venom, and a unique perfume your walking corpses carried. Not decay, but something more… floral? And that specific scent, like night-blooming jasmine in a graveyard or a dried rose in your garden, grew stronger as the mortal flesh imprisoning your immortal soul deteriorated.

Remmick kept pounding on the door and maybe—just maybe—with a little more effort, he’d become the first vampire to break the universal law by forcing his way in without being invited. He looked at you, distressed, his expression one of real pain. You pulled away from him, walking to a window layered in thick dust, wiping it with your palm. The cold, gritty surface scratched your sensitive skin even more. You peered inside and confirmed: ‘—There’s no one. It’s empty.—’ Remmick looked at you, almost dumbfounded, hearing your inner voice. He turned to the door, where simply twisting the doorknob opened it. The air inside was cold and stagnant, dust and mold, old wood and moth-eaten fabric, with an unwelcoming scent—but still, it carried that unmistakable smell of an uninhabited place. No human warmth or familiar energy.

Remmick was so relieved he dropped to his knees, like a devout soul who, tired of resisting sin, finally accepts divine punishment in good faith—arms open, body surrendering as he let himself fall into the house. You stood beside him, watching with a mixture of mercy for the poor wretch who was suffering, and with that sharp pain—hating, in a way, to share with him the memory and the collective sense of it all, because his pain was also yours.

Remmick crawled inside. You followed him, on your feet—weak, but standing. You looked one last time outside, toward the distance beyond the cornfield, where, by some divine mercy, those who had hunted you seemed to have gone. Just above, the burning afternoon sun pulsed like a condemning god, seated upon his sky-blue throne, mercilessly casting down his punishments upon you, poor wicked creatures.

You shut the door with a long groan, echoing the moan of the vampire now lying delicately at your feet—a strange sound between a whimper and the whine of a frightened dog. His hands were stretched above his head, face pressed to the floor, writhing from side to side, somewhere between fragile and furious at being forced into such a wretched state.

Through your mind, you could feel him tearing:

‘—These monsters will pay. As soon as the sun sets, I’ll hunt them one by one, haunt them in their homes, show them my wrath and my cruelty. Blood, blood… blood.—’

Your mind was now lapsing into a time far older than you, to a moment when Remmick’s humanity had been broken by the vampire’s curse—when the strangers came and took his land, his name, his faith. His prayers were converted, and all he saw before him were silver crosses and plaster Jesuses while he was taught the Lord’s Prayer. All of it disturbed you deeply. He clung so tightly to his roots that it made you feel everything: the fire of the scorched land, the spilled blood, the faithful ones he later killed one by one, the lands devastated by plague and by gold.

You closed your eyes, trying to impose your memories over his—to interrupt the bond that was bigger than either of you. You tried to think of blooming gardens bathed in sunlight, lazy afternoons of picnics and reading under trees, nights of endless dancing and joy.

Remmick stopped thrashing. His shoulders stilled, and his whimpers faded as he was slowly filled with his own memories, gradually regaining his strength and sobriety. He propped himself up on his arms—once feeble and lethargic, with bones eroded and flesh still scorched by burns—then raised himself and looked at you, a crooked smile forming on his lips:

“You’re always taking care of me, a aingeal.” (ah ang-yal | my angel).

“I was just trying to make you stop with those nightmares disguised as memories. I’m aching all over.” Your voice was somewhat harsh, despite your weakness, as you leaned your body against the wall, between the door and the window, where dust managed to dimly filter the sunlight. You were safe from the condemnation of the light.

Remmick rested his head. A look of sadness, lit by the darkness in his pupils, stirred something in your heart that no longer beat.

“I can’t let go of who I once was… even after all these years, there are pains that scar between our flesh and our soul, binding us to them forever…”

“I know. I know—” you smiled, somewhere between honesty and levity, trying to stay upright, feeling your body pulse and bleed, crying for healing. Remmick was in considerably better shape than you, even in his sorry state—his cotton shirt filthy with mud and dust, torn and bloodied from burned flesh; his pants tattered, shoes worn through, one bruised eye set into cadaverous skin with a polished hunger. He was enduring. The dark gifts made him far stronger than you. “—I’m just not in the best condition to relive those pains with you, not when mine are a little too real right now.”

Remmick nodded, drinking in your words, staring at you with glowing, coppery-red eyes—dim yet luminous—finally seeing your pain. His face twisted with worry and a flicker of anger as he staggered closer:

“Mo ghrá geal” (muh grah gyahl | my bright love), “they really hurt you, didn’t they…”

Then, Remmick recalled the grim scene when one of the townsfolk had found your hiding place—a house just as old and decrepit as the one you now sheltered in. The two of you were lying there together, side by side, entwined like tragic lovers, waiting for death—and maybe that had been part of the attraction, for just a few more seconds in that eternal rest, and you would have had a truly tragic end. Remmick remembered the moment the light from a blocked-out window was smashed through and the burn that followed. He opened his eyes instantly. You were still locked in your unshakable sleep when they grabbed you by the arms. He had fought men wielding torches and harvest tools. Then you saw it through his eyes: your body being pulled away—a blur. And you felt his fear and desolation as he fought off the frantic villagers to try and save you.

Then the man’s voice rang out again, clear and strong, a wounded hand touching your face with surprising gentleness:

“We almost didn’t make it out of there… If it had been closer to sunset, not a single one of those bastards would’ve made it—”

“Remmick.” His name traced your lips and tongue, thorny like the man himself. “They’re not to blame for acting the way they do—just like we, flawed murderous animals, once acted. They too have the right to want to destroy us. Wasn’t it you who taught me that human truth? That’s how we lived before we perished. That’s how we’ll go on existing, as long as we do.”

“Existing.” He clicked his tongue, and a sudden shadow passed through his eyes. For a second, his mind grew too clouded for you to read, to hear—but the visceral rage boiling in his venomous blood, oh, that you felt, bitter as it burned your dry throat. Dryness began to crack your lips. It weakened your warm body even more and made you feel the dark delusions start to crawl through the corners of your mind; that’s what happened when you weren’t fed—no matter how exceptional your self-control was, and even if you could resist without the human liquor for days, when you were in that state of true death, your body nearly collapsed.

Remmick dragged his pitiful, suffering gaze across your face. Around your minds, words in ancient Gaelic spun like ancestral chants—he was thinking about something beyond you.

His hand slid up to your face, grabbing your hair from behind, gripping it as he gently pulled it back, exposing the soft, burned, but still velvety skin of your neck. The cradle of your sacred blood—from where he had once drawn your human warmth into himself and given you, in return, the venom that turned you into him. And even though your heart no longer beat as before, when he first heard it, and your blood wasn’t warm enough to quench his thirst anymore, it was the vampire’s opium.

Remmick always thought of that comparison when he grazed his fangs lightly against your skin before penetrating it to anesthetize himself in your ecstasy:

‘—Your blood was sweet and warm when your heart throbbed between your ribs. But now, with my lymph and the poison of my being, it tastes better—bittersweet, undead. Our blood.—’

It made you moan and whimper.

Your hands pressed against his chest, palms open, trying to push him away from you:

“Remmy, are you sure about this?” you looked at him uncertainly, trying to find in him the assurance for the act.

Remmick didn’t answer you with words—not the kind spoken aloud:

“As weak as we are, there’s no one here, my love. Either we drink from each other, or we die like strays in this godforsaken place. Feed on my blood before you cease to exist…”

It wasn’t a request anymore by the time he was already pulling you closer to expose your neck, pressing his rough lips and sharp teeth against you, piercing the skin like needles.

Remmick held onto this belief that he didn’t need to ask much of you, because as you were one mind, everything he wanted was what you desired too.

Your eyes closed as you felt your flesh torn by his fangs—hard against your skin, like a stiff piece of leather being pierced by a sharp knife—until it reached where the blood, crawling weakly through your body, began to emerge in thick sobs, filling his mouth with your syrupy, bloody liquor. You were consumed by the burning and the sensation of ecstasy the act gave you, your body floating in the hands of the man who groaned with primal pleasure at being nourished by your life source.

Remmick also held the belief that since you carried his seed—that divine-profane gift of eternal life within your blood—through the consummation of acts and the laws of an ancient soul, you were part of a whole that pulsed with life. His life, yours, and those who would come after you both, all connected through that cursed and blood-stained lineage.

You squirmed restlessly in his hands. His claws were already out, tangled in your hair, scratching your waist as he held you as close as possible, bound to his pleading kiss.

Remmick whispered to you in thought:

“Mine, mine, mo mhianta (muh vee-an-tah / my desire), my life, my blood…”

—like a prayer, a rosary he recited bead by bead, his body burning as he inevitably felt his venom enter you.

“Remmick—” your voice was pure wine of death, your nose the iron scent of flesh, your mind a stupor of souls that preceded you, strange voices you had learned empirically, faintly recalling the vampire Remmick who crushed you between teeth and acid; “—I think that’s enough, my love.”

Remmick let out an exasperated groan that vibrated against your mark, sucked a final portion of blood vigorously, licked the flesh slowly, then rose, revealing his face intact and free of wounds, his chin smeared with your crimson iron honey, eyes shimmering like copper pearls between iron and bloodlust. He smiled at you—there was heavy panting from paused lungs, a fresh breath, an almost spiritual renewal of his being.

“You are so delicious, blood of my blood, that it’s impossible not to want to drain your last blessed drop.”

He laughed—cursed and amused—raising his wrist to his own lips, biting it as if biting a pomegranate that exploded between his teeth, flesh and juice dripping at the corners of his mouth already stained with your blood; he extended his open wrist to you like bread to the dying, an offering to his god, waiting with generous eyes burning in the insane passion of his soul for yours.

His mouth salivated with the yearning to take it for himself, to drink from that wine that intoxicated you once and every time you drank it—in nights of lust where you feasted on the delights of the flesh, it intoxicated you.

There were sparks in your chest that burned from Remmick’s venom in your body, making you remember when he took you for himself, forever; Remmick appeared like a chorus behind you, chasing you through the darkness of forests and ancient buildings, ruins of nights wandering without meaning, inviting you to let him enter you repeatedly, giving him what he wanted, feeding the beast with your youthful joy, the beating heart—that which he had lost centuries ago, perhaps millennia. Life.

And once, proving that his love for blood and pain was greater than all lust or pleasure given to you, he offered you his ultimate love: he penetrated you with teeth and curses, buried memories imposed on you, suffocating you, watching you die before him, rot like a flower once beautiful and vibrant, now dry and hardened. Watching you rise with bright eyes and his bestial thirst, laughing and dancing with him, celebrating your new self. Or was it a piece of him, while you were trapped between so many layers of the one who created you?

And yet there you were, looking at him with veneration and anguish, taking his wrist with your misshapen fingers, claws that extended in excessive knots, placing your mouth against the torn hole that poured that offering of his flesh.

Oh, Remmick had your flavor too.

Sweet death he exhaled, primal sex and poisoned wine.

Feeding you slowly, bringing through that damned mortal sap your salvation.

You felt yourself revive, whining softly against his wrist, looking with complicity as Remmick watched you with the pleasure of pleasures on his face: parted lips, arched brows, eyes sparkling with desire and ardor. You smiled back, returning that passion, a hiss escaping from his mouth, pleasure bending between the memories shared through blood. His mouth detached from the bite’s embrace, a dull snap of flesh pulling away, the vampire’s blood dripping in sticky, thick drops like a whip on the wooden floor, a small pool of that iron blood separating you both.

He tilted his head back, satisfied, with a jubilation of pearl-ruby teeth, saying full of himself:

“Now we’re better!” He laughed between his teeth, while you felt his blood slide through you, healing the stigmata on your skin, slowly and pleasurably renewing you—him crawling between your bones and flesh, burrowing deeper into you as he pierced you with those eyes.

Remmick drew closer, your hands returned to normal, fingers caressing your now-soft skin, leaning down to kiss your lips with the sweetness of his honey staining them crimson, whispering through your mind:

‘—All we need now is rest, and once night falls, we can celebrate this moment together.—’

Eternal promises. As always, typical of him.

You welcomed him with open lips, tongue caressing his, you and he merging—blood and saliva, venom and the growls from the depths of your thirsty throats, your hands tangling into each other, desperate grips of bodies that loved each other through finite eternity.

…

In your dreams — or in that cathartic state of complete darkness of rest — all you had in your mind were the outlines of dreams of humans who had wandered through the eternities beside Remmick. You were a peasant in Irish lands, an English priest with golden teeth, a mathematician in Arabia, a physician from Prussian soil, a single mother prostituting herself in the streets of Whitechapel; everything and everyone. You were a pagan elder turned faithful parish priest. A hopeful young woman turned the vilest of executioners. Everything and everyone — and him.

Him.

Emerging in red, blue, purple, and black, from the shadows, blood dripping from his chin, stealing souls and stories like a devoted collector, a historian digging through pages and pages for what might fill his own gaps. Remmick pulled you by the hand like a savior — or a beast. That blurred in the shadows and forms, as he brought you into the light.

The light of consciousness, of being awake, of knowing night had finally fallen and you could once again wander among humans.

You opened your eyes with a sharp blink, seeing through a timid penumbra lit by a single candle — who knows where the hell Remmick had found it — exhaling, while he gently caressed your face, the tip of his finger tapping lightly against your nose, a serenity on his face that, under the warm golden light, almost seemed human. You smiled, rubbed your eyes, and let out a vocal exhale — a human habit you’d kept not to feel so detached from your nature — wetted your lips, surprised by the nudity of the man sitting at your side on that old bed, hard mattress, rickety frame that had served perfectly for your rest.

At the window, beyond the drawn curtain, a few wooden planks nailed to keep sunlight out were now opened, allowing the pale-silver glow of a Full Moon to shine on you. Between the bluish-gray mingling with the candle’s yellow-red, his slender and muscular body — shaped by the years when he was just a man of the land, using his bare strength — stood naturally before you.

His face, smiling at you tenderly, was damp, drops of water clinging to his nose, ears, and chin. A scent of dried flowers and soap wafted from his pale skin. His voice was soft:

“Come with me, a aingeal,” (ah ang-yal | my angel), “let’s take a bath to wash off this infernal day.”

Laughter spilled from both your mouths — irony mixed with ease — as his hand gently pulled you up, guiding you barefoot across the wooden floor, echoing down a narrow hallway toward what must have been the bathroom. Remmick nodded toward the wooden bathtub. Beside it, atop a chair, several candles were stuck upright with their own melted wax, casting a flickering light beside the moonlight that poured silver through the window.

“I cleaned it a bit before using, fetched some water from the well, and luckily found some flowers and a dried-up bar of soap lying around. Seems like the people who lived here left in a hurry — there’s still canned food and clothes in some closets. Let me help you!”

He placed the candle on the chair and undressed you, slipping off your dress and tossing it aside, smiling at your nudity, placing his hands at your waist as if admiring a statue sculpted by his own hands — a creation of his creation.

“Sit down. I’ll bathe you...” he said in a velvet tone, guiding your body into the cold water, which wrapped around your skin as he began to rub it with water, fragrant flower petals, and diluted soap.

And there you sat, still, watching him care for you — though you knew well what he was thinking.

‘—The hunt, the revenge against those who inflicted pain on us and—’

“Remmy…”

Your hand found his, pulling him from the depths of his thoughts, gripping the hand that tended to you, “...stop, at least for now. Just think of something else.”

“What else could I possibly think about?”

“In other things, I don’t know, think about music, about dance, about me...”

“I don’t need to think about those things because they’re already in me, darling. It’s almost a pleonasm, as that old professor we ate once said, remember?”

“The one we ate? What an absurd thing to say!”

“Sweetheart, seriously?” Remmick tilted his head to the side, a mischievous little smile playing on his lips. He stopped rubbing the dried blood off his neck to look at you with cynicism. “You, of all people, who loves sinking your teeth into those juicy necks that show up for us!? You, blood of my blood, my own creation, poison of my poison who...” he paused, narrowing his eyes, his voice coming out in a thin whisper, “loves sinking those pretty little teeth of yours into the most unusual places!?”

