#but having to stand for extended periods and bend over/reach down does Not make me feel good

[poprockspillage]

fuck around(didn’t bring my cane even though i thought about it) and find out(foot pain when i’m standing and hip pain when i’m laying down)

[doubledgesword-2]

Hello lovely! How pe you’re having a nice weekend!💕

I saw that your requests are open and I was wondering if I could request a head cannon or Drabble of adult trip with a blind darling??

Hope you have a nice day!💕✨

Aww yeeesh! I did have a lovely day and a nice weekend, thank you so much! Here's your nice cup of Rose tea hon, enjoy it!

WARNING TOOTH ROTTING FLUFF AND A LIL BIT OF OOC! ENJOY!

Chrollo

Whether you were born like this or you had an accident that took your sight, it doesn't matter; Chrollo would do everything for you.

And when I say everything, I mean every little thing, from guiding you around the room to bathing you or showering with you to help. 

"Chrollo, I can do it; you don't have to worry" you chuckle nervously as his hand gently scrub your arm; you feel his fingers gently rub the soap on your shoulder, and you're hoping he can't see you blush. 

"Hush, dear, and let me love you" he kisses your shoulder, and you shudder at the feeling of his warm lips against your skin. 

When you casually ask how the clouds look like or what color is the ocean, or what color are the trees this time of the year, his eyes tear up a bit. He looks at you with a drunk love look and a warm smile.

 You're so perfect for him, because him being a romantic, this is the perfect time to be poetic. 

He will find an object that's very soft and very fluffy in texture; his hand will take yours and slowly drag it through the material so you can feel every single fiber of it. 

"That's how clouds are like, love. This time of year, the trees are red, and that's like cinnamon, and the ocean is blue, and aqua and those are like salty blueberries." 

"Ewww!" You laughed, and he chuckled, still holding your hand in his. This moment was a real treasure for him.  

"May I see how You look like?" He immediately tears up. This boi is low key the most sentimental in situations like these ones. He can't help but be overwhelmed. Sure he's a thief, but he's a humble one, albeit unfair on occasions but never with you. 

Chrollo takes your hands and places them on his cheek. Your fingers feel so soft on his skin, almost like you're afraid to damage him. They glide over his nose, feeling how it arches, over his eyebrows and his eyelids. 

Then they pass over the cross on his forehead into his hair, caressing it until your arms are looped around his neck and you hug him close, your ear on his chest listening to his racing heartbeat. 

"You have a strong heart" You can't see how his cheeks are tinted pink or how his breathing has picked up because, dammit, you're amazing at getting these kinds of reactions out of him. 

He will read to you, even though you have learned Braille. He wants you to be drunk on his voice and the passionate way he makes the story's impressions. 

No one, and I mean no one, is allowed to begin a demeaning sentence towards you or some comment about your blindness that makes you uncomfortable. He will shut them up with one look and the flare of his aura.  

When you guys go out, he insists on guiding you even though sometimes you have held him back before a car could run him over because he was too focused on taking care of you. He didn't see the vehicle coming. Ironic. 

"That was a close one, don't you think?" He kissed the crown of your head, holding you close as the two of you kept walking to your destination. "Now, do you believe I can take care of myself?"

"We'll see," he chuckles. 

Illumi 

Your encounter with Illumi is always a tale to tell. 

You see, you were at a coffee shop, drinking your favorite drink and eating a nice treat/pastry when he passed you by dropping one of his pins in the process. He had been so tired and beat that he didn't even notice. First one right there. 

"Excuse me, sir," You bend over and felt for the big round top of the pin until your fingers grasped it and held it tight, minding the other pointy side. "You dropped this" Illumi doesn't say anything in acknowledgment. He simply extends his hand to you. 

But you are not giving him the pin, and this annoys him so much. Then his eyes look up to yours. They are blueish but glazed over and almost white. You're blind. Illumi reaches for your hand, startling you for a quick second, but he picks the pin and lets go. 

"Is this seat taken?" He asks suddenly, and you smile towards his voice.

"Go right ahead." 

That day Illumi was so intrigued by you that he couldn't help but stalk you a bit, you know, for research purposes in case he ever finds an opponent like you. 

But it turns into so much more.

 He meets you every day he can, no matter where he goes with you. He makes no effort to help you, though, and don't expect him to do so. He appreciates you too much, and in his mind, you're like a wild cardinal, and if he were to help you, it's like putting you in a cage. Once he lets you free again, you won't know how to survive on your own. 

He wants you free. He loves you free. 

But that doesn't mean he won't be there for you or step in when circumstances are far too grave for you to handle. 

"Llumi, how does the sky look today?" 

"Gray. It's going to rain" his response makes you chuckle; you have never seen gray, but his honesty makes you smile. You outgrew your frustrations about this situation a long time ago. 

"Can we stay to feel the rain? I want to smell the petrichor once it's over" Illumi looks at you with the same expression he gives everyone. He knows you might catch a cold standing in the rain; he doesn't understand why all you said would be relevant. But then he reminds himself, he has taken for granted all of these things because he can see them. 

"Only a couple of minutes once its starts. If it gets bad, we'll go inside. You can smell the petrichor afterward" he holds your hand, and you two sit there on the park bench. 

Illumi doesn't get cuddly or lovey-dovey with you. Still, he will allow himself moments where he can't help but admire you and be grateful for having you in his life. He will never say that. Ever. But he'll think it.

One time he entered your apartment and found you sitting on the rug in the living room, reading Braile. 

"Illumi is so nice to hear you today. How was your day?" He's always impressed by your ability to sense him. When he asked once how you could recognize him if he was so quiet, you said you could feel his presence in the room since it was calming to you even when he tried to conceal himself. This melted his heart. 

"What are you reading" He came to sit on the sofa, his legs brushing your arms like a loving gesture. Your hand grabbed his leg, squeezing him in recognition, and then went back to the book. 

"Would you like me to read it to you?"

"Yes," It was a lovely evening that day. 

Just like Chrollo, he's very protective of you since his line work makes him kind of famous, some people are bound to have seen you and try to get to you to get to him, and this is where Illumi draws the line. 

Rest assured, no one will touch a single hair on your head if he has his way. The beginning of his bloodlust alone is enough to make everyone panic and turn away.

"Illumi, hon is alright, I'm here, I'm right here. Look at me" you would open the curtain of his luscious hair to hold his face and make him look at you. "I'm fine, see?" 

"They are not worth it," he says after holding you close to him. He'll kill them later. 

Hisoka 

This little shit will always be a little shit, in this case, a loving and understanding one, but still, the point remains. 

You bumped into him on the streets, and the minute it happened, it annoyed him so much. He was in the process of turning and giving you your dues when he noticed you had actually stopped and been grabbing his wrist. 

"I apologize, I'm so sorry" you're not looking at him, and that annoys him even further. 

That's until he notices your vacant look and your body language. You may not be looking at him, but your whole body is poised to listen. Listen to him. 

"Are you blind?" He blurts out but not really; his smirk says it was intentional.

"All my life, sir," you chuckle, letting his wrist go and leaning a bit on your white cane. 

This makes him giggle, and he invites you for a coffee if you're available.

The rest after that marks your relationship. 

Hisoka behaves like a child whenever he's around you. He hides his presence to try and scare you, but you can always sense him. You can even imagine him pouting as you find him and poke him with your cane. 

"Not fair, little fruit." 

"You smell like bubble gum, hon," you chuckle, bringing him down to kiss his cheek. 

He holds you close and loves when you let yourself go and depend on him a little.

 Lke him cooking for you, doing some chores around the house (He doesn't have to, and you tell him that, but he just says you'll have to reward him later), and the two of you baking together—with him covering you in flour as much as he can without you noticing.

"Soka, I know my cheeks and forehead are white; you are a terrible boyfriend, love."

"Mmmmm, so mean, (Y/N)-chan" He kissed you as he puts more flour on your nose. 

Hisoka knows he has to leave for extended periods since he can't stay put in one place plus his job. But will always call you and answer your phone calls no matter if he's fighting with someone at the moment.

 "My precious darling, I *grunts* I'm in the middle of breaking someone's arm at the moment *huffs* can I call you later, love?" You cringe at the sound of the bone-breaking over the phone but chuckle slightly at his antics.

"Yes, you can, Be safe" oh, oh, oh he loves your concern for him. It just makes him moan obscenely in the middle of the fight, making his opponent disgruntled and allowing him to finish them off.

"On second thought, dear, we can talk right now. I'm currently free." 

He will bring you stuff from his travels and jobs, all with different textures and pleasant smells so you can experience them. 

Now this, this is the moment of truth. While you're distracted touching everything he brought, he takes away his texture surprise. Suddenly he lifts your hand to touch his hair, then his face and arms. 

"How does this one feels, mmm?" He hides the fact that he's nervous by being playful, but you can feel him being stiff. 

"It feels soft," then your fingers gingerly brush a big scar over his chest "it feels like no matter what, I love you. Like you can trust me with each one of these" 

He won't admit it, but it's nice that you can't tease him for his blushing cheeks and aghast expression. But he chuckles to alleviate the lump in his throat as he takes your hands in his and pulls you in for a hug. 

When the two of you go out, he's always holding your hand, or you're holding his arm. He has convinced you to not use your white cane while walking with him. He'll be your eyes. 

The moment someone bumps into you…

"Hey, watch where you're going, woman!" 

"Oh, so, so sorry, sir," you apologize, and Hisoka is smiling at the man. 

"Yeah, you better be" 

"Little fruit, do you want to know how fluttering butterflies feel?" As he says so, your face is tickled by a lot of fluttering little wings, and the experience mutes the man's screaming as he Hisoka gently drags you away. 

[adashofniallandasprinkleoflunacy]

this is a continuation of the other one

Y/N stares at him for a long moment, arms crossed and poking her tongue into her cheek. “Why do I feel like I'm Ariel and you’re the sea witch trying to get me to sing into a shell?”

Harry blinks once. “Sorry, what?”

“Oh, right, that was—that was ‘89, wasn’t it?” Y/N bites back a laugh at the scowl that rolls over Harry’s expression. “After your time, I suppose.”

But Y/N isn’t laughing when she has to spend the next two weeks braless. And although she spends the first day being petty under Harry’s keen eye, by the third day, she’s turned the predicament around in her favor.

“Hey, Harry.” She says one night, stirring her pot of pasta on the stove as she sips her eleven dollar wine. “I have a question about our arrangement.”

Harry, who has been leaning over the counter to soak in the aromas of the food that he longs to taste (and also to get a look at Y/N’s cleavage in the v-neck t-shirt she’s wearing), cocks his head to the side and clicks his tongue. “If you're trying to reduce your sentence, don’t even try it.”

“No, no, it’s not that.” Y/N murmurs, trailing her lip around the rim of her wine glass as she leans against the counter. “I was just wondering if it has to be only braless with a shirt on top, or if I could wear just a bra or bralette.”

Harry blinks once, his mouth falling open in surprise. “I—what?”

“Like, I have this little cotton Calvin Klein bralette, and it’s super comfy, and still gives me some support, but my cleavage and such is still decently on display.” Y/N clarifies with a smug grin, setting down her glass against the fake marble counter as she stretches to reach the spice cabinet. “I think that could fulfill our agreement, no? You know what bralette I’m talking about, right? You’ve probably seen it when you’ve been snooping around.”

Harry looks at her carefully, trying to catch the trick behind her all-too generous offer. He replies in a measured tone, leaning against the fridge as his eyes glue to the way her chest heaves as she teeters forwards on her tiptoes to grab a condiment. “I know the one, yes. Peachy pink, right? With a thick band and slightly ruffled fabric at the center?”

“That’s the one, yup.” Y/N pops the last letter of the word, wiggling her fingers to try and grab the oregano from the highest shelf. “It’s a nice number, I think, and going around braless for so long does my back in sometimes.”

Harry pushes off the barrier he’s using as support, drifting towards Y/N as she stands before her cupboards, one hand propped against the counter to boost herself up as the other fishes for the small container a few inches from the tips of her fingers. He stops right beside her, looking down at her with that same calculating gaze he had across the room. He’s still trying to sus out her angle, but little does he know that what she’s trying to implement is going to work out for both of them.

She’s grown quite fond of the extra attention he’s been giving her, and for some odd reason, she feels a deep sense of pleasure every time she catches him staring at her chest. Maybe it’s the way his eyes glint longingly as he ogles, or the way he’ll chew into his cheek or along his bottom lip or into the side of his finger as he follows the outline of her cleavage, or maybe it’s that when she catches him gawking, he’ll hold intense eye contact with her for a second before casting his gaze away to some other unimportant object.

Maybe it was that one time yesterday where she’d managed to pull an actual reaction out of him. They had been watching a rerun of a Scooby Doo movie, and she could feel his ghastly eyes pinned to her bust, probably because she had lied down on her stomach across her sectional sofa as he had sat on the floor in front of it, so when he turned his head, her chest had been less than a foot away. And as if that wasn’t enough, she had purposefully flushed it against the couch cushion below to make it seem extra plump and appealing, which would have knocked the air from Harry’s lungs if he still had them.

He’d released a soft whimper so broken and needy, Y/N had to fight off a conceited grin to avoid letting him know she was doing this to him with actual intention. She’d pretended not to hear it, but she had allowed herself to indulge the flare of satisfaction that rose from watching him shift his sitting position a bit, as if something were growing heavy between his thighs. His actions had vaguely made her wonder if ghosts could even feel arousal, and if they could, she hoped he was. It was the perfect revenge, because she at least knows that he wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. Not with anyone else, at least.

Y/N watches as Harry reaches an arm up, easily reaching the bottle she’s attempting to retrieve. He swipes his hand across the container, the motion managing to knock it off the shelf and into her awaiting palm. She’s learned that in order to touch objects, he has to put in quite a bit of energy and concentration to succeed in breaking through the dimensional barrier that separates the living from the dead. Garnering the slightest contact can sometimes drain him a great deal, so when he does make it his mission to touch something, he does it with as little impact as possible to save his energy for later, in case he wants to grab something for an extended period of time, or grasp a heavier weight that would require more exertion.  

“Thanks.” She smiles up at him innocently, blinking her lashes with a slightly sultry air as she closes the cupboard slowly.

Harry swallows heavily, glimpsing down at where her chest is still heaving from when she’d made a grand effort to collect the ingredient she needed. He hates how his little cheeky plan had recently become the bane of his undead existence, given that Y/N had recently begun using it to her advantage. But he can’t complain, because he’s getting exactly what he asked for. He just wishes he could get more.

His voice comes out low and strained as his eyes coast back up to meet her own, which are dancing with smug amusement. “You’re welcome.”

“So what do you say?” Y/N asks, uncapping the spice and sprinkling a liberal amount into her sauce. “Think we could tweak our deal?”

Harry pulls himself back onto the counter, tapping his fingers against the surface without making a sound. “I suppose.” He replies after a moment, eyes flickering to Y/N’s chest once more as she leans down to taste the sauce. “The bralette should be fine, as long as it’s not too padded.” He shoots her a cheeky grin. “I like a bit of nipple, you know that.”

“You’re gross.” Y/N scoffs, shaking her head as she sets down the wooden spoon on the stove. “I'm gonna go change, then. Watch this for me, will you?”

And Harry does rather diligently, inhaling the flavorful aromas rising from the stove. He wishes, for the billionth time in his thirty odd years of death, that he could taste food. He knows he doesn’t need it, but even just having its essence pass over his tongue would be enough for him. He misses pasta, he thinks, staring longingly at the noodles boiling away on the stove. And pizza, and fish, and steak, cooked perfectly with a delicious side of mashed potatoes and gravy, just pink enough in the middle that it’s still tender—

“You didn’t burn down the kitchen. Good job!” Y/N’s voice calls from behind, and the ghost turns around with a retort on his lips that quickly falls away once he sees her.

She’s put on the bralette just as she said she would, and it’s everything he’s ever dreamed of. The cotton is thin enough that he can see the clear outline of what he wants through the article, and the halter neckline lands low enough that he can see every dip and curve of her breasts. A band of her stomach is exposed beneath the labeled elastic lining the bottom of the fabric, and the soft skin seems to call to Harry, making him desperate to touch it. Y/N’s decided to swap her sweatpants as well, it seems, as she’s now dressed in a loose pair of heather grey shorts that sit above her belly button and barely cover the curve of her ass. The loose legs flutter up with her every movement, and if she were about to bend over just a smidge, he could—

“How’s this?” The girl asks, flicking her loose hair over her shoulder with a simper. “Does it meet the requirements?”

Harry clears his throat, his words coming out as a pained groan. “God, you’re a fucking bitch, you know that?”

Y/N sputters into a round of airy laughter, coming to stand before him with her hands perched on her hips. Her tone is innocent, but her true intentions are written clear across her face, obvious in the way her lips twitch with evil delight. “How so? I’m abiding to our terms!”

“You’re giving me the world’s worst case of blue-balls, is what you’re doing.” Harry bites back, his sharp jaw clenching and full lips pressing into a bothered grimace. “And you’re doing it on fucking purpose.”  

“You made your casket, now lie in it.” Y/N states brightly, shrugging her brows with finality.

“Harsh.” Harry mumbles, but he can’t fight off the amused grin that tweaks his dimples into place.  

Harry slips off the counter again onto his feet, not being able to stay still. There’s a peculiar buzzing sensation coursing through each of his ghostly limbs, and anytime he stays put, it intensifies to the point where he feels like he’s going to explode into a shower of static.

He saunters up behind Y/N, looking over her shoulder as she regains her previous activity of mixing the contents in the pot while they simmer their way to completion. Despite not being able to touch her, he can still smell her just fine, and her homey scent of chamomile and jasmine are ever welcomed. She just smells so much like a girl, for a lack of a better explanation, and Harry hasn’t been this close to one his own age since before he passed. It’s driving him to the brink.

“I’d give you a taste if I could.” Y/N's soft, teasing voice echoes against his ears as she cranes her neck to look at him. “It’s a family recipe.”

“Yeah...” Harry locks eyes with her for a moment, and his hand instinctively reaches down to grasp at her waist. Instead of being met with the warm sturdiness of what he knows would be her silky skin, he’s met with the typical icy fizzing sensation that constantly haunts him whenever he tries to make contact with a living being. His digits pass right through her hip, though she barely seems to notice, the only palpable indication of his attempt being a cold breeze wafting across her flesh.

He knows it’s something that is extremely easy to brush off, usually as a simple draft from the air conditioning, given the similarities between the two experiences. And that’s exactly what she appears to do as she gives a light, dismissive shiver, not paying it any mind.

The ghost tries his best to keep his disappointment from registering in his mood, and his tone instead fills with an unreadable emptiness that only he can truly interpret. Below it lies a double meaning, and it has to do with way more than just the general desire to be able to experience the taste of good again; it holds a certain longing that pertains to a deeper type of hunger, but again, only he can truly decipher it. “Yeah, I can only dream of it.”

[yuzukult]

i’m bad too 16 || kdy & reader

title: i’m bad too - drabble series pairing: kim doyoung x reader genre: angst, fluff, smut, goodboy!doyoung, nerdy!dy (basically he’s a dork) & badgirl!reader, hitman!au, oc-isn’t-a-hitman-but-she-could-be!au, word count: 1.8k warnings: none a/n: :D hope you guys enjoy!! taglist: @wownajaemin​​​ @crescent-iak​​​ @ncttboo​​​ @byunbaekby​​​​ @jinfizz​ @doyoungyoung​ @ahgayeah0305​ @doyobun​ @sexualitaeyong @mrkleelvr​ @m1ss-foodi3​ @hcwurld​

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Doyoung looks so pretty like this.

The space between his brows are crinkled in vexation, hair unstyled and brushing against his forehead with his lips pursed while focusing on the task at hand. He’s taken the day off of his internship for this, with approval from your brother, and plus, the way his eyes are sunken and the breakouts on his skin are appearing, it seems like he deserves to chill out for a bit.

But, he seems to refuse to do that, opting that his priority is to take care of you.

Doyoung hasn’t been back to his apartment other than just to grab the necessities—his business casual attire for work, underwear, some lounge clothes, and just things here and there that might be useful. But he hasn’t slept in the comforts of his own bedroom, no, instead he’s been sleeping at your side in your room.

“Would you stop squirming?”

“Well, you could say it’s a bit weird when someone else does it for you.”

Doyoung rolls his eyes. “Be cooperative. I’m trying to make it better.”

You puff your cheeks in agitation, stubborn because you’re not used to this much physical touch, despite the amount of times you’ve slept with Doyoung. There’s something about this that feels more intimate, not like a quick bang for pleasure, but rather he’s doing this because he cares about you.

“Steady. Just a little longer and we’ll be good.”

“You said that twenty minutes ago.”

“It has not been twenty minutes.” Doyoung isn’t that same soft boy you met months ago. He’s gotten intrepid, unabashed by any smart or sharp remarks that you throw his way, in fact, he dodges them or bites the bullet before resuming back to having you in his arms. “You think it’s been twenty minutes because you’re preoccupied with nagging about how you don’t like this happening.”

“It’s weird,” you state, tapping your fingers against the wooden frame of your bed as a distraction. You could use a cigarette, but somehow you managed to let a pretty boy like Doyoung convince you to stop. “I don’t like having people this close.”

“I’m literally just replacing your gauze.”

You frown. “It’s… intimate.” Doyoung can’t help but laugh, shaking his head at your response as he reaches for a fresh new gauze. “I thought you liked me.”

“I do, I just—”

“You won’t let your own boyfriend touch you like this?” He queries, and you’re starting to find yourself in this position often. He’d say something bold, something that he normally doesn’t do, and it leaves you feeling small like you used to do to him. Oh, how the tables have turned. He calls himself your boyfriend recently, despite not officially making it a label, but you like it. It feels… right, for once, like this is how it’s supposed to be.

“It’s not that,”

“Then you should just let me do this, yeah?” He tosses the old bandage into the trash. “Plus, we’re almost done anyways. Would you like to go on a walk after this? I kind of wanted to talk about something.”

Staying put, you inhale in a deep breath in surrender because you’re curious about what he wants to discuss. He remains focused, wrapping you once again, despite the fact that the staff at your house offers to do it since it’s their job, but Doyoung insists it’s his job as much as theirs.

After pulling your shirt down, he offers a hand, helping you transition over to your wheelchair, one you’ve grown to hate because it makes you feel helpless, and Doyoung takes you down the hall.

“There’s an elevator down the hall.”

“A what?”

“An elevator,” you reiterate, and Doyoung doesn’t move, feet rooted into the ground. “We don’t have many floors because we do have an elevator. Goes here, the lobby, basement, then the wine cellar.”

“There’s a wine cellar under your basement?”

“You don’t have one?” He knows it’s a joke, so he just shakes it off and heads over to the large metal doors. Your personality never showcases your wealth, and although he’s in your beautiful home with staff that fills up the majority of it, he still forgets the money you come from.

Naeun is still gorgeous, despite the bruises on her cheeks and the cuts that are scattered across her face.

She’s wiping her hands, after running them under the water in the sink, soaping up her previously flawless porcelain skin that’s now marked with the aftermath of another fight. “How are you feeling?”

“Could be better,” you admit, rolling around the kitchen in your wheelchair. “How are you feeling?”

“Bitchin’,” she states calmly, giving a thankful gaze in Doyoung’s direction when he slides over the first aid kit toward her. “Lover boy been takin’ care of ‘ya?”

“Wish he’d go home and take a break for once, but yeah. Good boy decided he wants to play nurse.”

“Why do you guys talk like I’m not here?”

The two of you shrug, waving him off as Naeun hops onto the granite countertop and begins tending to her own wound. “There’s been another attack,” you glare at her and Naeun only rolls her eyes. “He already knows, don’t act like he’s all innocent to this.” She dabs the remnants of blood on her lip before grabbing the disinfectant wipe. “Johnny’s dead, just so you know.”

“What? Johnny’s dead?”

“Nah, he’s undercover,” she winces at the impact of the alcohol against her open cut. “Fuck.”

You furrow your brows. “Why would you tell me that?”

“Just kidding, he’s dead.”

“Naeun,” you say sternly. She’s playing another game.

“Just kidding. I’m just testing your cognitive skills.” Searching for the neosporin, she gives a quick scoop of the ointment and applies it on. “Seeing if you can still think the same. I have a really bad itch that they’re gonna ask you to come back, love.”

“That doesn’t sound like something I’m interested in,” you’re pointing to all of your gunshot wounds. “Got a couple holes in my body that are still whistling when the wind blows.” Tilting your head, you’re trying to make out the expression on her face from underneath all that hair. “What’s with that look?”

She jolts her head at you. “What look?”

“You know something.”

“Other than Johnny’s death?”

“Naeun.”

“Alright,” she sighs, leaning back against her arms. You can’t help but notice the twitch in her lip, and it’s not from her cut. “Rumor has it, they’re going to try to initiate you again. This time, maybe not so nicely.”

“Even after I went through all that trouble? In case they’ve forgotten but I literally have holes in my body. I risked my life for the guy and here I am, sitting in a wheelchair, unable to fucking take a piss by myself, and he wants me to hop back on the field again?”

“You know how he is,” Naeun says apologetically, although none of this is her fault. She’s just the middle man, the bearer of bad news, and she’s only doing her job by protecting the Boss but you’re not even directly tied to the group, just simply a contractor. “He sees your capabilities, thinks you’re more than worthy, he wants to keep you. Seeing that you’re standing in front of the bullets, taking one for the team and protecting those who are part of us… it only makes him want you more.”

“But he can’t even wait?” You exasperate, baffled by his abruptness despite the fact you were still going through a recovery period. “I’m not even ready yet.”

“Well, he’ll give you some time—”

“You’re making it sound like it’s soon.”

She looks pained. “It… It is soon. He thinks the sooner you begin training, the better. You’ll be better equipped and—”

“I thought this was supposed to be temporary,” you state, voice firm. “I mentioned prior that this was simply a gig I needed to get by.”

“This was before you caught the mole. Before you put yourself in danger, protecting the members of the organization. You proved yourself more than capable, and he wants that. He wants you. You get the job done. Why do you think we keep coming back and hiring you? Because sometimes, you don’t even need a gun. You have your fucking head and that’s the weapon.”

“Well, I need a break.”

“There is no break.”

“Naeun, I almost died. To be quite frank, I don’t give a fuck what Taeyong says. I’m taking a break.”

The sunset is breathtaking; warm hues over the horizon, shining on the Good Boy’s face and only adding on to the fact that he’s also the golden boy. Seated on the picnic blanket beside you, he’s resting his weight back on his arms, eyes closed, soaking in the sun with a soft smile upon his face, inhaling in deep breaths to soothe his nerves. “This is nice. I’m glad you suggested it.”

You hate that you have to lean against this make-shift seat, back pressed on the trunk of the tree. But it hurts so bad to sit on your own; parts of your torso require you to straighten yourself because any slight bend stings. You desperately miss being able to function on your own—it’s so embarrassing asking your boyfriend to do things for you.

“You good?” He asks, turning over his shoulder to glance at you. “I hear you wincing.”

“I’m fine,” you mutter, adjusting yourself once more. “I’m just… getting comfortable.”

Doyoung sighs, finally picking up on your personality and habits by now, so he slides himself back just a bit and extends his legs. “Come here.”

