#fire pit Was just half a barrel on the ground

[transexualbutchfagdyke]

upgraded my fire pit and collected wood :)

[aces-and-angels]

Title- Prelude: Martin's Rise

edit by: @saibug1022

A/N: hello friends! the winds have carried me to a hyperfixation revolving around laws of attraction (and how to fix the mess that was book 2). ik the loa fanbase has a population of like... 4 lol, but i'm still excited to share this newest passion with yall- please enjoy the prelude for into the wind-verse: a loa book 2 rewrite 🖤🖤🖤 @choicesficwriterscreations

Characters: Eli Byrne, Sadie McGraw, Reggie Whitman, Linda Phillips, Gabe Ricci, Martin Vanderweil, Wind Velez (OC by @oh-so-youre-a-nerd)

Pairing(s): Martin x Wind

Summary: bonus scene set sometime during book 1, ch 16; Martin calls for an emergency meeting with the partners of McGraw Byrne.

Word Count: 1.3K

read below the cut or...

AO3 LINK

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McGraw Byrne, 10:34 PM

The stillness of the firm gave Martin pause. It was a stark contrast to the hustle and bustle seen during normal office hours. Only silence met the incessant clicking from his fingers flying over the keyboard as he drafted up the last few contracts needed for his presentation. His eyes flicked over to the clock resting on his desk. Less than half an hour before the partners were set to arrive. 

Standing over the office printer, the machine whirred as it spewed out pages upon pages of his manic, caffeine-fueled work. This moment, brief as it was, was the first time he could take a breath all day. Even so, his mind couldn’t stop replaying the events that transpired- an unsettling feeling in his chest that he couldn’t shake since the senior partner meeting took place. Torturously heavy, sinking down to the deepest pit in his gut. He should be celebrating- drinking to the countless billable hours he put in to get appointed as McGraw Byrne’s newest junior partner. But instead, he was here, fixated on the tiny display screen atop the printer. 

Printing Page 45 of 194…

Coupled with the heaviness, a fire. Roaring flames that burned fiercely through him, ignited at the sight of his colleagues foolishly celebrating their ‘win’ over the infamous Sadie McGraw. Spilt liquor and joyous cheers for a job only half done. It made him sick. 

Then, there was Wind. They were the first to notice his escape from the booth- much to his surprise. Though, he’d be remiss not to acknowledge their uncanny levels of perceptiveness. Why they directed it at him at all was a marvel in its own right- something that inexplicably stirred something inside him.

His excuse for leaving was flimsy at best, but Wind met it with kind hazel eyes, crinkling ever so slightly with pure elation. It kept his feet rooted to the ground for one, fleeting moment before his mind took over once more, giving way to the inferno coursing through his veins. Wind was naïve. And he had a job to do.

Pulling the last of the pages from the printer, he started for the conference room, relieved to see that it was still empty. He made quick work setting up the room, laying out copies of his proposal at each seat. A faint echo of footsteps barreled through the halls, signaling the partners’ arrival. Martin had just enough time to fix his tie before the doors flew open. 

“Vanderweil, do you have any idea what time it is?” Eli addressed him first, his domineering tone straightening his back. 

“I’m aware, Mr. Byrne. But this was too important to leave for tomorrow morning.” 

Eli’s eyes narrowed, looking for a reason to chew him out further. Finding none, he gave a curt nod and motioned for Linda and Reggie to take their seats. “Well, on with it boy.” 

“Thank you, Mr. Byrne. Ms. Phillips, Mr. Whitman, thank you for being here as well,” he greeted, his voice steady and sure. “I’m sure it’s safe to say that we’re all shocked by how this morning’s senior partner meeting went.”

Reggie let out a brief chuckle. “Now, that’s an understatement. I had no idea Gabe would be capable of orchestrating something like that.” 

“I’m assuming there’s a correlation between that and Mr. Ricci’s absence at this meeting,” Linda added.

“Astute as ever, Ms. Phillips. Yes, Gabe’s conduct was… unconventional. It’s fitting that the nature of this meeting be that as well. I’ll get right to it- the firm’s vulnerable. Left to bleed out from a gaping wound at its side courtesy of Ricci and Velez.”

“Spare us from the theatrics, Mr. Vanderweil. My colleagues and I are well aware of our position. There better be more to this presentation,” Linda chastised. 

“There is,” he answered confidently.

“Then I’ll ask you again. Why did you summon us all here?” 

“We’re here so I can stop the bleeding.” Martin threw the manila folder he’d been clinging to since the start of the meeting onto the table, spreading out the files for everyone to see. “A signed NDA, amendments to the firm’s bylaws securing McGraw Byrne’s ownership of Sadie’s clients, and updated contracts for everyone in attendance at the senior partner meeting.” 

Reggie let out a low whistle. “You did all this in one evening?” 

Martin tipped his head in acknowledgement. “I get paid to be the best. And this is only a fraction of what I’m capable of, Mr. Whitman.” 

Eli skimmed through a copy of Sadie’s NDA, eyes widening as he reached the end of the document. “Sadie really agreed to sign this?”

“She agreed to my terms, with one contingency.”

“And what’s that?” 

Martin slid the phone over to Eli. “That you be the one to wire the money for her buyout directly. If you check the footnotes at the bottom, her agreement to this exchange is only good until midnight.” 

Eli sputtered. “Do you have any idea how money transfer works, Vanderweil? There’s no way I-”

“I’m aware, Mr. Byrne. Which is why I offered a compromise- your verbal confirmation that you’ll uphold the deal for her cooperation.” 

“She’s strong-arming us,” Reggie shook his head in disapproval.

“She’s using the last remaining card left in her hand,” Linda countered, glancing at the time displayed overhead. “You better start dialing, Eli. Our time is running out.” 

The call was brief. No exchanged pleasantries. No warm bid farewell. Only the bare essentials to secure Martin’s deal. The room fell silent after Eli hung up the phone with a tired sigh. 

“Well, at least that’s one less fire for us to put out. If that’s everything, Martin-” 

“There is one more thing- if I may, Mr. Byrne. I motion to put this meeting to a vote for my immediate appointment as senior partner of McGraw Byrne.”

“Mr. Vanderweil, you know very well we can’t-”

“I’ll stop you right there, Ms. Phillips. Section 7B, sub clause a. Any vote to appoint a new partner may be held if the lump sum of the present members hold the majority of the firm’s shares. This room alone makes up for 58% of McGraw Byrne’s stocks, making this motion valid.”

“We’re grateful for your efforts, Martin..." Reggie paused, searching for the right words to say. "But it’s just not in good faith for us to move to a vote without Gabe present. Like it or not, he is a current senior partner.”

“With all due respect Mr. Whitman, I disagree. Mr. Ricci simply set the precedent after he operated on his own accord without notifying any other senior partner of his plans to oust Ms. McGraw. I’m only returning the favor.” 

“He’s got you there, Reggie,” Linda commented with a look somewhat akin to approval. “You have my vote, Mr. Vanderweil.”

“Thank you, Ms. Phillips.”

Reggie looked to Eli, who has been noticeably silent since his motion. Martin turned to him as well with baited breath. Finally, he spoke. “Tell me why I should vote in your favor.”

“Because I did what no other associate thought to do. Protect the firm. And even if they did manage to get that far, none of them could do what I’ve done with the same level of quality. But if that’s not enough-” Martin pulled out another stack of papers from his file. “A cost analysis of the money saved by securing Sadie’s old clients, a draft of her announcing her retirement set to be released next morning, and a proposal for media outreach to mitigate the damages.” 

Eli huffed out a soft laugh. “Alright, Martin. You win. I vote yes.”

“Mr. Whitman?”

“Well, there’s no use playing devil’s advocate now. I vote yes.” 

“Welcome to the fold, Mr. Vanderweil," Eli said, stretching out his hand in congratulations. 

“I won’t disappoint you, sir,” Martin promised, giving him a firm, resolute handshake. “Can I make one final request?” 

“Name it.” 

Martin’s lips spread into an enigmatic grin. “Give me the honor of announcing it to our fellow colleagues.”

[frost-eyed-autumn]

(Because I was enabled)

The novelty of it still hadn't quite worn off yet. Like the clouds adults blew from their nose and mouth after taking drags from their cigarettes on the daily, his breath was visible on the air, but there was no little on-fire stick in his lips to account for it. It just happened by pure magic.

Or at least, that was what it felt like sometimes.

Less magical was the ache in his bones, all of his limbs drawn tight to his body, the kind of stiff posture that one half-assed push could send him crashing onto his side against concrete and rubble. An entirely unpleasant thought.

No one cleaned up the alleyway streets in Suribachi City - everyone was too busy with survival - so every hop and skip was littered with sharp gravel, pieces of broken glass or scraps of metal, old papers and cardboard long ago melted into recently but poorly-laid patches of pavement by the rain with ink that had run into nothing more than a messy blur. In other places, it was still dirt, compacted by the travel of many feet. Used needles and other unnamed trash, either thrown there carelessly or ripped from lonely, forgotten trash bags, were also sprinkled about.

Right now, the ground held a different hazard than usual. Small puddles frozen as solid as asphalt, and white powder from the sky that crunched underfoot, covering every surface in a thin sheet. Ice and snow, the other kids had called it.

Little by little, he was learning. He was learning quickly, all things considered. There was no room for slow learners in this place, not when survival was on the line, but even with the quick rate at which he picked things up - at least for a kid of his slight age, slighter still even than all the other kids around him, with his earlier memories being of nothing but a black void and constantly trying to play catch-up with those around him - it seemed like there was never an end to the novelties of the world.

And his world was still so incredibly small.

Suribachi City was still growing. He'd watched it with his own eyes as the crater had started to fill with only a handful of tents that the greater city of Yokohama couldn't be bothered to remove. And then there were more, and more-- and eventually more permanent shacks, made of stolen lumber and sheet metal.

He'd seen it evolve from a hole of nothing but dirt into something vaguely resembling a tiny village perched into the corners where no one would notice, and then slowly spread outward as more and more people found some kind of refuge here that normal society would never allow. Already, Suribachi had spread itself out into a sizeable crescent around one half of the crater, like a sliver of the waxing moon.

In the spring, all of Suribachi's residents had been hard at work, building a society where the destitute and outcast could live unbothered. Staking up structures that could vaguely be referred to as 'buildings', flattening out pathways between them that could maybe be called walkways or roads, hauling in materials and generators and mainly stolen supplies to get by.

In the summer, people had taken refuge in the shade, lazing about and complaining the whole way to fall, when things finally cooled off enough to justify hard labor.

Now again, everyone was conserving their strength with the bare minimum as the frigid cold crept in. Old oil barrels and makeshift fire pits were the primary concern of labor. Everything else, save for the acquisition of food and warm clothing, was a task best set aside for spring.

Even the larger gangs and organizations didn't care for this cold. The streets were mainly peaceful, but the large gangs like the Port Mafia didn't have to do much weight-throwing anyway. If the big gangs didn't get to people here first, then the cold would surely claim enough lives to keep them satisfied for a while.

Maybe he would be one of them.

His knees trembled together violently, and if he was any more of a skeleton, he's sure they would make for great musical maracas. No one in the Sheep had any weight to them that would help insulate them from the cold, though he was notably even smaller and slimmer than most that were his same age.

He didn't even feel the cold anymore, but that didn't stop his body from trembling in a desperate effort to keep his blood from freezing. The sun was only now cresting the horizon, finally managing to reach the fingers of its sun beams down into the crater, but to call it warmth just yet would be laughable.

Only pure stubbornness, and poking and prodding from the other Sheep when he started to drift, had kept him on his feet this long. In winter, the nights were long and deadly cold. Exhaustion greedily clawed into him and whispered in his ear just five minutes.

Just five minutes, to close his eyes, but no one with any brains sleeps during a winter's night in Suribachi City. That's what Shirase told him. On a snowy, below-freezing day like today, you sleep by night, you die by night, and so they'd spent most of their time in the dark moving; working; waiting vigil until the few hours of the day when the sun was up and winter's bite would be just a little less sharp.

Its pure torture, but it only makes the reward at the end of it all the sweeter. When that low, pale light finally brings the rest of the world awake, its time for the Sheep to curl up and sleep.

At long last, he hears the call, Shirase and some of the older kids beckoning everyone in to a shared little hut that they've all worked hard to fortify against the wind and snow outside, pooling everything they can find into one place.

Its not a large hut, but in this cold, its better that its not anyway. Easier to insulate. Easier to heat. It only just has enough space for them to have dragged a sizeable, abandoned mattress into it, propped up off the ground by stolen wooden boards cobbled together into an acceptable frame, with a shoddy table in the corner and an oil barrel to keep a contained fire going.

There's barely enough room for them all to fit comfortably, but they make it work, piling onto the bed with the largest and heaviest kids on the bottom, and the smaller kids on top. Chuuya just happens to fall somewhere in the middle, but only because there are kids even younger than he is in the Sheep, and only slightly smaller.

There's no real pre-determined organization to how anyone finds a spot. All of it comes down to who gets where first, staking their claim by first-come, only to shimmy and shift around as someone else climbs into the pile, everyone fitting themselves together like a game of human Tetris.

Chuuya's head ends up rested on someone's knee as a pillow, and in turn someone else's head manages to nestle comfortably into his side against his ribs. Another unknown butt clad in tattered jeans presses into his chest, and elsewhere, someone's stomach is draped across his legs.

Its impossible to find where one person ends and another begins in the tangle of strays, but for him in the moment, right now it was a heaven he wouldn't trade for anything short of the exact same thing with the same people, in a warmer, safer room with good food and hot drinks.

Family. That's what Shirase and the rest called this, and them, and this feeling. Belonging. Limbs and warmth and hearts all tangled up as one softly breathing entity, even if they had nothing else in the world.

Even as someone bitched at someone else move your damn elbow, and another kid whined about how they didn't want to be on the outside edge and tried to negotiate a change of places, and another barks at them to shut up and go to sleep, its the closest thing to perfection that he knows.

Chuuya, for his part, was content, entirely still in surrender as the others shifted and squirmed around and alongside him to figure out the best spots, and inevitably fall into a chorus of soft snores or half-awake silence to listen and watch for trouble for the rest of them.

At some point, someone would nudge him awake and tell him your turn to sit vigil, but for now, he let himself drift in the puddle of warm bodies as their collective shivering finally subsided into something acceptably echoing comfort.

[amethyst-allium]

To Etho, it feels like every square inch of his front half is on fire.

It all happens so quickly that he barely has time to process what’s going on. One moment the air is being sucked out of his lungs and the next, he’s lying in the grass at spawn. 

There’s a loud ringing in his ears and a migraine pressing against his eyes when he finally wakes up. Sunshine beats down on his face and he can still feel the faint stinging of his skin across his front being incinerated.

He takes a slow, deep breath and readjusts himself. The stinging fades, the ringing quiets, but never truly leaves his head. 

Joel is an idiot, he thinks.

He gets to his feet and goes to find his things. This is their first death.

It feels like riding a rollercoaster the second time. Well. The pit in his stomach, moreso. Maybe a little of the thrill, but perhaps that’s just Etho’s penchant for ridiculousness. There’s always that moment of freefall right when your car has juuuust tipped over the edge. Right when your stomach flies up into your throat and takes your breath away. Like maybe you’ve barreled right into a wall. Or a carefully secured creeper blows your limbs off.

Then the doom sets in and you raise your hands and scream, either from delight or fear. Usually a little bit of both. That’s when things really kick off, your stomach drops and your body tingles from the rush of adrenaline. 

That’s how their second death feels. Like falling. 

It’s the hitting the ground part that gets Etho the most. The force of his body splattering against the dirt and grass. The impact. 

He can still feel the pressure when he wakes up, this time in his and Joel’s bed in the Relation Ship. He sucks in a breath and, trembling, gathers himself again. He can feel the sense of anguish in his partner as the gravity of their situation dawns on Joel. 

They’re red.

Etho realizes he has been gripping the sheets for a little too long now and the muscles in his fingers have tensed. Joel is apologizing profusely, but the ringing is back and Etho can barely make out his own thoughts, let alone Joel’s sputtering. 

He can taste death, he thinks.

It hides under his tongue, peeking out to watch the world spin. It’s metallic, not unlike blood, but not quite the same. It feels… 

Well, Etho would rather not think about that, and for once, he’s letting himself just not think. 

That was the thing about Etho, he was a thinker. Intelligent, tactical. Sure he loved to indulge in a bit of chaos here and there, okay maybe a little bit too frequently, but only ever just enough that nobody could really question why anybody would ever feel intimidated by him. Plus who wouldn’t want to indulge in a little bit of blowing things up for fun?

But death poked at him. Prodded with his emotions. It tastes Red, Etho thinks. He’s thinking again, and he thinks… wouldn’t it be fun to not think so much some more?

After all, Etho’s the one who’s gotten them this far. He’s the cautious one, the ‘Joel for the love of god use your shield’ guy. The ‘If you take damage I’m taking damage to remind you that this is a survival game, Joel’ dude. 

And wouldn’t it be nice to just… let go?

So he does. Etho closes his eyes and exhales slowly. He relaxes. Something shifts between them and even Joel grows silent. Etho’s always up for a little chaos, right?

Joel has gone completely stiff, Etho can feel it, and after a very long moment he slowly sits up. A small smile begins to prick at the corners of Joel’s cheeks. Etho leans back and puts his hands behind his head.

Death tastes like a little bit of fun, Etho thinks.

After all, he had not been able to play as a red life for very long, before. He had been a little too good at surviving as a green. And, well, see, Joel was a terrible green life. But he was also a very good red. 

Sure, he has a knack for dying quickly as a good little green, but when he’s allowed to become fully unhinged well.. That’s when the fun can begin, isn’t it? That’s where Joel shines the brightest and Etho recognizes this. It was a red Joel who ended his last series, wasn’t it? 

Perhaps it’s better to have him as a soulmate this time around, Etho thinks.

Joel’s smile has grown wider by now and Etho can just hear the cogs turning and the schemes being planned. 

They have sand and paper and … oh it’s going to be so much fun! 

“Etho.”

“Yes, Joel?” Etho does not look up from his position, resting against their headboard.

“I think, maybe we should get our things back. What do you say?” There’s something a little sinister wrapping around his words and even though Joel is speaking them, Etho can taste them on his own tongue, and they taste quite familiar.

Metallic. Almost like blood, but not quite.

Etho smiles, a small, delighted smile. 

“That’s a lovely idea, Joel. Just lovely.”

Joel is brilliant, he thinks.

They’re going to have fun, he thinks.

[the-firebird69]

You know we haven't been really hunting people like we can bothering her son all the time for every stupid little thing we'll start haunting you idiots like nightmares an area where we thrive they're bothering him with them and we're going to bother you with them most of you wake up and you run right off the cliff if there is a cliff

Right now I have to announce more stuff is happening to you that you won't care about if fighting very hard in the tunnels huge fights. Giant fights here and near the pit they are so big that almost half of you in the area left and went there today and the battles consumed those numbers like 3 million activity left and tomorrow they're even bigger and it's below ground and it's over hardware it is too extract the diamonds but right now it's damaged 100% of its damaged and the people are trying to find the replacement parts from the clones and they can't. Huge huge battles giant giant battles and they are Non-Stop. And there are massive numbers of people who act like he does to hearing about incinerators. And the battle is going to be larger tomorrow and people are figuring out where they're making the parts and it's underground under Brazil huge forces are descending there now. It's gigantic and huge forces are fighting over a position to be the ones at the equipment it is gigantic. There's also some more information you should know you don't have that many people to throw into the pit but you keep doing it and we say that and you say screw you and stuff like that and I guess you have to fight the clones.

The remaining areas of the morlock are under severe attack and there are two areas that are separate that are being attacked right now and they're on fire half of half of it is burned down. Shortly they will be gone and there will be 15 areas of theirs 10 of which are islands and five are mostly on the same spot as the upper Midwest of central areas and the rest of them will be pockets which are down to 15% in about an hour 10% and intermingled there will be probably down to 3% and the island of Australia will probably be around for a while so that one Island will be still in the board and remind people not to say it's gone when it's not in Disneyland so we can keep it up there and and it is mostly more like there yes but the clothes are always attacking

Tonight Jason is going to Antarctica I'm going to show you where and what he's doing

Thor Freya

I'm interested I'm in this too and it seems ho-hum but he just woke up and he's in a days a little but he understands what's happening and sees it and mostly the morlock are out, and the clones will be fighting Max shortly

And demons so we found out momentarily and there's a huge demon fight going on in New York City and Galactus is always the supreme demon and the celestials and eternals are with them and they are going to be taking your shifts Lock stock and barrel and they are fighting clover and the spiders from Mars which tries to actually grab the ship but fails to

Hera Zues

Olympus

[indighoulish]

On Grief

As a writer (at heart), I’ve tried to sit down and write what grief feels like to me so many times. I’ve always been desperate for definition. I like having a clear sense of knowing. And grief is very much the opposite of that. It’s a lot of not knowing. So much not knowing, that I didn’t write about anything for a long time, let alone about grief.

But grief feels a lot like guilt. At least, to me. It doesn’t let anyone ignore it for long. Grief is a weighted feeling. It’s like a cloud, enveloping me, thick and impossible to see through except for the rare times the wind shifts and a few rays of light shine. It’s not necessarily always sad, although it is mostly. It’s a heavy weight, always present, even when I’ve nearly forgotten it. Hanging at the back of my mind. I’ve been told the weight gets lesser with time. It doesn’t. It just gets easier to carry. Like a backpack full of books, making my back ache, but keeping me tethered to the ground.

It’s like a loose tooth. I tongue it and twist it; it’s always there, uncomfortable and in the way. I wiggle it until it hurts sometimes, remembering how fresh it can feel. Like it’s the first day after their last day all over again. I’m not a masochist, I don’t do it for fun or because I feel like hurting. Sometimes remembering that pit of despair that dropped underneath my feet that day feels like the closest I can get to them. Sometimes it makes me cry; sometimes it makes me smile.

Grief feels like fear. It leaves me dumbstruck and in awe every now and then, like a deer caught wide-eyed in the headlights of a semi-truck barreling down a half-lit highway. It has that power even years later; the smallest whiff of nostalgia can make all gears grind to a halt, freezing time and thrusting me back to the hot heart of it.

It used to make me angry; I used to grit my teeth and clench my fists. I used to meet it halfway; I fueled the fire and cried when the flames were too hot and my heart hurt too bad. Now I see it coming and watch with a sad sort of acceptance. I can’t fight grief; that’s the only thing I know about it. I can’t outrun it. I can’t hide, it knows every spot. I can let it come and drag me away, or I can open the door and let it take my hand, reminding me of how deeply I can feel, how deeply I can hurt, how deeply I can love.

[daylights-nightlights]

That's what you get for following the safety guidelines

(Inspired by @aterfish's containment breach au)

ao3 link

It started, as most things in the Fenton household tended to, with an accident. More specifically, a lab accident. Even more specifically, a living room accident.

See, the thing about eccentric basement scientists was that they kinda just left things laying around. Everywhere. No one can tell you what to do if you’re stitching together spare parts from your busted up old washing machine and faulty toaster, a la Victor Frankenstein, to create ray guns, ghost shields, and whatever the hell the Fenton Weasel qualified as. For Danny's parents, that manifested in the persistent and incorrect assumption that any space could be a lab as long as it had a scientist in it at any given time.

Unfortunately, if you’re like Danny’s parents, and you don’t have anyone telling you not to leave volatile prototypes on coffee tables, then you probably also don’t have anyone telling you not to open fire in the living room. And, if you happen to be like Danny’s parents, when you open fire in your living room, then you’re probably going to land a pretty solid hit on that volatile prototype.

It was only a lifetime of specially honed reflexes that allowed Danny to evacuate them all before Fenton Works blew sky high.

