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netherfeildren · 1 year

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My Whole Life : A Fear of God Story

(Joel Miller x OFC)

Series Masterlist

Summary: The family celebrates Joel's birthday.

Content Warnings: Fluff and smut (like the fluffiest fluff ever); Miller Family Fun; Joel being overrun by wild little girls; Dirty old man & inappropriate groping; Established relationship; Joel Miller is a Wife Guy; Competence kink; Breastfeeding; Lactation kink; Oral sex (M! & F! receiving); Come eating; Pregnancy kink; Size difference; Daddy kink; Possessive behavior; PIV sex; Ass play; Romantic anal :) ; Body worship; Dirty talk; Pussy slapping; Over stimulation

Rating: Explicit 18+

A/N: Happy happy happy birthday to our bestest and most beautiful old man. This might just be some of the most ridiculous shit I’ve ever written, and it’s all for him :)

Word Count: 9.8K

Read on AO3

MY WHOLE LIFE

And you’ll always love me, won’t you?

Yes.

And the rain won’t make a difference?

No.

Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell To Arms

He’s still asleep. Laying on his side, bent elbow tucked beneath his smushed cheek, messy curls strewn across his pillow, overly long and floppy against his forehead. It’s time for a haircut, but he’s been distracted and busy lately, evading your managing fingers and scissors. The quilt is pulled up high over a thick shoulder, and that soft, full mouth is slightly parted, the near silent whistle of his breathing passing through each exhale. You close your eyes and listen for a moment. When you open again, you reach up to run the tip of your finger along the damp edge, and he puckers his lips slightly, mouthing at your exploration. Ah, awake then. You lean forward to press your mouth to his briefly, taking his breath into yourself.

Tell me you love me, you whisper the words onto his tongue.

“I love you, Birdie,” voice like falling stones; graveled, sluicing into your ears, eternally familiar. An everyday thing that’s a small miracle each time it’s whispered into the small shell.

“Happy Birthday, Joel.” And he finally opens his eyes, long lashes squeezing tight and spiky for a second before he blinks open, bleary with sleep. His half smile unfolds for you, slow and lazy, the lines around his eyes going deep and grooved, and your fingertips skim over the whiskered plane of his cheek, feeling the proof of his happiness around his eyes. Pulling his hand from beneath his cheek he reaches for you, skims the back of his hand down the front of your belly, undoing the buttons of his old, worn to softness flannel as he goes. Backs of his knuckles following again, skimming down the soft swell, dipping into your navel, and then sneaking around your waist to pull you into himself. Belly to belly he sighs deep and rumbly, closes his eyes again, nods his head just a smidge, settling back into the pillow. “Thank you, sweetheart.”

You know that if he could skip this day every year, he would. Sleep through the whole thing of it, erase it from history. You know that it’s endlessly painful, eternally terrible, and that even after almost three decades it never hurts any less. Five years now, you’ve been married, and you’ve tried to make every year as special as possible. Not necessarily peaceful, an unachievable thing in a house full of four loud and scrambling little girls, but always special, always infused with as much happiness as you can give him.

The sallow purple light from early dawn seeps in through the sheer blue curtains over the wide bay window of your bedroom, and as he presses you to him, the course hair of his chest and belly rubs against the skin of your own stomach, your overly sensitive breasts, full and extra tender from nursing. You’d made his gift extra special last year, your last baby, little Connie, now nearing six months old.

“Another one?”

“Well, baby, that’s what happens when your husband can’t keep his dick in his pants.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he sighs, head falling back on his neck as he runs his palm over his mouth, two fingers tucked into his belt. Dad pose.

“We’re getting a nanny, Joel. Someone to help us – you go out there and find anyone, I don’t care who. There’s too many of them, we’re being overtaken. And we can’t keep asking Ellie and Dina – they’ve got JJ now, they’re busy too. You’ve saddled us with a whole kindergarten here because you can’t seem to stop getting me pregnant,” voice hitching with equal measures of anxiety and happiness, and an overabundance of hormones and love.

He sidles up behind you, wrapping his arms around your waist to hug you tight to his chest, one of his hands coming up to squeeze your full, heavy breasts gently, you gasp, extra sensitive already. He coos right into the soft shell of your ear, “Poor Birdie. S’just so fun makin’ ‘em baby. Can’t help myself.”

You roll your eyes at him even though he can’t see, and you kind of want to claw at his face and rip all his clothes off, all at the same time. This is all his fault. All of your sense gone out the window, can’t get pregnant while you’re breastfeeding, as if you didn’t know better. Too desperate for your husband to be more careful. And now look at the two of you…

Your ass perks up, grinds back into his already growing erection, fucking beautiful, he murmurs with his forehead resting on your shoulder to look down at you, palming your ass. His hands sweep over you in an arc, skimming the soft dips and contours of your skin.

Then shyly, head tuning over your shoulder to press your temple to his forehead, “Are you happy?” Because you still just need to make sure, you still just need to hear it.

“You’ve never given me the option to be anything else but, my love.”

He’d gotten up in the middle of the night when he’d heard her fussing, bringing the baby to you still half asleep, cuddling her tiny, pink form against his naked chest, so that you could nurse her back to sleep. He’d sat at the edge of the bed, big hand cupped at the back of your skull as he’d looked down on you feeding his child from your breast, the look in his eyes like nothing you’d ever imagined before him. The birth of your children had infused a sense of tenderness, an intimacy so acute it brought tears to your eyes if you thought about it too much, into your relationship that had made the two of you closer than ever. More in love with each other than you’d ever thought possible.

The memory of your parents was worn and faded with time, but you remembered they’d always approached each other with a sort of comfortable respect. Never ones for overt displays of affection or physical intimacy. So you’d never expected that the love of a man like Joel Miller, stoic and reserved and brusque, could be like this; an overwhelming sort of thing, scalding and suffocating in a way you needed.

His hand skims back to your chest, undoing the rest of your buttons to get at the warmth of your breasts, rough palm gently, gently cupping the full weight. The dry abrasion of calluses catching at your sensitive nipples, handling you with such care. A low rumble in his throat, eyes still closed, “Gimme another kiss, little bird. It’s my birthday,” he whispers before sliding forward, taking your mouth with his. He starts off slow, a soft brush of damp lips, before he takes your upper lip between his, pulling gently, his hand moving back and down now, cupping your lush bottom to pull you up and into himself. Your hands flutter over his chest, still after all this time, easily overwhelmed by the heat and feel of him. You never want it to end, you never want it to lessen.

The sex is still filthy, but everything else is pure.

You can feel the hardening heft of his cock under his boxers between the two of you, and you skim your hand down the length of his soft belly, fingers tucking beneath the elastic to run the backs of your knuckles against the burning hot skin there, feel the tickle of his hair. He makes another one of those deep sounds, warm and masculine and smelling faintly musky from sleep, and you bring your knee up against his hip, pushing further into his boxers to feel the rapidly thickening base of his cock against the back of your hand, you brush the pad of your thumb there and his kiss becomes hungrier. Bringing his palm to the nape of your neck he rolls the two of you over suddenly, trying to take charge, licking deep and wet into your mouth, pressing his now full-on erection into your cupping palm. “Taste so good, Birdie. Is my little cunt wet and ready for me?”

“Joel–” you whisper, drawing your hand up to his shoulder to try and keep him at bay. His wet mouth moves down to your throat, cupping your breasts, pinching your nipples, settling more heavily between your spread thighs to grind his cock into your warmth. “We can’t,” you moan as his hot mouth pulls gently at your tit now, nipples dark and swollen. It’s been several hours since you’d nursed, and you feel the warmth of your milk as his tongue swirls around you. He groans, rough and hungry at the taste, bringing his knee up to lever himself over you, readying to rip your clothes off and take your cunt for himself, but as he moves to balance himself on one arm and knee while his other hand reaches for your panties, you press him off balance, dislodging him and rolling over as he goes, so that you’re left straddling the wide breadth of him. His eyes flash, provoked, and he jerks you forward, ripping the flannel off your shoulders so that your breasts are left bare and swinging heavily. With a rough grunt he bends his knees, shoving you up further on his stomach to wrap a big hand around your tit and bring it to his mouth. Mine, he growls, with your flesh in his mouth. He pulls on the taut peak again, another warm rush of your milk, his eyes locked on yours as he sucks from your nipple. It should be wrong, maybe it is, but like you’d said, the sex is still filthy, everything else is pure.

“We can’t,” you whisper, carding your fingers through the long locks of his messy curls, the strands cool and soft at the ends, but hot and damp at the roots. You can feel your pulse thrumming at your throat, the insides of your wrists, the back of your knees. The slide of your wet cunt against his abdomen has the heat between the both of you ricocheting up to a sweltering dampness, and despite your protests, you moan as his hands roll you against him. “They’ll be up soon and banging on that door, you know it. Ellie and Dina can only hold them off for so long.” The girls had spent the night, not only so they could be here for birthday breakfast, but so that the two of you could spend a few extra peaceful moments in bed without three raucous monsters climbing in with you.

“Don’t care – need you now.” He levers his head up off the pillow, following the swing of your breast until he can catch it with his mouth, teeth gently scraping across the bud. Joel, you whimper, lashes fluttering against your cheeks. He makes a self satisfied noise low in his throat, crushing you to himself and sucking hard on your skin, pulling a strangled moan from your throat. Trying to pull away, grabbing his marauding hands, you try to pin him down with your entire weight, small fingers clasping around the thick of his wrists and pressing them back into the pillows. The two of you pause to take each other in for a second, I love you, he mouths up at you, silent, eyes on fire. You can’t help the deep flush, trying to swallow your smile and shake your head at him in mock disapproval, pinning him harder. “That isn’t gonna work, little thing. Got the strength of a butterfly.”

“Shut up.” You lean forward, pressing your mouth to the thick bulge of his bicep, dragging your teeth across the swell. “You’re mine – I do what I want.” He gives you a soft, conceding laugh, and you press kisses along his shoulder, across his collarbone, letting the long tresses of your hair snake like water over his face, his chest, his stomach. Scooting down his belly to nuzzle at the springy hair covering his chest, little tongue darting out against his nipple, smiling at the sound of his soft gasp. Further, further down, kisses to his soft belly, thicker around the middle now, sympathy weight, he calls it. But he’s so strong, and so endless, and you need him so much. You wiggle between his legs, forcing him to spread his thick thighs to make space for you and nip at the sensitive inner slope there. Nuzzling his hairy limbs, you pause to look up at him, cheek resting there, feeling the restrained strength of his muscles. The two of you go quiet for a second, taking each other in, and there’s so much said in his gaze. He brings his hand to the crown of your head, cupping the small bowl of your skull in his palm, and smiles a little, a teasing crook of his eyebrow, and you can’t help but laugh, turning your face to hide your own smile in his thigh.

“What’cha gonna do, baby?” Hmm, he croons down at you, sliding his fingers through your hair. You sneak your fingers below the waistband of his boxers again, tugging them down to free the straining, thick cock and heavy balls. You press a barely there kiss to the skin just beside the base and watch as his length jumps, flushed head starting to leak. You give him another wry look, and he runs his fingers along the line of your jaw, up the slope of your cheek bone, hot touch following the wing of your brow. It’s all soft caresses and the sort of comfort that only comes from knowing another person almost better than you know yourself. You finally bend down and press a kiss at the tip, opening your mouth to let your tongue flutter along the soft, spongey curve. He lets out a long, restrained breath through his nostrils, fingers still roaming along your face, through your hair as you start to take him deeper into your mouth, levering yourself up over his groin so that he has a better view of your breasts and hair dragging over his thighs. A desperate groan, and you smile around his cock, you know him too well. You drag the flat of your tongue along the ridged base, a swirl around the fat head, his hand cupped at the nape of your neck. You can feel the pulse and throb of him against your tongue, and you moan around him, fluttering lashes tickling your cheeks, you want to feel that pulse at the core of you, deep where he owns you. “Yeah, baby,” voice soft and strained, trying to swallow the sound of his own pleasure in the hollow quiet of your still sleeping home. “Hum a little song around daddy’s cock, little bird.” And your eyes flash hot and desperate up to his own. A wash of heat spreads from the crown of your head to the tips of your curling toes, backs of your knees smarting, pussy going tight and desperate as a knot. You wrap both hands around the length of him and focus your suctioning mouth at the head, moaning wantonly, twisting your palms around the slick spit left by your tongue.

“Fuck, yes – yes, yes yes. That’s perfect, you’re doing so good, Birdie. Just like that.” He bears his teeth at you, a wash of color spreading across the crests of his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose. You slide your slick hands down to cup his balls and take him to the back of your throat, moaning ragged and choked around the too thick length, swallowing repeatedly, trying to breathe through your nose, eyes smarting and thighs clenching. His fingers twist in your hair painfully, and he swells almost impossibly bigger in your mouth. “Fuck, I’m gonna come. I’m gonna come, baby. Don’t swallow, don’t swallow.” He hasn’t stopped looking at you, eyes wide and frenzied. You pull back, squeezing his sack as he starts to spurt, thick and salty into your mouth. “Don’t swallow, lemme see. Gimme my birthday present, show me–” You pull away from his soaked cock, mouth sticky with semen, and present your tongue for him, the milky viscousness dripping sloppy while you continue to jack his still spitting length. He sits up suddenly, cock still fisted in your working hand to grip your jaw in his strong fingers. His eyes are filled with a sort of mania only you know how to bring out in him now that he’s been mostly tamed, and you bring your other hand up to your face, scooping the spurted drops of come on your cheeks onto your white splattered tongue. “Perfect fucking thing,” he growls. “You do what I say,” he gives your captured jaw a rough, little jostle. “Swallow now.” You close your mouth and obey, “Open again – lemme see,” sticking your now pink tongue out at him, he leans forward and licks into you, tasting himself. Filthy, filthy, filthy. I fucking love you, you can’t tell who says it, it doesn’t really matter.

The farmhouse is a short ways outside of Jackson. He’d picked it after Lena was born, Kate and Clara had been two, and Connie would soon be on the way. The family needed more space, four children was a lot to manage, and he wanted his girls to have room to grow and play. You’d let him do as he pleased, and made the trek into the clinic every afternoon at first, but had taken on a partner two years ago, Jamie. She’d come to Jackson with her own medical background, and with four babies at home, the help was more than welcome.

The house is old, but made of strong bones that Joel had painstakingly refurbished and now cared for meticulously. Filled with sturdy furniture he’d mostly made by hand, thick rugs and soft glowing lamps and books, books everywhere. And something else, something unknowable and invisible, but that was immediately obvious, nonetheless. A sort of love that was in such overabundance; it was an unbelievable sort of thing that a creature that had lived as he had could have ended up here, surrounded by all this goodness. Joel knows it is only because of you, all only your doing, his ending up here like this.

As you step into the large dining and living space you stop abruptly, his chest bumping into your back, hands going to your hips to steady you. Your head cocks slowly to the side as you take in the new addition to the kitchen. “What’s that?”

He presses his face into the warm, fragrant skin of your neck, smiling against the tender slope. “Made it for you.” It’s a kitchen table, long and thickly built, the warm oak color polished and cured to a glowing sheen. He’d snuck it in from the barn last night after you’d gone to sleep.

“It’s your birthday, you’re not supposed to be giving me gifts today.” He wraps his arms around your middle, his hand spanning across the soft swell of your postpartum belly. The change your carrying his children had wrought on your body was something that he’d not known would have such an effect of him. But the sight of you most days, wearing nothing but one of his oversized flannels, and his favorite itty bitty, pink, polka dotted panties. Swollen, leaking tits and the lush softness of your belly and hips underneath. Long hair, a tousled mess of a cloud around your head. Too fucking tempting. It brought out something not entirely civilized in him. How was he ever supposed to behave when you were prancing around your home together, surrounded by all your children, being the best mother the world had ever seen. Sometimes the urge to get you pregnant just one more time was almost irresistible. Soft and feminine and his, it did things to him, made him think unspeakable thoughts that he later acted out on you in explicit detail at night, in the privacy of your bedroom. Things had changed after the birth of your children, he had changed, in so many ways, in ways that Joel had never even thought possible. The intimacy, the closeness was something that he’d never even thought possible, something so vulnerable, so tender, his mind hadn’t had the capacity before this to imagine it. He’d never thought, never thought that he could love with an intensity like this, but you’d taught him so many things over the years. You taught him something new every single day.

“It’s for me too,” he murmurs. “And giving you things makes me happy. Seein’ you happy makes me happy. This is my gift to myself.”

You’re quiet for a second, and he feels you tense and hiccup beneath his touch, trying not to cry. Finally, when you’re sure your voice won’t break, “Don’t be cheesy, old man.” But you turn in his arms, going up on your little toes to press your mouth to his, wrapping your arms around the back of his neck. He sighs into the kiss, tasting you slowly, savoring you, feels himself thickening again already, just at the feel and smell of you. When he pulls back to look down at you, sure enough, your eyes are wet and gleaming, a soft flush across your nose. “Thank you, I love it,” A small sniffle.

“Get in there,” he says gently. “Stop provokin’ me.” He gives your bottom a gentle squeeze before letting go.

After he helps you get the girls up and settled, he goes on a long walk with Ellie and Kate, leaving you and Dina to hold down the fort for a while. Sydney, panting along Kate’s gangly, coltish side as they lope ahead of him and Ellie. The old Newfoundland had shown up one day on the front porch, mud and bramble slewn, Kate and Clara had brought her in, told them her name was Sydney, and that had been it, the dog had stayed. The hound, covered in a nearly unmanageable chocolate brown mane, had what he called an old disposition, much like him, Birdie liked to tease, but gentle and slow. The perfect animal to patiently accompany the girls along their misadventures, but large and astute enough to herd and protect when necessary. They liked to wander sometimes, disappearing at any moment, hiding and jumping out to scare the two of you in your frantic searches for them. Trouble the two of them, Kate and Clara together. Clara especially, mind sharp as a whip and an inclination for trouble she could have only gotten from him, if he was being honest. Kate was always the cooler, more level headed voice of the two of them, even at five, nearly six, years old. With those deep blue eyes, like shards of sea glass with the very power of the sun shining through. They’d slipped out of the house a few months ago behind his back, and after his mad search he’d found them wandering, hand in hand, towards the treeline. Short legs setting a slow and stunted pace, Sydney had been following closely at their heels, towering over the two small frames. At the sound of his approach, she’d turned back with an aggressive growl, ready to protect the two vulnerable creatures in her charge, but he’d settled her with a gentle, It’s just me, Syd, and the hound had gone tame and sedate once again. He’d trusted her with them unfailingly ever since.

They were meandering slowly along one of his and Ellie’s favorite paths now, slowly, allowing for child and dog to pause and investigate at will, dew-covered spiderwebs, bright tufts of moss and old, rotted logs covered in bugs Kate begged him to let her bring home.

“Mom gets scared. We don’t want that, do we?”

“Mom doesn’t get scared,” Kate says, scrunching her nose up at him.

“It’s secretly him that gets scared, Katie. Don’t let him fool you,” Ellie tells her. They walk for close to an hour in mostly silence, their ritual of sorts, listening to the sound of the woods around them and Kate’s soft voice going on and on at Sydney, while the dog seemingly pays the closest and most attentive regard possible. The quiet walks, something that calls back to their long journeys all those years ago, a way to remind themselves of where they’d been and what they’d come to.

“What do ya think?” She breaks the silence after they’ve turned back toward home and the breakfast waiting for them.

“‘Bout what?”

“Anything.”

He shakes his head, watching Kate’s short leap over a puddle, sighs long and deep, “Dunno – so many things. Nice walk–” He gives her a wry look out of the corner of his eye.

They reach the edge of the woods and pause to watch Kate breaking into a run towards the house, Sydney matching her pace. “I think we did good, don’t you?” He knows she means everything, all of it. Lena, three years old, bursts out of the propped open front door of the house, Dina on her heels. “We kinda made it, didn’t we?”

“Yeah, kiddo. We did good.”

“I drew you a birthday picture, Daddy,” Clara tells him.

“C’mere, my angel. Let’s see it.” Sitting around the new kitchen table, he pulls her up into his lap, Lena following suit to scramble up as well.

There are seven figures: you, drawn with long hair that reaches your feet, Kate, Clara, and Lena, respectively, what he assumes is baby Connie drawn as a miniscule figure eight at your feet, something that resembles a tumble-weed more than a dog, poor Syd, and then… someone drawn as a big circle, with an even bigger head on top. “Where’m I, baby?”