You quirk a brow. “What?”

He pats his lap. “Come here. Lay your head on my lap, and enjoy the sun with me. We can soak in the warmth, and talk about what’s on your mind. Feels like you’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately and not a whole lot of talking.”

Conceding, it takes you a while but with Doyoung’s help, you’re finally laying—there’s less pain in this position, and you’re grateful he suggests it. He brushes your hair out of your face, a soft smile looking down at you that tugs on your heartstrings. “You’re probably thinking a lot.”

“I am,” he admits, pursing his lips. “Have been for a while.”

“Well… will you tell me?” You’d be lying if you said that Doyoung confessing he’s been pondering frequently doesn’t make you nervous. There’s always that possibility of him deciding that maybe this wasn’t for him—that taking care of you, learning you’re a sort of a hitman and part of some shady organization, or that your family owned the company that he worked at wasn’t… what he signed up for.

But that stupid grin doesn’t ever wipe off of his face. “What is it?”

And with a gentle voice, he says with a press of a kiss on the crown of your head, he says these words that have you levitating. “I love you.”

[capsironunderoos]

The Art Teacher and The Winter Soldier - Part One: Morgan Stark’s Secret Plan

Bucky Barnes x Female!Reader

Summary: Some stories about Bucky Barnes and an art teacher...

Word Count: 2,061

Warnings: None! Although there are spoilers for Falcon and The Winter Soldier if you haven’t finished that!

Author’s Note: Hey hey! I’m finally writing and posting again! I recently graduated from college with a degree in art education, and I just thought it would be cute to see Bucky Barnes date an art teacher, so here we are! This isn’t going to be a normal series, just kind of little snapshots of Bucky’s life with an art teacher. Also, this series follows the events of Endgame and The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, except Tony lived, other than that it’s pretty much the same. I hope you enjoy! 

Here’s a link to my masterlist: capsironunderoos masterlist

“Captain America, The Winter Soldier, Scarlet Witch, and Iron Man walk into an elementary school… sounds like the start of a bad joke.” 

Bucky heard Sam mumble beside him and felt a smirk make its way onto his lips. 

“I thought the minivan was enough for a bad joke,” Bucky added, and Sam had to cover his mouth to hide his laughter, a startling cough erupting from his chest. 

Tony had asked a few of the remaining Avengers to go with him to the opening night of Morgan’s elementary school art show since Pepper had been scheduled for a meeting. 

Morgan’s work had been voted on by the other students in her grade and selected as the best in kindergarten, which didn’t surprise Tony. The Stark’s were always the best at everything they attempted. 

Tony had wanted to invite everyone he knew, but he was under strict instructions from his daughter that only a few could come. 

The girl in question sat contently between her Uncle Sam and her Uncle Bucky, small right hand gripping onto Bucky’s left, as her left hand held a small bouquet of flowers. 

Her smile grew when she felt the minivan take the familiar right turn into her school’s parking lot, and she strained to make herself taller to see the brick building slowly getting bigger as Tony pulled the car into a spot. 

Tony turned the car off as the Avengers piled out and onto the concrete, Bucky turning back to offer his hand to Morgan. She quickly grabbed onto it and jumped out, giggling as she almost dropped the flowers. 

“Here,” he gestured to the flowers, opening his hand. “Let me carry those Moe.” She nodded and handed the flowers to him with no hesitation, leaving his side to run to Tony, who turned just in time to catch her and lift her above his head before propping her onto his hip. Her giggles echoed across the parking lot, and Bucky noticed a few people shooting smiles their way. 

“You comin’ Buck?” Sam called, already climbing up the stairs into the school, and Bucky smiled in response, jogging slightly to catch up with the group. 

“You guys are gonna love it here!” Morgan called from the front of the group, still holding onto her dad as they walked into the building. 

Wanda glanced over at Bucky and Sam, stifling a laugh. 

“Yeah, you two will fit right in.” Bucky smiled and rolled his eyes, and Sam lightly shoved her with his elbow, causing her to let out a small giggle. 

“Alright kiddo, lead the way,” Tony prompted as he placed her back onto the ground. Normally, this would cue a few moments of whining and begging to be picked back up, but she was focused on other things tonight. 

Yes, Morgan Stark had a plan. 

She walked proudly down the decorated hallways, making sure to point out the artworks her friends had made as she marched the small group of Avengers to her artwork. 

Bucky was quiet as they walked, stopping every now and then to look at a few pieces done by older kids. 

He was easily reminded of Steve, and their time growing up in Brooklyn. 

He thought about the journals he’d buy for Steve on his birthday, or a new art material he’d see in a shop while out for a walk that he couldn’t help but buy. Steve would have loved this, would have been right at home talking art with the very animated five year old leading the group. 

Bucky smiled to himself as he began to move with the group again, not missing the various drawings of superheroes plastering the walls. He knew he wouldn’t find himself here, immortalized on paper by a child who saw him as a hero, and his smile drops, but only for a second as he sees Morgan stop before throwing her hands up and screaming. 

Tony jumps to find out what’s wrong, but before he can squat down to her level she is running full speed towards a woman in a skirt with polka-dots all over it, and when she turns to see who is screaming Bucky can see that her shirt reads “Your greatest work of art is you!” He smiles at the sentiment and watches as Morgan launches herself into the arms of the woman, who is now crouching in order to better receive the hug. 

The force of a very enthusiastic five year old knocks the woman onto the floor and she laughs with Morgan as they part. 

“Hello to you too Morgan!” She says through more laughter and Morgan waves, now seemingly shy as she steps back beside her father. 

Tony moves into action now, extending his hand to help the woman off of the floor. She graciously accepts, and Bucky notes the shy smile that washes over her features. 

“You must be the art teacher we hear so much about,” Tony says as she lightly brushes off the back of her dress. 

“Yes, that would be me! And don’t worry, I know who all of you are,” she adds, her smile widening as her eyes meet each Avenger’s. Bucky feels himself starting to blush when her gaze lingers on his for just a bit longer than his counterparts. 

“Even if I lived under a rock it’d be hard not to know who you were. Morgan talks about you all the time, and she tells quite the story.” Tony laughs and lightly ruffles her hair, to which Morgan responds to by swatting at his hand. 

“You’re telling me. I ask her to tell me bedtime stories.” This cues a round of laughter from the group before Tony turns to each member. 

“Well, just to be formal about it, I’m Tony, and this is Sam, Wanda, and James,” Tony says, and the woman shakes all of their hands, making sure to tell each one how wonderful it is to meet them. 

When she slips her hand into Bucky’s, he wonders if she feels the small jolt of electricity that he does, but he ignores it as she smiles at him. 

“Please, call me Bucky,” he tells her, and that same shy smile rests against her lips as she nods. He’s sad to let her out of his grasp, but even he knows that it would probably be weird to sit and hold her hand. 

When she turns back to Morgan after telling the group her name, Bucky catches Sam staring at him out of the corner of his eye, and Wanda too. The duo are standing in similar stances, arms crossed over their chests with their eyebrows raised at his actions. When Morgan has pulled her teacher out of ear-shot, Sam turns to Wanda and takes her hand before dramatically mimicking Bucky. 

“Please, call me Bucky,” he chirps in a lovesick voice, and Wanda gasps as she places her hand over her heart. “Oh, Bucky!” She adds, and Bucky can feel himself blushing as he pushes past both of them to catch up with Tony and Morgan. 

He tries not to smile as he hears their laughter trailing behind him. 

When they catch back up with Morgan, she is proudly standing beside her artwork as Tony is bent down to take a picture of her beside it. 

Bucky smiles, shifting the bouquet of flowers he still holds from one hand to the other as he watches the scene. 

His heart stops though, when he sees the drawing.

 It’s… Him. 

Morgan drew him. 

He remembers the picture the drawing is supposed to resemble, remembers standing very still as Morgan tried to figure out how to use her new kids camera. She had yelled “Don’t move!” each time he tried to shift his weight so that his knees weren’t locked for too long. 

“She was prompted to draw someone she looks up to,” he hears quietly beside him, and the voice of the art teacher pulls him from his thoughts. Bucky turns to her in disbelief, and he sees that she is smiling up at him. 

“I think she picked a pretty good subject for that prompt,” she adds, and Bucky can feel his breathing becoming shallow as he holds back tears. 

He slowly walks over to the drawing to get a better look, and he sinks to his knees, a tear escaping and rolling down his cheek. 

“Uncle Bucky! Why are you crying?” Morgan asks beside him, and all he can do is wrap her in his arms, dropping the flowers on the floor as he squeezes her to him. She giggles but wraps her arms around him too, before wiggling in his grasp to reach for the flowers on the floor. 

“Here, give these to my teacher, they’re her favorite!” She whispers in his ear and he nods. This kid could have asked for a trip to the moon and Bucky would have built the rocket himself. 

He quickly wipes the tear off of his cheek, turning to take a picture with Morgan beside the artwork at Tony’s request before standing and listening to Morgan’s teacher as she begins to speak. 

“I know you probably already know this, but Morgan is very advanced for her age. Most of the other students in her class completed this project in a day, but Morgan worked on this for a few class periods. She even drew from observation, using a picture she brought in. I don’t normally teach that until fourth grade.” 

A moment of silence passed as the group of Avengers stood in awe of the little girl before them. 

“Here, let me take your picture together before you go,” she offers, and Tony gladly hands his phone over to her. The group bends down around the artwork, making sure to keep it, and the artist, in the center. 

“Thank you all for coming,” she adds, as she hands the phone back to Tony, who in turn thanks her before leading the group back out of the building. 

Bucky stands still, watching for a moment as Morgan turns around to wink at Bucky, gesturing to the flowers in his hand. 

Her plan was in motion. 

“Bucky? Is everything okay?” He hears behind him and he turns to see the art teacher, standing with her hands clasped in front of her, a small look of concern sewn into her eyebrows as they arch together. 

“Yes. Sorry, um, I think these are for you. Your favorites, so I’ve heard.” Bucky states as he hands the bouquet over to her. Her face lights up at the gift, and Bucky smiles as their fingers ghost over each other as the bouquet is exchanged. 

“Oh, thank you. And tell Morgan I said thank you as well.” 

Bucky nods and starts to walk away, but finds himself stopping and turning back to the art teacher, who is already looking at him. 

“Hey,” they start at the same time and Bucky laughs as he nervously slips his hands into his pockets. 

“Would you wanna, grab some coffee some time, or something?” He rushes out, and the smile that erupts on her face makes Bucky’s heart speed up. 

“Yes!” She squeaks out, and her excitement catches both of them off guard. “I mean, yes,” she adds, composing herself, which makes Bucky laugh again. 

“Here,” she starts, pulling a pen hanging off her lanyard into her hands and balancing the flowers under her arm. 

She gestures for Bucky’s hand and he holds it out to her. She glances up to him and he blushes again, quickly pulling off the glove. She smiles and grabs his hand, clicking the pen as she carefully holds his palm open to write her number down. 

She pats it gently when she’s done. 

“Just… text me, okay?” She whispers, smiling up at him before releasing his hand to turn to a parent who’s just walked up, flowers still held in her right hand.

---

The ride back to the compound is relatively quiet, until Morgan catches her Uncle Bucky looking at a string of numbers written on his hand. 

She taps his shoulder and he looks at her as she gestures for him to lean down so she can whisper in his ear, “My plan worked! You’re welcome,” before leaning back against her seat, arms crossed and a look of satisfaction playing on her lips.

[wen-kexing-apologist]

Of Prices Paid

This is kind of long, so maybe check it out on ao3? 

There is a lot to get used to in this immortality business, Nile thinks, as Joe guns the engine and peals away from the lab. No matter how much her brain screams at her to move on, Nile cannot tear her eyes away from the twisted hunk of metal that had been Merrick’s car. Not until Joe turns a corner and it disappears from view. Inside their vehicle, the Guard settles into silence, and at first Nile is grateful for it. No one is trying to gauge how she feels when she is still in shock. No one is trying to debrief her when she can still hear the wind whistling in her ears, when she can still remember the way her skull crawled underneath her skin to piece itself back together.

Nile feels too good for someone that had just rearranged her skeleton, and it seems wrong, in a way, to be sitting here feeling no pain, no exhaustion, no fear. The quiet in the car has a complexity to it Nile can’t quite untangle. It’s woven like a tapestry made of guilt, which roils off Booker like thunder, spun with anger that Nile can feel in the way Nicky sits, his shoulders tense, his hands balled in fists. But it’s like a mirage in the desert, holding its form until it’s looked at up close. When Nile first met the Guard they had felt like a lie, like a fantasy or a dream. She hadn’t understood, hadn’t felt the years they had lived until now. Until she was sitting in this silence; this tired, expansive, comfortable silence. Nile is not used to this kind of prolonged stagnation, the lack of desire to fill empty time with entertainment. But these people beside her are ancient and do not notice they pass full hours just sitting in this car, aware of one another and completely content in that.

Nile distracts herself from the thoughts of blood, the sound of the gunshots, and the ghost of pain that crash around in her head by watching the others. She watches Nicky’s attention flicker between the light in Joe’s curls and the movement of his shoulder, takes note of the small smile that turns Nicky’s lip when he looks in the rearview mirror and finds Joe’s eyes meeting his. Nile watches Booker playing with his rings, his fingers fumbling and trembling. Notices he keeps his sunglasses on even as the sunlight starts to dip below the horizon. Nile inspects the way Andy’s jaw is set, watches her close her eyes, and hears how deliberately she breathes. Nile sees Andy flinch when Joe takes her hand, sees her shoulder slump a little when he turns his head for just a moment, and gives a gentle squeeze. Sees the smile spread briefly across Andy’s face as she nods softly and responds in kind. Nile watches Joe press a soft kiss to Andy’s knuckles, pat the top of her hand, and return his grip to the gear shift.

Nile stretches, uncomfortable and itchy with the blood still caked against her skin. They’d been driving for hours by this point in unfamiliar terrain. She feels a hand press quickly, tentatively against her elbow, and meets Nicky’s gaze. It’s piercing, studious, full of questions, and Nile blinks away the stinging in her eyes. It has been a long time since Nile cried, especially in front of others, and she was not about to start today, in a car full of people she barely knew. Nicolo softens, opens his arms a little in an offer Nile takes. She leans against his side, lets him hold her weight; Nicky wraps an arm around her and kisses the top of her head like her father used to. “We’re almost there,” he says, and Nile is equal parts surprised and not to find the man she read as the most quiet and contemplative of the group is the one to finally break the silence.

“Good,” Nile replies “Cause I’ve had to pee for about an hour now and I was starting to get worried,” The car is filled with laughter like fireworks, explosive but brief. Nile notices how Joe laughs with his whole body, how Andy chuckles under her breath, a timid thing. She sees that Nicky smiles and Booker doesn’t.  

“It’s not another mine is it?” Nile asks as she sits back up, Nicolo returning his arm to his side. “Because I don’t know about ya’ll but I need a stiff drink, a soft bed, and a shower,”

“I can solve the drink problem,” Booker pulls his flask out of his jacket pocket, wiggles it in Nile’s direction. Nile takes a swig, tries to stifle a cough as the whiskey hits her tongue.

“No,” Andy says, biting back a smile “It’s not a mine,”

Ten minutes later, Joe turns down a dirt road. The cottage that sits at the end of the driveway looks straight out of a storybook. It’s roof thatched and slanting, the garden overgrown, Nile half expects a witch to pop out of the front door and welcome them in. Booker is the first out of the car, rushing towards the building before Joe has even finished parking.

“Guess he had to pee too,” Joe remarks bitterly as he jods to the side of the car to open the door for Nile and Nicky, offering his hand to help them stand.

“Such a gentleman,” Nicky says as he untangles himself from the middle seat, takes Joe’s hand,  and pulls him in for a quick kiss. Their fingers are the last thing to part, Nile notices, as Joe heads towards the passenger seat to open Andy’s door. Nicky moves towards the trunk to grab their go-bags and carry them into the house.

“Joe,” Andy scoffs light-heartedly when Joe dips into a bow and extends his hand. Nile pretends not to notice how long it takes Andy to get out of the car, the way her face twists and her breath catches in her throat. Whatever weight had been lifted upon their arrival, upon the promise of sleep comes crashing back down.

“You okay, boss?” Joe asks, but the joy Nile usually recognizes in his voice is not there.

“Yes,” Andy pats his cheek twice with a smile that does not reach her eyes. “Just need to stretch my legs a bit. I thought when we invented cars they’d eliminate some of the more unpleasant aspects of riding horseback. But as it turns out, sitting in the same position for extended periods of time makes my joints stiff whether I’m in stirrups or in shotgun,” Nile knows just as well as Joe that Andy’s giving a bullshit excuse, but she understands Andy’s need for strength in this. “Why don’t you give Nile the tour? I’ll check the perimeter,”

Joe nods and Nile watches the frown fall across his lips as soon as Andy turns away.

“She’s good,” Nile cannot stop herself from saying. “She’ll be fine,”

Joe’s shoulders fold, his hands massage his neck, and when he turns to look at Nile, his eyes shining, she is struck for the first time by how easily, how readily these people choose kindness and honesty. She’s seen the way they tear through a siege, the ruthlessness and the precision of their actions. Yet when Joe looks at her, a man she’s only known for two days, a man she watched a few hours before pop Keane’s spine out of his neck, he seems so worn, so weary, so...vulnerable. So separate from his capabilities in battle.

“You did good today,” Joe kicks the dirt beneath his feet, sending a couple rocks scattering in different directions. “Thank you for everything. I don’t know how we would have gotten ourselves out of that one if you hadn’t been there,”

Nile smiles “All I did was untie Andy and jump out a window,”

“You and I both know that’s not true,” Joe holds the front door open, and Nile steps through into the bright, inviting warmth of the cottage. “You’ve done a lot for us, for Andy, already. I look forward to getting to know you better. You’re going to make one hell of an addition to the team,”

“Thank you, Joe,”

Joe grins “I’m always here if you want to talk. But for now, let me show you around,”

After a quick pit stop to the bathroom, Joe and Nile walk together through the cottage, and as she listens to Joe, Nile finds it a little easier to accept the new conditions of her life. She watches the way he gestures when he speaks, makes a mental note of all the little details he shares with her, the dates of when the cottage was built and what missions they’d stayed here for. The excitement Nile hears in his voice falters and then falls away all together when Nicky walks by, arms crossed and standing in front of the bathroom door, where the shower has been running for the past few minutes. Joe’s brow furrows and his eyes focus, trained on the back of Nicky’s head, hair matted with his own blood.

“Quel bastardo prenderà tutta l'acqua calda.” Nicky mutters.

Nile bites back a smile as she watches Joe unconsciously turn his body to face Nicky, struggling to find the words he needs to finish his conversation with her. Joe runs his thumb across the ridges of his ring and shakes out his hand.

“Go,” Nile says gently, nods her head towards Nicolo.

“Are you sure?”

“Joe,” Nile gives him a knowing look “Go get your man,”

Joe chuckles, squeezes Nile’s shoulder, and heads toward Nicky. Nile watches the two of them wrap their arms around each other and press their foreheads together, breathing each other in. The intimacy of the action makes Nile worry she’s impeding on their privacy so she pretends to focus on the painting in front of her. They speak to one another, chatting in languages that Nile doesn’t know until she hears Joe say bitterly:

“I’ll kill him,”

“Joe, please.” Nicky pulls away, cups Joe’s face in his hands “He doesn’t deserve to see your anger. He doesn’t deserve anything from you at all.”

“Nicky he-”

“I know what he did,” Nicky shuts the conversation down “He is our family and I love him, but for the time being he has no right to my life, or yours. Booker is young and foolish and desperate still, he does not understand the depth of what he’s done. We will figure out his penance and he will serve it, and then we can move on from this.”

“Nicolo-”

“Che cosa?”

Joe begins to say something, but shakes his head and instead says “Ti amo,”

“ uhibbuka aydan ”

Joe and Nicky separate at the sound of the front door opening. “Who let Booker shower first?” Andy asks, running her fingers through her hair with a sigh. She opens the door to the bathroom, and bends over to pick up Booker’s bloody clothing “Time’s up, Book,” she calls. Andy wordlessly hands Booker a towel, and Nile averts her eyes in embarrassment as Booker, water still running, steps out of the shower stark naked and wraps the towel around himself. Andy places the bundle of his clothes in his hand, “Burn whatever you can’t salvage,” Booker does not meet Andy’s eye, but he nods. “Joe, Nicky, anything you want Booker to get rid of?”

Joe and Nicky head towards the shower, tugging their shirts off over their heads and tossing them to Booker. Booker leaves Nile and Andy alone in the living room. An awkward silence begins to settle between them, but Nile has spent most of the day without words and she’s starting to get tired of it.

“So,” she begins, “How much you spend on clothes?”

Andy raises an eyebrow, “Depends. We buy shirts for our missions in bulk, because it’s cheaper. Dark clothes help with blood stains, because if we don’t get shot we can just...wash them. It’s not always like this,” Andy sighs, cracks her knuckles, and massages her shoulders.

“You know, that’s not the first time I’ve heard that this week,”  

Andy sighs “You arrived at a uniquely...complicated time and I apologize for that,”

“I don’t think you need to apologize for what happened today. I figured my life was gonna get complicated the minute I was pistol whipped in Afghanistan and woke up in the trunk of some white lady’s armored vehicle, driving through the desert.”

“Yeah, can’t say after all these years that I’m the subtle type,”

“No shit.” Nile smiles, picks dust from under her fingernails. “Were you friends with Heinsberg or something?”

Andy’s eyes are bright and her grin energetic and genuine in a way Nile hadn’t Andy was still capable of. “No, I just likes to sow chaos,”

They chat for a few minutes about nothing in particular. Nile asks about the sculptures on the table, Andy asks about her friends back in Afghanistan. Nile is struck by how natural it seems for her to exist in this space. Andy seems more relaxed than she has in days, Nile can see it in the way she stands, the ease at which conversation flows. The sound of the shower quiets, and the door to the bathroom opens.

“Nile, would you like to go next?” Nicky asks.

“Sure,”

“We left a towel in there for you,” Joe adds.

“Thanks,”

There is a sound of a door opening and closing, and all eyes in the room turn to look at Booker. “I brought you some clothes,” he hands the pile to Nile, and one to Andy, and for a moment Nile cannot help but think that he looks small.

“Joe and I are going to change, and I’ll have dinner started by the time you’re done,” Nicky says, his back to Booker.

Nile nods and closes the door, wipes the steam clinging to the bathroom mirror away, and strips herself down. She takes a moment to look at herself, touches the blood caked to the side of her head, runs a finger down her arm where her bone had been sticking out just a few days before. She looks at her foot, no evidence of an entry or exit wound from the bullet she’d shot into it a few hours ago. She presses a hand to her neck, traces a line down the carotid. The first wound that should have killed her and no scar to prove it. She forces herself to think about something else, singing songs in her head to drive off the existential crisis she can feel brewing. Just a few hours ago she had jumped from 15 stories, felt the blood rush to her head, felt the pain shudder through her body like lightning as a car bent itself beneath her. She had taken lives, and in doing so committed herself to an eternity of slaughter.

She turns the shower on, waits for it to run warm. Within a minute she can hear the muffled sounds of shouting, an argument she wouldn’t have been able to understand even if she had wanted to. She sticks her head beneath the stream, watches as the water turns pink beneath her feet. She massages shampoo into each cornrow, making a mental note to pick up some supplies the next time they were anywhere near civilization. This bathroom was not stocked with her hair texture or skin type in mind. She scrubs herself down with the washcloth they had left her by the sink. Wonders to herself as she hangs the cloth up to dry how many gallons of bleach the Guard must go through after missions. Free of blood, Nile conditions her hair, turns off the shower, and pats herself dry. She finds no moisturizers, no lotions, no oils or gels in the bathroom cabinets, slips into the clothing Booker has given her, and steps into the living room.

“You could have just volunteered yourself,” Joe is standing in the kitchen when Nile returns. “There was absolutely no need to sell us all out,”

“I wasn’t trying to sell you out,” Booker exclaims, and Nile realizes there are advantages to the lack of questioning she’s been subjected to. Mostly that she hasn’t had time to tell anyone she grew up speaking French. “If he could get your DNA then it’s possible he could have figured out a way to-”

“Sebastian,” Andy sighs “stop,”

It is a testament to her command, the respect and reverence these old friends have for one another that Andy need not raise her voice to be heard over shouting. Booker deflates, unscrews the top of his flask and takes a swig “Oh. No need to stop on my account.” Nile’s voice fills the sudden silence “I can hang out somewhere else. I was just looking for a plastic bag. I’ve got conditioner in that has to sit for twenty minutes and need to wrap my head,”

“I’m not. You’re a member of this team now, Nile,” Andy responds, “You should be a part of every conversation that we have. I’m just...tired, and hungry, and covered in blood, I want to shower, and honestly, I don’t care what Booker has to say about his choices right this very minute. I think we should just eat dinner and pick this particular conversation up in the morning,”

“Sure, boss,” Booker and Joe speak together, and Nile watches Nicky whisper low to Joe, slip something into his hand, and push him out of the kitchen. He wipes his fingers on the hand towel sitting on his shoulder, and stirs whatever canned good he’d put on the stove to warm.

“Here’s that bag,” Joe places it gently on her head, it feels familiar, familial in a way that almost knocks Nile off her feet with homesickness.

“Thanks,”

“Okay, I’m going to get cleaned up,” Andy inches towards the bathroom. “Nicky and Joe, finish cooking and set the table. Booker, get the rooms ready. Nile, put your feet up, watch some TV, decompress a little, you’ve earned it,”

Before she can fully process the request, Nile finds herself alone in the foyer. While she’s searching for the remote, Nile realizes that the shower has not started up. She knocks softly on the bathroom door and looks over her shoulder to make sure no one else is paying attention. Nicky and Joe are bickering with one another about the addition of salt to the dish they are preparing, and Booker is nowhere to be seen so she asks a question.

“Andy, you okay in there?”

It takes a moment for her to respond, “I’m fine,” a comment she punctuates with a sharp inhale of breath.

“You sure about that?” Nile pries “Do you wanna give me your dirty laundry?”

“I’ll take care of it,” Andy replies, which she follows rather quickly with a quiet “fuck,”

“Andy, do you need help?”

“I–” Andy stops herself “No,”

Nile doesn’t believe her. “Andy, I know everything hurts. I know you’re worried about what we’re all going to think, but let me make it clear. I don’t care, I don’t pity you, and I won’t judge. I’ve been immortal for like...four days. If you’re bleeding or bruised I’m not gonna freak or feel bad about it. I’d honestly be more creeped out if you were completely fine.” Nile puts a hand on the doorknob and lowers her voice. “It just, sounds like you need help, and there is no point in causing yourself potential harm for the sake of appearances,”

The door opens and Andy drags Nile into the bathroom, closing the door quickly behind them. “I just don’t want the guys to worry.” Andy says.

“I know,”

“I kind of wish Booker had just killed me with that gunshot.” Andy winces as she tries to remove her shirt. Nile helps Andy untangle her arms from the sleeves, tosses the shirt onto the floor. “This whole mortality thing is kind of a pain in the ass.”

“Sounds like a you problem,” Nile teases.