A daring finger touched your lips, slipping between them, lightly scraping your canine with its nail. You stared at him calmly, studying him in that unashamed nakedness, amused by you. Rolling your eyes, you pushed his hand away from your mouth.

“Pathetic. That’s what you are sometimes.”

“I love you too, my darlin’.” He chuckled through his teeth, returning to wiping the bloodstain from his skin, focusing on the act. Even in that silence made of voices loudly spoken, your minds were speaking through images, memories flowing back and forth in a stream of consciousness, undulating like the water that surrounded your body, tracing that eternal conversation you both had. Deep down you knew he wanted to go out hunting, to get drunk on fresh human blood, and then return to this shelter, take you in his arms and possess you in the most animalistic way possible. But on your end, you still felt his venom lingering through your body, the blood that had served as both nourishment and healing still casting a haze over your senses. Ancient blood from someone who had lived so long it carried stigmas. Strong, dense, defiled, concentrated.

Remmick finished scrubbing you, stood up from your side, and left the room, staying outside for a few minutes, leaving you immersed in the water and the moonlight. Thinking. For a moment, your mind seemed to detach from his, floating through the corridors of your own being—you saw yourself among humans, walking barefoot, feeling that burning thirst in your throat, the bile of anger tormenting you even as your melancholy made you ethereal; sucking foreign blood, capturing life stories for yourself. Remmick reached out a hand to you—a claw—with the ghastly smile of all the dead, always whispering to you: “Mo mhianta” (muh vee-an-tah / my desire), in your mother tongue. Remmick… Remmick. The one who created you and now was you too, part of your desires, part of your life, part of your soul. Would you ever be able to break away from that guiding thread? From the one who offered you both death and life? Would you be able to disconnect and be just… you?

Remmick emerged from the darkness of the house, carrying a bundle of clothes in his hands, wearing a pair of soft-fabric pants, his torso still bare. He smiled with those secrets he could hide from you between his lips:

“No, I believe that if one day you no longer belong to me, I’ll probably be dead.”

“Reading my thoughts again?”

The question was practically rhetorical, laced with a certain bitterness you couldn’t hold back. Standing before you, the vampire handed you the clothes.

“I am them. Even when you try to escape through the corners of your thoughts, I’m there.” Remmick smiled, sharp teeth glinting, a suggestion shining in his eyes like a beast ready to kill.

“Come on, love, the night is a child crying to be fed.”

“Smartass,” you hissed through your teeth, rolling your eyes. When you rose from the bathtub, your eyes suddenly caught sight of two figures approaching in the distance. Remmick didn’t even need to be warned—he was already spying from the corner of the window, his thoughts starting to hiss like a rabid wolf growling, thirsty for blood and slaughter. He turned his face toward you, a sharp smile while his eyes tiled the blood of the defeated. His tongue was a blade between needle-sharp teeth:

“We shall have a special feast, my love!”

…

The house was dark.

Its scent was of dust and stagnant wood, dry and moldy. In the background, you could catch the smell of melted wax. No noise. When that couple stepped into the house, shotguns in hand, eyes wide with fear, all they wanted was to play heroes for the little town—hunt the monsters that had been parasitizing the area and receive applause for their brave deeds. Fueled by fear and pride, they wanted to hold in their hands the heads of those two who had earlier been hunted and, for some reason, had disappeared; and there they were, in that shack abandoned for weeks—maybe months—eyeing each other with unease.

The woman said, glancing around the first room, a lantern serving as a flashlight:

“I don’t think it was a good idea to come here at night…”

“Nonsense, woman—we’ll catch those monsters before they go messing around with anyone else,” the man shrugged, walking toward the hallway, the woman right behind him—until she heard a little noise beside her, at the open door.

The man kept walking, oblivious to his wife, heading toward the back of the house, finding a side room with its door ajar—he pushed it open the rest of the way with the barrel of the shotgun, the wooden door creaking slowly, revealing a bed.

And a woman lying on it, back turned. Naked.

A shiver ran down his spine, his breath grew heavy, heart pounding against his ribs, and beyond all that, a wicked voice called him to approach her—that nest of lust and desire. Ignoring his partner, he let curiosity and depravity take over. He lowered his weapon, step by step, now close to the woman’s body, his hand trembling as it reached toward her, while the other held the lantern swaying noisily at his side, its yellow light flickering across the sleeping body.

“Have mercy on me!”

A high-pitched scream came from deeper in the house. The man startled and turned, dropping the lantern to the floor, where it shattered and sparked into flames. He raised his weapon again, spinning around—only to find a man behind him.

Eyes glowing with an inhuman red glint.

A macabre grin stained with blood painted his chin, his neck, his bare chest.

A rustle behind him made his knees weaken with fear; a cold gust of air fed the fire now licking at the wooden floor. He looked over his shoulder and saw you awake—eyes just as luminous as the monster in front of him, thick saliva dripping from your chin.

As he tried to scream, a hand clamped over his mouth—metallic blood flooded his tongue.

A tear welled up in his eye.

The vampire’s voice in front of him rasped out, bestial and raw:

“Shhhh… Shhhh… Don’t cry now. Didn’t your mother teach you it’s wrong to mess with someone else’s woman?”

And he laughed—demonic—gripping the man’s throat, nearly choking him, as you remained behind, salivating for the living blood pulsing through his arteries. Remmick looked at you from the side, tilting his head, his voice undulating between the three of you like a serpent shaking its venom:

“Darling, your wife was delicious! I hope you taste just as good for my wife!”

The man screamed with all the air in his lungs, while Remmick offered him up like an animal for ritual slaughter—offering him to you. And you took him from behind, draining him with the ease of mortality—no pity, no hesitation.

Remmick watched you with affection and admiration, something growing inside him with the euphoric pleasure of a successful hunt. When you finished draining the man, his corpse now at your feet, he held out his hand to you.

You took it, letting him lead you out of that room to the front of the house, where the open door allowed the silvery light to touch your naked body, your face covered in scarlet—just like his. Remmick cupped your face in his hands, looking at you with his soul reflected in your eyes:

“My girl, how do you feel?”

“Perfect. Just a little… overwhelmed. I think it’s the thrill of the hunt.”

“Good—” he murmured, leaning in to capture your lips in a wet, filthy kiss—saliva and blood, soft tongue brushing pearly teeth. When he pulled away, a string of bloody spit still connected your mouths.

“—'Cause now, you’ll let me take care of you, darlin’. The way you deserve.”

You felt him penetrate you through the soul, his hands pulling you close into the kiss of the dead upon your lips, speaking to you through your minds:

‘—Let me take care of you, darling, let me take care of you, let me show you how good I can be for you…—’

𝐅𝐎𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐒: maybe it deviated a little from the initial concept of the request (idk), but this one was by far one of the fanfics with Remmy that i enjoyed writing the most, it's side-by-side with my fanfic involving priests, religion, Christian guilt, vampirism, remmick and other little things…

#[★] zstartrixxx #remmick x reader #remmick x you #remmick fanfic #remmick sinners #remmick #[⋆♱⋆] zstar fanfics #jack o'connell fanfic #remmick × you #remmick × reader #[R] zstar fanfic request #[🦇] zstar jack o'connell #Spotify

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lazysoulwriter · 2 days ago

Text

snl!pedro pascal ── .✦

requested! thank you. content: pedro pascal x wife!actress!reader, fluff, chaotic married energy, suggestive jokes, SNL shenanigans

---

“you did not just say that on live television,” you whisper, barely containing your laughter as you grab pedro by the collar of his blazer and yank him off the stage.

his eyes are wide with mock innocence. “say what?”

“‘my wife’s the reason i’m bow-legged’ — pedro.”

“i meant emotionally!” he says, beaming. “like... you’ve mentally exhausted me.”

you cross your arms. “you had your hand on my ass when you said it.”

“for support,” he nods solemnly. “i’m fragile. the floor was slippery.”

you stare at him, then burst out laughing as he pulls you close, whispering, “also, not my fault you wore that dress. i’m only human.”

you’re a last-minute surprise guest for his snl hosting gig — both of you actors, both of you unhinged — and the writers simply couldn’t resist putting you in a sketch together.

they pair you as rival soap opera stars with dramatic sexual tension. every time pedro gets too close, you slap him. he rips his shirt open in slow motion. you throw a glass of wine at his chest. the audience eats it up.

“your hands are ice cold,” he whispers off-camera as you press a prop knife to his chest.

“maybe you should warm them up,” you shoot back, just as the camera goes live again. he breaks character mid-line, laughing with his whole chest.

someone backstage mutters, “we're never inviting them back at the same time again.”

during the goodnights, you try to behave. you try. but pedro kisses you in front of the whole cast and the cameras, one hand on your waist, the other messing up your hair as you lean back, giggling.

he whispers, “thanks for making this the best week of my life.”

you roll your eyes but blush anyway. “you mean that? even after i made you do salsa rehearsal drunk?”

he kisses your cheek. “especially because of that.”

hours later, afterparty in full swing, your phone won’t stop buzzing. you glance down and gasp.

“pedro.”

he’s mid-sip of a whiskey soda. “yeah?”

“this tweet says ‘pedro pascal grabbing his wife like a medieval knight come back from war’ and it has fifty thousand likes.”

he leans over your shoulder, smirks. “they’re not wrong.”

you raise an eyebrow. “you had lipstick all over your face. people think it was a bit.”

“it wasn’t,” he says proudly. “you just looked too good to not kiss.”

you end the night curled up together on the couch of your hotel suite, makeup half-off, feet tangled, your fingers tracing lazy lines across his chest.

he’s scrolling through your joint trending page. “someone made a fancam of us set to ‘crazy in love’. we’ve officially peaked.”

you hum against his neck. “i think i peaked when you moaned during the pottery sketch.”

“baby, i actually got clay in my pants. that wasn’t acting.”

you giggle, nose scrunching. “pedro!”

he grins, leans in and kisses your nose. “i love you.”

“i love you more.”

“nope,” he says. “not possible. i’m a simp on live television now. i win.

---

✦ please do not copy, repost, or translate this work. © lazysoulwriter // i write with a lot of love and care, so please respect that.

---

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bucketbueckers · 2 days ago

Text

WILD MOUNTAIN THYME

pairing: paige bueckers x fem!reader

content: au, language, slight spoilers for sinners (2025) but it kinda deviates from the plot a bit, angst, blood, death, ending is happy but happy could be debatable tbh, complicated history between reader and paige but they love each other a lot 😕, smut, make up sex(ish), oral (r!receving) (bc what is sinners if not a movie about eating puss), scissoring, spitting 👅, what do you call sex when your partner is trying to kill you but they Can't so they're fighting against their nature and their body and mind but they get you off so it all works out (kind of?), period typical mentions of racism, homophobia, & misogyny, minor historical inaccuracies, slight soulmates, horribly rushed ending, terrible proofreading

wc: 22.5k

synopsis: You and Paige Bueckers had a complicated history. You existed in that weird plane between lovers and something doomed by a bitter narrative, a relationship marred by the hatred of your time and the impossibility of desire. The two of you weren’t ordinary — you were an orphan taken in by a Hoodoo practitioner, and Paige, who wasn’t quite something or the other, was a woman who just couldn’t seem to stay out of trouble. You should have known that she’d leave one day, not one to be tied down in a place she clearly didn’t belong. There’s no misery worth complaining about in the Mississippi Delta, but when Paige returns from Chicago with Smoke and Stack in tow, you realize they’d brought with them a whole lot more than ambition and foreign liquor.

notes: i have nothing to say besides i love sinners and i really hope y'all like this one 🙏 if you're hesitant about reading bc you haven't seen sinners, you really don't need movie knowledge, although i have a link to a totally legal website if anyone's interested in watching. this one was a challenge to write but im happy w how it turned out (even though i definitely failed my exams because i wrote half of this in a day when i should have been studying)!! please be gentle in the inbox bc i hurt myself with the end too but i debated three different endings and thought this one was Right 💔 as always tho i hope y'all enjoy 🫶

When it happens, you’re surprised. Almost devastatingly so.

You’re surprised because you know that you love Paige Bueckers. You had told her as much. You’re surprised because she had told you the same. Because she promised that one day, she would get the both of you out of the Mississippi Delta. That she’d take the both of you north, perhaps somewhere more tolerant of two women being together. It comes as a shock to you because of the way in which she left – silently, unassuming, simultaneously remorseful and unforgiving.

It’s surprising because she’d clearly been thinking about it for a while. She didn’t leave like she’d shared a stranger’s bed for a night, guilty and ashamed and clumsy all in one. Paige left in the same way you’d once watched a ranch hand put a horse out of its misery when it broke its leg – like it was inevitable, carefully thought out, meant more to save you than to keep you in pain.

That was the confusing part to you. You thought that you and Paige were fine. Having grown up together, you were friends for a long time until it blossomed into something more. Perhaps something more taboo, but you were never quite sure how something so pure could be considered wrong. You knew that you and Paige were unconventional. The Mississippi Delta was all thorns and flames, a region wherein its history was stiflingly pressed down on everyone who wasn’t white or male or wealthy. So, you knew that to be young, and women, and in love in the Delta was difficult, but that had never seemed to be an issue – not one that you would have allowed to tear the both of you apart.

She left you in the morning, and the night before was perfect in a way that gives you emotional whiplash. Annie, a Hoodoo practitioner who had taken you in at a young age, was out, leaving you alone in your shared home. You were standing at the counter, carefully layering pie lattice over a thick bed of apple filling, when Paige knocked and let herself in like she lived there her entire life. She may as well have, considering how much time she truly spent with you.

You grinned at her when she made her way into the kitchen, carefully toeing off her shoes, knowing Annie’s rules. She was carrying a bag in her hand which she set down on the counter before she pressed up behind you, her arms encircling your waist and her lips dusting a sweet kiss to your temple. “Smells good,” she’d commented, watching your fingers work the pie crust.

“Thank you,” you responded. “Flattery doesn’t mean you get to taste it before it’s finished, though.”

Paige sighed, the sound wounded and dramatic, and you laughed because you knew her so well. “What if I make you a deal? We can negotiate.”

You rolled your eyes, cutting the excess crust off of the edge, missing her warmth when she pulled away to reach for the bag she’d walked in with. “You’ve been spending too much time with Elijah,” you muttered. “Always tryin’ to swindle us good folk.”

You didn’t need to look over to see the mischievous grin on her face. “I prefer the term ‘looking for a bargain.’”

“A pig’s a pig even if you put lipstick on it,” you retorted, and Paige huffed something under her breath that sounded a lot like mockery. She pulled a container out of the bag, presenting it with a flourish, her smile wide like she’s holding diamonds. You glanced at her, then at the container, a smile of your own growing despite your attempts at trying to be nonchalant. “That ice cream?” you asked.

“Of the vanilla variety,” she said snootily.

“My favorite,” you hummed.

Paige pretended to look surprised. “Wow!” she exclaimed. “I had no idea. Although I heard it pairs real well with pie.”

“Baked pie,” you said gently.

“Pig’s a pig,” she responded immediately. “Baked or otherwise.”

You couldn’t help the sharp bark of laughter that ripped from your chest as you shook your head fondly. Reaching for a spoon, you dipped it carefully into the filling, still warm from combining the softened apples with the sugar syrup, and you held the utensil out for Paige. With a beaming smile, she enclosed her lips around the spoon, humming in happiness. It almost reminded you of when the two of you were younger and you always begged Annie to share the spoon when she was baking. That made you realize just how long you and Paige had been in each other’s lives, and how badly you wanted to stay in hers.

“That’s all you’re getting,” you chastised. You couldn’t keep your expression neutral for too long – Paige had looked so soft, so earnest, so full of love that it made something in your chest swell and slam against a cage made of bone.

But she’d just leaned in, a gentle hand settling on your hip, and pressed her mouth to yours with a sort of gentleness that feels like the flutter of eyelashes against your cheek and the warmth of the sun pouring in through the windows in the early morning. When she pulled back, the both of you were smiling, and she promised, “I got all I need.”