For a few moments after he lowered them all to the pavement - Jazz tucked under one arm like a football and his parents shocked into allowing a ghost to touch them - all four of them just stared into the gaping crater where their house had once stood. Whatever had detonated had done so in by far the weirdest way Danny had ever seen, obliterating the concrete foundation and even the soil beneath the lab. It had sent a column of ominous green fire arcing into the sky, and even after the flames had dispersed, there had been a perfectly circular hole burned into the clouds overhead. The whole neighborhood stank of ozone and sulfur, but hey, glass half full, Fenton Works had taken the full force of the explosion, so at least there was still a neighborhood to stink up!

It was so surreal. Danny set Jazz back on the ground and drifted over to the edge of the newly made chasm to peer in. That had been his house. He had been watching cartoons on the tv not even five minutes ago. And it was gone. Just completely vaporized.

And just because the fleeting thought crossed Danny’s mind that surely, surely nothing could make this situation any worse, he thought he could see something moving in the darkness at the bottom of the pit.

There was a click, followed by the whine of charging machinery, and Danny stiffened as the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Slowly, he turned around - and came nose to nose with the barrel of an ecto-blaster. His parents were champs at the first two stages of grief, but it seemed like they had decided to forego denial this time.

“You,” said his mom, shaking with rage and knuckles surely white around the blaster beneath her gloves.

“Did you do this?” asked his dad, when Maddie seemed unable to continue. His voice was barely more than a furious whisper, and if Danny hadn’t still been in shock, he might have been terrified.

But the fact of the matter was, that had been Danny’s house, too - even if they didn’t technically know that. And they weren’t the only ones pissed about it being blown to smithereens.

“Did I do this,” Danny repeated flatly. “This?” He flung an arm out wide, encompassing the still smoking chasm, the distant wailing of sirens, and the small posse of rubber-neck spectators beginning to form a safe distance down the street. “You’re asking if I did this?”

He didn’t give them the chance to so much as open their mouths to reply.

“Would it kill you to admit to your own mistakes instead of blaming me? You're the ones who leave your stupid dangerous weapons laying all over your death trap of a house! It's a miracle that it's taken this long for one of them to blow up in your faces! In fact, you know what? Forget about me causing this, I’m the only reason you’re still alive right now!”

Danny’s feet started to lift off the ground.

“All you ever think about is hunting me down, blaming me for random destruction, ripping me apart molecule by molecule, and nothing is ever going to change that, is it? No matter how many times I save this whole town, or you, or your family, I can do no right, just because I’m a ghost. You think I’m some sort of- of- monster! A freak! Evil! Even though I’ve only ever tried to help!”

Out of the corner of his eye, Danny could see Jazz frantically motioning for him to stop, to be quiet, or to just leave, but he was too upset to care. Even when Jack blinked a couple times, head swiveling and eyebrows furrowing together, Danny ignored him. Looks couldn’t kill, and ghosts couldn’t die, but Danny’s mom was trying her hardest anyways, and Danny was determined to give as good as he got.

“I don’t know what you have against me,” he hissed, now looming over the elder Fentons from mid-air, “But it’s going to get you hurt. What happens if one of your inventions malfunctions again when I’m not there? What if—“

The rubble shifted, and Danny’s ears pricked up. His next breath escaped as a frozen blue fog.

Figured.

Danny barely had time to throw up a wobbly ghost shield before something rammed into his back, knocking the air out of him on impact. Whatever it was crashed through the shield as if it were tissue paper, and as both of them went careening into the side of the building, Danny couldn’t help but think that surely, surely, nothing could make this situation any worse.

-

Maddie leapt out of the path of the two howling ghosts, blaster still at the ready, absolutely seething. Phantom thought he could lecture her? The useless apparition was clearly laboring under the delusion that he had any right to haunt this city - a delusion she would be all too happy to disabuse him of.

Before she could give chase to the two ghosts, though, a large hand closed around her arm. All of the sharp words poised on the top of her tongue died the moment she saw the look in Jack’s eyes.

In a voice filled with dread, he said, “Where’s Danny?”

-

Danny was no stranger to having his nose shoved into brick walls, and unlike Dash, there was nothing stopping him from holding back against this thing. The moment he was close enough, he went intangible, wiggling out of the thing’s vice-like grip, and dove through the wall.

Then it occurred to him that whatever this ghost was, it might not have any qualms about blasting straight into what appeared to be someone’s dining room, and he screeched to a stop.

Oddly enough, Danny couldn’t make out any of the tell-tale sounds of pursuit; even the expected crash from impact with the wall - and as heavy as this thing was, there would have been an impact - was absent. Cautiously, Danny floated up through the ceiling and attic of the house and back into the open air.

It was gone.

Now, he hadn’t gotten a good look at it, what with being tackled from behind and all, but he was fairly sure this thing was large. Not rampaging-ghost-chicken-weasel-leveling-the-Nasty-Burger large, but definitely bigger than him. Maybe about the size of Skulker.

Could it have been Skulker? Danny frowned as he raked his eyes over the suspiciously quiet rooflines. It didn’t seem quite like his style. Plus, Skulker had whatever creepy amount of experience hunting ghosts - he would have no trouble hiding the fact that he was still hanging around after an attack, and right now Danny could tell as clear as day that he was being watched.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Danny muttered, eyes darting warily from side to side. “You’re new around here, aren’t you? If you want, we can talk this over and I can send you right back to the Ghost Zone—“

The attack came out of nowhere. One second he was floating, semi-concealed in the shadow of a chimney stack, and the next he was halfway across the city. Danny blinked spots of green and the afterimage of the insanely strong energy blast from his vision, finding himself elbow deep in the hole he’d plowed into the dirt.

Every bone in his body felt bruised, and his brain almost seemed to slosh around in his skull when he groaned and let his head fall back, but there was no time to recover. He had landed in the park, and already he could hear approaching footsteps.

It was a steady rhythm, a heavy clunking that somehow managed to echo as the ghost crossed the cobblestone path and the soft mossy underbrush. The boots, when they finally came to a stop less than a foot away from Danny, looked like bricks. In fact, the entire ghost, when Danny craned his neck back to look up at it, was built like a tank. This close, there was no mistaking it for Skulker - unless Skulker had suddenly decided to swap the buzz lightyear wings and ray guns for a suit that looked kinda like the heavy duty Hazmats Danny’s parents kept in storage.

The ghost’s suit was black with white highlights, its zippers and buckles melted into bubbling lumps. Pulsing, acidic green goo dripped from a crack in its otherwise blank and empty faceplate and snaked up its left arm from a passive rip in the palm of its glove. From behind those fissures, an incongruous shadow moved, just slightly out of sync with the crinkling of the suit's material: the barest suggestion of something else moving inside the suit.

“So I guess that’s a no on the going back to the Ghost Zone thing,” Danny quipped weakly. The suit did not respond. Its shadow fell over his face, and the sunlight that caught its edges flickered almost imperceptibly with minute distortions of the air, like arcs of electricity or flares on the surface of the sun.

“Not much of a talker, huh?” Danny discreetly braced his arms against the ground and shifted his weight. “That’s alright. I can say your lines for you.”

They both sprang into action at the same moment - but Danny was just a bit faster. He dodged the suit’s lunge and zipped around to aim an ecto-blast at its back. It barely seemed to notice the attack, and Danny had to swerve mid-air to remain in its blind spot as it swung around to grab at him. The suit moved with surprising speed for something so clunky.

“Hey, get back here!” Danny said in a comically deep and slightly stupid voice that seemed to fit the suit, darting under a frighteningly fast swipe. Then, in his normal voice, “No, sorry, I’m good. I’d rather not get blasted into next week again. That blast was crazy strong, man, could you teach me how to do that?”

Predictably, this garnered no response, but the suit did catch Danny off guard when it feinted right and caught him with a kick that landed solidly in his gut and sent him flying.

Something snapped in Danny’s ankle, and he ground his teeth to keep from shouting. He fused his legs into a tail and sighed when the pain diminished slightly; he would just have to deal with that later.

“Wow,” Danny gritted out, “talk about giving someone the boot.”

“Yeah, I got a real kick out of that,” he said in the suit’s voice, darting off into the trees to buy himself a few moments to think. The heavy footsteps were loud behind him as he flew.

Ectoblasts were clearly not the way to go if he wanted to beat this ghost. Forget about not being hurt by the blasts, the thing had almost seemed to be absorbing them, and the last thing Danny wanted to do was give it even more of an energy boost. So if ectoblasts were out, what did that leave him?

Shields, duplication if he wanted to try scaring the ghost into submission - his last attempt had produced two separate bodies and there had technically been the right number of limbs and eyes between them - ice powers he still wasn’t great at controlling, a little bit of electricity, and the ghostly wail. He could also try punching it, but somehow, he doubted that would be very effective.

What he really needed was a way to contain it. Unfortunately, the Thermos had been sitting on his desk at home - which meant he would never see it again - and while Tucker and Sam each had backups, he had no way of finding them, and no interest in leading the suit anywhere near them. That left only the other ghost hunters. Assuming Danny could stall the suit until Valerie arrived, the knock-off Thermos Vlad had given her would be the best option of containment. Once the suit was captured, he could worry about getting it back from Valerie without also getting caught, and return it to the GZ, hopefully never to be seen again.

Decided, Danny nodded to himself - and was just about to change direction when it dawned on him that he could no longer hear the thundering footsteps. Had he lost it?

The answer to that, as it became apparent not seconds later, was a resounding no.

The suit lurched out from behind the trunk of a towering oak tree, palm raised and glowing. Danny yelped and banked hard left just in time to avoid getting a face full of toxic green sludge. He zig-zagged between the trees in an attempt to make himself a harder target to hit, but when he glanced back over his shoulder, the suit was gone.

It popped out from behind another tree in Danny’s path, and once again he barely evaded the stream of goo that erupted from its hand. Twice more this happened, the suit disappearing from behind him only to emerge ahead of him before Danny finally got the message.

The ghost didn’t seem to be able to fly. What other way could it get around other than teleportation?

Even on high alert, Danny couldn’t avoid the sudden attacks forever, and eventually, the suit caught him. “Uh oh,” was all he managed as a gloved hand closed around the end of his spectral tail; then he was being swung around too fast for anything other than just, “AAAHHHH!”

When the suit finally got tired of playing spinning top, it leaned forward and heaved Danny, still hollering at the top of his lungs, over its shoulder and into the ground. At this point, Danny did what he probably should have done to begin with: he turned intangible and slipped free of its grasp, twisting in the air to latch onto the domed helmet of the Hazmat and anchoring his tail around its upper torso to keep it from throwing him off.

“Dude,” he said, still winded from however many G’s of force that thing had had him under, “I think you need to chill out.”

Frost began to creep across the scratchy fabric of the hazmat, and Danny grinned as the suit’s movements went from aggressive to almost panicky. When the frost reached the warped zippers and buckles, slowly encrusting the fissure in the faceplate, the suit began thrashing frantically. It staggered around, arms beating ineffectively at nothing, and the strangest sort of noise started to rise from inside it. It was at once a high-pitched whining and a low, groaning rumble; caught somewhere in the middle, drowned out by the rest of the noise, was a sound what carried the faintest trace of human speech.

“Are you… trying to say something?” Danny asked, expression tightening with confusion and attention slipping just slightly. That was all the opening the suit needed to toss him off its back and into a nearby tree. Danny would be picking splinters out of his butt for days, and that wasn’t even the most of his problems.

The suit’s joints creaked with cold, and more glowing green cracks were beginning to spread through the fabric and plastic. The tiny energy flares he had seen before were much larger now, and carried the slightest tint of color. Angry green energy swirled around the savaged palm, and Danny was sure that if it had had a face, the ghost would have been glaring daggers at him.

Danny tried to call a beam of ice, like Frostbite had shown him, but apparently his core had had enough; it spluttered and coughed pitifully in his chest, and all that Danny could manage was a handful of shards of what could generously be called ice. They dropped into the grass several feet short of the looming suit, which actually stopped and tilted its head down to stare at them.

“Oh yeah?” Danny could practically hear it saying, and didn’t bother to translate that out loud. Once it finally decided to stop being a comedian, the suit continued its slow advance. Danny knew it could move faster than that. The stupid ghost was doing this purely for the drama of it.

The green goop started to get thicker, and a drop of it popped and hissed out of its glove and landed on Danny’s foot. Yelping at the cold sensation, followed rapidly by pins and needles, and finally a slowly spreading numbness, Danny ducked around to the other side of the tree - where the suit was once again already waiting for him.

He couldn’t outrun it. He couldn’t trap it. He couldn’t even seem to slow it down. With no sign of backup on the way, that left Danny with one option. Casting his eyes around for any other way out of this, he missed the first glob of goop flying towards his shoulder. The white-hot chill that began to radiate out of the suddenly unresponsive arm made up his mind for him. Screwing his eyes shut, Danny dug his fingers into the dirt, sucked in a breath, and—

The trees bowed low to the ground as birds, squirrels, and insects of all types flurried madly out of the park and away to safety. The suit’s heavy boots dug into the ground, its arms lifting as if to shield itself. It held out for an admirable amount of time - long enough that Danny’s vision started to go gray around the edges - but even it was not immune to the Ghostly Wail.

The last thing Danny saw before he passed out was the starburst of cracks that was beginning to appear along the seams of the Hazmat suit.

-

Jack and Maddie had almost made it downtown - reduced to running in the direction the ghosts had gone, as all of their vehicles had gone up in smoke with the house - when the sound of Phantom’s newest and most devastating power split the air. Maddie pressed her lips into a thin line. The fight was not going well, then.

“Come on, Jack,” she urged, lengthening her strides, and he grunted in acknowledgment. The park was a five minute walk from central downtown, and they were flat-out sprinting.

They made it just in time to be just barely too late.

Past a certain point, the entire park looked like it had been hit with an industrial leaf blower, and as Jack and Maddie crept cautiously across the divide from normal to abnormal, all the sound in the world seemed to disappear. Only the line blaring of a car alarm somewhere in the distance broke the silence; it felt oppressive. Watchful. The sick curdle of fear, rage, and worry in Maddie’s gut intensified.

They had not been able to find Danny.

When they finally make it to the epicenter of the destruction, where the force of Phantom’s attack had ripped several full-grown trees out of the ground by their roots, Maddie’s hand flew to cover her mouth, and the arm holding her blaster sagged. Jack wasn’t quick enough to stifle his cry of alarm, and the… thing jerked around to look at them both.

It was like no ghost Maddie had ever seen. Stars - honest-to-goodness constellations - flickered inside a distinct, if completely lifeless, void in the shape of a human being. When it moved, the stars remain fixed in place, as if the ghost’s body did not so much contain them as provide a window into some other plane of reality where they glimmered unknowably. Only the ghost’s eyes, twin swirling vortexes of white and silver, and the ends of its limbs, encased in ghostly green resin-like structures that looked almost like the claws of a wild animal, signaled the ghost’s true inner evil. Its appearance was simple, and without the claws, unthreatening. But Maddie knew the reality of it, it and every other ghost just like it. That knowledge was a burden, and one which she bore with a heavy heart and steadfast determination.

How did she know, with such terrible certainty, that the ghost was malicious?

Because it stood over the limp body of her son, who looked very small indeed curled on the ground as shivers wracked his body.

“Danny!” The shout ripped from her throat, and the strange ghost flinched. It bobbed unsteadily in the air for only as long as it too Jack and Maddie to train their blasters on it, at which point it lunged faster than thought - at Danny.

“No!” chorused the Fentons, but it was already too late to stop it. The moment the ghost’s clawed hand closed around her son’s arm, both he and it vanished in a spinning torrent of ectoplasm.

-

Danny woke up to a stabbing pain behind his eyes and a scratchy feeling in his throat - the memory of using the Wail followed shortly after. He tried to bolt upright, and he would have managed it, too, if not for the fact that the ceiling was right there to meet him.

With a yelp - more startled than pained - Danny flopped back down, resigned for the moment to just blink confusedly at what looked to be the underside of a riveted steel beam.

“What,” he muttered, and jumped again when there was a pointed cough from somewhere off to the side.

“Actually,” said a voice. His voice. “I have the same question.”

Danny rolled into his side - noting that he must have de-transformed after the Wail - just in time to see… himself, possibly… gesture frustratedly at him, at himself, and at the bridge that they were apparently hiding under. Weird.

Really weird.

“What is happening?” demanded the ghost, and Danny dropped his head onto his arms in despair. It wasn’t just the recordings, then. His voice really did sound like that. What a nightmare this day was turning out to be.

“I have a concussion,” Danny mumbled.

“Sorry about that,” said the ghost sheepishly, wince audible in its voice. His voice?

Really, really, really weird.

“Who are you?” The ghost finally asked, when Danny continued to lay there like a slug. Reluctantly, Danny lifted his head to squint at him.

“I’m Danny Fenton,” he said, and the ghost shook his head slowly.

“No, you can’t be.”

The sunlight was too strong. Danny closed his eyes. “Why not,” he snapped, annoyed and trying to ignore how the adrenaline from the fight was finally working its way out of his sore joints.

There was a flash of white light, blinding even behind closed eyelids, and when Danny finally opened his eyes, he found that he was actually, truly staring at a perfect double of himself.

“Amorpho, if this is some sort of sick joke, I’m going to beat your ass,” Danny said wearily.

“Even if I was Amorpho, I don’t think you could,” the double said matter of fact-ly, which, alright, might have been true. Danny scowled and tossed an arm over his eyes.

“I really am sorry about beating you up so much,” said the double after a moment. “I swear, one minute I was minding my own business, trying to toss Youngblood back into the Ghost Zone, the next I was in a pile of rubble and it looked like you were about to attack my parents. I sort of freaked out.”

Danny held up a finger.

“Okay, first of all, you didn’t beat me up that much, I’m perfectly fine.” He lifted his arm and caught the other Danny’s skeptical look. “I’ve had worse.”

“I’m never this bad after a fight,” commented Other Danny.

“Yeah, well, you also had that stupid giant indestructible suit.” Danny paused. “Uh… I guess it’s my turn to apologize. I’m sorry, man, I didn’t mean to total it like that, I guess I freaked out, too.”

“Don’t worry about it. It was starting to fall apart anyway.” Other Danny waited until Danny’s eyes were covered before going ghost again. “This is going to take some getting used to, though.”

“Honestly I’m kinda jealous.”

Other Danny looked at him with mute surprise. “Jealous?”

“Yeah. I wish my ghost form looked that cool.”

Other Danny’s hands dropped into his lap, and he stared at them - and the wickedly curved claws at their ends - with narrowed eyes. Then,

“I’ll always look like a monster, no matter what,” he spat, and even though he had no distinct facial features besides eyes, Danny could hear how he was scowling.

A monster, huh?

“You aren’t a monster,” Danny said, feeling like a little bit of a hypocrite, and received an angry glare in return.

“That’s easy for you to say,” seethed Other Danny, “You look practically normal! I bet no one has thrown crosses at you or tried to hunt you down with actual pitchforks.”

Danny winced.

“…Really?”

“Some things never change, I guess.” Still, as disheartening as that was, Danny chose to find the silver lining. “But think of it this way: it has nothing to do with how we look or how we fight. They’re always going to find something wrong with us.”

Other Danny’s gaze was still trained on his claws, but Danny could tell he was listening. It was a bit weird, this whole ‘talking to himself’ thing, but it was strangely therapeutic. Jazz was going to have a field day with this when he told her.

“If they’re always going to assume the worst, then all we can do is prove them wrong,” Danny said. “Besides, I don’t know about you, but I don’t do this so they’ll love me. It would be nice if they did, but just them being safe is enough for me.”

Other Danny nodded thoughtfully.

“I guess you’re right,” he said. “And I guess as long as Sam and Tucker don’t think I’m a monster, that’s what really matters.”

“Jazz, too. And…” Danny hesitated. “And it also matters what you think. Ghosts are different than people. You are what you think you are. The more like a monster you think you are, the more like a monster you’ll look. And, if Vlad is any indication, you’ll start to act that way, too.”

“I hadn’t thought of it like that.” Other Danny scratched one claw tip in the dust that coated the ledge they were hiding on, delicately etching a picture of a spider lily into the grime. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Okay, good.” Danny’s head ached fiercely as he struggled to regather what he had been trying to say earlier. “Then going back to the original point, with what you said about how you got here. I wasn’t attacking Mom and Dad, I’m just annoyed at them, and… I’m sorry, but I'm pretty sure they’re my parents. You said the last thing you remember was tossing Youngblood back into the Zone, but I remember everything leading up to the explosion. One of us reality hopped, and dude, I don’t think it was me.”

Other Danny let out an explosive sigh that trailed off into a frustrated groan at the end.

“This is like the third time this has happened,” he complained, and Danny nodded sympathetically. Must be part of the whole ‘ghost superhero’ thing.

“Alright, so are we going to Clockwork or Frostbite for this one?” Danny asked. The double raised his hands in surrender.

“It’s your reality, you decide.”

“Gee thanks.”

Both options presented their own problems, even discounting travel distance. If they went to Clockwork, there was no guarantee that he wouldn’t laugh them right out of his lair, or worse yet, help them and wrap it up in yet another deeply traumatic lesson about the fragile nature of time and free will.

Pass.

The Far Frozen was more likely to be welcoming, but the Infini-Map was not quite a perfect trump card of a solution. If there was a doorway for Other Danny to get back home through, it would find it, but if there wasn’t, they were out of luck.

On the other hand…

The Frostbite could probably help Danny recover from this godawful concussion and maybe help with his definitely sprained ankle. Plus, it was always nice to see him. Yeti hugs were the best thing in any of the infinite realms.

If they happened to catch Clockwork in one of his rare and unpredictable helpful moods, the time ghost might be willing to do a total reset for them. Slim as the possibility was, it was a tantalizing one.

No more destroyed house, no more upset parents, no more totaled city park…

No change to the status quo. Normalcy.

But was that really what he wanted?

Danny’s excuse had always been, “I’m waiting for the right time to tell them,” but when it came to his parents and ghosts, there was no right time. They had made it very clear that they would not be willing to reframe their views on ghosts - unless he forced them to.

And with the house totaled, practically all of their tech gone, years of work and the Portal itself literally reduced to smoking ruins, there would never be a better time for them to salt the earth and start to move on. It could be a fresh start, if only Danny could gather the courage to give them a nudge in the right direction. They would love him no matter what. He knew that.

Even if it took them a while to come to terms with things, they would still love him.

Danny weighed his options one last time, then sighed.

“Can you teleport us to the Far Frozen?” he asked heavily. “The Portal is history. Its implosion in the chain reaction is probably what brought you here in the first place.”

“Yeah, alright.” Other Danny shuffled around a bit for a second - when Danny peered out from under his arm, he had to snort at the sight of the other ghost trying and failing to float over from across the ledge. It looked like he was trying to doggy paddle in the air.

“First time flying?” Danny snickered, and a gap appeared in Other Danny’s featureless face just wide enough for him to stick his tongue out at Danny.

“That’s the price I pay for wearing the proper safety equipment,” muttered Other Danny, digging his claws into the steel in an attempt to find purchase. “Stupid heavy junk.”

Danny snorted. “You’ll love flying, once you get the hang of it. Until then, I think I’ll take a nap.”

“Oh, shut up.”

Other Danny did eventually manage to grab hold of him, and in the space of a blink, they were floating above the densely packed snow of Frostbite’s domain. The chill ripped right through Danny, and with a grimace, he transformed back into his ghost form. They made their way to the gates of the city, where he was instantly recognized and herded into Frostbite’s office post-haste. Danny waved hi to some of the yeti he recognized; they all went a bit stiff and hurried out of accidental blasting range before waving back.