Andy smirks “You’re so kind,”

“I’m sorry...did you want sympathy?” she asks, Andy kicks off her shoes and her pants, grabbing Nile’s arm to steady herself.

“No,” Andy laughs “No I did not,”

“I think we should get that looked at,” Nile moves on, pointing to the bandage on Andy’s abdomen, soaked with blood. “Looks like you re-opened the bullet wound.”

“I’m not going to the hospital,”

“Okay well, let’s just get the blood off of you first, and go from there. I feel like we should try not to get it wet though.”

“Fine, just...help me into the tub,” Nile holds Andy’s weight, pretends not to see the way Andy grits her teeth when she steps over the rim. She lowers herself down until she is sitting in the bottom of the tub, and reaches for a washcloth and some soap. Andy’s body is riddled with cuts and bruises, and Nile understands why Andy was hesitant to ask for help. It’s a pretty gruesome sight, even for someone who was expecting injury.

Andy sighs, a deep, exhausting thing, and leans against the back of the tub. She dips the washcloth in the water, lathers it up with soap and starts to scrub at the parts of her skin that are not tender. Nile closes the toilet seat and sits herself down.

“So…while you have me trapped here, in pain and unable to stand, do you have any other pressing questions about immortality, or...anything really?”

Nile chews her lip, feels her cheeks get warm “I’ll be this age forever, right?”

“Yup,”

“Does that mean....okay this is gonna sound stupid,” Nile closes her eyes so she won’t have to see Andy’s face when she asks “Will I still get my period?”

“Oh no,” Andy chuckles “God no. Your body heals itself, so there is no tissue to shed. If I still got my period I probably would have tried harder to end my immortality. Can you imagine thousands of years of that shit?”

“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to,”

Andy wrings out the blood and dirt from her washcloth, and tries to reach behind her to scrub at her back. She bites back a cry of pain, the water rushing through the tub spout drowns out whatever sound escapes her lips. Nile takes the cloth wordlessly, begins to wipe the grime away from Andy’s skin “How many times have you died?”

“Lost count,” Andy stares at her feet. “At least two thousand, probably more,”

“How many times have you blown yourself up?”

“Five,”

“Only five?”

“Blown myself up or been blown up?”

“Blown up,”

“Then probably...forty,”

“What is the weirdest way you’ve died?”

“I ate mercury,”

“What?”

“Joe dared me too,”

“Most embarrassing way you’ve ever died?”

“Are all your questions going to be about my deaths?”

“How old are you?”

“Around sixty-five hundred. My foot got tangled in the sling of a trebuchet as I was helping place the payload and I got hurtled into the sky,”

“Have you ever tried to figure out why this is happening?”

“How would I do that?”

“I don’t know, but...aren’t you curious?”

“No,” Andy’s voice isn’t dismissive when she replies.

“Why don’t you believe in God?”

“I told you before, there was a time that I was worshipped as a God, but I’m just a person who has a hard time making death stick to her. I can’t shape the world, I can’t heal the sick, I can only kill,”

“And save,”

Andy looks at Nile and there is something in her eyes Nile doesn’t know how to decipher. “Regardless, having been a God to some sorry fuckers thousands of years ago, I have a hard time thinking that any part of it is real. As old as I am and as travelled as I’ve been, I’ve seen many religions rise and fall around all different types of Gods. And while I understand the comfort of prayer, community, and worship, it just hard for me to think that God exists when I see something so many people have believed in and have devoted themselves to disappear within a few decades. But you can believe whatever you want, I’m sorry if I was harsh about your religion before,”

“I appreciate that,” Nile’s hand freezes as she goes to scrub the dirt from Andy’s shoulders and finds a stab wound sitting there instead, cut deep and oozing. “Where did you get this?”

“Goussainville,”

“Its bleeding,”

“Is it?”

“Okay Andy, first of all, you can’t keep shit like this from anyone anymore. Secondly– and I can’t believe I have to ask this question –do you have bandages here? A first aid kit?”

“Yes, in my bag. I bought some the other night,”

“I’ll go grab it,” Nile hands Andy the shampoo and conditioner and slips out of the bathroom to go in search of medical equipment. Joe and Nicky look up from their work and raise their eyebrows quizzically. Nile pretends she doesn’t see them.

Booker is precariously balancing a stack of bedsheets when Nile comes into the room. “Have you seen Andy’s bag?” she asks him. Booker’s eyes are red when he looks up at her.

“Um, yeah,” he throws the sheets down, roots through the pile of bags on the floor. “Here,”

“Thanks,” Nile’s replies, her voice hesitant. She looks Booker over as she sifts through the bag. “How are you?”

“I didn’t mean to…” Booker seems desperate “I didn’t know,”

“She knows,”

“I thought I- it doesn’t matter,” Booker shakes his head. “I should have realized they would lie,”

“I know you think you were doing something good,” Nile says carefully. “But that wasn’t a choice you made with everyone, it’s a choice you made for everyone. Booker, if you have to kidnap your friends to get them to do something, maybe it wasn’t a good idea in the first place,”

“You’re right…” Booker plays with the edge of the folded bed sheets, not meeting her eyes. “We’ve all done things to piss each other off before, but this is really bad. I don’t know what I’m gonna do...what they’re gonna do,”

“I don’t either,” Nile finds the first aid kit, and leaves Booker alone. Andy is washing the suds out of her hair when Nile returns. “Anyone have medical training?”

“Nicky,”

“Are you okay with having him look at you? You have to be more careful now,”

“I know,”

“You think you know, but you haven’t been mortal in...over six thousand years. You can push yourself an awful lot, but you can’t ignore your injuries. When was the last time you had an infection? Or had to take medication?”

“Fine,” Andy sighs “Let me put on some pants.” Nile helps Andy out of the tub, turns the water cold and rinses the conditioner out of her hair as Andy dries herself off, struggles into her underwear and sweatpants.

“Nicolo,” Andy pokes her head out of the door “Vieni qui per favore,”

Without hesitation, Nicky joins them in the bathroom, “Everything okay, Andy?”

“Nile is worried I may need medical attention. She hasn’t taken any bandages off but she said there was blood on them and is concerned that I may have ripped my stitches, or whatever the hell it was they did to me,”

“Also she has a stab wound she didn’t tell anyone about on her shoulder,”

Nicky turns to look at Nile, then back to Andy, he raises his eyebrow slightly, and shakes his head when Andy shrugs. “I’m assuming it is okay for me to examine you?”

“Yeah,”

Nile watches Nicky work, how delicately he removes her bandages, the intensity of his stare as he analyzes the damage. “The stitches have definitely slipped,” he presses his hand to Andy’s stomach, rolling his palm slightly around her abdomen and then close to where her bruises have started to bloom. “You don’t have a rigid abdomen, so there’s probably not internal bleeding. Let me see the others,” Andy complies, resting her chin upon her hands, rolling her neck until it cracks. “The back seems to have slipped as well, and the shoulder one is a little too old for stitches. I don’t have sutures here, but I could glue it if you want,”

“Do you still need me?” Nile asks, a little woozy.

“I’ve got her,” Nicky replies.

Nile leaves the room and nearly jumps out of her skin when Booker and Joe rush to her “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Nile pours herself a glass of wine. “It’s all good,”

Booker and Joe finish setting the table and they all prepare themselves for dinner. Nicky and Andy join them soon after they have sat down to eat. Over dinner, the attention turns to Nile, she is attacked from all sides with all the burning questions the immortals have about her life. Joe learns of Nile’s interest in art history and spends the rest of the meal excitedly telling her fun facts about every famous artist they’d ever met. Nile sits on the kitchen counter while the others wash the dishes. She listens to them hum snippets of long forgotten songs, and marvels at the way they move around one another without needing to speak. They are more than just a team, more than just a family, Nile realizes as Joe starts up a gramophone. When they are all together they are a single living organism.

Booker tries to offer her more wine and Joe tries to pull her, gently, off the countertop so he can teach her how to swing dance. Nile is not exactly shy, and under different circumstances she knows she would have participated more in the evening's festivities. But for tonight, Nile stays rooted in place, as a casual observer of their joy. Nile feels happier than she has in months, as she watches them drink, as Joe prays, and as the old friends dance together. A promise of what this life could be. The evening begins to calm and Andy, skin flushed and pupils dilated, and Booker head to bed.

“You coming?” Joe asks Nicky, who has been sitting at the dining room table, propping his head up with his hand, reading a book.

“Later,” Nicky looks up from the page “I’d like to read for a bit,”

“Okay,” Joe presses a kiss to Nicky’s temple “Goodnight,”

“Night, love,”

Nile moves to sit on the living room couch, rests her arms on her knees, hangs her head so she can focus on the floor. She finally lets herself breathe, lets herself think about everything that she just went through. The burning pinch of the bullets that riddled her, the way her bones felt moving underneath her skin, the smell of blood and dust. She thinks of the man that killed her, the way life had left his eyes, how Andy had a similar look in her eye when the two of them peered out the broken window in Merrick’s penthouse. She runs her hands across her head, rubs the tears from her eyes. She needs to think, to make a decision. The longer she stays here the harder it is for her to justify leaving. This is a family, not hers, not yet, but she knows how easily it could be. She pulls out her phone, spends too long staring, blurry eyed at photos of her family. She thinks about her brother, his passion, his joy, and his sadness. She thinks of her mother, how hard she had worked to provide them a life they could be proud of, how determined she was to be happy despite the wrongs the world had handed her. She thinks of the emptiness that consumed their family when her father died, how badly her mother’s hand had shaken when she’d closed the door behind the officers that had delivered the news. Could she put her family through that again? Could she put her mother through that?

“I made you some hot chocolate,” Nicky places a steaming mug down on the coffee table. Nile blinks up at Nicky, so wrapped up in her own head she hadn’t fully processed what he’d said to her.

“Oh.” Nile sits up a little straighter “Thank you,”

“Could I join you?”

“Sure,” Nile holds the mug between her hands and lets the heat spread across her fingers.

“I’m not sure that it tastes very good, but sometimes all you need is a little warmth,”

“Thank you, Nicky,”

“Of course,” he takes a sip of his own drink. “How are you feeling about all of this, Nile?”

Nile sighs “Honestly? I have no idea,”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“I’m not sure what I want, I’m not sure what to do,”

“Do about what?”

“Any of it– All of it.” Nile watches the ceiling fan circle, searching for the right words “I’m not sure how to feel about this immortality business. I don’t think it’s fully sunk in yet, it still feels like a dream. I keep pinching myself just to see if I’ll wake up. I’ve died four times in the last week, I keep having nightmares, and I just,” Nile’s lip trembles “I just want my Mom, you know?”

“I do,” he admits “They don’t tell you when you train for battle how many people will die crying out for their mothers. In times of strife, in times of fear, we want that which will bring us comfort.  I’ve lived for nine-hundred years, and time has eaten away at a lot of my memories. I can’t remember what my mother looks like, but some days I am hit with an overpowering wave of melancholy knowing that I will never see her again. I can still remember how it felt, the first couple of times. How terrifying it was, how isolating, and every time I came back to life I thought of her, I wanted her to be there to tell me it was okay. But at the time I thought there was a devil in me, so I never let myself go back.” Nicky turns the full force of his attention towards Nile, and though every action he performs is gentle and controlled, Nile shrinks under the pressure of his gaze. “You’re an incredibly strong person, Nile,”

“Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to be,”

“You don’t always,”

Nile stifles a laugh, because Nicky means well, but he just doesn’t get it. He doesn’t know what it is like to wear her skin, to grow up where she did. And while she has no doubt he’s faced trials and tribulations, and had his fair share of hate spewed at him, no amount of time on Earth will ever let him understand what she means. “I think I want to go home,”

“Why?”

“I want a better goodbye. I want to hear my mother’s voice again, I want to hug her one last time,”

“And what purpose does that serve?”

“I don’t know…” Nile shrugs, she looks to Nicky with lost eyes. “I don’t want them to suffer, I don’t want them to have to mourn me,”

“What happens if they start to realize you aren’t aging?”

“I leave,”

“And cause them pain,” under different circumstances, Nile would have thought this point was cruel, but to Nicky it’s a matter of fact. It is not a question, it is not a hypothetical, it’s merely...truth.

“I know what it was like, after my Dad died. I don’t know that I can put them through that,”

“You’ll have to do it eventually. You just have to decide whether you cause them misery now, or later,”

“I don’t think I’m ready to say goodbye,” Nile’s voice cracks.

“Nile,” Nicky takes her hand, brushes a tear from her cheek, “No one ever is,”

“Ugh sorry,” Nile takes a raggedy breath, sniffles, and forces herself to smile, though it falters for a moment. “I don’t normally cry,”

“Why not?”

“It makes me feel weak, it makes me feel vulnerable,”

“But neither of those things are true,” Nicky takes a sip of his drink, “could I ask you a question?”

“Shoot,”

“Why did you come back?”

“What?”

Nicky’s eyebrows furrow as he tries to find the words. “When Andromache and Booker were brought into the lab, we asked after you, wanting to make sure you were okay, you were safe. I don’t think any of us would have forgiven ourselves if you had been captured too. Andy said that you had left, that you wanted to get as much time as you could with your family before the immortality caught up to you. We didn’t know if we’d ever see you again....until you came bursting through that door,” Nile feels her cheeks go warm “So...why? What caused you to come back?”

Nile examines the contents of the mug between her fingers, takes a sip to wash the tremble out of her voice. “Right before I left, Andy handed me her pistol and told me to get rid of the weapons before I got on a train. When I went to toss them, I noticed the clip was empty. Booker was the one that prepped that gun for her, so I knew something was up,”

“Ok,” Nicky surveys Nile’s face “But that doesn’t answer my question,”

“It doesn’t?”

“No,” Nicky’s lips turn up in the ghost of a smile “Just seeing that gun doesn’t mean you have to come back for us. We basically kidnapped you to get you to come here. You’ve only known us for a few days, you have no obligation to us. You could have looked at that gun, thought something was wrong, and then gone back to your family anyway. But instead...you chose to save us, even after our broken promises. Andy told you we’d keep you safe, and we left you alone, exposed, and in the open,”

“It’s not your fault,”

“I know,” Nicky runs a hand through his hair.

“How did you know about what Andy said to me anyway?”

“She was beating herself up about it in the lab,” Nicky states. “You don’t have to tell me if you do not wish too, Nile. I was just curious,”

“No,I–”  Nile stares straight ahead of her when she says it, focusing her attention on the front door. “It was Quynh,”

“Quynh?” Nicky asks, and Nile nods, forcing herself to face this kind man who asked hard questions.

“And you,”

“Me?”

“You were right. When I first saw the gun I thought about just leaving, figured that whatever was happening you’d have the time to get out of it on your own. But then I thought of Quynh, of feeling her drown over and over; the wildness of it, the insanity. And I thought of what you told me the other night, your fear of capture, of spending an eternity in a box. Feeling what Quynh felt– feels,” Nile corrects herself “I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. I knew I couldn’t leave you all to that potential future.”

Nicky sizes Nile up and though he smiles warmly at her, she feels like he is staring right into her soul. It’s not uncomfortable, just unexpected, Nile takes another sip of her hot chocolate to break the eye contact. When Nile looks at him again his body seems heavy, he’s staring at nothing in particular and rubbing his wrist absentmindedly.

“How ‘bout you? Are you okay?”

Nicky shakes his head and it takes him a minute to say anything at all “I don’t think so,”

“Were you scared?”

“Only for a moment, when they injected me and Joe with something and I thought they might separate us.”

“But they didn’t,”

“No. I did have to watch him tortured though,”

“I’m so sorry,”

“I’d throw myself in front of every danger to keep him from being hurt,” Nicky admits “And I couldn’t spare him from the pain,”

“Is that why you haven’t said a word to Booker since we left the lab?”

“We had some time to question him,” Nicky says after a moment of contemplation “when they got into the lab. Joe was pretty busy yelling at him, but Booker told us he hadn’t meant for it to go like this. He’d been promised answers to his existence, a potential cure to his immortality, a way to die before his time. He thought that we could all get some answers, that we would all want a way to end this cursed existence.” Nicky runs his hand over his face, looking to Nile with tired eyes. “I have never had a child, so I do not know what it is like to lose one. Much less three. I know Booker is hurt and lonely, and I cannot begin to understand the pain he must have felt having watched his children fade away, without being able to stop it. But he is wrong about us.  

Nicky turns to look behind him to the doorway where Joe is sleeping. “I’ve always had Joe, and Joe has always had me. For Booker, who has seen it all slip away from him, that seems like a blessing, and I don’t disagree. But,” Nicky scratches the back of his head “we have watched each other die over and over again for 900 years. And every time I see him die, I have to wait with grief spreading through my chest before I can reign it in, and hope that he moves again, that I can see him breathe. I throw myself in front of danger to protect Joe all the time, and I do it so that he does not have to suffer the wounds, but there is a part of me that does it because I am selfish. I hope that I will die before him so I do not have to bear losing him forever. I get a taste of what my life would be like without him by my side every time I watch him die, and I know I would be lost. Booker thinks the weight of immortality does not fall upon our shoulders, thinks that because Joe and I have always had each other that we walk on air, oblivious to the harsh realities, the objective truths of living as long as we have. He believes we do not know the loneliness, but Joe and I have lived every day with Death’s scythe above our heads. Booker and Andy do not have a monopoly on the tragedy, self-pity, or loathing that comes with what we do or...what we are. I am just as angry and tired as the rest of them, and there are times I wish I would just die, same as them. But, I make an active choice every single day to not succumb to the pressure. I choose to believe there is a reason for this, that this life has purpose, that we are doing good. I believe Joe makes this life worth it, but so does Andy, so does Booker, Quynh, and Lykon would have too had he lived long enough for us to know him. Booker thinks he is alone, because he does not see all of the wonderful people around him for the gift they are.

“What’s that advice people like to tell children? ‘If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all?’ I haven’t said anything to Booker since the lab because I’m angry. I am angry that we were captured, I’m angry at the fear I felt, however brief, over what could have happened had you not been the incredibly kind and compassionate young woman you are. I’m angry that Joe and I bore most of the consequences of Booker’s lapse in judgement. And it’s not anger he deserves, because I believe it was a mistake, I don’t think he would have done it had he known the extent of Merrick’s masochism. I don’t even think I would be mad if it had just been me. But it was Joe the guards beat in the van, it was Joe that Merrick stabbed. Booker never had to suffer the consequences of his own suicide attempt. Perhaps I am being too harsh, but for the moment I have other things to worry about.” Nicky clears his throat, holds his mug between his hands.

“Andy?”

Nicky’s sigh carries centuries on it “Andromache has lived a long life, longer than I can even fathom. She’s done a lot of good in this world, and she deserves the rest. I want to keep her around as long as possible, but I’m happy for her that sometime within the next sixty years or so she will finally know peace. It just….hurts,” Nicky stands, offers to take Nile’s cup “But these are the tired musings of an old man, I probably should not have offered you so much of my burden,”

“I asked,”

“You are a good person, Nile. I’m very glad to know you,”

“So are you,”

“Nile,” Nicky puts the mugs down to dry and says in a voice so low Nile isn’t quite certain she heard it correctly. “Could I give you a hug?”

“I guess?”

Nicky’s arms are strong, and certain when he pulls her in, and while he holds her the ground seems sturdy beneath her feet for the first time since she woke up in that hospital bed. “Thank you,” he whispers, squeezing her tighter “for saving my family,”

“Nicolo,” Joe is standing in the doorway, squinting against the light in the living room. His curls are messy, his beard is ruffled, and Nile has to keep herself from laughing at how adorable he looks.

“Trouble sleeping?” Nicky asks, he says it like it’s a joke, but Nile knows it isn’t.

“I was just thinking how cute I looked laying in that bed, and I would hate to deny you the opportunity to watch me sleep,” Joe winks, his face lighting up in a smile.

“I’ll be in in just a moment, Yusuf, va bene?”

“nem,” Joe disappears back into the bedroom.

Nicky turns back to Nile, and much like Joe’s earlier, when his eyes meet hers, they shine. “Are you feeling any better?”

“I think so, are you?”

“I am,” Nicky squeezes Nile’s arm, his right lip pulling upwards “Goodnight, Nile,”

“Night,” she replies as Nicky follows Joe into the other room. While Nile is tired her mind is still working too quickly to settle for the evening, so instead she spends some time pacing the living room. She thinks about the days, about the Guard. Though they live forever, Nile has seen the way they come alive around each other, has seen the love they share. This is a family, she has no doubt, and one she will be lucky to one day feel a part of. When she plugs her phone in to charge, she feels the need to study her mother’s face, to try to commit it to her memory. She leans against the doorframe to the bedroom the others are all sharing, a bed made beautifully at the end, just for her. If Nile hadn’t just spent the last few years sleeping next to a dozen fellow soldiers she’d think that it was weird they always seemed to share a room. She looks at Booker, snoring lightly in his bed, even asleep his face is full of sorrow. At Andy, who is curled up on her right side, eyes flickering rapidly beneath her eyelids, face peaceful. She cannot tell where Joe ends and Nicky begins, the two of them a pile of legs and arms, nestled together warm and close. Nile turns off the lights, fumbles her way in the darkness to the bed, it’s a little lumpy, but much more comfortable than the cot she’s been sleeping in recently. She stares up at the ceiling, listens to the others breathe until she slips into unconsciousness.

That night she does not dream of Quynh, nor the men that she has killed. Instead, she dreams of her father’s combat boots, of the folded flag that hangs above the front door. She dreams of her brother, of the music he’s been working on. She dreams of her father, and feels like she is flying when he lifts her and places her on his shoulders. She dreams of shag carpet against her skin as she sits between her mother’s legs, as her mother braids her hair and calls her beautiful, and reminds her that there is so much life to be lived outside Chicago. “Look,” her mother says, and holds up a mirror. Inside it Nile sees Afghanistan, sees Gousainville, and London. “You have so many more adventures ahead of you,” her mother says, leaning forward so Nile’s cheek is pressed against her own. “Go find them,”

Nile wakes up in the morning to the sound of muffled laughter and makes her choice.

[sparetimeimagines]

They Find You Hiding At A Party

Kuroo Tetsurō x Reader

Tags; Drinking, Astrology, Fluff

You were always a fan of the American wraparound style porches, however the abbreviated ones will do. Drunk people walked in and out and in and out; you began to lose count of how many people were actually at this party. The rainbow colors from the disco ball someone randomly put up in a corner beams through the window.

Reds, blues, greens -they all highlighted your face for a period of time- however you didn’t seem to mind. The music was loud enough you didn’t have to be inside, but with all the people you honestly prefer not to be.

They are packing in by thirty too many and you just need some air. So in the corner of the front porch you find a swing hanging from the ceiling. It is wooden and perfect for those warm summer days. Or tonight, for the moonlight was at its best, full and letting the stars have their moment.

You watch the night sky, how the fog dances over the moon, and notice all the patterns that you’re familiar with.

You were always a fan of astrology. Your mother found great meaning in the stars, for future, past and whatever was on your mind.

So you learned the meanings. You learned their faces. And whenever you found a moment of peace all alone, you heard their voices.

Like tonight.

The familiar acquaintances you have made in the sky send their hellos and you’re more than happy to greet them back.

A few loud drunks crash through the front door, surprisingly enough not breaking it. The two guys punch each other shoulders, laughing about how much they drank from the keg. However, that didn’t amuse you.

You take a sip from the red cup you have in your hand, letting the alcohol burn your throat just slightly.

It wasn’t beer. You specifically asked your friend to not give you beer.

You hated the taste. It doesn’t matter, domestic or foreign, light or dark, it didn’t matter. To you, it was disgusting.

Instead, the brown liquor told you it was whiskey. You don’t know how they got whiskey, considering it was a bunch of poor third years and their underclassmen friends.

They must’ve stole it from one of their parents...

“Chiiiiibi-Chan.” The raspy voice says with a chuckle coming out of the door with two cups of alcohol. “Chiiiiibi-Chan.” He repeats himself. “I thought I’d find you out here.” His raspy voice immediately sends a smile to your lips and a roll to your eyes.

“You’re too smooth for your own good. I hope you know that.“ You shake your head taking the new cup from Kuroo‘s hand.

He chuckles once more, and sits beside you on the swing.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.“ he chuckles, his bottom lip pulls into his teeth.

“Sure, Tetsu.” You bring the cup to your lips instantly regretting that decision. “Ew, gross this is beer.” You gag and he quickly switches out the drinks.

“My bad. This one is yours.”

He takes a sip from the cup you had previously on your lips and smirks. “Did you drug me?”

“Tetsu don’t be stupid.”

“What? I could never.” He leans in closer to your ear. “Chiiiiibi-Chan.” His tone drips sensually and he chuckles. “You’re so cute when you blush. Tell me.” He growls. “Do I make you nervous?”

“Tetsu!” You smack his chest causing an uproar.

He throws his head back and his arm snakes around your shoulders.

“Fine! Fine.” He chuckles. “Tell me, Y/N, why are you outside when the party is inside?”

The night sky twinkles with more aggression at that moment and you shrug.

“You see that line right there of those really bright stars? The one that’s curved like a tail?” You point to the sky whilst Kuroo leans forward.

“Yes... I think. Yes.” He nods and faces you.

“That’s Scorpius.” He turns his head to study the sky longer. “That’s your constellation, right? Middle of November?” You say as though you don’t already know.

“Yes... Chibi-Chan you remembered.” His starlike features glow along his facial structures.

“Of course I do, Tetsu.” You continue to watch the stars and yet you feel eyes studying your face. “That really bright star? That’s Venus.”

“You’re a really bright star.” His voice drips once more.

“It’s impolite to stare.”

“I’m sorry, Y/N. I’m just admiring your beauty.” He whispers with intentions of getting a reaction.

“No you’re edging me on.” You turn back to him with eyes squinted with a dare.

The sensual tension between childhood friends should not have been brought to attention. However, with birthdays two days apart, the Scorpios knew better than to trust their pheromones.

“You like it.”

“You’re annoying.” You take another sip of the shot he provided and listen to his counter.

“Chibi-Chan. You know chemistry is more my thing. You know, what you’re feeling between us.” He circles his finger in a loop before leaning in closer.

Your faces inches apart, you can feel his hot breath against your ear.

“This place blows and I’m hungry. Let’s get out of here and do something worth our time.” He stands extending his hand to you.

“Should I call Kenma?” You dig for your phone as Kuroo starts the journey down the street towards town.

“Mmm, not this time, Chibi-Chan.” He stops, his large hands grabbing your phone. “Tonight, I want it to be just us. Me and You. Does that sound ok?” His crooked smile and daring eyes tempt you to say something smart but instead you nod.

“Can I have my phone back?”

“No.”

“No? How long are you planning on having it?” You stop, reaching for the phone that he raised in unison with you. He holds the device high above his head making it impossible for you to reach.

Kuroo chuckles and pulls your waist into him.

“You can have it back for a price.” He holds the phone close to him.

“A price.” You repeat dumbfounded. Your large eyes watch him.

“A price you cannot resist.” He smirks. “A kiss to yours truly.”

“Forget about it.”

“What?” He’s shocked lowering his arms.

“Not happening.” You snatch the phone from the captain with his guard down.

“What? You totally stole that!”