Your smile widened. She wasn’t talking about the apple pie waiting to bake in the oven. She wasn’t talking about the container of ice cream resting on the counter, already melting and the condensation sweating outside. In a language only the two of you could understand, she meant you. The two of you. The bond that you share and the love that you’ve nurtured despite society’s turmoil. It was sweet in a way that made you question how she could be so gentle, so in love with you, and leave you before the sun rose the morning after.

She spent the night. Once the apple pies were finished, you cut them into even slices while she carefully portioned out scoops of vanilla ice cream onto the top. She had looked so focused, leaning down to compare the amounts, and when she was sure, she handed you the plate that had more ice cream melting from the heat of the desert.

You and Paige retired to your bedroom, curling up in bed together with your slices of pie, bodies pressed together tightly under the blankets. You ate pie until your stomachs ached, laughed until tears slipped from your eyes, and kissed until her hand burned against your waist and the taste of her began to blend with the sweetness of the ice cream and the warmth of the pie.

It escalated from there. With the moon as your witness, you were sure that her lips had touched every inch of your skin and her hands knew the map of your body like it was her own. Like it was something sacred. That you were something to revere, to deserve, to love.

It felt different. Softer, vulnerable. Almost as though words weren’t enough and she was trying to fill in the blanks with her hands. You didn’t know at the time that it was an apology. You never considered that it was a goodbye, that your last memory of her would be one of love and not of her leaving you with the warmth of her body lingering in the sheets next to yours.

You laid together in bed, legs tangled and sheets bunched up at your chests. Your nose was tucked into the crook of her neck. She smelled like warm pie, like something earthy and sweet from her cologne, like something heady from the sweat that had glistened on her skin while she made you fall apart for her. The night was quiet, alive with the sound of crickets chirping, the slow drag of the wind through the crack in your window. You were asleep, breathing gently, ignorant of how Paige laid awake for hours.

It would have been so easy for her to change her mind, she thought. To stay in bed with you until late morning, to pull you back under the covers when you tried to dress. To begrudgingly (happily) follow you out for breakfast, then entertain (annoy) you at Annie’s shop, sneaking kisses when you weren’t organizing the roots or helping customers. It would have been so easy for her to tell Elijah and Elias that she wasn’t going to go with them to Chicago, to tell them that as terrified as she was, she was willing to be strong. For you.

The south may never let the two of you be in love. In your lifetime, you may never be fully accepted for who you love. And that was scary, because all Paige ever wanted to do was love you in the open. Proudly, unashamedly. The thought of keeping your love indoors made her sick. You deserved someone who you didn’t have to hide with. That someone may never be her.

The letter she had tucked into her pocket was nothing more than a cop-out. She knew that she wouldn’t be able to leave your side if she had to look you in the eyes and tell you the reasons why she was leaving. It was an apology because literally and metaphorically, she could never be the man for you. She couldn’t be what society deemed as proper, couldn’t be the person to hold her family together, couldn’t be the one with the guts and the confidence to stay.

So her decision was made. She didn’t sleep a wink that night. As soon as the first breaths of sunlight poked through the window and the first rooster announced the moon’s retreat, she carefully slid out of bed, pushing her pillow to your chest, her heart shattering as she watched you bury yourself further into the blankets, seeking a heat and a body that wasn’t there anymore. She placed the note on your nightstand, tucked next to the satchel of black cohosh you keep for protection.

Paige stared at you for a long while, throat burning with the struggle of keeping her tears at bay. She watched the gentle rise and fall of your chest as you breathed, tried to commit your image to memory – the slope of your nose, the way your hair billowed out on the pillows, the dark bruise you sported under your jaw because selfishly, she wanted you to remember her after she left. She just didn’t know how badly you’d ache in her absence.

Unable to resist, she brushed a featherlight kiss across your temple, if only to remember the way your skin felt beneath her lips, and you hardly stirred. She wasn’t sure if that made her feel better or for worse.

Then she was gone. And you were left to pick up the pieces of yourself.

“This all for you, honey? Just the thistle and the High John?”

The little girl peeking over the edge of the counter nods at you quickly, and you don’t bother to hide your smile as you carefully pinch off the High John and put it safely into the small, cloth bag. Thistle is quick to follow. You tie it gingerly, holding it out to the girl – Elise, you think her name is, a regular at Annie’s shop, and you make eye contact with her. Her brother Will ambles quietly behind her. “Now, you remember Miss Annie’s rules, right?” you ask her. “Don’t sell none of that on the way home.”

Elise smiles at you brightly, tucking the bag of roots into her dress pocket. “Yes, ma’am,” she agrees sweetly. In return, she hands you a folded up piece of paper – more like a credit than actual currency, but you and Annie both knew how hard people had to work to obtain these bills.

“Thank you,” you say, and the two children skip out of the shop.

From across the room, Annie glances at you. She’s busy rearranging and restocking her wares. Her lips curl into a smile, one that’s a quiet kind of pride, a silent appreciation. “Those kids love you,” she comments. You drop your head in a gesture of shyness. Finally satisfied with her work, Annie crosses the room and you hand her the currency. “I mean it. You remember the other day when you were stuck tending to the goat?”

You huff a little, leaning back against the counter with your arms crossed. “That goat hates me,” you mutter.

Chuckling, Annie continues, “Well, all Elise and Will could ask was, ‘Where is she? Can we see her? Can we say hi?’ Think they come more for you than for the roots.”

You laugh. “You know that’s not true,” you say.

Annie just gives you a knowing look, but before either of you can say anymore, you hear the crunch of gravel under tires. Instantly, your hair raises on end, knowing that you mostly get foot traffic. Cars were rare, especially amongst those who shopped with Annie.

You crane your head, glancing out the window, but you can’t see much. You and Annie share a look. You follow the older woman to the back door, peering out, and you simultaneously relax and tense up at the sight.

There’s a man squatting next to the grave of Annie’s late baby. He’s dressed formally, pristine, and he’s laying down white flowers next to the clearing. His blue hat sticks out like a sore thumb. You know instantly that it’s Elijah – or Smoke, as most people know him by, and Annie sucks in a deep breath next to you.

If Elijah is in town, then you’re sure that means Elias – Stack – is too. And if the twins are back in town, then that means–

“Let me go talk to him,” Annie interrupts your thoughts, already stepping outside before you can say anything else. For respect and privacy, you close the door behind her, but you almost jump out of your skin when you turn around and you spot her in front of you. You react before you can think better of it.

“Jesus!” Paige exclaims. She catches you by the wrist, a blade gripped firmly in your hands, surprise on her features and an amalgamation of feelings on yours. Guilt, shock, anger. Despite the fact that seeing her again pisses you off beyond belief, your body doesn’t know what your brain does – it still yearns for her as if the two of you were years younger, more immature and devastatingly in love when being in love was the last thing two women of your statuses should have been.

You missed her. You hate that you do. But you know you couldn’t be surprised by it, even if it’s been months – or closer to over a year.

“You welcome in all your customers like that, or just the tall and pretty ones?” she jokes, but her humor does little to diffuse the tension. Your eyes narrow and her face falls slightly. Paige, not unkindly, carefully pries your fingers off of the blade in your hand and closes it in on itself, handing it back to you handle-first.

“You can’t just creep up on people like that,” you mutter, pocketing the blade, and putting space in between your bodies like you know that she and her are more of an inevitability than a possibility. You’d fall right back into her without a second thought. “I could have killed you.”

Paige hums, shoving her hands into her pockets, and that’s when you get a good look at her. Growing up, Paige was never a woman for wearing dresses, something that clearly got her into a lot of trouble with a lot of people. She’d pretended like she never cared for their perception of her, but you knew it weighed on her, even when she dressed how she preferred. Now, she’s wearing a pristine pair of black loafers paired smartly with a deep, purple suit so dark that it looks black. Her blonde hair is pinned back in a low bun.

Despite the distance, it’s clear that time has been kind to her. She’s aged beautifully – no longer the sixteen year old girl you’d found crying in town, trying to hold onto both parts of her family like it was sharp, unforgiving barbed wire. Paige had always struggled to belong. You should have known that insecurity and fear would take her far away from you, but you wish you’d fought a little harder for her, even when you bear guilt and anger of your own.

Maybe she should have fought a little harder for you, too, but you’re older now. Wiser. You know the both of you could point fingers at each other for as long as you wanted to, but it would solve nothing.

“I don’t know about kill,” she muses, a charming grin right back on her face. “I taught you to fight. I know you.”

Confidence seems to be something she’d picked up in Chicago, too, or maybe it’s just audacity. The audacity to come waltzing back into yours and Annie’s shop like she wasn’t the one who left you before the sun came up with nothing more than a note, an apology, and the aching feeling in your chest that you may truly never be happy again unless it was with her. The audacity to joke with you like there’s not a greater distance between you and her than there is distance between Mississippi and Chicago. The audacity to claim that she knows you when, if she did, she would have stopped hiding behind a bravado she picked up from Stack and started with an explanation. An apology. Anything at all to let you know that what the two of you had wasn’t something you hallucinated and that she loved you in the first place.

You don’t humor her, your face twisting up. “What are you doing here?” you ask instead, your tone flat. That cracks through Paige’s poised exterior, her throat bobbing like she’s resisting the urge to flinch. You take a step closer to her. She stands several inches taller than you, but you stare up at her fearlessly. “What ran you out of Chicago? Was it the Irish mob? The Italians?”

Paige presses a little closer now, something in her eyes flashing recklessly, her body eclipsing yours. You don’t stumble back, nor do you avert your gaze from hers. If anything, you push your chest into hers, feeling your heart beating out of your ribcage, her breath fanning against your skin. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she mutters, brows furrowed in quiet anger.

“Don’t I?” you snarl. You pinch the fabric of her suit between your thumb and index finger, tugging it slightly, and in her surprise, she falls against you, her arms shooting out to cage you against the counter. But you hardly react. “You’re wearing a pinstripe top. Italian. Tweed trousers. Irish. Playing both sides again, aren’t you? Both at the same time?”

Paige says your name firmly, like she’s begging you to stop talking. You don’t, feeling the anger of her abandonment hit you again. “You can’t always be in two places at once,” you hiss. “But you always will be ‘cause you keep fucking running away.”

That makes her anger return tenfold. “I’m not running,” she scoffs.

You reach into your dress pocket, producing a worn scrap of paper, and you slap it against her chest with a firm noise. “Yeah?” you whisper, cocking your head. She holds onto your wrist with one hand, and with the other, she unfolds the paper, her body stiffening at the sight of the words scribbled in an all too familiar, messy scrawl. Her words, the very ones she’d left with you when she went off to Chicago, leaving the Delta behind in the fading shadow of the night. “What do you call this, then?”

She’s silent, her throat bobbing under the weight of her apprehension. You wonder if she’d admit it. If she’d apologize. But her blue eyes find yours, glassy with unshed tears, and you don’t realize you’re crying until her palm raises to wipe the water off of your cheek. Her hand lingers, though – her skin warm against yours, callused and rough from time but soft in a way that reminds you that it’s Paige in front of you. You’re not sure if that reminder is supposed to comfort you or make you cry harder.

“A regret,” she murmurs finally.

Oh.

Your eyes search hers. For deceit or for honesty – the difference between the two can be hard to tell apart most times. But you see earnestness. It makes you soften.

“I walked away,” Paige admits, her voice breaking. “From the one person in my life who’d made me feel like I belonged. Like I had a place. Like I was more than who my parents were or who my parents weren’t. I left a note and I ran to a city that cared for me even less than the Delta did.” She pauses, trying to find the words. “I regretted that decision every morning when I woke up on a dirty mattress in Chicago and realized I wasn’t next to you.”

“Was it worth it?” you ask, if only to hear the answer.

Paige doesn’t hesitate. “No. None of it ever was. Not when I had to lose you.”

“Why did you go?” You can feel the hesitation in her body, and you press a little further into her. “And make sure you tell me the fucking truth, Paige. No bullshit.”

“I didn’t deserve you,” she murmurs. “Shit, I still don’t. You deserve to be loved in the open, by someone who can provide for you and keep you safe. That was never gonna be with me.”

“I never wanted any of that,” you seethe, fisting your hand in her suit, dragging her closer to you. Her breath hitches, remorse and guilt on her face, but you continue speaking. “Do you understand that? I never needed anyone to provide for me, to keep me safe. I just wanted you to be with me.”

Paige doesn’t break eye contact when she utters, “They’d never let us be in love.”

You swallow your grief. “And what about we?” you say. “What about what we want? I’d rather love you in the dark than someone else in the sun.” You’re both silent. A lone tear slips from Paige’s waterline. You wipe it away gingerly, and her hand catches yours by her face, tangling your fingers together. “I just wish I got the chance to tell you that before you left.”

She nods, the motion like acceptance. Like she understands where you’re coming from – that she always has. That maybe she just needed to hear those words from you to understand it was never about what she thought you deserved, but about what the both of you wanted. As two women in the Mississippi Delta, it was always difficult to carve out that space for yourselves, to want so openly, to want each other so openly. You and Paige have been defying the norm for years now. You’d always thought that it would catch up with you. The love you had for Paige eclipsed that fear.

“Wasn’t the mobs in Chicago,” she confesses under her breath. You cock your head at her, and she deflates. “At least…not yet. The twins wanted out – something about coming back down here to open a juke joint. They brought liquor. Irish beer and Italian wine. They asked if I’d return and I…” The words get caught in her throat. She tries for a smile, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. It’s one that says I’ve done everything I’ve could so maybe it’s time to let someone else do what I can’t. “Figured it was time to stop running. From us.”

“For good?” you murmur.

“For as long as you’ll have me,” she responds, thumb brushing across your knuckles. “If that’s still on the table.”

You tilt your head back, far enough away just to look at her. To study her. She’s older now. So are you. The two of you weren’t always going to have a simple story, on account of the both of you being women and being completely different people. But you loved each other, and while you’ve never made it any less complicated for each other, you knew in your heart of hearts that you would take complex with her rather than easy and loveless with anyone else.

But you’re not one to kneel. Bravely, you ask, “And how do I know you mean that?” That gives her pause, something in her expression falling – like guilt and acceptance and a I deserved to hear that all in one. “How do I know I’m not going to wake up tomorrow and you’ll have left another note?” you continue. “You hurt me, Paige. I laid in bed for days and wondered why I wasn’t enough for you to stick around. That doesn’t go away overnight.”

“I know,” she admits, her voice cracking. She meets your eyes, the blue in them so easy to drown in, water shimmering on the surface like sun on the waves. “I can’t undo that. Believe me, I tried.” She laughs a little self-deprecatingly. “Every day I prayed that leaving you was a bad dream I’d eventually wake up from. That I’d find the courage to tell the twins that I was getting on the first train back here to right my wrongs before you slipped through my fingers completely. But I couldn’t – I thought I fucked us up. For good. I thought that we were something I couldn’t save or be enough for.”

Your chest is tight, but you can tell that Paige has more to say, so you remain quiet, your fingers trembling in her hold. She takes a deep breath, trying to find the right words to say, but her shoulders sag in a way that feels like acceptance. Like finally understanding that she may never say or do the right thing, but the effort in honesty is more than enough. You’d always try to fill in the blanks. You didn’t need her to be perfect. You just needed her to be here.

“I know I hurt you,” she continues. “But I also know that I love you – that I’ve been in love with you since we were sixteen and you showed me what home is supposed to feel like. I know that I missed you.” Paige swallows thickly, not breaking eye contact, and she flattens your palm against her chest. You can feel the steady thump of her heart beneath your fingertips. “I missed you here.”

You can tell how much this means to her. You can tell that she’s genuinely remorseful, that she’s probably spent months beating herself up for leaving you in the way that she did. “I’m not expecting you to forgive me immediately,” she murmurs. “I can’t erase a year’s worth of pain overnight. Asking for one more chance is a lot, but I also know that I’d spend the rest of my life and then some making it up to you. I’m not running anymore. Not from you. Not from us. I’m not going to fuck this up again.”

You knew what your answer would be long before she answered you. Maybe you just needed to hear it – the promise, the vow that she’s not going to repeat her same mistakes twice. It makes the tension in your chest ease up, the lines on your face soften, and your shoulders relax. Your palm is still on her chest, so you lift your hand to trace the line of her collarbone absentmindedly. “I’m making pie tomorrow,” you say, glancing up at her with a wry, softer grin. It’s not forgiveness, but it’s something close to it, and Paige smiles brightly because she knows. “You should come by.”