“Right there.” She points at the big, round thing, “I made him soft like you, Daddy.” And she pats his belly so affectionately, looking up at him with the biggest smile he’s ever seen, poor Syd – fuck, poor me, he thinks.

“Thanks, baby. I love it.” He squeezes her into his chest, pressing a soft kiss to the crown of her head. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees you bent over the kitchen counter trying to strangle yourself in a kitchen towel to muffle the sounds of your hysterical laughter.

After scrambled eggs and hot breads with honey and jam, bacon and fruit and coffee, perfect girl that you are, you’d somehow gotten him a tin of beans as a birthday gift, you bring out what the girls call the pancake cake. A large, wide stack of the fluffiest buttermilk pancakes, all lathered in Dina’s whipped cream, and a mountainous heaping of bright red strawberries. He watches you, a thing akin to awe in his eyes as you set the red and white cloud down in front of him, you’d put on a soft blue dress, robins egg blue, with tiny lace cap sleeves that fluttered with your movements and made his stomach dip and swoop and ache to reach out and toy with them.

“The berries were a gift,” you say with a pleased smile.

“Oh, was it Jeff?” The grocer, Dina asks. “He’s so nice.”

“Who?” Joel frowns.

“Jeff, he works at the market. He–” You pause, a laughing smile playing on your lips. “He wanted me to wish you a happy birthday, baby.” His scowl deepens, your own smile widening.

As soon as the cake’s set in front of him there’s a chubby little hand sneaking forward to stick grubby fingers into the confection. “Lena,” looking down at her, and the hand is immediately snatched back. “Oh, the candles,” you remember as you’re about to take the seat next to him.

“Left them in the back room, with the other stuff I brought,” Dina calls as you head to what’s used as a makeshift laundry room at the back of the house. He gets up quickly, a murmured, I’ll help you look, following you and flicking the door shut behind him, the echoing sound of snickers and Ellie’s hooting, mesmerized by the swish and flow of the blue fabric around your legs, and with a bone to pick.

“You’re not allowed to go to the market anymore.”

“Excuse me?”

“Take Ellie or Dina with you.” He pouts and scowls and fumes behind you as you rifle through the bags they’d brought with them.

“Excuse me?” You say again, voice soft and patient, infused with just a tinge of laughter.

“You want me to say it again?” He steps forward, fingers ghosting through the ends of your long hair, hungry, possessive. “And who gave you permission to talk to other men?” And you snicker, not taking him seriously even a little bit. He wraps his arms around you, pressing you forward to squeeze your tits in his big hands, he’s obsessed, grinding his groin into the soft round of your ass. He drags his hands over the dips and contours of your body, squeezing lush curves as he goes, reaching to wrap around the delicate architecture of your jaw and pull your face around to look at him, taking in the beautiful heart shape of your mouth.

“Joel–” you chastise.

“Five minutes.”

“Behave, they’re gonna–”

“Don’t care. It’s my birthday.” He nuzzles your hair, searching for the small shell of your ear. “Just want a kiss, Birdie bird.”

“It’s never just a kiss with you,” but you turn in his arms anyways, pressing your mouth to his, licking into him before you’ve even fully got the words out. He gropes you, sliding a knee between your thighs to press against your mound and roll you against himself. Cupping the nape of your neck, he eats at you, sliding his tongue along yours. He can hear the desperate sound of his breath rattling in his own chest, and he slides his mouth down the slope of your neck, a soft nip to the tiny pulse there. He groans low in his chest, cock hard and straining against his jeans. “They takin’ them for the night, still?” He asks panting.

“They are,” voice a whimper, fingers twisting in his hair and tugging in frustration. You push him back by the shoulders, laughing gently, as you wiggle out from between his steaming, hard body and the counter. “Come on. Ellie’s gonna give you hell.” He braces his palms against the edge, head hanging trying to will his erection down and catch his breath. Jesus, Birdie.

“Mama, why did Daddy go in there with you?” Clara’s little voice sounds as he steps back out into the kitchen behind you.

“He was helping me–”

“They were making you another baby sister,” Ellie supplies unhelpfully, big fucking grin. Joel drags his thumb across his throat, staring daggers.

“How do they do that?” Kate asks.

Ellie’s mouth opens, readying to worsen the situation, “Ellie–” Joel warns.

Dina, ever the voice of reason, tells them patiently, “They write a letter to a stork, sweet. And then nine months later, he brings a baby.”

The girls are all quiet for a beat, digesting this newfound, eternally fascinating piece of information, until Kate says, in that solemn and level headed way of hers, hands primly set at the edge of the table, “I think the stork has come to our house too many times.”

Ellie cackles uncontrollably, Bridie’s giggle following suit, until the lot of them are caught in a net of laughter. Joel lets his head fall back, thumbs tucked at his belt, letting a long sigh out. “Jesus.”

“Jesus!” A little voice yells out in imitation.

“What is a stork?”

“A bird,” Ellie provides.

“Is that why mama is Birdie? Because she makes the baby come?”

“Yeah, baby. That’s why,” You tell Kate, smoothing a gentle hand over the crown of her bright blonde head. Inquisitive little thing. With your other hand you flick Ellie in the back of the head. Mother fucker, you mouth at her affronted look.

“Father fucker,” she mouths back with a snicker.

Once the candles are securely in the cake and lit, and Clara’s added her ever helpful, Mama, we need one thousand more candles, Daddy is so old, he nudges his head at you. “Come be a good girl, and sit on my lap,” he says quietly. You perch on the strong expanse of his thigh, one arm around the back of his neck, the other coming to entwine with the fingers of his hand at your waist, twisting the gold band of his ring round and round his finger.

The girls sing Happy Birthday, Daddy, at the top of their lungs, and you watch him watch them, the clenching of his jaw, those fine little muscles that wrap around his mandible, fluttering as he grinds his back molars together, the ripple of his throat as he swallows again and again. The corners of his eyes go a little wet, tears lining the edges of those gorgeous hazel eyes as he stares into the flames of his birthday candles while the girls sing to him – off key, off harmony, so full of love. Clara clambers up onto his other knee midway through, plants herself on the endlessly strong surface of her father’s thigh, the safest place in the whole world. “Happy birthday, Daddy. I love you,” she whispers up at him, laying her little head on his shoulder, gazing at him with those same hazel green eyes that reflect his own image back at him, remind him of another little girl he’ll never stop missing, and he brings his hand up to cradle the back of her skull in his large palm, presses his lips to her forehead, love you so much, baby girl, whispered into her skin. Your first baby. His eyes fill further, and they flutter closed, trying to contain all that you know he’s feeling right now. Your hand on the back of his neck strokes softly at the overly long curls, soft and thick. You press your thumb into the notch of his skull, anchor yourself there, I’m here, I’m here, we are here together, look at all we have, and he turns to look at you, his cheek resting on your daughter's head. “Thank you,” he says, and you know that he means for all of it.

Cheering squeals, laughter, and the padding rush of little feet over the floorboards as the rest of them start to run around the table, shrieking fills the air as they scramble over him, trying to climb up as well. He buries his face in your hair and shudders as he presses a tiny kiss to the soft lobe of your ear. Look at all we have. The whole world right here at our kitchen table.

The birthday of a perfectly happy man is spent like this: a long breakfast with the woman of his dreams and all his daughters surrounding, a lazy afternoon, trying to doze on the deep, lumpy couch, intermittently interrupted by a knobby knee and a sharp little elbow to the gut or thigh, lunch and peach cream popsicles on the porch, watching the clouds, searching for shapes like treasures in the deep blue sky.

He thinks of Sarah, as he lays there surrounded by her sisters. The sweet shape of her face, the dove green of her eyes surrounded by the thickest, darkest lashes he’s still ever seen to this day, Lena’s eyes are the exact same shade, the texture of her curly hair beneath his palm. Her memory is faded now, after so long, but he works it like a muscle in his mind every day, a staunch refusal to ever let her go. And no matter how far away he moves from that day, he still asks himself sometimes: How does one grapple with the loss of something that big, something that essential? He’s lived with a hole in his heart in the shape of a little girl for so long, decades, but now, with all of this surrounding him, he also has so many things that leave his heart so full he’s almost bursting with it. The two opposing feelings often leave him feeling bloated and without space within himself, and yet, he always finds another nook or cranny for more. Even when it’s left him tired, when his remembered past hangs over his head so that he feels, sometimes, like his edges are disjointed, not glued together symmetrically, you’re there to put him back to rights.

And the memory will always be painful, it will never not hurt. It’ll never not be agony. But it’s easier now, to recall all the wonderful, all the good. Sometimes, he almost feels afraid of the intensity of this happiness, but in those moments, when that old fear returns you’re able to recognize even that, like everything else in his heart you know as well as your own, and you take him into your arms, reminding him that his whole life is right here in this house now, that you’ve saved him.

“Look at the clouds, Daddy. There’s shapes.”

Sprawled in the lush grass in front of the house, the three girls surrounding him. He presses a kiss to Lena’s soft curls, “Look at that one,” he says, “What d'ya see there?”

“A bunny,” Kate says with all the self assurance of knowing she’s the eldest sister, and thus, the wisest.

“A bunny? You sure?”

“Yes, Daddy. Don’t you see it?” Clara interjects. “He has big ears and funny whiskers just like yours.” Raucous giggles and screeches after that as they jump over and across him, with claims that he needs reminding how a bunny hops and leaps.

Eventually, when they settle, Birdie brings out more cake, leaves the four of you to sit in a huddle criss-cross-apple-sauce and discuss the woes of kindergarten at the school house in town.

“Mama told me I’m not allowed to bite,” Clara gives an exasperated huff, abandoning her cake to melt into the grass and crawl into his lap. “She bites a lot,” Kate adds. Irritated, pushing unruly curls out of her strawberry red face, “But– but I don’t like that Mama said that to me, Daddy,” she continues, looking at him very seriously, “I like to bite so much,” followed by the most conniving smile he’s ever seen, besides Ellie’s, blooming proudly across her angel sweet face. He’s forced to swallow his laugh and explain the merits of listening to her mother, something they must all do. When he turns back to look at Lena, she’s licking the spilled whipped cream out of the grass. They have to go inside for baths after that.

At Kate’s behest, they have spaghetti and meatballs for dinner that night. Tommy, Maria and their son joining the family alongside Nancy, so that the table’s chock full of the people who care about him, all coming together to celebrate one more year of Joel’s life. By the end of the meal, he has all three girls perched on his lap, eating spaghetti off of his plate because, Daddy, it just tastes so much better from yours, obviously. He’s never been able to say no to them, and he isn’t about to start tonight, and you roll your eyes, but you also look at him with that gleam that tells him that if he asked you for another baby tonight, you’d probably not say no. They eat his food and yank on his hair and stab him with pointy sharp elbows in the ribs repeatedly, at one point someone sticks their finger up his nose, pulling his nostrils apart to look inside.

“Daddy, why do you have so many hairs all over?”

“It’s so dark and scary in there, Daddy.”

Clara nods so fast her curls bounce up and down around her head, “I feel scared when I look up there,” green eyes wide.

“What are they for, Daddy?”

Questions volleyed at him so fast he doesn’t have a chance to answer a single one of them. “If you eat spaghetti, will your boogers taste like spaghetti after?” Ellie, ever brilliant and helpful, suggests they try some to verify the theory.

“What is verify?” One asks.

“And what is seery?” Another calls. Birdie’s red in the face with laughter, and Joel feels very tired and very old and very ready to take his wife to bed.

“A theory is when you think about something,” Tommy says, and gives him that look he’s wont to throw his way when he’s about to make fun of Joel for not being able to keep it in his pants and stop procreating.

“And verify is to make sure,” Joel tells them.

“What is to make sure?”

“To know something.”

Kate nods solemnly, while Clara pauses, and then says, “I don’t think I know anything.” That worried sort of look only a five year old can get when an idea is just too big, crossing her little face.

Chuckles sound around the table, “That’s alright, sweetheart. Don’t you worry about it.”

As they say good night, the girls packed and ready to spend the night at Tommy and Maria’s, Ellie and Dina taking baby Connie, Ellie pokes and prods at you.

“Would you quit, you little shit.”

“Dinner was nice, step mommy,” giving you a smarmy little smirk.

“You know, I wanted to ask you something.”

“Oh?”

“It’s serious.”

She cocks an eyebrow at you, “Spit it.”

“Well, I was wondering if you’re going through something right now? If you’re okay?”

“What? What do you mean?” Face twisted in confusion.

You snicker, pulling on the ends of her recently shorn hair, “Then what’s up with the new fuck ass little bob you’ve got going on?” She slaps you away, swatting at your arms, reaching down to get at your thighs too.

“Fuck you, mother fucker,” she laughs, trying to yank on your hair too.

“Stop it. You have to respect me. I’m your step mother, remember?”

“You’re so annoying.” You hear Joel call at the two of you to knock it off, but goes entirely ignored.

“Poor Dina’s gotta look at this mess. Let her know if she ever needs to get away from it, she can come stay here any time she likes.”

“I hate you,” she laughs, and you pull her in for a tight hug, another pinch to your side before she hugs you back.

“Tough shit, I love you.” She squeezes you tight, grumbles a little before returning the sentiment.

“Thank you,” she whispers into your shoulder, “For making him so fuckin’ happy.” You squeeze her tight as you can before she shoves you away, pretending not to sniffle and rolling her eyes at you. “Now stop being so fucking weird and sappy, and say good night to your football team.”

“Blood Meridian again?” You ask him from where you’re standing at the kitchen island, snipping the ends of the flowers Nancy had brought with her and arranging them in a vase. “How many times’ve you read that?” He’s sitting on the sofa, facing you, reading glasses sitting crooked and bent on his nose from where someone’s little foot had crushed the frames. You watch the flicker of his gaze as he peeks at the page number, and then snaps the book shut. He never uses a bookmark, always just remembers.

“Dunno–” big sigh, long stretch, “More than I can count now, I suppose.” He settles back into the couch, pushing his hips forward to slouch deep, tired, spreading his thighs wide, tempting you. You finish with the flowers, walking the vase to take center stage on the new table. At the far end of the table, right by your spot, he’s carved a tiny little sparrow into the surface of the oak. The etching so fine, so delicate, in comparison to the sight of him, big and brusque. It would be almost unbelievable to someone who didn’t know him as you do, who didn’t know the violence he’d endured to make him so gentle, someone who hadn’t watched him pull your newborn daughters from your own body, who hadn’t witnessed the incredible sight of him cradling those tiny little babies in his infinitely strong arms. You turn back to look at him over the hill of your shoulder, taking in the sight of him watching you, appraising your form. The slow rove of his eyes starting at your bare feet, moving up your legs as if his gaze was a physical manifestation of his hands on your skin, over the swell of your bottom, the slope of your spine, the fine crest of your shoulder, landing on your face. You can see his eyes moving over the planes of you, your chin, your mouth, cheeks, your eyes. He lands there, stays. You know he’ll be hard beneath his jeans when you go over to him.

“C’mere – come sit on me,” voice soft and sultry.

“Sit on you?”

“Mhmm, come tell me how much you love me.” He pats his thigh, and you move towards him slowly, shaking your head at him.

“Needy.” You reach him, hitching your knee over his lap to straddle him, and he pulls you close and tight against his warm, wide chest.

“So needy.” He nuzzles into the fine tendrils of hair over your forehead, his breath hot and soft on your skin. “Need ya so much, Birdie.” A soft kiss to your temple, another to the flared end of your eyebrow, and you squirm on his lap, hot and restless and needy also, a fine thrumming ache flaring throughout the various pressure points in your body. Your throat, the inner curves of your elbows, the backs of your knees, deep in the pit of your belly. You feel weak and trembling, and he fills his hand with your hair, bringing it to his face and rubbing the soft curls against his cheek. “It’s time I take you to bed, isn’t it?” You hum against his collarbone, taking in the scent of his skin, fresh and clove-like, cedar sap and sage and Joel, you nod slowly against him.

He runs a bath for the two of you, filling the deep clawfoot tub in the master bathroom. He’d outfitted the house from the get-go with the same system for electricity and water that Jackson ran on. And he pulls your clothes from you slowly, running rough, caressing hands over the sensitive slopes of your curves, gentle pinches and squeezes to the places he likes most which is all of you. When the two of you sink into the tub, he sits between your legs, wide back leaning back on your chest so that you can run your hands along the strong breadth of him. You taste the water off his skin and listen to the sound of him rumble and purr like some sort of overgrown wolf beneath your touch.

“Did Clara tell you what happened at school yesterday?”

“Said you told her no more biting.”

“Did you tell you she punched some poor boy?”

“She did what?” He tenses, long fingers wrapping tightly around the circumference of your ankle in his lap.

“She called one of the boys in her class, and I quote, a little fucker, and then socked him in the nose.”

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ, Clara,” he sighs, laying his head back on your shoulder. “Why in the hell did she do that?”

“She’s your daughter.”

He hums as if he can’t bring himself to disagree with the reasoning. “Little fucker probably deserved it.”

“You’re not supposed to call children fuckers, Joel.” He grunts. “She also told him that her dad was going to beat up his dad.”

“Oh my God. I’m too old for this shit.”

“They’re heathens because of you. I hope you know this.”

“They ain’t heathens. They’re perfect.”

“You weren’t saying that last week when they painted your face blue.”

“Jesus, you’re right. Thought it was never comin’ off.” You snort, rolling your eyes at him, but hugging him closer. The best father anyone could ever want for their children, surely. “Gotta teach her how to throw a good punch,” he adds to himself.

You wash each other’s hair after that, taking turns lathering each other up, rinsing out the suds, and when he’s finished with you, he carries you to bed. Lays you out like his own personal feast and tastes you everywhere. The pads of your water-wrinkled toes, the backs of your knees, the crest of each hip bone, cruelly bypassing the place you need him most. Dragging his mouth over your stomach, tongue savoring the silvery streaks left behind by the growth of your daughters inside of you, over your nipples, dark and swollen. His mouth rests at the notch of your throat lightly, and then, whispered against the moist spot he’d made with his tongue, “You’re the only dream I’ve ever had. You know that?” And you tell him that you do, you do know, your husband who is, in his own right, like a dream figure.

Finally, taking pity on you, he slides down between your thighs, making room for the incredible breadth of his shoulders, and gently as possible spreads you apart with his thumbs, takes in the sight of your embarrassingly slick, untouched cunt. He blows a slow stream of cool air over your pulsing clit, and bends his head to lightly drag his tongue over the swollen bundle. And you’re going to cry, real, desperate tears. “Joel, please, don’t be mean.” But he’s never been very good at that.

“Oh, I know,” he tuts, “My poor baby. Been waitin’ all day haven’t you?” He’d purposely not made you come all day. This had been his plan all along, you know it. Another, light as air slip of his tongue, his mouth, sliding down to your leaking opening, mouthing against it, barely there. “You’ve made me the happiest man in the whole world, little bird. You know that?” And he licks your clit for real this time, the broad, flat of it pressing against you in one long, slow swipe. You can’t answer, ragged moan clawing up your throat. You reach for his dark head bent to your sex, one small foot propped against his thick shoulder to anchor yourself as he starts to eat you. Sucking hard and fast on your poor, throbbing clit, moving down to spear the strong muscle of his tongue into your pussy. You want more, you want his cock, you want it, you want it, you want it. He sucks the orgasm out of you, lapping and kissing at your cunt until you’re shuddering and shivering, clenching around that terrible, painful emptiness, leaking onto his tongue, and then surging up quickly. Massive fist around his cock, he presses the drooling head at your clit, teases you there slowly, watches the heave of your breasts as you struggle for breath. You bring your knees up, spread wider, inviting him in, and he notches the head slowly, giving you nothing more than the flared crown. He pauses there, thrusting shallowly, watching your swollen, red pussy swallow him, and head catching on the blushed rim, he spits, rubbing the flat of his fingers over the crest of your sex, the unsheathed length of his cock, and then presses in, in, in, in, all the way. You give a warbled whimper, trying to twist away, clawing at the sheets. You’ll never be used to it, never not enjoy the twinge of hurt when he gives you the whole thing. “Fuckin’ love it when you sing for me, little bird,” he moans. And he doesn’t give you a chance, doesn’t give you a second, he never does, setting a hard and brutal pace, riding your cunt like he owns it, because he does.