Steaming mugs of hot cocoa were pressed into their hands as soon as they were seated, and Frostbite listened with interest as Danny and Other Danny took turns explaining what had happened. The reality jumping was not new. But Frostbite seemed fascinated by Other Danny’s detailing of his emergence from the suit.

“Incredible,” Frostbite murmured, a considering look on his face. “I have heard of this before, but never had the chance to study it firsthand. Would you mind if I run some tests on you both before sending you back home? Having a baseline as well as a record of your peculiarities would be most enlightening.”

Both Dannys looked at each other and shrugged in sync. It was a small price to pay for use of the Infini-Map; Danny was fine with it as long as he didn’t have to be naked in any more vats of mystery healing liquid.

-

Danny’s watch read nearly eight in the evening, Amity Park time, when Frostbite finally declared them both sound and ready to use the Map.

They both held their breath as the murky ink stains on the parchment began to bleed into recognizable patterns and formations.

“Thank goodness,” said Other Danny, when the image of a slightly lopsided portal solidified on the paper. “Could I use the Map to teleport there and back quickly? Once I’ve been somewhere once, I can go back anytime I want.”

“I suppose so,” Frostbite said, reluctant to part with the Map but allowing it anyway. As soon as Other Danny had it in his hands, he disappeared with a pop.

He was back just as quickly, and handed the Map back over with a crinkle in his eyes that suggested a smile. Frostbite returned the smile with a gusty sigh, as though it had been gone for hours instead of mere seconds.

Other Danny turned back to Danny. “When your house exploded, do you think it destroyed the other side of the portal, too?”

That was a good question. Danny frowned, wishing he understood the science behind his parents’ weird genius tech a bit better, and tried to think about it logically.

In conventional physics, when one side of a doorway is destroyed, so is the other side. In ghost physics though? Who knew. The other side of the portal might still be fixed in its spot in the wastes, just hovering and swirling on as if nothing had happened at all.

But that didn’t necessarily mean it still let out to the same place.

Danny shuddered as his mind immediately supplied all of the most horrible and horrifying possibilities for a portal that itself was already an abomination rip in the fabric of reality. He was going to have to worry about that eventually, he could already tell, but not right now. He was too tired to deal with that right now.

“It better have,” Danny said, feeling a little bit sick. “Please just teleport me home.”

-

Other Danny dropped him off in the park - where his phone immediately got service and just about spontaneously combusted in his pocket.

“Good luck,” Other Danny said with a sympathetic wince. “Do you… want me to stick around? In case they take it really badly?”

“No,” Danny shook his head and powered down his phone. “They’ll be fine. Besides, that portal didn’t look super stable, so you’d better hurry. Good luck to you too.”

Other Danny nodded, waved goodbye, and disappeared. All things considered, Danny had had to corral worse things back into their own realities, but he still hoped he never saw Other Danny ever again. With luck, that whole situation would resolve itself and he would have one less thing to worry about.

-

Maddie Fenton startled awake from her doze on the motel sofa. For a moment, she wasn’t sure what had woken her - then there was another clink of metal on ceramic and what sounded like the crunching of cornflakes.

Slowly, hardly daring to breathe, she turned her head.

Danny was sitting calmly at the cheap laminate board table on a rickety old dining chair, shoveling cereal into his mouth and looking absolutely none the worse for wear. Maddie had to pinch herself. Was this a hallucination? Stress from the hours of frantically combing the city and raging at the vanished Portal combined with the horrible gas station burrito she’d had for dinner?

Danny looked up from his cereal and met her gaze levelly.

“Hi Mom,” he said, perfectly serene, “Could you get Dad, please? There’s something I need to tell you...”

[kohakuarisaka]

Untamed (chapter 2 of 5)

Takami Keigo x (fem!)Reader

[ SUMMARY ] Every year, without fail, Hawks went into a rut: when autumn began, and then again in early spring. He would honker down up north in a secluded cabin. For the first time, he brought you with him.

[ WARNINGS ] R18+ for graphic sexual content and language. Non-canon compliant: Hawks’ quirk does not work like this. Reader is a hero that works at Hawks agency. Pre-existing relationship. Reader is a female with female genitalia. Feral behavior. Rutting. Biting. Spanking. Slight BDSM. Consensual sex. Wing kink. Oral sex. Romantic relationship.

Chapter 1 • Chapter 2 • Chapter 3 • Chapter 4 • Chapter 5

[ My BNHA Fanfic Masterlist ] ~ [ Also on my AO3 ]

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As it turned out, 'secluded cabin' was a pretty accurate statement.

Hawks had arranged for a very discreet hero taxi service to drive you the 5-hour trip from Musutafu to a quaint mountainous village that was so small and quiet, you almost doubted it was even on the map.

Past the snowy village, through the winding roads and towering trees, over a bridge, past a frozen lake, and then some miles off the main road, tucked away in a small clearing, was a beautiful cabin.

While the days were steadily growing warmer as spring rapidly approached, it still snowed at night. The snow had melted off the trees from the warmth of the midday sun; but, there was still a light blanket of white on the rooftop and across the surrounding grounds.

There were no poles lining the street, nothing that could bring electricity to the house; however, you could see what was likely a generator tucked away in the back. Someone had propped the cover off and cleaned out the snow.

At that sight, it became obvious that Hawks had beat you here. He already taken to clearing the snow out of the entry way as well, exposing a beautiful cobblestone pathway.

You exited the vehicle and retrieved your bags from the trunk. The very second you closed the hatch, the driver made a speedy exit, wheels skidding in the snow as they backed out before doing a sharp U-turn and barreling down the road.

Luckily, the entrance to the cabin opened before you could worry that you had just been abandoned in the middle of nowhere. Sure enough, Hawks stepped out, wild blonde locks brushed back, a little fluffier than usual due to the change in humidity.

Despite how cold it was, he was wearing a black tank top and loose, light grey sweat pants. He even stepped out onto the cold stone pathway with bare feet. Yet, with a light flush to his skin, he didn't look cold at all.

You had been making a face when he approached, and he offered an explanation, uttering, "I told 'em not to linger. It's suspicious."

Some large plumes departed his wingspan and grabbed at your luggage, one even pulling your shoulder bag off your back. They whipped away, bags in tow, and zipped past Hawks and through the doorway, disappearing into the cabin.

The winged hero didn't immediately usher you inside, as he usually did in these types of situations, but arched over you suddenly, arms bringing you into a tight embrace while his lips captured yours.

The sudden closeness forced your back to arch. Unconsciously, your hands fell onto his barely clothed shoulders, and you felt how warm he was. If you didn't know any better, you would have thought he was running a fever.

The kiss was brief, but uncharacteristically messy, not that you were complaining. It was a kiss of longing, like he had missed you dearly, as if it had been months and not a day and a half.

He pulled back, a distant, albeit blissful, look on his face. His eyelids sagged as if he was tired, but the gold of his iris was bright and his pupils were focused.

"I didn't get to clean yet, but - ugh - do you wanna see inside?" he asked, some slight nervousness to his tone.

"Yeah," you breathed.

Hawks stepped aside and you gently brushed past him and stepped inside. The wood floors creaked softly beneath your feet as you crossed the threshold. Immediately, you were hit with a wonderful scent, earthy, like tree bark, but sweet, like raw honey.

It was a decent sized cabin, spacious and not heavily furnished. The kitchen was on the small side, but seemingly to accommodate a larger living room.

As Hawks had warned, there was a thin layer of dust all across the wood floors. The furniture was covered by clear tarps, shielding them from the debris.

The dining area tucked away in the corner had a chabudai in place of a western style table. It was small and clearly only intended for two people. You had a feeling it was new, considering how spotless it looked compared to the rest of the cabin.

A huge, stone fireplace rested against the north wall, surrounded by large windows that gave a beautiful view of the outside. They were adorned with heavy curtains, pulled back to let the sunlight in.

Hawks was lingering, following close, staring down at you as you walked around and took in the sight of the place. When your eyes landed on him, and you caught his unblinking stare, you realized he was awaiting feedback.

It startled you a little, for Hawks wasn't the kind to fuss over these sorts of things; but, you had a decent enough understanding of what a rut was to know what was going through his head.

"Relax, birdbrain," you cooed, reaching up to tap gently at his cheek with a closed palm. That seemed to knock him out of his stupor, for he blinked and suddenly looked sheepish. He flickered his gold eyes away, as if to give you space.

"I love it," you praised, looking back into the living area. "Cozy, and smells nice."

You heard him exhale a relieved sigh through his nostrils.

"We should get to work. Where's the cleaning stuff?" you asked, peeling your jacket off.

"Oh. I'll-" he began.

"You'll let me help," you interrupted him gently.

When you turned back to face him, and saw the bewildered expression he was wearing, you wondered if maybe that wasn't the right thing to fit with his current state.

"Unless that's... bad?" you offered uncertainly, shoulders sagging.

Hawks laughed suddenly at the sunken expression on your face, as if the joyous sound came sputtering out against his will.

"No," he answered softly, leaning in suddenly for another kiss, as if he couldn't help it. You didn't get a chance to kiss back before he was retreating.

"Don't change," he sighed. "I want you as you, not as my..."

"-subservient housewife?" you offered, just a little teasing.

He chuckled softly, breathing out a harsh, "fuck, no."

Hawks maneuvered around you and headed for what you guessed was a supply closet. Inside, the cleaning gear was also neatly packaged in containers and safe from dust.

It made sense, how neatly arranged everything was. Hawks was a fairly neat person; but, it was also clear that he had this whole thing down, neatly tuned and properly sorted out. He had been coming here for years, after all.

This place was special to him. That much was clear.

The two of you started to dusting and sweeping, followed by a diligent mopping, with the two of you working in tandem.

Hawks was fairly quiet during the whole ordeal, seemingly focused sternly on the task at hand. It had been his nest for years. This was hardly anything new; but, it was now going to be yours, too.

He didn't tell you that he had been worried he would react negatively to your presence. He didn't always react rationally during this time. Seemingly average things would sometimes irritate him, and a part of the possessive onslaught included this abode.

Fortunately, that hadn't been the case. Cleaning the cabin with you was soothing. He wasn't unaware of the obvious implication: that you were preparing a nest together, your shared nest. He didn't say it aloud, but you had come to that realization, as well.

It had actually calmed him quite a bit. He had been on edge before you arrived, skin prickled with heat and sweating unreasonably considering the cold. Those weren't abnormal during his ruts; but, it felt intensified with that knowledge that you were going to be here.

Darkness swept across the forest as the hours dragged on. Luckily, you were just about finished by the time it got dark.

There was a neat stack of firewood arranged on a carrier near the fireplace, making you wonder if that was what he had worked on before your arrival. The logs looked freshly cut and heavy.

Crimson feathers delivered logs to the hearth. Hawks retrieved a set of matches from a cubby near the carrier and then kneeled before the hearth. He set one of the matches ablaze and carefully ignited the firewood arranged in the pit.

Warmth and light flooded the cabinet. Plumes gathered along the edges of the curtains and pulled them back, covering the windows. When they returned to his wingspan, he stepped back and monitored the fire briefly.

While cleaning, you had learned there was a cellar and partial second story, as well as an indoor bathroom. It seemed that the main use of the generator was to power the water heater and indoor plumbing.

The cellar was small, down a short flight of stairs, with concrete floors and walls, the perfect size for containing a month's worth of food and supplies, far more than was necessary for just a week.

The second story was a loft that oversaw the living room, giving a great view of the fireplace. There was no safety railing on the upstairs, likely for the very obvious fact that Hawks could fly. There was, at least, a staircase.

Upstairs, there was a large bed frame with a plush mattress, wrapped up tight to protect from dust, a large chest pressed up against the wall, and a desk without a chair.

After he removed the bed cover, you watched Hawks pull neatly folded blankets and pillow cases out the chest. It was fascinating to see someone, who normally slept wherever his body landed, so meticulously prepare the bedding: layers and layers of blankets, followed by dressing the pillows and laying them out.

It was especially perplexing because of the intense, concentrated look on his face. He had been so focused that he hadn't even realized that you had paused what you were doing to watch him.

Luckily, you caught yourself staring before he did, and shuffled back downstairs before he could notice.

A sudden howling had startled you, before a sharp wind rattled against the shutters. Something was thumping gently against the roof and when the wind picked up, you could almost hear the trees shuddering outside.

"It's snowing," Hawks observed, suddenly at your side.

You could see a glimpse of crimson in the corner of your eye, and realized he had a wing fanned out around you, not quite close enough to touch, but hovering. Maybe, he hadn't even realized he was doing that.

"Oh," you answered quietly.

Together, you prepared dinner, settling for a classic favorite of his: yakitori chicken and stir fry noodles.

Eating dinner together, and talking about nothing, made you realize, it had been the first time in a long time, if ever, that you hadn't discussed work: nothing about the agency, nothing about heroes or villains, nothing about police business or missions.

It was just senseless conversations that amounted to nothing.

The dining table was small and the floor was cold; but, your hands brushed constantly due to the lack of space. It made you realize that you had longed to have this type of moment with him, something so utterly domestic.

"I know it's not super late," Hawks began, on his way to the kitchen with the dirty plates. "But, I'm gonna wake you up early; so, let's get to bed, okay?"

His voice was soft, surprisingly drowsy, you realized, and he continued, "it's - well, there's something I wanna show you, and it looks best in the sunrise."

He had started the dishes before you could; so, you stepped in close, deciding to tease him a little.

"I bet you do look best in the sunrise," you uttered, leaning against the counter top near the sink, where he had busied his hands. He was looking away from you; but, you could see his lip twitch into a faint smile.

Hawks laughed, a low chuckle that rumbled through his chest. "Not me," he replied softly. Yet, he found himself feeling enamored with the knowledge that that was where your mind had wandered first.

"Do you want me to wait for you?" you offered, standing upright and shifting away from the counter.

"Nah," he replied simply. "I'll join ya' in a bit."

You changed into your pajamas, brushed your teeth and pulled your hair back, before heading upstairs. Blankets and pillows were stacked high on top of the mattress, making the bedframe disappear beneath it.

It not only looked incredibly warm, but incredibly soft, and an inspection with your hand, smoothing over the surface, confirmed that. There were several pillows pressed against the headboard and even more at the foot of the bed.

If you hadn't seen him arrange it, you would have doubted it was even Hawks' bed. From the glimpses you had seen into his life, he was a minimalist.

His office at the agency was fairly large, but looked almost comical with the lack of furniture in it. He wasn't one to buy much of anything outside of perishables.

"Take those off."

You had heard that commanding tone many times before; but, in the peace and serenity of this cabin, it startled you. Your shoulders twitched a little and you turned to face him, having not heard Hawks approach.

His gold eyes were glaring at your body, shifting up to meet your gaze when you turned to face him.

You gawked back at him, dumbfounded by his boldness, and a little intrigued, if you were being honest. He had warned you about this, and you were about to comply when his dark expression suddenly softened.

"Oh fuck," Hawks blurted, embarrassment washing over his face. The intensity of the moment dissipated and you found yourself unable to hold back a faint smile at the way his face so rapidly changed from anger to shame.

"Shit - I - sorry - ugh," he stammered, some redness tinting the tops of his ears. His dominant hand came up and ruffled his hair. "That was messed up. Ah - what I mean is, can we sleep naked?"

It was clear he wasn't embarrassed about the request, but the way that he had asked. You couldn't hold back a soft chuckle at his frazzled state.

"Of course," you uttered, and began shedding your clothes.

He was staring at your nudity as if it wasn't something he had seen many times before, as if his hands and mouth hadn't explored every inch of skin, hadn't touched and claimed parts of you your own hands couldn't reach.

It made you feel powerful, beautiful.

"Did you brush your teeth?" you asked, knocking him out of his stupor.

He didn't respond, but made a face that gave you your answer. He turned away then, and hopped over the edge of the loft, floating down into the lower floor, and scurried off to the bathroom.

Promptly, you disappeared beneath the blankets, shivering from the cold, skin prickled with goosebumps. You were about to scold yourself for complying with him so eagerly, without demanding a compromise, mainly that you expected him to warm you up.

Luckily, it didn't take him long to join you, and you suddenly felt a very warm, and very naked, body slot into the space behind you, wiggling beneath the blankets. It was almost concerning how warm he was, like he had just flung himself into the hearth before running back over here.

You rolled onto your back to greet him and Hawks wasted no time slotting over you, tangling legs, arms falling on either side of your head. Wispy bangs fell over his forehead, longer strands catching on his eyebrows.

Your eyes peered over his shoulders, where you could see his wings were fanned out above him, plumes stretched wide, looming possessively. When your gaze shifted to his face, your breath hitched.

His stare was hypnotizing, as if he couldn't believe you were here, gold eyes practically glowing in the dimly lit loft.

It made you sad to think just your presence alone had pleased him so much, whereas nothing else had yet to occur. It made you think of all the years he had to endure this alone, the loneliness far more straining than the lack of a pliant body.

"Hey," he began, voice hoarse, distant.

His dominant hand shifted from the bed to cup your cheek, thumb gently prodding at your cheek bone. Just like the rest of his body, his hand was so warm.

"I know I said I wouldn't let you leave," he explained, fingers sliding carefully across your temple. "But, if you want to, at any time, I'll call the taxi and-"

You leaned up, taking his lips in a gentle kiss to silence him. He moaned into the kiss, clearly surprised by your interruption. His hand departed your face, lowering to caress the side of your neck.

When you pulled back, he chased, not letting you depart from him quite so quickly. The kiss carried on for a short while, Hawks only leaning back when he was satisfied.

"No," you disagreed in a soft hum, hands rising to push strands of his hair out of his face. "I'm not leaving. We're going through this together. Okay?"

He let out a sigh that fluttered across your cheeks. "Okay," he agreed, as if he couldn't believe it.

Hawks shifted until he was lying beside you, one arm loose around your waist. You turned a little to lay on your side and lean into him, cheek falling comfortably into the pillow beneath your head, and felt him nuzzle into your back, bringing you as close as he could without ruining your comfort.

One of his wings folded carefully over you while the other sprawled out across the bed. The light from the fire just barely reached the loft, an amber glow that flickered with the dancing flames.

The sounds of the gentle snowfall outside was a little louder upstairs. One of the nearby windows rattled softly, trembling weakly from the breeze that shook the shutters. The rafters above creaked occasionally in melodic hums.

Behind you, Hawks' chest undulated with his breathing, moving against the skin of your back. His wings shifted ever so slightly in harmony with the expansion and shrinking of his lungs. The longer plumes on the ends twitched occasionally.

"Keigo?" you whispered.

He didn't answer. Judging by the way his arm had slackened where it rested over your waist, you figured he had fallen asleep already.

The bedding was soft, and you had no doubt that he had washed them diligently; yet, mingled with the earthy tones of the cabin, they smelt like him. The hearth crackled distantly, the sound a faint echo through the cabin.

It didn't take long to slip away.

• • •

• • •

Sometime in the middle of the night, you were woken by a strange sound. In your groggy state, it sounded like a distant animal cooing into the night.

Once you properly came to, you realized the warmth against your back had retreated. The blanket had been partially ripped away in the process, leaving the skin of your back exposed to the cold air of the cabin.

What had sounded far away you now realized was coming from right behind you, pained little noises and harsh wheezing. You rolled over to take in the sight of Hawks, blindly reaching for him in a moment of panic.

Worry struck you when your skin touched his. He had already been warm to the touch before; but now, his skin felt scorching, sticky with sweat. Your hand had landed on his chest, where you could feel his muscles rapidly rising and falling with each staggering breath.

The noise that had woken you became obvious then; he was panting, sharp and labored breaths that whooshed in and out of him, occasionally accompanied with a quiet, pained sound.

He had shoved the blankets away and was laying on his back, wings tucked in uncomfortably tight beneath him. Through the faint glow of warm light from the fireplace, you could see his chest raising and falling rapidly, head tossed back, face contorted in pain. Some strands of blonde locks were clinging to the sweat soaked skin on his face.

"Keigo - Keigo," you called to him, hands rising to his shoulders so you could shake him.

It wasn't until he jerked suddenly, eyes opening and head whipping towards you, that you realized he had been sleeping. His labored breathing intensified, but only for a second, before he started to calm down.

His gold eyes were glossy for a second, staring at you blindly, before he started to wake properly. His lips were parted, sharp breaths still escaping him in harsh wisps.

"Are you okay?" you whispered harshly. "Are you sick? You look-..."

You could see a bead of sweat rolling down his temple. Now, with him leaning up a little, you could see the flush of red tinting his skin, all down his chest and across his cheeks. His shoulder muscles were tight and his wings twitched helplessly beneath him.

"I'm f-fine," Hawks answered, voice low and hoarse. He swallowed roughly. "It's - it's a n-normal side effect."

"You're burning up," you hissed, hands touching his skin so carefully, like you would hurt him if you were too rough. "Are you sure you're okay?" you insisted.

"Just need-" he growled, cutting off as he tried to sit up.

His movement had repositioned your hands, causing them to drag from his shoulders to his chest, less you lose stability and collapse on top of him.

It was a familiar touch, a place you had touched him many times before; yet, he froze suddenly, gaze shifting down to your hands as if they were grounding him to this plane of existence.

Hawks' gold eyes fluttered shut and his pained expression softened. He flopped back on the bed, giving up his attempt to sit up as if he had suddenly lost all strength in his body.

Catching on, you uttered into the cold air, "is that what you need? Keigo, do you want me to-"

"Yes," he answered sharply, hissing through the cold, chilled air. He sounded relieved, thankful that you had offered before he had to ask.

"God, fuck - I - I need you, need to - to - be inside you-"

His babbling briefly ceased when you pushed the blankets off yourself and rolled on top of him, a gesture you had done many times before, now a nearly perfect art.

You watched, hypnotized as Hawks arched his back off the bed and flexed his wings until they were sprawled out on either side of him. The beautiful crimson plumes stretched out across the sheets, shuddering in faint waves that matched his heavy breathings.

In the shift, his cock became pinned against your inner thigh. If you didn't known any better, you would have thought he was prodding you with an iron rod pulled straight from the fires of a forge.

It was unbearably hot, hard as steel and painfully poking against your flesh. You could feel his heartbeat through his cock, throbbing against you as if pleading to be touched.

Arousal had never struck you this hard before, with enough force that it made your never regions throb and chest tighten. Blood rushed to your face so quickly, you briefly feared you would pass out.

Now, hovering, looking down at him, it was almost unbearable. It was clear that Hawks was in pain, and you felt a tinge of guilt at the realization that his state had aroused you.

But, the truth was, he looked stunning.

Maybe it was the red flush staining his skin, or the glisten of sweat, shiny with the reflection of the fire burning in the hearth. Maybe it was the way his gold eyes practically glowed through the darkness, staring up at you like a starving predator, glaring with dangerous intent.

Some sort of inhuman growl escaped him and Hawks grabbed at your meaty hips, roughly pulling you forward. It didn't take you long to figure out what he was doing; but, your attempts to aid were waisted, for he simply dragged you down to his liking, until the heat of your sex collided with his face ungracefully.

The first thing you registered was his mouth kissing sloppily at your sex. His tongue followed, lapping at your folds impatiently before breaching your heat. Hawks was always the kind to give sloppy oral; but, this was something else entirely.

He moaned shamelessly when his tongue registered your taste, hips rising off the bed as if attempting to chase a sensation that wasn't there.

Your hands fall onto the wall, and you tried to keep yourself up; but, he wasn't having it, growling and pulling you back down. It was difficult to not go dead weight when his tongue was lapping at your walls, mouth suctioned around your entrance like he was trying to suck juices from a ripe fruit.

One of your hands weaved through his hair, gently massaging his scalp in a praising gesture. It was difficult to get out sensible words. Instead, you moaned broken pieces of his name, thighs trembling on either side of his head.

You had no idea how much time had passed before he seemed satisfied and finally lifted you up enough to remove his mouth. The wet gasp that escaped him, suggesting he had been holding his breath, riddled you with shameful lust.