She leans in ever so slightly, her lips brushing yours, and it makes your breath hitch at the contact. Her hands drop to hold you by the waist, her grip both firm and reverent like she’s committed to not letting you go unless you ask. “You gonna let me have the spoon?” she asks coyly, and your smile grows.

“Maybe,” you whisper. Then, you pull away slightly, enjoying the expression of shock on her face. “Now, tell me why you’re really here.”

Paige laughs, the sound full and relieved, and it makes you feel just a little bit more gone. “Already told you, baby,” she says. The nickname softens every sharp edge you’d whittled while she was gone. “The twins wanted to open a juke joint. Smoke came by to ask Annie if she’d cook.”

“Smoke did?” you echo, raising a brow, knowing about his and Annie’s lost baby. You knew that him coming here took a lot of guts. He wouldn’t have if he didn’t mean it. Paige hums in confirmation, the sound respectful as she knows the story, too. “They’re serious, huh?”

“Mmm,” Paige agrees. “Bought the old mill and everything.”

You exhale a little breathlessly, a smile on your face despite it all. “And you?” you ask. Paige’s eyes blink open, something curiously reckless in them. “Where do you fit into all this?”

“Was just hopin’ you’d still like me enough to dance,” she answers, her eyes bright and yearning. Her lips brush yours again, the touch like electricity after so many months of being apart.

You pretend to think about it, which makes Paige shake her head with a laugh and a grin. “Get me a bottle of that Italian wine and you’ve got a deal.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Paige murmurs, her eyes finding yours again with a flicker of hope. You can’t hide your amusement nor the love you have for her, so you finally give in, your lips meeting hers with a deliberate softness. She sighs against you as you press up on the tips of your toes for better leverage. Literally and metaphorically, it feels like coming home again. Your body could never forget Paige nor the way she makes you feel, even if the both of you were dealt an unfair hand of cards.

You feel her grin against your lips, adjusting the angle of her head to deepen the kiss. Your fingers tangle in the loose hair at the back of her neck, warmth creeping into every crevice of your body.

The kiss doesn’t last nearly long enough. You can hear the turn of the lock at the back door and you and Paige pull away from each other quickly, working on adjusting your clothes as Annie and Smoke walk in, a quiet air around them as well. Annie meets your gaze – a brow raising in both question and concern. You nod at her, mustering a small smile, and her features relax, drawing your silent exchange to a close.

Finally, you gather your belongings, letting Paige lead you out towards their truck. There’s only space in front for Smoke and Annie, so you and Paige opt to sit in the back with the liquors, which you’re not too upset about. It gives you the time and the privacy to curl up next to Paige, your argument and reconciliation not completely forgiven nor quite forgotten. Right now, it’s enough for the both of you, knowing that you’ll have the rest of your lives to figure this out. You know that neither of you are going to let this slip away again.

Once you all make it to the old mill, you all get to work. You and Paige work on sweeping the floors and cleaning while Annie works on frying the catfish. Countless friends stream in – old and new – like the Chows, Delta Slim, a pioneering blues performer who you’d thought to have mostly been a legend, Smoke and Stack’s cousin Sammie, and even Cornbread, who’s been hired to play bodyguard.

Everyone’s in high spirits, laughing and enjoying the time. You catch Annie looking at you and Paige with a fond look in her eyes and you try not to blush too much, even when Paige spins you around to the beat of whatever tune Slim is plucking on the piano.

Before you know it, everything is ready. Paige helps to set out the liquor, smiling wryly at you when she stashes a bottle of her wine in her suit, and you laugh as you serve a patron some of Annie’s catfish. The old mill fills fast, people looking for a break, to have fun, to let loose and listen to Sammie sing the blues.

For this one moment in time, everything feels…right. Peaceful. Like there’s not a single worry in the world, and you think that you can get used to this. The sound of soul in your ear, of laughter and love swirling around you, the heavy feeling of Paige’s gaze on you while she regales some of the customers with charming stories about who knows what. Her eyes find you more than appropriate, though, and you find it hard to stay polite in front of everyone.

But she sidles up to you, empty wine glass in hand, and her smirk is mischievous, loose, like she’s about to ask you to do something you can’t quite say no to. Her hand finds your waist behind the bar, palm warm against your skin, and you raise a brow at her. “Think I can convince you to stop workin’ for a bit and have a drink with me?” she asks, gaze predatory and sharp. “Pretty sure I owed you a glass of wine.”

“Sounds like you’ve got ulterior motives,” you comment, looking up at her through your lashes. “You tryin’ to get me tipsy?”

“Just relaxed,” she murmurs, her eyes trailing your figure unashamedly. “Anything after that is purely coincidental.”

“I’m sure.” Your tone is flat, but your eyes are amused. “Would have thought that you’d give it a few more days before you tried finding your way under my skirt. Just this morning you were begging for me to forgive you.”

That sobers her instantly. She blinks at you like she’d forgotten all about that, and it makes you swell with affection for this idiot in front of you. “We don’t have–”

You can’t help but laugh, tanging your fingers in the collar of her suit, and you gently drag her a little closer to you. It makes her breath hitch, but the look on her face makes it all worth it. “Pour me a glass and meet me in the back,” you murmur, releasing her. Just before you walk away, you offer her a teasing smile. “And don’t keep me waiting.”

“Yes ma’am,” she rushes out, already reaching for another glass under the bar, and you know she’s hot on your heels as she follows you to the back. You leave the door slightly ajar and she shuts it as soon as she’s in, the lock clicking into place as you take a seat on top of the table tucked into the corner. Her gaze is a little predatory when she steps forward, looking as though she wants to ravage you but be respectful about it – like she doesn’t quite know where the two of you stand after your difficult conversation that morning.

But she doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t rush to fill the silence, even as she holds the wine glass in between two fingers and slowly tips the bottle over, filling it with the dark red liquid. Your eyes follow the way her fingers move, the veins in her wrist that protrude, and it’s then that you’re reminded of just how beautiful Paige Bueckers is.

It’s not something you consciously forget. You haven’t seen her in a while, and this is the first time in a good amount of time that you’ve allowed your walls to fall down. To allow yourself to want her so openly. It makes you ache because you know she wants you to and this entire thing – her pouring the wine for you, her fingers lingering on yours when she gives you the glass, is more of a formality than anything else.

You wait while she fills her glass, too, and then you tap the sides in cheer. “To a successful first night,” you murmur, catching the dark of her gaze over the dim lighting.

“To you,” she says. “And to us.”

To hide the blush growing on your cheeks, you roll your eyes slightly, tipping your head slightly to drink the wine. You like that Paige’s gaze is hooked on you, following the bob of your throat as you swallow the wine. She already looks like she’s unravelling and all you’ve done is drink. “Always have to one up me, don’t you?” you state, and she takes a sip of her own wine. The flavor is pleasant – not too sharp, but not too sweet. You can see why Paige and the twins played the Italian mob like this. They make excellent wine.

“Just wanted to be honest,” she retorts. “Something actually worth toasting about.”

You raise your brows, watching her figure as she takes a seat in the chair next to the table, her gaze locked onto yours. “Are you not actually into the juke joint?” you ask, curious.

She shrugs a shoulder. Her eyes linger on the way your skirt rides up your legs when you cross them at the knee. “This was the twin’s project,” she says, not unkindly. “I was just here to help. And to stop running from the things I love.”

You snort into your wine. “That sounds like something to unpack.”

“Probably,” she admits. “Sometimes…I look at a good thing, and my first thought isn’t that it’s good. It’s how devastated I would be if I were to lose it.” That makes you soften, and you reach for her hand, intertwining your fingers. “I think that’s why I was so scared of…staying. I thought I wouldn’t be allowed to be happy for long, that it would be taken away from me. I didn’t want to lose you. I guess it was easier to leave than to risk it.”

“But not anymore?” you question.

She shakes her head. “Still lost you,” she says. “Just in a different way. One that hurt a lot more.” Paige takes a long sip of her wine before she speaks again. “There was this Italian guy I met while I was in Chicago. He caught me at a bad time. I was drunk off my ass at a pub, and I guess he recognized me from running with the mob. He took me home and I started rambling about you. About missing you. How you’d give me peppermint to chew on when I was plastered because it would help my headache.” That makes you crack a smile as you listen to her go on. “Think I got really upset and lost it, and then he says, ‘How lucky you are to have loved someone so strongly that saying goodbye is hard.’ I woke up the morning after. My head hurt, and all I could think about was you and how not having you turned me inside out.”

Paige pauses for a long moment, clearly having more to say. You just brush your fingers across her knuckles. “I don’t think I’m scared of that anymore,” she confesses. “Not – of losing you. I don’t ever want to do that again. But I don’t think I’m scared of loving you. That’s a blessing by itself. And no matter how long…or how short…I think I’m lucky to be able to do that.”

You swallow thickly, realizing the seriousness of the moment, and you admit, “I don’t want you to feel like you have to run from me.” That catches her attention. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to do this alone. We’re…together.” Your voice catches on that word, unsure if that’s a term you should still use to describe your relationship, and you think that was a good choice because Paige’s face lights up. “I just want you to choose me when it gets hard and trust that we can figure it out.”

“I will,” she states firmly. “God, I swear to you, I will. I’m not gonna fuck this up again.”

You smile at her, gently, because you know she’s not going to. Not when she swears like her life depends on it. “I trust you,” you promise her. “But even if you do…it’s gonna be okay. I don’t want perfection. I just want you.”

That makes her smile turn a little tender, a little bashful. “I can work with that.” She finishes the rest of the wine in her glass and her voice is a hoarse when she says, “Think you might be stuck with me now.”

Your smile turns a little mischievous. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

When she looks at you again, her gaze is a little dark, hungry. “Depends on how you look at it.”

You set your wine glass down, not bothering with a response before you shift on the table, facing her fully, and you cup her cheeks in your hands as you pull her against you. She’s quick – groaning against your lips like she’d spent the entire day thinking about the next time she’d get to kiss you, and her arms encircle your waist, fingers pressing firmly into your skin.

She tastes like wine and something unmistakably Paige that makes your head spin. Her lips drag against yours, already making something in your core swell with heat and tighten, her tongue brushing against your bottom lip in permission. You don’t give it to her, tangling your fingers in the loose bun at the back of her head and tugging slightly, and she gasps a little breathlessly at the feeling.

“You’re a brat,” she mutters, standing from the chair fully. The movement forces you to disconnect your lips and with the natural pause, you slide your hands under her suit top, pushing the blazer down her shoulders.

“You’ve got a lot of groveling to do,” you retort. “Something about spending the rest of your life making it up to me, I think.”

Her resulting smile is a little sharp when she looks at you. “Oh, is that so?” she murmurs. You nod, already reaching out for her, and you wrap your arms around her neck while you connect your lips again. It’s wet, hot, and the both of you slide against each other with little restraint, the alcohol in your veins loosening the both of you up and intensifying the feeling. “You just want me on my knees, don’t you?” Her voice had dropped low, her tone teasing and rough, and it makes you squeeze your thighs together, which was obviously something that she picked up on. “You liked that?” She says it like it’s a surprise to her, like she’s discovered a secret you didn’t want to share, and you feel her grin as she kisses you again, drawing a moan from your lips when she squeezes one of your thighs.

“Would that make you feel better, baby?” she coos, fingers trailing a hot path between your thighs, pressing against the thin lace of your underwear. You’re already breathing heavily, and judging by the way she sucks in a deep breath, you’re sure that she’s found the wetness at the apex of your thighs. “You’re soaked for me and all I’ve done is kiss you. Still all mine. Doesn’t matter how long I’m gone.”

Your cheeks burn, and your fingers grapple for stability on her shirt. She leans in to press another filthy kiss to your lips, her tongue probing out to trace your bottom lip again, and you’re too lost in the feeling to open up for her. She doesn’t like that – an annoyed sound building at the back of her throat when she bites down on your lip – just a gentle nip, enough to get your attention but not enough to truly hurt, and she slips her tongue inside while you gasp.

It’s pure dominance from then on out – she unravels you with her lips while her fingers rub maddening circles against your clit over the lace. She was right. She hadn’t done much, but she’s always been good at tearing you apart. Even if she hasn’t been near you in months, she still knows what works, how much pressure you need, exactly where to touch you. And your body responds like it knows Paige’s touch. It doesn’t embarrass you to admit that there wasn’t anyone else while she was gone. This feeling has been building ever since the day that she left, and you suppose that it is her responsibility to handle it.

She breaks away from your lips to trail kisses to your jawline, sucking a dark spot at the edge of it. You can feel her smile against your skin as your mouth falls open in wordless pleasure. Her fingers are insistent, continuous, as she follows a path across your skin that only she’s the expert in, her lips enclosing around the lobe of your ear, the spot behind it that makes you shiver, your pulse point, the base of your throat where your necklace glitters.

Paige lingers, a little breathless at the sight of you, and the hand not tending to your leaking cunt reaches up to cup your breast, thumb tweaking your nipple over your top. Moaning, your head falls back, giving her ample space to work with, and she latches onto your neck immediately. Her teeth scrape against your skin, drawing a ragged sound from your throat. Her words vibrate against you when she speaks. “So fucking beautiful,” she murmurs, punctuating her words with another kiss, her tongue poking out to trail across your body.

It makes you shiver for an entirely different reason now. You reach up with one of her hands to cup the back of her neck, pushing her a little closer to you, and her finger swipes a little more firmly against your clit, making you keen. “Please, Paige,” you beg. “Need you, need more.”

“I got you,” she promises, finally sinking to her knees. Breathless, you clench around nothing, instinctively spreading your legs for her as she peers up at you through her lashes. Her palms are warm against your skin as her hands slide up your thighs, pushing your skirt up to give herself more space to work with. “Keep your eyes on me.” You don’t have the brain space to ask Or else what? but you’re so high strung that you don’t want to test her.

The edge of her smirk is hungry, predatory, like she’s seconds away from drooling, and it makes you ache. She presses her lips to your thighs, littering gentle kisses across your skin while she makes her way towards your cunt. Needy, you cup the back of her head with your hand, encouraging her to get a move on, and her smile softens as she listens to your wordless command.

She tangles her fingers in the lace covering you and pulls it down with an agonizing slowness, breath catching at the way a strand of your slick sticks to the fabric and snaps when the stretch is too great. Then, almost deliberately, she folds your underwear, setting it gently on the chair she’d sat in, and you’re seconds away from beating the shit out of her. “Paige,” you hiss, trying for an assertive tone, but you just sound whiny.

She doesn’t respond – she doesn’t have to. She slides her hands under your thighs and lifts your legs gently over her shoulders, opening you up for her, and she groans at the sight like you’re one of the ancient wonders of the world. Paige doesn’t waste anymore time before she dives in, her tongue already relentless as she strokes from your leaking entrance to your aching clit, moaning against you and already addicted to the taste. You whimper, head lulling back as your fingers tighten in her hair, but she nips at your clit. It doesn’t sting, but it gets your attention, and you return your gaze down to her.

Your slick already coats her mouth, glistening in the light, her eyes hooded and pussy drunk in the way she always gets when she gets to put her mouth against you. She’d once joked that she could die happy down here and you truly never realized how serious she was until now. Her brows are pinched, pleasure evident on her face like she’s the one moments away from falling apart, and her tongue traces every sopping inch of your cunt as though she’s afraid to let a single drop go to waste.

Her tongue slides in to drink directly from the source. Her nose brushes against your sensitive clit and it sends a lightning bolt of white hot pleasure up your spine, curling low in your belly, and drawing a whimpering moan from you. She works you like it’s her last day on earth and getting you to come is her only chance at salvation. Her pace makes you a little dizzy, her tongue going from hole to clit to kissing the aching bud until the pressure makes your hips buck. She’s everywhere all at once as though she’s trying to reacquaint herself with your cunt, like she’s trying to make up for lost time.