He wraps his hand around the round of your breast, squeezing, but still careful of how sensitive you are, thumb flicking at the tender nipple, and you spread your legs wider, one hand hooking beneath the sweaty back of your knee to pull yourself open, your other hand reaching down to cup the swinging weight of his balls as he thrusts up into you. He bares his teeth at you, wide palm landing with a little snapping slap low on your pelvis to press down, feel himself from the outside as you squeeze his balls. He shakes his head at you, fire in his eyes, “You’re gonna end up pregnant again, Birdie,” voice chastising, a little like a threat.

You close your eyes, back arching to take him deeper, don’t care, you want to say. “N– no, noooo, can’t” you pant instead, “Can’t get pregnant – breastfeeding.”

“Yeah, that’s what you said last time, little girl.” He lets himself fall forward, the bone of his pelvis grinding against your clit, and your cunt goes tight and so, so fucking wet, throbbing and fluttering around him, trying to suck him deeper, working around the hard invasion as you start to come. His sweaty, steaming head falls to your breast, mouthing wetly, fucking you through it, just like that, he murmurs, my perfect girl.

“Don’t– Don’t come in my pussy then.”

“No?” He slows his thrusts once he’s felt the trembling of your walls around him settle, lets his hips seesaw in and out slow and languorous, long provoking strokes. “Should I fill that sweet ass instead?” And despite the fierce blush that washes along the length of your body, you nod shyly at him, running your hands down his belly. The fact that he still possesses the ability to drive you to shyness after all this– “Say it, baby. I gotta hear it.” You flush impossibly deeper, little toes curling in humiliated excitement and lust.

“Please, daddy, please– I want it in my ass.” He pulls out suddenly, the lewd wet squelch of your cunt closing hungry around nothing. He spreads his fingers over the length of your sex, slick, gleaming cock, flushed so red it’s almost purple, veins pulsing along the length. “Gorgeous thing,” he murmurs as he starts to pet at your ass gently, thumb swiping, giving you light pressure, and then pushing in slowly, slowly. Your mouth falls open, gasping, eyes wide and wet and probably, definitely, a little pleading. “Lemme in, Birdie. Let me have this sweet little hole.” You nod, a marionette caught on his string, hips starting to hitch and follow the thrust of his invading thumb. “I’m gonna fill it with my come, and then watch it drip out of you. That what you want, baby?” Yes, yes. He pulls his thumb from you, slides his slick hand over your leaking sex again, and then fists his cock, the dull pressure of the wide head at your back entrance, pushing in slowly, making you feel the stretch and burn of it. Your fingers claw and scrape against his chest and abdomen, trying to pull him towards you, push him away, legs shifting restlessly at his sides until he’s buried to the hilt, heavy sac pressed against the curve of your bottom. Sweat slides in steaming rivulets down his temples, his neck, and a bright red flush moves across his chest and up his thick neck. You watch a violent shudder jerk through him, lashes fluttering closed, and then screwing shut tightly as he tries to control the rush of his oncoming orgasm. He runs his hands up your stomach, the dips of your waist and hips, wrapping around your breasts. “You’re doing so well, my little love.” He opens his eyes to take you in, pulls his hips back, and then pushes in again. “Taking my fat cock in this tiny hole. Look how messy and wet your greedy cunt is. You want me to fuck you here too?” He pulls your lips apart, wide, thrums at your swollen clit, and then starts to press a single finger slowly into your pussy. And oh, it’s too much, it’s too much, stretched and stuffed so full of him everywhere, the play of his fingers also on your clit, he starts to fuck your ass in hard, jolting thrusts, growling your name through clenched teeth.

“Look at it,” he spits, “Look at where I’m fucking you open. Look at how you’re all fucking mine.” Your heart beating out of your chest, insides twisting and throbbing, you take in the sight of your blushed sex stretched to obscenity around him, his soaking fingers, two of them now, pressing slowly in and out of your cunt as he slams into your ass. You let your head fall back, “I’m gonna come, I’m gonna come – oh God.” You cross your arms over your face to hide the sight of your overwhelmed tears, and he pulls his fingers out to slap the top of your cunt in a single stinging swat that you feel reverberate in the place he’s impaling you with his cock. “Nuh uh, you let me look at that gorgeous face when you come all over me.”

I can’t, I can’t, I can’t – it’s too much.

He doesn’t give you a choice. There’s never been much of that where he’s concerned. Everything below your navel goes painfully tight, white light streaking across your eyes as you twist and writhe beneath him, and he follows suit, starts to fill you in thick pulses, the heat of his spend coating your insides with a savage snarl of your name, the breath nearly knocked out of you with the intensity of your shared orgasm. He lets his weight fall over you, pressing you into the bed, massive body shivering and jerking, buried deep inside of you, and after the last spit of his cock, he pulls from you slowly, moaning softly and rolls the both of you over. Draping your listless form over his chest, arranging your limbs how he pleases. You shiver and feel the sweat cool along the slope of your spine, enjoy the tickle of your lashes catching in the coarse hair of his chest. You feel him play with the long tresses of your hair, draping them over his chest and shoulders, rubbing the smell of you against himself. Picking up the hand curled over his shoulder, he absently draws the backs of your fingers against the edge of his jaw and his ear, kissing and sucking on the soft tips.

“Tell me you love me,” you tell him.

“I love you, Birdie.”

Birdie, Birdie, my Birdie.

“Tell me that you’ll always love me.”

“I’ll always love you. For the rest of my life, as long as I live, I’ll love you.”

Nights later, after the excitement of celebration has died down, and the family’s settled back into peaceful routine, you think about when you’d first realized you were pregnant with Clara, and how you’d worried the news would disturb the happiness and peace he’d fought so hard to find for so many years, terrified that in some way, you’d force him into a situation he didn’t want, wasn’t prepared for. Now, looking across your large bed, two dark, curly heads, another bright, blonde as a star, separating the two of you while he sleeps deep and peacefully, Connie in her crib at your side, you are once again, like so many other times, hit with the full appreciation for the miracle this family is, how wrong you were to ever worry about it being anything but.

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byooregard · 19 days

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iwtv fanfic friday: random fics from my bookmarks with less than ~200 kudos

wanted to make sure the stuff i was linking wasn't stuff everyone's read so i tried to go for the less popular works in my bookmarks

filthy with a twisted tongue by @shineforthee. 4k

Reach out to touch a dead guy’s face one time and he takes off. It’s not like it’s thrusted Daniel into a bottomless pit of despair and psychosis or anything, so who cares? (Nobody, that’s who. Not a damn soul even knows he’s here.) The smell of stale sweat and hot sugar clings in the air. A stained piece of flannel covers the window but light trickles in through the threadbare fabric, so it must be daytime. He tries to remember if it was daytime last time he looked, but it wouldn’t do anything to give him a sense of how many days he’s been here anyway.

value form by leavethebees. 4k, M

"Hey, I'm a journalist," Daniel protests. "I follow the story, and you just tried to set a guy's head on fire. That's front-page news." "Chasing stories," Alice says in an unimpressed, withering tone. "You're a romantic, then. That's worse, you know."

relentless, unbearable by eggalbumin aka @pollyclonolly. 2k

Louis taps his arm. He looks lovely tonight, and his eyes are brilliant under the bar’s light. He’s as beautiful as he is in the memory that exists in Daniel’s head, of the first time they met at Mary’s. The glimmer in his eyes, the smoke curling in tendrils around his lips, the way he smiled as he said, I did a terrible thing, once. He smiles, and it’s lined with sweetness. “You bored?” “An unreasonable amount,” Armand says. He’s not, and he knows he’s not. Louis knows, too. He could spend every day for the rest of his never-ending life chasing the shape of Daniel’s shadow and it wouldn’t bore him. He drinks whatever is left in his glass and it tastes like chalk in his mouth. Sometimes, he thinks he’ll always be trying to chase down the taste of Daniel’s blood in his throat, with Louis and alcohol and prey, and it will still find a way to linger on his tongue for as long as he lives. “Weddings are long, dull affairs. I don’t see the appeal.” (It’s 1982. Daniel’s wedding is a pleasant, lively affair.)

isaiah 43:2 by quentsy. 2k

Paul de Pointe du Lac was dead, to begin with. This was to be distinctly understood.

the whole world was ready to return by exastris_scientia aka @keepoffthetardis . 2k

There he was. Standing just outside the halo of light given off by a streetlight. His face was shadowed, but even from the distance I was at, I could see how sunken his eyes were, how tired. And how blue they glowed. Like church windows, Grace had once said. Burning like two cold fires in the night. “Been a while,” was all Daniel said when he saw me. Louis and Daniel revisit the ethics of murder. In spite of it all, they also have a little fun with it.

rocket man by quentsy. 5k, M

It was a bad idea, but that was the story of his life, yeah? Bad decision after bad decision, the longest love affair of his life. If the first was racing, and the second was heroin, then here was the third: Armand and all the scraps he tossed Daniel’s way, just enough to keep the hunger at bay.

GOODREADS by riverrio. 1k

Interview with the Vampire Daniel Molloy 3.75 STARS 328473 RATINGS 5238 REVIEWS 285 pages, Hardcover First published September 15, 2022 FILTER REVIEWS SORT ORDER POPULAR REVIEWS ONE STAR

among the wildflowers by ipsilateral. 2k

"You're soft," Jonah whispers. He touches Louis's jaw. There he goes still smiling, like it's a revelation, like he oughta be in wonderment about it all. "You don't seem like it but you soft, Louis." Louis stares up at him. There's the anger, whipping at his heart and making it race like a horse on a track, but beyond that is something else, too. Something that makes him almost tremble under Jonah's open smile. For the briefest of moments, Louis allows himself to believe that softness is a pure good, through and through. -- a few of Louis's core memories

#cleb talky #fic recs #gud writes #iwtv #interview with the vampire #iwtv fanfic friday #amc iwtv

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sturniologals · 8 months

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Midnight Snack-C.S

Reader x Chris

-; Warnings- Smut, Dom!Chris, Unprotected P in V, Rough sex, Cursing.

Summary- you go into the kitchen for a midnight snack and your childhood crush, chris, gives you an early birthday present.

1.3k words

I stumble down the stairs, my bare feet cold against the wooden floors. I feel my teeth chatter against each other and i instantly regret my decision to not put anything on other than a t shirt that hangs just above my knees. But everyone except me is asleep. I mean, it is 2 in the morning and we all have to be up at 9.

My best friend Nick is taking me out to my favorite steak house tomorrow and then we’re traveling to LA for my birthday so we all have had a pretty busy night full of planning so i’m not surprised everyone knocked out as soon as we got home but i’m wide awake with excitement about tomorrow.

I open the fridge and find exactly what i was searching for. A tub of mint chip ice cream.

I sit criss cross in the floor in front of the open freezer, the dim light shining through the dark kitchen. My breathing hitches when I hear someone walking down the stairs.

I immediately shift my legs so that my panties aren’t showing.

The shadow creeps into the light of the fridge and I relax when i see it’s chris.

“You fucking creep! You scared the shit out of me!” I whisper shout at him in an attempt to not wake anyone else in the house up.

“Woah woah woah ma what did i do? I just came down here to get my ice cream” He says gesturing at the half eaten tub of ice cream i’m cradling in my lap.

I can’t help but to notice how good he looks in this lighting. His cheekbones accentuated perfectly and his flannel pajama pants hanging low on his waist, his white tank top hugging his body tight- “Hello?” Chris’s voice snaps me out of my trance.

“Uhm …sorry? “ I say holding out the ice cream.

I can’t help the crush that i’ve had on chris ever since we all became neighbors in the 5th grade. He’s always made me feel safe. Comfortable. Chris smirks at me, sending a shiver up my spine and comes down the my level on the floor, taking a seat next to me, his back against the kitchen island and his legs stretched out in front of me. “I’ll share?” i say with a nervous smile as i hold out the ice cream to him. He just nods his head and stares at me as if he’s waiting on me to do something.

“no way” i say laughing nervously.

He chuckles lowly “it’s the least you can do, i mean you did eat almost all of my ice cream”

The way his dark eyes are scanning across my legs right now makes me want to just- nope. stop. “Don’t make it weird chris” I say knowing about all of the times he’s jokingly flirted with me before, even though i’m almost completely sure he knows i have a crush on him and i don’t find his “jokes” a bit funny.

I give in and scoop a small bite of mint chip ice cream into my spoon and place into his mouth. The way his rosy, plump lips grow darker at the coldness of the ice cream makes me wet. His eyes trained on mine seductively as I place another bit of ice cream in his mouth. I can’t help but to bite my lip to keep from involuntarily making a noise.

“Oh my god” he groans out and leans his head back against the island.

“That’s so good” he says licking his lips.

I’ve never seen someone look so appetizing. I squeeze my legs together to try and relieve some of the ache that’s growing between my legs but it does virtually nothing. What pisses me off is that he knows what he’s doing. He’s done this to me for years and i can’t take it anymore. “Chris you’re just being mean.” I say, standing up, not caring if my ass is out or not.

My focus right now is to keep the tears at bay.

Chris’s eyes immediately change from lust to concern and he quickly stands up and grabs my wrist before i can make it out of the fridges dim light. “Y/n, wait” I turn to face him and try to keep my voice from shaking as i speak.

“what chris? you know what your doing. You always have. You know i’ve always loved you and you keep fucking teasing me with it.” He stops, his eyes go cold and i notice his hand is still holding onto my wrist. My breathing is shallow and loud as he steps closer to me. Impossibly closer. I can feel his breath on my face as his hands trail up my sides and stop at my waist.

“You love me?” He says quietly, just for me to hear.

“Chris you know i do” I say in a shaky voice.

“y/n all the times i was flirting with you i wasn’t fucking joking or teasing you. I was trying to show you i like you but you never did anything back so i thought you didn’t like me like that.”

He backs away and i instantly feel sad at the loss of contact. “Fuck, y/n. Do you know how frustrating it is to be around you? The things i would…” his voice trails off and he shakes his head. “Never mind. Go to sleep. we’ve gotta wake up early.” He starts to walk away but i grab his wrist and pull him back towards me.

Before i can think, my lips hit his. I’m kissing chris. Shit, i’m kissing chris. it’s so surreal after knowing i’ve wanted this for years. Fuck we’ve both wanted it, i was just too stupid to notice it.

His lips are soft and smooth, his hands trail up my sides and he breaks apart, his lips still inches away from mine.

“think i can get my birthday present early?” i breathe out shallowly.

“Fuck ma, yeah of course” he says breathlessly.

Before i can say anything, his lips are back on mine, this kiss more rough and desperate. He picks me up and I instinctively wrap my legs around his waist as he moves us towards the counter. My ass is cold against the marble and his hands slip under my shirt.

“No bra?” He groans out as his hands trail up my legs and inner thighs.

“Chris please, no teasing” i almost moan. He chuckles and grabs the side of my shirt.

“can i take this off?” I nod quickly.

“use your words ma”

“yes chris, yes.” I say quickly and help him to pull my big t shirt over my head. His mouth instantly takes one of my nipples and i groan loudly from the feeling.

“gotta be quiet baby” he says before moving his head between my legs but i quickly grab his hair to notion for him to come back up.

“No i want you. not your mouth.” I look down at the bulge in his pajamas.

“You sure?” he says, his eyes staring into mine making me want more. more of him. “Yes. I want you. please” i say, squirming around the counter.

My consent makes his eyes light up and he quickly pulls my panties to the side and lets his dick free. it’s tip red and leaking with pre cum as it hits his stomach. fuck it’s huge. he strokes it a few times and i grow irritated. “Chris” i remind him and he laughs a little before pushing into me without warning.

“Fuck!” i yell out and his hand instantly covers my mouth.

“so tight” he groans out, picking up pace. I grunt against his hand as he pushes into me so quickly i can’t think.

“my god, ma” he whimpers out into my ear.

“Chris- i’m gonna-“ i try to say, my words muffle by his hand. He finally pulls his hand away and picks up his pace.

“come with me ma, i’m almost- fuck-“ he stops mid sentence as we both finish around each other. his thrusts slow down, riding out our high as we both shudder and our breath calms.

“good birthday present?” he asks while cleaning the sides of my legs. I can do nothing but nod and smile.

#matt sturniolo smut #chris sturniolo smut #chris sturniolo fanfic #chris sturniolo x reader #sturniolo imagine #nick sturniolo x reader #sturniolo triplets #chris sturniolo #matt sturniolo x reader #christopher sturniolo #matthew sturniolo #nicolas sturniolo

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peterparkersnose · 2 years

Text

Rough Day

pairing: Joel Miller x fem!reader

word count: 1k (short but sweet)

warnings: death (not prominent character death), child abandonment, descriptions of medical terminology, not angst but reader is comforted by joel, defined relationship with reader x joel

a/n i cannot wait for the last of us, im writing so much joel content to feed you babes in late december/early january (and after jan 15 when the show airs) title is not to be compared to the iconic din djarin fanfiction, it just fit too perfectly to pass up and make a possible reference (update 01/16/23 first episode was brilliant. only word i can use to describe that masterpiece)

summary Y/N comes home after a hard day of working at med bay and Joel comforts her

masterlist

join the tag list

read time: 3 mins 23 seconds

The walk home seemed longer tonight. Maybe it was because of the sheer exhaustion from not sleeping in almost days, or maybe it was just from the horrible day you had.

The vision of the woman with the fresh bite on her leg plagued your mind.

Her sobbing baby next to her made matters even worse.

The tourniquet didn’t work. The infection spread too fast. The woman didn’t even know she was bitten for days. How could you not notice an open wound on your leg?

How could Tommy had let someone into the compound who was clearly not well?

You shook your head as you fumbled through your keys to get the right one. It was silent. The crickets were even gone, nothing else moved except the flickering light on your porch.

Joel had to fix that one of these days.

The old door creaked open. The only light left on was the lamp Joel would leave on for you when nights like this would occur.

What time was it now- after 11? He would most definitely be asleep.

You kicked your boots to their place and set down your bag. Angry with the state of your scrubs, you began peeling your coat off and leaving it on the floor.

The stairs creaked slightly as you made your way up them. You pulled at your socks that clung to your feet. The bedroom door was left slightly ajar, you could see the lamp light peering through the crack.

Pushing the door slightly open, you found Joel propped up in bed with a book.

“Your still awake?” you asked, immediately taking the top of your scrubs off.

“You know I can’t fall asleep without you,” he said, a harmless dig at your absence lately.

You genuinely felt bad for being gone. It wasn’t your intention to work a double at the hospital wing and then have 3 people come in with all very serious problems.

“I’m sorry,” you sighed, opening your drawer and searching for a comfy shirt.

Joel raised his brows in concern. Your tone was off. “Everything alright?” he asked, folding the corner of his page and slowly placing the book next to him.

Ignoring the question that would most definitely bring tears to your eyes if you answered, you changed into some of Joel’s old flannel pants that were two sizes too big.

You turned to the mirror in your bathroom, staring blankly at your toothbrush.

“Y/N?” he asked, the bed creaking as he sat on the edge. “Please don’t,” you whispered from the bathroom, finding the courage to turn on the water to brush your teeth.

Looking up from spitting out your toothpaste, you found him standing adjacent of you with a worried look on his face. Your eyes looked tired and he knew you had an awful day. Joel knew there was definitely a story behind that face causing your mood.

The stress of the day always seemed to fizzle out when you were around him.

“Come here,” he says, accepting your embrace. The tiny sniffles you gave broke his heart. He held you close to his chest. One hand rested on your head, another arm wrapped around your back.

“It wasn’t supposed to happen. She could have lived,” you choked out. “Mhm, I know baby. Let it out.” he sighed.

Joel didn’t have to know the story to understand what was happening. He felt the energy coming off of you. It was bad.

“Everything will be okay.” he whispered, kissing the top of your head. “Let’s get to bed now, hm? We both could use some sleep.” he said, placing his hand on your waist and walking with you towards the bed.

You anxiously sat at the edge of your bed as Joel turned off the hallway lights. He hated the look on your face when he returned. Zoned out, you stared at the tiny photo on the dresser of him and Sarah. His large body broke your trance, engulfing you in another hug. “Everything’s going to be alright. Stop lookin’ so pitiful,”

Your hands grabbed his hips and drew him closer. The scent of pine filled your nose. He had been on patrol earlier that day you assumed. His hand carefully rested on your head, stroking your hair. Your forehead sat against his stomach. Joel’s stomach gargled, causing you to let out a brief laugh.