“It wasn’t yours to begin with Tetsu.”

He pouts and stops walking.

“Tetsu.”

“Nope.”

“Tetsu, are you drunk?”

“Don’t know him.”

“Tetsu, let’s go.”

“Nope. You hurt my feelings.” He folds his arms across his chest.

“I’m calling Kenma.”

“Noo! Don’t do that.” He stomps his feet and drapes his arms over your shoulders from behind. “Chiiiiibi-Chan. Why can’t it just be the two of us?”

“Because you can’t behave on your own.”

“Yes I can.”

“Prove it.” Your brows raise for a challenge while his smirk never falls.

“The stars say you’re supposed to fall in love with me tonight.”

“Hmmm is that so?” You turn in his arms to see his hazel eyes glowing against the blood rushing to his cheeks.

“Mmhmm.” He nods stepping closer to you. “We’re aligned tonight. Stars say you’ll fall for my charm.” His sensual tone drips as he bends closer to your frame. His lips are close to yours and once again you feel his breath.

This time you feel your heart disobeying you; pounding in your ears.

“You feel this chemistry between us. This pull bringing my lips-” he gently brushes them against your own. “To yours.” He presses his lips to yours again the same way, his nose barely grazing upon yours. “You can’t help yourself. You feel it too.”

You move in closer to his lips whilst he pulls away. His warm hands cup your face, long fingers tanging in your hair. “Your heart feral with each fragment of my touch.” They slowly traces down to the tip of your chin as he tilts your face to his.

He slides in closer trying his move thrice, this time you interrupt him, your lips cutting first taking him by a pleasant surprise. His lips curl upward, your bodies closing tightly.

“The stars say you’re supposed to fall in love with me tonight.” He whispers and kisses you again, bringing his forehead to yours. “What do they tell you?”

“I believe they’re absolutely right.”

Masterlist

[lavendersb]

Golden

Din Djarin x Reader

Summary: Things have been tough for your little clan of three.

You decide to take a break on an idyllic little planet and play happy family for a while.

Alternatively titled: "Touch starved metal man nearly dies when someone touches him softly"

Takes place after s2, but the crest is still intact, and Grogu hasn't gone to jedi school :)

Warnings: Literally none this is the softest thing in the world

Din had promised you a break.

For nearly a month you had been holed up in the razor crest. Din took no jobs, you stopped for nothing but fuel and even then Din wouldn’t allow you or Grogu to leave the ship. He was paranoid and desperate to ensure that the empire were off your trail before stopping for an extended period of time.

He had a good reason to act this way. You understood him well, just under a year of travelling as the Mandalorian’s companion had made you well aware of the way he operated, and the risks that came with his job. For a month or so you had been something more to him. Neither of you could quite put it into words yet, but he had opened up to you, made you aware of some of his more personal fears. How he worried near constantly that something would happen and your little clan of three would be separated.

As much as you understood Din’s reasoning, Grogu was struggling with his hyperspace confinement. A toddler with no way to burn off energy would be a nightmare in regular circumstances, but a toddler with magic powers was an entirely different set of challenges.

In the last week, Grogu had taken to throwing any item he could manage across the hull of the ship. It was harmless to begin with, just the odd crayon or stray bolt but now that Grogu had some practice, he was starting to pull at the large crates crates. When he managed to open Din’s weapon storage, that was the final straw.

You had reasoned with Din that just for a few days you needed somewhere to stop. It didn’t need to be populated, just somewhere the child could safely run free for a while. Preferably somewhere with decent weather. Eventually he had agreed, checking nearby planets for a safe place to land until he came across a very tame-looking planet called Usmoff 8. It would only take a day or so to get there.

-

 You had been asleep when Din had landed the crest. He had gotten up in the night to navigate the landing and had left you to sleep in the bedroom you shared behind the cockpit. When you finally woke to join him, you were startled by the view from the cockpit’s windows.

It was evening, the sun just beginning to dip below the horizon and casting the grassy planet outside in a brilliant golden glow. The light reflected off Din’s beskar vibrantly, the light flashing your eyes as he shifted in the pilot’s seat.

“The average day on this planet is much longer than most,” He tells you “It’s still only morning for us”

You rest a hand on his pauldron, looking out at the planet instead of into his visor. With the sun reflecting off him with such strength you could hardly look at him.

“You might want to go without the beskar today, when I look at you it’s like staring at the sun” You suggest. A year ago you would never have dreamed of saying such a thing to Din, but after the events of the last few months he was starting to embrace life outside of the armour. Every now and then he would remove his beskar and sometimes even his helmet, but only when he was sure that just you and the child could see.

“First I’m going to take a look around. Just to make sure there’s nothing we need to worry about” Din says.

“Alright,” You touch his pauldron gently, feeling how it’s already warming in the sunlight “I’ll go wake up Grogu.”

Din rests his hand to rest on yours, squeezing it where it rests on his shoulder and you use your free hand to turn his face to yours. You lean down to touch your forehead to the space above his visor, resting there for a moment before pulling back and heading down to the hull.

-

 “Grogu” You coo softly when the door to the cot lifts, and the hyper-active child sits up in the hammock. His ears flop into place as he wakes himself up, blinking slowly and letting out a string of groggy noises.

“We’ve got a busy day today” you say as you fish him out of his blankets. The two of you get ready whilst you wait for Din to return, washing your faces together and helping Grogu into a poncho and little pair of trousers.

You’re just finishing breakfast together when Din returns.

“Looks like we’re alone. It won’t hurt to stay alert though, I’ve no idea what the ecosystem is like here” He says, setting down his rifle and taking a seat on a crate in the hull.

“Do you think the wildlife will be a problem?” you say as you pass him a small bowl of lumpy porridge.

“Hard to tell,” he shrugs “but I don’t really want to risk it. I’ve seen the most vicious of animals living on some of the most beautiful planets”.

 -

The three of you finish breakfast and as you and Grogu clear up the plates together, Din starts to remove his beskar. He stops when he gets down to his flight suit but opts to keep the helmet. You don’t push for him to remove it, even though you know you won’t properly be able to look at his visor when your outside in the blinding sun. You want him to feel safe.

“Much better. Now you’re not so reflective, I’ll actually be able to look at you when we’re outside.”

“Do you plan on looking at me that much?” Din quips and you can hear his sly grin from under his helmet.

You scoff, and lightly shove his shoulder with yours as you pass to the ramp.

“I always want to look at you Mando.”

You hear Din chuckle quietly as you descend the ramp into the ‘evening’ sun. Grogu stirs in your arms, becoming restless at the sight of the grassy plains after going so long inside the metal belly of the ship. You don’t put him down just yet; you quickly scan the horizon first after becoming wary from Din’s words earlier.

There’s no sign of any other life forms, just grass and flowers and sunlight for as far as you can see. It really is picturesque. The golden sun illuminates the planet in a hazy glow and makes everything look warm and perfect. You set the baby down, and instantly he begins to toddle off towards a big, wilting flower.

“Thank you for letting us stop here” You say as Din comes to stand beside you.

“You don’t need to thank me. You should ask more often; I sometimes forget that the two of you need time to rest. When I travelled alone I never took breaks like this” He says, watching Grogu as he brings the head of the flower towards his little nose.

“Did you never get cabin fever?” you ask, and Din gives a little shrug.

“I grew up in the sewers of Nevarro and it was rare that I ever got let out. I think I’m immune to cabin fever.” Din says it like a joke, but his voice is laced with something akin to nostalgia. Or perhaps grief. You can’t quite tell.

Something moves out of the corner of your eye. You quickly turn to look for what it is, worried that it might be some kind of predator like Din had warned about. Instead all you are faced with is a tiny, orange-winged butterfly. The solitary thing flutters close to you, and then off past you and Din to disappear into the sunlight.

“So much for those dangerous creatures” You laugh.

-

 You spend the rest of the day outside in the sun. Din reckons it’s safe enough that you won’t have to leave too soon, but you’re still so excited to actually have fresh air to breathe. You do everything you can outside the ship, you eat outside, sort the laundry outside , and for the benefit of the child you play outside too. Whilst you and Din work on the little mundane tasks that need doing, you both keep an eye out for Grogu, whose energy is so abundant he keeps scampering off across the fields. Each time you have to call out to him and tempt him with food or a new game to play, and each time he comes diligently scampering back, giggling the whole way.

By the end of the day his energy has run out entirely. He waddles rather than runs, and never goes further than a few feet from where you and Din have settled under a tree. Din lies on his side next to you, finally convinced that there’s nothing out to get the three of you and parts ways with his helmet. It sits glistening next to him, close enough that he can grab it if anything goes wrong.

Over in a patch of shrubbery the baby gargles and lurches forward, disturbing a cluster of peaceful butterflies from the plants they rest upon. Two dozen or so of the petal-winged creatures leap into the sky and flutter away from the little green monster that waves his tiny hands after them.

“Oh Din, look” you say, and the two of you chuckle at the image before you. The butterflies have disappeared into the blinding golden sunlight and left Grogu alone in the flowers.

“Eh-a?” Grogu exclaims in confusion, his arms still extended towards the sky and his big brown eyes squinting as he looks for the insects that have abandoned him. His small arms drop back against his side, he seems ready to waddle back over in defeat until something in the flowers catches his attention.

You watch as your adoptive son’s big ears prick up with excitement. He slowly bends down, tentatively reaching into the shrubbery and straightening back up again with something resting in his open palm. He begins to totter over to you and Din, his attention solely on what he cradles in his hands, moving so carefully, as though it is the most precious thing in the world.

“What do you have there, Ad’ika?” Din says, and you sit up to see what Grogu has brought over.

He comes to a stop between the two of you and offers up his palms for you both to see his catch. It’s a butterfly, unfortunately dead but not by Grogu’s hand. No, the little boy is far too gentle with it. Grogu looks between you and Din and makes a noise of confusion. He lifts his palms higher into the air to try and get the butterfly to take off but all it does is roll slightly in his hand. Definitely dead.

“I think he’s gone to sleep,” You say to him, not quite ready to discuss the concept of mortality with a tired green toddler “It’s almost time for your bedtime as well.”

You reach out and take the butterfly from Grogu’s gentle hold, holding it’s body between your forefinger and thumb you admire it’s pinkish wings in the warm orange sunlight. Grogu sits down heavily and lets Din pull him closer so that his back rests against his father’s chest. His big brown eyes still watching the butterfly as you move it around.

Smiling you bring it towards him, brushing the insect’s soft wings gently across the baby’s wrinkled head.

“Does it feel soft?” You ask, bringing it down to tickle his rosy cheek and then back up to his head. Grogu doesn’t answer, he’s far to busy enjoying the feeling of the butterfly’s wings on his skin, his big eyes looking up at your hand and his little mouth parted in wonder. You keep going, watching as it lulls him into a sleepy state and makes him melt into Din’s body.

“You’re a good influence on him. A year ago he would have eaten those things without mercy” Din jokes as you continue to move the butterfly wing.

“You underestimate your own impact on him” You say quietly, so as not to disturb the baby. Din huffs in disagreement.

You’ve always known that Din thought very little of his ability to raise Grogu. His insecurities about raising a child were what brought the two of you together in the beginning, but even after so much time together the Mandalorian still couldn’t see how much of a natural he was at parenting. At being loving. At being loved.

“Din,” You chastise softly, but he doesn’t meet your gaze. His head is bowed, eyes laser-focused on the grass below him.

You take the butterfly away from Grogu (he’s become so drowsy he hardly notices it’s absence) and bring it to Din’s cheek instead, brushing the silky wing across his skin. Din bristles, looking up at you with his eyebrows raised and slightly pinched. His breath audibly catches in his throat, and you keep softly brushing the butterfly wing along his stubbled cheek.

“You’re gentle too,” You say, as Din’s eyes plead with you. You know he wants to argue with you, he wants to tell you he isn’t gentle, that nobody’s ever let him be gentle, but you won’t let him. Instead you bring your free hand up to hold his other cheek, and Din practically melts into it.

His eyes close as he enjoys the pleasant touch. You know how overwhelmed he gets when his bare skin is touched. Especially when it’s his face. Especially when it’s a tender touch. A life hidden behind beskar will do that to a person, he had told you once, and most of the physical contact he received as an adult came in the form of punches. This was still so new to him.

You place the butterfly down on a nearby flower and lean in close to Din, slowly pressing your lips to his in a sleepy kiss. It’s slow, and as you pull away Din leans to follow you, searching for more.

You chuckle at the sight in front of you. Din leaning on his side with the baby sitting against his chest. Both of them stare up at you with content, their brown eyes blinking slowly in the sunlight. You and your boys are happy. That’s all that matters in the universe right now.

[pitaparka]

sit down you’re rocking the boat

request: Could you do one where y/n is kie’s adopted sister & hangs around the pogues a lot? She takes a liking to jj. One day, they’re swimming at John b’s and she watches him get out of the water from afar. He catches her gaze. Kie tells her that she’s not being discreet. Later that night, she goes down to the dock to help jj clean up and he tells her that he saw her watching him. He asks why and they both confess they like each other. They kiss then it gets smuttyish. Thanks.

summary: you watch JJ emerge from the water like an atlantean prince and it makes you want to help him clean the boat, even if he doesn’t really need it.

pairings: jj maybank x female reader

word count: 1.7k

warnings: suggestive content, making out, roaming hands

a/n: hey! Sorry i haven’t been posting in a hot minute, i’ve been doing a bunch of schoolwork since it’s the end of the year and all of my teachers love me so much :)))) i’m also signing up for some summer classes so i dont go batshit crazy, so i'm closing the outerbanks requests for awhile until i can catch up with them!! Thanks for understanding yall, i love you 3000

He caught your eye immediately, wading out from the water in just his swim trunks, hair dripping onto his shoulders as he cleared it from his face. He was ridiculously well built, by anyone’s standards, with broad shoulders and sculpted physique. 

You notice his eyes meet yours, and he smiles widely, waving like a dork. It makes you smile shyly back at him.

As you turned your attention back to Kie, you managed to catch the end of her conversation.

She looks at you expectedly.

“Wait, what?” You say, and Kie rolls her eyes, watching as JJ makes his way inside.

“Did you hear anything I just said?”

“Yeah, the uh, the guy… and the show… he did the thing.”

She sighs in response and turns her attention to her buzzing phone.

“Dad?” You ask, leaning over her shoulder, and she nods.

“He wants us home before dark,” she clarifies, sending him a text back.

She places her phone face down on the towel, and squints suspiciously at you.

You notice immediately.

“What?” You ask, none the wiser.

“You’re not slick,” she says, a mischievous grin spreading across her face. You feel your face get hot.

“About what?” 

“Shut up,” she mumbles, flipping herself over to tan her back. You shake your head, but follow as well. She resumes the music that was playing, and you’re not totally sure, but you think on his way back, JJ was checking out your ass. 

YOUR feet make ripples in the puddles of cold water on the dock as you make your way to the end of it, where JJ stands in the boat, mop in hand, pouring something from a bottle into a bucket on the floor.

As you get closer, he takes note of your presence with a small smile, before sticking the mop into the mixture and swirling it around.

“Need any help?” You offered.

“No, I don’t think so,” he says nonchalantly.

“But you can stay if you want,” he says, taking it out and splashing it onto the deck.

“Y’know… keep me company,” he mutters, swabbing back and forth.

You nod even though he can’t see you.

The dock is quiet at night, but the birds by the water are still squawking. You can smell the cleaning products from the dock, and you sit down on the end of it. It’s too tall for your feet to reach the water, but you kick them anyway and gaze out toward the horizon.

“I saw you watchin’ me today,” he informs you, and you fidget, shifting your glance to the boat. 

“Hm?” You hum, and he keeps on scrubbing the deck.

“When I was coming out of the water. You were watching me.”

You don’t say anything. He picks his head up to look at you, hair flopping into his face. He fixes it gently.

“What do you mean?” You ask.

“Like, you were watching me,” he says, and you scoff.

“What?” He asks, and you stare back off into the distance.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” You question. He lets his head fall again and he keeps scrubbing the floor, dragging the soapy mop across the surface.

“I just noticed,” he says, and you feel your skin burn with acknowledgement. You’d either have to be more careful about it or stop watching him come out of the water. But you can’t help that when he turns around, you can see all the muscles in his back moving as he cleans the floor. You shouldn’t find it as hot as you do, but there are only so many glances you can steal.

“Why wear a bathing suit if you’re not gonna go in?” He asks suddenly.

“We were tanning.” You explain, glancing down at your skin. You were really only keeping Kie company because she was on her period, but JJ didn’t have to know.

JJ pouts like he’s thinking about something, leaning on the mop. It slips a little and he catches himself on the side of the boat. It makes you laugh.

“Oh you think that’s funny huh? You think me, almost falling in the water, is so funny—” he starts, dipping the mop back into the sudsy water before he kneels down, wringing it out with his hands.

You gaze at him, dumbfounded.

“Hilarious.” You inform, bracing your hands on the dock’s edge. 

He stands back up and takes the mop by the joint, where the head meets the stick. You watch with morbid curiosity, until he jerks the mop in your direction, soaking your t-shirt and bathing suit underneath.

You gasp and push yourself back, what was your slightly damp clothes are now soaked on one side from JJ’s brush.

“Oh shit! I’m sorry!” He gasps, eyes and smile wide.

He braces the end of the mop before he swings it at you again, and you yelp in surprise. 

He leans over the side of the boat, and with fast hands, grabs your wrist, and braces his foot on the dock, tugging you. You make a fast decision that just jumping into the boat with JJ was much better than slipping into it and cracking your head open, so you let him tug you forward. The mop falls from his other hand as he supports your forearm, but his feet squeak on the floor and he falls backward, taking you with him. 

With the fastest reflexes you’ve ever had in your life, you cup the back of his head and he falls onto his back, throwing his arm out to brace himself but knocking over the bucket in the process.

What would’ve been JJ’s head smashing onto the floor of the boat was braced by your hands, and it stings.

You both mutter a soft, “Ow…” at the same time, and it makes the two of you laugh.

You straddle JJ, and his eyebrows almost touch his hairline.

“You okay?” He asks, and you nod.

“That’s not how I thought this night would be going,” you say to him quietly, looking down at JJ underneath you.

“Well, I mean, you kinda saved my life there.” He jokes.

He chuckles, and you feel the water from the bucket run down your knees and shins. You bend back to see it running down the length of the boat. At least that was done.

You look back down at JJ and he’s not smiling anymore. He’s completely serious, and his eyes are flickering from your lips to your gaze. You move imperceptibly closer and JJ takes the hint, gripping the back of your neck and pulling you into him.

You brace yourself with your hands by his head, but he leans up into you, wrapping your arms around his neck as he wraps his own around your waist.

His hands roam your body as he kisses you hard, flipping you over and laying you down on the wet floor of the boat. You gasp away from the kiss.

“Oh my god, I’m all wet!” You exclaim softly.

“You’re gonna be,” JJ threatens, and you laugh as his hands roam to the hem of your shirt.

You close your eyes and breathe heavily as JJ lifts your oversized t-shirt, kissing your stomach and pulling your wet bathing suit to the side. You pull your head up with incredible speed to watch him, but he moves lower, spreading your thighs and kissing the inside of them.

You squeak and writhe away from him.

“What?” He asks, alarmed. You push yourself up against the side of the boat.

“That tickles,” you murmur and you can see the mischief in his eyes before he does anything. He straddles you against the side of the boat and places each hand on the side of your face before kissing you again.

JJ hears the footsteps on the dock before you do.

You two scramble apart, and you grab the closest cloth in your proximity. JJ snags it out of your grip and you’re about to argue with him over it when Kie pops her face over the side of the boat.

“Dad is gonna have a stroke if we’re not back before sunset. You guys okay? Why are you all wet?”

“She fell in. I saved her.” JJ explains quickly, playing with the rag in his hands.

You roll your eyes at him and pull yourself up, stepping forward towards Kie as she extends a hand out to you.

“He got me—thank you—he got me all wet with the mop.” You say, and Kie accepts your explanation.

“Jerk,” she says pointedly, and he sticks his tongue out towards her.

“You better leave before you get in trouble. Daddy’s gonna give the two of ‘ya a spankin—”

“See you later JJ,” she says hurriedly walking down the pier. 

He winks at you as soon as Kie turns her back. He mimics a phone up to his ear with his hands and mouths the words, ‘call me’. You smile and turn away from him.

You catch up to her with a smile on your face.

[elen-aranel]

Down from Uptown

The Engineer’s Adventures

1-1 • 1-2 • 2 • 3 • 4

For @autumnleaves1991-blog Writer Wednesday. Pairing: Captain Christopher Pike x F!Reader (no Y/N) Warnings: Canon-typical violence; off-screen deaths of (young) adults WC: 6k Tag list: this isn’t the story I said I’d tag you for but it is Captain Pike X Reader @jusvibbbin ? does this count?? I can untag you! A/N: Me: it’s a one-shot Me: oh wait I can’t leave it there here’s a sequel @autumnleaves1991-blog​: here’s another amazing Writer Wednesday prompt Me: I guess it’s a series of one shots now?? Also this is super long for me having written it in one day. Not sure where all these words came from. Other writers write feelings; come to me for a healthy dose of plot. tl;dr: Elen saw the picture and thought, what if Captain Pike, but driving a speeder?

It is all his fault.

You shouldn’t even have been here in the first place: you are an engineer. Not a diplomat. Sure you had read the briefing the comms team had put together, but maybe if you’d been better at reading alien body language, they wouldn’t have got the jump on you?

Now you’re sitting in what feels like a cellar, no windows, one flickering light panel above you, leaning against the wall feeling sorry for yourself.

Still. You will admit – having checked Chris over and determined, to the best of your knowledge from your limited field medic training, that he was probably fine – that you would rather be here with him than on the Enterprise worrying, powerless.

While you wait for him to wake you take an inventory of what you have, and think back to how you had gotten into this predicament.

*

“Are you sure, Chris?” He likes when you call him that, even if you’re on duty, so long as you’re alone. “It’s a first contact, and not even with a society that needs help from us. There’s got to be someone better than me?”

“Of course I’m sure. The Eloma value couple bonds; it would be strange not to take you. Unless,” —he peers up at you under his eyelashes, mouth quirking slightly,—”you don’t think you’re up to it? I could bring—”

“No, I’m up to it all right.” You bristle at the obvious manipulation attempt. You may not be as confident over away missions as the crew who go on them regularly, and your minor meltdown in Earth’s past still has you nervous about how you may react if things go wrong off the ship, but the only way to overcome worries like that is to confront them. You know you can do this. “Louvier’s going to be mad, that’s all. I promised him I’d oversee the shuttle upgrades.”

“You let me handle Louvier,” he says with a small smile.

“Well if I end up on gamma for the next two weeks and you don’t see me at all, you only have yourself to blame,” you say with a shrug.

“Being the captain does have its perks, you know. I can change the duty rosters if I wish.” He grins back, blue eyes sparkling and dimples on display, knowing he’s won this one.

*

The first impression you get of Eloma is calm beauty. You beam down to a roof garden high on a sky-scraper, with Captain Pike at your side, and Lieutenant Spock and Ensign James from security.

The garden is gorgeous. You meet your hosts on a paved area, but there are trees and flowerbeds all around, a few little paths winding between them, and you can see three ornate stone fountains behind your hosts, the largest of which shoots a plume of water into the air as you watch. You think you’d like to sit on one of the benches with a book – you would enjoy being able to hear the sounds of traffic wafting up from below (something between hover cars and shuttles by the sound of the engines), the horns beeping, and the occasional distant peal of laughter – it would be nice to feel part of all that but also separate from it.

You don’t have too long to dwell on your surroundings, however, because the captain is stepping forward to greet your hosts.

There are two native humanoid species who collectively make up the Eloma: the Mraden who are tall, grey haired with skin shades varying from sky through to ultramarine blue, faces humanlike apart from ridges beneath each eye; and the smaller, black haired, ice-white skinned Ginera who could almost pass for human if their skin was warmer in colour and their dark eyes didn’t flash silver at certain angles. A pair of Mraden and a pair of Ginera step forward to meet you, all wearing long white robes. You wonder if this is normal dress or whether it’s ceremonial, and you resist the temptation to smooth down your red jacket. The Mraden guards standing at attention behind your hosts are dressed more like you, though; a more practical black style.

“Greetings Captain, honoured partner,”—the Mraden lady looks at you as she says this, and you nod slightly in acknowledgement—”I am Nera, first lady of Eloma. May I welcome you on behalf of the first and second couples.” She gestures to her partner first, then to the Ginera couple, who bow. “We are delighted to open contact with the esteemed united Federation of planets, contact which I trust will lead to our mutual benefit.”

“Thank you, Nera. Myself, my partner and officers are grateful for your kind hospitality.”

You try to pay attention to the formalities between Nera, the Captain, and Lakir the first man, but you aren’t a diplomat, and beyond trying to keep your expression pleasant and listen out for anyone addressing you directly, your mind wanders a little. You wonder about the vehicles you can hear. You’re on top of a tall building, possibly the tallest you’ve been on, and as you look around past the trees and flowers you can see other buildings of similar heights. You think the gravity here may be a tiny bit lower than Earth standard, but this culture really does seem to use its sky space a lot.

You’re also interested in your hosts; although your briefing said that the Mraden and Ginera were equals on the planet, all the guards are Mraden and you’ve barely heard your Genera host’s voices, never mind their names. You wonder whether they communicate telepathically, or whether first and second couples switch between the species periodically. That’s probably it, you reason, and probably the first couple is responsible for security. You turn your attention to the fountains – the middle one is in the shape of a tree, and you’re marvelling at the individually carved leaves, when Chris takes your hand.

“Still with us?” He murmurs into your ear, as you look up to see your hosts are leading everyone through the garden.

“Of course,” you reply quietly, before raising your voice a little. “It’s just so beautiful.” Nera overhears that and smiles over her shoulder, and Chris squeezes your hand, pleased.

You follow the group past the fountains and to a door you hadn’t noticed before. It appears to lead down to a stairway and some guards go through, followed by the second couple, Spock and Ensign James, the first couple, then you and the captain.

But as you approach the doorway you hear a vehicle get louder, and suddenly the guards grab you. Your combat training kicks in as you see Chris struggling – you lean back and stomp on the guard’s foot, eliciting a stream of profanities as you try to elbow him in the solar plexus. But he’s a lot larger than you and had the benefit of surprise, and his grip doesn’t loosen as someone else stuffs a cloth in front of you and you can’t help breathing in the fumes, and you try to hang on but everything goes dark.

*

It is all his fault.

But blame will have to wait until later.

You assess yourself – other than a mild headache, probably due to dehydration, and a slightly bruised left hip, you feel fine. And the bruising isn’t going to slow you down if you need to make a run for it.

You go through your pockets. Your pants pockets are empty, but you unzip your uniform jacket and the inner one hasn’t been found – the custom one you modified the standard jacket synthesiser program for, because you always need to carry more than the uniform designers planned on, and you didn’t want delicate tools getting damaged when you shoved a communicator or PADD into your pants pocket.

You always have some tools with you because wherever you go, whether you’re on duty or not, someone will say, “You’re an engineer, right? Can you just have a quick look at...” and you make a show of grumbling but actually part of the reason you became an engineer in the first place is that you like to get things working for people. You’re grateful today that that extends to away missions.