She said she’d make it up to you. You think she’s doing a damn good job, especially when her fingers tighten around the fullness of your thighs, pushing herself in deeper, and you spread yourself open a little more, too far gone to care about much of anything that’s not how good Paige Bueckers looks when she’s on her knees with her face buried in your cunt.

And then she starts talking. There wasn’t a chance in hell that you were going to last after this, not when she’s holding onto you like she’s the one who’s about to float away, and whimpering, “Missed this.” The whine in her tone makes you a little crazy, your fingers tightening in her hair, your hips bucking against her face as you try to chase a high you know she’d rather die than deny you. “Missed you so fucking much, baby. Missed the way you taste. The way you sound – fuck, the way you fall apart for me.”

“Please,” you choke out, but you’re not quite sure what you’re begging for. Paige nods anyways, the motion causing you to gasp when her nose brushes against your clit again, and she somehow doubles her pace, her tongue sliding against you with a vicious efficiency that all but pushes you to the edge. You’re teetering on it now, inches away from slipping off completely, and you ramble, “Shit, Paige, so close. You’re so fucking good, love you so much–”

Your words get stuck in your throat when she latches onto your clit and sucks. You’re almost sure that she breathes the very soul out of your body as you crumble completely, your legs tightening around her head as your hips buck wildly against her mouth. The sounds spilling from your lips are unrestrained, unintelligible, but Paige hums against you and drinks up every drop from your cunt like you’re the first sip of water she’s had in years. She’s always a little messy when she’s got a glass or two of wine in her system, but you think you like her this way – when she behaves like your pleasure is the most important thing to her and that she died if you weren’t unravelling on her face.

Sensitive, you cry out softly, tugging her back by the hair to give you room to breathe. But she doesn’t budge, her grip tightening on your thighs, and she glances up at you, brows tented, chest heaving, her expression nothing short of begging. Her face is slick, lips, cheek, nose, and even her neck covered with your arousal, and it makes something in your core simmer with heat. “C’mon, baby,” she pleads, her tongue already working you again. The oversensitivity makes you tremble, but you’re bucking into her mouth mindlessly, needing to come for her again. “One more. Lemme give you one more.”

You’re nodding, but you know she can’t see it, her tongue already sliding through your folds and lapping you up with a fervor. It won’t take much – you know she knows that, and she hums against your cunt in pleasure when you leak into her waiting mouth. “So fucking good for me,” she mutters against you. She’s lost in your pleasure, which makes you ache again, already teetering dangerously close to the edge.

This time, you don’t even have the chance to warn her. Her teeth close around your clit, nipping gently enough to make your hips twitch, then soothing the sting with a harsh suck. You spill over her instantly, your second orgasm somehow feeling stronger than the first one, and your head falls back in desperate pleasure while her pace finally slows. Paige helps you ride out the aftershocks, her tongue cleaning every inch of you before extracting herself from your cunt with great difficulty. If you were any more conscious, you might be able to see the way she stares forlornly at you while she draws back, like she’s a soldier heading off to war.

You can’t focus on anything but the way her palms rub your thighs soothingly, how she unfurls your hands from her hair and tangles your fingers together to help bring you back down to earth. The hand not holding yours curls around your neck as she lifts herself into a standing position, pulling you into her body, pressing her lips gently to your temple while she strokes the hair at the base of your neck.

Strangely, that’s what actually brings you back into a state of coherency, because her lips are sticky and wet from where she’d just spent the better part of fifteen minutes sucking the soul out of your body through your cunt. “You need to wash your face,” you mutter, not actually that bothered by it, and you wipe your own slick off of your forehead immediately.

Paige catches your wrist, slipping your finger into your mouth and sucking gently, her cheeks suctioning from the pressure. If you could feel your legs, you might knock her ass to the ground and return the favor, but the surprisingly serious expression on her face gives you pause. “Don’t waste that shit,” she reprimands you, gingerly wiping the rest off of your face and licking it off her fingers. “Haven’t had you in over a year and you wanna deprive me?”

“And whose fault is that?” you retort, not really intending to be mean about it, and Paige narrows her eyes at you.

“I just gave you two earth-shattering, mind-numbing, toe-curling–”

“Get to the point.”

“Two orgasms,” she emphasizes. “Two. How many more until I’m out of the doghouse?”

You roll your eyes, a little amused by how fucking annoying she is, and you curl your fingers in the collar of her shirt to plant a chaste kiss to her lips. You can taste yourself, but it doesn’t bother you. “You’re an idiot,” you mumble.

“You love me,” she fires back.

At that, you can’t really help your smile, and the next kiss you press to her mouth is a little more gentle. Softer. Full of something that words can’t really convey, even as you admit, “I do.”

The beaming smile on her face would be a little endearing if you forgot about the two orgasms she’d just drawn from you. “I love you, too,” she promises, and part of you aches for a different reason now. You’re not sure how long you’d been waiting to hear those words from her again, but it makes warmth bloom in your chest, curling around your heart like it belongs there.

She helps you back into your lace underwear, only half pretending to not miss seeing you naked, and the two of you leave the back room with your empty wine glasses in hand. At the bar, Annie raises her eyebrows at you knowingly, but you don’t say anything for both of your sakes – Annie practically raised you, and there were things she just did not need to know. Paige, blessedly, keeps her mouth shut, but she smirks at you as though she’s already thinking about the next time she can have you.

Spirits are high in the juke joint. You can spot Smoke brooding on the second floor, something you’re not really surprised by, and you have no clue where Stack is. You spotted Mary a while ago, which didn’t really surprise you, either; she always had a difficult time staying away from trouble, but so does the blonde who’s lingering in your shadow, not wanting to let you out of her sight.

The party rages on for another twenty or so minutes – everyone is still singing and dancing. Delta Slim is still plucking away at the piano, and you’re deep in conversation with a woman who frequents Annie’s shop when you hear a commotion at the front door. That’s what actually surprises you. The night had been peaceful so far. Cornbread hadn’t actually had to enforce his bouncer duties, but it seems there’s a time and a place for everything.

You follow Annie (and Paige follows you) to the front door. You step up behind the twins, then Mary’s behind you, and you’re all a little concerned at the sight. Standing at your doorstep are three individuals. They’re holding three different guitars and the man on the far right has a lantern clutched in his grasp. They’re white, so you can see why their arrival gives everyone pause.

“We heard a tale of a party,” the white man at the front says. You struggle to place his accent, your head cocking in confusion. There’s something…off, about him, something lurking beneath the surface, and you can’t place that, either. But your gut is never wrong. You nudge Annie, a silent conversation passing between the two of you, and she nods. She suspects it, too. “Drinks, food, blues music and the like.”

Cornbread looks perplexed. “You did?” he asks, his tone believing.

“We like to drink,” the man says. “We happen to be musicians, and, uh…we walked here. So, we hungry as dogs.” The other man with the lantern backs this up with a very emphatic woof woof! that disgusts you immediately. You shift uncomfortably and Paige curls an arm around your waist subtly. “You wouldn’t mind us coming in, now, would you?”

Cornbread narrows his eyes. “I think y’all are in the wrong place,” he states.

“What makes you say that?” the woman asks.

The man turns his gaze from cornbread to the twins, his features softening. “You fellas must be the owners of this establishment.”

“That’s right,” Smoke agrees. “And you are?”

They introduce themselves – the man in the middle is Remmick, and his companions are Bert and Joan. But when Sammie comes into view to check on his cousins, Remmick’s expression shifts. “You must be that voice I heard from out here. It was beautiful.”

“Goddamn beautiful,” Joan agrees unsettlingly.

“Even through these walls,” Bert adds.

You narrow your eyes, only half listening to the rest of the conversation as you try to place why these travelers unsettle you so. It’s not the color of their skin – far from it. It’s the almost robotic detachment, the way they’re here, uninvited, and Joan and Bert have positioned themselves on either side of Remmick and far enough behind him to be considered respectful. They’re not equals. Remmick holds a sort of power over them, and you feel like you’re nearing the answer the more you stare at them, at the way Remmick stares into the juke joint as if searching for something.

The conversation passes. Questions like where are you from? Are you Klan? Even an unsettling rendition of Pick Poor Robin Clean that makes your hair stand on end. Smoke ends it abruptly, not a fan of the lack of blues, and Remmick points out that he and his friends have a lot of money they’d like to spend. They exchange a few more words before they walk away with an exaggerated slowness, stopping just short of the road leading into the woods.

“They gave me the willies,” Pearline, another of the singers, mutters.

“Crackers at night time will do that to you,” Stack says. Then, Smoke and Stack start arguing over why they’re here, if they’re actually Klan, before Smoke firmly states, “Don’t let them in.”

That seems to be the end of that, and the tension dissipates slightly. You return to the bar with Annie and Paige in tow, something uncomfortable settling low in your gut, and you top off your glass of wine and you take a long, slow sip of it. “I don’t trust them,” you declare in a huff, feeling Paige’s hand slide soothingly around your waist. “That man barked.”

“Woof, woof,” Paige imitates, and you wrinkle your nose at her in a way that makes her face fall. “Not funny. Got it.”

“I don’t either,” Annie admits. She glances up to the second floor where Smoke and Sammie are locked in conversation. Something makes her lips twist as she cleans a glass, something that looks a whole lot like I hope he knows what he’s doing.

Across the room, you spot Mary and Stack conversing, then you watch as Stack slips a small handgun into a holster tucked under her skirt. You know what her plan is long before Mary walks smoothly to the bar, sidling up next to you and Paige, looking at the taller blonde with a quiet request. “They’ll listen to us,” Mary says, her tone soft, spoken like it’s one of the quiet truths about the world and society that you’ll have to accept. “Remmick and them. The twins aren’t breaking even – too much plantation credit. The juke joint won’t be able to operate for another night if they can’t afford it.”

Paige draws her bottom lip between her teeth. You know her well enough to understand that she’d made up her mind. You give Mary a gentle look and she nods solemnly, stepping away from you two and giving you some privacy.

“Five minutes,” Paige utters, her voice hardly above a whisper. You might not be able to hear her over the thrum of the crowd. “Just to feel them out and keep an eye on Mary.” You don’t say anything, only looking up at her with an expression of calm concern, and she reaches for your wrist, pressing your palm to her hip where you can feel the outline of her holster, the handgun settled against her skin, unassuming.

You had a bad feeling about them, although it was significantly better for Paige and Mary to be out there together, both armed, than to let one or the other go alone. You didn’t like the situation, but you couldn’t do much. Sucking in a deep breath, you enclose both of Paige’s hands around yours, bringing them to your lips, and the both of you close your eyes as you pray over her. For safety, for protection. For the clear eyes to spot deceit. When you finish, she brushes a quick, gentle kiss to your cheek, squeezing your hands once before walking out of the door side by side with Mary.

Your chest is tense the entire time that she’s gone, but you try to keep yourself distracted, chatting with Annie while the two of you work the bar in tandem. She serves the fried catfish while you pour the drinks, an easy rhythm between the two of you. Even though you’re busy with the crowd, your eyes still trail off to the front door, hoping to see the tall blonde walk in sooner rather than later.

Eventually, she does, and Mary’s right behind her. You feel as though you can finally breathe a sigh of relief, although you wrinkle your nose when you watch Mary throw herself onto Stack and lead him into the back room you and Paige had already visited not even an hour prior. You suppose it’s a happy night for everyone, and you smile fondly at Paige as she rounds the bar once more, her palm finding your hip. “How’d it go?” you ask in a hushed whisper.

“Nothing to worry about,” she reassures you, but she doesn’t add anymore, which confuses you. Her hand presses against you a little more firmly, a knee slipping between your legs, and you can’t help but gasp at the pressure.

“Paige!” you hiss, glancing around, your heart in your throat. Annie is occupied with an inebriated man who is struggling to cut his fish, but it doesn’t make you relax anymore. Her grin is sharp, eyes dark, and you can smell the wine and something distinctly minty on her breath as she leans in. “You’re insatiable.” You try for a reprimanding tone, but you just sound a little breathless, feeling a heat coil low in your belly when she pushes you down on her knee slightly. “We just–”

“Still gotta make it up to you, don’t I?” she murmurs, the muscle of her thigh flexing under your weight, and you sigh softly at the drag, trying to not look like she’s ruining you in a room full of people. “Let Annie handle this. You deserve a break.” Her lips find the shell of your ear, her voice a rumbling, low timbre when she says, “You deserve to feel good, baby. Lemme help you.”

Still breathless, all you can do is nod, and she guides you upstairs, the both of you searching for a quiet corner. Paige pushes open the door to the loft area and her lips are on yours before the door clicks shut. She’s insistent, ravenous, something so different from the way she kissed you downstairs. Her hands curl under your thighs, lifting you easily, and she presses you against the door.

Your fingers tangle in her hair, ruining the bun she’d messily fixed after your earlier rendezvous, and she groans against your lips when you tug. She disconnects your lips, her head tilting back in pleasure at the slight sting of pain, and you don’t waste any time before you’re leaning into her. You sink your teeth into her neck, your tongue soothing over the mark. Her hips buck like the feeling of your lips on her neck already has her close to the edge. You trail your lips down, nipping at the vein protruding from the side of her neck, the tender area where her neck meets her shoulder. Paige’s fingers tighten around you, her muscles straining, and it sends white hot desire to your core when your palms slide down, feeling the definition in her shoulders and her biceps.

Your lips meet again and Paige breathes into you like she’s trying to gather your taste, to eat you alive. Her tongue meets yours, hardly needing permission this time around, and you sink into it, letting her unravel you. It’s a lot – the feeling of her teeth in your skin, the dangerous, almost instinctual way she kisses you, the primality in how she squeezes bruises into the skin of your thighs. It’s rough, heady, and right now, it is perfect.

You break away long enough to speak, your chest heaving. When you meet her eyes, her pupils are blown out, the darkest blue you’ve ever seen them, and you swear you see the smallest fleck of drool spilling out from the corner of her lips, but you can’t be too sure if it was from her or you. All you know is that you need her – right now. You need her, pressed bare skin to bare skin, her hips rutting against yours, her mouth on your chest or your neck or quite literally anywhere. “Need you,” you whimper, your lips brushing against hers, and she squeezes you once that feels like some strange mix between a warning and an apology.

She lifts you off of the door, her teeth scraping against your collarbone as she leads you backwards. There’s a fleece blanket spread out on the floor, the one that had been used to cover the piano during transport, and she lays you against it gently, a devastating contrast to the viciousness in which she’d kissed you with. Something in you aches at the sight of her. The heat coiling in your belly, the pulsating feeling between your legs, begging for attention. You’ve never needed anyone more than you need Paige right now.

When you peer up at her through your lashes, you’re almost taken aback by how different she looks. Her fingers are trembling as she unbuttons her dress shirt, but there’s simultaneously a stark rigidity in her spine, a tense feeling in her shoulders. It’s like she’s fighting between two different parts of her – her brain and her body, or something else otherworldly, like maybe some instinctual urge.

At first, you wonder if she’s only doing this because she feels as though she truly has to make up for her absence in making you feel good. Maybe something had gotten lost in translation or jokes that didn’t land well. So you reach out, stopping her movements when your fingers wrap around her wrists, and her entire body goes still. The tremor is gone. Her shoulders sag with something like realization, or relief, as though a weight had been lifted off of them. And her eyes – which had been burning with a heat, a desire you don’t think you’ve ever seen before, have calmed.

Gently, you whisper, your tone echoing a promise, “You don’t owe me anything.” You watch her throat bob as she swallows, her eyes trailing from your eyes, to your lips, before honing in on your neck, where the pulse from the organ behind your ribcage thrums in your neck. “We don’t–”

“I want to,” she breathes out, shrugging out of her shirt, and your eyes follow the lines of her body. You didn’t get to see them earlier. Her breasts are covered by her bra, something worn yet unshakingly reliable, the firm lines of her muscles crossing over one another and dipping beneath the waistband of her pants. Paige leans down, her hands pressed into the floorboards on either side of your head, her arms caging you in. The position shouldn’t make you feel as safe as you do, but she dips her head down to kiss you again. It’s gentler, more like what you’re used to from her, and the difference makes your headspin. She goes from rough to demanding to gentle and soft within minutes, and your body struggles to catch up.