“Get in,” he said playfully, tipping your shoulder back as you fell into bed.

“Gassy,” you whispered, bringing your eyes up to match his. He was standing over you, your knees in between his legs.

“What did you say now?” he asked, smirk on his face. His large frame fell over yours. You yelped as he caught himself with his forearms next to your body.

“Watch it,” he whispered in your ear. He showered your face in kisses as you squirmed. Using his body as a catapult, you forced yourself out under him. Finally free.

You scooted over to your side of the bed and curled into the smallest ball you could. Joel knew exactly what you wanted.

He pulled up the sheet quickly with a snap, and let it fall over you slowly. He knew you loved this.

“Pillows good?” he asked. You nodded, a small smile appearing on your face. “You need anything else while I’m up?”

“No. But thank you.”

He climbed slowly in next to you. Joel clicked off the lamp and moved in right next to you. It was almost as your body was fit to compliment his. You two matched perfectly.

“We can talk about it in the mornin’ if you’d like.” he offered. He felt your head nod against his chest.

“Goodnight darlin’,” he said, wrapping an arm around you. “I’m sorry today didn’t go well. Tomorrow will be good, I’ll make sure of it. We can make a day of it,”

A sigh of relief came from you. He always made things better. He was right. Tomorrow would be a better day.

tag list: @dani5216 @uwiuwi @alohastyles-x @samanthacookieone @maddieinnit0 @alexxavicry @scoliobean @jmillerswife

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pagesoflauren · 2 months

Text

Calamitous Love Chronicles: Delicate Beginning Rush (2/4)

ex veteran!Steve Rogers x reader

Premise: Steve Rogers blows into town in search of some estranged family. As he settles into civilian life, he realizes leaving work is hard and perhaps the world will never stop needing him.

Warnings: depictions of PTSD, mentions of abandonment by a romantic partner, complex familial dynamics, sexual content.

Thank you to @hyperfixationhovel. And if you're still around, thank you for being here as I find myself again.

Main Masterlist

After dinner, Ari and his wife helped set up Ari’s old bedroom to be Steve’s for the duration of his stay.

“You’re welcome as long as you need to stay,” Ari reassured. “Absolutely no rush for you to get back on your feet. Sounds like you’ve been through hell.”

While they all tried to get to know him, they understood that there were some things that weren't yet ready to be spoken about. Nobody pushed him, and Steve shared what he was able to.

Settling under the covers with a sigh, Steve rolls his shoulders back to relax his muscles. He places his palms on top of the flannel sheet, the fibers sticking to the clammy skin. With a swipe of his hand, he tries to get rid of the moisture, but it just causes more to come to the surface.

Steve decides to clench his fists instead but reminds himself to keep his face relaxed to try and go to sleep.

The visions behind his eyelids are relentless; as one washes away, another comes to replace it. Resigned, he opens his eyes and looks out the window.

The moon is full, surrounded by gray wispy clouds gliding across the sky, carried by a silent wind. Sighing again, Steve shifts around to make himself comfortable. Cheek pressed against the pillow, he realizes the nightmares started when he began his journey back home.

On missions, sleep was precious and time was a commodity. To any normal person, sleep is a time of respite from day-to-day life, filled with fantastically pleasant images or even nothingness as the body recovers from the exhausting burden of living. To Steve and his team, it was a short burst of rest, a hard reset before getting right back to business.

Always on the move, there was never any time for demons or terrible memories to catch up to him. But now, with all the time in the world, he’s a sitting duck and those dark thoughts are poised, ready for the kill.

Steve watches as the moon moves across the sky like a screensaver, keeping everything that haunts him at bay. As the sky turns a shade lighter, he gets up and rifles through his clothes, scattered between his bags and dresser.

Dressing in some joggers, a pullover, and grabbing his running shoes, Steve quietly makes his way through the living room and out the front door. After he nudges his feet into the shoes, he takes off, running down the beaten path through the woods.

- - -

“There you are!” Marcella greets Steve as enters the cabin. “How many eggs do you want?”

He’s met with the rich smells of American breakfast foods and gurgling of the coffee maker. With a blink, he smiles.

It sounds and smells like home.

“I’ll take four, over medium, please.”

“Coming right up!”

“Were you able to sleep at all?” Ari asks, looking pointedly at him as he loads bread into the toaster.

“Ah,” Steve exhales awkwardly, trying to find the right words. “Not quite. But not because I was uncomfortable.”

“Understandable,” Bunny says, looking up from the stove. “New place, it’s an adjustment. But it looks like you were able to get some exercise in.”

“Yeah, I was.”

“The forest path is great for that! There are a few here, you’ll never get bored. Oh, pancakes, by the way?”

“They’re chocolate chip today,” Marcella adds.

“Oh, yes, please. I’ll have two.”

“Oh, hear that, Ari?” Marcella turns to her son, “Looks like you could learn about balanced meals from Steve.”

Steve snorts as Ari’s eyes narrow at his mother.

“Bunny, I’ll have four pancakes, please,” he says pointedly.

“Yes, dear,” she laughs.

“Help yourself to some coffee, if you’d like. Sugar’s next to the machine and milk’s still in the fridge.”

Steve takes up the offer, grabbing one of the mugs lined up on the counter. There are four, and he smiles to himself again.

“Um,” he begins. “Thank you, for bringing out a mug for me.”

Everyone exchanges pleasantly surprised looks at each other before looking back at Steve. Ari pipes up, “How could we not? You’re family.”

They return to their respective tasks: Ari wraps up the bread and places it back in the basket; Bunny flips a pancake onto a serving platter and pours more batter into the pan; and Marcella turns over one of the eggs she’s making for Steve.

With both parents passed on and his team somewhere out in the world doing who-knows-what, Steve entered Barber feeling isolated from everyone.

But here, in this kitchen, with a seat at the table, a plate of pancakes and eggs coming his way, and a mug for coffee, there’s a sense of safety. Not quite in the way that someone is watching his six or looking from a vantage point, but in the simplicity of being thought of and cared for.

- - - - -

“You need fresh air.”

Steve hums in confusion as he turns to Marcella.

“Did my Albie some good when he would have nightmares.”

“How did you–”

“I’ve seen that look before; it’s the same as his when he couldn’t sleep well the previous night.”

A sense of bewilderment falls over Steve as he realizes she’s not even looking at him, rather maintaining her focus on her current knitting project.

“I–”

“There’s a park not too far that we would go to and sit on the bench under the willow tree. It’s nice to be under the shade. I’ll tell them where you went, just be back by dinner or else we’ll launch a search party.”

Knowing an indirect command when he hears one, Steve finds himself getting up and grabbing a jacket before heading out.

“Bring a hat and wear sunscreen!”

- - - - -

Baseball cap tucked tight onto his head, Steve’s knee bounces sitting underneath the swaying fronds of an old willow tree.

He’s not a fool, he can see how this would be serene and calming, but the tension in his muscles don’t seem to release. The fresh air is invigorating and a wonderful contrast to stale atmospheres in hideouts and home bases used solely for shelter.

As he concentrates harder on relaxing, he’s interrupted.

“Hi, Steve.”

Turning to the source of the voice, he finds you standing in a sundress and wide-brim hat, picnic basket tucked into your elbow.

He greets you in return. “Having a picnic?”

“Yeah, couldn’t let the sunshine go to waste. How are you enjoying your day?”

“It’s here and there.”

“I understand,” you nod. “Well, if you don’t have plans, I was going to set up not too far from here. I have plenty of food and snacks; I was just going to relax for the rest of the afternoon. You’re welcome to join me, or not, if you’d rather stay here.”

His response is almost a knee-jerk reaction, agreeing to join you. He’s not quite sure where that comes from but you don’t seem to pay attention to it. Instead, you bid him to follow you to a sunny patch of grass. Setting the basket down, you take out a blanket and begin to unfold it.

As the blanket begins to grow larger, Steve realizes how useless he’s being and grabs the other end, helping you open it up and keep it flat on the grass. It’s not too large, but it’s enough for two people to comfortably sit without invading each other’s space.

He watches as you kneel and bring the basket onto the blanket, beginning to take out a container of bright red strawberries and sliced kiwis. When you look up at him after taking out a covered platter, he feels his body tighten in social anxiety.

“Would you like to sit?” you offer, seeming to repeat your invitation from earlier.

“Oh, yeah,” he stammers, crouching down and trying to get into a comfortable position. He wriggles around for a moment and hears a snort from you as he settles on sitting on his bottom with his legs extended, hands positioned back to support his upper half. “What?”

“Nothing,” you smile, “When was the last time you went on a picnic?”

“I have to think about that one.”

And he does. It’s not an automatic memory retrieval, not like remembering Bucky’s blindside or how to navigate a smoke screen. He ventures deep into the annals of his brain, almost like an archive room with thousands of dusty files and the smell of old paper.

Childhood memories are like faded pictures; he can see the indistinct figures of Bucky as a child, running with other boys whose faces he can’t remember. He thinks he laughed in that moment, but he doesn’t know what they were playing. He can see the picnic tables and detect the faint aroma of coals on a grill. There’s brightly colored candy on the brown and green grass, girls screaming as a boy chases them with a lizard.

“I don’t know how old I was,” Steve shrugs. “Maybe seven or eight. I think it was for a birthday party. But it wasn’t like this, there were picnic tables, like something you’d reserve at a park.”

“Ah,” you nod. “I really like coming here on a sunny day, there’s lots of space for a nice little picnic to have a snack outside, maybe read a book.”

Humming in agreement, Steve doesn’t know what to say. It’s been ages since he had a conversation about anything other than work. Whenever an interaction extends beyond the weather and one’s state of being, he’s lost.

A happy jingle begins to come into earshot and a few kids nearby scream in delight, making you giggle as Steve startles at the sounds. Aggressively pushing down his response to rush to the rescue, he realizes most of the park goers attention has been captured by an ice cream truck. Parents hold their children back from running headlong into the parking lot to be the first in line, waiting as the brightly colored vehicle finds a spot and parks.

Once settled, the large window on the side opens up and a deep voice bellows, “Ice cream!” Kids surge forward, racing to get into line before each other. The man in the truck begins to direct them, making sure everyone is being fair and nice to each other. Once the line is orderly, he begins to take orders.

“Would you like something?”

“Usually I wait until the line shortens,” you reply.

“But then all the good stuff might be gone by then,” he argues.

You huff in a laugh, “Good point. I’ll have a scoop of cookie dough in a cone, please.”

Watching him get up and jog over to the line, you laugh at the comic image of him taking a spot behind a boy who can’t be much older than five. He sticks out among the other patrons, the only adult as the kids ahead of him crane their heads to look at the man in the truck and get on their toes to reach for their cones and cups.

You grab a strawberry and bite into it, unable to stop yourself from thinking how he seems to try so hard at being just a normal person despite looking anything but. He showed up in Barber out of nowhere, which isn’t unusual, but someone of his stature and gait when he moves sticks out.

Barber has always been a quieter place to live, nobody has any particular rush. You’re used to the occasional person or group stopping in on their way to somewhere else, but even they don’t have the same rigidity Steve has. Slow life in a slow town means leisure walks and headaches for city dwellers; you could imagine a New Yorker hating the sidewalks here filled with slow pedestrians.

You don’t know much about him, only recalling he referred to himself as a “veteran.” With no visible malady, you can imagine the more invisible troubles that plague someone like him, who has likely seen things you can’t even begin to imagine.

To go from that to Barber is an adjustment that would possibly take years to complete. As you put together a bite with a cracker, piece of cheese and some honey, you watch as he steps up to the window, laughing at a joke from the ice cream vendor.

You chew as he pays and takes a cup and a cone, nodding in thanks to the man in the truck before heading back to you. As he returns, you finish chewing and dust off your hands before reaching out to take your cone from him.

“Thank you,” you smile. “How much do I owe you?”

“Oh don’t worry about it,” he replies, waving her off. “Thank you for inviting me to join you, you didn’t need to.”

As the afternoon continues, the two of you spend time talking the time away. The sun moves across the sky without either of your attention on it, until it begins to descend behind the treeline.

“I’m so sorry,” you start, feeling bashful, “I didn’t mean to take up your entire afternoon.”

Steve smiles, mostly to himself, “Don’t be sorry, there’s nothing else I had planned for today.” And I can’t remember the last time I felt this way.

He leaves out the latter part of his thoughts, feeling his body physically reacting to the pounding of his memories from before his career as they scream to escape from their prison. His heart aches as it opens up, the muscle forming shapes it hasn’t in a long time. It makes his breath catch in his throat, ignites the tips of his fingertips.

Your hand covers his, a gesture that douses the heat on his skin. He knows it’s meant to be friendly, but his brain screams to turn his hand over and grasp yours. He wonders how your fingers would feel between his, wants to know the warmth of your palm against his own.

“Are you okay?” you check, ducking your head slightly to look into his eyes. There’s some concern in your expression and he does his best to brush off any trail of a wandering mind.

“Yeah,” Steve clears his throat. “Can I walk you home?”

- - -

The breeze wisps around, lifting your hair and lapping at your skin. It’s a nice cool down after being in the sun. One by one, the street lamps turn on, bathing the streets in a soft yellow glow.

You steal a shy glance at Steve as he looks around to take in the scene. The contours of his face are shrouded in shadow, bringing out the structure of his face. From the moment he stepped into the shelter, your knees nearly went weak, butterflies tickling in your stomach and fluttering down to your legs. The butterflies come back, wings flapping aggressively as you admire his features.

When his face gives a telltale tic, you look away quickly and he asks if there’s something wrong.

“No,” you answer a little too quickly. The shelter and your front door is only a few steps away, so you change the subject. “This is me.”

“Convenient,” Steve remarks.

“Very,” you laugh. “I had a lot of fun today. It was nice to spend time with you. We should do it again sometime. If you want. You don’t have to, I just thought–”

It happens quickly; Steve cups your jaw, tilting your head upwards to receive a kiss he presses into your lips.

Pressing his forehead against yours, he feels your face rush with heat, his own skin tingling from his cheeks to the tips of his ears.

“What are you doing tomorrow night?”

You give a giddy laugh. “Seeing you.” Your eyes widen and lips purse, as if you spoke out of turn. “At least, I hope that’s what you’re getting at.”

Steve laughs, straight from his belly and his memories continue to pound at the walls of the fortress containing them.

“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m getting at.”

He kisses you one more time, and watches as you unlock the door and give him one more wave before the door shuts behind you.

Staring up at the sky, the stars shine, multitudes more than visible in a big city. He remembers nights in remote areas while on missions, the cold ground beneath his back as he attempted to get sleep.

The image of your hand in his flashes across his memory, warming his body.

Then, the walls crumble, and the memories come forward.

------

I've lost track of people who want to be tagged. If you'd like to be tagged, please remind me and I'll be happy to oblige :)

#chris evans fanfiction #steve rogers fanfiction #steve rogers fanfic #ficsofpagesoflauren #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers au #steve rogers x you #steve rogers x female reader #steve rogers fic

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brighttears · 1 year

Note

I have a request!!

I cannot stop thinking about Joel noticing that the reader leans into his touch but is scared to initiate anything herself. So when he finds out that her ex made her feel insecure for being clingy, he immediately talks with her and tries to tell her how she deserves all the touches she needs ❤️❤️

It's just so sweet!

Joel Miller x f!reader

No physical description, no use of y/n

Word count: 1.5k

Warnings: pet names (darling, sweetheart, good girl, baby), a little hot and heavy but no smut, mentions of previous mental/emotionally abusive relationship and reader is not fully recovered, reader’s former relationship is with a man

A/n: Sorry this took so long hope it doesn’t disappoint eeee ! also referring to Joel as ‘boyfriend’ does something to me boy oh boy

—

You try replacing touching Joel with looking at him, listening to him, just trying to soak up everything you can, hoping for something to be enough to relieve the yearning ache you’ve always felt for him. When you first got to the point in your relationship where you could touch freely, it was difficult to hold back—you’d wanted it so much and fantasized about it too often beforehand. When Joel does want physical affection, you give him as much as he’ll take, and you always have the solace of how he holds you every night. Still, you have to reel yourself back in constantly. You’d rather have that than a repeat of your ex, though. Joel is different from him in many ways—he is a better man, a good man, and you know he’s not him, but you can’t shake what your ex had told you, and you don’t want Joel to start hating you for being clingy like he had. So, you keep the dog that drools for him at bay; but as it turns out, the leash isn’t as tight as you thought.

You were at the Tipsy Bison that night, chatting with Tommy and Maria on your way out. Joel leaned against a post with you at his side, already standing close, but then he casually slung his arm around your waist, pulling you to him, brushing his thumb up and down your hip. You were barely able to follow the conversation after that, and when you had to ask Tommy to repeat his question, your boyfriend decided it was time to say goodnight.

He held your hand the whole walk back, and you once again had to ask him to repeat something he’d said, distracted both by the warmth of his large hand in yours and digs of anxiety about your behavior. When the touch breaks as you enter the house, so over you does a wave of anxiety and shame. You bow your head deeply, trying to hide your burning face, and go straight up to the bedroom. Sitting on the bed, you take your time untying your shoes, trying to mentally prepare yourself for the talk you’re sure Joel is about to give you. You’ve been trying so hard, but you’re still too clingy—freakishly clingy. No one likes someone like that. That last relationship was for two years, and you thought you’d loved him—that is, until Joel came into your life—and he was the one that left. Don’t mess this one up. you scold yourself.

When Joel walks in, causally unbuttoning his flannel, you keep your eyes on your laces, but as he moves, you can tell he’s looking at you. Left in his white tee, Joel folds his flannel up in his hands, then tosses it onto the bed as he sits down next to you.

“I’m sorry,” you begin for him, “it won’t happen again. I can control myself. I’ll be better about it. I promise.” your mind is fogged with anxiety, your chest knotted tight.

“What?”

You look up at him and his brow is furrowed, but a smile plays at the end of his lip like he thinks you’re joking. You blink. “I mean, like about being clingy, I know I have a problem with it, I’m sorry.” you turn your head back down, closing your eyes and shaking your head, hating yourself.

“Clingy? When did I ever say I have a problem with you bein’ clingy?”

“Well, I just,” you try to hide frustration in your voice, targeted only inwards, “I know I am, and that I’m just too much with that stuff, and I know that's just like unattractive and I didn’t mean to humiliate you in front of Tommy and Maria like that, I’m sorry I made such a fool of myself and you,”

He interrupts, “Woah, woah, where is this comin’ from, darlin’? Who put all that shit in your head? Cause I know I never said anythin’ like that.”

Afraid of a scowl, you keep your head down as you explain yourself, feeling another pang of guilt in your chest. “Well, my ex, I was really clingy, I mean, I am really clingy, but he, you know, taught me about it.”

“Taught you what?”

“Just that, you know, it’s—bad, and embarrassing when I do it in public, and annoying.”

“Your ex told you all this?” Finally, you look at him timidly. He’s leaning forward with his hands on the bed, looking at you with his brow knit with confusion and concern.

“Well, yeah,” you reply sheepishly.

“Okay, well first of all, that’s all bullshit,” he chuckles lightly, “you’re not clingy. Clingy’s different. An’ if this is about, you know, touch, I like you touchin’ me.” He nudges you with his shoulder, making you chuckle despite your mood. “An’ this ex a yours, well he’s just one man—actually, sounds more like a boy than a man, talkin’ t’you like that—but just cause he did’n like it doe’n mean no one else does, or that it’s bad. It’s not bad, sweetheart,” Joel shakes his head lightly, “nothin’s wrong with… liking to be touched.” his eyes travel up and down you and he shifts his torso towards you, supporting one hand on the bed, and with the other, he takes your chin with his thumb and index to angle your rosy face to look at him. “You deserve all the touchin’ you want, baby. If this is what you like,” he moves his hand slowly over your cheek, and you lean into it, “this is what I’ll give you.” Instantly you’re liquid in the cup of his hand, warmth making your eyelids lazy. You let out a sigh, near overwhelmed with, just, Joel. Those big beautiful brown eyes wander over your face and he gently presses his hand into the weight of your head and you automatically lean further into the pressure and warmth. He smirks, “I like you like this.” You giggle, easily with all of you feeling lighter.