You’re surprised to find your communicator on the floor near you, but as you pick it up you realise why it was left: it’s damaged. It had been in your left pocket, and whatever happened to you happened to it first; the casing is all bent and when you try to raise the Enterprise, you get nothing, not even static.

Figures that this would happen again, you think as you examine your communicator, assessing the damage. The real reason you shouldn’t be taken on away missions is because of your terrible luck. This one isn’t totally fried, you discover as you pry it apart and examine the components, but while it will still function as a translator, the transmitter was crushed. The communicator will work again if you can find a compatible part, but there’s no chance of communicating with the ship, and they can’t even lock on to your signal. You pull out the broken transmitter parts and put the case back together, and as you bend the cover back into shape you hear a groan.

“Captain?” You get up and crouch by him. He is leaning against the wall of your windowless cellar, blue eyes squinting. “How are you feeling?”

“A little sore, but fine. You?” He straightens, focusing on you, reaching out a hand to touch your cheek gently.

“I’m fine. A little bruised.” You lean into his touch, briefly, before sitting back down next to him.

“What happened? I remember following our hosts, then a fight, and now I’m here..?”

“Wherever here is. That’s all I remember too. I hope Spock and James are okay.” Now Chris is awake your brain is allowing itself to worry. You frown. You can’t panic again like last time.

“What’s going on in there?” Chris is looking at you, concerned.

“Just... making a decision. To be strong. It sounds silly when I say it out loud.”

He leans over and places a soft kiss on your lips, and for just a moment you forget where you are – it’s just you and him, and the special thing that you have between you. “That’s a decision we all have to make,” he says as he pulls away, thoughtful. “It becomes... less conscious. With time.”

You nod, and you take a moment to breathe. You’ve got this.

“Seems like they’ve been through our pockets,” Chris says, getting to his feet. “My communicator is gone.” He walks over to the door, which is locked. That was going to be your next project.

“I still have mine but unfortunately it won’t communicate,” you say, standing too. “The transmitter got broken at some point. The translation functions are still operational though and it has power.”

“Can you fix it?”

“I’m good, but not that good,” you say, pulling the pieces of the component out your pocket to show him.

“Ah. Any ideas? Other than waiting?”

“After I failed with the communicator I was going to try to pick the lock,” you say, heading toward the door.

“With what?”

“With this.” You pull out a tool with a hook on it which you use to lever broken components off boards when they’re too small for your fingers.

“How do you–”

Chris’s question is cut off by the door in question opening. You just have time to put your tool in your pants pocket before two Ginera appear, brandishing energy weapons. You raise your hands and back away.

“Sit down,” the lead one says, waving his weapon, and you both comply. The other, also male, steps round him and puts two bottles of water on the floor, and a plate of what looks to be food.

“I’m Captain Christopher Pike, of the United Federation of Planets. I promise if you let us go unharmed my people won’t seek punishment against you, or retribution. If not, though, they will come after us.”

The boy, and he is a boy, you realise, twenty at most, snickers. “We don’t intend to hurt you, but we’re not going to let the best chance the GLG has had to be taken seriously go just like that. Sorry.”

“The GLG?” Chris asks, voice gentle. Unthreatening.

“Ginera Liberation Group. And no, your ship knows we have you, but they’re not going to find you. We called them on your communicator, Captain, and told them we had you, and not to look. We weren’t stupid enough to call from here, either,” he adds, and a little spark of hope in you flares out. “And there are 60 million people in this city alone, they’re not going to be able to resolve the life signs of... whatever you are, among all of us.”

“And what is it that the... Ginera Liberation Group wants?”

“To wake people up. To tell the Mraden”—he spits out the word like it’s a curse—”that we won’t take being treated as second-class citizens anymore. And to give the Ginera hope – that we can take back what’s ours. We don’t need their skyscraper cities, where they force us to live in the dirt. We don’t need their language or their stupid pair bonds. We had our own society before and we can have it again.”

Chris sighs, and leans back, looking up at the boy. “Take it from someone who is old enough to be your dad: taking hostages is not the way. The Federation won’t pay a ransom for us. The Mraden won’t listen to you while you have us. But if you let me go, we can have Federation diplomats come, and—”

“We’ve had enough of diplomacy, Captain. We’re taking matters into our own hands now. Enjoy your food.” He turns abruptly and stalks out, his companion in tow.

Chris examines the food – there are four pre-packaged energy bars. He passes one to you, opening one himself. “Might as well do what the kid says.” He takes a bite, grimacing slightly.

You are not hungry, but you take a bite of yours anyway – you know you need to keep your strength up. You grimace too – the flavour is a weird combination of sweet citrus and something almost cheesy. In general you like salt and sweet but this is not it.

Still you force yourself to finish it; you both need to keep your strength up. Thankfully the drink is just water.

After you’ve finished eating Chris speaks again.

“So how about getting out of here? How do you still have that tool, anyway?”

“I have a pocket in my jacket. I have done for years. It’s reinforced so you don’t see it from the outside – as an ensign my commanding officer cared more about aesthetics than practicality – and that’s where I keep my more delicate tools.”

“Ever the engineer, huh?” Chris’s expression is fond and you smile back, warm inside despite your situation. “Come on.”

He stands, and puts his hand out for you. You grasp hold of it and pull yourself up, appreciating the contact. You go to the door, hook tool in hand, and listen at it first. When you’re sure you don’t hear anything from the other side you gingerly put the tool into the keyhole. It doesn’t shock you, which is a good start, but it still takes a few minutes to work out the structure. Chris is patient while you work, not breathing down your neck. You smile in satisfaction as the lock softly clicks open.

“Well done. I figure we sneak out of here then try to alert local law enforcement. Hopefully they can put us in touch with Nera’s people, who can get us back to the ship.”

“Sounds like a plan,” you say, stepping back to let him take the lead.

You follow him along a little corridor then up a flight of stairs, pausing when he motions you to stop. You can hear voices coming from your left and he eases the door open then gestures you to follow again. You catch a glimpse of the room your captors are in on the way past, but happily they have their back to you, looking at a display screen. Then you’re past them, to the front door. Chris opens it as carefully as he can but the last bolt is stiff and scrapes as it opens. You sense movement behind you but you’re through, slamming the door shut behind you, racing across the street and into an alleyway on the other side before they get out. You keep going behind the building opposite, and then Chris has you double back to face the street you were on. You peep round the edge of the building – your captors are standing in their doorway, the leader berating his companion, although you can’t hear what he’s saying.

You step back into the alley.

“Well, the—” Chris starts to say, but he’s interrupted by a loud bang. An explosion. People are screaming and you smell smoke, see orange light from flames.

You follow Chris back onto the street but the building you were in, small, apparently, just three stories amongst all the giant skyscrapers, is billowing flame and smoke from all its windows, on all floors. There’s a crowd of people standing, staring in disbelief, as the last window shatters, sprinkling glass over the crowd.

You turn to Chris. “We—we were—”

“I know,” he says, reaching for your hand. You take it, hearing sirens getting louder. You walk toward the building, knowing there was no way the boys could have survived. You stand at the edge of the crowd, looking at the smoke billowing out, as the authorities arrive.

First there are some Ginera on what looks like a fire appliance. They begin to set up hoses, faces grim. Then some Mraden swoop down in a vehicle painted white with a green logo on it. The crowd, who you notice is made up mostly of Ginera, back away slightly. Chris tows you forward, toward the Mraden who are wearing the same uniform as the guards were in the garden, who knows how long ago. They’re not the same people; their skin tones are both quite pale, but to your horror as soon as they see you they raise their weapons and fire.

You’re running again, keeping up with Chris who leads you straight into the smoke and through, round the corner of the block, down the street, into an alley, out onto another street, into yet another alley, until he’s certain you’re not being followed.

You breathe heavily, holding your hip – you were able to run, and could again, but it hurts.

“That was... unexpected,” Chris says, deadpan, and suddenly you find you have your arms around him, holding tight.

“Too close for comfort,” you say, pulling away a little, as he pats your back.

“I really did think this mission was going to be normal,” he shrugs a little as you step away. “Definitely not worse than last time.”

“I mean I know in theory that away missions are dangerous, but I—I didn’t expect someone I thought was going to help us to shoot.”

“Yeah.” He shakes his head. “Seems like we were supposed to die in that fire...” he frowns as you both try to make sense of what just happened.

“What if it’s all a trick?” You muse aloud. “What if the Mraden are the ones who want us to die? Then they can blame the Ginera and crack down on them even further. And all they had to do was manipulate some kids...?”

Chris’s blue eyes are serious. “You’re right. That’s the only explanation that makes sense. We need to contact the ship. But we can’t trust anyone, and we need to get away from here.” He eyes you speculatively. “It’s an old-fashioned term, so I hope you’ve heard it before, but how do you feel about grand theft auto?”

*

“It’s called a speeder,” you say, frowning at the display. It hadn’t taken you long to find and break into a suitable vehicle. It was small, rust coloured and nondescript – not shiny and new, but not banged up either. You popped the doors up and open with ease; not that lock picking was anything you’d tried before today, not really, but you may have broken into a shuttle or two during your academy days.

Chris had got in on the drivers side, leaving you to puzzle out the on-board computer with the help of your communicator.

“I’ve hacked into the admin menu and changed the transceiver code; we need to use it to change lanes and stuff – to move up and down.” You scroll though the options in front of you, displaying in English now, rather than the the native Eloma language. Maybe the native Mraden language, you think wryly, as you find a setting which taps into the city’s store directory.

“There’s a hardware store in a block a couple of miles east of here. I know we can’t trust anyone but I think we may have to try. As far as I can tell it’s quite low down – only on the second level. I think it’s more likely to be Ginera than Mraden.”

Chris pauses from where he’s examining the controls. “We may be better off with the Ginera. I’m willing to bet our captors were a fringe group. I’m sure a lot of the Ginera agree with their goals, but probably not their means. They may be less inclined to report us to the authorities.” He nods. “All right. Strap in. Let’s get this show on the road,” he says, as he presses the ignition.

You look out the windshield at the street around you as Chris gets the speeder moving; with all your running away earlier you hadn’t paid attention to your surroundings beyond wondering whether you could be seen. It’s grey, down here. Drab, even with all the colourful advertising signs. There’s a layer of grime, something dirty in the atmosphere.

You stare out the window as you drive, keeping an eye out for law enforcement, but you don’t see any. As you get further east the traffic gets a little lighter. You eye Chris sidelong; he seems relaxed as he navigates the unfamiliar city.

“Time to go up,” he says, pressing a control and pulling a lever. You see a flashing indicator to see you have permission to change level, and then you’re ascending.

You’ve spent lots of time in shuttles, piloted yourself in an out of orbit more than a few times, but it feels different in a speeder. More immediate, somehow.

Up here the traffic is moving faster, and you see many different speeders, in all colours and all designs. Some of the buildings have balconies with people, mainly Ginera, sitting reading, hanging out washing – a slice of daily life.

You pass a major junction, impressed with how Chris is handling the traffic signals, and the buildings change – the road is a bit wider, and the shops have speeder parks outside.

You wish your briefing notes had mentioned the local currency, not that knowing about it would do you any good.

“I think we’re here,” Chris says, as he slows the speeder down and sets it down in front of a shop. You look at the sign – you can’t read it but it has the same logo as in the store directory. “Will you be okay to go in alone? I think I should stay here...”

“In case we need to make a fast exit? Aye Captain.” You catch his eye and grin, unplugging the communicator and climbing out of the speeder.

Louvier would love this place, you think as you look around the dark interior. The aisles are narrow and full of parts, a few of which you recognise, and most of which you don’t. There are bins with various components like resistors and capacitors, and power supplies, regulator circuitry, almost anything you could want. Except, as far as you can see, the thing you need – a transmitter.

At the back of the store, sitting behind a counter, is an older Ginera female, hair greying a little, screwdriver tucked behind her ear as she focuses on soldering a circuit. You wait for her to put the iron down.

“Excuse me? I’m wondering if you can help.” She looks up and her eyes widen – she can’t see aliens too often, you think.

“You—” she frowns, shakes her head. “You’re from that starship. But the news net said you were dead. Murdered by those GLG kids.”

“You, um... can’t believe everything you see on the net?”

“They said that the legislature was going to be recalled. That your people are going to come and punish us.”

“That’s—that’s not who we are, at all. Even if some kids had killed us the Federation would never retaliate like that. They would try to find us, if they thought we were alive, and it might complicate negotiations between our peoples but there would be no punishment. But... how many did they say died?”

“The two of you who were abducted from the first couple’s garden.”

Spock and James were safe. The fist bit of good news you’d had today.

“I really need to call my ship, let them know that we’re alive. But my communicator is broken. Do you have a micro transmitter? Something like this?”

You lean down over the low counter to show her your broken component.

“I’m sorry,” she says, shaking her head. “Nothing I’ve got here would be able to take the power you’d need for orbital communications. We don’t need things like that down here.”

Your shoulders slump. “Thanks anyway,” you say, straightening up.

“Wait. My cousin works in a shop at the shipyards by the spaceport. He’ll have what you need.” She rummages under the counter and produces a business card. “That will show you the way. His name is Jima. Tell him Asba sent you, he’ll give it to you for free.”

“Thank you, so much,” you say, taking the card and putting it in your pocket. “You don’t know how grateful I am, truly.”

“You’re welcome, love.” She turns her soldering iron on again, and smiles at you before getting back to work. “I’m glad you’re not dead.”

“So am I,” you say, as you turn to leave the shop.

*

“I have good news and bad news,” you say, as you plug the communicator back into the speeder and put the card into a slot that’s clearly designed for such things: a route shows up on the screen.

“Bad news first,” Chris says with a wry smile, easing the speeder back into traffic. “Although I can guess what it is considering we’re not calling for a beam out right now.”

“ I should have said great, good, bad and worse. You’re right about the bad news – she didn’t have the part. The worse news is that she thinks we’re dead and the Federation is going to come and get revenge on the planet.”

“The Federation will what?” Chris almost swerves into another speeder as he takes the turn late, narrowly missing and causing the other speeder to honk its horn angrily. “Sorry about that,” he adds, a little sheepish.

“My fault for not warning you before dropping bombs. But the good news is Asba in the shop gave us the route you’re following to the shop where her cousin works near the spaceport. And the great news is that we were the only ones captured – Spock and James should be fine.”

“Oh thank god,” he says, fervent.

You access the speeder’s admin menu again as he drives and change the transceiver code again, mainly for something to do, but partly in case the driver of the speeder you nearly hit decides to call the authorities. Then you review your route. The shop you’re going to is several levels higher than you are now; you hope your speeder won’t stick out too much up there.

There are plenty of new things to see out the window, though. As you get higher the buildings are cleaner, windows larger. The shops you see have more elaborate displays with fancier goods, there are more Mraden around, and, as the light begins to turn golden, you pass your first park, full of Mraden children playing.

“The GLG had a point,” you say, almost to yourself.

“In what way?”

“The higher you get, the nicer it is, and the more Madren I’m seeing. Obviously their methods are wrong but... I kind of get it.”

“When we get out of here, I’m going to tell the Federation negotiators that we shouldn’t agree to anything without conditions of the Ginera being discussed. It feels a little like letting the bad guys get what they want in a way, but you can’t make an entire culture suffer because a couple of kids make a stupid choice.”

“And they were probably manipulated, too. That doesn’t excuse them, but—” you lock eyes with a Mraden enforcer as you pass a junction. She recognises you, even through the glass, and mutters into a communicator of some kind.

”But?”

“We’ve been spotted. Turn left! Now!”

Chris makes the turn, speeding up as he also changes up a level. He weaves in and out of traffic, trying to shake your tail, while you hold on for dear life, glad that you strapped in.

“Relax,” he says, as he takes another alarming turn, flying away from another chorus of horns. “My first assignment in Starfleet was as a test pilot.”

“That’s... um... good to know,” you say, weakly, as he brings you up another level and slows sharply. He takes the next turn at a much more sedate pace, before spotting an empty lane in front of you and speeding up again.

“Are we nearly there yet?” You ask, getting a laugh.

“Actually we are.” As you look around you realise you’re on the edge of the industrial district. Ahead you can just see some star ships, a large freighter and shuttles flying around it. “And hopefully we lost them.”

You reset the transceiver code for the third time, back to its factory default, as Chris makes a right between two tall buildings. You switch the transceiver off completely before he makes two more turns; hopefully it’s owner will be able to pick up the signal when it came on again and find it.

“I’ll come too this time.” Chris says, opening his door.

“Thank you for not crashing,” you say as you exit the speeder.

“Any time,” he says, and you both laugh as you enter the shop.

Where the last shop was cramped, this one is spacious. You recognise a lot more components here; they’re not Federation but they’re ship components and you understand what they do.

You and Chris find the small bin with the piece you need pretty quickly, but it’s locked, and you look around for help. You feel eyes on your back and you turn to see a Ginera male looking at you curiously.

“Excuse me,” you say, tone polite and not too eager, “do you know Jima? We’re looking for him.”

“I’m Jima,” he says, stepping closer. Chris puts his hand on your back; for your sake or his you can’t say.

“Asba sent us. She said you could help me get a component to fix my communicator?”

“Is this what you need?” He indicates the bin you were looking at. He pitches his voice quiet and you match it.

“Yes. This is the one I need.”

He unlocks the bin, takes a couple of transmitters out, and beckons you to follow, keeping an eye on the only other customer, a Mraden male. You pass between the aisles to the edge of the store, quietly following his lead, and go through a doorway.

“Asba called me, said you’d be coming. She also said to keep you out of sight. You should be safe here, to fix your tech. Call me if you need anything.” He steps back through the doorway as you hear some other customers enter the shop.

You put that out of mind though, as you hand Chris the communicator while you get your tools out. You can feel tension radiating off him as you take it back but you ignore that too. This is fixing things. It’s what you do. You open the cover and slot the component in, bending a couple of pins to fit and adjusting the power output to compensate for the non standard part.

“They were seen in this area. The speeder they stole is just out here.” Even though you’re concentrating, you can’t shut off your ears entirely. The people you thought were customers when they entered? Law enforcement.

You shut the cover again and hand it back to Chris.

“Didn’t I see them with you, Jima? They must be in the overflow storage.”

You hear loud footsteps as Chris says, “Pike to Enterprise! Get us out of here now!”

He reaches for your hand catching hold as the Mraden enforcement officers come through the door, and the gold light takes you, leaving them staring.

*

You thought you were glad to get back to Enterprise after you were on Earth. But that was nothing to how you feel now. You keep it together, however, in front of Number One, Spock, and the transporter technician.

“They said you were dead,”Number One says in greeting. “They showed us the burning building. They showed us your burnt communicator with the power cell removed. They said that was the only thing that survived.”

“What’s the quote? ‘The rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated’?” Pike shrugs, giving her a half smile.

“ ‘The report of my death was an exaggeration.’ I’m glad you’re okay, Chris, but don’t do that to me again. At least not for another month.”

*

You shower in your own quarters, having got your bruise treated in sickbay, trying to calm down. Away missions are still a lot. Chris told you to take twenty four before reporting for duty again, and you will, but you get a report written first – you need to make sure that Jima and Asba are safe, and that the ship sends some compensation to the person whose speeder you stole. That done, you check with the computer, change into civvies and join Chris in his quarters.

“Hey,” he says as you walk in, standing from where he was sitting by the window and drawing you into a hug, then a soft kiss. You bring a hand up to his face, running you fingers over the stubble that’s there after a very long day, and kiss him back, heated, your lips moving across his, his tongue licking into your mouth. You pull apart, staring up into his blue eyes.

“You were right,” he says, drawing you across the room to sit next to him on the couch. “There was a Mraden plot. Nera and Lakir have resigned, although they claim they didn’t know what was going on, and Tura and Sama, the Ginera second couple, have taken power until they can hold new elections. It’s going to be a tough road for Eloma, if they’re going to properly confront their problems, but the Federation will help.”

“I’m glad,” you say, leaning into him, enjoying how safe you feel with his arm around you. “I—I hope those boys’ sacrifice turns out to be worth it.”

“Yeah,” he says, kissing your head, and you sit in silence for few minutes.

“Dinner?” He asks eventually.

“Yes if we can have your chilli again. I think we’ve earned it.”

“Oh you definitely did,” he replies, standing to go over to the synthesiser.

*

“Lieutenant?” It’s two days later and you’re on your way to Engineering from the mess hall. You turn in the corridor, to see Number One standing there, an amused expression on her face.

“Commander?”

“Next time he asks you to go on an away mission, just say no.”

[fluffymcu]

Letting Loose

Part TWELVE

This series is TICKLE related. Outfits that are linked here are purely for picturing the clothes, you don’t have to look like the model.

Series Summary:  You’re the little sister of the one and only Captain America. You’re also the youngest girl on the team, so that automatically makes you the avengers’ little princess. And they spoil you as such. They have become your amazing family and you don’t know where you’d be without them. This series will show random adventures and fluffy events in the daily life of the reader and her family, along with an unexpected turn later on as you read.

warnings: drama? 

Word Count: 2,960

Previous       Next,

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3 weeks have flown by and Sunday tomorrow morning Bucky, Steve, and Wanda were leaving for their mission. You’d always be worried when the team would go on missions for long periods of time; it made you very nervous. You knew they were all perfectly capable of defending themselves and fighting bad guys without getting hurt too bad, but it still worried you and there was always a chance that one of them would not come home. Still, you tried to push those thoughts to the back of your mind and not worry about it until it actually happens if it does.

5:30am. You were woken early the next morning by Steve gently shaking your shoulder. You stirred awake and opened your eyes to see him looking down at you with a light smile. “Hey, we’re about to leave, you wanna come outside to see us off?’ You nodded with a sigh, getting up from the bed and clingily holding onto Steve’s arm the whole way down to the backyard, where the Quinjet was. As you and Steve walked out of the building, you shivered lightly. The morning breeze was kind of cold, and since you were still heavy with sleep, the transition from your warm bed to out in the open breeze made you wake up a bit more. Bucky and Wanda were waiting next to the jet and so were some of the other team members.

Bucky saw you coming closer and extended his arms to you. You quickly walked over to him and gave him a big hug. He lifted you up, still holding you tightly and kissing your cheek. “It’s gonna be okay. We’ll be back in 5 days.” He soothed, rubbing your back. You nodded with a frown and he put you back down. After that, you ran to Wanda, her smiling widely and hugging her. “I'm going to miss you, but don’t worry about me. You know I can handle myself.” You smiled lightly at that, nodding once again.

Lastly you went back to your brother, him lifting you up as well and you wrapped your arms around his neck. “We’ll be back, y/n, I promise. Just stay strong and have some fun while we’re gone. Okay?” You agreed and he put you down but crouched down a bit to whisper something close to you. “And I know it’s hard, but try to spend a little more time with Ruby Anne, okay? Invite her when you’re doing something and if it’s not too much to ask, maybe try to get her to spend a little time with Tony?” He asked. You nodded with a tight smile and he kissed your forehead. “That would be great. Thank you. I’ll see you in a week okay?”

“Okay.” You sighed, watching them enter the Quinjet and lift off into the sky. The other few members of the team went back inside right after they had gotten inside the jet, but you stayed until you couldn’t see it anymore. You hugged yourself, rubbing your hands on your arms to melt the goosebumps away. Peter had woken up right after they left. He planned to see them off today but he woke up a bit too late. But he went down and saw you outside staring at the sky.

He walked out and stood behind you; you still oblivious to his presence. “You gonna stand out here for 5 days until they come back?” He teased, chuckling when you quickly turned around to face him. You instantly smile and dull your eyes, trying to show you're not amused with his comment. You walk into his embrace when he opens his arms towards you. He leads you to one of the benches outside and you both sit down, Peter still holding you to him. Luckily, he had brought his blanket down with him, because after months and months of early morning patrols, he knew it could get chilly in the mornings. He wrapped you up in his blanket and you both stared out into the yard. It was still dark, so you couldn’t see much, but still. Sitting outside in the early morning, it being dark and foggy, felt weird. Unreal. Like the whole world was asleep and you were the only one awake. You and Peter stayed on the bench for about 10 minutes before you got sleepy and he did you the favor of carrying you to your bed. He knew how hard the first days could be when they would leave for a mission, so he laid there with you until you fell back asleep.

-----

Over the next three days, you have continuously tried to get Ruby Anne to spend some time with Tony. After many failed attempts at that, you knew it was going to be near impossible to get them together in the next 2 days. So instead, you moved on to trying to get her to spend time with you. Peter had recommended the three of you to do something fun today, and suggested you ride the go-kart. You were ecstatic at the idea, and thought maybe this would be something that would interest Ruby. You made your way to her room.

You knocked on her door before opening it, finding her sitting up against the headboard on her bed. You smiled and greeted her before asking the question. “Hey, do you wanna ride in the go-kart? It’s really fun!”

“No thanks.” She mumbled, rolling her eyes. You were just about fed up with that phrase, having heard it maybe more than 30 times in the past 3 days, so now, you were desperate. You quickly sighed.

“Please?” You pleaded, catching her attention. “Peter and I… are kinda lonely so if you could ride with us, that'd be great. It’s a big kart. 4-seater.” You said, fiddling with your thumbs a bit.

She looks at you for a moment before rolling her eyes and sighing dramatically. “Fine, whatever.” She gets up and walks past you, walking out into the hallway on her way to the backyard. You roll your eyes slightly and put on a fake smile and turn around, walking behind her. “Great!” You chirp.

-----

Peter was already starting the kart outside, waiting for you. You and Ruby walked outside and she jumped in the backseat while you got in the front. Peter turned to give her a small smile, which surprisingly, the end of her lip quirked up a millimeter. Peter turned to look at you with a smirk. “Ready?” You giggle and nod, squealing as he speeds off.

Peter starts to laugh and you put your hands in the air and howl. You laugh as your hair gets caught on your face and Peter makes many sharps turns and goes faster. “WHOOOO!” You and Peter howl in unison. You turn around briefly to see if Ruby is having fun. She’s pressed against the back of the seat, her hair flying everywhere and her nose is scrunched up, and her lips are pursed. You turn back around and just enjoy the ride as Peter circles around the compound and the small extension buildings around it. You and Peter are in a laughing fit when he gets close to the starting point.

He slows to a stop and you and Peter jump out to switch seats. You notice Ruby quickly jump out and start to walk away. You furrow your eyebrows and Peter is in the back, watching as she leaves. “Where are you going?’ You ask, confused. She doesn’t turn around, making her way to the door.

“Inside. I went out like you wanted, now I can go back to minding my own business like I like to do.” She shrugged, reaching for the handle.

“But… I thought- “

“You thought what?” She turns to look at you, her hand holding the door open. “That we’re friends now?” She asks incredulously with a brow raised. You stand there in silence and in shock of how sassy her behavior could be. She scoffs and leaves, the door closing slowly behind her.

“I was gonna say I thought she wanted to have a turn to drive the kart.” You say exhaustedly, groaning in mild frustration. You lean against the kart and sigh. Peter walks over to you with an apologetic smile and pats your back.

“It’s ok y/n/n, give her time.” He says. You’ve heard that phrase 20 too many times. You scoff and raise your hands in the air.