“Wanna make you feel good,” she whispers, her voice wrecked, as she scrapes her teeth against your neck again. She pauses, her nose nearing your pulse point, where you’re sure she can feel the way your heart beats for her. Paige breathes in, like she’s trying to memorize the way you smell, and she presses a gentle kiss to your pulse point. She lingers there, her breath hitching, almost as though she’s forcing herself to keep moving. Like she knows she’s doing something she shouldn’t quite be doing.

“Wanna watch you fall apart for me,” she continues, her tongue darting out to lick the salt off your throat. She hums at the flavor and you arch into her. Paige leans back on her heels, reaching out for you, and she quickly unzips your dress at the back. “Wanna see you. All of you.” She punctuates her words by slowly pulling the fabric down, revealing miles upon miles of glistening skin, and her breath hitches at the sight. You’re bare, nipples already pebbling from the cool air of the room, and she sneaks in a feel as she pulls your dress down your torso.

It comes off easily. You lift your hips to help her out, leaving you in nothing but your lace, which is still damp from earlier. Her gaze lingers, and naturally, you spread your legs for her, allowing her to settle in between you with something like wonder on her face. But there’s something in her expression that’s still pinched.

You forget all about her weird behavior when her lips enclose around one of your nipples, her hand reaching up to fondle the other one. The pressure is otherworldly, all but forcing you to press up against her, and her free hand shoves your hips down with ease. You gasp a little, already sure that you’re leaking again, but she hums deep in her throat, the sound sending a shockwave straight through you.

“Paige,” you whimper, your voice breaking around a moan as she alternates, her mouth finding your other breast. “Please touch me.”

She laughs, fingers tracing the waistband of your lace, slipping under when you least expect it. But she doesn’t find your clit. She doesn’t press against you in the way that you need, doesn’t slip her finger inside like she usually would. She’s trying to draw out your pleasure, to make you beg for it, and that thought alone makes you wetter. “I am touching you, baby,” she teases. Her lips leave your breasts to trail down your stomach, nipping gently, soothing the sting with her tongue.

Huffing, you wrap your legs around her waist, tugging her a little closer to you, and something dangerous flashes in her gaze. “Don’t be a jerk,” you chastise, trying to sound strong, but your voice is breathless, full of need, and Paige knows it.

She grabs your thighs, pressing your legs back down onto the blanket, and leans over you with something dark in her eyes. “Don’t be a brat,” she retorts. The tone of her voice makes your entire body burn. “Think I don’t know what you need?” Her palms press against your stomach, fingers poking where she’d sucked brusies against your sensitive skin. It makes your hips jump. “You think I don’t know how to touch you? That when you’re turned on, and I press here…” Her palm finds your stomach, pressing down precisely, and a gasp falls from your lips. The smile on her face is far too smug. “…You make those sweet little sounds for me?”

“Paige,” you cry out again, feeling your need seep out of your cunt, surely staining your lace.

But she just keeps going. “You think I don’t know exactly how to fuck you? To make sure you feel me?” She shakes her head, lost in it, and she tangles her fingers in the waistband of your underwear. “I know you, baby. I know you’re soaking through this fucking lace for me. Know you’ve been wet all fucking night. If I had my way, I would have had my head between your thighs for hours until you cried for me.” Paige pulls your lace down slowly, her jaw falling open as she reveals your dripping cunt.

She glances at you, a satisfied little smile on her face, gaze heated, gone. “Is it that serious?” she coos, her tone teasing, eyes dropping to your thighs. “So fucking wet for me. Just want me to take care of you, huh?”

That’s when you spot it – the shining, viscous liquid pooling at the corner of her mouth, sliding down her chin, her neck. She’s fucking drooling. That realization hits you like a fucking truck, arousal seeping out of your weeping cunt, and you’re a little breathless when you ask, “Is that serious?” while you gesture to her lips.

Almost as though she’s coming back to herself, she reaches up, fingers finding the spit leaking out of her mouth, and she stares like she’s been caught. Something clears in her eyes. Embarrassment, maybe. Probably something else. Feeling your heartbeat in your cunt, you reach out for her hand, wrapping your lips around her fingers, and moaning in pleasure at the taste of her spit.

You can hear her groan – impossibly wrecked, destroyed entirely. She watches with rapt attention as you take her fingers down to the base, your tongue sliding between them, making sure you get every drop. When you’re done, her fingers are soaked, coated in your own saliva, and you drag a finger across the remainder pooling at the base of her neck. “What’d you say earlier?” you whisper, tone saccharine sweet. “‘Don’t waste that shit’?” You pop your own finger in your mouth while her brain catches up with her.

Ruined, she wipes her chin and her neck, offering her hand to you, and you don’t waste any more time before you’re taking her fingers in your mouth again, making sure to maintain eye contact. She groans, the sound low and devastating in her throat, her eyes not once moving away from you. When her hand is clear, she wraps it around your throat, not applying any pressure, but the hold is firm enough to push you back down onto your back.

“Open,” she commands, and you do so wordlessly. The hand on your throat holds you still while, slowly, she lets her spit pool on her tongue, letting it fall into your mouth. You shudder at the feeling, your body impossibly hot, and her smile is a little reverent when she releases your throat to push your jaw up. You swallow immediately. Paige rewards you with a bruising kiss, groaning at the flavor of your combined tastes.

There’s no more foreplay from there, the both of you burning for each other. She fumbles with her belt buckle and shucks off her pants and boxers with an unnatural quickness. You reach for the hem of her bra, not wanting to be alone in your nakedness, and she raises her arms to allow you to pull it off of her.

The first press of her skin against yours feels like a lightning strike to your overheated skin. It makes you gasp, and she takes advantage of your pleasure to slip her tongue inside again, already working on pushing you to the edge with her lips alone. Her hands trail down to your thighs, pushing them open even more. She fits against you like a puzzle piece, pulling you flush against her, and you’re sure you ascend completely at the feeling of her wet cunt pressing against yours.

You both let out keening moans, your name falling from her lips while a curse falls from yours. Your fingers grapple for purchase on her back, your nails sinking in and scratching, and she moans against your lips at the sting of pain. Her forehead presses against yours, her hips rolling sensually into yours, and when your sensitive clits brush against each other, desire shoots up both of your spines simultaneously.

Her arms are caging you in again, the bulge and ripple of her muscles dragging you closer to a long awaited peak. Her hips roll with a newfound intensity, your combined slick making the slide impossibly smooth, and every brush of her clit against yours makes a moan tumble from your mouth. You’re unable to say anything, the pleasure immense and the words caught in your throat, and Paige kisses you like she understands, anyways. It’s needy, desperate, and reverent all in one.

Paige’s hips slam against yours, the both of you chasing your highs, and she releases your lips to press her mouth to your neck, directly over your pulse point. She kisses it, sucks a deep, bruising mark into your skin, and noses against your skin like she’s trying to memorize the way you smell – the way your blood smells as it courses through your veins.

And then her teeth scrape against your neck. It makes you keen, tilting your head back to give her more room to work with, and she whimpers against your skin like the pleasure is too much. Her hips keep moving, even when her lips stall, but she mouths against your neck, almost as though she’s trying to gather confidence for something. Like she’s at war with her mind and she can’t make a decision. Like there’s something stopping her from sinking her teeth into you completely and feasting.

Eyes glazed over from pleasure, you finally peer up at her through your lashes, wondering why she’s pausing. Hesitating. Why she’s whining against your skin like she’s simultaneously hurt and seconds away from combusting with pleasure.

The sight above you isn’t one that you’d been expecting. It sobers you instantly, only halfway, the bump and grind of her clit against yours still sending shockwaves up your spine. There’s drool pooling at the corner of her lips again, but what truly gathers your attention and steals your breath away is the sharpness of her canines, the fangs protruding from her mouth. Her bottom lip is bitten raw, blood staining her mouth and dripping down her chin, as if she’d bitten her lip trying to prevent herself from biting you.

It’s then that you realize why the travellers had given you so much pause. Why you didn’t trust them. You’d been able to sense that lurking beneath the surface, they weren’t as they’d appeared. It wasn’t an inherent evilness. Even with Paige hovering above you, fangs out like she’s about to eat you alive, you can tell that she’s not evil. But she’s not herself either.

“Can’t,” she whimpers, almost as though she’s coming back to herself. You realize she’d been so weird ever since she returned with Mary because she’d been afflicted, fighting her mind and body and something else purely instinctual from the very moment she’d been let back into the juke joint. There’s something else in her head pressuring her to do something that she clearly doesn’t want to do – turning you, killing you – and she’s fighting every synapse and urge in her body to keep you safe. “I fucking can’t, ‘m so sorry.”

Her body and mind are split down the middle. Her fangs poke out, lips twisted up like she’s battling every urge to sink her teeth into your neck. But her eyes are as clear of a blue as you’d ever seen them. She doesn’t want to do this, doesn’t want to be this monster. Doesn’t want to hurt you anymore than she already has.

Then, there’s a flash of red in her eyes, something glowing, and she cries out as her head shoots back, her fangs digging into her lip again. She breathes heavily, and when she glances down at you, the red is gone and tears are pooling at her waterline. Blood dribbles from her lips, staining her teeth red. Your heart is caught in your throat, mouth open in disbelief and fear – not of her, but of what will happen if you lose her.

“Can’t hurt you,” she mutters again, her voice hoarse. “Won’t.” Her entire body shudders as she battles the urge. “Help me. Please, baby.”

Your fingers are trembling when you nod, wrapping your arms around her, and pulling her closer. She cries out like the temptation is blinding, pressing at every crevice of her body, but you trust her. God, you do. Despite everything that has led up to this moment, you know you’re safe with her. That she’d never hurt you. “It’s okay,” you promise, your voice steady, breathing hitting her ear. “You’re okay. Just move with me.”

You can feel her nod shakily, her hips resuming their slow motions against yours, and it’s this – this human connection, this bond between the two of you that’s more than just physical – that stabilizes her, tethers her to the reason why she can’t bring herself to sink her fangs in your neck and drain you like the urge in her brain is pressuring her to. “You won’t hurt me,” you whisper, squeezing the back of her neck, and she nods again. “Say it. You won’t hurt me.”

“I won’t hurt you,” she affirms, no hesitation, her forehead resting against your shoulder. Her breath comes out in a shudder, the pleasure coursing through her veins muddling with the uncertainty in her head. Paige noses against your neck, breathing in your scent, and something in her shoulders relaxes.

“You are not what he made you,” you say, one of your hands brushing through her hair.

“‘M not – fuck –” The words get caught in her throat, but she presses more firmly against you, and she breathes through it. “I’m not what he made me.”

Your lips find her cheek, her temple, grounding her, and your hips start meeting hers. “You are Paige Bueckers. You’re safe.”

Her voice is rough, but her tone is a little clearer when she repeats it. “I’m Paige Bueckers,” she whispers into your neck, her lips kissing your skin, almost like an apology. Like gratitude. Like a literal You are the only person keeping me here right now. “I’m safe.”

Your palms come up to cup her cheeks, pulling her out of your neck to meet her gaze. Her eyes are startlingly blue, tears slipping from her eyes, and her fangs are mostly gone. There’s still a slight edge on her canines, but you can feel it. She’s rejecting the bloodlust, the pressure of the hivemind she’s been trapped under. You kiss her gingerly, tasting the salt of her tears and the iron of the blood on her lips, and she sobs against your lips like that was the one thing she needed to remember who she was.

“I love you,” you whisper – you promise, and her hips are still chasing yours.

But you don’t give in. Not until Paige presses her forehead to yours, swearing vehemently, “I love you, too.”

You hold her gaze. Your eyes are steady, sure, and hers are trusting. She trusts that you’ll get her through to the other side of this, just as you trusted that she wouldn’t give into the feeling. So, you smile at her, faithfully, and you whisper, “Come back to me.”

She does. You latch onto each other as you fall apart in tandem. She’s still holding herself up by her hands, but her body shudders through the aftershocks as you kiss her temple, her nose, her lips, murmuring gently to her. You pull her onto your chest, her arms giving out, and she curls up next to you while she hiccups through the remainder of her tears. Her legs tangle with yours, her face tucking into the crook of your neck, her arms holding onto you like she’s afraid you’re going to run.

But you’d promised – the both of you did. There’s no more running from the people that you love. You brush her damp hair off of her forehead, kissing her skin gently, and it makes her shiver. You don’t think you’ve ever seen Paige look like this – scared of herself. Of what she is. She looks so young. It makes you hold onto her a little tighter.

“Where are you?” you whisper to her after a while.

She hardly shifts. “With you,” she promises. The last bit of tension in your shoulders dissipates. Paige is silent for a long moment. Then, you feel the heat of her tears dampening your skin, and you tighten your arms around her as she cries. “I’m sorry,” she chokes out, the same way a sinner might as he stands before God on judgement day. “I’m so sorry. I almost–” Whatever she was trying to say gets stuck in her throat, and you trail your fingers soothingly up and down her back as she finds coherency. “I almost hurt you. Again.”

“You didn’t,” you remind her, your voice firm. “You couldn’t.” Her breath catches like she’s trying to force herself to believe that. “I trust you. In every definition of the word. I trust you, Paige. If I’m not safe with you then there’s nowhere else I’d be able to survive. You didn’t hurt me. You have nothing to be sorry for. It’s not your fault.”

Paige nods; then, brokenly, she murmurs, “It’s not my fault.” You hum in agreement, feeling her body relax against yours. You both lay in silence for a moment until she speaks up again. “You saved me.”

“You saved yourself,” you retort. You cup her cheek, your finger tapping against her temple, and you draw her eyes up to meet yours. “Up here. You did that. I just helped you down here.” You press your palm to her chest, where her heart is. She settles her hand over yours, sinking into you.

Then, Paige stiffens like she’s just remembered something. “Mary,” she states simply, and the dread seeps back into your chest.

“She took Elias to the back when she got back in,” you mutter. Paige glances at you once before the both of you haul yourselves to your feet, redressing quickly, and you make your way downstairs.

The both of you are already too late. The juke joint has been cleared out, with only a select few people remaining. Smoke, Annie, Pearline, Sammie, Grace Chow, Delta Slim. They all linger around the door to the back room. Mary’s missing. So is Stack, but Paige winces like she knows exactly where he is and what happened to him.

Annie catches sight of you first. Her face crumples with relief and she marches over immediately, pulling you into a tight hug that you eagerly reciprocate. “You’re okay,” she breathes out.

“I’m okay,” you murmur, mostly to soothe her, and Annie pulls away. She takes one glance at Paige and she stiffens, knowing that she’d left and returned with Mary. Her eyes narrow, but none of you get the chance to say anything before a handgun cocks and Smoke is pointing the barrel directly between Paige’s eyes.

She flinches, not because of the gun aimed at her. But because Smoke is one of her best friends and he hadn’t hesitated before he turned the gun on her. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you where you stand,” he says firmly.

For that, Paige has no real answer, but you step in between her and the barrel of Smoke’s gun. “Because she wouldn’t kill us,” you declare, your voice soft, yet it echoes in the emptiness of the juke joint. You glance back at her. Paige’s eyes are shining. “Couldn’t kill us.”

Smoke looks at Annie, who looks at you. Something in her features softens. “They’re not Haints,” she announces. “They’re vampires. Fangs, red eyes. Garlic, silver, sunlight, and wooden stakes are lethal. When they’re turned, they’re killed. Their soul is trapped inside their body and they’re unable to move on. But…there’s always a rare case. Sometimes souls are shared.” Annie meets your gaze again. “You’re the reason why she’s resisting the curse right now.”

You nod solemnly, already knowing as much, although you didn’t have the vocabulary for it. Smoke’s eyes linger on you. Then Paige. Then Annie. He lowers the gun, sliding it back into the holster, and Paige relaxes immediately. So do you. You step back, linking your fingers together. The tension in the room doesn’t completely dissolve, but it’s not nearly as heavy now.