Your anxiety has washed away completely. You can be an easy forgetter, but ground easily with Joel. He’s your man, he loves you, he’s always held your body like he needs it. You can’t even fit in a thought of your ex with Joel so close to you, holding the weight of your head, and god, those dreamy eyes on your lips.

You slide your hand up his forearm and wrap it around his wrist, then turn your cheek just enough to start kissing his palm, keeping his gaze.

Joels’ eyes flash and then he takes his hand away to take your waist and sits further back on the bed to pull you on to straddle his lap. You yelp and giggle but you’re barely actually thinking, just feeling him. He kisses you tenderly and you smooth your hands up his chest and to his face, lips slow, impassioned, and heavy. You’re on autopilot, letting your body move how it wants over Joel. Joel’s hands slide around to splay on your back and he pulls you into him; it pushes a breathy moan out of you, electricity humming over every inch of your front pressed against his body, warm and sound. Your head is angled over his shoulder and he trades your lips for your neck. The pressure of his hold, feeling all of him right up against you, relieves your ache for him, you feel it dissipate and it escapes out of you in a drawl of his name. At that, he clutches you tighter, and you feel a buzz as he hums into your neck. Then he takes his lips away, making you let out a deep breath, his nose and top lip still ghosting over your skin as he says in a husky purr, “Y’know, you’re not the only one who likes this.” Eyes closed, you let out a breathy chuckle, feeling it move against his body. Joel loosens his hold so you fall back just enough to be able to look at him, his head tilted up slightly to meet your eyes, “So don’t be afraid of touchin’ me, sweetheart.”

“Okay.” You respond, almost automatically—if he ever wants to convince you of something, this would be the way to do it.

“Good girl.” He kisses you once and then enfolds you again in a tight embrace, you hum a sigh, resting your chin lazily on his shoulder, arms around his broad back, and you want to stay here forever. You skim your hands up and down his back and he sighs deeply. Then, quiet and muffled against you, he says, “God, I want you all over me, baby.”

488 notes · View notes

rosewaterandivy · 10 months

Text

i. incandescent glow

summary: have you ever been so alone you spend the day confusing a man in a coma?

pairing: assumed e.m x reader, eventual s.h x reader

warnings: my blog is 18+ MDNI; mutual pining, yearning, miscommunication, poorly-wired idiot signals, vague nineties vibes, asshole-ish rockstar eddie, best friend & store manager steve, drug abuse, comas and hospitals, found family, hop and wayne knocking sense into people, eventual smut, schmaltzy rom-com goodness, mention of thanksgiving, christmas, and new year's holidays

w.c.: 8.2k

a/n: when I say that writing this kicked my ass, I'm tellin' you I had a rough time. @bettyfrommars this flannel-wearing Steve is for you especially! Please enjoy & I hope y'all like it 🥹

series m.list | playlist | currently spinning:

Steve hadn’t planned for his life to amount to this, he’d simply blinked and found himself in a new decade, still rewinding tapes at Family Video. Granted, he’s district manager now and has several stores in the area he’s responsible for.

Meanwhile, Eddie got the hell outta dodge and Corroded Coffin actually made something of themselves. Two albums under their belt and a forth-coming world tour after the holidays, and, more recently, a cover on the Rolling Stone. Ed had called him up once it was all finalized, “Can you fuckin’ believe it man?!”

And, Steve loves Eddie, so he could actually believe it. He tries and fails to keep his jealousy at bay, Ed is one of his best friends for christ sakes. Steve is happy for him, he really is, despite the revolving doors at rehab centers dotting the west coast, late night calls from strangers because Munson passed out in someone’s bathroom again.

He is, after all, Eddie’s emergency contact. Gareth approached him after the second stint at rehab and suggested it, thought it would be the best all things considered. Steve readily agreed and signed the forms, kept his pager on him, and dutifully smoothed things over when Eddie’s benders got a bit too much.

So, he’s rewinding tapes when his pager goes off. He glances at the number and drags the phone across the counter. Nestling the handset between his shoulder and cheek, he punches in the numbers and shoves the tape in a plastic case to be shelved later.

“Hello, this is Hawkins Memorial Hospital. How may I direct your call?” a kind, if perfunctory voice recites. He can hear the hustle and bustle of the hospital waiting room, muted conversations and the ringing of phones.

“Hi, this is Steve Harrington. I received a page from this number regarding Eddie Munson.” Steve eyes the clock, he’s on closing shift by himself already having sent he employees home to celebrate with their families.

“Yes, one moment please.” The receptionist places him on hold, allowing Steve to rewind a couple more tapes and sort them for shelving. “Mr. Harrington?” the line roars back to life, no longer the receptionist, but the doctor in charge of Eddie’s care instead. “Mr. Munson came into the hospital unresponsive but breathing, he was revived by a…” He rattles off a name that Steve has never heard before. “His, fiancée, as I understand it.”

Steve feels the floor sway under his feet.

Eddie.

With a fiancée?

“She’s here now and in a bit of shock, as you can expect. Since you’re his emergency contact, we wanted to alert you of his current state as well as get any contact information for family and friends that need to be made aware.”

“Oh, uh, sure.”

The doctor continues to relay that they’ve elected to place Eddie under a medically induced coma for the time being, to allow his body to flush the drugs from his system before assessing for any further damage.

Steve is transferred to a medical assistant who takes down Wayne and Hopper’s information. He figures between the two men the job will get done, but let’s be real, it’ll be Joyce that activates the phone tree and calls the kids, and he plans to swing by the hospital later that evening once he’s closed up.

Grabbing the stack of tapes and begins to shelve them with a shake of his head. It would be just like Eddie to get engaged and not be fucked to tell anyone. Returning to the counter, he fiddles with the cuffs of his flannel shirt— Robin got it for him the last time she swung through town, insisted that Steve’s wardrobe needed some serious upgrading and all but thrust it upon him.

“It brings out your eyes,” She said, leaning against the wall outside the dressing room. Her worn boots kicked against one another, half of her reflected in the mirror while Steve assessed.

“It’s brown.”

“And gold!” She turns him around to press down the collar and pop the first two buttons of the shirt open. “It’s color theory man, just trust me on this, okay?”

Which is how Steve found himself the new owner of several flannel shirts of varying hues. And boots. When he complained it was all too lumberjack-like, Robin shushed him and continued to flirt with the cute check-out girl.

But that had been months ago. It was coming on Thanksgiving now and his two best friends had been too busy traveling or showing art pieces to even call. He doesn’t mind, not really— well, he tries not to. Steve gets it, people are busy, things to do and people to see.

The remainder of his shift goes by slowly. Kids home from school, families coming in by the dozen. Steve manages to complete a few menial tasks in between customers, throws on Planes, Trains and Automobiles just to have something on in the background.

He’s helping a regular when his pager beeps again, this time flashing Robin’s number. The door dings as they leave and Steve’s already wedged the phone to balance against his shoulder once more as he leans and elbow on the counter.

“Eddie has a fiancée?!” is the thing she screeches down the line. “When the fuck did that happen? Harrington, you’re supposed to keep me aware of these things!”

He signs and scrubs a hand down his face, “I’m his emergency contact, not his guardian.”

“Have you met her? What’s she like?”

“I don’t—”

“I got the first flight out of the city. Which means I had to go to LaGuardia blech,” She makes a gagging sound down the line. “Jonathan’s picking me up now from Indy. Oh my god, is she pretty?” Robin pings between her travel plans and hypothesizing about Eddie’s girl, “I bet she’s a total knock-out, knowing him. How did they meet? D’ya think she’d pose for me?”

“Slow down there, killer.” Steve laughs, “Might want to meet the girl first before propositioning her.”

She huffs a laugh, “You’re right, of course. She’d probably think I’m insane or something. What would I do without you Stevie?”

“Probably scare off more chicks than you already do.”

“Oh, go fuck yourself Harrington.” Robin’s laugh is loud and warm, soothing something in his gut. “I’ll see you tonight, dingus.”

“Sure, stay safe. Call me later, bye.” He places the phone back in its cradle and has half a mind to check the room behind the curtain, just in case some teenagers slipped past without him noticing, but then the phone rings.

“Thank you for calling Family Video, this is Steve. How may I help you?”

“Uh, hi.” A voice says down the line, small and tight. You introduce yourself, quickly followed by, “I’m at the hospital, with, uh Eddie?”

“Oh! Hi, how’s he doing?”

“Good, still in the coma.”

Steve can hear some voices filtering through the mic, loud and familiar.

“So, Hop and Wayne made it? That’s good.”

“Yeah, yeah, Joyce too. The kids are here too, I guess? It’s all a bit overwhelming.”

He huffs a laugh, “Yeah, I can only imagine.” He occupies himself with the slinky on the counter, much preferring to hear your voice than deal with the families that just walked in, ten minutes to close. “You holding up okay?”

An intake of breath, “Mmhm.”

It’s a feeling he knows well.

You’re overwhelmed by all these people you’d never met, on top of the fact that your fiancee is in a coma. Steve feels like shit, having you handle all of that by yourself. If he hadn’t stupidly sent the mid-shift employees home early, he would have been there to help you navigate it all.

“Joyce wants to know if you’re coming by after work. If we should wait for you,” You say after a beat or two of silence, “Or if you’ll just meet us at the house for Thanksgiving tomorrow?”

Steve rolls his neck in an effort to relieve the built-up tension there, bones popping, he rubs a hand at the nape of his neck. “Could you put her on real quick?”

He listens as the phone changes hands and Joyce’s comforting voice intones, “Steve?”

“She’s freaking out.”

“What?”

He sighs, “The fiancée, she sounds like she’s in a bad way.” He checks out the straggling customers, “Don’t wait on my account. I’ll see Ed after I’m done here.”

“Okay, Steve.”

“Does she have a place to stay? I know Rob is crashing with you and Hop—”

Joyce laughs, “We’ll have a full house I suppose. I can put Jonathan on the couch or something, don’t worry about it Steve.”

“Right. Okay.” He gives the final customer a smile and wave as they wish him a happy holiday. “I’ll see you later.”

Hanging up the phone, Steve walks to the door to turn the lock and flip the sign to ‘closed.’ He lingers against the door, resting his forearms against the bar, watching as the snow falls against the dark sky. Wonders how it is that just from the sound of your voice, he felt himself falling not unlike snowflakes outside.

Earlier that day

Turns out, landing the Corroded Coffin interview was not the boon to your career you thought it would be.

Maybe you’d set yourself up for failure. And it didn’t help that you had one big, fat embarrassing crush on a member of the band. Generally, being a fan of the artist coupled with the tendency to romanticize things in your mind only led to disaster.

Or, in your case, attempting to revive the frontman of the aforementioned band on the bathroom floor.

Eddie Munson was unresponsive at your feet, a panoply of pills and baggies scattered across the floor. Having no time to think, you launch into action— checked for breathing and finding none began CPR followed by chest compressions, all while yelling for help.

Gareth is the one to find you, compressing Eddie’s chest with your two hands in between administering two breaths after every 30 counts.

“Call an ambulance!”

You can’t even bring yourself to feel sorry about your tone, harried and frantic, as he stumbles out to call 911. Thankfully, the paramedics are quick. One paramedic asks, “You’re his fiancée?”

Dumbly, you nod, too in shock to register what’s been said. Someone guides you down the steps and into the front of the ambulance strapping you in with a seatbelt. He can’t just die, you reason, not when Corroded is just taking off— a world tour in the new year and a cover story with Rolling Stone.

Your editor would have your head if something were to go wrong. Munson was notoriously picky with interviews and reporters, it was a miracle they’d approved you for the job. Rumor has it that he’d have much preferred Nancy Wheeler, but the board wasn’t keen to bring in a free-lance reporter for the job.

Somehow, this would be your fault.

Arriving at the hospital isn’t any better. Gareth and the other band members stayed behind to call management and see what was to be done about Eddie, and made you promise to call them once you’d arrived at Hawkins Memorial.

Nevermind that you’re alone in a town you’d never stepped foot in before today. And all at Eddie Munson’s behest.

They rushed him off past the swinging double-doors, out of your reach. Stepping to the front desk, you ask the receptionist where the nearest pay-phone is, and she offers you one of the hospital phones instead.

Dialing the number hastily scribbled onto your hand, your fingers brush along the plastic keys listening for the trill of the ring down the line.

“Hi, Gareth? We made it to the hospital, they took him back with a team of doctors and nurses.”

“You didn’t go back with him?”

“It’s family only, I think?” You scratch the back of your neck nervously. “It’s not a big deal, I can stay in the lobby until you get here.”

“Yeah, that’s gonna be a while…”

He goes on to explain that their team has to meet and discuss next steps. The band can’t leave until they’ve done so and their manager asked them to stay put.

“That’s shitty.”

He hums his agreement.

“And I’m just supposed to stay here by myself? I don’t—”

“That’d be great, that is, if you don’t mind,” Gareth interrupts. “They’ll call his emergency contact soon enough. But we’d really appreciate having someone we know there until then.”

“Oh, okay.”

He thanks you for being so cool with all of this and says his goodbyes. With a short smile, you hand the phone back to the receptionist. Heaving a sigh, you drop your head into your hands and lament, “I was gonna marry him.”

Unbeknownst to you, Eddie’s attending nurse overhears you and recalls how the paramedic who brought him in said something about a fiancee. Turning toward you, she places a delicate hand on your back. You jump with a start and look up.

“You’re the fiancée, right?”

“Wh–”

“It’s okay honey, he’s doing fine. I’ll take you back there now.”

Allowing yourself to be guided by the kind nurse as she prattles on about something or other, you wonder how to get yourself out of this. No one was going to buy that Eddie Munson has a secret fiancee. If he was awake, he’d probably laugh you out of the room himself.

But, as it was, they’d placed him in a medically induced coma to let the drugs work their way out of his system. A small miracle, that. The doctor briefs you on his status, all of which flies directly out of your brain, too focused on how small he looks in the bed. Tubes dripping fluids and machines whirring or beeping every so often. Tattoos a stark contrast to the pallor of his skin, a sharp relief against a marble canvas.

A medical assistant approaches you and asks about an emergency contact or the contact information of family and friends.

“I don’t–”

The dazed look in your eye must give something away because the assistant attempts to pat your back comfortingly before saying they’ll check his personal effects.

The nurse, impossibly kind, rests a hand on your shoulder, “Let him hear your voice, honey.”

Her shoes squeak along the tile floor as she leaves. There’s a brief reprieve where you’re left alone with Eddie in the hospital room. The nurse and medical assistant flit in and out occasionally, making notes in his chart here and there. But you’re transfixed by the man in front of you— beautiful and impossibly out of reach. He was even before the interview, you rationalize, but now he’s even more so. It’s bittersweet, almost, makes you want to reach out and hold the hand at his side, silver rings glinting in the fluorescent lights.

“Hi,” You greet. “I bet you’re wondering what I’m doing here, huh?” You take the seat closest to him. “Well, I didn’t really get a chance to introduce myself, so here it goes.” Taking a sip from the coffee the nurse left to fortify you, you recite your full name. “And I think you should know your family thinks we’re engaged. Never been engaged before, so this is all very sudden for me.” You huff a laugh and roll your eyes, “Um, what I really came here to tell you was, I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“I don’t know what to do,” You continue, a quasi-one sided conversation and therapy session all in one neat package. “I’m just a reporter for the Rolling Stone. And if you were awake, or hell, even if Gareth were here, I wouldn’t be in this mess. Oh, god not that I’m blaming you.” Your hand finds his arm briefly before you jerk back as if stung, “Shit, sorry.”

“This is not how I pictured my life going, to be honest with you. I thought when I did get engaged, I’d at least have the luxury of knowing my fiancé, or y’know them being conscious at least.” You sigh and take another sip of shitty coffee, “Don’t get me wrong, I love my life— I’ve got a great job and apartment, I get to travel and write for a living. It’s definitely not a bad gig.”

“It’s just, I never met anyone I could truly be myself with, y’know? Laugh with, and I mean ugly laugh with a snort and witch cackle. D’ya ever believe in love at first sight? No, probably not, you’re too rock and roll for that. Or have you even seen someone, and you knew that if only that person really knew you, they would…”

Thinking back to your Corroded Coffin research and tabloid perusals, you sigh. “Of course, they would dump the perfect model that they were with and realize that you were the one they wanted to grow old with.” You shake your head, realizing how ridiculous you sound, talking to a man in a coma who probably can’t even hear you. Your voice falls to a hush, “You ever fall in love with someone you’ve never even talked to? Have you ever been so alone you spend the day confusing a man in a coma?”

“No? Me neither.”

There’s the sound of shuffling of feet echoing from the hallway, followed by a relived: “Oh, there he is.”

A voice startles you from the doorway, deep and masculine, albeit out of breath. A tall, broad man steps into the room quickly followed by a shorter woman and a lankier man. The first addresses you, “You must be the fiancée, I’m Jim Hopper.” He holds out his hand in greeting.

You shake his hand, palm engulfed in his larger one.

“This is my wife, Joyce, and that there is Eddie’s uncle Wayne.”

“He’s so pale,” She laments, crossing the room to his bedside. “Oh, my god.”

You nod to each of them, dropping your hand from Hopper’s. He studies you and you feel like squirming under his gaze, he’s still in uniform but sets his hat on a nearby chair. Great, just what you needed, a police chief to sniff you out.

Grabbing your things, you ready yourself to leave. “There’s been a misunderstanding. I should—”

“Nonsense,” Joyce says from opposite of you, she brushes a few strands of hair away from Eddie’s face. “The kids’ll be here soon and they’ll want to meet you.”

Wayne claps a hand to your shoulder, warmly giving it a squeeze.

“The doctor said you found him and gave him CPR until the paramedics arrived?”

“Oh, um, yeah.”

“They say the only reason he was breathing when they brought him in was because of you.” His voice is hoarse, he coughs into his fist and clears his throat. “Thank you, for that.”

“It’s what anyone would’ve done.”

He squeezes your shoulder once more, “Not necessarily,” and moves off to sit in one of the chairs.

“The doctor should be back soon,” You say, sitting beside Wayne. “He said the vital signs and brainwaves were looking good.”

Joyce nods and shoots you a smile, making idle chit-chat while the rest of you wait for the kids to arrive. There was some concern over Wayne and his heart condition, doesn’t take to shocking news too well, as you understand it. But who are these kids, Eddie’s kids? You didn’t recall coming across any mention of a previous wife or children in your research, but there are stranger things for rockstars to get up to than having a secret family you suppose.

It’s only when Wayne nudges you with his foot that you realize Joyce has been calling your name, “Where are you staying?”

“Oh, a hotel for the night.” You say softly, “I have to get back to New York soon.”

“Well, I won’t hear of it.” Joyce says looking to Hopper, “She’ll stay with us, won’t she Jim?”

He looks back at his wife and seeing her steely resolve, he knows better than to argue with her. “Sure, you’ll spend the holiday with us.”

Damn.

“Oh, we should see if we need to wait for Steve,” Joyce notes, just as a gaggle of people walk in. “Hi kids!” She stands quickly to greet them, their names coming too fast for you to keep up. A man and woman about your age bring up the rear, Joyce hugging them in turn.

Quietly, you step out to collect yourself. After taking a few breaths, you spot the medical assistant from earlier and flag him down for the emergency contact information. He scribbles a name and several phone numbers on a scrap of paper, “I would try this one first,” He points to the middle number, “It’s the work line, I think.”

“Great, thank you!”

Entering the room again, Wayne introduces you as Eddie’s fiancee and rescuer, to whoops and hollers. The younger woman lets out a wolf-whistle and drops you a wink, causing the heat to skitter underneath your skin. Making toward the phone, you dial the number and read the name on the paper.

Steve Harrington.

“Thank you for calling Family Video, this is Steve. How may I help you?”

The rich baritone of his voice, strong and deep, brings a quiver to your knees. Stumbling your way through an introduction, you make disastrous small-talk and wave Joyce over. She takes the phone with a smile, pushing you lightly toward the assembled group where the young woman, Robin, takes you under her wing.

“Fiancée, huh?” She asks with a quirked brow, to your noncommittal shrug. “Hmm.” Her eyes sweep toward Eddie, “I think you can do better,” She jokes with a wink.