"You made a mess," Hawks observed deliriously.

He sounded immensely pleased with himself and even leaned in to take another taste, this time honing in on your pearl. You felt more than heard his pleased chuckle when you whined at the sudden touch.

This time, when he pulled away, he let you retreat. As you shimmied down his body, you caught him wiping your essence off his face with a careful finger before popping it in his mouth.

Hawks' skin was still flushed red, all the way up to his ears; but, now, he looked damn smug to top it all off. You couldn't see the look you were wearing, but you knew by the heat on your face that it was lewd.

The cold of the cabin had been lost to you, especially when you positioned your hips over his and felt the head of his cock nuzzle at your entrance, threatening to breach your core.

Hawks' head fell back into the sheets with a whine, eyes squeezing shut. Tantalized by the sight, you intended to tease him a little; however, he nudged his hips forward with a sudden jerk, effortlessly impaling you on his cock, and taking that opportunity away.

"Ohhh, fuck!" Hawks shouted before sucking his bottom lip beneath his teeth. He released it after letting out a low hiss.

You closed your own eyes for a moment, adjusting to the sudden intrusion of his impressive girth, and felt his hands slowly slide up your thighs into the dips of your hips, slotting over a spot he had practically engraved for himself ever since this began.

When your eyes opened, you looked down and took in the deliriously beautiful look on his face. His thumbs nudged your hip bones pleadingly and his eyes opened, peering up at you through dark lashes.

Forgoing any thoughts about teasing, you planted your hands on his chest and rolled your hips. The motion punched a whine out of him. The sound drawled out into a growl when you kept the rhythm, chasing your own pleasure.

"Yeah," he hummed encouragingly. "Come on. Use me. Fuck yourself on my cock. Just like - ahh - fuck..."

You hardly needed the encouragement; but, the dirty words spewing from his lips further ignited the heat in your belly, and you whined in response.

He could have easily pulled your hips down to intensify the moment. Instead, he lifted his hips off the bed to meet yours, effortlessly matching your movement and chasing the delicious warmth and wetness of your core, while letting his hands hold you gently.

"Baby, do you feel good?" Hawks uttered lowly, his pleading question gently breaking through the moment.

"Y-ye-s, Kei - go," you sobbed, stuttering out your response and groaning halfway through his name.

It was always good; but, something about this moment made it more intense than ever before. You could already feel the sensation rising, thighs trembling every time his cock slid back inside, hitting the perfect spot again and again.

"Yeah?" he hummed, sounding so breathless and fucked out, despite you having just barely begun. "You feel good, so fucking good," he praised between labored pants and low moans.

"You're so fucking good to me," Hawks babbled on, head falling back into the sheets, where he closed his eyes. You watched his adam's apple bob, noticed how tight his jaw was clenched.

A growl vibrated through his chest, followed by a breathless sympathy of curses, "oh fuck - oh fuck. Come on, fuck my cock - yeah - ahhh. Ya' hear that? Those sounds. God, you're so f-fucking perfect."

Your union was loud, skin slapping together and wet, fleshy sounds echoing between the two of you.

His dominant hand released your hip and slid around, thumb prodding between your folds and seeking out your pearl. You were already so sensitive, feeling him so deep, teetering on the edge. When his calloused skin touched that spot, you let out a cry.

"Come on this cock," Hawks groaned. "Sooo close - f-fuck. Come on. Come for me. Fucking come. Gonna fill you up. You want that? My seed. Yeah you fucking d-hnn-"

His babbling ceased when your orgasm took you, the sudden spasms and fluttering of your walls making all sensible thoughts drain from his mind.

His hand returned to your hip, fingers gripping your waist, and he started roughly dragging you up and down to meet his thrusts. You went limp, letting him bounce you on his cock to your liking. Your hands slipped off his chest and you fell onto him, forehead knocking gently against his cheek.

You could hear him huffing and grunting, the occasional growl seeping through, right into your ear as he fucked you through your orgasm, and continued on, chasing his end.

His cock throbbed, firmly enough that you felt it and the sensation startled you a little; but, that thought was lost when he let out an uncharacteristically loud shout, crying out in ecstasy.

Hawks had always been loud; but, this was something else entirely, and the moans and growls didn't stop, along with his undulating hips, for what felt like an eternity.

To top it all off, you could feel it, spurts of his seed, burning hot as it filled you. In the corner of your eye, you could make out his feathers, each and every one trembling beneath him.

Then, finally, he went still.

Hawks' panting filled the room, almost loud enough to drown out the crackling of the fireplace. Even after his panting died down, he let out quiet groans, his orgasm having not yet waned in full.

Eventually, he turned his head and pressed a wet kiss against your cheek. You turned your head to meet him, at first catching the corner of his mouth before he angled his head to kiss you properly.

You could practically feel the praises behind each kiss, thank you's and love pouring from his mouth to yours in a nonverbal gesture. His hands ran up and down your back, massaging your skin but also ensuring that you didn't move and he remained deep inside you.

When he finally released your lips, you busied your hands with his wild mane, gently pushing strands away from his face. He seemed to like the preening, letting his eyes flutter shut and head fall back.

You didn't have to ask if he was feeling better. His all-body, harsh red blush had mellowed out and he wasn't panting like a parched dog.

You hadn't realized you were still trembling until he uttered, "it's okay," in a soothing, worried voice.

His hands shifted to your thighs, where he carefully pushed them back and rolled you onto your side, keeping his cock nuzzled deep. His arms wound around your back, bringing you into an embrace while his wings stretched out behind him before sagging comfortably to the bed.

You realized, as he brought you in, that you were still shaking a little. The worry was evident in his eyes, like he had done something wrong.

"D-do you want me to pull out?" he offered in a weak voice.

"It's not that," you replied softly. "That was... intense."

When your eyes locked with his gold orbs, and he took in the sight of your expression, it seemed to steadily become clear to him, what you were feeling. His lips sought our your skin, senselessly kissing whatever he could reach, all over your cheeks, down your chin and along the expansion of your throat.

Hawks’ head fell onto the pillow and his wispy blonde hair tangled with yours. The unease began to fade away as he held you close, bringing the blanket back over your forms when his intense heat finally started to wane. So did the spell, and something concerning struck him.

"Please, tell me if it gets too intense," Hawks uttered, breath fluttering out against your temple. “I’ll-...”

He cut himself because he wasn’t quite what he would do, what he could do. Could he stop? In this moment of clear thoughts, he sure hoped so. But, part of him feared that wasn’t true, and the last thing he wanted was to lie to you about what he was capable of.

You had figured that he had yet to hit the apex of his rut. Yet, his warnings hadn't frightened you in the slightest, especially after what had just occurred. If anything, you were enticed by it. Maybe, in some strange way, it was affecting you to.

"I can handle you," you promised.

You felt more so than heard the uneasy breath that stuttered out his nostrils. Your words stirred something deep in his gut, overcoming the fear, burning arousal and adoration.

[failedintsave]

Tumblr ate my last attempt so reposting this

@comfyklok drew this lovely piece for a wolf guardian au, which hit my brain like a mack truck and continued to drag me down the road for ~2700 words almost in one sitting. Thank you for letting me putz around in your sand box...I already started a second part akhajsks

The Wolf in the Wood

It was only a cup of milk.

To waste his daily bread was sinful, he knew, but it was only a glass of milk. Just a small, half-filled wooden tumbler. He'd reached for it blindly, his head still bowed in prayer as Father finished speaking the blessing over their supper, but when it tipped and spilled its ivory contents across the table, even the fire in the hearth seemed to fall silent.

Toki stared at the spreading pool, following the creeping edge until it reached Father's plate. He dared not look any higher, mechanically pushing away from the table and kneeling behind his chair, removing his shirt in preparation. God did not tolerate transgressions, and neither did Father.

He held his tongue as his punishment was delivered, the quiet disturbed only by the barbed leather straps scoring his skin and Father's labored grunts. Acting as the Hand of God required that he bear no mercy, and Toki had learned to ask for none. Mercy was a gift from the Mother…though not his mother, watching dutifully from her seat. In his seven years of memory, not once had she raised hand or voice in his defense.

Permitted to clothe himself again, Toki cleaned up his mess and cleared his empty dish away. Those who cannot appreciate the Lord's bounty, Father said, shall receive none. It should have been penance enough, so when Father sat to tie his boots, Toki's empty stomach dropped through the floor.

It was only a cup of milk.

With his arms wrapped tightly against his ribs, he trailed after the sweeping black vestments where they dragged over the frozen ground, winding along the trail that curled behind the house and into the dark shadow of the forest. The glow of the lantern ahead did nothing to illuminate their path through the swirl of falling snow, but Toki didn't need to see to know what lay ahead. The Hatch terrified him so much more than the lash.

Dread made his feet heavy, and without meaning to fall behind, he passed outside of the circle of lamplight. The moon was near full overhead, and as Toki turned his imploring gaze skyward, praying for lenience, a shadow passed across its silvery face, something black and winged. Something free to roam, unbound by cage or shackle. Something wild. Toki longed for that freedom, to trade places with that creature and flee far from the dank pit and molding straw that awaited him around the next bend. But Toki could not fly.

So he ran.

He ran as hard as his legs would carry him, barreling over waist-high drifts and tearing through thorny underbrush. The snow off the path had crusted with a shell of ice that cut his bare feet as he scrambled deeper into the wood, but numb with cold he pelted on, ripping down the dry, dead thickets and dessicated vines that blocked his way. A low hanging branch whipped him across the face, and still he did not slow. Not until his lungs felt frozen solid, unable to draw enough breath to continue moving, did he stumble to a walk.

Wheezing for air, he clutched a stitch in his side and turned to get his bearings. Above him, the moon was unobstructed once more, the pointed tips of spruce and naked spines of soaring aspen parting into an open ring around the clearing where he stood. Snowflakes fell across his face, stinging against the injured side where swelling already obscured his vision. It throbbed in time with his frantic heartbeat, and Toki covered it gingerly with his palm as he looked back into the treeline. His undamaged eye met a pair of glowing orbs shining in the dark and his breath caught painfully in his heaving chest. He was not alone.

Toki had seen wolf tracks in the woods around the village, but even the largest among those prints could not match the size of the beast before him, taller at the shoulder than he stood upright. Its coat glowed as it entered the clearing, a quicksilver moonbeam loping gracefully in his direction. Massive paws padded over the snow without sinking in, and Toki was struck rigid with panic as it drew nearer. Cold sweat plastered his hair to his forehead and the back of his neck. He had nothing left, no energy to run, however futile the effort would be to try and escape this monster. Instead, he fell to his knees.

"Please, God!" He folded his hands, fingers red with frostbite. "Please, spares me! Forgives me, I shouldn't has rejected de shelter ofs Your grace! I don't wants to dies, please! I'm sorries!"

The wolf lumbered closer and Toki screwed his eyes closed, bracing for the end. The hellhound would drag his soul to its master, his future sealed in blood and flame.

It was only a cup of milk.

A long moment passed and no jaws closed around his throat. Trembling, he ventured a peek, but the wolf was gone. In its place stood a towering figure, a man in hides and leathers with a thick fur cloak draped around his shoulders. His flaxen hair was streaked with silver like the pelt he wore at his back. Thin braids curved away from his temples, a narrow leather band encircling his forehead and securing his mane away from his angular face. Fine lines creased the corners of icy blue eyes that studied the boy at his feet.

"Who ams you talking to, child?" The man's voice was low and unexpectedly melodious, the rumbly baritone reminiscent of a growl.

Rigid with terror, Toki remembered a storybook, salvaged from one of Father's burning crusades. He had just learned his letters, but it had been the illustrations that caught his eye, the characters and animals depicted in loving detail. There were heroes and monsters and tales of creation and destruction, epic battles and rainbow bridges and beings that could change their shape from man to beast. He'd hidden the book, fully aware that such pagan icons did not belong under his Father's roof, but too enamored with the colorful art to dispose of it as he should. Another blemish he'd have to reckon with at the Gates.

"Please don't kills me. I didn't means to trespass ins your woods, sir."

The man's head tipped to the side in a decidedly canine manner. He scanned the trees, listening, but otherwise made no move.

"A-ams you…Loki?"

Full lips parted to reveal pointed teeth, but rather than lunge in for a bite, a rich, imperious laugh bubbled forth. "Hueghueh. Nej, boy. I aments a god, 'dough I has walksed besides dem."

"Den who are you?"

"I ams had many names. You may calls me…" He considered. "Skwisgaar."

The man crouched to better examine his prey. Slender fingers tipped with claws lifted Toki's chin and turned his head this way and that. His nose wrinkled in distaste.

"You reeks of blood."

"My feet—de ice, I cuts dem."

"Hn." His cold gaze swept over the stains Toki felt seeping into the thin material covering his shoulders, but he didn't comment. Releasing the boy's chin, he stood again. "Goes back to your fire, child, dese woods am dangerous for one so small."

That much was plain. But returning home carried hazards of its own, his absence surely noted by now and his most recent misdeeds incurring additional castigation. Sweet freedom had been so short-lived, only pain and imprisonment awaited him on that path. Toki's vision darkened at the edges, hot tears further distorting his view.

"I just needs…just needs a minute to…"

He swooned, and rather than landing face down in the slush, his cheek met thick fur. Surprisingly strong arms lifted him into the air as though he were no more than a doll.

"Carefuls now, little wanderer." Skwisgaar's murmur came from far away, the world spinning out of focus until everything went quiet, a cocoon of velvety blackness enveloping him.

Toki came-to with the sensation of freezing cold against his torn back, startling him upright with a gasp.

He was no longer in the clearing. To his left, a craggy outcropping rose several meters overhead, pocked with tufts of dead grasses and lichen. Long, crystalline icicles dripped along the rock face nearly to the ground. A frozen creek bed bordered the glade, meandering behind Skwisgaar standing above him, his fur cloak drawn closed under his chin so that only his head and a cascade of platinum waves were visible.

"Where ams dis? What happened?" Toki struggled to his feet, grabbing a handful of Skwisgaar's pelt for leverage. The man frowned. "Did I falls asleep?"

"Ja, and you wills again. But dis time, somewhere safe."

He nodded toward a gap in the cliff side where a hole burrowed under the rock. Toki balked.

"Not under de ground. I-I can'ts." Every living nightmare he'd endured flooded his mind and he could smell the decaying hay, could feel the spiders crawling over his skin. "Please."

Skwisgaar's frown remained unchanged. He observed intently as Toki curled in on himself, then shrugged.

"Suits yourself, child. It will onlies get colder."

In the space of a step, he shifted. Toki had missed it the first time, the transition from man to wolf like watching the deadly beauty of an avalanche. His body rolled forward and extended, absorbing the heavy cloak. Skwisgaar slunk forward and ducked through the gap and out of sight.

Alone again, Toki stared mournfully after the wolf. Darkness fell upon the glen as a cloud passed over the moon, much the same as the winged creature he'd seen before. He'd wished to be wild and free, and though it had led him back to a hole in the ground, this one was not a cage, no hated hatch to lock him in. A frigid breeze sliced through his threadbare shirt, all but making his decision for him. However fearsome this tentative ally may be, perhaps company would make the darkness bearable.

On hands and knees, Toki crawled along the gently sloping tunnel into the den in time to watch the great wolf turn a circle and lay down with his snout pointed at the entrance. He'd expected pitch black within, but a pale ambient glow lent enough light for Toki to see soft moss and clover covering the ground. The earthen walls blocked out most of the winter chill and roots like reaching fingers dangled from the ceiling. It was like a bubble of early spring, a reverse snowglobe. Already he felt the drag of weariness pulling him down again and he glanced around for a comfortable spot to lay his head.

Well, he'd come this far without being eaten.

One sky blue eye watched as Toki crept close, a cautious hand extending to weave into his dense coat, but Skwisgaar didn't move, his eye sliding shut again as Toki settled against his side. Rather than animal, he smelled of woodsmoke and honey, as though just returned from a mead hall. Toki buried his face in the comforting scent, drawing his naked legs close for warmth, his skin prickly with gooseflesh and red from exposure. A heavy tail curled over him like a lap blanket and its weight was the final nudge he needed to let exhaustion claim him.

Birdsong woke him, along with light glowing warm against his eyelids. He must have been left below ground well-past morning chores if the sun was high enough to reach the bottom of the root cellar. Unlikely as it was to be allowed to sleep in, he expected he could be in for a full day of solitude. At least the snow had stopped sometime in the night, sparing him from being buried in fresh powder.

Toki moved to rub the sleep from his eyes, hissing when he touched the swollen scratch crossing the right side of his face. Mouth dry, he hoped he could make it up the ladder and grab a fistful of snow through the grate to slake his thirst. In all likelihood, if he was meant to remain in the hole, a meal would not be given until tomorrow. Fasting was common enough for spiritual purposes, and not an infrequent measure of punishment either. Father would call it a blessing, to both repent and prove his faith with a single action. Toki just knew he was hungry.

He sat up stiffly, wincing again as the gouges on his back screamed in protest. Something shifting on his lap finally forced his eyes open.

Fragrant leaf litter covered his legs, somehow bonded together into an unlikely quilt. Next to his hand, tiny white blooms dotted the spongey, moss covered floor and a pair of yellow butterflies danced in the sunbeam that illuminated his makeshift bed. The air tasted like spring rain, clean and fresh and alive. No cold stone walls or rotting scraps of straw. No barred hatch sealing him in, only blue sky beyond the opening overhead.

It hadn't been a dream. He had actually escaped, flown like a bird from the coop! Toki whooped in delight, then clamped a hand over his mouth, remembering he was a guest in someone's home.

The wolf was nowhere to be seen. Toki pushed aside his covers to better move around the warren and found that his feet had been bandaged in rough, woolen wrappings. They were too tender to stand on, so he crawled on his knees to the back of the den where a dribble of snowmelt had collected in a bowl-shaped divot in the moss, clear as glass and freezing cold. Toki gulped it by the handful, then splashed his face with what remained.

A rustling behind him caught him unawares and Toki twisted at the waist, crying out when the cuts on his back stretched again. Mulch shifted under giant paws as the wolf padded down the earthen ramp into his lair. The limp carcass of a winter hair dangled from his jaws, tiny as a kitten in his grasp. He dropped it next to Toki's hip and stared expectantly.

"Uh…" Toki plucked at one of the animal's ears. "Thanks you?"

The wolf huffed and sat back on his haunches, a ripple coursing over his form as he shrank into humanoid shape once more, revealing Skwisgaar squatting with his elbows braced against his knees. He gave Toki a reproving frown.

"Toothless pup."

With a sharp flick of his wrist, a knife appeared in his slim fingers. The slanted blade was stamped with a symbol Toki didn't know, like a bird's foot or a cross with the arms angled upward. Skwisgaar deftly skinned the animal, then pressed the antler handle of the knife into Toki's hand.

"You does de next one you'self."

"De next—you mean, you nots gonna take me back to de village?"

Skwisgaar shook his head. "I don'ts believe dere faith can hides you any longer, little wanderer. I will keeps you now."

His voice still carried a feral rasp, but somehow those words made Toki feel safer than any prayer. Toki clutched the knife, the handle long enough for both his tiny hands with room to spare.

"Thanks you, Skwisgaar." He repeated. "Oh! You tolds me your name, but I never gaves you mine! I'm—"

"I knows who you are. 'Dough you reminds me of someone else who I has not seens in a very long time."

"I do? Who?"

Skwisgaar's flinty gaze softened. He reached out, plucking a wet strand of hair away from Toki's injured eye and brushing it behind his ear. With another minor flourish, he produced an inky black feather and tucked it there as well. He almost smiled.

"Eats. You needs strength." Skwisgaar straightened to his full imposing height, his expression defaulting back to stone. "Befores you can hunt, you must heals."

He turned and headed for the surface, resuming his canid shape mid-stride. Toki watched him go. His fingers found the feather and he slipped it free of his tangled hair. As long as his hand and dark as pitch, a glossy sheen travelled its length as he thumbed the wispy filaments. He looked from it to the knife with its runed blade and bone handle and grinned. His first gifts, from his first friend; not a god, but a guardian.

The wolf in the wood.

[leviackermanscleaningbuddy]

BTS DRABBLE-OT7

Contrary to peoples' opinions-surrounding the fact that you're dating seven men that belong to the mafia-you're not helpless. You can defend yourself. But a close brush with some dangerous people has your boyfriends questioning that fact-wondering if you can protect yourself enough-and true to their natures, they're not going to stand idly by if you're in any sort of danger whatsoever.

Tags: BTS, Bangtan Boys, Bangtan Seonyendan, Bulletproof Boy Scouts, Beyond the Scene, BTS Drabble, OT7, BTS x you, BTS x reader, OT7 x reader, OT7 x you, Poly!BTS, Mafia Au, Angst, Fluff, Kim Seokjin, Min yoongi, Jung hoseok, Kim namjoon, Park Jimin, Kim taehyung, Jeon Jungkook

Genre: Angst, Fluff

Title: Protect You

The garden that surrounds the mansion is usually quiet this time of morning-the sound of birds just starting to sing their songs, the trickle of the fountain that runs down into a meandering stream through the trees-but this morning, the clear morning air is broken by the harsh, insistent sound of a squeaky toy.

"Tannie, Tannie!" You hold aloft the rubber duck and squeak it once more enthusiastically, the small dog dancing around your feet-eyes bright, ears perked, tongue lolling-as he waits for you to toss the toy once more. "You want it? Go get it!"

You throw the duck across the open space of the courtyard and the dog streaks off in a flash of black and tan fur, tiny legs churning, as he barks happily, chasing after the bouncing rubber toy.

You sit back down on the bench, slightly laughing to yourself at the dog's almost maniacal enthusiasm, and reach out a hand to caress Holly's head where he sits beside you, paws folded neatly, on the stone seat beneath the shade of the fruit trees.

"To have that kind of energy, eh, Holly?" You ask gently, glancing over at the older poodle, who gives you a slight wag of his tale, pink tongue hanging past his lips, though he has been doing nothing but sitting in the shade. You stroke his head affectionately, rubbing his soft, silky ears between your fingers. "Yeah, I know. I like the shade better too."

Tannie appears back at your feet again, panting hard, dark eyes glittering, as he proudly drops the duck he has retrieved at the toes of your sneakers.

"Good boy, Tan!" You exclaim, leaning over to pet the other dog, as he dances in place and his tail wags furiously at your praise. "You brought me your toy! You're so good. You did so good."

You stand from the bench, reaching down to round up the toys Yeontan has been playing with, and Holly rises-stretching languidly-beside you, as you glance between both eagerly waiting dogs and ask, "You guys want some water? Wanna go inside and take a break for awhile? Let's go get some water."

Yeontan, circling your feet, yips happily and bounds toward the back door, leading the way back toward the house, as you glance back to make sure Holly is following-albeit a slower pace-behind the two of you.

And that's when the pair of men step out from behind the trees that line the tall wall that surrounds the property.

The shorter one grins at you, hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his slacks, and flicks the toothpick he holds between his teeth around with a light twitch of his tongue. "Hello there, Mrs. Kim."

You watch the pair warily, as they continue to advance toward you on slow, stalking footsteps. "Gentlemen. Can I ask what you're doing in my garden?"

The man who had spoke before-the one with the long greasy hair tied at the nape of his neck-spits his toothpick onto the ground and arches a brow in your direction, hands still hidden in his pockets, though his shoulders raise slightly as he gives you a casual shrug. "Just out for a walk. Thought we'd stop in for a visit."

Holly growls at your feet, hackles raised, as the two men step closer still, and you reach down to pick him up, sheltering him in your arms, as you ask calmly, "Really? Because I don't recall that we've ever met."