Everyone starts making preparations. Annie assembles jars of pickled garlic. Silver jewelry is shared. Chairs are broken down and whittled into sharp, wooden points. Paige helps, but she’s a lot slower, her fingers trembling around the stake in her hand because she knows she’s holding the one thing that could ever kill her. You stick close by her if only to offer support, and you converse in hushed murmurs.

“You can’t stay here forever,” you say. Her throat bobs, quiet acceptance on her face. “The sunrise will kill you.”

“I’m not leaving you,” she argues.

You look at her. Your features soften. “Paige,” you whisper, your voice cracking under the weight of your emotions. “You couldn’t kill me.”

“Won’t.”

“I can’t kill you,” you confess. “Won’t.” She pauses, her gaze meeting yours. “I can’t sit here with you until sunrise and watch you burn up.”

“I don’t want to die.” Her voice is a quiet murmur. “I don’t want to be where you aren’t.”

You reach out, plucking the stake from her hands. She’s shaking. You slide into her lap, her arms immediately encircling you, and you press your foreheads together. “I don’t want to lose you either,” you say. “Which is why I want you to run when I tell you to. I’ll find you.”

She chokes on a laugh, but it’s watery. “I thought we said no more running,” she says, trying to keep the mood light, and you can’t help your giggle.

You kiss her gently. “If you die, you’re running away from me. You owe me.” She nods against you, her smile a little softer. “Promise me you’ll go when I tell you to.”

She’s silent for a moment. Her fingers trace your skin, the blue of her gaze searching yours. And she gives in. “I promise.”

You kiss her again. You hold onto her for a little longer, and then the both of you get back to work.

There are a few interruptions as you do. Stack returns with Mary in tow, asking to be let in. Obviously, no one lets that happen. Then Bo Chow returns – Grace’s husband, and you can sense that she’s moments away from giving in. At least, until Remmick shows up next to Bo and says something in Mandarin that makes Grace lose it. She’s dragged away kicking and screaming while someone slams the doors closed.

You can hear Remmick and the rest of the vampires locked in another haunting rendition of Pick Poor Robin Clean. Grace is at her wit’s end. You and Paige stay close, but commotion draws your attention. Smoke and Annie are holding Grace back while she thrashes. All you hear is, “Come on in, motherfucker!” and you know that your night is about to get a whole lot worse.

The subsequent fighting passes in a blur. You hardly remember it. You drive your stake through the chests of a few vampires, and so does Paige, even if the look on her face makes it look like she’s killing herself, too. You think you’re starting to make good progress until you see Stack hovering over Annie’s body, his fangs in her neck.

Everything goes devastatingly still. The fight still rages on. Gunfire echoes through the rooms, the cries of staked vampires falling on deaf ears. All you can see is the way Annie’s jaw hangs slack, pain etched on her face, and you can hear the agony in Smoke’s voice. Paige’s head turns, her face crumbling at the sight of her body.

She doesn’t hesitate. She tackles Stack, punching him clean across the jaw and disorienting him. The infighting causes a ripple of confusion among the vampires and it gives Smoke enough opportunity to stake the one holding him down before he rushes over to Annie.

You’re already next to her when Smoke falls to his knees next to her. He applies pressure over the wound at her neck, but you rest your hand over his, your fingers trembling. “It’s too late,” you tell him, your voice choked up.

Annie manages a nod, and with a weak voice, she wheezes, “You promised.” Her gaze is locked on Smoke.

He knows. With shaking hands, he reaches for his discarded stake. You wrap your hand around it, too, and together, you and Smoke both murmur, “I love you,” and Annie nods again like she understands. The both of you drive the stake through Annie’s chest, finally allowing her to move on and be at peace.

Her death causes a massive retreat. Paige grabs onto you, joining the rest of your friends as you hurry upstairs with Sammie. Delta Slim hangs back, cutting his own wrist cleanly, and drawing a crowd of the remaining vampires and allowing the rest of you the chance to escape.

On the second floor, there’s a door leading to a staircase outside. Smoke is ushering all of you out of it, and one by one, you make your way down. You glance up at the sky, noting how close to dawn you are. With your heart in your throat, you grab onto Paige’s hand, and you force her to meet your gaze. “Go,” you command.

She swallows thickly, glancing behind you to the crowd of vampires who have made their way out to intercept you. She doesn’t want to leave you. Not when this is what you have to face without her.

“You promised,” you remind her, your voice cracking when you recall that those were Annie’s last words, too. Paige seems to recognize that, nodding, and she presses her forehead to yours once more.

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs again, kissing you gently. You just hold onto her a little tighter. “Please be okay.”

“I will,” you swear – because you will be. Paige has made sure of it. “I love you.”

Paige glances up at the sky, at the way the sun has begun to peek out from the horizon. She bows her head in a defeated acceptance. “I love you, too.”

Then she’s gone – her figure disappearing behind the trees. Her absence still aches. As strong as you try to be, you don’t know what the morning holds.

The sun comes up while Remmick and Sammie are locked in on each other in the shallow pond. Smoke comes up behind you, looking defeated, and you wonder about what happened to Stack. All around you, the vampires clutch their heads in agony as the sun blisters their skin, bright balls of orange flame encompassing everything.

The night ends in a way that makes you wonder if it’d even happened at all. There are no piles of ash, no indication of what just transpired if not for the blood on everyone’s clothes or the burn marks at the front of the juke joint from Grace’s molotov cocktail. The morning is still. Quiet. You watch as Smoke and Sammie hug each other tightly, as if they can’t believe that they’re even alive. Smoke sends Sammie off. He was supposed to help his father with the morning service, and the fact that Sammie goes willingly reminds you more of a trauma response than anything else.

You watch the sunrise with Smoke. Neither of you say anything, a shared sort of grief in your heart. When he looks down at his dog tags, at the chest of weapons he’d stashed in his truck, you know of his plan before you think he does. Gingerly, you wrap him in a hug, and you murmur, “Say hello to Annie for me.”

His fingers tremble when he hugs you back. “I will,” he promises. “Go be with her.”

You nod, releasing him. You find a car that had been left behind, find the keys left on the seat, and you drive a little catatonically back to Annie’s shop. The sun is well into the sky by the time you make it there. Everything is quiet. Unmoving. You cut the engine, step out, and make your way to the door. You open it.

Paige has you in her arms before the door even closes. You sink into her embrace, clutching onto her tightly, because she’s somehow still the one thing that makes even a little bit of sense in this fucked up world. She lets you cry into her chest and you’re pretty sure that she’s crying into your shoulder, but the two of you just remain locked in each other’s arms. She doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t ask you if you’re okay or how you’re feeling. She knows. She gives you the space to quietly grieve, to not be strong. The both of you had lost so many people tonight. Friends. Family. Everything else.

She didn’t expect you to be okay. You didn’t know how long it would take for things to feel okay. To feel normal. Maybe the truth is that you might never feel normal again. Your girlfriend is stuck under this curse for the rest of her days, even though she’s still Paige Bueckers, but there’s so much you’ll need to learn. To do. You’ll have to change so much about your lives just to survive.

But you’d made her a promise a while ago. You would rather love Paige in the dark than have anyone else in the sun. You hadn’t realized the irony of your words until now, but you mean it. As long as you and Paige have each other, this new part of your lives might not be so difficult. It will just be yours. For now, that’s all you can really ask for.

“You still makin’ pie today?” she asks, her voice soft and exhausted at the edges.

It draws a light laugh out of you. It relieves you to know that you could still be happy after this. “Yeah,” you promise. “I’m making pie today. And you can have the spoon.”

Paige holds onto you a little tighter after that. And she doesn’t let go.

Life after the night at the juke joint is…different. An adjustment.

Sammie disappears to only God knows where, although in the years after, you’d heard whisperings of a blues singer who’d taken the world by storm. As much as you cared for him, you struggled with keeping up with him and his adventures. He reminded you too much of that night and everyone you’d lost – Annie, Smoke, Delta Slim, the Chows. Even Cornbread.

But Paige doesn’t remind you of the horrors. It’s always a little different with her, even if she isn’t what she used to be. She’s trapped in that supernatural plane between being human and something not quite. Following Remmick’s death, she was no longer shackled to that all-consuming hivemind of hate and malice. Not that she was fully in it in the first place – her heart was a little too human. She’s more like herself now than she was that night, which does bring you some comfort.

You’re not comforted by the fact that her soul is trapped in her body, though. Not comforted by the fact that she’s dead, yet she’s still living half of a life for your sake because she’d been unable to kill you while under the spell of vampirism and you were unable to kill her yourself, too. Paige is a walking folktale, unable to touch silver, eat garlic, or feel the sun on her skin. She hides in the shadows during the day and comes out during the night if only to feel your skin against hers.

You’re not an ordinary pair. You’ve never been – two women connected by fate and bonded by love in Mississippi. You fell in love despite the fact that the world thought you shouldn’t. You survived the attacks at the juke when it was improbable. Now, you’re still two women learning to navigate life as one of you ages and the other remains stuck at 23.

After that night, you return to town. You try your best to explain to Lisa, the Chows’ daughter, what happened. You don’t think she believes you – you wouldn’t either. But life goes on for her, even though her parents never return. You take over Annie’s shop, still serving Elise and Will and telling them that Annie and Elijah had actually gotten married and moved out of the Delta. They were too young for the truth, and you didn’t have the heart to explain it to them.

During the day, Paige helps you in the shop, confined to the shadows indoors, staring longingly out the window. She’d once told you that she never realized how much she’d miss the sun until it was gone. That made you feel a little guilty, but she just kissed you, forgiveness and atonement on her lips. She wasn’t going to hate you for being unable to kill her when that was also a crime she’d committed.

At night, she’s glued to your side, trampling gently over weeds and grass in the woods as you search for roots for the shop. You don’t practice the craft like Annie used to – it wasn’t your place. But honoring her memory makes you feel less like you’re drowning. Only after sunset is Paige able to go outside and feel the ground beneath her feet, inhale the fresh air without burning up. Truthfully, it brings you both closer, just having to figure out different ways to love each other.

Neither of you run, even when it’s hard. Paige is there to console you after horrible dreams of that night. You’re there with remedies when her gums ache. Her pain is a little more instinctual than it is medical, but it does bring her some relief.

Stack and Mary came to visit one day. Paige had stood glaring at your side while the two of them spoke with you. They meant no harm. They told you that much when they knocked on your door and asked for an invite inside. Perhaps foolishly, you’d believed them, but you chose to believe they were capable of goodness despite their new nature, just as Paige was. Stack told you about a place they’d come across during their travels, a state in New England – Connecticut. It would be a fresh start away from the horrors of the Delta.

You weren’t sure. Part of you wanted to keep up Annie’s shop, honoring her practice and her traditions for as long as you could. It was difficult to be incognito when half of the town disappeared suddenly one night and the juke joint was littered with bodies. Stack and Annie hugged you before they left, telling you to visit if you ever found the time. You could only nod, and Paige was only able to breathe once they were gone.

You’re tangled in bed together that night, your head on Paige’s chest, listening to the juxtaposition in the sound of her breathing despite the lack of a heartbeat. You never knew that you’d miss that sound, either. Her nail drags up and down your arm soothingly, almost lulling you into a slumber, but she breaks it to murmur, “Connecticut?”

“It’s pretty far,” you respond. “A lot colder than it is here.”

“I wouldn’t be able to tell,” she jokes, which rips a surprised laugh out of your chest. Her finger pauses in its movements, but she shifts, slinging a leg over yours and pulling you closer. That wasn’t anything new – Paige was always physically affectionate, long before Remmick turned her into this. Now, it means something different. You’re warm. Having you close makes her feel a little more alive, even if the skin-to-skin contact can’t fully replace the lack of her own body heat. “We can’t stay here forever,” she continues, her voice softening. Then it breaks when she says, “I can’t stay here forever.”

Her family had long since been shattered down two lines. Still, it weighs on her, the idea of never seeing her parents again, or her siblings. She couldn’t keep them and lie to them about the nature of her being. She also knew they would never believe her fully or see her the same. It would be impossible to explain to people why you continued to age, yet Paige remained the same for years. Impossible to explain why no one ever sees her in town anymore, not even for the holiday celebrations she’d loved as a kid.

“I know,” you whisper.

You had no one left here besides her. All of your friends had passed during that night. Your only connection to the Delta was keeping Annie’s memory fresh. But customers would dwindle, and you know better than anyone else that Annie would tell you to move on. Be happy.

You shift in bed, craning your head to meet Paige’s eyes, and you find that she’s already looking at you. She’s soft, her hair mussed, flowing down her shoulders in wavy strands. She has an imprint of your teeth on her neck from where you’d gotten a little too carried away but she wears it more like a badge of pride than a symbol of irony. Her smile is so tender, her hands cradling you like you’re her entire world, because you are and you know it and she knows it.

It makes you ache a little. But it’s a good ache. You don’t have to give the idea any more thought before you’re asking, “Well, how do you feel about the snow?”

She kisses you gently on the lips, chaste, innocent, something that makes you feel warm all over. “Anywhere’s good as long as it’s with you.”

It takes a few days, but eventually, the two of you make it to Connecticut. You settle down in a small town called Storrs, and honestly?

It’s really, really nice.

Storrs is nothing like the Delta. It doesn’t get nearly as hot. You feel a little more free here. And while you do miss the authentic fried catfish, you think that you can turn Storrs into your home. Your neighbors are kind and they don’t ask questions about you and Paige – they just leave you be. It’s not in a way that makes you think they don’t care about you; rather, it feels like respect and grace, because you weren’t different. You and Paige weren’t something to be stared at. You just were, and your neighbors seemed to understand the value in minding their own.

You and Paige attend three different welcome dinners, getting to know your neighbors and their families. They tell you what life is like in the neighborhood and which establishments were hiring. They send you home with leftovers and you make sure to clean and return them along with one of your homemade pies. It’s a comforting tradition of feeding and taking care of each other.

Paige lands a position at the local high school as an assistant coach for their basketball team. She knows next to nothing about the sport but the position had been vacant for years. She’s a quick study, though – she’d helped lead the team to the district championship by the end of the year. You were teaching language arts at the elementary school, having always enjoyed a good book, and the kids loved you, too.

And so your routine was simple. Not monotonous enough to be boring, but stable enough to be peaceful. Paige would drop you off at the elementary school with a kiss goodbye and a surprise in your lunch bag. It was always a sweet little note consisting of reminders to breathe and to smile. She’d drive to the high school, where she’d scout other teams and draw up training plans or practice drills, often being a role model to her boys and keeping them on the straight and narrow. They came to her for any and everything – advice on how to be better players. One even asked her how he should ask out his crush, which had endlessly amused the both of you as you chatted over it at dinner.

You asked her what she advised him to do, obviously. She’d gotten a little quiet, a small sort of smile spreading across her lips as she brought a piece of chicken up to her mouth. “Told him to be honest,” she said after a moment, looking at you meaningfully. You softened. “That he shouldn’t be afraid to want her.”

“Sounds familiar,” you commented wryly, and she smirked at you over a glass of water.

“Sounds real,” she shot back.

Your kids, while younger, aren’t lacking for stories, either. You tell Paige about the time you watched a boy push a girl on the playground during recess, only for the girl’s friend to step in, hands on her hips like a disappointed mother lecturing an unruly kid. He’d gotten punished, obviously, but it warmed your heart to see the girl standing up for her friend like that – without hesitation.

Then, on the same day, one of your students came to the front and loudly demanded to know where babies came from.

So maybe children came in all shapes and sizes.

Months passed. You and Paige don’t change. You’re still hopelessly in love, finding new ways to love each other. It’s all about the intention and effort and reading the nutrition labels on your food to make sure the suppliers hadn’t slipped garlic in there or making sure to keep the curtains drawn on the days there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It’s buying large umbrellas and telling your new friends that Paige has a severe skin condition where she burns easily in the sun and you have yet to find a sunscreen that works. It’s cuddling up with her late at night, pressed skin to skin with hardly an inch of space left between your bodies, because Paige craves the body heat like she craves having you next to her.

The school year eventually ends and over the summer, you and Paige visit Stack and Mary, as promised. They’re still down south. Mary looks radiant and when you hug her, you congratulate her on keeping Stack out of trouble. Stack had nudged Paige with a raised brow and a look that clearly said I’m keeping her out of trouble. You make a joke about needing an invite into their home and the four of you laugh about it three hours later when you’re all a little tipsy from the wine.