Wayne drives you from the hospital to the house, graciously stopping by a grocery store along the way because you didn’t want to show up empty-handed. You make quick work of the deserted aisles, grabbing the necessary ingredients for pumpkin and pecan pie. He helps you to load the bags in the back of the truck and softly croons along to Woody Guthrie as he drives along the icy streets.

A comfortable silence sits between you. Wayne Munson is a man of few words, which is fine by you. The less opportunity for talking yourself into a hole, the better. He comes to a stop in front of a two-storey house festooned with Christmas lights. He carries your bags from the truck into the house, promising Joyce that he’ll be back tomorrow for Thanksgiving. Joyce rolls her eyes fondly and turns back toward the kitchen, leaving the pair of you in the entryway.

You rock back on your heels uncomfortably. Before you can make your escape, Wayne’s hand falls to your shoulder again kneading gently. You glance up to find his watery eyes and quiet smile; he pulls you in for a brief hug. “Thank you sweetheart,” He sighs, followed by a sniff, “I don’t know where he’d be without you, or where we’d be for that matter.” Giving you a final squeeze, he releases you and calls out a goodbye to Hopper and Joyce, shutting the front door behind him.

“Hey kid,” Hopper says, leaning against the bannister. “Join me outside for a minute?” He shrugs into his coat and nods toward the front porch. “Lemme grab my smokes, I’ll meet you out there.”

Well, shit.

It takes everything in you to not give in and pace along the icy boards of the porch as you wait. He’s figured you out, you know he has, and now he’s going to kick you out and you’ll have to call a cab and get back to the hotel before booking it to the airport first thing tomorrow.

“I know you and Munson aren’t involved, kid.” Hopper shuts the front door with a soft click, “Heard you back at the hospital talking to him.”

Your blood goes cold and you know there’s no way you can spin yourself out of this one. “I know, I know and I’m so sorry. It just all happened so fast and Wayne has that heart thing—” Your voice is choked and tight as you try to explain.

“Hey, slow down, take a breath. This isn’t the end of the world.”

“I’ll tell them, I just—”

He shakes his head and lets out a sigh, “Let me level with you,” He brushes off the snow and ice from the top step and invites you to sit down beside him. “God knows what that boy did to earn your attention, cause I certainly can’t make heads or tails of it.” He lights up a cigarette and offers one to you, “No? Can’t say I blame you, it’s a bad habit.” He takes a long drag in thought, leaving you to stew in your guilt. “What I’m trying to say is this: whatever you did, it brought him back. Eddie’s here and breathing because of you, so, in a way, we have him back because of you.”

You stay silent, knowing that whatever Hopper just shared with you is important. The guilt doesn’t leave you, not entirely, but this gruff lawman confiding in you does lodge something loose from the knot in your chest. And when he throws his arm over your shoulders to draw you to his side, you can’t help the watery smile that makes its way across your face.

He smells like your dad, the same blend of tobacco, leather, and spice. It’s been far too long since you’ve indulged in the memory of him, so you allow yourself the weakness, just this once.

And you let Hopper lead you back inside his loud and warmly lit home where Joyce greets you with a plate for dinner and promises to help you bake the pies for tomorrow.

Steve is dead on his feet when he arrives at Hop and Joyce’s house. He’d swung by the hospital to check on Eddie and talked with the doctor and nurses. It was all pretty standard— let him dry out and then assess for further damage. His vitals were good and there didn’t appear to be a need for concern at this point. The doctor, of course, recommended a stay in rehab after being discharged from the hospital, which was already suggested by Corroded’s management team.

“You fucking idiot.”

That’s the first thing Steve says to Eddie, quickly followed by:

“When you wake up, I’m gonna kill you myself.”

He doesn’t linger, knowing he’ll be back tomorrow, and the next day until Eddie wakes up. But it’s gone midnight by the time he turns the key at Hop’s place, kicking his boots at the door to rid them of the snow and ice, before toeing them off at the door. They thunk across the hardwood as he carelessly kicks them off, shrugging out of his coat and hanging it on the hooks by the door.

“Sshh, dingus, you’re gonna wake her up!” Robin hisses as her socked feet light down the stairs.

Steve smiles, relieved to see her, before asking, “Wake up who?”

Robin rolls her eyes and gestures to your sleeping form on the sofa. Steve studies you from a few steps up, one hand resting on the wooden bannister while the other pauses mid-air as he unravels his scarf. “Eddie’s fiancée, of course.”

“So, that’s her?”

You’ve turned your back to them, and you’ve curled in ever so slightly on the sofa. One of Joyce’s many blankets covers you, but your socked feet stick out from underneath one corner— dancing penguins.

At least, that’s what Steve thinks are on your socks. But, he may need to get his eyes checked again.

“What, you haven’t met her?” Robin takes in Steve’s shocked expression, before it softens into something akin to how he goes all moon-eyed at the babes who frequented Scoops Ahoy or Family Video when they were teens as his eyes fall to you once more. “She’s great, you’ll love her. Now c’mon, let’s get you some food.”

“Cereal?”

She snorts at that, “Not my cereal. You took the toy surprise last time!”

Safely ensconced in the kitchen, Robin and Steve catch up in between bites of sugary cereal. She regales him with how valiantly Jonathan tried to get you to take his room upstairs for your stay and how stubbornly you’d refused, insisting you’d be fine on the couch.

“I was right,” Robin says, some milk dribbling from her mouth as she chews. “Total knock-out and smart. Dunno how Munson managed it.”

“Oh y’know, the Munson charm probably.”

She hums in thought, setting her empty bowl in the sink. “Why d’you think he didn’t tell us?”

“Maybe he wanted it to be a surprise?”

“Fuck, what if he knocked her up?!”

Steve’s eyes blow wide at that thought. “Uh,” He says, astutely, “I don’t think that’s the case.”

“Yeah,” Robin hops down from her perch on the counter. “But how do we know?”

“You could ask her.”

She punches him in the arm, “You don’t just ask women if they’re pregnant Steve, geeze.”

He shrugs and slurps the sugary milk from the bowl before setting it alongside Robin’s. He licks his lips and crosses his arms in thought. Steve hadn’t considered the rather obvious conclusion that his rockstar best friend had inadvertently knocked someone up. Considering the groupies and types that flocked to Eddie, it was a long time coming.

If that’s what the case may be.

As it stands, it’s nearly two in the morning and Steve is exhausted. Thankfully, Family Video is closed for the holiday tomorrow, but he knows that in a few hours everyone is going to tramping around the house and generally being a nuisance. And he really doesn’t wanna drive clear across town to his place.

Steve pauses on the stairs, watching the steady rise and fall of your chest. Robin clears the landing and calls to him from the guest room, “C’mon dingus, I haven’t got all night.”

With a shake of his head, he climbs the stairs mindful not to linger too long on the creaky boards. He settles in sharing a bed with Robin, her icicle feet darting under his calves as he fusses with the blankets. His head hits the pillow, and he’s out like a light.

All you can think as you blearily blink yourself awake, is how everything is so loud. Even when they try to be quiet, scampering across the hall past the living room where you clung to the last vestiges of sleep - it was loud. Strained whispers about breakfast and hospital visits, the opening and closing of doors, Hopper hissing at the kids to “Keep your mouths shut,” and to “Stop chasing each other across the house!”

A man, whom you can only assume is Steve, stumbles down the stairs, sweats swung low on his hips sporting a threadbare t-shirt and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. You’ve never seen a human being with bedhead like that - strands sticking up every which way and the sheer volume it had, my god. Hand falling from his eye, his glasses slot back into place, a pair of simple round frames decked in silver. He stops short at the landing, one hand grasping the wood of the bannister, watching as you set the phone back in its cradle.

“Leaving so soon?”

And that voice - all husky and low from sleep, with a slight rasp to it. It’s amazing you’re not reduced to a puddle on the floor at this point. He stretches slowly, like an animal would, a hushed groan falling from his lips. You swallow the lump in your throat and drag your eyes from the sliver of skin exposed at his hip.

“No, just talking to Wayne.” You offer meekly, voice rusty from disuse, “He’s on his way over for an early morning hospital run.”

“Mmm,” Steve nods, “That’s not a bad idea.” He turns the corner from the stairs and stands beside you in the entryway. “I don’t think we’ve officially met,” He says, offering his hand to shake. “I’m Steve.”

“Nice to meet you.” You shake hands and introduce yourself. His hand is large and warm, the contact of your skin against his sending a shiver down your spine.

“That’s a pretty name,” He smiles at you, beginning to wake up a bit more. “So, you’re the fiancée.”

“Yup.”

“Huh.” He looks you up and down, clucks his tongue and departs, making his way toward the kitchen.

Once there, all hell breaks loose. Joyce and Hop are manning the stove and counter, flipping pancakes and shovelling eggs onto plates and all but throwing them at the kids. Wedged into the breakfast nook are Dustin, Lucas, and Mike while El, Max, Robin, and Jonathan commandeer the table in the kitchen.

“Mornin’ family.” Steve greets, bee-lining for the coffeemaker. Blessedly, there’s a fresh pot brewing in the percolator while he scavenges for a mug.

Mumbled versions of “Morning Steve,” sound out from the peanut gallery between bites of food and sips of coffee or orange juice. Joyce sets a plate in front of him on the counter and ruffles his hair, “Morning kiddo.”

Hop sighs from the stove, turning the dial of the burner to ‘Off’ before intoning, “The kitchen is officially closed, you gremlins.”

Steve chuckles as he removes the coffeepot and gives a generous pour into the ‘World’s Best Dad’ mug El made many moons ago. He’s not sure of your preferred cream-to-sugar ratio, so he decides to go without and trots out of the kitchen.

He sees the front door close at the end of the hall and quickens his step not wanting to miss you. Spying a pair of slides from god knows who, he slips them on and pulls the door open. Wayne’s old pickup is idling in the driveway as you step into the cab, feet unsteady and the newly formed ice of the drive. Wayne nods to Steve in greeting as he walks toward the house, while Steve waves in return.

“Careful,” He says as a hand comes to rest at your back.

Tossing a ‘thanks’ over your shoulder, you settle into the seat with a click of the seatbelt. “Did you need something?” You ask, breath forming puffs of vapor in the morning light.

“Well, uh,” Steve begins, ducking his head and gesturing to the mug in his hand. “The coffee’s not too great over there at the hospital.” He hands you the mug through the open door.

“Oh, thank you.”

He leans against the car, face level with yours. One fist at the roof of the cab while his opposite arm braces against the open door. A lock of hair falls into his face, and he’s so attractive that it’s stupid. “So, uh, y-you’re comin’ back, right? You’ll come back?”

You glance to him, unsure of why he’s so concerned with your whereabouts. “Yeah, we’re just checking in. We’ll be back soon.”

Steve nods at your confirmation, pushing off of the truck to stand at his full height. His hands slide to his hips, fingers just beneath the band of the sweatpants as he slowly arches his back, hips bobbing toward you. And you don’t know whether to maintain eye contact with him or focus on the looming proximity of his crotch.

“Oh boy,” He exhales, looking off into the distance. “What a day.”

Your eyes dart away when he looks to you once more, uncomfortable under his scrutiny. “Well, thank you.” You hold the mug up and take a tentative sip, “Good goddamn,” You whisper in disbelief.

“It’s good, right?” You nod and take another sip as he smiles, “I had a dream about you last night.” He tugs at the band of his sweats while your eyes cut to his.

“What?”

“Yeah,” He leans against the truck again, face closer to yours and arms resting against the roof of the cab. “I ended up havin’ a dream about you.”

“W-what was I doing?” You stammer out, as the sound of crushed snow and ice underfoot signals Wayne’s return.

“Well–” Steve starts to say before he’s cut off by Wayne’s, “Y’ready, sweetheart?”

You nod and clear your throat uncomfortably.

“You comin’?” Wayne asks Steve before he closes the passenger door.

“Later.” He turns to leave as Wayne settles into the driver’s seat but before you can pull out of the driveway, “Oh, y’know, you gotta make sure to bring back the mug because it’s Hop’s favorite.”

You stare back at him blankly.

“Or he’ll kill ya.”

“Okay,” You breathe watching as he makes his way back to the house, Adidas slides flopping through the snow.

Returning from the hospital an hour or so later, with plans to bring a few plates over for Eddie’s attending doctor and nurses, you nearly breeze past Steve sitting on the staircase with a mug of coffee and paper in hand.

“Hey,” You greet, toeing off your boots and shrugging out of your coat. “Wayne’s coming back for later, just had to grab some things from his place.”

He’s changed out of his sweats and done something to tame his hair. You can hear Joyce frantically corralling the kids in the kitchen, something about Mass and how she refuses to be late again. Steve shakes his head and drinks his coffee, ready and waiting to cart Robin, Dustin, and Max over to Our Lady of Perpetual Mercy for the Thanksgiving Mass.

But it would seem that no one warned you about Mass last night, which would explain the deer in headlights look you’re sporting now. Steve stands from his perch on the stairs, turning to yell at Robin, “Our Lady may have perpetual mercy, but I don’t and you’re really pushing it today Rob!”

When he turns back, you’re no longer in the entryway. The kitchen door swings as if someone just passed through, and he can hear your voice over the chatter from the kids. Joyce is rattling off instructions and times for food to be cooked and you’re diligently taking notes on the whiteboard attached to the fridge. Your handwriting is neat, and a bit slanted, giving it an effortless look. Capping the marker, you let it swing from the string on the fridge.

“Think that about does it,” You assure Joyce, gesturing to the lone velcro roller in her hair. “I’ll have everything ready by the time you get back.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to come with?” She asks, unraveling the roller and setting it on the windowsill above the sink. “I’m sure Robin has something you could borrow.”

Steve catches your eye roll and snorts into his mug. Your eyes cut to him, silently admonishing his outburst. He shakes his head and sets the mug on the counter, seeing Hop’s mug he loaned you earlier already on the drying rack.

“I don’t want to be a bother,” You kindly brush her off, “Besides, you’ll want to get going soon and I would just hold you up.”

“And the hotel is dropping off your luggage later?”

You nod, tying on an apron and moving to wash your hands. “Yeah, I spoke with the concierge this morning.”

“I wish you’d just sleep in Jonathan’s old room,” Joyce tuts, “He can go on the couch, he’s used to it.”

“Mom, I already offered—”

You laugh and raise your hand, “It’s fine Joyce, I’m already an imposition as it is. The last thing I’d want to do is put him out.”

Steve watches as you blend in with the family, how easily you soothe Joyce and her worries, banter with the kids, and crack jokes with Hop. It’s easy to see why Eddie could fall for someone like you. He just wishes he could find someone like that— easy going and kind, someone who fits in like a missing puzzle piece.

But maybe it’s too perfect.

Now there’s some food for thought.

A loud honk from Hop’s Bronco jars him from his musings. Steve claps his hands together, rallying the troops, “Okay, who’s with me?” Dustin, Lucas, and Max jump up from the table and gather their coats, scurrying out to the beemer. Robin takes the stairs two at a time, struggling to shrug into her coat. “Look alive, sunshine!”

Goodbyes ring out as you follow them to the porch, watching as they clamber into their cars. You wave as they pull out of the drive, Joyce rolling down the window for a final reminder about the dinner rolls. With good humor, you nod and give her a thumbs up as the Bronco drives onto the street.

The church parking lot is packed by the time they arrive. Steve drops off Robin and the kids before peeling out to find a parking spot, while Hop leaves the Bronco in the drop-off lane in front. Mass has already begun when Steve enters the chapel, quickly he slips in alongside Hop and Joyce at the family pew.

“We pray that the Lord’s healing presence will be felt by those who are sick and by their families. Especially Robert Newby, Barbara Holland, and Edward Munson. We pray to the Lord,” The priest intones from the lectern.

“Lord hear our prayer.”

Steve stands in between Hopper and Robin, waiting for the priest to move it along.

“O, God, you call us to live as one family. Save us from…”

Finally, they sit. Half-paying attention to the priest, Steve turns to Hop and asks, “So, who’s this fiancée?”

“She’s Eddie’s girl, she’s family now.”

“You’d think if Eddie were getting married, he would have announced it in the Times.”

Hop turns to him, “We read the Indianapolis Star.”

And the congregants say, “Amen.”

“If she’s family, why isn’t she at Mass with us?”

Hop snorts, “That’s rich, comin’ from you, kid.”

“I like Mass better in Latin,” Wayne pipes up from his seat next to Joyce, “It’s nicer when you don’t know what they’re sayin’.”

“D’ya think about what I said the other night?”

“Nope.”

“Steve, come on.” Hop stands with the rest of the congregation, “You’ve got the instinct for it, and gettin’ through the Academy is a breeze.”

“I told you,” Steve says following suit, “I don’t wanna be a cop for chrissakes.”

“Stop swearing,” Joyce hisses, “We’re in Mass.”

“But there is something I’d like to talk to you about.”

“Well, you can talk about it later,” Joyce reminds them.

“Talk about it now,” Robin says leaning toward Steve conspiratorially, “He can’t kill you in church.”

“Will you please pipe down?” An exasperated parishioner asks from the pew behind them.

Hop scoffs and slowly turns around, “Hey, be nice, pal. We’re in church.”

“You’re disrupting the Mass!” He hisses back.

“Yeah? And who made you the Pope?”

“Jim!” Joyce hisses, nudging with an elbow.

“Now how did Argyle get to be a lector?” Wayne asks, “He took over Ed’s gig with Reefer Rick after he moved to LA with the band.”

Steve and Hopper snort, Robin tries and fails to repress her laughter. Down past Wayne, Dustin and Mike are a few seconds from a slap fight while Max and El whisper in between fits of giggles. Joyce sighs deeply.

And the congregation says, “Amen.”

Cooking Thanksgiving lunch goes off without a hitch. Everything was ready, as you promised, by the time they’d returned from Mass and you’d caught the tail end of Joyce’s scolding: “We will try to behave as a civilized family might—”

The kitchen door swung open to reveal Hopper and Joyce both stopping short at the sight of you washing dishes.

“H-how did you—” Joyce’s mouth opens and closes, struck dumb at the sight of gleaming dishes in the drying rack and the dishwasher already running.

“Oh, hi,” You toss over your shoulder, “The dining room table is set, I was just cleaning up in here.”

Steve and Robin file in soon after, bickering about something or other. They’re talking fast and cutting each other off, but it doesn’t deter their conversation.

“Why do you keep singling me out?” Steve balks, throwing his coat on the back of a nearby chair.

“Well, if you hadn’t been pestering Hop throughout Mass we might’ve—”

“And I can’t even defend myself?”

“Forget it,” Hop cuts in with a warning tone, “And I know you gave her my mug, Harrington.”

“Oh, did you need it?” Your hand flies to the cabinet above the coffeemaker, a fresh pot already brewed. “It’s all washed and ready to go.”

Dustin enters shortly after, “Let’s just vote Steve off the island,” and thumps him on the chest in passing.

“Yeah,” Hop agrees.

Steve sighs and runs a hand through his hair, “Well, I’m ashamed of all of you.”

“Oh, there’s some news,” Max mutters sarcastically, leaning against the fridge.

Steve’s eyes fall to Lucas, “Even you Sinclair.”

Lucas throws up his hands in exasperation, “I didn’t even do anything!”

“Okay, enough.” Joyce says cutting through the nonsense. “It’s Thanksgiving, we’re going to eat lunch without any of this bickering. And then, with any luck, you lot will pass out watching the game and I can finally get some goddamn peace.”

Everyone has the decency to look mildly embarrassed, that is until:

“No swearing.”

Steve punches Robin in the arm, “Can it.”

The room descends into guffaws and fits of laughter shortly thereafter. Joyce eventually herds everyone into the dining room, Robin pours the drinks while Hop carves the turkey. Everyone helps themselves to the various sides— dinner rolls, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, stuffing, and roasted veggies. Wayne arrives with cornbread fresh from the oven and some vanilla ice cream to go with the pies for dessert.

The candles are lit casting a warm glow around the room, illuminating smiling faces. And it’s nice. Nice to belong, if only temporarily, to a big family that loves hard. Growing up, it had been only you and your dad. And after his death, that left only you. You had missed it, all of it— the inside jokes, sibling taunts, half-assed scolding followed by a cheeky wink, and that effortless touch.

It was second nature, how freely they expressed their affection for one another. Steve roping Dustin into a half-nelson for a noogie, Jonathan and Will kicking eachother under the table, El and Max communicating in half-formed sentences and wild gesticulations, Joyce, Hop, and Wayne sharing long-suffering sighs.