"Oh, we haven't." The man replies, flicking a finger toward his taller counterpart, who has yet to speak. At his motion, his partner circles to your other side, so that you're now backed into a corner of the garden-the men on either side-and no easy escape in sight. "But we've met your husband many times." He flashes you a dangerous grin that has your insides squirming.

They're referring to Namjoon, you're sure of that. That's always been the agreement between the eight of you-you belong to all of them-but Namjoon is the public face of the relationship.

"He's never mentioned you." You state simply, trying to keep any micro expressions off your face that might hint at the fact that you're starting to get nervous. Your eyes flick toward the back door of the house, about a hundred yards away and blocked by the trees.

"Hmmm." The man leans beside you on one of the tree trunks, and you can almost taste his sweat and his rumpled suit jacket smells of damp and something resembling smoke and cat piss. "Really? Odd." He cocks his head, and his dark eyes hold a dangerous glint, as he reaches up to stroke a finger down the side of your face, Holly baring his teeth in your arms at his close proximity. "Speaking of, where is our good friend Mr. Kim? Away at work?"

There's no use trying to lie. You know-by the way he's watching you, and the stupid leer that crosses the other man's face-that they already know quite well that Namjoon isn't here.

"Yes." You nod, just barely, and jerk your skin away from the man's still trailing finger. "He had business in the city today."

"Oh, well that's too bad." The man clucks his tongue against his teeth in a display of fake disappointment, and his eyes darken as his gaze sweeps down your body. "It's a shame we missed him." He grins wickedly. "I guess you'll just have to tell him we stopped by and relay our message for us."

Before you can react, the shorter man has grabbed your wrists in clammy fingers, Holly frantically barking and snapping in your arms as he closes in on the two of you.

"Get the damn dog out of here." The man barks, struggling to maintain his grip on you as he dodges Holly's flashing teeth.

The taller man rips Holly from your arms and tosses him across the garden away from the three of you, and though he yelps, you're grateful they've released him and not tried to harm him.

Because the pit in your stomach is telling you you won't be so lucky.

The shorter man, his grip on your wrists still tight and painful, has become distracted in that moment, watching his partner toss Holly, and you take the opportunity to slam your shoe down hard on his foot.

He yelps, releasing you for the briefest second, and that's all the time you need to dart past him and toward the door of the house.

You hear the man swear behind you and yell something to the taller man about catching you before you make it inside, but all you can focus on is not tripping and tangling yourself in the foliage as you sprint toward the house.

Your salvation is within maybe ten yards, when the taller man catches up with you.

He catches your wrist and before you can make a sound, slams you with the weight of his body back against the stucco wall of the house, right beside the back door and your only bid for freedom.

You're all breathing hard when the shorter man reaches the two of you, fire blazing behind the dark rings of his irises.

"Stupid bitch." He growls out between loose lips, before hitting you hard across the face with the palm of his hand.

The slap sends your head careening back against the stone wall behind you and leaves your cheek stinging, and as you orient yourself once more-still breathing hard-you can taste the copper sheen of blood on your tongue from your newly split lip.

The man reaches for the buckle of his belt, still glaring at you, and spits on the ground at your feet, before he addresses the taller man who still holds you pinned against the wall. "Hold her still. I think it's time we taught Boss Kim and his little bitch here a long overdue lesson."

The taller man nods, and the way his fingers tighten around your wrists has you wincing slightly.

"Now." The other man steps up to you, and the stench of his warm, putrid breath washing across your face has you feeling as if you're about to vomit. His fingers close on either side of your chin and wrench your gaze up to his own. He smirks wickedly. "I hope you know, I'm going to enjoy this."

You spit in his face violently, saliva and blood mixing into a pink spittle that splashes across his face, which instantly darkens, as he releases your chin and raises his hand into the air to once again deliver a stinging blow.

And then, the sound of a gun cocking has everyone freezing in their tracks.

"What the-" The man glances at his counterpart, who has gone still and is staring with wide eyes beyond his shoulder line, and then directs his gaze in the same direction behind the three of you.

The scene he's met with instantly has his previously venomous gaze filling with terror.

Yoongi's finger is steady on the trigger as he holds the gun on the two men, features dark and deceptively treacherously calm as Jin flanks one of his sides, Hobi on the other-and their faces are just as unreadable and blank-though you know there is a dark, dangerous current of emotions brewing just beneath that calm surface.

Jungkook, Taehyung, and Jimin complete the half circle surrounding your attackers, and glancing at the absolute and utter fear on the two men's faces, you can't blame them.

Looking down the ready, waiting barrels of six guns would make anybody-no matter how brave-wet themselves where they stood.

"I told you the truth." You speak into the suddenly electric silence that has fallen over the group, and your assailant glances back at you, as if he had forgotten you were there, mouth agape, eyes wide. You offer him an innocent smile. "Namjoon is at work. But I didn't say the other six were."

The sound of another gun cocking into position has the two men whirling back to face the circle of men surrounding you.

Taehyung's finger finds the trigger of his pistol, and-normally warm eyes dark-his lips quirk upward into just the hint of a humorless smirk as he stares down the two men beside you, and when he speaks, his voice is cold and absolutely murderous as he parrots back the words the intruder had used just moments before.

"I hope you know, I'm going to enjoy this."

**********

"What happened."

It isn't a question as Namjoon strides into the room, loosening his tie as he enters, usually unruffled attitude an odd mixture of humming danger and worry.

Yoongi glances up from where he sits in the corner, polishing his gun, and grunts out darkly, "Couple of goonies thought they'd get the upper hand and take out the boss's wife."

You can tell, by the way his normally controlled movements are jerky on the barrel of the weapon, that he is still worked up.

Namjoon crosses the room to where you sit on the sofa, coming to stand before you and the boys that surround you, though Jimin doesn't look up at him, focusing on cleaning the wound that cuts across your bottom lip.

"Ouch!" You hiss out as he hits a particularly tender spot with the antiseptic, jerking back from him, as he meets your gaze and offers you a slightly apologetic look as Hobi, who sits beside you, arm around your shoulders, gives you a comforting pat on the hand.

Namjoon crouches down and ignoring Jimin, pushes past the younger man, eyes softening slightly as he runs his thumb carefully over your split lip and up the purple bruising that is just starting to show on your cheekbone. "Whoever did this, I'll make them pay. I swear it."

You lean your cheek into the palm of his hand, his skin warmed by the afternoon sun, and offer him the hint of a smile, though it hurts your lip to do so. "I know you will."

"What do we do if this happens again, Namjoon?" Jin asks from where he is leaning against the desk, watching the interaction between the two of you with careful gaze. His hands are buried deep in his pockets, and he shifts from one foot to the other, brow furrowed as he regards the younger man. "If next time-"

"There's not going to be a next time." Namjoon cuts him off abruptly, standing up once more, as he sends the other man a hard look. "This is never going to happen again."

"But what if it does." Jungkook speaks up, and his normally large doe eyes are flashing with anger, irises no longer warm, but dark, as he slams his palms down in frustration on the desk his elder leans upon. "What if it does happen again, hyung? What then? We can't keep putting her in danger like this."

"I'm really fine-" You start to protest, speaking around Jimin's fingers, who has moved back into position to keep cleaning the long cut on your lips. His fingertips press into the plush skin of your mouth, effectively cutting off your words with a gentle admonishment.

He tilts his head and stares at you, full lips curving into a gentle smile, eyes crinkling, making you feel slightly better in the way only Jimin can, and when he speaks, his voice is gentle, just like his touch.

"No one is doubting you can take care of yourself, baby girl." His fingers caress the line of your jaw and his gaze is thoughtful. "We just don't want to put you in situations where you have to."

"Hyung." Taehyung steps up beside Namjoon, who is now staring out the large window behind the desk and down onto the gardens below, and when his hand rests on the leader's arm, you note that his fingers are still speckled with blood from the stand off earlier.

When he speaks again, the deep timbre of his voice shakes slightly, as if he's still so pissed off that he can hardly control himself. "Those sons of bitches almost touched her. If we hadn't been here-"

You wince at his choice of words, because he's right. Without them, you would have been left to an incredibly dark fate at the hands of the two intruders.

"I'm with Jungkook." Yoongi finally speaks up once more, and he stands from the corner, laying his now sparkling gun aside, as he approaches Namjoon and Taehyung, still silhouetted against the window. He heaves a sigh and glances in your direction, before addressing Namjoon seriously. "She needs to be able to protect herself. God forbid, there's another time, but if there is, we can't just leave her defenseless."

You can tell that Namjoon does not take the older man's opinion lightly, and you can visibly see him weighing his hyung's words before his shoulders slump in defeat, and he lets out a tired sigh. "All right."

He strides across the room again and crouches down in front of where you sit once more, long legs folded beneath his body, as his eyes meet yours in a firm gaze. He reaches out to take your chin in his hand, in a much gentler, much more loving grip than the man had used earlier, and his lips purse into a serious, stern line, before he intones quietly, eyes soft, "It's time to teach you a few things, darling."

******

The first thing you can think when Jin leads you into the armory and you see all the weapons lining the walls is holy shit.

The second thing is how have you never noticed how many different guns the men you love have at their disposal?

"So, you've got your assaults, your machines," Jin gestures to each rack of guns as you pass by on your tour, Jungkook trailing along behind the two of you, sometimes running loving fingers up certain weapons as you walk by. "Pistols, handguns, snipers, rocket launchers-"

"Have you guys used all of these guns?" You ask, mouth agape, as you glance around the huge room full of deadly weapons.

"No way." Jungkook shakes his head, bounding up to stand beside you, as he slings an arm around your shoulders and gives you a deceivingly innocent bunny smile, as if he's not talking about guns that kill people. "Some of these are specialized. We have to hire professionals for those."

"Aren't you professionals?" You question curiously, grinning slightly as Jungkook laughs at your query.

"Okay. Eventually, you can pick what feels most comfortable for you, princess." Jin reappears from another smaller room, cocking and loading a small handgun into his palm, as he approaches you and Jungkook. "However, we're going to start small for now."

He offers the gun to you, and you hesitate only a moment, before reaching out and taking the gun from him. The metal feels cold against your palm, as you fingering the gun, trying to get used to the weight.

A low whistle sounds from the entrance of the room, and you glance up as Taehyung enters, eyes scanning the racks of guns almost fondly, as he states lightly, "Look at all the pretties."

Jin sighs from beside you, rolling his eyes, though you catch the hint of a smile, before his expression becomes neutral again. "Can you please stop talking about assault rifles the same way you talk about shoes, Kim Taehyung?"

Taehyung smirks and winks at you, eyebrow cocked cheekily, as he reaches your side and throws his arms around you and Jungkook's shoulders. "C'mon hyung, lighten up. You know our girl's gonna be a natural." He chucks you playfully under the chin. "Right, sweetheart?"

You shrug, still trying to get used the feeling of the gun in the palm of your hand. "I dunno. I hope so?"

Jin takes your hand in his and leans over to press a kiss to the side of your forehead. "I'd believe him if I were you. He's uncannily good at predicting what other people are good at."

Taehyung grins at the praise. "Yeah! Like I can tell you that I predict that Jungkookie is gonna be shit at Fortnite when we play later tonight."

"Hey." Jungkook leans around you to try and catch Taehyung with his fist as the older boy laughs.

"All right, all right." Jin berates them lightly, though you can tell he's trying not to grin at the younger boys antics. He waves toward you and the gun you still hold in your hand. "Let's get (Y/N) to the shooting range then."

Taehyung slings his arm once more around your shoulders as you all follow Jin toward the range. "Trust me, sweetheart." He offers you the hint of a soft smile and squeezes your fingers between his own. "You're gonna get so good, next time those bastards try anything, they won't know what hit them before you blow their brains out."

[chefdoeuvre]

Under Control

Kelly Severide

Pairing: Kelly Severide x Sister!Reader

Description: Even when you think you have things under control older brothers always worm their way into helping.

Words: 1,595

Requested: yes by @ticklepete; Okay so can you do a Kelly x Sister where y/n is being seriously threatened by someone who she had a run-in with in the past (like an arsonist or former victim, etc) and of course Kelly's overprotective brother side kicks in. Her being the independent woman she is gets a little annoyed but ultimately is thankful. I feel like #46 and #12 would work with this.

Warnings: mention of minor injuries, blood, fluff as per usual.

A/N: I just love Kelly Severide and his overprotective ways. This can be counted as a stand alone or a part two for Rivalry. I apologize in advance for any grammatical errors.

—

There they were again, flowers sent to the firehouse addressed to you. At first, you thought it was sweet how you had a secret admirer. Now after a month and a half of this you were starting to be fed up with it. Of course, you couldn't throw the flowers away they were too pretty for that, clearly, someone had spent a solid chunk of change to get them for you. Obviously, Kelly offered to tell Jay and get him to find out who they were coming from but being the stubborn Severide you are you declined.

The next shift came by in the blink of an eye and this time instead of a large bouquet of fresh flowers you were simply handed an envelope. The envelope didn't have a return address on it only the firehouse's and your name printed on it. You stuffed the envelope into your locker when the announcement system went off signaling a call. The call was a fairly normal rescue. Thankfully, there was a simple solution to saving the victim and it didn't take long to get them to safety.

After heading back to the firehouse you went back to your locker and pulled out the envelope that's been invading your thoughts since you got it. Ripping it open you unfolded the single piece of paper in it and let your eyes scan the words. Reading over them multiple times you felt a pit in your stomach. It was clear to see that they were threats aimed at you. This only confused you, if this wasn't some secret admirer who the hell was this? The words were generic threats you'd expect from a regular old crime show so that's not what scared you. It was the fact that they went through these lengths just to get your attention. Instead of doing what a rational person would do you stuffed the envelope back into your locker and tried to get your mind off of it.

Making your way out of the locker room you bumped face-first into a hard chest. Immediately two arms reached out and grabbed onto your shoulders to steady you. Looking up with wide eyes you're met with the familiar steel blue ones of your brother.

"Hey, you all right?" Kelly asked as he scanned your facial expression.

"Yeah, I'm fine." You nodded quickly.

You tried to sidestep away from him, but his strong arms kept you planted there. Given the fact that he's your brother, he knew you like the back of his hand and he knew what you were like when something was bothering you.

"No, you're not. Talk to me." Kelly urged as you all but looked him in the eyes.

Sighing you shoved his hands off your shoulder and turned on your heel assuring him that you were fine. In truth, you were far from fine but you'd deal with it your own way. Which was being majorly stubborn about it and completely ignoring the fact that you weren't okay. You made your way into the common room and took a seat in between Herrmann and Mouch who were watching an old movie.

Kelly, being the nosy brother he is took it upon himself to check out your locker. Granted he only knew your combination because it was your birthday and as your brother of course he knew you would use that as the passcode for your phone as well. Pulling open your locker the envelope fell out and he quickly pulled it open. Reading the words across the page he suddenly felt the urge to punch someone.

Soon enough, the announcement system went off signaling a call. Apparently, it was a large abandoned warehouse on fire which meant all of Firehouse 51's help was enlisted.

Pulling up to the scene Boden started giving out directions to each unit. Squad was taking the brunt of the work by checking the building along with some of Truck's help. You and Kelly were paired up to go the furthest into the building, biting back a joke about the sibling power duo the two of you were you headed into the burning building. Kelly stood close beside you with a clenched jaw, still angered by the threats aimed at you.

"We're clear on the West wing." Cruz's voice sounded from your walkies.

"Same on the East." Stella agreed.

"All good on the North wing. South?" Casey asked.

You and Kelly were still making your way through the building about to reply when you heard a shrill scream. Looking up in alarm, the two of you shared a glance before setting toward the sound.

Taking the lead you made your way weaving through the crates to where the sound came from. Another high-pitched sound shocked you into place before you started toward the louder noise again.

"I've been waiting for you." A deep, gravelly voice sounded from behind a large crate.

"We have to go, this place isn't gonna last long." Kelly chided looking between you and the wooden crate.

"That doesn't seem to be in my agenda, Lieutenant Severide." The deep voice tutted.

You and Kelly shared a look of confusion. How the hell did this guy know who he was?

"Oh, allow me to introduce myself." The man all but cackled as he stepped out from behind the crate.

In his hands was a familiar-looking bouquet of flowers. He had a devilish smirk planted on his face and dark eyes that made him look demonic.

"It's Charles, but you can call me Chuck." He greeted with a sickly sweet smile and looked dead at you.

Kelly immediately stood to step in front of you and practically growled at the man.

"Cool it, Kell." You shoved your brother aside with a roll of your eyes.

"All right, Charlie was it?" You crossed your arms nonchalantly, "take your flowers and leave or I promise you I'll let the hound at you." You gestured a hand toward your fuming brother.

Of course, you were naturally sassy, but in times of danger, your sass levels would go up by a hundred. Was this the smartest idea to agitate the guy who lit this place up? No, probably not, but your instincts decided otherwise. The man was rendered speechless, to say the least. He was expecting a sobbing woman not a lady who could even out sass Jay Halstead on a good day.

While the man was a blubbering mess Kelly took the initiative to call it into Boden because of course this had to all go down in a burning building. A few moments later you turned on your heel and began dragging Kelly with you.

"What the hell are you doing?" Kelly berated.

"I'd rather get the hell out of dodge before I turn into a crispy treat." You hissed pulling him toward the exit.

Chuck still stood there trying to mutter out a response when he bolted after the two of you. Pushing Kelly ahead of you, you turned around to see Chuck barreling toward you. Grabbing his wrist in a tight grip you all but dragged him out of the building. Just in time the three of you made it out of the building before a huge explosion erupting out of the ceiling.

Out of the corner of your eyes, you caught sight of the Severide sibling's favorite detective and pulled Chuck along with you.

"I think your package was sent to the wrong building." You shoved Chuck forward as Jay pulled the man's arms behind his back and cuffed him.

"Thanks, Y/N." Jay nodded with a smirk adorning his features.

"Anytime, detective." You flashed a quick smile before heading back to your fellow firefighters.

Letting out a breath you didn't know you were holding you ripped your helmet off and dropped it to the ground.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Kelly placed his hands on your shoulders before pulling you into his arms.

"Oh, come on. That was totally badass." You chuckled.

Kelly stared at you bugged-eyed, tilting his head in confusion.

"Come here, you big teddy bear." You wrapped your arms around Kelly's waist, hugging him tightly.

Locking your hands behind him you pulled back hissing in pain.

"What? What's wrong?" Kelly scanned you for any injuries.

"Damn bouquet had thorns in it. I'm fine though." You scrunched your brows pulling at the thorns embedded in your palm.

"What do you mean you're 'fine'? You're bleeding!" Kelly exclaimed.

"Dude, they're just thorns." You dismissed.

Kelly pushed you toward Gabby and Sylvie wordlessly as you wiped the little bit of blood escaping your hand.

After getting all cleaned up and heading back to the firehouse you went to find Kelly who was hunched over his desk in his bunk room.

"Thank you." You spoke up leaning against the door frame.

Kelly snapped his head toward the sudden voice.

"What?" Kelly asked with a small smirk.

"I said it once, that's it." You crossed your arms with a pout.

Kelly raised his brows and you let out a defeated sigh, "thank you for being my protective brother, even if I don't need you to be." You stepped forward and placed your hands on his shoulders with a small smile.

"It's in the job description." Kelly reached his hand up to ruffle your hair.

"Seriously, how many times do I have to tell you not to touch my hair?" You laughed, pushing his hand away.

"You're gonna be the death of me, I swear." Kelly rolled his eyes playfully.

[thedeathdoctor]

Kinktober Days 2, 3, and 4: Aphrodisiac, Thigh Riding, and Size Difference

Friday the 13th: Jason x Reader

Forbidden Nectar

Aka: sometimes you celebrate your actual 21st birthday by chilling in the woods behind your house with a Yeti tumbler full of Sangria and end up getting the best dick of your life by your local thicc stalker/slasher 

~Under the cut below~

You weren’t like the other girls, no matter how hard you tried. For you, high school had come and gone in the blink of an eye, and yet some of it still lingered in your mind. College was a chance to reinvent yourself, join in with a group of friends where you could grow into being a satisfied, competent woman. There, to some extent, you did. 

Joining a sorority was one of the few sporadic things you tried that managed to stick with you. During Fall Recruitment freshman year, you fell in love with Greek Life on campus, rushed, and accepted the invitation one of the sororities extended to you. Fundraising and outreach activities were your favorite; you had grown up with a passion for helping others, from Girl Scouts to food drives through your high school, you showed up for them all. However, you could never shake the nagging thoughts in the back of your mind, thoughts that insisted that the people around you didn’t like you as much as they seemed. 

Summers home felt especially isolating when you returned home for the break. You loved your parents and of course missed your dogs, but the difference between your busy college town campus and Yeehaw, New Jersey was like night and day. It took a few days to readjust to the change in pace when you returned. Time had a really funny way of standing still in Crystal Lake while you went to school for a whole nine months of the year. The same pickup truck stood watch over the corner store by your house as long as you could remember. At school, the surrounding towns seemed to be able to move entire roads around over break, leaving you reluctantly reliant on Google Maps to find the same pizza place you visited just four months ago. 

Crystal Lake’s lack of excitement and stimulation was good for recollecting your thoughts and having a place to just breathe. Happiness was found through the routine of everyday life and simple pleasures, like trading excess garden vegetables with family friends in town. You knew nearly everyone, and it warmed you when people would call out your name to wave hello. 

It wasn’t paradise though. Most of your tiny high school graduating class had stayed, trying to fill the few remaining positions at local businesses, while others yoked themselves to jobs in the next town over, the one that had a smattering of chain restaurants and a ghostly outlet mall. They all still had to drive places, and since Bill had passed, your parents were the sole auto mechanics in town. Crystal Lake was never a popular vacation spot, but several families routinely returned to their modest summer homes on the north shore, propping up the dwindling town. You helped around in the shop, freeing up your pa to tow cars when needed. Visitors tended to arrive in vehicles that were not as durable as promised, but that wasn’t their fault. 

“After all,” he would say, “people know when they fucked up. A lecture ain’t gon’ get them back on the road, but a hand up might.” 

He had never attempted college, nor did he want to, but you were surprised to find him more knowledgeable than some people you ran into on campus. Nothing incensed you more than snooty, middle-class students who widely looked down on “stupid hicks” like your father, as if they had the same opportunities out here and in suburbia. They didn’t know that they, too, were just one unexpected economic crisis away from being in the exact same situation, and you had long since stopped trying to change their minds.

The garage popped up first at the front of the property, closest to the road, and a private driveway led around a corner to the house. Your grandpa, Leon, had built the shop in the 40s with his pa, and ran it with a buddy of his. Grandma Susan had insisted it be built away from the house, as she “couldn’t get her beauty sleep with all that racket.” They had planted several saplings at the back, which had since grown into a beautiful row of oaks that mercifully shielded the house from the cacophony of power tools.

Gravel crunched under the truck’s tires as you turned into the driveway and pulled up behind the shop. A voice called out from the rear arch of the building, weary, but relieved. Matt, your older brother walked out, partially blinded by the patch of 2:00 sunlight though the canopy. You laughed as he shielded his eyes with one hand; the backwards baseball cap was as essential to his uniform as the filthy grey-blue jumpsuit was, but a pair of cheap wraparound sunglasses hung onto the collar swung with his every step, forgotten. 

“Hey Matt, catch!” 

Resting the paper bag of groceries on your hip, you swung the door of the Ranger closed and tossed the keys to your brother. 

“Mom needs these for dinner tonight, so I gotta take this in.” You gestured at the bag you had shifted into both arms. “Everything should be there, but the timing belts. Frank said they were on back order or something; should be back about Tuesday though!” Matt shrugged, after all, what could you do about absent parts. 