Seeing them makes you feel like you haven’t completely lost anything. That you can still find your family so long as you know where to look and as long as you trust them. You spend a few days with the two of them, and then you and Paige make your way back up to Storrs.

You teach, reminding your students of the importance in looking between the lines, in reading and learning from the source. Paige coaches, instilling grit, passion, and integrity into her players. It wasn’t about being perfect or anything of the sort. It was about doing what you loved with all that you were. The two of you live on, happily.

A year passes. Then two. You’re transferred from kindergarten to the second grade after one of the teachers retired. Paige gets promoted to head coach after winning the district championship win and taking her team to the state finals. You’re turning 27 this year and Paige is still 23. She likes to joke that she’s being preyed on by an older woman and you wish that she wasn’t virtually invincible because you’d like to flick her head just once and have it mean something.

The fact that you’re aging and she’s not isn’t really a concern right now. You’re happy. That’s what matters.

Paige asks you to marry her a year after that, when you’re 28. You say yes, obviously, and Stack and Mary make the trip up to see the both of you. Your wedding is intimate, private, not quite official but official in every way you need it to be. On legal documents, no one would ever know that you were Paige Bueckers’s wife, but you knew that, she knew that, and your closest friends knew that, so it was good enough for you.

You teach. She coaches. Storrs is your home now, even if you miss the Delta and everyone who didn’t make it out. Their loss isn’t your gain. It’s your memory and you honor them everyday. Slim, when you listen to the blues, thinking about how much he’d like this new shit, as Paige calls it. The Chows, when you go to the grocery store and smile at the elderly couple who runs it. You always pay a little too much, pretending not to hear them calling about your change when you walk out. But when you return days later and find that they’ve repaired a light fixture or have a new cash drawer, you can’t find it within yourself to mind too much.

TIme is constant. It moves. It’s unyielding. You get older. Paige doesn’t. But it’s okay.

Years pass. A decade. Two decades. Paige eventually steps down from the head coaching position at the high school because she’s supposed to be almost fifty but doesn’t look a day over twenty. Your neighbors ask how she remains so youthful, and her smile is always a little sharper when she says, “I’ve got great genes.”

She doesn’t look at you like you’re anything less than the woman she’s been in love with since she was sixteen. You don’t forget that, not when there’s crows feet at your eyes and your forehead is beginning to wrinkle. Not when teaching is catching up with you and the hair at the crown of your head starts greying. But you don’t give it up. Paige looks at you like you’re still the most beautiful woman she’s ever seen in her life. She finds other employment opportunities, ones where nobody knows who she is and wouldn’t be confused by her image.

She builds stuff now. She’s a carpenter. She plays basketball in her free time when she’s not working on projects and offhandedly, you comment, “Well, you could always enroll at that college a few miles away and play ball for them.”

You could tell she was always really into that idea, but something was keeping her here with you. You would never find out why and Paige would never tell you if you asked. But the truth was she just wanted to spend as much time with you before your age started actually catching up with you. Paige liked going on your late-night walks, breathing in the cool air and making you laugh by telling jokes that aren’t even funny anymore. Paige liked that you’d try to play basketball with her, even if you couldn’t fully dribble the ball between your legs. You knew that she just liked “defending” you, which meant that her hands wandered everywhere the ball wasn’t, but you liked it too, so you never called her out for it.

Nobody tells you how difficult it can be to be nearing sixty and being in love with someone who’s been twenty-three for three decades. You don’t have the same energy you did when you were younger. Paige didn’t love you any less.

Years pass again. You’re nearing seventy. You retired from teaching a few years ago, but you’re still active in your community, keeping up the local garden and smiling at the daughter of the elderly couple at the grocery store. Your neighbors ask you about why they don’t see Paige anymore and you can’t quite meet their eyes when you say it’s difficult for her to get out because of her arthritis.

You’ve lived a good life – that much you can admit. You survived, you got to keep Paige, and you made a career for yourself at the elementary school. You were afforded a lot more happiness than you ever thought you would have. You wonder what it would be like if things were different – if you and Paige were both cursed to be forever young, or if the both of you hadn’t made it out before the sun rose. You like what you’ve built, so this life was good enough for you.

The 90’s roll around and in spring of 1991, you’re sipping on tea when Paige quietly informs you, “I think I’m going to apply to UConn.”

You try for a wry smile. “Perfect. A twenty three year old with, what, sixty years of basketball experience? That’s just what that new coach needs.”

That made her laugh a little. “I think I’m prepared enough to walk on,” she teases. “Hopefully those freshmen don’t pick my pockets.”

You raise your brows at her and she relents like she’s accepting the possibility that she will get embarrassed by eighteen year olds. Like…actual eighteen year olds. Then you soften, setting your tea down, and meeting her gaze. “You’re serious?” She nods shyly. “Well, just make sure you bring your own pen and paper to class,” you say, lips quirking again. “Us teachers aren’t made of money.”

She laughs again, the sound gentle. Paige stands to brush a kiss across your temple, murmuring, “Don’t worry. I’ll be the best student ever.” She’s off to locate the application, and you smile at her retreating figure.

Neither of you are quite sure how, but she manages to get in. You didn’t consider the fact that her diploma was awarded in the 20s, and truthfully, you don’t really want to know what she did to get her application accepted. By fall, she’s enrolled full time at the University of Connecticut. In August, she walks directly into Geno Auriemma’s office, requesting to walk on in tryout. Afterwards, Paige will tell you that Geno stared at her for a solid minute and a half until she felt like she was slowly being gaslit. “What the hell,” Geno had said, standing up from his desk. “I’ve got time today. Let’s see if you can actually hold a ball, hotshot.”

You knew that Paige could do a lot more than hold a ball. Considering the fact that Geno let her join the team, you guess he figured out that Paige could do a lot more, too.

Everyday, she comes home with stories from practice, telling you about the drills they ran and how Geno sees perfection and demands something more. She doesn’t have to tell you for you to know that she really likes the intensity, the rigor. Geno works them so hard that she forgets she’s able to live forever because one practice makes her feel like it’s her last day on earth. You’re just happy that she’s happy.

You attend all of their home games, unable to be seen with Paige until the both of you are home and you can congratulate her on a good game. But the next four years pass quickly. The first three are winless. You and Paige both know that the Huskies are very close to a national championship win.

In 1995, they finally earned their long awaited one. Their first program win, Geno Auriemma’s first national championship win, and Paige’s, too. She’d led her team there, filling out the stats sheet, and she cried when she held the trophy for the first time.

It must be different for her, you think, to have been cursed to live forever from a young age. There will be no growing old for her. No children or grandchildren to ask her what it was like to win UConn’s first national championship. There will be no huffing and puffing about dentures or anything of the sort. She probably won’t be remembered after this year, but winning feels like building something permanent. It feels like being alive – like truly alive, and you wonder if she holds any resentment towards you for being unable to save her at the juke joint.

But the kiss she dusts across your cheek afterwards, the long hug she pulls you in – sweat and all – makes you feel like she could never be angry at you for that. Especially not when she murmurs, “Thank you for giving me this life,” and you realize that the two of you had sacrificed so much for each other without truly knowing it. Whether the two of you realized it or not, you made something beautiful with the life you’d been given. Not many people can say that.

Paige doesn’t keep the championship net, only the small fragment that she’d cut down. She leaves hers with Geno, who obviously doesn’t understand why she wouldn’t keep it, but he’d coached her long enough to realize there’s no arguing with her.

You think that this is what happiness feels like. What love and fulfillment feels like. All you really know is that you were glad to do it with Paige.

After the national championship win in 1995, the years pass in a blur. You’re slowing down. You can feel it.

You’re well past 90 in 2000 when you realize that this was it for you. You’ve lived a long, good life. You’ve seen a lot, touched the lives of many people around you, and you know that there’s not much waiting for you here. Having no tangible family, assembling your will is an easy task, opting to have your wealth donated to the UConn women’s basketball program anonymously.

In early July, the evening is just beginning to wind down when Paige finds you sitting on the porch. The sound of crickets echo around you, the distant hoot of owls cooing, accompanied by the sound of squirrels running through the underbrush. She takes a seat next to you on the sectional, not a day past twenty, a staunch dissimilarity from you.

You’re both silent for a moment. Contemplative. You don’t have to say anything to know that the both of you are likely thinking the same.

Softly, she murmurs, “I’d like to watch the sunrise with you,” and you know better than anyone what she means by that. What the consequences of that mean.

So you do. She grabs a blanket from inside, large enough to drape over your shoulders, and she helps you onto the earth. Paige guides you to the edge of your property where a small pond rests, the glow of the moonlight reflecting off of the still waters. You sit together, your head on hers, and you spend the entire night talking.

You reminisce about the first time you’d met – you, adjusting to life in the Delta, and Paige, wanting desperately to get out of it. The both of you laugh when she recalls the first time she’d ever met the twins. Elias claimed they were cousins, baiting her perfectly. You remember all of your firsts. The morning when she left you for Chicago – even now, she still apologizes for that, to which you respond with, “Well, don’t leave me in our next life. How about that one?” and she laughs, a determined little smile on her face as she declares, “I’d spend every moment of it looking for you.”

The hours trickle by. For years, you’d thought of this moment, about what would occur when one of you inevitably decided that it was time to go. You imagined nerves. Uncertainty. Fear. Now, you’re comforted by the knowledge that you and Paige are just going to find your way back to each other no matter what. All you feel is a deep rooted peace, like you’ve finally earned a happy ending after the turmoil of your life. Maybe in the next one you’d be able to love her openly, but your promise from this one stands: you’d rather love her in the dark than take someone else in the sunshine.

You hear the chirp of birds before you see the sunrise. You feel Paige stiffen next to you, knowing it’s more of an instinctual discomfort than it is pain or fear, and you wrap her hands in yours, calming her with the heat of your body. She tries to relax – she does, but the both of you know this is it. It’s a heavy feeling, not one of a damning finality. One of hope, because no matter what, there’s so much more waiting for you both.

You glance at her. Paige is already looking at you, her gaze reverent and full of love, and she dusts a kiss to your wrinkled cheek. The sun is rising higher now, the rays poking through the trees and peering above the early dawn clouds. Her body begins to shimmer, some sort of golden flame licking at her skin, and she breaks your stare to look up at the sky, a slow smile curling on her lips.

“I love you,” she whispers to you, something like a promise. A vow, one that will hold true for more than this moment. “Don’t keep me waiting, okay?”

You smile, too, reaching up with your hand to cup her cheek. It’s warm to the touch. “I’ll see you soon,” you swear. “I love you.”

Her hand wraps around your forearm, leaning into your touch, and she presses the lightest ghost of a kiss to the inside of your wrist as the gentle flames consume her completely. Before you know it, Paige is gone, and your hand falls to your side limply.

But you’re not too far behind, either. You wrap the blanket tight around your body, leaning your head against the rich soil, and you gaze out at the pond before you, memorizing the blue of the water, the peace of the moment, the beauty of the life you and Paige managed to create for yourselves when it all felt impossible. Content, you shut your eyes, knowing that it’s finally time to rest.

(The next time you open them, Paige is standing before you, her arms extended wide, and you sink into her embrace like you know it’s the one place you’ll always belong. Like she’s the one place you’ll always be able to call home. And maybe it’s because she is. Maybe it’s because the two of you are just getting started, and you have so much time together. Your lives are just beginning.)

bonus

Coach Geno Auriemma, now in his sixties, is poring over recruitment film in his office during a calm day in May 2015 when his associate head coach, Chris Dailey, knocks on his door. She enters moments later, iPad and clipboard tucked close to her chest with a pensive expression, and sits down across from Geno.

He looks up, brows raised and lips drawn into an unimpressed line. He hardly seems concerned by CD’s expression as he says flatly, “What did Stewart do now?”

CD ignores that comment. “I was looking through the middle school film. Watch #1 in blue.” She flips the iPad around, pressing play on the video on screen. Geno hones in on the player in question – blonde, perhaps a little undersized compared to her peers, but he can tell this is an eighth grader playing on varsity. She’s dribbling the ball at the top of the key, calling for a screen, and she ducks around the defender on the right, stopping just short of the free throw line and shooting the ball gracefully from the midrange. It sinks in – because of course it does – and the player backpedals for defense.

It’s then that the camera catches her features. It’s grainy, but Geno can recognize that face anywhere. The assured confidence, maybe a little misplaced and delusional, but it’s almost as trademark as the midrange pullup. Something in him simultaneously softens and breaks.

In 2000, Paige Bueckers, the player who had won UConn’s first national championship for women’s basketball in 1995, had disappeared. Not a trace. She had no family to reach out to, and when Geno approached police and authorities for a wellness check, he’d been told that there was no record of her. Nobody could explain how she lit up the court every week yet ceased to legally exist. It would become one of UConn’s greatest memories. Surely everyone had just missed something.

But this? This wasn’t a coincidence.

“Paige Bueckers,” CD says quietly. “Same face. Same jumper. Same player.”

“Born 2000 or 2001?” Geno asks. CD nods resolutely, and the head coach leans back in his chair. At his age, he’d thought he’d seen everything, but this takes the cake completely. “Well,” he mutters after a while. “Guess I must have really pissed someone off to have to coach her twice.”

In the same office years later, the 2020 season has just begun, and Geno is waiting for a student to arrive for a meeting. Her name had sounded so familiar to him, and after the whole situation with Paige Bueckers, Geno is learning to trust his gut a little more when it comes to things that feel more like fate than coincidence.

There’s a gentle knock at his office door, and he calls for the student to enter. That’s when you walk in, a little flushed from your walk over, bag slung over your shoulder. Geno knows he’s never seen you before in his life, but there’s still something familiar about your face, the energy you’ve brought into the room simply by sitting. You’re a kinesiology major – pre-med, you’d specified in your email to him, inquiring about whether or not the conditioning team would have any space for a freshman looking to intern.

If you were any other person, he would have told you that his hands were tied with the season’s preparations and recommended that you reach out to the conditioning team. But this was different. You were different, and so was that blonde point guard from Minnesota whom he’d put his heart into recruiting – not because she would change the program. She’d already done that back in 1995. He did that because he knew God didn’t put people in his life twice in a row for no good reason.

You and Geno talk for a few minutes, and he’s no closer to placing where he knows you from until there’s another set of knocks on his door. He has half a mind to send them away, but in walks Paige Bueckers, and that’s when the entire room stills. You and Paige lock eyes like he’s not sitting a few feet in front of the both of you, awestruck expressions on both of your faces like this isn’t the first time you’ve met – even though it is.

In this life, at least.

You introduce yourself to Paige and that’s how Geno realizes. He knows that infatuated look in Paige’s eyes. It was the same one she had so many years ago when she was clearly in love but couldn’t quite be honest about who it was and whatever fashion it came to be in. Geno may never understand the true nature of why Paige had kept you a secret while she was at UConn in 1995, but he knows what this is.

It’s not a coincidence. He wasn’t the man to believe in fate or luck. But this is just how things are supposed to be, so he bites back a smile when Paige stands in his office like a bumbling idiot in your presence.

“Well, Bueckers?” he says dryly, which gathers both yours and Paige’s attention. The blonde’s ears are slightly red, which amuses Geno to no end. “You gonna keep flirting with our new conditioning intern or are you gonna show her around the facility?”

You look at Geno with a gleeful expression, shock lacing your features, and Paige stutters over her words as she nods, saying, “Yeah, I got you, Coach.” Clearly having forgotten what she’d initially come in to pester him about, Paige holds the door for you, shutting it gently, and Geno can hear your shared laughter through the walls.

He smiles to himself, leaning back in his chair with crossed arms. This wasn’t the first time you and Paige have met. He knew that much to be true even if he couldn’t prove it. He also knew that this wouldn’t be the last time, either, and he would never admit it, but he’s really, really grateful to have been part of yours and Paige’s stories twice.

#paige bueckers #paige bueckers x reader #paige bueckers smut #dallas wings #wnba #wnba x reader

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