“We have given her time! Peter its been months and we’ve gotten no closer to fixing things! Tony is so upset and I’ve never seen him like that. Even when he gets his feelings hurt, he never lets himself look vulnerable. But now, he might as well wear a shirt that says ‘I'm miserable’.” You sigh.

Peter bites his lip, knowing that it’s true. “Okay, but you're being too hard on yourself. This isn’t your responsibility to carry all by yourself.”

You groan. “But I feel like it is. Tony’s own daughter isn’t showing him any love so I feel like I have to fill in that gap. And I was, before he knew he even had kids, but now I feel guilty because I feel like I'm taking him away from her. She needs him.” You pause and take a deep breath, closing your eyes to think. “But… you're right. I can’t let this bring my mood down, I'm focusing too much on this. Ughhh I need to distract myself.” You groaned, rubbing your face with your hands.

Peter smirked, moving closer to you. “Well… I do know one thing that gets your cheered up when you're upset.” He sang. You looked at him for a second before realizing what he meant. You groan, a smile already creeping up to your face. “Peter noo.” You whine. He smiles evilly before shaping his hands in a claw. “Peter Yes!” He laughs, snatching you off the ground and laying you down on the grass.

You scream and fall into hysterics as Peter snakes his hands up your shirt to scribble all around your belly and sides, occasionally surprising you and tasing your upper ribs. You're a giggly mess in under a couple of seconds, squirming around in the grass and squealing as Peter bends down to blow raspberries on your neck. He chuckles, his head between your shoulder and your head, laughing at your hysterical reaction. You push at his shoulders but of course, it doesn’t move him an inch.

“Okahahahay! Ihihihim cheered uhuhuhup!” You beg, cackling when his fingers begin to dig into your hipbones.

“Nope! Not until I'm satisfied!” He teased, rapidly squeezing your thighs. You shriek and dissolve into silent laughter, only letting out small hiccups and squeaks. Peter laughs and goes to your neck, digging his fingers into your collarbone, causing you to melt onto the grass and make your laughter bubble up. He stays there for a few minutes, teasing you about your squeaky laughter while you roll side to side, trying to shake him off. “Maybe I should get your feet,” He thought to himself out loud, smirking when you protested loudly.

“NOOHohohoho!” You turned on your belly quickly and wiggled out of his trap, running away. Peter quickly stood up and went after you. “Where do you think you're goin’?” He chuckled, gaining on you. You giggled nervously as the anticipation was killing you. Your frustrations were long forgotten as you ran, a big smile gracing your features. It wasn’t long before Peter caught you, lifting you up bridal style. You wrap an arm around his neck to keep you stable. He looked down at you with soft eyes and a light smile. “You feel better yet?” He asks.

You nod with a smile, still panting. “Yeah.”

Peter grins, as his plan had worked, and puts you down as you pant and let out giggles. You both go inside and make something to eat. You decide on tacos so you are cooking the meat and Peter is cutting the tomatoes, avocado, cilantro and cooking the tortillas. Clint and Pietro walk in the kitchen, claiming they smelled tacos and you both offered to make them some.

After you all had eaten, you were down in the second living room watching some tv. You were missing your brother right now. Especially Bucky. He would always sit with you here and watch tv with you no matter what was on. He was always so picky in choosing what to watch for movie night, but when he sat down with you, he’d never complain. You smile and pull out your phone, staring at the black screen. You wanted to call them so bad, but you didn’t want to disturb or distract them if they were somewhere important. You put your phone back in your pocket and decided to go upstairs to practice ballet.

-----

You got out of the shower and put on some comfy clothes. You hung out a bit with Tony in his lab, you were sure you were annoying him by now but you didn’t really care. You were just so bored. “Am I annoying you?” You smirked. Tony didn’t look up from his work when he answered.

“Of course not, Princess.” He chirped. You picked up on the sarcasm in his voice and giggled.

“Sorry, I'm just so bored.” You shrugged.

“Yeah, I get it. I don’t mind having you here with me, Trouble, as long as you don’t touch anything, or say anything, or ask me any questions, or anything like that.” He said. You laughed and swiveled around in your chair. He sounded serious like he always does, but there was always a small smirk on his face that would let people know he’s kidding. You didn’t want to mention anything about Ruby Anne right now, because you didn’t wanna ruin the moment or get him in a low mood. So you just kept the conversation positive, and eventually you convinced him to let you help him with a few parts of his suit.

----

The 2 days flew by so fast, and you were grateful. Peter kept you distracted most of the time, and going on about your day made the hours go by faster. The day was finally here! Your brother, Bucky and Wanda were coming home this afternoon and you were ecstatic. Suddenly, the few hours that were left before they would come home felt like days. That was always frustrating. You laid sprawled out on the couch in the small room that led to the outside, waiting for the rumbling sound of the jet. You were there for about 2 hours, playing on your phone, doing handstands, ect. You were about to just take a nap on the couch when you finally felt vibration from outside and you sat up with a  gasp. The jet was landing and you squealed, running outside. You stood pretty far away still, since the jet was still stabilizing in the air. You brought your hand to cover your eyes as big, warm gusts of wind came out of the jet before landing on the ground, the wings curling up after.

The door to the Quinjet dropped down and you ran to your brother, jumping in his arms. He caught you and held you tight with a big smile. “I missed you so much.” You mumbled against his shirt. He put you down and you ran to Bucky, giving him a tight hug. He had many bruises and scratches on his face, which made you frown. But he smiled widely and assured you he was okay. You nodded and then went to hug Wanda. She returned your embrace and sighed. “I’m glad you're okay.” You hummed.

----

After the team welcomed them back, you assisted Bucky to the medical wing to get patched up. Bruce was applying alcohol to some cuts on his back, and you insisted to apply hydrogen peroxide instead, using it to attend to the cuts on his face. Bucky had a faint smile throughout the process, thanking the both of you when you were done. He patted his lap after, motioning for you to sit. You giggled, recalling all the times he’s mentioned to you that you’ll never be too old to sit on his lap.

You hopped on and he held you close, asking him about the mission and what he had to do. He explained that he was tasked with distracting the enemies while Steve and Wanda gathered the information they needed. He assured you that he was fine. “Don’t worry about me though. I can take a few hits.” He smirked. You had a faint smile on and leaned your head on his shoulder. 

“I know. I just get worried that one day you won’t be able to fight them off.” You sigh. Bucky stayed silent for a few moments, wanting to change the subject to something more positive.

He smiled and looked down at you with an eyebrow raised. “What, you don’t think I can hold my own?” He asked, poking your belly. You instantly started giggling, halfheartedly pushing at his hands and hiding your face in his shirt. “Huh?” 

“Yehehehes.” Your giggles began to sound more desperate as he began to creep up to your ribs. You started to squirm around a lot more, not bothering to hold in your laughter. Bucky chuckled, smiling down at you fondly before giving you a break. You sighed in relief and leaned into him. 

“I’ll be ok, y/n/n. Don’t worry about me. Or your brother. We’ll be alright.” He hummed, resting his chin on your head. With Bucky slowly rocking you side to side on his lap, you couldn’t stay awake as you fell asleep without the small feeling of worry you had before they came back.

[thewalkingdead-fan101]

In This Hell Daryl Dixon X Reader Part 7/??

Hey guys! So chapter seven is here! Im not the best at writing, but like many other writers, I did try my best and I hope you like it! Also most of the streets I have written into this chapter I made up on the spot, so if there is an actual street by that name it was purely coincidental.

Warnings- Light smut?, General Walking Dead stuff, Blood, Gore, Swearing.

It had felt like forever, sitting outside of the door that separated Daryl and myself. Lori was still sitting beside me, which feels more constricting than not, not that I had the heart to tell her.

At this point, I have memorised each and every detail etched into the door. I looked over to where Lori sat next to me, one hand resting against her forehead, the other resting against my shoulder. I reached my hand over and placed it over her own and smiled softly as she turned her head. “Thank you.” I whispered. “Dont be stupid.” She responded, a small chuckle escaping her lips. The click of the latch received both of our attention, I looked back towards the door to see Rick emerge.

“Here.” Lori extended her hand to me. “Thanks.” I took her hand and nodded as she helped me up. I look at Rick, and he smiled softly. “He’ll be alright.” “Oh thank god.” I hugged him “Now god ain’t had nothing to do with it.” Shane walked out behind Rick.

Rick walked over to Lori and hugged his wife. “I’ll tell you what.” Shane paused, walking over to me. “That is one tough son of a bitch in there.” He pointed towards the door, bringing me into a hug. I rolled my eyes as I hugged him back. “Hershel is just giving him another look over.” I look up to my brother. “Its just to ensure that he doesn’t have any other injuries.” Rick added. I slowly nodded my head, and sat down in the single seat next to the door. Rick kissed his wife before leaving Lori, Shane and myself in the hallway as we waited for Hershel.

After waiting another ten or so minutes, Hershel exiting the room. “The bullet only grazed his head.” He paused. I stood up from the seat and nodded. “The arrow in his side went straight through, missed his important organs.” “He is okay other than that?” “That and a few bruised ribs, he will be fine, however I would recommend a resting period of a few days, But.” He paused, glancing at the door. “I don’t think that he would take that advice.” He continued.  “He is a stubborn bastard.” I muttered, looking at the door nodding. “He is asleep, but you can go in and see him.” “Thank you so much Hershel.” I smiled and pulled him into a hug. I pulled back and smiled softly at him, before turning to the door, quietly entering the room.

The first thing I noticed when I entered the room was the small dresser by the window, and the cross hanging next to the door above the bed. Daryl was on the bed, peacefully sleeping on his side, mouth slightly parted as soft snores broke the silence of the room. I stood at the edge of the bed, unsure if I should sit on the side of the bed or bring in the seat from the hall. “Are ‘Ya just gonna stand there?” A rough mumble came from the bed, startling me from my thoughts. “You’re meant to be sleeping.” I sighed.

“How am I meant to sleep when ya always staring at me.” I sat down on the bed next to him, softly pushing his hair back. “Go back to sleep, you need to rest.” He only grumbled in response as he shook his head. “Nah, I can sleep when im dead.” “If you dont rest that could be sooner than you think.” “I’m fine.” He scoffed. I rolled my eyes. We spent a few moments just staring at one another, the small breaths from us both the only thing we could hear.

“What happened out there Daryl?” I sighed. He winced lightly as he propped himself up on his elbow, “Took one of them horses, damn thing near killed me.” He paused. “Got spooked by something, kicked me off.” He continued.

“Thats where the bruising came from Im guessing.” I spoke softly tracing the bruises that littered his torso. “Fell down the ridge, landed in the creek with my own arrow in me.” He motioned to his side, pausing as my eyes landed on the gauze.

“Took down a few walkers.”

“Daryl!” “I know what ya ‘bout to say. Im fine.” He stated.

I sighed softly shaking my head.

“What if you couldn’t get back? What then Daryl?” I asked. “Y’all woulda been fine, I don’t belong ‘ere anyway.” He shrugged. “How can you say that?” I asked pushing myself off of the bed.

I could feel his eyes boring into me as I paced back and forth.

“You say that you don’t belong here, but you do. You can even feed me more bullshit about how you don’t, I dare you.” I challenged. “if you did not come back, every single fibre of my being would be out there searching for you.” I paused.

I took a deep breath, turning to look at him.

“Look, wether you like it or not Daryl, I care about you, I care for you and nothing in this world will ever change that Dixon.” He kept his eyes on me, watching my every move.

“Call me selfish, call me crazy, hell you can even call me dramatic! But a part of me would've died if you didn't come back.”  

I paused for a brief moment as i tried to fight the tears.

Stupid, damn hormones.

“Stop working ya self up.” “Believe it or not, that isn’t an easy thing to do.” I sighed “why?” “Because im scared… im scared of losing you.” I paused.

I took a small step back.

“Im so damn scared, because for the first time in my life I have something to lose, someone.”

He continued to stare at me, staying silent as he listened to my rambling, as I started to pace once more.

“Im not trying to fight you Daryl. I just want you safe.” “I love ya..”

“I need you around, our baby needs you around. I-“

I paused, looking at him.

“What did you just say?”

“I love ya.” He shrugged.

“This isn’t something to joke about right now.” I sigh placing my hand against my forehead, rubbing my temple.

“I aint joking.”

“Daryl-“ I ran my hand over my face, before dropping it to my side. “Ya’ gonna say it back? Or do I need to go back ou-“ “Don’t even think about finishing that sentence Dixon.” I warned as he grabbed my hand and pulled me softly back to the bed.

I sat on the mattress and started to lay down.

My hands found his stubbled cheeks, our eyes connected and I drowned out the world for those crystal blue eyes. “I love you Daryl Dixon.”

I could feel his hands pull my face closer to his as we let reality fade away, the two of us escaping in the kiss.

Daryl rolled over to his back, gently pulling me with him.

We pulled apart as he grabbed the hem of my shirt, lifting it over my head and flinging it across the room, attacking my lips once again with his own.

He moved his hands down, across my body slowly, snaking them around my hips, lifting my body over his, leaving me to straddle him.

His hands gripped to my hips, not letting go, his nails leaving soft red crescent shaped indentations against my skin.

The skin on skin contact, his chest pressed against my own igniting a whirlwind of lust between us both.

I leant down and captured his lips in a deep kiss.

Daryls hands moved down to my ass, his fingers kneading the soft flesh as our tongues fought for dominance. 

I could feel him hardening against my inner thigh, drawing a soft mewl from my lips.

He pulled me closer, one of his hands slipping in between our bodies, moving to cup my breast.

Daryl softly pushed me back, starting to unbutton my jeans, working quickly to remove them.

Each soft touch of his fingers against my bare skin, caused shivers to run down my spine. 

I leant down and peppered kisses all over Daryls neck, from his Adam’s apple, to behind his left ear where even though he won’t admit it, Is his sweet spot.

Daryls hands harshly grabbed my ass, before softly growling into my ear, rolling his hips into my own.

I reached behind me and unclasped my bra, Daryl pulling it off of me and throwing it to the floor, kissing down my chest, one hand cupping one of my breasts, the other resting behind me.

He pulled my body closer to his, before groaning out in pain.

My eyes shot open and I softly move off of Daryl.

“Shit, Daryl. Are you alright?” I asked moving to examine his abdomen.

“I’m fine.” He responds, grumbling as he ran his hands over his face in frustration.

I bend down pick up my bra from the floor and put it on, I take another look around the room for the rest of my clothes.

I see my jeans and jump slightly, shimmying them on.

My eyes search the room once again, spotting my shirt hanging off of the dresser, I walked over and snatched it off.

“What are ya’ doing?” He asked as I slipped the shirt over my head.

“You’re hurt, we aren’t doing that.” I scoffed.

Daryl let a groan of frustration out and laid back, annoyance clear on his features.

I crawled onto the bed, kissing under his navel.

“(Y/N)?” he asked, brow raised.

I look up at him through my lashes, smirking as he started to breathe heavy.

I kissed down his stomach, my hands softly moving down his chest and into his waistband.

He moaned softly as my hand slipped further down his pants.

A knock on the door made us both sigh.

“Ya’ gotta be shitting me.” Daryl muttered, turing his back to the door, pulling the blanket up to cover himself.

I stood up, making my way to the door, opening it to be met with Carol.

“Hey honey.” She smiled softly.

“Hey Carol, Whats up?” “I was just dropping in to let you know dinner is ready, I brung some up for Daryl.” She smiled as she lifted a plate.

“Oh, thank you, I’ll come down and get some.” I smiled nodding softly.

I moved aside as she walked in and set the plate down.

“Ill see you soon.” I kissed Daryls cheek.

He nodded.

I left the room as Carol asked if he was okay, getting few words from the man in response.

It was a quiet walk to the dining area, but it was even more quiet there, the only sound audible being the knives and forks hitting the plates.

I took the seat in-between Andrea and Lori.

The silence had lasted about five minutes, although it felt like 5 years, and was broken by Glenn’s voice.

“Does anybody know how to play Guitar?” He paused.

“Dale found a cool one… Somebody’s gotta know how to play.” He smiled.

My head turned to Patricia as she cleared her throat.

“Otis did.” She spoke.

“Yes, and he was very good too.” Hershel confirmed.

We all continued to eat in what was now an awkward silence.

I looked around the table, to notice Shane staring longingly at Lori, I scoffed under my breath and shook my head.

The guy doesn’t know what is good for him.

Slowly but surely, everyone started finishing up their meals.

After Hershel has finished eating, he stood.

“Rick, There are matters for us to discuss.” The man mentioned stood and followed Hershel out.

Carol stood and started to clear the table.

The rest of us following, picking up plates, cutlery and glassware, taking them to the kitchen.

“Dinner was great.” Beth smiled.

“It was lovely, thank you.” Patricia added.

I started to wipe over the clean dishes after Patricia had washed them, Maggie putting them away as both Carol and Lori collected more dishes.

The six of us had the place cleaned up in half an hour.

Lori had left to be with Carl, Carol was with Dale and T-dog in the RV, Beth had gone with Jimmy, Patricia had gone to her room.

A rush of wind passed me and almost knocked me down.

“Im sorry!” Maggie called out as she ran out of the door.

I chuckled as she profusely apologised as she continued running.

I turned and started to make my way back to Daryl’s room.

“(Y/n)?”

I turned to see Hershel walking toward me.

“Good evening Hershel… What can I do for you?” “I understand that you and Daryl are in a relationship?’ He asked.

“Yes sir.” “I’d appreciate it, if the two of you were separated for the night.” “Pardon?” I asked. “You’re both adults, you can survive a night in a different bed.” He stated, brows raised.

“Oh… Right.” I nodded.

“Do I make myself clear?” 

“Of course Hershel.” “Thank you.” He nodded, turning on his heel and leaving.

I continued my walk to Daryl’s room and peeked my head through the crack in the door, being met with his soft snores.

I softly closed the door and started the walk to my tent.

I was startled awake by a foreign presence in the tent, soft breaths hitting the back of my neck.

I looked down, to see an arm draped over my body, a hand resting over my stomach.

“Relax. S’me.”

I let go of my breath, that I didn’t even realise I was holding.

“What the hell are you doing out here?” I asked, turning to face him.

“I woke up. Ya weren’t there.”

“You were asleep… you even looked peaceful.” “Ya could’a stayed, slept in a bed.” “I just wanted you to rest.” “I can’t sleep now anyway.” He muttered, pulling me closer to him under the cover, pressing a small kiss to my lips, before settling back down.

The door slightly blew against the breeze.

I looked outside and watched as the soft glow of the early morning sun reflected on the dewy grass.

I felt my consciousness slip away.

My eyes opened, I looked around to be met with an empty tent.

I stretch and get changed, poking my head out of the small door.

The sun, not as harsh as the day prior.

A smile is on my face in an instant as soon as I noticed Carl by the chicken coop with Lori.

I rushed out of my tent and walked over to the pair, waving at Dale as I passed him.

Carl had bent down, reaching his hand into the bucket of feed for the chickens, slightly pausing, causing Lori to move forward.

“Dont look so worried.” “It’s my job.” “No it’s not. You’re a housewife.”

I held in my laughter.

Lori threw the remaining seed in her hand at the boy.

“Yeah, punk? You see my house around here?” She paused.

“A housewife.” She scoffed.

“Im pretty sure your house is just over there.” I laughed, pointing at the Grimes’ tent.

Carl laughed more as Lori picked up more seed, throwing it directly into my face, before she laughed too.

“Think you’re funny huh? The pair of you.” She chuckled, rolling her eyes. “I do actually, Carl, how about you?” I asked smirking

Lori shook her head as we waited for Carls response, after a moment we still hadn’t heard a response.

I turned my head to see him staring at a small group of baby chicks.

“They don't have a mother.” 

“She might be somewhere else.” Lori tried to ensure he didn’t worry. “Yeah, she might still be inside the coop.” I agreed.

“Maybe she got eaten.” Carl paused.

I turned to face Lori, who sat in shock, watching her sons every move.

Carl looked between the both of us, before continuing. “Everything is food for something else.” I tried to respond but was cut off by the door inside of the coop slamming shut, spooking some of the hens at our feet.

A twig snapped to the right of me, looking over I see Rick waking over to see his wife and son. 

“Morning (Y/n).” “Morning Rick, have you seen Shane?“ “He was out fixing a boundary fence, should be back soon.” He smiled, hugging Lori from the side. I nodded my head in thanks, before leaving the small family to greet one another.

The walk to the tent, was a short, boring one, looking around at my surroundings, my foot snagging on a branch that I could’ve sworn wasn’t there moments before.

“(Y/n)! Are you alright?” Andrea asked, rushing over.

“Im fine, thank you.” I nodded.

“I saw you trip.” “I’m okay, I didn’t even hit the ground, im a pretty good catch.” I softly joked. “I don’t think you should be joking around this is serious.” “So is shooting Daryl.” I shot back.

Andrea looked down, clearly upset.

“Andrea, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that… That wasn’t fair on you.”

“No, its okay. I mean I get it. I shot Daryl, and you’re pissed.” “It was an accident. Im not mad at you, thats was a defensive mechanism.” “So, are we good?” She asked.

I nodded, earning a smile from her, before she pulled me into a hug. “id be lying if I said I haven’t ever wanted to shoot him myself.” I laughed letting go from the hug, causing her to laugh along with me.

“Apparently we all have.” She chuckled.

“I was actually on my way to see Daryl, to apologise to him, give him this book.” She held up ‘The case of the missing man’.

“Thats a great idea. Does it have pictures?” “What do pictures have to do with it?”

“Don’t let him give you a hard time. He will complain, just tell him to suck it up.” I smiled.

“Are you coming to see him?” “I was on my way to see him, but I think it’s best if I let you go in alone.” “I can come back later.” “Andrea, it snow or never.” I smiled.

She sighed, before looking at me and smiling.

“Im going.” 

She turned on her heel and headed in the same direction I was before hand.

I walked further down and seated myself on one of the protruding tree trunks.

I leant my head back and let the warm breeze dance across my skin, softly moving my hair.

The peace and quiet was short lived however as two voices kept moving closer.

“Shh. Just trust me on this, okay?” I heard Maggie plead.

“But I suck at lying. I can't even play poker. It's too much like lying.” Glenn whispered.

“You have to keep this to yourself. You have to. Please.” She desperately begged.

I shifted my head, now watching Maggie leave a conflicted Glenn.

After a moment, Glenn looked around and hastily made his way to the RV with a basket.

A bribe maybe….

I waited for five minutes before moving, not wanting to alarm either party if they had returned or forgotten something.

Walking to my tent, I thought about the whispers between Glenn and Maggie, wondering if it was about the two of them sneaking around together, or if there was something more serious happening.

As I got to my tent I found it empty.

One of Daryl’s arrows sitting on the small mattress that we shared, next to the mesh which now had holes littering the bottom from the arrow.

I shook my head and smiled, he obviously would’ve been bored.

I left the tent, and started to search for Daryl or Shane.

Both of which can apparently turn the Greene farm into a game of ‘Where’s Waldo’.

I grabbed the keys for Shane’s Hyundai and made my way over to it, pretty quickly reaching the car, I sat in the drivers seat and started the engine.

I sat in the car and noticed Glenn and Lori at the camp fire visibly disagreeing over something, Lori, acting discrete as Glenn was pushing the subject, whatever it was.

“What is going on in this group?” I muttered under my breath.

I jumped as a loud bang sounded from the passenger seat window, which I wound down for him.

I held my chest as I looked at the culprit, Shane with a dirty smirk.

“What are you doing?”

“I was going to go for a run.” “And not tell anyone?”

“I was originally going to ask If you wanted to join me.” “I ain’t going with you.” He shook his head.

“Fine. Then don’t.” I smiled, putting the car in drive.

“Hey!” Shane exclaimed noticing my movement.

“Im going on this run Shane, with you or with out you, make a decision.” “Fine! I’ll come!”

“That’s what I thought. Now. Get in.”

The car moved when Shane opened the door, making sure to noticeably throw himself angrily into the seat, and slam the door, finally letting me start the journey.

“What is with the attitude?”

“Believe me, if you had a pain in the ass like you for a sister you have one too.” “I have you for a brother. I know the pain.” “Where are we even going?” He asked as we neared the gate.

“I overheard Beth and Jimmy talking last night after dinner, Jimmy had told Beth that there is a house on maple street that looked pretty, from what I could see on the map it looks like it’s ten minutes out.”

I stopped the car at the gate.

Shane, opening the his door and running to the gate to open it, letting me drive through to the other side, before he shut it again, getting back in the passenger seat.

“A house that looked pretty? That is a stupid lead.” He shook his head, turning to look at me.

“Shane, if it looks pretty, im assuming that there’s no walkers around, it could be an easy supply raid.” “What if its over-run?” “Then we deal with it like we would any other time.” “We.” He pointed between us both. “Aren’t dealing with it. I am dealing with it.” He pointed at himself.

I rolled my eyes at his antics.

“You do realise that I have a heart, internal organs, a brain and skin right? Im not made from porcelain.” “You’re my sister, who is carrying a foetus.” “Dont call it that.” “What do I call it then?”

“Tadpole, Bean, Nugget. I don’t care, just don’t call it a foetus.” “Nugget? What kind of name is nugget?” Shane laughed.

“Im not naming it nugget. Jesus Shane. Im not naming it Bean or Tadpole either. It’s just a base name we are going to call it until it’s born.”

“Have you thought of names yet?” “Are you really asking me that?” “Is Spartacus still on the list of names?” He laughed. “Oh shut up!” “Wait, wait, wait, my favourite was always Fabio.” He laughed harder than before. “Then name your kid that.” I hit his arm, laughing with him.

“I ain’t having kids. Especially not after you have your kid. Having that one around is enough.” He laughed.

“Come on, Spartacus needs a cousin, and it looks like you and Andrea are getting close.” I teased.

“Shut up.” He sulked.

“Oh, have I hit a nerve? Does Shane Walsh have a crush on Andrea?” “Seriously, shut up, focus on the road, or you’ll get us lost.”

I smirked and shook my head as we turned onto Bellman Parade.

“Keep an eye out for Maple.”

“Im not dumb.” “Clearly you are, Andrea is great.” I smiled looking at him, to get a death glare in response.

“Maple is the next left.” He stated.

I turned left onto what could only be described as a rich area.

“I doubt these houses would have supplies.” “Can you not be a negative Nancy, who knows what’s hoarded in these houses.” “Exactly! There could be a horde.”

I pulled over on the curb infant of one of the houses, all of which are deserted and look untouched.

“We will start at house 23 and search all of them, see if we can get anything useful.”

“We aren’t separating.” “Clearly.”

We both walked onto the front porch of house number 23.

Shane opened the door, holding out his handgun infant of him, whistling into the house, waiting for any sign of movement or danger.

We waited a moment before he lowered the gun, handing it to me.

“Try not to use it. The last thing we need is every walker within a mile to come.” “I know Shane, save bullets, im not stupid.”

“I know, im just telling you to be careful.” “I appreciate it, now you search the ground floor and I’ll search upstairs.” 

He nodded.

I started to sweep through the rooms, finding small bandages, weak pain killers and a few protein bars that I found in a lunchbox.

I looked over the railing to see Shane searching the cabinet in the living room.

“Any luck?” “Not much, a few bullets, handgun and a few cans of food. What about you?”