Patches of sunlight lit the driveway as you walked up towards the house. June was one of your favorite months here, where it was warm even in the shade of the woods, but the sun wouldn’t cook you alive if you were outside for too long. The front door was already unlocked, and two whirlwinds of fluff came barrelling through the door at your knees, and you steadied yourself against the doorframe. Jack and Willow were the two homebody dogs, greeting everyone who walked through the door with the same excitement every time. 

The smell of apples and sugar permeated the entire house, and you found a beautifully latticed pie cooling on the countertop as you set the grocery bag down. Taking the groceries out and laying them on the counter, you tore the paper bag in two and tossed the pieces at your pups. The click-click-click of their paws ended as they took the paper into the carpeted family room and began to shred them methodically. 

Following them, you found ma in the family room with them, curled up on the couch with her favorite book and a knit blanket. The curtains were half drawn, and her hearing aids lay on the side table underneath the dimmed lamp. Looking up from the worn cover, she smiled. “Thank you for running to the store for me, dear. I could have sworn I remembered everything for your birthday dinner tonight, but now I do. I know your pa gave you today off for your birthday, so I just need you back here ‘round six - six thirty to eat.” You responded by tapping your fingertips against your chin as you signed “thank you,” before raising your left and fluttering your “I love you” towards her before leaving. 

The screen door snapped at your heels as you walked through the back door. Past the wood shed, a long picnic table stretched out under a large oak. Nearing it, you took note of the excessive bird droppings and maddeningly long grass underneath that would absolutely tickle your calves. A mental note was made in your head to clean it down another day, and you meandered over to the edge of the woods. 

As you walked around, the thought occurred to you that you had never had any real desire to explore your own backyard more. As a child, you spent more time in town, around people, reaching out. Now, you just felt more of a yearning to connect with the home and land you grew up on. 

Twenty one was an important birthday, but just like all the ones before, this one felt more like an extended weekend here. Your friends had planned to celebrate, but that wouldn’t be until your trip to Colorado in mid-July. For now, you had the afternoon to yourself and a bottle of sangria that Catie had given you as you were packing for home. 

You returned to the house and took your half filled outdoors pack, poured some of the sangria into an empty green Thermos, and added it to the bag of stuff. A small access trail led from the edge of the backyard into the woods, and you set off. 

The trail forked at several junctions, every one of them marked with small colored dots spray painted on major trees. It was easier than having to upkeep sign markers as not many people needed to or even really went back here. Blue led down to the kayaks and the lake access, and you remembered racing Matt down the path to the dock as a child. Green led up the hill to the tree fort that Mark, your younger brother, and his friends had built with pa one weekend, back when you could still rest your elbow on his head if he stood still for long enough. Red led to the family plot, more occupied by well loved family pets than ancestors, thankfully. The path headed back to the house was better marked, dirty yellow hi-vis tags nailed to the trees in case you didn’t get back before dark. 

Further than that, you didn’t really know what lay beyond. You had never really wondered about it before, something that boggled your mind as you pressed forward. The trail became increasingly overgrown, and you were close to pulling out the brush machete that was in the pack, before you spotted a clearing up ahead. Brambles scraped along your calves as you tried to step over them and your thighs as you tried to skirt past a larger cluster. 

The clearing seemed to be an old campsite. A rusting fire pit sat near the center of the clearing; towards the left edge of the woods, and the remains of a small collapsed pavilion covered three or four rotting picnic tables. Rays of sunlight streamed down onto a relatively smooth patch of earth, as perfect a place as any to sit. 

Setting the bag down against the ground, you pulled out the rough, thick canvas blanket and shook it open. It covered enough of the ground for you to lay out with the Thermos and the book you were working on. It was a steamy romance novel, one of your truly guilty pleasures. The sangria, though sweet, left you feeling floatier than usual; you were so into the book that you practically breathed in every word off the page, and out here, you didn’t have to hide the blush across your cheeks. 

How you wished to come across a strong, kind man like that. The ones you had had the displeasure of meeting ranged from arrogant and abrasive to paranoid and reactionary. All they seemed to want was control, over her friends, her choices, her. No one lasted longer than a few careless hookups; they never seemed to care about your pleasure. They disliked how much time you spent volunteering, with friends, and studying. On the inside, you would give up everything in your life for the right person, but after meeting enough people, you didn’t believe anyone like that existed. 

You were so wrapped up in your fantasies that you didn’t notice the man watching you from the treeline. His hand rested on the handle of a sheathed machete that hung from the faded leather work belt at his waist. He had seen plenty of dumb teenagers desecrating the forest that was his home, but you weren’t doing anything close to that. You lay outstretched on a blanket, peaceful, enjoying the beauty of the clearing. Your feet slowly kicked back and forth in the air, flexing your thighs and calves. Every so often, your gaze would float off the page, looking past the book you held; he wondered what you were admiring so passionately. 

A ray of sunlight glinted off your hair, illuminating the golden streaks that were typically hidden. The blush across your face captured his attention, and your wistful eyes drew him in to you. To him, you were the epitome of beauty and purity, a sight both new and refreshing in these woods. A strange feeling wound through his body and settled in his groin. It demanded attention, and he pulled at the crotch of his pants, trying to alleviate the tightness there. 

When he returned his gaze to you, he found himself standing closer to you than before, no longer hidden by the brush. To his horror, he watched as you looked up from your novel, and noticed him standing there, hand still over his pants zipper. 

“Hi there,” you called out, “would you come sit with me? I swear I don’t bite…”

He was transfixed by the sound of your voice, how it cleared his mind of all thoughts of destruction and shame, and stepped closer. Surely, you would find him strange for wearing a mask, or for his marred skin, but you did not flinch as he approached. 

Despite your offering of space on the blanket beside you, he instead chose to sit on the very edge of it. Were it not for his dirty hockey mask, you would have bridged the gap between you two with a kiss. You offered him a smile, and showed him the book you were reading. The cover depicted a pretty woman swooning in the arms of a large, rugged man. Between the blush on your face as you held the book, and your eyes looking earnestly up at you, he realized what the feeling in his body was. He needed to please you. 

Shifting on the ground, he stretched out his legs, spreading them slightly. The tent that formed in his pants caught your attention; you rose to your knees and moved closer to him. That wasn't enough for him. His large hands wrapped around your waist and pulled you towards him, setting you down on his thigh. 

You placed your hands gently against his upper chest and settled on his thigh. Even through the fabric of your shorts and panties, he could feel the heat radiating from your sex. You gave off a distinctly sweet scent that filled his head with a light airiness. 

His thigh pressed nicely up against your clit and his hands slid down the sides of your waist to your full hips, and began to gently rock you back and forth. You leaned into the motion, slightly arching your back to tilt your hips into the sweet friction, and your forearms steadied you against his chest. It was broad and soft, and you gasped as you felt the firm muscles hidden underneath. He had picked you up without a hint of strain, as if you were just a soft little toy. 

Maybe it was the arousal bubbling in you already from the book and the drink, but you came so easily on his thigh, soaking through the fabric of your shorts. The rocking slowed to a stop as he felt your body shudder involuntarily and your juices seeped through his pants leg. 

Adrift in bliss, you barely noticed him undressing everything but his mask. You slipped your shirt off, and had hooked your thumbs into the waistband of your shorts when you noticed him staring at you. Slowly, he tilted his head, and you felt his eyes roam your body, giving you pause. Then, with an incredible amount of ease, he stripped you nude, tearing first the cotton of your shorts, then the delicate lace of your panties off your body. Before you could react, he had set you back down on his leg, sweet nectar drooling from your lower lips onto the cool skin of his thigh. 

His hands kneaded your hips as he began to move you again, enjoying how your soft flesh yielded to his touch. You leaned against him, pressing your bare chest to his, which earned you a low hum from underneath his mask. Your hands roamed over his shoulders, feeling the swell of his muscles under your palms. Something jutted firmly against your own thigh with each movement. The shape was unmistakable, but you had never encountered one of this size before. It filled you with incredulity, and the thrill of taking it entirely overpowered any apprehension in your mind about whether you could. Once the thought had occurred to you, it pushed you over the edge again, your fingernails curling into his skin for support. Your breath ghosted over his chest as you sighed gratuitously, partly involuntarily, partly to rouse him further. 

It was successful, as he leaned back, taking you with him until you rested entirely on him, your stomach flush with his. His hands roved down your back, settling on your buttocks, massaging them gently. They were capable of doing anything they wanted to you, even hurting you, but their power had been tightly controlled. Carnal hunger swelled within you, driving you to seek more from him. 

You straddled his hips, feeling your inner thigh muscles stretch until your knees came to rest lightly against the ground. His hands wrapped around the back of your thighs, one holding you firmly as the other slid between them. His middle finger traced down your vulva and paused at your clit, rubbing until he felt your body shiver and your warm fluids on his fingertip.. Your insides ached to be filled, and with only a breathy "please", his touch crept up towards your entrance. Slowly, he pushed the digit into you, eliciting a gasp of pleasure and surprise at its thickness. It shifted inside you as he repositioned his arm, and you only had a moment to realize it before your heightened sensitivity sent you spiraling into another orgasm. 

Feeling you from the inside excited him; his chest heaved as he let out a deep growl of approval. You rested your head on his pectoral muscle, unable to form coherent thoughts as his finger plunged into you, accompanied by distinctly lewd squishing sounds. He worked with the intention of readying you for his cock, slipping in a second finger, then a third as you focused on relaxing your internal muscles. 

His fingers slipped out of you, leaving you startlingly empty for a moment before he shifted you lower on his body. The head of his cock nestled itself between your lower lips. Its presence nearly made your heart leap out of your chest. Finally, it was time. 

The tip pressed firmly against you and you gasped as your body yielded to his, granting entry to the bulbous, dripping head of his second machete. His hands returned to your hips, holding them firmly as he eased his way into you. When it felt as if you could not take anymore, he would slightly pull back before pushing further in. The movement was similar to the rocking motion he had guided you through earlier, continuing until you had taken him to the hilt. 

He let you rest for a moment as you stretched to accommodate his intense girth. When you determined you were ready, half whimpered, half begged, “take me now”. 

His shaft curved upward, and with each movement pressed against the sweet spot just underneath your tummy. The pulsing veins added further stimulation with each thrust, teasing your sensitive walls with its texture. Heavy panting became audible from behind your lover’s mask. Even he wasn’t immune to the intensity of base pleasure you gave him. You had broken his stoic demeanor, and reveled in his guttural moans as he thrust into you. 

A pulsing knot began to form in your core as he pounded away at you, hips slapping smartly against yours. Desperately, you fought to hold off your orgasm as long as you could, but there were no other thoughts in your mind to cling to as a distraction. His cock was punishing, mercilessly bringing you to orgasm, showing no signs of slowing. Your body twitched and shook; his firm hands on your hips ensured his complete control over you, preventing you from shying away from the stimulation he was hellbent on giving you. Letting your mouth drop open and eyes flutter, you surrendered all control to him. 

His breaths grew ragged, heavier, as he felt his own orgasm building up in him. You squeezed him so perfectly, and he reveled in the feeling as you pulsated effortlessly around his shaft. He pulled you down onto him as he gave one last, powerful thrust into you that left you gasping for air. Thick spurts of ejaculate coated the entrance of your uterus, filling you until you were overflowing. His cum mixed with yours, the fluid drooling from between your lips, pooling between your bodies. Your head rested and settled against his chest; for a few remaining moments, your fingertip lazily traced hearts onto his skin as you drifted off into the haze of sleep. 

[avintagekiss24]

THE FALLEN || BUCKY BARNES

-- DEMON!AU -- ONE SHOT --

pairing: Demon!Bucky Barnes x black!reader || word count: 5,783 || warnings: smut, sex, vaginal fingering, demon possession, language, angels/demons || challenge: @wxntersoldiers​ 6k au challenge - demon!au || summary: heaven was above, hell was below - but now they’re both on earth, and you’re stuck in the middle. || author’s note: i stole a little from supernatural, a little from the bible (this is not a religious fic and I am in no way trying to push any religions/beliefs onto anyone!), and also took some liberties for this one! also, major thanks to @tropicalcap​ & @littleheavensangel2​ for helping me figure this fic out. love you two ladies!

just for reference, steve is archangel Michael, bucky is fallen angel Azazel, sam is archangel Uriel, rhodey (james) is archangel Gabriel.

line divider by @/writeyourmindaway!

You grip the shotgun tightly, your finger curled around the trigger as you stare down the long barrel. You keep your left hand cupped around the forearm as you press the tip of the gun into the rusty, old metal door, pushing it open with a loud creak. Your eyes dart around the abandoned warehouse as you move into the damp, dank room, the smell of sulfur hitting your nostrils.

Something shifts from somewhere deep in the warehouse - the familiar click of something metal hitting the floor. You whip in the direction of the noise, your eyesight aligning with the small sight at the end of the barrel, your breath going shallow. You stand stark still, just waiting for something - anything - to move, growl, or breathe, so you can blow it right back to the fiery pit of hell it came from. But nothing moves, nothing growls, nothing breathes - it’s just you and the silence of this new world.

You cut your eyes back into the center of the room and move forward, each step balanced and focused. You lower your weapon, very slightly, as you walk up on a small, burnt out fire. You kick at the old newspapers and napkins before you scan the room with your squinted eyes and kneel down beside it. You pick at the burnt rubble, lifting some to your nose to sniff at it before throwing it back into the burnt pile. Whoever was here is long gone. 

You close your eyes and bring your hand to your face, letting out a deep sigh. You rub your forehead and then your eyes before you grab the back of your neck. Sleep is pulling at you. Steve’s voice rings in the back of your mind - you can’t keep going like this. You’ve been through worse. All the survivors have. A few nights without sleep is considered a privilege these days. 

You take another deep breath but jolt back up on your feet, spinning around and hoisting your shotgun back up to your face. Sulfur fills your nostrils, stronger than when you first stepped into the warehouse. Then, there’s a soft sound of steps, one slowly after the other, circling you. You blink, but move with the noise, following it in a circle, training your eyes on the darkness.

“Come out.” You say firmly, adjusting your grip on your weapon, pressing your finger a little harder into the trigger.

It doesn’t answer. It just continues to circle you slowly, making sure to stay in the darkest parts of the empty warehouse, careful of the moonlight. 

It’s amazing how calm you are now in moments like this. A year ago, when the world first collapsed and heaven and hell was unleashed upon it - you prayed for death. You weren’t meant for this; you weren’t strong enough. You were a city girl. Starbucks in hand, AirPods in your ears, Christian Loubotins on your feet, a (huge) engagement ring on your finger. Your worst fear was someone parking their luxury vehicle in the spot that was reserved for your luxury vehicle.

Then it all went to shit.

Your Loubotins have been replaced with a pair of old, ripped Adidas that you took while out on a supply run. Your Birkin bag is now a high school boy's backpack, again, picked up while rummaging through an abandoned house. The only thing you have that reminds you of you, is that engagement ring, placed on a simple gold link chain and tucked underneath your tattered shirt. The weight of it, the feeling of it pressing against your chest keeps you grounded - it helps keep your memory of Bucky alive. 

Now, this shotgun, two hunting knives, and a katana are extensions of your body. Killing - demons or humans - is second nature to you. You are strong enough. 

“Come out,” you announce again, “Now.”

A deep chuckle rings out. You fire a round into the wall opposite you before pulling back on the forearm, the spent cartridge flying past your face and falling to the ground. You push the butt of the gun back into your shoulder and keep moving with the sound of the steps.

“Ooh,” a voice calls towards you, “Tough girl, huh?”

You fire another round, slamming the forearm back again to push another bullet into the chamber. The steps stop. Soft curse words float toward you as you finally spot a shadow doubled over. You smirk.

“Imagine if I were aiming for your face,” you shrug, “Bucky, come out.”

He chuckles again. He steps out into the moonlight, rolling his shoulders as he glances down at the bullet wound in his side, “I liked this shirt.” 

You peer at him over the barrel of your still raised gun, “Looks good on you.” 

He does indeed look good - like the old Bucky, the one you still dream of. He even keeps the simple silver chain that you gave him a few Christmas’ back around his neck. His hair is longer, and dare you say, you almost like it better than his tailored look from before. It’s pulled up into a bun - a bun! - a few loose tendrils falling around his face. The human Bucky never sported a beard, or even the smallest trace of stubble, but demon Bucky…. he’s, well, everything your Bucky was not.

Gone are the crisp, ironed, button down shirts, slacks, and designer loafers. Black combat boots, black jeans, black leather jacket now dress his muscular frame as he stands before you, his head cocked, a shit smirk on his face. 

His eyes are different, and that’s the most unsettling part. Those deep, ocean blue, often demonstrative eyes are just a memory now. Two yellow orbs stare back at you, devoid of any notion of who he once was - or the life you shared together. 

You blink, remaining steady as you watch him dig into his jacket pocket and pull out a loose cigarette; the gaping hole in his side closing up on it’s own. He places the thin stick between his lips before flicking his eyes back to you, and snaps his fingers. A bright fire starts to burn at the tips of them. He keeps his eyes on you and covers the end of the cigarette to shield it from any wind that escapes in from the broken window overhead, and lights it slowly. 

He inhales deeply, pulling his head back up straight as he pulls the cigarette from his lips and exhales a cloud of smoke in your direction. He winks at you, playing with you seemingly before he shakes out the fire on his fingertips.

“Why are you following me?” He asks after a few silent seconds, taking another drag of his cigarette.

You can’t tell him why, although, if you could, you’re not really sure that you would want to. You don’t know if you really believe what Steve is trying to get you to believe. You were always a pessimist - the glass is half empty kinda girl. Something in you keeps nagging at you, telling you that your Bucky is gone. 

You still remember the last time he was truly your Bucky. His frantic voice filled your ears as you lifted your phone to your ear, your eyes wide and full of tears  as you sat in shock while the television at your office played out the gruesome stories from all over the world. Building collapsed, people running for their lives, blood staining the streets. Deep, long cracks in the concrete as fire spewed up from below. 

“Listen to me, baby,” you barely heard him say, “Just get home, ok? Lock the doors, close the blinds, don’t let anybody inside. I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Ok? Promise me, baby.” 

“Bucky,” you whimpered as hot tears streaked down your face, “I’m scared, I can’t. I can’t -  what is happening?” You sobbed.

“Hear my voice, baby,” He said firmly, “Just get home, okay? I’ll be there, I promise. I will keep you safe.”

That was the last time you heard his voice.

He never made it home.

It took months before you could even understand what could have happened to him, months more before you could actually confirm it. You were out on a run, alone, looking for supplies and a dry place to sleep. You ended up downtown - apartment buildings made for the best supply deposits. It was dark, the streetlights had long since burnt out, but you grew accustomed to moving around with only the moonlight as a guide. 

You rounded the corner and stopped dead in your tracks. There was a group of them, but naturally, you hesitated - not knowing if they were human or the possessed. Just when you were about to turn and head back from where you came, you heard it. His laugh. When you turned back, he was facing you and every ounce of air was sucked right out of your body. 

He was alive. 

It had been so long. 

Every rational thought drained from your mind. You just wanted to feel him - to hug him and kiss him and tell him how much you missed him. How you’d known all along that you’d find him again. Your feet were moving before you even knew it. Your eyes filled with tears as you crossed the street towards him. You just wanted to feel him. 

“Buc-”

Before you could get his name out of your mouth, you were grabbed from behind and yanked between two buildings. A hand clamped over your mouth, muffling your screams as a chest pushed into yours. The strange man peeked around the corner of the building before returning his attention to you, shaking his head slowly, “Possessed,” he whispered.

You’ve been with Steve - well, Michael, ever since. He explained it all to you - the centuries old war between heaven and hell - good and evil - that had finally spilled over onto earth. How he, Uriel, and Gabriel (Sam and James, respectively) decided to help, despite their instructions to never interfere. The information made you dizzy. You didn’t believe it at first, you thought he was crazy - until his wings spread out behind him. 

You kinda had to half believe him then.

He also explained how it happened - how you could be possessed. You had heard along the way that just looking at one of the creatures crawling up from the gaping holes in the streets could do it. Others said all that was needed was a touch from one. Maybe it was a bite, or a scratch - some even said the possessed had been chosen from birth - everyone had a theory. 

None of them were true, turns out.

“You have to give in.” Steve’s voice was soft, his eyes cast away from yours as you gasped in terror, “You have to offer your soul to them for the demon to take you.”

You want to know why. You want to know why the man you were about to marry, the solid, the strong, the happy Bucky Barnes you knew and loved, gave up his soul - and if what Steve says is true - you want him back.

“I’m not following you.” You lie.

He snorts, “So, it’s just a coincidence we keep running into each other?”

You shrug, blinking slowly, “Looks that way.”

He nods back at you, taking another puff of his cigarette before he expels the grey smoke again and flicks at the end to rid the ash. He drags his eyes along your frame as you stand in the middle of the room, your weapon still trained on him. He knows there’s a story that you aren’t telling.

He tilts his head again, his eyes dropping from your face quickly before they return, “You knew him?”

“Who?”

“Don’t play with me,” He scoffs, rolling his eyes before he gestures at himself, “This pretty face. This Bucky, you keep referring to.”

You don’t answer. You just blink at him, tightening your grip on your gun again as you keep his chest dead center of the barrel. He kicks at the debris on the ground before he gazes up at the tall ceiling, still sucking on that cigarette between his lips. 

“I can’t give him back, you know.” He says matter of factly, “He’s mine.”

“I understand.” You answer simply.

He smiles widely at your humor, “Why are you following me then? Hm? Why do you keep following me around, girl?” His voice deepens by the end of his question - menacing, trying to intimidate you.

You shrug again, “The same reason you don’t ever try to kill me once you realize I’m around.” You click your jaw, “His body may be yours, but I know Bucky is still in there. He won’t let you kill me.”

Your words stun him into silence. He smiles slowly after a few seconds and tilts his head back as he drops the stub of a cigarette to the ground. He cracks his neck and then rolls his shoulders, humming softly. 

He steps towards you but you’re quick, instantly taking a step back, and then another, and another, in rhythm with him, “You want to know how I got him?” He asks, “Hm? How I took your precious little Bucky?” He mocks, laughing at you as your eyes go wide. 

You swallow hard, blinking rapidly as you squeeze your finger against the trigger a little harder, “Stop. Back up.”

“He was damn near dead when I found him,” he continues, ignoring you completely, “I thought he was dead when I first saw him. Poor old Bucky here must have been in a hell of a hurry,” he smiles again, his eyes glowing as he recounts the details, “Flipped his car in all the melee. He was trapped in there for days.”

“Stop it.” You whisper, your chin starting to tremble. 

“Oh, he was gullible too.” He laughs again, “He believed every word that came out of my mouth. It’s people like him that make it so damn easy - he didn’t even put up a fight.”

“Shut up!” You shout as a single tear slips down your cheek, “I mean it, I will blow your fucking head off.”

He stops moving towards you, but laughs again, clapping his hands as the stench of your fear and anger fill his nostrils. He titters, “I know exactly who you are.” He whispers, his smile growing larger as your face clicks in his brain, “He had your picture, clutched in his bloody hand, pressed right up against his chest when I found him.” 

You let out a sob. 

“I used you against him.”

“Shut up!” You scream again.

“He begged me!” He shouts at you, making you stop in your tracks. He clasps his hands together as if he’s praying, “Please,” he starts, mocking Bucky’s pleas, “Please help me. I need to get home, please.”

You squeeze the trigger, firing a round straight at his head. He’s quick, but you knew that, the bullet just grazing the side of his face as he sidesteps it. You slam the forearm back and shoot again, and again, the empty shell casings falling to the concrete floor, soft clicks and tings sounding as they bounce. 

Bucky smirks at you again before he disappears from sight. You reach for the hunting knife strapped around your leg and pull it from its sheath, spinning around on your feet and bringing it down with all the force in your body. 

He catches your arm in mid air. He folds your arm behind your back and whips you around, crushing his chest to your back. 