“Hey,” Robin says, nudging you with her elbow after refilling your wine glass. “I’m thankful for you.” Her voice is soft, like she’s sharing a secret. Cheeks tinged with a flush from the wine, she smiles at you and raises her glass. “I’d like to propose a toast,” She announced to the group, “To our newest addition and guardian angel, cheers!”

The sentiment is echoed across the table, calls of your name and ‘here, here.’ And it’s so kind that your heart could burst. You sip your wine and swallow around the lump in your throat. Going back to your meal, you can’t help but feel like you’re being watched, observed. Glancing up, you catch Steve looking at you from across the table.

The flicker of golden light against his face does little to ease the knot in your chest. His hair is slightly disheveled, a lock falling across his face wrought loose from his fingers combing through it. His eyes appear more green than hazel in the light, studying you from behind wire frames. Your pulse kicks up under his scrutiny, and he looks at you as if you’ll unravel right then and there.

Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe it was the years of tropical vacations instead of celebrating holidays with friends and family that made you forget that, actually, families are complicated and any recollection of pleasant holiday celebrations spent with your dad were a figment of your own nostalgia-tinted imagination and the promise of skiing the next day.

For a moment, shame creeps upon you like a thief in the night. You tear yourself from Steve's gaze, not noticing the concerned furrow of his brows as you hastily stand and offer to clear some plates from the table. Sweeping out of the room and nudging the kitchen door open with your hip. He absentmindedly swirls the remaining wine in his glass and blows out a puff of air.

Ever the detective, it takes Hopper all of two seconds to ascertain that Steve did something to hasten your departure from the table. Seeing as the punk is pointedly not looking his way, Hopper lobs a dinner role at Steve, grazing his cheek only to land on his plate sending the cutlery clattering. He jerks upright, setting the glass on the table, “What the–”

“That’s enough,” Hop warns with cool detachment and a knowing look in his eye. He nods toward the kitchen, “Now, go make nice.”

Everything is still mostly out of your control in the kitchen, precisely because you don’t know where anything should go and having a knot in your chest as hard as a rock does little to help matters. But Steve silently rescues you by beginning to unload the dishwasher and Robin starts a thirty minute tale of increasing ridiculousness and by the time the attention turns back to you, you are slightly less hysteric and better able to answer El’s kind questions.

You swallow a twist of guilt and a bigger twist of gratitude. You feel some anxiety brimming in your stomach and nod, giving El a strained smile.

Something knocks against your shoulder. The warm scent of cedar and musk invading your senses— Steve.

“Your shoulders are up near your ears,” he observes.

You sigh at that, trying to roll out the tension, but not quite managing to. Par for the course, with your indeterminate stay in Hawkins looming in the air and stretching far across the foreseeable future.

#steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #steve harrington fanfiction #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington fluff #steve harrington angst #fic: tbsg #Spotify

138 notes · View notes

yona049 · 5 months

Text

𝐒𝐮𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐱 𝐟𝐞𝐦! 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

Part 5

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Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

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𝘿𝙞𝙨𝙘𝙡𝙖𝙞𝙢𝙚𝙧!!!

𝗜 𝗱𝗼𝗻'𝘁 𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀! 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝗲𝘅𝗰𝗹𝘂𝘀𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗹𝘆 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝗽𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘆 𝗗𝗖 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗰𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘀𝗲 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝘄𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘆 𝗗𝗖! ^○^

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Warning!!

>blood transfusion

>talk about excessive bleeding

>overwhelmed crying

>Fluff

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Y/n blinked slowly and brought her hand up to her head. This was the third time she'd passed out. She was once again in the bat-cave's med bay.

"This can't be good for my health." she grumbles still half asleep.

Finally lifting her body up from the bed she looks at her arm with a needle inserted into it. Her eyes follow the tube to another needle in Clark's arm, who was sitting on a chair right beside her.

He was wearing a blue flannel with rolled up sleeves to his forearms.

The needle had a faint glow of green which Y/n didn't seem to notice because the second she saw her best friend, life filled her body and she thew herself out of the bed and onto Clark.

"Careful Y/n!" Clark yells.

With an aggressive crash both Y/n and Clark were on the ground. She laughed and hugged him tightly.

"I can't believe your here! I missed your dorky smile so much!" she smiled before her body stiffens suddenly.

Her body pushes itself up to sit on Clarks stomach then she balls her hands into fists bringing them up defensively.

"Wait! T-tell me something only Glasses would know!"

With his hands up in defense he smiles softly. He wasn't scared because how could his human friend hurt him, Superman! But he also wanted to be as calm and gentle as possible not to scare her.

"You have no awareness of how hot your coffee is! You prefer sneakers over high heels, but you wear them so people would treat you like a professional woman."

He delicately places his large hands over her fists.

"You figured it was like that when your first employer treated you like a coffee girl instead of junior editor. "

He brings her fist to his cheek and gently flattens her hand to cup his face.

"You spend way too much time in that journal of yours, but whenever you're writing in it, I see dozens of universes sparkle in your eyes."

Using super hearing, he listens to her heart rate slow and then speed up again, only for tears to start welding up in her eyes with her smile forming again.

"Ok! Just checking!" she says nonchalantly and leans down hugging Clark again.

"What are you even doing here?" Y/n asks before someone other than Clark answers.

"I called him here." a large shadow covers Y/n and Clark in a bat shape.

Clark lifts himself and Y/n off the ground helping her steady to a stand.

He pushes her back to a sit on the bed then watches batman pull the needle from Y/n's arm.

Making quick efforts to cover the small droplet of blood before it dropped from the bend of Y/n's arm then taking the needle from Clark's arm.

"You're very stupid, reporter. You knew you'd bleed out."

"What else was I supposed to do?! You weren't in range, and I was sure you'd be back before it got too bad!"

Clark folds his arms over his chest and clears his throat to stop the banter.

"Look, there's nothing we could do now. For right now, I suggest, I take Y/n back home."

Batman quickly swings around.

"No! I need to-"

"Test me? As far as I know you already have an entire bucket of blood to test! I want to go home

Besides, I just need to avoid bleeding and hallucinating, right? " Y/n interjects.

She growls and takes a step off the bed before walking to the edge of the platform. A few glances from side to side. Without looking motions Clark to come closer by opening and closing her outstretched hand to him.

"Where's the exit! Oh Shit! Perry is gonna kill me for taking sick days."

She looks down at her wrapped hands.

"Give me one or two of these fancy bandages and a number to call!"

Batman only side eye's Clark who slowly nods. Probably saying something like, I'll watch her.

Batman sighs.

"No number, I'll find you."

He tosses a small bag of bandages towards Y/n who catches it effortlessly.

~~~

Sitting on the ferry on the way back, Y/n was looking down at her hand opening and closing it slowly.

Clark was sitting right behind her watching her every move when Y/n's voice catches him off guard.

"I'm fine Glasses, No need to watch me so closely."

She giggles and finally looks him in the eyes.

"Did you get my message?"

Clark feels a little more at ease seeing her smile and that she was trying to change the subject.

"I did! But there's something I should, um, probably mention? Me and Louis, well we're work partners, and maybe at some point I liked her? But then I-I, um!"

He looks down and takes a deep breath and takes a shot.

"After all this is over, Can I take you to dinner? And no, it's not Ramen on the couch dinner. Proper, fancy, caviar, dinner!"

Y/n looks at him dumbfounded for a second putting two and two together before she snorts loudly and starts a string giggling.

A stunned Clark panics at her reaction before seeing her nod in agreement.

Clark joins in on a mutual awkward laughter.

~~~

Back in the bat cave tho, Batman was slowly paging through Y/n's journal filled with scribbles and notes. His cowl hanging on his shoulders and off his face.

"Hmph, she's smart."

He says looking at specific notes from the night she was tracking down Batman to Jim Gordon. Paging a few more pages he gets to a date from the days before.

Writings Y/n made of her own condition. He reads out loud with a cup of coffee in his hand.

"Symptoms such as Laughing are deprived from Joker venom.

Hallucinations from Scarecrow Toxin.

Acid from Poison Ivy, somehow amplified?"

Bruce smirks and turns a page and continues reading from Y/n's perspective.

"But there's something I can't quite place yet, a beep followed by ringing in my ears, not sure if batman knows what this is, but I'll try and put it last for now."

Suspicion crawls up Bruce's spine before he turns around to the bat computer. With quick typing he brings up all scans on Y/n's blood.

"I missed something, The computer is having trouble finding a fourth toxin."

He squints looking in depth at the blood sample scans.

"Computer, notify Superman that there could be a fourth toxin."

A final beep from the computer Bruce takes the journal knocking on it while he's in thought.