“A few bandages, some pain killers, weak ass ones and three protein bars.”

“Alright, let’s check the next house.”

“Okay, im coming down.” 

I noticed the draw string for the attic Hanging softly.

“Shane! Come up here for a second!” “Why” “Just hurry up!” “Okay, im coming.” He muttered coming up.

“Pull the drawstring down.” “Why do you want to go up into a creepy attic?” “What if they have a weapons box up there?” “It’d be extremely lucky to just guess there’s one.” He laughed grabbing it and pulling it down, the ladder slowly emerging from the ceiling.

Before the ladder had a chance to hit the ground, dust was crumbling from the opening.

I swatted the dust from my face and sneezed.

“Looks like you’re still a geek.” Shane snickered.

“Ow!” He pulled his arm back, rubbing where my fist connected with his arm.

I climbed the ladder and looked around the attic.

Boxes labelled from numerous festive seasons, to ‘dad’s trophies 1988’, to ‘home videos’ and ‘1967-2009 family photos’.

I stepped into the attic and ventured further into the dim space.

I began moving the boxes out of the way, searching in various ones to see what we could utilise.

“Any luck?” Shane called out from the ladder.

“Not yet.” I called out searching another unlabelled box.

I discarded the box to the side, the box hitting one of the chairs. 

A domino affect had spilt a few of the boxes, one of which had gardening equipment that had spread over the floor boards.

“(Y/n)! Hey! Are you okay?” I heard Shane and his heavy steps running in my direction. 

“Yeah. I’m good.” I breathed out

“I found these shears, hatchets, multi-tools.”

“If there’s any rope, grab it.”

“I know Shane.”

I look to my right noticing the extra pair of hands searching through the contents of the box.

“Let’s take what we have so far to the car.”

 I nodded in agreement, moving back towards the ladder.

We searched the next three houses and found various food cans, more medicine, even a first aid box that was filled to the brim.

The fifth house we entered, both the front door and the back door had been wide open.

“Might have a few neighbours.” Shane said as he walked onto the porch.

“Wait out here, I’ll go in and see what we’re dealing with.”

“What if-“ “I will handle it.”

I nodded and waited while Shane did a run through, entering the house when he gave the signal.

This house was empty, compared to the others.

“We will start on this floor, work our way up.” Shane nodded, entering one of the bathrooms.

On then entire ground floor we couldn’t find anything.

“We might have better luck upstairs..” I suggested, making my way up to the next floor.

“Maybe.” He agreed.

My hand reached out to the door in front of me and I lightly pushed it open, pastel pink and blue wallpaper came into view.

I walked into the room, finding dual cribs in opposite corners of the room, a few scattered plush toys on the ground, the walls were ruined with blood splattering along the wall nearest the crib at the window.

 A few photos discarded from a photo album that had been thrown around.

I picked up one of the photos and examined it.

A gorgeous blonde woman sat next to a handsome man, each holding a baby in their arms.

“(Y/n)?” I felt Shane tap my shoulder.

“Huh? Yeah?”

“Ive been calling out for 10 minutes. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine. Sorry.” “What do you have?” “I just found this.” I paused and showed him the picture.

“I hope they got out safely.” I continued. “Im sure they did.” He took the picture and placed it on the shelf.

“I think it’s time to go.” Shane held my arm and guided me from the room.

We walked back to the car and stopped before getting in.

“Do you want me to drive?” “I got it.” I shook my head with a soft smile.

Series Masterlist Next Part 

[jadethest0ne]

When the Moon meets the Morning, Chapter 1 - Fire under the Blood Moon

Summary:  Raphael is going on missions with Captain Jupiter as he always does when he meets an orange-wearing turtle yokai who feels oddly familiar.

Word Count: 2154

Ratings/Warnings: General Audiences; some minor harrowing moments, but mostly fluff, emotional overload, emotional manipulation, self-deprecation

Notes: A longer chapter this time! This was the first thing I wrote for this story. I do enjoy starting out with some action! Big thanks to @undercoverwizardninjaturtle, @fraymotiif, and @frasierverse for helping me workshop this.

Read on AO3 For the RotTMNT Fantasy AU

-----------

The thing about the Unforgiving North was that despite its reputation for being an icy snowscape it wasn't always cold and unforgiving. Sure the summers were maybe only a few weeks long and their spring was just an extended period of slush and snowmelt, but there was a time in the fall where the temperature was okay and not everything was covered in snow. Unfortunately, it was also a time where there was barely any rain either, and all the dry, dead leaves made all too good kindling for causing forest fires, much like the one that Raph had found himself in the middle of combating at the moment.

James Jupiter, the famed heroic bounty hunter, had gotten the call that the nearby forest had caught on fire due to some folks using mushroom fires irresponsibly. It was threatening the neighboring town of Bedu, as well as a group of small woodcutter huts and cabins that were within the forest's borders. As usual it was up to Captain Jupiter, his trusty sidekick Red Fox, and his protege, Raphael the “Red Angel of Preventing Harm” to save the day. Or the night rather.

Raph can feel his power swelling with the rise of the moon as he forms large red projections of his arms down a path among the trees blocking the flames to allow a family from one of the huts to pass through. Raph hears some screams behind him. He sees the Captain at the edge of the forest patiently directing everyone to safety with a confident smirk. The entire night he had been there greeting everyone that Raphael and Red Fox had brought out of the flames and giving them a strong guiding hand, letting them know that everything is going to be okay. Raph thinks wistfully for a moment what it must be like to have that confidence. He could use some of that right about now. He waits until he sees the family make it past the flames to dispel his corporeal magic into a smaller shield around himself. The heat is strong and he wishes he doesn't have his heavy cloak on him, but his shielding spell is at least enough to keep the fire at bay.

He turns towards where he heard the screams. He sees a child in a clearing wreathed with flames looking scared, with desperate eyes scanning the canopies. They look to be like some sort of squirrel yokai. He rushes over, batting away the flames with his magical aura formed into large hands as he goes.

When he reaches the child he imagines how the Captain would act in this situation and he puts on his most heroic face and states in his most heroic voice, "Don't worry, the Red Angel of Preventing Harm is here to save you!" The child stops crying momentarily and gives him a look of confusion. Raph falters. "Er, along with Captain James Jupiter..." That last part seems to make the child perk up and they manage a weak, tear-stained smile. They point a shaky finger up to the trees and say "My family is still up there!"

Raph looks up to see a literal treehouse, mostly in flames with at least half a dozen scared faces of squirrel yokai poking out. That's a lot of people, Raph thinks. It'll be hard to carry them all. But they're small, so Raph can handle it. Probably. With resolve and in a voice more confident than he feels, he calls to the family shouting above the flames, "Jump down! I will catch you!"

The yokai look at each other worriedly, so Raph lifts up his hands allowing his arm projections to expand and cupping his transparent red hands in a makeshift cushion for the family to land on. The family of, five, six, seven, Raph counts, leaps down into his waiting arms. As he lowers them to safety, he hears a cracking sound and sees the tree that the family just leapt from wobble dangerously. There's no time to wait for the family to get their bearings, so he just lifts them all up onto his broad shoulders, and grabs the child around the waist, and flings himself and the family out of the way of the collapsing tree; the rush of flames from the falling branches licking at his heels and tail as he runs. With him focusing on trying to carry the panicky family, it does not allow him much room to maneuver through the fiery forest, and his concentration on trying to avoid the flames prevents him from accessing his magic effectively. Still he does the best he can to move around the burning trees. He thinks he sees a path out, but then he hears a moan. Raph scans the forest and sees another young yokai - some sort of lizard - on the ground and looking very out of it. A nearby fallen tree branch tells him that maybe they got hit in the head. If Raph gets the family out of the forest, he may not be able to make it back to the lizard. But if he grabs the lizard, then both he and the folks he's carrying may not make it out. Raph doesn’t hesitate in his decision.

Raph rushes over to the lizard yokai, and, having no hands left to carry him, bends down and grasps a fold of his clothing in his teeth. Sometimes it's handy to have the strong jaws of a snapping turtle. There’s some more creaking from above and several large limbs from the trees fall down towards Raph and the people he’s carrying. There’s no time to dodge out of the way, and with so many people, he doesn’t think he can. So Raph stands his ground. His eyes darken over, and where his iris and pupil would normally be the shape of a blood-red moon appears, glowing even brighter than the fire surrounding him. He takes a deep breath, and wills his magic form around him. A red projection, mimicking his body’s shape and features, grows from him and surrounds both himself and the yokai he is protecting. Raph grunts as he forces the magic to hold as the blazing branches glance off of it. When the barrage of burning wood stops, Raph shakes off any errant cinders and dissipates his large red form.

He whirls around to try to get back to the path to safety but he can no longer see it. Everything is in flames now and the heat is really starting to get to him. The smoke is stinging his eyes, and he takes some heavy breaths through his nose, trying not to choke on the hot air or on his own rising anxiety. What would the Captain do in this situation? Would someone like him let a stupid fire stop him? Would he be disappointed at Raph for the tears threatening to spill over right now? They're from the smoke, not fear, Raph tells himself, of course, but his mind still conjures that disappointed look of the Captain in his brain. Raph has to remind himself to not bite down hard on the fabric that is in his mouth keeping the lizard yokai in place.

That's when he sees a flash of green through the blaze.

There's a section within the maelstrom of fire that contains no flames. A pocket of darker coolness that is inhabited by a freckle-faced yokai. He looks to be about Raph's age, maybe a little younger, and definitely much smaller. But he's wearing this brilliant smile and seems to be completely unfazed by the situation he's in. The boy cups a hand over his mouth and flames seem to come from it. Anger fills Raph’s gut and he's about to shout at the yokai as he momentarily thinks that the guy is adding to his troubles. However, Raph stops when he realizes that the kid is not breathing out fire, but sucking it in.

The yokai's already round face puffs out and becomes rounder as if storing the fire in his cheeks. The yellow freckles on his face stand out on his green skin, even among the yellow flames. The boy pulls in a deep breath, extinguishing enough of the fire to allow for a path out of the forest and to safety. Raph looks at the boy in wonder for just a second as he looks over cheerfully at him and winks. A sense of familiarity comes over Raph as he looks at the yokai. He's not sure why, but Raph is sure that he's a turtle yokai despite his orange clothes covering up where his shell would be. The smaller turtle yokai gives an "after you" gesture at Raph which snaps him out of his thoughts, and he quickly barrels through the burnt, but no longer flaming, woods.

He makes it out to where Captain Jupiter is still directing folks to safety. Once in the clear, Raph heaves a huge sigh of relief and lowers his load to the ground. The family of squirrel yokai scramble off of him and quickly go over to the Captain, excited to meet the famed hero. Captain Jupiter soaks in the praise and pats the heads of the younger yokai as he sends them on their way. Man, the Captain is so cool, just remaining calm this whole time, Raph thinks. He doesn’t even look like he’s got a burn on him - not even singed clothing! That’s in direct contrast to Raph’s soot stained clothes, and dirty face and claws, which he now feels somewhat self-conscious about as the Captain looks over to him.

The Captain gives Raph a toothy grin. "What have you got there, my boy," he says, smile fading into a grimace, "...in your teeth?”

Raph raises his brow realizing he’s still carrying the lizard yokai. He opens his mouth and gently places the young yokai in his arms, taking care to cradle his injured head. "Oh, um," Raph starts nervously. The Captain didn't like it when he used his more turtle-y features. "I, uh, ran out of arms to carry people with," he explains.

The Captain gives a discouraging look. “Remember, lad, ‘act like a beast, become a beast,’” he says tapping at his own teeth where Raph’s snaggletooth would be. He waves over his sidekick that Raph only just noticed was there, "Better let Red Fox take him then. Don't want you injuring him further, after all."

"Ah yeah," Raph says, wilting a bit as he lowers the lizard guy down to the sweet-faced red panda yokai in question. She’s also covered in no small amount of soot, and he can see some of her normally tidy auburn fur is lightly singed.

Red Fox looks up to him in concern and asks in her usual motherly tone, "Are you hurt?" She sniffs the air around him as if trying to discern his state by smell, causing the pink scar above her nose to crinkle and stand out behind the soot dusting her face.

Raph gives what he hopes is an encouraging smile and says, "Yeah, I'm fine." He gestures behind him to where he last saw the turtle yokai, saying, "It was really thanks to--" but he cuts himself off when he sees that no one is there. "Where did he go?" Raph asks himself.

There was a turtle yokai there, wasn't there? The smoke and fire hadn’t messed with his brain that much, had they? His thoughts are interrupted when he hears the Captain give his usual rundown of the situation. "Well that seems to be everybody, and it even seems as though the fire is dying down now, so that is some luck. All families are accounted for thanks to my steady guidance. Red Fox did well to listen to my commands, too. But kid, please do not rush off into the woods recklessly again, it may be too much to handle for a protege like yourself."

Raph’s shoulders sag under the Captain’s criticisms, but gives a "Yessir" all the same.

The Captain turns away to gather the victims of the fire to him, gaining statements and directing them to the necessary healing houses if need be. Raph watches on, and not for the first time tries to imagine what it's like to have such a leaderly tone that folks automatically respect.

He feels a warm hand placed on his own and he looks down to see Red Fox giving him a proud grin, "You did great out there, Raphael."

A smile spreads on Raph's face at her words and she gives a wink as she walks away with the lizard yokai in her arms.

Raph looks back at the once blazing forest, now mellowed out to a light flicker, and wonders what happened to the yokai that gave him a similarly kind wink and why he felt like he'd met the guy before…

<--previous   ///   next-->

[tamorasky]

Rise to Me Chapter 7 - January 1947

Summary: 1947. It had been nearly four years since she had received a letter from her sister. Now with the end of the war and her impending wedding, Anna Rendelle is more determined than ever to find her sister.

1943. All her life Elsa Rendelle had been told to be good, know her place and to marry well. When an opportunity arises to make something of herself, finding herself in Occupied France as a part of a larger network of secret agents.

Rating: Mature

Relationships: Anna/Kristoff, Elsa/Honeymaren, Anna/Hans (Briefly)

AO3

It feels odd not wearing her engagement ring underneath her black suede gloves, nor carrying her purse, but Anna remained firm to leave all her valuables at home, save for a few coins in her coat pocket.

Her gaze remains forward, firm not to make eye contact with any of the beggars on the street or the men calling out to her. She had lied to Gerda this morning when she left the house, knowing the Norwegian woman would have a fit if she learned Anna was going to Spitalfields this afternoon.

She hadn’t even brought a piece of paper with the address written down, ensuring her pockets are bare if she is to be accosted. Walking through the crowded street, Anna repeats the address in her head over and over again, ensuring she will not forget it. Her memory has never been reliable.

Even as she walks down the street, Anna feels as if she should know this area as she walks along Thrawl Street. Much to her annoyance, the sidewalk ceases at the bend, causing the young woman to walk along the road surrounded by brick structures.

Anna shoves her hands into her green coat pockets, her fingers brushing against the satin inside as she approaches Flower and Dean Walk. She’s slightly uncomfortable by the idea of walking down the quiet street as if anything could jump out at her at any moment. But continues down the road, nonetheless.

She glances behind her periodically to remain aware of her surroundings as she searches for house number 37. It is the last of the rowhouses on the block before the street turns into a courtyard surrounded by other brick houses. These Victorian neighbourhoods always unnerved Anna.

Anna lifts the brass knocker as she approaches the door, which slips from her hand, causing the brass to hit against the door louder than she intended. She steps back from the house with wide eyes, worried about how the disturbance will be perceived, especially for a man who lived in such a place.

Jumping at the sound of the door opening, Anna tucks her hands behind her back as her heart pounds in her ears. A man emerges from the house, ducking slightly as he walks through the short doorframe.

He wears a plain cotton t-shirt and brass-coloured trousers with a green coat in his grasp. His blonde hair is ragged and unkempt as his beard is. The man raises a brow at her, shoving his hands into his pockets.

“Can I help you?” He asks, his foreign accent resounding through Anna’s bones as she stares at the man standing at least three inches taller than herself. She opens her mouth to speak, but no words come out, trying desperately to say something as the man is growingly frustrated with her.

“Bjorgman,” She manages to say, closing her eyes at how dim she must sound to him. “That…is…I mean. Shit.”

The American man can’t help but chuckle at this awkward British woman standing on his doorstep, shaking his head. “You wanna try that again?”

“Yes, I’m looking for a Kristopher Bjorgman.” Anna sighs, thankful she is finally making sense. Convinced it is this neighbourhood that is having an effect on her.

“Um…” The man glances behind himself momentarily, then back to the woman, glancing at her up and down. “He isn’t home.”

“Oh, well…might you have any idea of when he’ll be back? You see, it’s about this letter I have, well, a letter that was actually sent to my fiancé from Washington. He’s American, you see and has been helping me with some things…an-”

“He probably won’t be back for some time.” The man cuts her off, shutting the door behind him as he places on a coat which resembles Hans’ military one; the same olive-green colour but shorter in style with the buttons covered by a front panel with an insignia of an eagle sewn on the shoulder.

“Oh, I see. Well, might I leave my information? You see, I don’t often get into this part of town, and my landlady will have the skin off my back if she ever found out I came here.” Anna explains, trying desperately not to be awkward as Hans always teased her about being.

The man runs a hand through his hair with a sigh. “Yeah, just leave your name and phone number where he can reach you at.” He reaches into his pocket, presumably for a piece of paper and a pen.

“Perfect! So my name is Anna Rendelle, and I can be reached at…” She trails off, noticing the man isn’t writing any this down but pulls out a cigarette and lighter instead. He lights the cigarette, taking a drag of it as he stares down at the woman.

“Alright, Anna Rendelle. I’ll tell him you came by.” The blonde nods, taking a step forward towards the street. Abruptly the wooden door swings open once again, revealing a short elderly lady with a red shawl wrapped around her shoulders.

“Mr. Bjorgman,” She calls, stopping the blonde man in his tracks. Slowly, he turns to face the older woman with a grimace. “May I inquire when you might pay your rent for last month…and this month.”

“I’ll umm…yes. I will have that to you soon, Mrs. Anderson.” The man, apparently the vary man Anna had been searching for, responds.

“You better. The food for that mutt of yours isn’t cheap.” The white-haired woman places her hands on her wide hips.

“Yes, ma’am. I will have this and last month’s rent soon.” He bows his head, avoiding eye contact with the young woman standing before him.

“When Kristoff?” The older woman snaps as the young man turns from her.

He holds up his hand with his index finger extended. “Soon, Mrs. Anderson.”

“It better be!” The older woman shouts at the young man, who was walking away, before she glances back to Anna sternly. “Who are you then?” Anna opens her mouth to speak but doesn’t, instead her gaze going back to the man making his way down Flower and Dean Walk.

“Hey!” She yells after him, racing to catch up with the tall man. As she comes to stand next to him, her pace remains increased to match his stride. “Mr. Bjorgman, my name is Anna Rendelle, and I was hoping to speak to you about a matter regarding my sister.”

“I don’t know anyone by the name Rendelle.” He curtly responds, turning left onto Thrawl Street.

“No, I’m sure you don’t. But I believe we may have a common interest in this particular instance.”

“What? Is your sister a part of a country club that needs someone to work the grounds? Because I can assure you, I’m not interested.” He responds, raising a brow at the young woman as they turn right onto Commercial Street.

“W-wait what? No, I m-mean my sister has gone missing.” Anna explains as they cross the street.

He stops in front of a corner building, huffing as he throws away his cigarette. “I’m sorry to hear that, but I can’t help you.” Without another word, he disappears into the building, stepping through the glass and wood door.

Anna follows him, only to stop in front of the door for a moment, collecting her thoughts before pushing into the building. The Ten Bells pub had seen better days, the establishment’s wooden interior worn, and the stairs to the second floor blocked off by several chairs.

Mr. Bjorgman sits at the wooden bar on a tall barstool. She marches towards him, her brows knitted together, and her mouth pressed into a thin line as she climbs on the barstool next to him.

“Listen, I need you to take me across the channel.” She states. Trying to remain firm in her resolve while squaring her shoulders, attempting to look strong and confident.

Kristoff sighs, finally glancing at the young woman. He hadn’t expected her to follow him into the pub. “And why would I do that?”

“I heard from Frederick Westergaard about you. That you’re also looking for someone.” Anna explains, wishing she had brought her purse to show him the letters.

He visibly stiffens at that, eagerly reaching the beer the bartender places in front of him and takes a sip. A vein visible shows on his forehead as he places down his pint. “I think you have the wrong man.”

“My sister went missing during the war, I-I don’t know when. I think sometime in 1943, I’ve been looking for her since then. Last I heard is she was enlisted with something called the Special Operatives Executive.” Her fingers brush against the rough wood of the bar. He finally looks at her, turning slightly to face her as he pulls out another cigarette. “I need to find her before I leave for the United States with my fiancé.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” He responds, his honey-brown eyes boring into her blue ones. “But I can’t help you.”

Anna stares at him, carefully examining his features, noticing the way his eyes crease as he apologizes. She recognizes that look all too well. “Who did you lose?”

“Doesn’t matter.” He takes another sip of his beer. “Listen, even if you can get across the channel, it doesn’t change the fact that she could be anywhere in Belgium, Germany or France.”

“The ferries have been operating across the channel again. There won’t be an issue with that.” Anna shrugs, shaking her head as the gray-haired bartender offers her a drink.

“And your fiancé? How does he feel about you going off on this wild goose chase?” Kristoff raises a brow questioningly as he takes a drag from his smoke, exhaling away from her.

“Hans is…supportive.” She drags out her words, not having told Hans about her plans to travel to the continent. “He’s been helping me with finding her.”

“So why doesn’t he take you to the continent?”

“H-he’s busy with work, you know and trying to make travel arrangements back to the States. I couldn’t possibly bother him with this stuff.” She excuses, increasingly becoming frustrated with the stranger.

“Sounds like a real knight in shining armour.” He rolls his eyes, finishing his beer and ashing his cigarette.

“You know what?” Anna slips from the stool, her heels hitting against the floor as she narrows her eyes at the stranger. “I don’t need this. I can find my sister by myself; I have been doing it for four years now, and I don’t need your help.”

Kristoff shrugs, his brows lifting slightly as he takes a sip of the freshly poured pint in front of him. “Fine.”

“Fine!” Anna retorts, uncaring if she sounded like an insolent child as her mouth purses, “You may be satisfied sitting here like a sad drunk all day wondering what happened to your person, but I’m not. Good day sir.”

“No. Wait. Stop.” Kristoff calls sarcastically, his eyes focused forward on the mirror behind the bar. For a moment, Anna does stop to turn and look at him but observes he is unbothered by her words or her leaving.

She rolls her eyes in frustration while spinning on her heel, stomping towards the door before pushing through onto the street. The young woman walks quickly to the closest bus stop, not wanting to remain in this awful neighbourhood any longer.

Anna wishes she had refused to take Kathryn’s shift the next evening, her mood still soured by her interaction with him from the other day. She had never understood the stereotype of the “rude American” until meeting Mr. Bjorgman. Certain she would tell Hans about all of it when they meet for dinner tomorrow night.

Throughout her entire shift, Anna is fuming, trying desperately not to be short with customers or Mrs. Steiner when her supervisor scolds her for the run in her stockings. The very run Anna had fixed a week ago in the same pair of stockings. It was inevitable, she would have to buy a new pair.

Groaning in frustration as she glances at the gold clock on the wall, noting that she only had 40 minutes left of her shift. She decided at that moment that she needs a drink after work, tired of everything the last couple of days had thrown at her. As she stands in the department store, Anna decides not to think about it, in fear of bursting into tears on the sales floor.

Instead, she smiles at customers and discusses her wedding with her swooning co-workers in her spare time. After 4 years, she had perfected, pretending everything is fine in her life. As Anna smiles and jokes with Mary, a familiar voice resounds through the salesfloor, instantly souring her mood once again.

She huffs in frustration, blowing her bangs out of her eyes before turning towards the department store entrance. The blond man stands at the front makeup counter, wearing the same clothes from that afternoon and still looking ragged. It surprises her that the security guard isn’t following him through the store as he meanders, looking a little lost through it all.

He slinks through the salesfloor. His gaze searches every makeup counter until they finally fall onto her. As he awkwardly makes his way past customers, Anna watches as he apologizes to the various women he accidentally brushes against.

Kristoff stands at the makeup counter Anna is occupying, drumming his fingers against the glass case as he carefully thinks over what to say.

“Can I help you?” Anna snaps quietly, feeling bad for a moment as she sounds harsher than intended.

“Yeah, I uh…” He scratches the back of his head awkwardly, not making eye contact with the young woman. “I came to apologize.”

“Did you?” Anna inquires, cocking a brow as she crosses her arms. She cannot bring herself to believe him quite yet, as he had yet to make eye contact with her.

“Yes!” He barks, frustrated by this woman’s pride. Kristoff takes a deep breath to calm himself. “It was brought to my attention that I was a real asshole yesterday.”

“Really?” Anna responds flatly. “And what gave you such an idea?”

“I-It doesn’t matter. I just wanted to come here to apologize…and to talk.” His gaze drifts to the glass case, focusing on his hands.

Anna’s gaze drifts away from Kristoff for a moment, noticing Mrs. Steiner staring at the two of them with interest. “Meet me at The Clarence pub in about 30 minutes.”

“What?” Kristoff questions, his brows furrowed in response.

“Have a drink while you wait.” Her eyes dart back to Mrs. Steiner to see the older woman inching close. Anna plasters on her best fake smile at the young man as she uncrosses her arms. “Yes, sir, as I mentioned before, you’ll find cookware on the third floor.”

Kristoff stares at the young woman as if she had lost her mind at that moment, trying to understand what the hell she is talking about. Her eyes rapidly shift from him toward her supervisor, causing him to glance over his shoulder to understand what is happening.

“Ah, yes. Well, thank you for all your help.” Kristoff responds somewhat stiffly before turning away from Anna, shoving his hands back into his coat pockets as he walks toward the door. Anna huffs that he doesn’t move towards the elevators to keep up their charade.

Panic instills in her as Mrs. Steiner stands in front of her, glaring at the girl coldly. “What did that customer want?”

“I’m not sure,” Anna shrugs, noting the look of disdain on her supervisor’s features. “He came in asking for a lipstick that would make his girlfriend look like Gene Tierney. I started showing him some samples, and then he asked about cookware. Then he just left.”

“Hmm…how odd.” Mrs. Steiner comments, her gaze not leaving Anna for an instant.

“It really was.” Anna nods, her fingers playing with the cuffs of her forest green collared dress. She learned not to play with the pussy bow on this dress around her supervisor, who would snap at her for fidgeting.

Without a response, Mrs. Steiner glances down, her nose wrinkling in disgust. “Clean your counter in the last 20 minutes of your shift.”

Anna stares at her supervisor in confusion as the older woman strides away from her. She had cleaned the glass earlier this morning. The young woman looks down to the glass, only to find finger smudges from where Kristoff had stood.

She huffs in frustration. He really isn’t making this easy on her.

Anna could hardly wait to leave work once her shift had finished. Rushing towards the lady’s breakroom to grab her coat and purse. She huffs upon leaving the department store to find it is raining, she had forgotten her umbrella at home. Quickly, Anna races down the street towards The Clarence, not caring if her braids were unravelling.