“All I had to tell him was that I could help him get back to you so that he could keep you safe, and he fell for it - hook, line, and sinker.” He whispers in your ear, his hot breath washing over the side of your face as you struggle against him. He starts to laugh, the sound booming through the warehouse again, bouncing off of the walls, “Isn’t that hilarious? Men are so fucking weak, just the thought of you brought him to his knees.”

He closes his eyes again and starts to sway the two of you back and forth, taking a deep breath, filling his chest and lungs with your scent, “God, you smell good. I could taste you on his lips as soon as I took him. I could feel your skin in his hands - smell that sweet cunt of yours.”

He wraps his arm around your waist, squeezing you to him tightly as he digs his nose into your hair. You shiver at the feeling of his prickly stubble grazing across your cheek, still struggling and whimpering to get free of his grasp. The hand around your waist sneaks up into your shirt, skirting up your warm flesh, his fingers finding your breasts. You gasp when he squeezes them hard - pushing you back into him with his strength. 

His tongue slithers out from between his lips, licking from your jaw up to your temple before he presses the side of his face to yours. He chuckles as he fondles your breasts with his fingers, his hot skin searing yours, making you jump in pain. He cranes your head to the side with his before he rubs his cheek against yours. He nibbles on your ear as you start to struggle once more, then dips down to your neck where he nips at the exposed skin with his teeth.

Your nipples harden. A shiver runs up your spine. An ache starts to spread through your stomach and sex as heat blooms across your skin. Your stomach starts to churn as hatred and anger builds within you. Your mind knows that this isn’t Bucky - but your body doesn’t. It just knows that these hands, these lips, this tongue feels familiar; and it’s been so long.

You feel his dick start to push into your ass, pulling another laugh from the demonic creature, “Looks like my pal Bucky and I both have a weakness for pretty girls.” He mumbles against your ear. He slithers his hand from your breasts and down to your jeans, his index finger tracing the edge of the denim from hip to hip, “I haven’t even touched you yet and I can smell you from here.” 

You're paralyzed. Stuck between your screaming mind and your willful body. He lets go of the arm he has pinned behind your back and grabs your chin, pushing it upward so that you can see him. You blink furiously as he gazes along your face, his fingers gently caressing your jaw and cheek, his eyes roaming slowly.

Your breath is heavy and audible - small whimpers escaping with each exhale. His hand pushes into the front of your jeans and dives right for the apex, finding your folds and clit wet and hot. Your mouths both fall open in unison - yours from the touch you didn’t realize you had been waiting for, his from the delight of it all.

He hums as his fingers start to play with you, rubbing and circling, flicking at that sensitive little bud between your legs. He feels your body tighten and the soft rock of your hips as a gentle, soft, feminine moan escapes from your lips. He tilts his head as he watches your eyes flutter from the contact - the sight of you, your smell, your soft skin, your sounds - it all makes him wish he’d been human all along. 

He pushes his fingers inside of you suddenly, pulling a sharp gasp from your lips. You push your hips forward and let your mouth go slack again as your eyes close to slits. He pulls his fingers out slowly, then delves back inside of you, hooking them as he starts to stroke your slick muscles. 

Your body jerks gently as you grunt, your sounds husky and full. He keeps your chin in the palm of his hand, his fingers pressing into your cheeks as he stares down at you. He licks your mouth - over your chin and lips, up to the tip of your nose before he tongues the roof of your mouth, groaning as lust ripples through his body. 

He kisses you suddenly. Hard. Hungry. You moan into his mouth before breaking the kiss to hiss and groan from his pumping fingers. You roll your hips into his hand as your head falls forward, squeezing your muscles around him to add more pressure. 

He pulls out of you suddenly, whipping you back around and slamming you into the wall. You hold yourself up with your hands, spreading your fingers out on the wall as your chest heaves with anticipation. He pops your button and fly and pushes the thick material down to your knees as you push your ass back into him. You slide your hand to your clit, massaging yourself with the tips of your fingers as you hear him fumble with his own pants. 

His hands are back on your hips, his nails digging into your thick flesh as he slams into you. You jolt forward, moaning loudly as he starts to fuck into you hard - the sound of his skin slapping against your bouncing off the walls around you. You slam your eyes closed as you lunge forward with each thrust, your fingers still working your swollen clit. 

Bucky works your shirt up over your breasts before he pulls at the cups of your bra, freeing your bouncing tits. He cups them, then tweaks your thick, hard nipples before he wraps his large hand around your throat. He squeezes, tightening your airway as he rams into you from behind. Your fingers still push along your clit, slapping at the sensitive bud before you rub it as hard and fast as you can. 

He feels different - thicker than before. His cock seems to pulse while inside of you, filling up every inch of space your cunt has to offer. You can feel the blood coursing through the thick vein that runs the length of his cock - feel the thick, sticky cum bubbling from his slit. He pushes his cum deep; each thrust spilling more of his luxuriant seed into you. His sex is hot - the sheer heat radiating from every inch of him makes sweat pop along your skin. His fingers start to burn you again and you cry out in pain as burns mark your flesh.

You feel the pull in the pit of your stomach, the pressure starting to build as your body tightens intuitively. Bucky curls his fingers over your shoulders as he feels your pussy start to squeeze down on him and pulls you harder back into him. His eyes fall to your ass as your flesh jiggles with each thrust. 

You close your eyes again and let your head fall, bracing for the impending orgasm that threatens to consume your body. Small ripples of it flash through you, making you tense suddenly. Bucky’s fingers cover yours to help you massage your clit until you’re a shivering, shrieking mess. 

You cum all around his rigid cock. You’re loud - panting and moaning as you thrust back into him, releasing more waves of your long overdue release throughout your body. Your clit convulses, jumping with each contraction of your cunt, your muscles tensing and squeezing around him.

Bucky continues to slam into you, each stroke coming harder and faster than the last until a low, animalistic growl rumbles through his chest. Your wet muscles coax his orgasm right out of him, pulling more ribbons of cum from his slit as he ruts into you. He fills you up, so much so that he spills back out of you, making a mess of your already quivering, wet thighs. He grips your flesh so hard as he fucks into you, small bruises form instantly on your hips. 

He pumps into you one last time and holds still, wiggling his hips to push himself deeper into your sex as his cock continues to spit. You tighten your muscles, holding him in, feeling each spurt, each jump, each pulse of his cock until your orgasm recedes back into the depths of your body. 

You keep your eyes closed as your breath rushes, your heart racing. Bucky pulls out of you unceremoniously, slapping his dick against the inside of your thigh before he plunges his fingers back inside of you quickly. 

He then shoves them in his mouth, moaning as your familiar taste explodes on his taste buds, “Bucky has good taste.” He chuckles, slapping your ass before he tucks himself back into his jeans. 

You’re not sure what you feel right in this moment. Shame? Regret? Excitement? Relief? It’s a foreign feeling - whatever it is. One that maybe you used to know, but can’t really put your finger on now. Living through an apocalypse will do that to you. It humbles you. It breaks you down to the bare minimum of what you are; makes you shed everything unnecessary - like shame, regret, excitement, and relief. 

You pull your jeans back up over your hips and turn to face the demon in front of you. You lean against the wall and watch as he pulls another cigarette from his pocket and lights it with the fire he conjures at the tips of his fingers. 

“Feel better now?” He asks after a few minutes, “Maybe you can let me be.”

“I don’t believe you.” You say calmly, blinking at him.

He rolls his eyes as he expels a puff of smoke through his nostrils and lips, “What don’t you believe, darling?”

“You can give him back to me.”

He scoffs, walking right up to you again. He presses his forehead to yours, pushing until your head rests against the wall behind you. He taps on your temple with his index finger slowly, his yellow eyes bouncing between yours, “Your Bucky is gone. Get it through that thick skull of yours.”

“I don’t believe you.” You whisper, defying his every word. 

He leans back, smiling in pity of you, “Why not?”

“Because I told her so, Azazel.”

You both snap your heads toward the new voice. Bucky grabs you and pulls you in front of him as he backs his way into the center of the room. He peers over your shoulder at the tall, blonde man as he moves slowly into the room, the tips of his long, gloriously white wings dragging on the ground behind him. 

Your chest starts to heave again as Bucky grips your bicep hard as he continues to back up, his eyes squinted as he tries to make out the face of the unknown man. You can feel when it clicks for him. His grip lessens just slightly, he straightens up, he lets out a breath.

“Michael.”

The blonde man smiles gently, “It’s Steve down here.”

Bucky snarls as he keeps you pressed to his front, “These human names are ridiculous, aren’t they?”

“I don’t know,” Steve shrugs, “I kinda like Steve.”

“You would,” Bucky chuckles, “How are you, brother? It’s been a long time.”

Steve smiles again, his brilliant blue eyes sparkling underneath the moonlight spilling in from the broken windows, “I’m well. I miss you, we all do.”

“I miss you too, Michael.” Bucky answers earnestly, “I do, I mean that.”

“Then come home.” Bucky starts to speak, but Steve holds up his hand, “You can help us end this. Return her fiancé to her, and help us set this right.”

Bucky scoffs, “And ruin all the fun? I don’t think so. I quite like being bad.” He curls his fingers around your neck again, kissing your cheek as he starts to sway with you back and forth, “You should try it. It’s fun - freeing, if you will.”

“This isn’t fun, Azazel. People dying isn’t a game.”

Bucky groans as he rolls his eyes dramatically, “Can you fucking lighten up? Jesus.”

“Azazel,” Steve starts.

“It’s Bucky up here,” he mocks, wrapping his arm around your waist, “Isn’t it, sweet thing?”

Steve steps a little closer, “Talk to me, please. This isn’t about her.”

“This isn’t about her?” he laughs, “You used her, Michael, to get to me, and now it’s not about her?”

“I didn’t use her. You’re my brother, I can feel you, we all can.”

“We, we, we,” Bucky shouts, tightening his grip around you, “So, you’re all here, hm?”

“Yes.” Steve answers calmly, “Gabriel, Uriel - we all came to help.”

“Oh yes, because you love these repugnant creatures so fucking much, right?” Bucky shouts back, a sudden anger flashing through him as he gestures towards you, “Right?!”

Your heart rate quickens as you stare at Steve, watching as he stays as cool as a cucumber, “Yes.” Steve responds softly, “I do. I love them. We’re supposed to love them, Azazel.”

“They’re disgusting!” Bucky seethes behind you, “Humans lie, they cheat, they steal, they kill! They turn on each other like animals, they desecrate their bodies -” he grabs your chin and pushes it upward gruffy, causing you to hiss in pain, “This one just let me fuck her knowing exactly what I am,” he takes a long pause, “And you still believe they deserve our love?” He finishes, his voice barely above a whisper.

Steve dips his head, but smiles and lets out a small laugh, “I’m not saying they’re smart.”

He drops his hand from your chin and turns his head to the side, staring at the opposite wall. His body is tense, the heat of his anger radiating through every pore of his skin, “We gave him our undivided attention - unconditional love and devotion, and he chose them over us every single time. That doesn’t make you angry?” He hisses lowly, his voice wavering just slightly, “It doesn’t make you want to see them suffer? After everything he’s done for them, how much he loves them and for what? Just for them to turn their backs on him.”

“That’s not for us to decide, Azazel.” Steve says, his voice still gentle, still calm, not wanting to agitate him anymore, “You know what’s happening here is wrong. This is not our playground. If they destroy themselves, then so be it, but we can’t make that happen, especially out of spite.”

“Spite? Oh,” Bucky laughs again, shaking his head, “This isn’t spite, this is full on hatred. I loved him,” he spits, venom dripping from every word, “I loved him more than anything, more than anyone - and he cast me aside that I was nothing.”

“You were proud, Azazel.” Steve says firmly, taking a step towards him, “Too proud, too bold. You started to question him, he had no choice but to cast you out.”

“Bullshit!” Bucky shouts loudly, “He could have just loved me the way he loves these filthy humans.”

Steve closes his eyes, “You can still come home.”

“I don’t want to come home. I told you, I like it here.” He seethes, his voice low in your ear, licking your cheek with his hot tongue to antagonize Steve. 

“Bucky was a good man,” you say softly, your voice shaking as you try to reason with him, “You know that, you can feel it, I know you can. That’s why you don’t hurt me. You can’t - he’s too good, and you can’t control it.”

You feel his eyes on you and the anger still brimming underneath his surface. He drags his fingernails along your cheek before he cups your chin again, “Thanks for the swell time, baby girl.”

“Wait,” you say, trying to turn to face him, “Wait, please. Just listen to Steve, we’re not trying to-“

You blink, and he’s gone. You turn and let out a sigh as you stare into the dark warehouse. 

Steve moves up beside you, placing his hand on your shoulder and rubbing softly, “Are you alright?”

You blink again, a numbness coming over you, “Yeah.” You say after a minute or two.

“You…” his words fall away as he tries to make his question as delicate as possible, “You mated with him?”

Your mouth falls open, but you shut it after a few seconds tick by, not having any sort of come back, “Please don’t, Steve.”

“That wasn’t part of the plan.”

“I realize that,” you sigh again, “Thank you. I just got… caught up. It’s - you wouldn’t understand. It’s been awhile.”

He rolls his eyes, his wings swishing behind him, “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.” He quotes, shaking his head softly. 

You pinch the bridge of your nose and close your eyes, sighing lightly, “Not now, okay? Please.”

“For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.”

“Steve!” 

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly, bowing his head, spitting out a quick prayer for you before he centers himself, “Did you get it?”

You hold out your hand. In the center of your palm sits the silver chain that was once around Bucky’s neck and the discarded butt of his cigarette. The apocalypse teaches you all sorts of tricks - like slipping a chain off of a demon’s neck while he argues with an archangel. Steve grabs them from you, bringing them to his nose to sniff them quickly, “These will be perfect. Now come, you need to wash the sin off of you.” 

“God, you’re annoying.” You groan. Steve cuts his eyes toward you again as he presses his lips together in a hard line. You throw your hands up, “Sorry, sorry, sorry. Jes- I mean… fuck, sorry.” 

He sighs heavily, “You’re lucky I like you.”

You laugh a little as the two of you start to move back through the building, “I’m sorry, this is just,”

“It’s a lot, I know. But hey,” he grabs your wrist, stopping you so you’ll face him, “We’re gonna get your Bucky back. We just have to get this back to Gabriel and Uriel and we’ll have everything we need to summon Azazel to us and remove him from the vessel.” 

“He’s not a vessel,” you correct quickly, “He’s a person, he had a life. His name is Bucky.”

Steve notes the emotion in your voice, “I’m sorry. Bucky, we’ll remove him from Bucky. This will work, I promise you.”

You nod slowly as you let him pull you into a hug, “I believe you.” 

He knows deep down that you don’t - not really - not yet, anyway.

He’s determined to make a believer of you. 

[inkformyblood]

in these bodies we will die

Commander Cody Week Day 04: Post-Order 66 @commandercodyweek

Pairing: Codywan, QuinObi, Cody x Obi-Wan x Quinlan Summary:  Cody knows something is going to go wrong when he wakes up on a mission to execute a Jedi. But that is also just a matter of perspective. Most days, the trooper wakes up and finds that he is still CC-2224. The world around him is sharp and dark: the purple crackle of his electrostaff mingling with the steady beat of his heart which remained as rhythmic as a march, until it blotted out everything else. He is nothing but a weapon, and he waits patiently for his orders, whatever they may be. 

On those days, he knows his place in the durasteel universe, following his Lord and enacting his will. The sneers — openly worn and honed to a razor’s edge — from the Brothers and Sisters that made up the Inquisitors didn’t impact him in the way they were hoping, because why would they? He is a weapon, one of a few who had been gifted beskar by their Lord, and who served at his convenience. 

“Trying for a saber of your own?” Ninth Sister spat one day as she stormed from the throne room, her anger rolling from her like lightning and breaking harmlessly on the impassive countenance of CC-2224. “Trying to be a Brother, clone?”

“I’m already a brother,” CC-2224 tells her, but he doesn’t know why. She turns on her heel and leaves in a swish of black fabric, and he returns to waiting for his next order. He listens to the rumbling breaths from Darth Vader, the slight mechanical click between each hissing exhalation adding to the reflexive count in his head. 

When Cody wakes on the transport, he knows that something has gone horribly wrong.

The floor shuddered beneath his feet with each roar of the massive engines, but the room is eerily silent. Before… Before when he was— Cody cut the thought off before it could travel any further. His mind felt fragile, as if it was constructed from freshly spun glass, and he knew that if it broke, he didn’t know how long it would be before he was able to pull control back again. Or even if he would want to.

Bile rose in his throat, hot and thick and acrid, and his shoulders contorted with the effort of keeping the scream trapped in his throat. He had woken up as Cody before but never prior to a mission. Never held the ability to escape, or to die, as closely as he did now. 

He could remember, beneath the dark edges of the Executor and the constant hiss-click sound of the man who had once been Anakin Skywalker, a single moment of clarity as he knelt in front of the shell that hid his rotted carcass. Cody had been holding a lightsaber, the edges of it scorched and warped, and the scent of iron lingered in the air from the blue blood that had seeped into the handle. For a moment, his thumb had twitched over the ignition switch that could have been his salvation or his doom, but then Cody was gone once again as Darth Vader raised his chin with one gloved finger. 

“Well done, Commander. I am glad to see I chose correctly.”

Cody had to hold on. Eyes squeezed tightly shut, he blindly ran a hand over the wall, fingers splayed until he found the recess, pulling the datapad free. 

For an instant, before the screen activated, Cody caught sight of his reflection in the tinted transparisteel and felt the world threaten to fall away from him once more, nothing but the void waiting to consume him utterly. 

 What had Anakin done?

Obi-Wan — traitor to the Republic, good soldiers follow orders, no! — hadn’t spoken about Anakin’s past, but a trooper would have had to be blind to not see the marks that his past had left on him, the anger that burnt low in his eyes and caused his mouth to twist whenever someone mentioned the troopers being owned. Cody had seen the scar on Anakin’s arm from his tracker removal, straight and well-healed compared to the now-ruined tapestry of scars that had covered his back. 

Cody’s fingers didn’t tremble as he raised his hand to his face, trailing a line from scalp to chin. He couldn’t feel anything different, a few new minor scars here and there pitting his skin like the surface of a moon, a far cry from the whorled raised scar that curled around his left eye. But that didn’t subtract from the new knowledge he carried: that Anakin had branded him like property with a red tattoo that would mar his skin forever. 

Focus.

Breathe in, then out.

(I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me.)

Cody focused on the datapad, reading over the minimal briefing he had been given, doom slipping over his shoulders like a shroud. He had been sent to hunt a Jedi, to track the whispers of a survivor and kill them. 

Laughter, harsh and uncaring, bubbled up in his throat, trapped behind the cage of his teeth. What was one more when Cody had killed one of the men he loved with barely a second thought?

⁂

Cody felt himself slip partially beneath the waves of his consciousness the moment the trooper stepped outside the ship, hiding away from the first flicker of unspeakable terror that passed over a civilian's face at the sight of him. 

The CC-2224 knew the motions, just as well as Cody did. Alpha-17 had vanished into the wind, from what little he had managed to find out from scraps of rumors, but he remembered his, and the other trainers, words well. 

Move quick, strike hard, complete the mission. 

Salt clung to every visible structure, encrusted pillars that distorted the shapes of the shipping crates and barrels into hunched figures as CC-2224 stepped into the warehouse. His electroshock baton lit up with a hiss, bathing the room in a vibrant purple, and the trooper took a step forward. The floor crunched beneath his boot, grinding down the patchwork of salt as he slowly followed the faint trail of footprints, head tilted to one side as he listened. 

The Jedi — the traitor, no, all of them, traitors — was cornered with nowhere to run and had never been more dangerous.

He saw the flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye, and he is turning before the trooper can even think, but it is Cody who shouts, his voice tinged with a desperation that could have ripped the stars from the sky at a word. “Quinlan!”

The man stumbled, caught off guard for only a moment, before he turned, igniting his lightsaber. The green blade stole Cody’s breath away, Quinlan’s lips drawn back in a snarl as he shifted into the beginning position of Ataru, the muscles in his legs visibly bunching as he prepared to jump.

Cody knew what he would do. He had seen it so many times before; a deadly dance made beautiful by the care and precision behind it: a single leap and twist, with the blade following barely half a second behind, leaving nothing but death in its wake. 

His helmet clattered to the ground, the air biting at the tears that rolled down his cheeks. Then, the hiss of Quinlan’s blade stopped as the Jedi deignited it, stumbling forward half a step before he caught himself, hurt emblazoned across his face.

Cody was struck by how different he seemed now to their last parting. Before, where Obi-Wan had been the rising sun and Cody was moonlight, Quinlan was the midday sun, bright and vibrant and intoxicating. He had curled into Cody’s side, one leg thrown across his hip to prod at Obi-Wan, who was motionless, except for the faint rise and fall of his chest. His breath still held the sweetness of the wine from the previous evening, part celebration and part regret at having to be parted once more even as the war slowly drew to a close.

Extracting himself was a journey in parts as Quinlan slowly worked his way free, every movement languid and tinged with a deep melancholy. 

“You don’t have to get up with me,” he whispered, cupping Cody’s face with one battle-worn hand, his thumb smoothing over the jut of his cheekbone. Quinlan’s eyes slipped out of focus for a moment, warm brown no longer studying every inch of Cody’s face, but between one blink and the next, a warm grin spilled across his face. “But it is good to see you both.”

“It’s good to see you too,” Cody replied. It felt like a paltry offering compared to the roaring fire that rekindled itself in his chest for sustenance at the mere thought of the other men, but Quinlan only laughed, low and deep, before kissing him again.

“When the war is over—“ Quinlan cut off Cody’s attempt at protest with another kiss, infuriating and effective all at the same time before he continued, intent on daring the universe to defy him. “When the war is over, we will be together again.”

Cody tasted the promise like caff on his tongue, hoping with every shattered piece of him that Quinlan was right. His hands were steady as he untied the small token — a nondescript twist of metal with the edges worn smooth through the Force — from the leather tie around his neck, and pressed it into Quinlan’s hands. 

The man stepped backwards, a chill settling in the space between them, and closed his eyes. Cody settled back into the warmth of Obi-Wan’s embrace, watching the peace settle across Quinlan’s face, the edges of his grin softening. 

“Beautiful.”

“How?” Quinlan demanded, his voice harsh and broken, ripping Cody from the memory. “Why?” 

Cody’s hands spasmed around the handle of the electro baton, the urge to ignite it almost overwhelming. Quinlan was close, too close.

“Didn’t— Couldn’t—“ The words would choke him before he could speak. His free hand shook as he raised it, signing a single clumsy message as he trembled with the effort. 

He still tried to flinch away from the blow that Quinlan landed, the heavy hilt of his lightsaber thinking against his temple, then Cody was gone once again. 

When he woke, it could have hours, days, weeks, years later. But he was Cody, settling into the body it felt like he had borrowed, with a slight shift of his shoulders as he tested the restraints. 

He knew that he was on a ship, could feel the floor vibrating beneath him through the thin padding of the cot he was lying in. His stomach twisted and rolled as the autopilot shuddered into life, and then there was nothing to do but wait.

Pain pulsed through his head like a second heartbeat, blurring his vision when his eyes slipped open in coordination with the door. 

“Morning, Cody. Have I ever mentioned how blood-soaked is a very attractive look on you?”

“That makes three times now.” The words clawed up his throat as he spoke, dried blood flaking from his face with every movement. “And you were even stone-cold sober for one of them.”

“Such a liar,” Quinlan teased, his laugh choked and distorted by the tears that ran down his cheeks. The soft sound of metal clinking together followed him as he walked across the room, and Cody caught sight of the countless mementos strung across his chest on a sturdy chain.

“I can’t untie you,” Quinlan said, his voice heavy with regret as he sat on the edge of the bed. “After the first time, when you woke up and you weren’t you—“ He broke off with a grimace, the action mirrored by Cody.

He could barely breathe, regret and hope he thought he had killed long ago wrapping around his throat like a noose. “Are you okay?”

Quinlan laughed, the sound a distant echo from the rich timbre Cody remembered, leaning forward to press their foreheads together in Keldabe. “I’m fine, don’t worry about me. I’m notoriously hard to kill, which I guess is lucky for us both.”

As if sensing the dark direction Cody’s thoughts were starting to spiral in, Quinlan moved closer and kissed him gently, blotting out the universe for everything but soft warmth and the bite of salt and iron.

“I know about the chip. I can’t destroy it, cyar’ika.” 

Sorrow ripped through Cody’s chest like a blaster bolt. The memory of teaching Quinlan ‘cyar’ika’ each mumbled repetition punctuated with a kiss until it seemed to fill his very soul couldn’t stand against it, and Cody pulled away from the Jedi, curling in on himself as much as he could.

“I’ll hurt you. Eventually, I’ll slip back under, and I’ll kill you. Please, Quin.”

Quinlan shook his head, his jaw set in sly determination. “I can’t remove it. It’s too Dark for me to distinguish it from myself. But I know someone who can.

“You’re not a killer in the way you think you are, Cody. Obi-Wan is still alive. And he’s going to be so happy to see you.”

“Alive?” Cody felt as if the floor had fallen away beneath him, but he was still here, still in control. “He’s alive?”

Quinlan nodded, and Cody finally allowed himself to weep, pressing his face into the crook of Quinlan’s neck as the other man hugged him tightly, trying to hold his shattered pieces together for a while longer.

[viperbarnes]

Hey, idk if your requests are open, but if they are, can I request one with Bucky Barnes? Something where the reader maybe had encountered the winter soldier in the past (but is now maybe working with Sam and has some unspoken feelings with Bucky) and in the scene in ep 3 where Zemo tells Bucky to fight at the bar it ends up bringing her some bad memories of the winter soldier? Later Bucky can tell she's not okay and is acting skittish around him, and when she finally tells him about it he feels extremely guilty but she comforts him? I just love angst with a happy ending :3

I don’t really take requests, but this little idea was kinda inspiring so here ya go boo!

Gif belongs to @unearthlydust

Warnings for violence, blood, and being sick

You know he’s changed.

You know that he’s no longer the man he was when you first encountered him, you know the man he is now, a strange mix of conflicting outspokenness and quiet guilt. You know how he takes his coffee, and that even though he doesn’t necessarily feel the cold, he doesn’t like it all the same.

You know that he sleeps on the floor in his living room despite having a perfectly good bed, that from the moment he’d stepped foot into his apartment he’d had the best mode of escape clocked. You know that he has a secret soft spot for terrible action films, and gets misty-eyed at adverts with dogs in them.

You know all of this, and maybe that’s why it’s so terrifying.

Baron Helmut Zemo rubbed you all kinds of wrong ways, and you hadn’t even been present when he’d shown his face last. There was just something about him that made your skin crawl, but it wasn’t as if you could pull either one of your new partners aside and tell them that.

They already knew, already felt it too.

The feeling gets worse when he voices his plan, giving you all your roles to play, but again, it wasn’t as if you could pipe up and tell him to screw off. You all wanted to, but for now, you needed him and his stupid plan.

It’s how you wind up in too high heels and a little black dress that splits unnecessarily far up your thigh, how Sam ends up in a delightfully adventurous suit, and how Bucky is landed with pretending to still be a brainwashed assassin.

You can’t stop the scowl from taking up residence on your features as you move through the streets of Madripoor, glad that nobody really seems to pay attention to you, not when the Winter Soldier was around.

Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t take long for everything to turn to shit, and you nearly hiss at the way Zemo commands Bucky to fight. For his part, Bucky seems completely unperturbed, but perhaps that was part of disturbed you so much.

He’s beautiful, it’s undeniable, even when he fights, it’s magnetic. There was nothing graceful about it by any means, he’s brutal and abrupt, near-mechanical in how he moves. You can’t seem to tear your eyes away, and suddenly, you’re no longer in Madripoor, no longer in your stupid little dress and heels.

You push the man you’re protecting into the back of the car with a mighty shove. The wheels might’ve blown, but it was still another obstacle between him and the attacker.

Smoke blows across the road ahead of you, the flipped car that had previously been part of your convoy crackling with flames from the IED. You’d half expected a group of insurgents, but you’re greeted with just one man, striding confidently through the smoke and right towards you.

He was tall, broad, and covered head to toe in black, only his eyes and hair visible. Sunlight glints off the metallic of his sleeve, but when you take a closer look, you realise it’s not a sleeve at all.

Mouth dry and heart racing, you palm your weapon and fire twice. The man lifts the metal limb and blocks like it’s nothing. He’s nearing now, and for the first time in your career, you feel anxiety overcome you.

He doesn’t even try to attack you until you throw the first punch. He ducks it easily, blocks the follow up blow by batting your wrist to the side. His eyes set on you then, blank and oddly calm, and blue as the sky above.

He pulls back his own fist, and somehow you manage to dodge, jumping back and raising your gun again. No way he’d fair this close. But you’re wrong. You get three shots off before he’s in your face again, hand grabbing the barrel of your gun and yanking it from your grasp. You hear the clatter of it when it hits the ground, but don’t have the chance to formulate your next move.

Your throat is grabbed hard, and you’re forcibly shoved back until you hit the wrecked car. You grasp in vein at the man’s hand as it tightens, and with your back now against something, manage to put all your years of training to use.

You get your foot up between you, planting it harshly in his center mass and kicking with all your might. It seems to take him off guard, because he stumbles back, releasing your throat. You take the moment to turn around, hands banging on the car window.

“Go! Run! I’ll distract him!” You scream at your ward, and watch as the man scrambles from the car, out the opposite door.

You’re about to turn around when the back of your neck is grabbed and thrust forward, connecting with the car window so hard it cracks. You gasp, calling out in pain as blood immediately begins dripping down your face. He pulls you back to do it again, but you drop, becoming dead weight and managing to slip under his legs and out of his hold.

Still, you’re dazed, and blood seeps into your vision making your disorientation even worse. You stumble, knees meeting the ground for a moment as you grab at your forehead and clench your eyes closed to try and clear your head.

The deafening sound of three quick gunshots opens a pit in your stomach, and you just know, without even seeing, that you’d failed.

You get your eyes open by the time the assassin is stalking back towards you, gun holstered now. He closes his fist around your throat again and lifts you clean off the ground, his other pulled back and raised to hit you. You fumble, finding your mark and pulling the gun from his hip, pressing it to his abdomen and firing. Again, he reels back, dropping you and keeling over.

You don’t even attempt to finish him off properly, your fight or flight activated. He was downed anyways, and there was no way he’d give chase with a wound to the center mass like that.

But you’re wrong. You make it barely to the end of the block before something embeds itself between your shoulder blades, the pain so sharp and sudden it makes you fall. Before you know it, a weight is pressing down hard against your shoulder, a boot, and the knife is ripped from your body mercilessly.

You cry out in pain, life flashing before your eyes when a fist harshly grips you by the hair and pulls back your head. You feel the blade, still slick with your own blood, press against your throat.

Sudden yelling makes the assassin freeze, and with your head still raised, you can see the approach of several heavily armoured men in black. The one who shouts is speaking Russian, but your brain was too frazzled to translate properly.

The knife is removed from your throat, and your head released. The weight on your body leaves and you’re left gasping on the asphalt. Spots dance in your vision, but before you pass out, you lift your head just enough to see the assassin join the other men, before they disappear into a dark vehicle.

The place between your shoulder blades aches with memory, and you can think of nothing else for the rest of the night.

Even when you’re taken to see Shelby, even when the fighting starts and you’re forced to run, even when Sharon saves your asses and lets you crash at her place.

You change into the first thing Sharon suggests for you, not even caring. You felt numb, and cold and sick. You position yourself on the couch with the view of all the room’s doors and windows and sit quietly as the others talk. It isn’t until Bucky comes out of nowhere and sits himself next to you that you finally make any noise.

Unfortunately, that noise is a frightened gasp.

Everyone stops to look at you, Sam’s features folded into concern, while Zemo just seemed mildly amused. Bucky looked nearly as surprised as you, his eyes turned up at you. That’s when you realise you’ve shot up, gun in your hands and aimed directly at him.

That same sickness becomes overwhelming then, and the weapon falls from your hands to the carpet with a thud.

“I-- I didn’t--” You swallow thickly, eyes never leaving the man in front of you.

“--I’m sorry…” You manage to blurt out but quickly fly from the room, desperately seeking a sink, or a bathroom of some sort.

You reach a toilet just in time, emptying the contents of your stomach inside. You wheeze and choke as the sick burns your throat and you struggle to breathe, your eyes stinging as you hack and heave.

Hands gently pull at your hair, gathering it out of your face and holding it back, a warmth dropping beside you in the tiny space. You half expect to find Sam or Sharon, but you’re not unsurprised to find Bucky crouched down, his features a mix of sympathy and concern.

“Breathe through your nose.” He instructs, free hand moving to rub over your back soothingly, unintentionally brushing over your long-healed stab wound.

“I’m sorry…” You rasp when it seems you’re finished.

“You alright?” Is all he asks, hand moving to steady your shoulder when you move back from the toilet. Your miserable nod allows him to stand, and he closes the lid and flushes, before staring down at you and offering you his hand.

You don’t hesitate before taking it. You know Bucky. You know he’s changed.

He hovers over you as you step into the bathroom, seeking mouthwash that you use three times before you feel actually refreshed, and splash some water on your hot and splotchy face.

“You alright?” He asks again, looking at you in the mirror.

“I…” You trail off, clearing your throat.

“I forgot how good you are with your fists.” You tell him, attempting a smile, but it just comes out pained.

Bucky frowns at first, blinking in confusion until his eyes flash with recognition and he sucks back a breath.

“I-- I can go. Or you can. You don’t have to--”

“-- No, Bucky, I’m not quitting this.” You say firmly, turning to face him properly. He seems to be pressing himself against the wall, attempting to make himself look small and unthreatening, which was hard to do when he was a six foot four super soldier built like a tank.

“It wasn’t real.” He says quietly, avoiding your eyes, and you smile tightly.

“I know. But you’re a good actor.”

His eyes flicker up to yours, pained, and you cough.

“Buck, it’s… it’s not your fault.” You tell him, but his chin only drops further.

“I nearly killed you.” He hisses, more anger in his voice than you’re expecting.

“But you didn’t. And my freak out was just--” You cut yourself off, humming.

“My freak out was because I haven’t seen you fight since then, but I’m not scared of you James.” You step forward then, close enough to draw his eye.

“You pulled a gun on me.” He says, the hints of a joke playing in his words.

“I’ve pulled guns on lots of people, doesn’t make me scared of them.” he lets you move closer still, and hesitantly you reach out, laying a hand on his arm.

“I don’t like to see you like that, Buck… it’s awful.” You admit, glad when his posture seems to relax some.

“It’s not you.” You go on, trying not to give too much away, but you’re sure you’re already seen through.

“If I can help it, it won’t happen again.” He tells you, and you finally lift your gaze to make eye contact.

Something sparks between you, something that had been subtle and unspoken up until now. Something that had been there, lurking under the surface ever since he’d shown up on your doorstep several months back, just to let you know he was in the city and going to therapy. It was there when you’d tentatively begun hanging out, neither of you really having anybody else, but not being too bothered by that either.

It’s something big and intimidating that draws you closer together, hearts beating quick and shallow under your skin. Bucky’s eyes flicker to your lips, and suddenly everything seems real.

“Hey, everything alright?” Sam appears in the open doorway, and you jump away from each other. The other man’s eyes travel between the two of you suspiciously, and you scramble to get a handle on the situation.

“Just had a bad shot at the bar.” You tell him, glancing sideways at Bucky who avoids all eye contact.

“... Right…” Sam draws out the word.

“Well, Sharon’s party is getting started, so…”

“Right! Yeah! I’ll… I’ll go… to that… the party. Now.” You stutter and stumble over words, quickly pushing past him and leaving the room.

Sam stays in the doorway, watching you leave, before his gaze swivels back to Bucky.

“Called it.” He says smugly, and Bucky’s eyes snap to him.

“What?”

“I called that you two had a thing.” He teases. Bucky glares and crosses his arms.

“We don’t have a thing. There is no thing.” He insists, but Sam only hums, shrugging.

“That’s why I walked in on the two of you about to eat each other’s faces off.”

Bucky scrunches up his nose.

“That’s… gross.” He tells the other man, who ignores him.

“You got time for that later. I’m sure Zemo’s plane has a stall big enough for two. For now, we gotta go.”

Bucky can only grumble in annoyance as he follows Sam from the bathroom, mentally preparing himself for the onslaught of commentary he was set to receive from now on.

Still, as he watches you slip on those sleek black heels, he thinks there’s probably worse things to put up with.

[heli0s-writes]

Artichokes

Summary: A peek into the beginning of Bag of Tricks

Pairing: Chaotic Dumbass!Reader/ Exasperated! Bucky

A/N:  ~2k words. Written for @sunmoonandbucky​‘s challenge! So sorry it’s late! Congrats on your milestone, you deserve it and so much more! ✨ My prompt was “Even artichokes have hearts” 

Warnings: Canon-level violence, cursing. StupiT stuff.

“Hey.” It’s not a greeting.

The flight is still long, at least another two hours until the destination is reached. Behind his seat, you poke with your foot, other leg stretched over Natasha’s knee as she dozes off.

“What.” It’s not a question.

Fifteen minutes since the last time you opened your mouth and Bucky knew he wouldn’t make the half-hour mark; it was too good to be true.

“If you were an animal, what would you be?”

“Don’t like animals.”

A huff as you glare out the window and into the clouds, cross that he’s decided to be cross first.

“Okay. If you had a kid, boy or girl?”

“Don’t like kids.”

Natasha chuckles, eyes still closed, hand gently rubbing your knee in consolation because sometimes Bucky just gets this way, and he often gets this way in prolonged flights or car rides—when he’s showcasing his most winning personality trait: patience. Ha-ha.

And he gets this way, especially, with you. 

The new addition, after a disastrous mission where you almost blew everyone’s cover by getting into a near-scuffle at the bar. It’s not your fault you were dragged into that impending train-wreck on your day off—never even having met the Avengers to begin with, and then immediately being thrust into an asinine high-profile mission requiring you to wear an evening gown with heels.

And if the situation couldn’t get any worse, as you were stuffing yourself into spanx and tacking fake eyelashes to your lids, you were informed that you’d be Bucky Barnes’ date for the night. Discomfort in itchy and too-tight, clothing, a room full of strangers, remanded to being someone’s mute eye-candy. It was the perfect cocktail for fisticuffs with the very man assigned to be your date.

Moving on.

With a heavy roll of your eyes, you lean right, let your shoulder press up against Nat, trying to find a comfortable position. “It’s probably a good idea,” she soothes, cracking her neck a little and the light flickering through the window makes her wince before it’s cut off by her hand closing the shutter.

-

“Stop looking at the squirrel,” Bucky shoulders his rifle. You’re sprawled out on your stomach, eye pressed against the scope, as he clocked—looking at a squirrel. It’s just so damn cute, stuffing that acorn into its cheek where the nut joins about three more. Beady little eyes flit back and forth before it takes off and you retreat from the show, crawling back on your elbows and lifting yourself up.

“You scared it!”

“Shut up. Let’s go.”

Nat crackles in your ears, “Stop arguing.”

You do, because Bucky yanks you away by the back of your suit, and because you (kind of) listen to your superiors. Might as well, you’ve only been a part of the team only two months and Bucky’s been here since the goddamn Stone Age, it seems, with the way he struts around so fucking stoic and grim. Me Bucky Barnes. Me Crush Newbie Into Dust. Me Don’t Like Fun. More Hulk than Winter Soldier. You snort.

Even Natasha will spend a little bit of time with you, watch a movie or do something that doesn’t require staring into the eyes of the same people every. Single. Day. She’s glad to have another woman around, anyway. You’ve been told Wanda and Vision (a robot, or something) have taken a sabbatical from the life.

Steve will go on runs and let you tag along for the first twenty minutes. Tony will let you put on the booster boots and clap when you careen yourself into a table because it warms his little troll heart to see you nursing a welt on your eyebrow. Sam? Sam will tear it up at a club; he will dance on top of the goddamn bar. Sam Wilson is a riot and a half, but Bucky?

Nothing. Looks at you disparagingly from across conference room tables. Rolls his dead-eyes at every opportunity when you open your mouth. Granted, your mouth doesn’t have a lot of helpful information and most of it is a deflection from true answers because that’s your stupid coping mechanism for when people get too close—but everyone else laughs.

Bucky Barnes doesn’t laugh. Bucky Barnes doesn’t like jokes.

Doesn’t like animals. Doesn’t like kids. Doesn’t like fun. Doesn’t like you.

Doesn’t help that you tried to strangle him with an evening gown two months ago, but, pish-posh, past is in the past.

“What’s the timeline for when I can graduate from newbie-status?” You ask breezily, inflecting your tone just the right way so that he knows you’re not that invested in this conversation.

“Whenever you can run a solo.”

“I can.”

An exasperated huff as he sticks his arm out in front of your collar. You look at him in irritation, ready to swat it away until your feet trip over a loose root and Bucky catches you by the shoulder. 

“No,” he says calmly, setting you on your feet, “You can’t. You were on probation for a reason. Still on it, even if you moved jobs.”

Okay. So maybe calling it a “day off” was giving yourself too much credit. Fury was – haha—furious with you after The-Mission-That-Will-Not-Be-Named (lots of explosives, your boredom, paranoia, and inclination for entropy) and took you out of the field. Desk duty was the only apt punishment, until your immobility spiraled out of control and led you down the rabbit hole of hacking into your co-workers e-mails. He put you on probation after that. Took all your toys. No laptop. No badge. No gun.

Smartly, you shut up, letting Bucky walk ahead in case any more errant roots might make you eat your words again.

The path to the hideout is thick, full of stupid twigs and branches and you repeatedly brush spiderwebs from your face. Keeping close to Bucky, you let him shoulder most of the burden, only putting your hand up when a branch he snaps off with his hand flies too close to your eyes.

“IF—” You start loudly, and Bucky bristles at your volume, “If you had to go back into a burning building to sav--?”

“I wouldn’t.” He retorts, “And you’re being annoying.”

Three bullets whizz over Bucky’s head. He ducks immediately, snatching your arm and taking you down, too. If only this were one of those moments in the romantic comedies where he cages you in with his arms and you have a brief and blessed second of staring into his blue eyes where the world goes quiet and he realizes maybe you’re not that bad.

“ROLL--” He yells, instead, as he ducks behind a boulder. “--OUT OF THE GODDAMN WAY.”

Alas, not meant to be.

His gloved hand pushes into the air sideways, like he could push you, too, across the bed of fallen leaves and to safety. You’re quick enough to flip on your side, but not quicker than a third bullet and it streaks through the top of your forearm, carrying a fast stream of blood with it.

Your reach into the side holster on your thigh, pulling out your knife and launching it past the barrel squeezed between two trees. A clink as it misses and ricochets off the gun. Bucky does the same motion and it goes right into a shoulder with a firm squelch. He’s up on his feet, rushing across the leaves in a blur. Throwing the rifle down, you start sprinting right as an elbow jabs itself into Bucky’s chest and he stumbles. Then, a quick turn and you hurtle your weight across the air, spinning both feet into the man and landing on top of him. Bones crack beneath your weight.

There go the shoulders.

The agent gurgles again as you roll your sleeves up, ignoring the blood that splatters onto your knee.

Bucky steps back when you grab a fistful of dirt and throw it into his face, “Pocket sand, motherfucker.” Then, the butt of your handgun meets his temple with a loud pop. “Goodnight, ya dumb bitch.”

More rustling ushers in more lackeys and Bucky is dodging behind tree trunks, weaving knives and dodging bullet hailstorms. He warily looks around the bend of a tree, breathing through his mouth, assessing the situation. There are about four guys, armed to the teeth, well-trained as far as he can tell. Bucky should be able to take them out, and it would go easier with yo—Where the fuck are you?

Your shriek makes him flinch and he dashes across the way behind another trunk, heels digging into the dirt ready to charge. Guns are firing off, grunts and yells, and not even one second after Bucky comes out from behind the tree, he watches you punch a goddamn grenade into the thicket before shooting its previous owner in the neck.

The explosion rocks the ground slightly, but you’re unfazed, instead, focused intently on your hand. There is something wrong with your left arm. You hold it close to your side, fingers curled gingerly under your rib.

You look up at him, eyes brimming with tears.

Dread boils up from the pit of his belly. Bucky calls out to you, asking if you’re okay. You turn around and he hisses at the sight— shot through the bicep, cut over your cheek, but your gaze keeps falling downward.

Inside your cupped hands is a hedgehog, nose frantically twitching like a tiny rotten gumdrop. A sniffle as you slowly set the creature down, waiting for it to scurry away, but it never does.

Bucky groans. Shoulders his rifle with a disappointed sigh, exasperated that you tricked him into being concerned for your well-being, “Fucking-- you’ve got to be kidding. You got shot for that rodent?”

“He’s helpless! Look at him! Little baby! He could have a family! A hedgehog wife and hedgehog kids!” A wilted blubber, and good God, you’re completely serious about it, “Even artichokes have hearts, Barnes!”

“I’m about to artichoke you,” Bucky retorts, irritated, and the first comeback that pops into your head isn’t ideal for a family setting, but your mouth moves faster than your brain and there aren’t any kids around anyway.

“How’d you know that was my kink?” And then you brace yourself for the moment when Bucky Barnes annihilates your entire life, but there is only silence. Then, a snort. Then, finally, a series of low chuckles before he gasps, “Jesus Christ.”

You’re stunned into silence, and it’s a wonder, since he’s never known you to be silent for anything. Two months of no-filter commentary that makes him physically ill at times, and you’re shocked quiet.

“Holy shit,” you murmur, “You laughed. You don’t like anything. You don’t like kids. You don’t like animals… I don’t really know if you like to even laugh. God knows you don’t like me very much.”

“I like you just fine,” Bucky grins, and-- it’s a little blinding. His eyes shine brightly, midday sun in a mischievous blue sky, framed perfectly with those dark, long eyelashes. For a second you regret almost pummeling that nice-looking face in the first time you met it.

“You can’t keep that thing. I can see you.” Your hands freeze, one opening a pocket on your thigh, the other halfway sliding the creature in. Bucky glares when you continue, pretending he’s not there.  

“Barnes, I’ve decided,” you declare, hoping it would throw him off, “This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

A beat passes as he chews on his next response, deep in contemplation. Bucky’s not sure what being your friend would entail— his annoyance, at the very best. His literal death, at worst.

“Hm,” he grunts softly, edge of his voice giving way to amusement, unable to fully keep his stoic demeanor. One eyebrow raises your way, corner of his mouth lifting ever so slightly when your forehead furrows in wait.

“What?” You ask.

“Don’t like friendship.”

Taking a note from your book, Bucky punches the back of your hand, launching the hedgehog into the thicket, cackling at your screech all the while.

-

tags: @whothehellisbucky @serpentbaby @badassbaker @alagalaska @cake-writes @crist1216 @star-spangled-man-with-a-plan @infinity-saga @jamesbarnesthighs @pinknerdpanda @xoxabs88xox @imsoft-barnes @momc95 @typicalangel @wretchedgoddess @readeity @iwannasail @ya-lyublu-tebya​ @geeksareunique​ @wildefire​ @satanxklaus @jhangelface0523 @wkemeup​ @ixcantxdecidexwhosxmyxfave