As she reaches the pub, Anna pauses outside the building in the rain, catching a glimpse of herself in the door’s glass. Her eye makeup is slightly smudged from the rain, and her lipstick clinging to the creases in her lips. Her auburn hair now in loose brains and whisps of her hair sticking to her cheeks.

Pushing open the door, Anna steps into the building in her wet clothes, shivering as warmth begins to overtake her body. She glances around the bar, spotting Kristoff in the same spot she had sat with Olaf only a week ago. Her gaze focused on the man; Anna moves through the crowd.

He already has a dark beer in front of him, nursing it while he waits. Anna occupies the seat across from him without a word, shrugging her wet green coat from her shoulders as he watches her.

Her dress’s cuffs are wet, causing the young woman to unclasp the cuffs and roll them up to her elbows. She wonders what this man in front of her must think of her looking a mess. A server quickly rushes to their side.

“Can I get you anything?” The young woman asks, not bothering to take out the pad of paper in her apron pocket.

“Could I get a pint of Newcastle?” Anna asks, feeling awkward as she orders. She never ordered beer anymore since she started to see Hans. It felt unladylike for her to do so.

The server nods with a polite smile before turning to Kristoff. “How are you still doing?”

“I’m good, thanks.” Kristoff offers a polite smile back, his face falling as the server walks away from their table. It falls silent between them once again. Before Kristoff mutters, just barely above a whisper. “You’re right.”

Anna stares at the young man, initially shocked. A smile crosses her features as she flutters her eyelashes innocently, cupping her hand against her ear. “I’m sorry. What was that? I couldn’t hear you over the crowd.”

Kristoff rolls his eyes, glancing around the pub with only two other men in the room. “You were right!”

Anna sits back in her chair, cockily, crossing her arms over her chest as her smirk grows. “Well, I’m glad to see you can be reasonable, at least some of the time. Maybe I should’ve found you at the dingy pub yesterday.”

“The bar isn’t dingy it’s just…historical.” He shrugs. The server places the pint in front of Anna before moving onto the other table without another word.

“I felt like I was going to be murdered in it,” Anna states, using both hands to pick up the heavy pint glass to take a sip from it. A small smile ghosts over his features at her comment, which makes Anna pause for a moment. If he were to trim his beard and hair, actually take care of himself, she could understand why one might find the man in front of her to be quite handsome.

“You would have been fine.” He responds, taking a sip of his beer.

“That’s easy for you to say. You’re a giant yank!” Anna exclaims. “Any person in that neighbourhood wouldn’t dare to pick a fight with you.” “I really think you’re over-exaggerating.” Kristoff pulls a cigarette out of his pocket, lighting it before inhaling. He reaches over the table with the pack of smokes, offering her one.

“No thank you, I don’t smoke.” Anna refuses, her finger twitching at the urge. Smoking was a habit of hers, which is in the past now; she hadn’t smoked since she worked in the factory during the war.

Kristoff nods, exhaling the smoke away from Anna. Silence falls between the pair once again. The sound of glasses clinking against one another echoes throughout the pub as the bartender puts them away. She suppresses the urge to bite her nails with a sigh, drumming her fingers against the table.

The man sighs, taking another sip of his beer. The pint glass thuds against the table as he places it down, his eyes meeting hers once again.

“Why did you ask me here? I assume it has to do with my attempt to reach out to you the other day” Anna inquires, unable to take the silence any longer.

“It is…” Kristoff sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’ve been searching for…someone since the war ended, and I haven’t gotten anywhere.” His eyes drop to the table, staring at the wooden surface dolefully.

Anna stares at the man across from her. A very different man from the one earlier this evening and the other day. She wonders if perhaps that man who poked fun at her and drinks away his days in the pub is somehow a person who tries to forget. Someone, just like herself.

“I know how you must be feeling.” She nods, her fingers brushing away the condensation away from the pint glass. “I-I’ve been searching for her four years now. Every time it felt like I gained an inch, I went back one foot.”

Kristoff slowly glances up at her. “I gave up. My letter to the Pentagon last year was my last attempt, but then everything was classified.”

“Yet you stayed in England?” Anna inquires without thinking. He goes quiet, avoiding eye-contact with the young woman. She feels a twinge of guilt from unable to control her impulses. It was something her father and mother always scolded her for, recalling her mother nearly shouting at her after an incident.

You need to learn to think before you act, Anna Margaret Rendelle.

Even as an adult, those words rang true. As she opens her mouth to apologize, but Kristoff simply nods in response as he takes another drag of his cigarette. “Yeah…I did. Just in case I heard anything about her.”

“Who was she?” Anna can’t help but ask, placing her elbows on the table and cradling her chin in her hands. She wonders if he is searching for his lover, Anna always had loved romance. It was something Elsa used to tease her about a lot, back when they were close.

Kristoff finishes his beer, placing the glass loudly on the table and exhales loudly. “It doesn’t matter.” His entire demeanour changes with that, as if pulling himself away from how he feels about this. “What documents do you have to help your search?”

“Oh! Umm…” Anna trails off, unprepared for that question as she grabs her purse. Pulling out the envelope from her bag and sliding it across the table. Kristoff opens the folder, glancing over the documents. “I was given a copy of my sister’s enlistment forms. It says she parachuted into France near Arras.”

“Alright, here is what I suggest. We’ll drive to Folkstone an-”

“I don’t have a car.” Anna blurts.

“Just listen, I do.” Kristoff calmly explains, closing the folder with the documents. “From there, we’ll take the ferry across the channel to Le Havre.”

She stares at him, a small smile crossing her features. He had come to the pub with a plan. No one had ever gotten this far with planning her search. “And where would you propose we go to next?”

“From Le Havre, we’ll drive to Arras…and I guess…just hope someone knows something.” Kristoff sits back in his chair, sliding the documents back to Anna as he crosses his arms over his broad chest.

Anna glances down at Kristoff’s empty glass and her nearly empty one. She stands from the table with her hands on her surface. “What are you drinking? I’ll buy us the next round.”

“Guinness draught,” Kristoff responds, smiling up at the young woman. Anna nods, tapping the table twice with her right hand before meandering towards the bar. It is going to be a long night.  

Author’s Note: I apologize for any bad edited, I'm so tired but so excited about this chapter!!

Also, Kristoff will get less confrontational over time!

I kinda went down a rabbit hole with the geography for this, but basically like Dean and Flower Walk, and Thrawl were like the worst crime streets in London during the victorian era. And Ten Bells is an actual historical pub in the neighbourhood.

[xxx-cat-xxx]

Broken Bottles Form A Star

Characters: Natasha & Clint

Word Count: 2k

Tags: Natasha Romanov is not a Robot, Clint Barton is a Good Bro, Friendship, Alcohol abuse, References to sexual coercion, Vomiting

Summary: Clint isn’t sure whether he can fix any of this. He knows for certain that she doesn’t want him to. But whatever mess Natasha is, part of her has become his mess by now.

A/N: Thanks so much to @whumphoarder​ for beta reading!

Natasha is still wearing her rented $3,000 evening gown. In the run-down pub, the shimmering green fabric laced with precious stones makes her stand out like a peacock in a crowd of ravens, but apparently she’s been slumped over the bar long enough that the regular crowd stopped paying attention. Most of them have congregated around a table in the corner, playing cards and taking turns cursing loudly in a language Clint only knows fragments of.

Make-up is smeared all around Nat’s eyes and her head is essentially lolling on her elbows, almost hitting the top of the counter every few seconds before she drags it back up. It can’t have been more than three hours since they separated—Clint in search for the best beef stroganoff that Saint Petersburg has to offer, Nat ostensibly to meet an old friend. He should have never believed her in the first place, given that Nat’s use of that word invariably involves quotation marks, but he has to give it to her that she managed to get hammered very efficiently in the brief period since then.

He plants himself squarely in her field of vision, knowing better than to touch her. “We’re leaving,” he states.

Nat squints hard to force her eyes to focus on him, then opens her mouth as if to object. Instead, her shoulder hitch and she belches a mouthful of alcoholic breath into his face. Clint wrinkles his nose but doesn’t move an inch.

She swallows thickly. “‘S place’s a shithouse,” she announces before slipping down from the barstool without any of her usual grace.

“Exactly.” Clint is secretly glad for her lack of resistance; the last thing he needs after today’s mission is making it into the local news for the bar fight that would certainly start if it looked like he was taking her away against her will. He locates Nat’s coat on the stool next to her and places it over her shoulders. 

“Put that on,” he orders. She doesn’t make any attempt to move, so he does it for her, managing to stuff her arms into the sleeves like he’d do for a child, but doesn’t bother with the buttons.

The bar has fallen silent. All eyes follow Clint as he throws a bunch of bills on the counter, hoping it’s enough for the impressive row of shot glasses lined up next to the assassin, and positions her arm around his shoulders. Nat isn’t heavy; he could have easily picked her up and carried her, but even in the intoxicated state she’s in, he doubts she would have let him.

Instead, he takes on most of her weight as they step out into the freezing night air. His motorbike is parked in the shadows around the corner, out of sight of drunkards who could get silly ideas.

“So, what was this about? Not a fan of ballet, huh?” he jokes while they slowly shuffle through the icy rain, mostly to fill the silence. "Yeah, it's a snooze-fest."

Her face darkens momentarily, just long enough for him to register it as something to remember. She doesn’t reply, but suddenly tries to pull away from him, which only makes both of them slip on the wet snow covering the ground.

“Fuck, Nat,” he swears. “Work with me here.”

Her face is stony. He helps her onto the bike, orders her to keep holding on to him while he speeds up to the limit, mentally preparing himself to catch her in case she passes out during the twenty-minute drive to their motel.

She doesn’t. “Stop. Clint, stop,” she moans instead when they’ve barely covered a third of the way. He’s momentarily happy that she is lucid enough to remember his name, but then he more feels than hears her cough wetly into his shoulder. Swearing under his breath, he stops the bike a second too late. There is already liquidy vomit soaking through the front of her gown.

“Fuck,” she mutters before gagging again.

“It’s alright,” he sighs. “Just get it out of your system.”

Nat doesn’t even bother to get down, just grabs his jacket for balance and bends over the side of the bike as she throws up again. It’s far from the first time Clint’s seen her get wasted; she’s drunk agents twice her size under the table. But it is the first time he’s witnessed her overdoing it to the point where it makes her sick, and that worries him. 

He racks his brain to figure out what is different about this mission, but he comes up empty. If anything, it was easier than the other ones they’ve tackled together in the half a year they’ve known each other, and it definitely involved less violence from both sides. They infiltrated a Tchaikovsky ballet performance to incapacitate a former US illegal arms dealer with poison―not enough to kill him, but enough to make it impossible for him to make a run for it when the police will storm his apartment tonight after their anonymous tip-off.

Clint’s distaste for high culture coupled with the jetlag meant that he dozed through much of the remaining show while Nat seemed to grow more and more tense beside him. He mentally berates himself for not realising something was off before she went on to her personal pub crawl.

But the self-reproach can wait for later―the priority at the moment is to get her somewhere safe and comfortable. “You done?” he asks when the current round of puking seems to be over. Nat hiccups and nods, still panting short, warm clouds of breath into the air. 

“Hold tight.” Clint pulls her back upright and kickstarts the engine. “Give a warning if you need me to stop again.”

She does so when they have almost reached the motel. This time he has to grab her around the waist to keep her from toppling off the bike altogether while the heaves wrack her frame. He’d almost be impressed at the sheer amount of liquor she brings up, if it wasn’t straight-up worrying.

Nat’s swaying dangerously by the time he opens the heavy door to their temporary stay—a shady room and a half with a mouldy bathtub and hidden surveillance cameras outside each window. She steadies herself against the wall to kick off her high heels, then seems to almost fall asleep there until Clint peels her out of her coat and lets her lean against him as they enter the room.

“Let’s get you into bed,” he directs.

She only gags in response.

“Okay, fine. Or barf a little longer first,” he sighs, turning them around 180 degrees to get to the bathroom. It’s another fifteen minutes before she is completely empty. By the time the retching ceases, her eyes are teary from the shear strain of vomiting so much, mascara collecting in a half-circle above her cheekbones and making her look even more like a ghost.

Something about it pulls at the strings inside his chest. He gets up to wet a washcloth, then kneels down next to her. “Hey,” he says almost softly, “You’re gonna be alright.”

“I’m fine,” she replies hoarsely, automatically.

“Yes. Of course.” He wipes the make-up and mess from her face, stroking the hair away from her sweaty forehead. Surprisingly, she lets him, even leans into his palm for a moment and closes her eyes. It’s so unlike Nat to seek comfort like this that he’s momentarily lost for what to do. It’s clear that she wants to stay right where they are, but he can’t let her fall asleep on the bathroom floor in a puke-stained dress.

He swallows. “Nat,” he nudges. Her head rolls to the side and she blinks at him once before her eyes fall shut again. “Nat,” he repeats, “I’m going to take off your dress.” He waits a beat, and gets no response. “Are you listening? I’m gonna help you take off your dress now, okay?”

She gives the slightest approximation of a nod and he hopes that this passes as consent.

Leaning her against the cleanest part of the tiled wall, he ever so carefully peels her out of the expensive fabric. She is wearing plain black underwear beneath it that is luckily unstained. Clint goes to fetch a shirt from her backpack in the bedroom. When he returns, there’s a hazy smile on Nat’s face that doesn’t reach her tired eyes. She looks up at him, and before he realises what is happening, she has clumsily pulled down one of her bra cups, revealing her breast to him.

“What are you doing?” Clint says, taken aback. “Nat, what are you doing.”

She pulls the bra straps down from her shoulders, her fingernails leaving marks on her bare skin on the way down. “Whassit look like,” she slurs, almost aggressively.

“Stop. Stop this, I’m serious.” He takes a step back, his shoulders hitting the door frame.

“Don’t tell me you don’t want to,” she says in a tone that borders desperation.

“I― I don’t know, Nat. But not now. Not like this.”

“You took me home. You helped.” She laughs, until he realises she’s crying now, so quietly that it’s only discernible from the dampness on her cheeks. Her shoulders hitching, she mutters, “‘S nothing personal.” 

And the thing is, he believes her. But he doesn’t know whether that makes the situation better or worse.

“It is for me,” he says quietly.

Whatever is wrongly wired in her brain to make her think that she has to pay for a few scraps of comfort and a drunk ride home with sex, he can’t begin to understand. He wonders whether there has been anyone to ever respect her, her body, the boundaries she seems to be so bad at setting herself. Clint isn’t sure whether he can fix any of this. He knows for certain that she doesn’t want him to. But whatever mess Natasha is, part of her has become his mess by now.

“Nat.” He makes sure he has her attention. “You don’t owe me anything.” He hands her the t-shirt, waits till she has clumsily put it on, then extends his hand to help her up. “Let’s go to bed, okay?”

He doesn’t hold her when she drifts off. There have been times when he’s done that, for the practical reason to keep her warm after the substantial blood loss from a bullet wound while waiting half a day for the med evac, or to ease the shakes from the pneumonia she caught on that one cursed mission in Montana, when she’d been almost delirious with fever. She returned the favour on the flight back from New Zealand where he’d been in solitary confinement for almost a month after an assassination gone wrong—had provided him with the simple, unconditional human contact he’d been craving for weeks. 

But tonight, holding her would feel like taking advantage, even if that’s not how she sees it.

Clint keeps still for half an hour until he’s sure she’s fully out, then gets up again to pee and wash the puke stains out of the dress they have to return before their flight back home. Once he’s done, he sets up his laptop and starts working on the mission report, omitting any details of what happened after the ballet performance. When he finally falls asleep in the early morning hours, he dreams of ballerinas and dying swans.

The next day, Nat is admirably functional. She must have slipped out of the bed without Clint realising because he wakes when he hears her dry heaving in the bathroom. It sounds painful, but when she emerges half an hour later, showered and dressed in clean clothes, she looks almost as impeccable as ever, despite the mother of all hangovers she must be nursing.

“When is our flight?” she asks, nothing about her giving away whether she remembers all the things they didn’t do last night.  

Clint regards her for a long moment. “2:30. I call window seat.”

He knows he should probably address the previous night. He wants to believe that it was a one-time low, but something about the almost routine style with which Nat dry-swallows the aspirin he left her on the table and covers the paleness of her face with foundation makes it impossible to believe that. He doesn’t want to think about what would have happened if someone else had taken her home last night.

He should really talk to her—he knows that. But then, the fragile relationship he’s built with her in the last few months rests firmly on the principle of noninterference. Keeping out of each other’s pasts is how they have successfully navigated their partnership up till now. It isn’t his place to bring up the topic if she doesn’t, he decides―at least not yet. 

Instead, he carefully stuffs the green gown into a plastic bag, makes sure there is a full bottle of painkillers in his hand luggage, and tosses her a pair of sunglasses.

[otonymous]

Served (MLQC Victor - NSFW) - Chapter 5 (End): Dinner Is Served

Description: Dinner is served. 😉 Come and get it! Warnings: NSFW/18+: explicit/graphic language - reader discretion is advised. Very mild food kink. Word Count: 2146 words (~11 mins of AT LAST…SMUT!) AO3: read here Author’s Notes: The final chapter of Served and the “Big Bang,” as promised 😂A giant thanks from me to everyone who stuck with the story, for every single read, like, comment and reblog! - XOXO

Jump to previous chapters: Chapter 1| Chapter 2| Chapter 3| Chapter 4

All characters & Mr Love: Queen’s Choice owned by Elex

Click.  Click.

The sound echoes in the empty space, dark save for the light streaming in through the windows from a single streetlamp outside Souvenir’s storefront.  And if you were really quiet, you could hear the proprietor swearing under his breath.

“Shit.”

“What’s wrong?”

Click.  Click.  Victor flipped the light switch again, but to no avail.  Tables and chairs continued to cast black shadows that merged with dim corners.  You step closer to Victor’s tall, broad frame.

“Perhaps a fuse blew?  The streetlamp outside is still on,”  you offer, trying to be helpful when you sense his expression growing surlier by the second.

“Stay here and don’t move.  I’ll check.”

“Victor, wait!  I…I’ll come with you.”  

Hurrying forward in your new heels, you stopped short of grabbing onto his sleeve.  Senses heightened in the dark, you catch Victor’s breath hitching.  And when long fingers reach down to thread through yours and squeeze reassuringly, you are thankful for his surprising tact in not pointing out a grown woman’s irrational fear of the dark.

“Watch your step.”  The command in the bass of his voice is familiar in an unusual situation.  You never thought you’d see the day when you found Victor’s bossiness comforting.

Hand in hand, you gingerly make your way to the kitchen, the path lit only by Victor’s cellphone.  And when he lets go to examine the fuse box, you wonder if you imagined the reluctance in his grip as he pulled away.  Hand clenching into a fist, you try to preserve the sensation of his palm against yours for a while longer.

“Still not working?”

Victor sighs.  “No.”

“We can always go elsewhere to eat, Victor.  It doesn’t make sense for you to be cooking in the first place when this meal is meant to make up for my botched apology dinner.”

“No.  I won’t stand for any interruptions this time.”  The vehemence of his reaction makes your eyes widen.  Voice softening, Victor continues, “Help me look for candles.”

“Shouldn’t you know where they’re kept?  You own this place,”  you ask, sweeping the beam of your smartphone’s flashlight over murky shapes in cupboards and drawers.

“Should I also know the contents of every storage closet in LFG Tower?  I own that too.”

“Don’t get cheeky, Mr. Li.”

“That line should be reserved for you.”  Then, after a beat of silence, “Mr. Mills stocks the restaurant and does most of the prep work.  And I told you not to call me Mr. Li.”

Chuckling inwardly at how easy it was to rile this man up, you finally notice a few candles at the back of a shelf.  Tiptoeing in your stilettos and extending your arm, your fingertips dance towards them to come up an inch short.

Then suddenly, a bloom of warmth on bare skin: Victor’s hand is on your lower back, exposed in the dress he had chosen for you with desire in his eyes.  

The man presses closer behind you, one long arm reaching overhead for the candle while the other snaked around your waist.  There, in the darkness, his proximity silences every thought but one:

How wonderful the hard lines of his body would feel melded against the curves of yours.

Lingering a beat longer than propriety would’ve dictated, Victor’s breath is warm and comforting at the crown of your head.  When he finally pulls away, the featherlight drag of his fingertips across the skin of your back sends a shiver of pleasure down your spine…and blood rushing to his rapidly hardening cock.

For it had taken the stoic CEO every shred of self-control to remain composed when he first laid eyes on you that evening — perfection incarnate in an updo and that red dress, smiling to see him roll up in his Bugatti.  And when he noticed the tendrils that fell loose at the nape of your neck, the sudden weakness in his knees made him grateful to have already been seated.

Sharp and short-lived, the smell of sulphur assails your nose when Victor strikes a match, light throwing amplified shadows that danced across the walls as the wick of a pillar candle caught flame.  When you lift your gaze to see his handsome face framed by a golden glow — the violet-indigo of twin irises intense as he held your gaze across the wavering light — you forget how to breathe.

So…slowly pressing his lips to yours…Victor does it for you.  

Satin flesh growing more and more passionate as it slid against yours,  Victor’s attempt to convey the sincerity of his intent leaves you sighing into his kiss.  And as his tongue traces the seam of your lips before slipping in to explore that smart mouth, one large hand finds itself in your hair and the other on your chin — tilting to deepen the kiss.

“I’m famished.”  

Deep voice husky as he whispers in between planting kisses at the corners of your lips, you are on the verge of protesting about how Victor could even be thinking about food at a time like this when he clarifies, “I’ve hungered for you for so long.”

The neediness in his voice is surprising.  And incredibly arousing.

Pulling back, you study his face: pupils wide and pink dusting the sharp angles of his cheekbones — the heady mixture of desire and vulnerability in those features seeping into your consciousness to transform into a yearning so basic and strong.  One that only Victor could satisfy.

Perhaps it was the absurdity of the situation you found yourselves in, dressed to the nines in the kitchen of an empty restaurant.  Or maybe something whispered in dark corners of the dimly lit space to goad you on.  Because somewhere in the back of your mind, the thought of crossing the point of no return excited you, made you brave…bold enough to take what you wanted.

And you wanted him.

So you place your hands on his chest to palpate the pounding beneath firm muscle, the heat of his body permeating the black dress shirt that did little to conceal his physique: hard masculinity beckoning to your fingers to run down that perfect torso until they traced the V-shaped angles at his hips, leading towards the buckle of his belt.

Then, looking up at Victor’s flushed face, you ask, “Help me out of this dress?”

Gripping the ledge of the stainless steel prep table, you sigh as Victor presses a kiss to the nape of your neck, nimble fingers unhooking the clasp just below with ease.

And when silk starts to slip from skin, you look over one shoulder to throw a coy glance at the man before bending to slide the dress the rest of the way down — the lascivious sight earning you a barely suppressed moan from Victor’s lips.

“Leave those on.”

He stops you in the middle of reaching for the suspenders on your garter belt, eyes roaming approvingly over the sight of you naked save for the stockings and stilettos he himself had hand-picked…and the thin strip of black lace that teased from between your legs.

“Perfect.”

Mesmerized by long fingers undoing button after button, you barely register Victor’s comment as you watch, frozen, as his shirt falls from broad shoulders.  And when his muscular arms finally wrap you in their embrace, the touch of his bare skin on yours propels the blood through your veins to animate you once more — bending to the will of his hand burying in your hair, strands tumbling loose around that grip as he drew you in for another kiss.

On the lips.

Notch of your neck.

The sensitive tip of each breast.

Breath trailing hot as his lips kissed lower and lower beneath your navel.

“Hmm, Victor!”

Voice coming out in a coquettish whine so foreign to your ears, embarrassment is the last thing on your mind as you run your fingers through Victor’s thick, black hair; your sole concern focused on encouraging the man kneeling between your legs, his hands securing you against the tremble in your knees as he tasted you through the lace of your underwear.  

“Delicious,” Victor murmurs, and with each lick, your inhibitions shed layer by layer until you thought nothing of reaching up to caress your breasts, hand squeezing and fingers pinching as Victor’s name tumbled from your lips over and over again, drawing his attention to a sight that finally pushed him over the edge.

Lips shiny with his saliva and your arousal fell on yours aggressively as Victor rose and gripped the supple flesh of your ass, easily lifting you onto the satin lining of his overcoat, haphazardly thrown over the prep table.

You prop yourself up on your elbows, stockinged legs spread wide at the ledge and the heels of your stilettos knocking periodically against the side of the table as you watch Victor step out of his dress pants and underwear, wrapping one hand around a cock whose sheer size had you swallowing hard.

And when he sees you bite your lip, hair disheveled and lipstick smeared, one hand reaching down invitingly to hook your panties aside and reveal pink flesh that gleamed slick in candlelight — Victor is pulled completely, irrevocably, into your spell.

“Je t’aime,” Victor whispers in your ear before kissing you once again, greedily swallowing each of your moans as he slowly enters you, the wet heat of your pussy testing the limits of his control.  

Stopping now and then, he admires the exertion and ecstasy written on your face as your body worked to accommodate him, muscles clenching and relaxing around his hard cock before you gasp to feel him finally buried to the hilt, your back arching at the sensation and nails digging into his shoulders.

Vaguely aware of the way Victor’s vigorous movements made the candle flicker at the side of the table, you found that you could care less if the room were to be doused in darkness again.  Because every time you tried to open your eyes, the lids grew heavy with pleasure to hear his deep voice moan with almost animalistic satisfaction, the sound so erotic in conjunction with the wet echo of skin slapping against skin.

Heart already racing a million miles a minute, you almost expire when Victor unwraps your legs from around his waist to prop them against his shoulders instead, hot tongue licking along the length of your stockinged calves as he presses lower, deepening the angle at which he fucked you relentlessly.

And when the hard plane of his groin rubs against your clit at just the right pressure and frequency, the convulsions that overwhelm your body draws Victor’s pleasure from his, liquid heat mixing with yours as you savour the weight of Victor’s head resting on your chest, his hair damp with exertion.

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“Are you sure you’re not hungry, Victor?  I’m starving!”

Victor smiles at the sight of you searching through the fridge in Souvenir’s kitchen, trying to salvage whatever food you could…his unbuttoned dress shirt revealing more of that perfect bottom in an enticing game of peekaboo every time you bent over to examine the contents of the crispers.

And still you had on those stockings and stilettos.  Great investments, really.  The CEO gives himself a mental pat on the back.

“YES! There’s pudding!  Although the bowls aren’t nearly as interesting this time around,” you prod Victor as you approach him, tapping a spoon mischievously against your lips, curved up in a smile as you eyed him pulling up his boxer briefs.

“Hmm.  I suppose you did work off enough calories tonight to merit dessert.”

“You know, you really are much more handsome when you keep your mouth shut.”  Rolling your eyes, you ignore the furrow in his brows as you lift a spoonful of pudding to your lips, thinking you were so cool with your retort until you realize that some had dripped onto your chest.

But you weren’t the only one to notice; Victor already had his gaze fixed on your bared breasts as he approached, bending to lick the pudding off in one slow, sensual motion before saying,

“Actually, I think second helpings are in order.”

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