"She might have something more worth looking into in this journal."

~~~

"No! No!"

Y/n panics in her apartment throwing out the bag she had with her on her bed.

Clark runs into the room nearly slipping on the turn.

"Y/n?" he calls worriedly

"It's gone Clark! My journal, all my notes, my cases, my stories are in there! My dads picture and his letter!"

She holds her bandaged hand over her mouth and starts sobbing before shrinking in on herself dropping to lean back on the bed.

Clark watches her and slowly takes a seat next to her. His arms open into a welcoming pillow chest to cry on which Y/n gladly accepts.

Clark pulls her body into his and gently combs his fingertips through her hair and rubbing the small of her back.

"Well find it Y/n, I promise. I'll just ask Batman to look around the cave for it."

Y/n nods with her head buried into his neck.

"You can contact the batman?"

Clark stutters a bit correcting himself.

"I-I'm sure he's probably listening in on all communications from us! He'll know."

Y/n giggles a little and pushes herself back to a sit in front of Clark with his hands still holding hers.

"Y/n, you said it had a photo from your dad? And a letter?"

She nods rubbing her eyes and taking a small breath.

"My Dad wrote me letters while he was guarding at Arkam Asylum. One day he just stopped. My mom assumed he died during a prison brawl? The letter in the journal is the last one he sent to me."

She shakes her head and looks back at Clark's worried eyes.

"I'm sorry you got pulled into this-"

"No, absolutely no apologizing! You're the victim here, and we've known each other for years, there's no way I'd let you do this alone."

Y/n smiles and leans up to place a small kiss on Clark's cheek then whispers.

"Thanks Glasses."

The whisper sends blood rushing to Clark's cheeks leaving him with a flustered dorky smile.

He looks back up at Y/n and rubs a small tear off her cheek with the back of his finger.

"You got it, Y/n"

79 notes · View notes

yellowjacketsfashion · 3 months

Note

i didnt know there was two LOL

the one she wears on the plane :p

No problem, it’s all good!

Shauna wears a St. John's Bay Men's Flannel in the pilot. According to my research Henry Cavill wore the same shirt when he played Superman in Justice League (my reference picture on the left shows the shirt that was used in the movie). But that’s not the most interesting thing.

These are reference photos for the second episode “F Sharp.” If you look closely you can see Shauna’s plane outfit actually changes between the two episodes! Her stripe shirt and flannel in F Sharp are similar but different to what she originally wore in the Pilot. Her stripe shirt goes from full of stripes to a different one with spread out stripes. The flannel in the Pilot is overall brighter and has a different pattern than the one in F Sharp.

In interviews Marie Schley (the Yellowjackets costume designer) has talked about using vintage pieces in the pilot and so I wonder if Shauna’s original outfit was second hand. To further back up this theory, the Justice League movie was shot during 2016 which would date the flannel to at least that year. The Yellowjackets pilot on the other hand was shot in 2019 and I don’t know how likely it is that it was still being sold 3 years later unless they got it second hand. If it was thrifted, that could explain why the costume department switched out the original outfit for different pieces in F Sharp.

Either way I think it’s really interesting!

#yellowjackets #fashion #costume #shauna shipman #shauna sadecki

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rambleonwaywardson · 2 months

Text

Clegan Astronaut AU - Part 10

Masterpost Read on AO3

AU Summary: the boys as modern day NASA astronauts. Taking place in 2025, Bucky is about to head to the moon as mission commander of Artemis III while Buck is CAPCOM at NASA. Established relationship (obnoxiously in love).

Author's Note: Since some of you were interested in exactly how accurate some of this is, fyi the experiments Curt and Bucky implement here, LEAF and LDA, are real experiment proposals that have been selected to fly on Artemis III. Not much info is available on them though, so much of their installation processes are made up by yours truly.

---

November 18, mission day 12 Ridge near Shackleton Crater, Artemis 3 Landing Site

It’s raining.

At least, Bucky imagines it is. He imagines that there’s dark clouds rolling in overhead, pops of electricity jumping across them, flashing through the sky. He imagines he can hear thunder rumbling, a breeze ruffling through his hair the same way it did on launch day, when he stood outside and stared at the sky, no one to say goodbye to. He imagines big, fat drops of rain hitting his face, splattering on the tip of his nose and streaking down his cheeks.

He can almost smell it, the damp earth scent of a hurricane mixing with the salty air blowing in from the gulf. Home. He can almost feel it, just out of reach.

Bucky opens his eyes. He has half a mind to close them again when faced with the reality that it is not, in fact, raining. But he sighs, deciding he can’t really complain, even if he misses something so simple as weather. The lunar horizon is a decent trade-off. He just kind of wishes it wasn’t so still all the time. It reminds him of survival training in the desert, when the only movement was the heat radiating up from the ground, creating a teasing mirage to goad his dehydrated brain. Except here, there’s not an atmosphere to do even that.

It’s their third full day on the lunar surface.

“Is it raining in Houston, Benny?”

There’s a brief pause. “Is that… some sort of code, or…?”

Bucky thinks for a moment, and then realizes that his words did, in fact, sound similar to ‘are the flowers blooming in Houston,’ a coded transmission from Apollo 13. That’s what Commander Jim Lovell said in order to ask Ken Mattingly, on CAPCOM, if he’d contracted the measles, exposure to which had caused Mattingly to be scrubbed from 13 at the last minute.

“No,” Bucky clarifies. “Just wanna know if it’s raining.”

There’s another brief silence while, Bucky assumes, Benny asks if anyone knows the weather outside of their windowless Mission Control room. He doesn’t bother to ask Bucky why he wants to know. All the CAPCOMs have quickly figured out it’s easier just to answer whatever bullshit question the astronauts ask. “No. It’s colder than usual, though. Only 46 degrees now.”

Bucky’s satisfied with that answer, and he’s not really sure why. He imagines Gale, who at this moment is probably just waking up in their home on the bay. Since it’s cold, he’ll be bundled in flannel pants and Bucky’s Yankees sweatshirt, which is just the slightest bit too big for him and hangs off his frame in a way that makes Bucky want to wrap him up tight in his arms. He might even have a throw blanket pulled around his shoulders as he wanders groggily through the house. Bucky doesn’t know how that man doesn’t overheat, but he knows all too well that Gale’s hands are always freezing. Bucky usually takes it upon himself to warm them up.

Two huskies are probably trailing at Gale’s heels. Bucky hopes they keep his hands warm.

He wonders if that’s a weird thing to think about. He decides it’s not. He mindlessly grabs at the wedding ring dangling from his neck, only to remember that he’s in an EVA suit. His ring is in Starship.

“Quit whatever the fuck you’re doin’ and help me out over here, Bucky.”

Bucky blinks and tries to turn his head to look at Curt, and then remembers that that doesn’t work in the suit either. He awkwardly turns his whole body before bounding several steps towards his crewmate, who is standing beside their rover. That’s the only way to move on the moon, bounding. Bucky used to mimic the movement as a kid, pretending to be Neil Armstrong in his backyard. But he’s learned in the past few days that it’s actually, literally, the only way to get anywhere in these bulky suits with almost no gravity to hold them down. Especially while they’re still early on in the EVA. The pressure in the suit is almost as high as it goes and inhibits their range of motion.

“What’s up?” Bucky stops in front of the open, unpressurized rover. They may be the first Artemis crew members on the moon, but as far as transportation goes, they drew the short straw. Starting with Artemis 4, surface crews will have a fully pressurized rover for long-distance drives. Bucky and Curt get basically the same piece of shit (sorry, NASA) that Apollo got, but bigger and supposedly less shoddy.

That last qualification has yet to be proven. Curt drops to his knees by the front left wheel. “Hold the damn tire while I replace the lug nuts.”

Bucky joins him on the ground and holds the tire in place. During their EVA yesterday, they took the rover on its inaugural drive, and that damn wheel is already causing them problems. But hey, at least they have the equivalent of a truck bed for hauling things.

Except, you need functioning wheels to haul things.

He grumbles about it the whole time, but Curt manages to get the wheel secured, though he’s still suspicious of it. “Well, good as we’re gonna get.”

Bucky stands back and stares at the wheel, agreeing that it’s still not quite right. But whatever it is is beyond what they can fix at the moment. So Bucky steps onto the rover, turns it on, and drives it forward. Curt takes a couple of bounding steps to catch up, jumps on beside Bucky, and they get on their way. It’s drivable, so they’ll take it.

–

“Oh shit. Fuck. Shit.” Bucky tries to reverse the rover, then tries to go forward again. Reverse, forward, reverse, forward. “Fuck.”

“Shit?” Rosie’s voice buzzes in Bucky’s ear. He and Alex are well on their way into deep space, approaching the furthest point in their orbit.

“Why the fuck are you here? Don’t ya have observations or somethin’ you could be doin'?”

“This is so much more interesting.”

Bucky has gotten the front left wheel of the rover stuck between two rocks. They’re not even very big rocks, so it’s embarrassing in that same kind of way as when you get your hand into a small space but then can’t get it back out.

It’s also the same wheel that he and Curt just fixed. Curt looks on, judgmentally. “If you break that wheel again I’ll murder you with a hammer.”

Brutal. Bucky’s mouth moves on autopilot, like a parrot repeating something unhelpful, as he conducts a pathetic million-point turn, shifting the angle of the tire by mere degrees every time he changes gears. “If iron can kill a star it sure as hell can kill you.”

There’s a pretty lengthy silence as Bucky continues his sad attempt at getting out of this predicament. Personally, he’s thinking about how, at this point, it would be faster to walk to their destination. Everyone else, however, is still hung up on his little proverb.

“What the hell does that mean?” Alex finally asks. Oh great, he’s here, too. Witnessing Bucky’s failure.

“It’s something Buck says,” Benny offers helpfully. “Something about stars dying when they start fusing iron.”

There’s a chorus of understanding hums that rise and then trail off as everyone realizes that it still doesn’t really make sense.

Alex: “Is that… a threat?”

Curt: “Can it be a threat if no one knows what he’s sayin’?”

Rosie: “Kinda makes it more of a threat, doesn’t it?”

Alex: “I don’t usually know what Buck is sayin’.”

Curt: “That’s just cause he don’t say much.”

Alex: “Or he’s too smart for us.” The others make noises of agreement. Major Gale Cleven. Mr. High school valedictorian, graduated summa cum laude with a degree in aerospace engineering and a minor in physics. Whatever.

Bucky: “Got it!”

The rover lurches forward, nearly throwing Curt, completely unprepared, off the side. He reaches out at the last second to grab Bucky’s arm, and for a moment it seems like they both might take a dirt bath on the moon, but Bucky holds tight to the steering wheel and keeps them both on their feet as he drives triumphantly into the distance.

They’re heading in a straight line towards the sun on the horizon, and in Bucky’s mind they’re cruising at high speed like Thelma and Louise (though, ideally, not off a cliff). In reality, they’re bumping along pretty slowly towards a little greenhouse that’s going to house their little plants for their cute little moon experiment.

Bucky parks the rover outside of the greenhouse. They spent much of the day yesterday setting it up, flipping NASA’s assembly directions this way and that as they tried to make sense of them like a piece of IKEA furniture. It’s kind of laughable, how such an unassuming little structure can look so damn out of place. It’s not even pressurized, having to do nothing but stay standing and block some of the solar radiation. It reminds Bucky of the Wizard of Oz, as if a tornado just picked a greenhouse up off the Earth’s surface and deposited it in the middle of the moonscape, where it sticks out like a sore thumb.

He steps down off the rover and walks around the back, where their first experimental payload is sitting on the bed. “LEAF” is printed across it in huge letters, and underneath, “Lunar Effects on Agricultural Flora.”

Curt meets Bucky at the back of the rover and pulls down the little cart they’d brought with them. Together, they heave LEAF off the bed and onto the cart and wheel it, inelegantly and with a lot of swearing, to the door of the greenhouse.

“Okay, you go in, I’ll cover you.” Curt steps aside and presses his back to the greenhouse wall, holding his hands together in front of him in what Bucky assumes is supposed to be an approximation of a handgun. The effect is lost with the EVA gloves.

Bucky glares at him – though that effect is also lost through an EVA helmet – as he opens the door and struggles to drag the cart over the threshold. “You’re an idiot.”

“I’m your idiot.”

Benny chuckles over coms. “Don’t let Buck hear you say that.”

“Buck ain’t here,” Curt says.

There’s a crackle, and then a warm, tired drawl. “Buck’s right here.” Bucky’s got no idea what time it is – that’ll happen when the sun stays basically in the same spot all day – but Mission Control must be in the middle of a shift change.

Curt: “Shit, our cover’s blown.” He lowers his hands and steps away from the wall.

Bucky: “Hey babe.”

Gale: “I’m watching you, Curt… Hi, John.” John smiles. It’s not darling or babe, but he grudgingly accepts Gale’s insistence on trying to speak professionally on shift. Even if Bucky refuses to do so.

Curt: “Actually, you’re only listenin’ to me.”

Benny: “That’s my cue to leave, boys. Have fun with your plants.”

Curt: “I will, thank you very much.”

Curt finally decides he’s had enough of watching Bucky struggle on his own and grabs onto the back of the cart, giving it a good shove that sends it the rest of the way into the greenhouse, narrowly avoiding knocking Bucky on his ass.

Curt: “Hey, Buck, wanna know what else I’ll have fun with?”

Gale: “No.”

Curt: “Bein’ Bucky’s big spoon since you ain’t here.”

Bucky: “Buck’s the little spoon. So that means you gotta be my little spoon.”

Silence.

Bucky wonders how hard Gale is blushing, and how many people just turned to stare at him in Mission Control. He wonders how many of them will start calling him Little Spoon, at least for the day. He feels a little bad. But only a little. Everyone’s always told him that he doesn’t have a filter, so it isn’t his fault that Gale married him anyways.

Gale: “I want you to know, the only reason I’m not gonna give you both the silent treatment is because it’s my job to keep you alive.”

It’s a good thing Bucky won’t be home for dinner tonight, or any night in the near future, because he’s pretty sure Gale “everything you say is being transcribed” Cleven would give him the silent treatment for embarrassing him like that.

Gale: “Get to work, boys.”

Bucky’s not sure exactly how LEAF works, but they’ve been tasked with it anyways. It’s a little space-age terrarium straight out of a sci-fi movie that’s being housed within the greenhouse structure. Inside is an enclosed growth chamber, in which a few different crop species that Bucky has quite frankly never heard of are supposed to grow hydroponically. The chamber protects them from the lunar environment, allowing NASA to study the effects of space radiation and partial gravity on plant growth and stress.

Bucky and Curt have been instructed to give the seeds inside LEAF water and nutrients through some elaborate external insertion mechanism as well as monitor their progress every day. By the end of the week, they’ll hopefully be able to harvest some of the faster-growing plants.

Once LEAF is in place, Curt sets to work ripping strips of duct tape off the roll he keeps strapped to his EVA suit. He sticks them on the glass above each crop species and labels them: Duckweed, Field Mustard, and Thale-Cress. Bucky is setting up the cameras and sensors they were instructed to deploy around it. Gale is grudgingly forced to speak to them – and act nice about it – so he can relay instructions on what the fuck they’re supposed to do.

“Is it working now?” Bucky asks. He’s spent far too long trying to get this one specific camera in front of the growth chamber to record.

“No,” Gale answers. “Did you turn it on?”

“Yes I fuckin’ turned it on.” Bucky crouches in front of the camera and gets as close to it as his helmet will allow. “Wait. wait wait wait.” He presses another button. “Okay now it’s on.”

Gale stays quiet for a moment, presumably waiting for video feed to pop up in Mission Control. “We see it now, Bucky.”

“Alright,” Curt says. “Let’s grow some moon plants!”

–

Thankfully, Gale doesn’t follow through with his threat of the silent treatment even after he finishes his shift and hands the console over to Helen. Thirty minutes after leaving Mission Control, he’s tucked into a small room at Johnson Space Center that they’ve designated “the Family Room,” where NASA has a direct two-way audio/video line set up for Artemis astronauts to talk to their family members, even on the moon. His tie is loose, top buttons undone, and his hair gel has given up. Exhausted, he takes a sip of his coffee. His… fourth? Fifth? Of the day? Maybe?

Bucky has told him time and again that if he drank alcohol the same way he drinks coffee, he wouldn’t be sober a day in his life.

With Curt off in another corner of the lander, headphones on as he watches a movie downloaded on his NASA-issued computer, Bucky is in his commander’s seat. He’s looking back at Gale through the webcam on his own computer, for once able to talk to each other with some semblance of privacy. And they can see each other.

When the video call first connected, the first words out of Bucky’s mouth were that Gale looked like shit. Gale glared at him until Bucky rolled his eyes and gave him a more appropriate greeting. Then, and only then, did Gale drop the iciness and take the opportunity to talk to his husband.

“So you know how in The Martian they say once you grow crops somewhere you’ve colonized it?” Gale’s not entirely sure what part of their present conversation – about their elderly neighbor, Mrs. Mason’s suspected torrid affair – caused Bucky to ask this question.

To be honest, though, the ability, as CAPCOM, to disregard the why of an astronaut’s question and simply follow up without a second thought, is a trained skill. And Bucky has always been the only training Gale needs. “Pretty sure that’s not just from The Martian.”

Bucky narrows his eyes and shrugs. “Okay. But yeah?”

Gale nods. “Okay.”

“Are we colonizing the moon?”

“No.”

Bucky eyes Gale suspiciously and leans closer to the camera. “Why?”

Gale sighs and leans back in his chair, thinking about it for a moment. “Shouldn’t the plants be in the lunar soil to call it colonized? Yours are growing hydroponically above the surface. And they haven’t grown yet.”

“Are you just sayin’ that cause you’re still mad at me?” Bucky knew he wouldn’t escape his ‘little spoon’ comment unscathed.

Gale lifts his coffee cup and takes a sip to hide his smile.

They sit in a familiar and comfortable silence for a moment before Bucky runs a hand through his hair and leans back. “I wish you could see this, Buck. I wish you were here with me.”

“I’m with you,” Gale reminds him.

“You know what I mean.”

Bucky glances out the window of Starship, and he looks so wistful and beautiful. His eyes are wide with love and wonder, at the beautiful alien world around him on one side of the camera and at the wonderful man that keeps his world turning on the other. He looks excited with a child-like awe, just like he looked on the station. Just like he looks every time he flies a plane. Just like he looked so often in college when Gale was still falling in love with him bit by bit. And just like he looked on their wedding day. That same wild wanderlust and love for the universe that has always blown Gale away.

When Bucky looks at him again, Gale says, “Tell me about it.” He’s been right there with the crew almost every step of the way. He knows the mission plan inside and out. He’s seen the footage they’ve taken and he’s heard their reactions to almost every milestone. But he wants to hear it from Bucky. Not from Mission Commander Major John Egan.

Bucky grins at him. “It’s like a dream, Buck. Like… nothing I’ve ever seen. It’s better than I thought it would be.”

“Even the whole being stuck in a space capsule and you die if you leave it without a suit thing?”

Bucky shrugs. “If I had to die, the moon isn’t a bad place to do it.”

He knows he made a mistake the moment the words are out of his mouth, and he’s not usually one to admit that. But he watches Gale deflate, his brow crinkle as he works his jaw and looks away from the camera. “Don’t say that,” Gale whispers at the same time that Bucky raises his hand and says “Sorry, not the time.”

Bucky knows that Gale is a little scared, no matter how much he tries to hide it from everyone else. He won’t say it out loud, and he would hate it if Bucky did. So Bucky doesn’t. He’d be afraid, too, if the roles were switched. And one day they will be. Gale gives a curt nod to his apology, and they don’t speak of it again.

“The sun is always so low in the sky,” Bucky says instead. “Like you’re always waitin’ for it to rise but it never does. The shadows are something out of a nightmare, I swear to God. They’re huge and fuckin’ dark. We use flashlights to walk through them. You know that.” He tells Gale every detail he can think of about what it’s like on the moon. The way the shadows streak the landscape like spilled ink. The way the soil feels under his boots, sinking and crunching at the same time like the sharpest grains of sand. The way Earth looks so small and unassuming, how peaceful it seems even though they know it’s anything but, a little blue oasis in the middle of a dark universe. He tells Gale that he looks at that planet in the lunar sky every night before he sleeps, and he thinks about him. Gale was right, after all. He is sappy. At least about his husband.

He tells him about the parts of the EVAs that Gale missed, when Benny was CAPCOM instead. He talks about the rover breaking not even a full day into its life cycle, the tire somehow coming clean off when it got caught on a rock and causing Bucky to tumble into the dirt (“I’m fine! Gale, I’m fine. Benny would’ve told you if I wasn’t fine”). He talks about the strange rock formation that he and Curt found yesterday morning – several giant boulders stacked on top of one another in a way that doesn’t look a) natural, or b) balanced. Then they start discussing the other experimental payloads that Curt and Bucky are scheduled to install in the coming days, but they quickly agree that talking shop can wait until they’re actually working.

When Gale yawns and rubs his eyes, looking distractedly off to the side, Bucky frowns. “Hey, doll, look at me.” Gale blinks and then does as he’s told, lazily tilting his head and raising his eyebrow in a way that says ‘happy?’ Bucky wants to reach through the screen and brush back the loose strands of hair that have fallen over his forehead. “You’d tell me if you weren’t okay, right?”

Gale huffs and nods, allowing the smallest smile. “Yeah, darlin’. I’d tell you. Just tired as hell.”

“Promise?”

“Cross my heart.”

As their call comes to an end, they spend a minute or two simply staring at each other, taking each other in. Neither of them know when, or if, they’ll be able to schedule another call like this during the mission.

“Stay safe out there,” Gale finally says. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

Bucky wants to say ‘don’t count on it,’ flash a shit-eating grin, like they used to before either of them did anything remotely dangerous. It’s their little morbid joke. Their way of dealing with the uncertainty and worry without having to think too much about it.

But he knows this time is different. This mission isn’t like the others, and there’s no use pretending it is. Looking at Gale, seeing how exhausted he is and knowing how tirelessly he’s working on the ground, how much sleep he’s probably losing between his job and worrying about Bucky… hell, Bucky can’t bring himself to say it. He doesn’t want to risk making his husband’s face fall again today.

So instead, he says a quiet, “I miss you.” It makes the corner of Gale’s mouth pull up in a sweet little smile, and Bucky thinks he did something right.

Gale presses his fingers to the corner of the camera. “I love you.”

“Talk to you tomorrow, angel.”

–

When Gale gets home that evening, he grabs the mail out of their mailbox. Flipping through the various advertisements and envelopes, he stops short at the front door. Tucked into the middle is a piece of paper with unfamiliar, messy handwriting scrawled across it.

“Praying the queer dies on the moon.”

Gale stares down at the message, then glances up and down their quiet, friendly neighborhood street. They’ve lived here for a few years now, since before Gale’s ISS mission. They’ve gotten to know their neighbors well. Other than Benny, who lives at the end of the road, it’s mostly a collection of young families – many of which are associated with the space center in some way – and retirees who have never been anything but kind to Gale and John. Everyone has always been very neighborly, and Gale would go so far as to call most of them friends. They have dinners together, throw a block party here and there, do the usual neighborly favors for one another. Hell, Gale’s even babysat for some of the families from time to time. John taught a couple of the kids how to ride a bike.

Certainly, none of them have ever expressed something like this, and Gale doesn’t believe for a moment that this message came from anyone around here. He has half a mind to go next door and ask Mrs. Mason if she saw anyone stick this in his mailbox. Aside from the fact that Gale is fairly certain the widow is having an affair with a much younger married man, she’s always looked out for him and John. She also takes it upon herself to play neighborhood watch and always seems to know everything about everyone on their street. If anyone saw this happen, it’s her. But he doesn’t want to worry her, and he certainly doesn’t want her telling their other neighbors about it.

He’s done a decent job of avoiding the worst comments on social media, mostly because he barely goes on social media unless Marge tells him he needs to keep up his online presence. He knows the naysayers are still out there, though. And now it’s crossed the digital line.

If we’re lucky, the fag…

Disgusted, Gale grits his teeth, crumples the paper, and tosses it straight into the recycle bin with the rest of the junk mail. He takes a breath and tries to push down the anger. Then he walks into his house, the one he shares with his wonderful, brave husband, and he laughs as the dogs rush to greet him.

–

November 19

It’s close to 3am in Houston. Benny’s desk is littered with empty coffee cups, gum wrappers, and an empty takeout container from what he supposes is technically lunch. Meals don’t make as much sense when your work schedule is from midnight to 8am. Nothing makes as much sense when your work schedule is from midnight to 8am. He finds it funny: he used to eat tacos at 3am when he was in college, but that was a product of burning the candle at both ends rather than working the night shift. Night shift for NASA Mission Control.

Except, it’s not technically night shift either, because according to GMT, the time zone that Mission Control and the crew operate on, it’s actually nearing 8am. Which is a far less acceptable time for eating tacos.

The crew has been awake for two hours now. This morning’s wake-up alarm on Starship was Hot To Go by Chappell Roan. No one has admitted to choosing that song yet, but most people are betting on Curt. Benny, however, thinks it was all Bucky. He has to admit, there are few things funnier at 1am than a room full of extensively trained, highly professional, and terribly exhausted flight controllers in business clothes singing “H-O-T-T-O-G-O, You can take me hot to go” over and over.

“Missing the wife, Egan?” Benny asked once Bucky had shut off the alarm. There was quiet snickering from the flight controllers behind him. Bucky didn’t dignify that with a response.

Gale really doesn’t know what he’s missing with these wake-up calls.

While Rosie and Alex are nearing apolune, the point in their orbit farthest from the moon, Bucky and Curt are now out on the lunar surface once again. They’re just about 15 minutes into their morning EVA, which is scheduled for 5 hours. Their first stop is checking in on LEAF.

Bucky: “Is that…”

Curt: “Yes.”

Bucky: “Hi there.”

The flight controllers look at the video feed in awe.

Inside the growth chamber, two little seedlings have sprouted, tiny green leaves reaching up towards the sunlight. No matter how small, there’s something about seeing life take root in an environment designed to take life away that feels extraordinary.

–

40 minutes in, and Curt and Bucky have driven the rover further out from Starship than they’ve gone thus far. That busted wheel is holding, but they’ve brought a repair kit with them, not liking the way it rattles here and there over the uneven terrain. “Ain’t no Triple A on the moon,” Curt had said as he tossed the kit into the rover. Then he looked at Bucky a little too pointedly. “But don’t think for a second that this is permission to do somethin’ stupid.”

Either way, they made it to the other side of the connecting ridge next to Shackleton, and the rover is still intact. They’re surveying the surface, trying to hash out where they should install their second of three scientific instruments. The Lunar Dielectric Analyzer (LDA) is meant to use electric currents in the soil to detect the presence of water ice below the surface. The astronauts are also collecting soil samples for the geologists back home, dumping dusty regolith into bags and labeling them with their coordinates.

In the pitch black shadow of the connecting ridge, they have to work by flashlight. They were instructed to check a variety of sites, both light and dark, but they’re starting with the ones that receive less sunlight, since they’re colder and more likely to have the right conditions for ice to exist. Shackleton itself was identified by scientists as having ice deposits, making the ridge an ideal mission site. However, short of rappelling into the crater, which they will not be doing, this is the closest they can get to those known deposits at the moment. Bucky is closer to the crater, up on an incline with the rover, while Curt is further down, about 60 or 70 yards away.

“Note,” Bucky says. “Site B, sharp gray dust that won’t get the fuck off my gloves.”

“Hey, that’s what I have at site C!” Curt exclaims. He pops up in the distance, shining his flashlight up towards Bucky. Bucky shines his back, and Curt waves.

Bucky: “Houston, site B doesn’t seem any more promising than A, and I don’t like this incline. Thinkin’ we should stick to flatter surfaces.”

Benny: “Roger. We will eliminate site B as an option.”

Bucky: “Okay, I’m gonna head back down to Curt.”

Bucky steps up onto the rover and turns it on, waiting for the headlights to flicker to life. Then he eases into drive, and starts to slowly descend the slope.

–

Benny sips on his coffee and jots down a few notes about the LDA candidate sites. They’ll have to make a decision in the next hour or so in order to stay on track with the EVA schedule. But with the issues they’ve been having with the rover, he doesn’t want to rush them along too much.

“Bucky, how’s that rover wheel doin’?”

“Seems fine,” Bucky replies, but Benny doesn’t like the hint of uncertainty coming through. “Still seems off, but goin’ smoother than it was.”

“I’ll check it when you get down here,” Curt says. “Might just need tightened again.”

Benny makes a note for Red Shift that they’ll have to build in time to troubleshoot that wheel a little better during the afternoon EVA. He relays the thought to Red Bowman, the Blue Shift flight director. He agrees.

“Alright Bucky,” Benny says. “We’ll get you guys some time to work on that wheel this afternoon. For now just take it easy and-”

“Fuck!”

“Bucky?”

Benny hears Bucky’s breath catch, followed by a few aggravated grunts, and then silence.

What the fuck just happened?

“Bucky?” Benny glances around the room. Red and several of the other flight controllers are doing the same, many looking right at him. He blinks and looks at his console. His own heart rate is creeping up. “John? John, do you copy?”

Nothing.

He pushes his chair back and gets to his feet. He doesn’t know why, but he can’t stand sitting down all of a sudden. He tries to keep his voice steady as he watches the seconds tick by on the mission clock. “John, come in John.”

“Flight?” Smokey, the Blue Shift flight surgeon, looks first to Red, and then to Benny. All three of them are on their feet, forming a triangle that stretches across Mission Control as they stare at each other in alarm. The rest of the room is silent.

Smokey looks down at his console. “Major Egan’s vitals are all over the place. His suit pressure-”

Benny is suddenly aware of a very faint beeping noise coming in over Bucky’s coms. A suit alarm.

He’s very worried, just for a moment, that he might pass out.

–

From where he’s kneeling in the darkness of the ridge, Curt can hardly see anything. Since the moon has no atmosphere for sound to travel through, he also can’t hear anything other than the voices over coms. He scrambles to his feet the moment he hears Bucky yell “Fuck.” One word, but the tone in which it’s said is all too familiar to Curt, a fellow pilot. It’s a tone that’s, all at once, as horrified as it is resigned. The moment you know you’re going down and there’s essentially nothing you can do about it.

His flashlight beam barely goes far enough for him to make anything out for certain, but he can see glinting metal flashing through the darkness. Its pattern isn’t consistent enough to be the rover easing down the slope like it’s supposed to.

He squints, watching it for a few more seconds, before he says “Oh god.” The rover is tumbling end over end down the slope, and part of him can’t help but think how wrong it is that there’s no crashing sounds, no sound of metal banging and bending. It’s just quiet. Like a silent movie. Benny’s in his ear, trying to get John to respond, and Curt realizes that, wherever John is, he can’t respond. John’s not going to respond. And he knows he needs to tell Mission Control what he’s seeing, but there’s not enough room in his brain for that. All he can think is run.

So he fucking runs.

His boots slip and slide in the regolith as he takes awkward, bounding steps up the slope, too much effort for not enough gain. His suit is still stiff, keeping him from bending his joints enough to run, but he has to. He has to.

Smokey must note that his heart rate is spiking, because Benny’s saying “Curt, are you okay? You’re using too much oxygen.”

“I’m not concerned about my fuckin’ oxygen,” he growls. The slope is getting steeper, and he starts stumbling over his own feet after about 20 yards. The beam of his flashlight is shaking uncontrollably, but he can see the metal of the rover somewhere ahead, reflecting the light. It’s finally come to a stop, about 15 more yards away.

He hears Benny ask, “Curt, do you have visual?”

“Uh huh.” That’s all he gives them, trudging on even as the loose dust and rock under his feet falls away, making it near impossible to get anywhere. He’s practically running in place like a damn cartoon. He slips and goes down on his knees, catching himself with his hands. His flashlight tumbles away and he lunges to grab it before he gets himself lost in the darkness. “Fuck fuck fuck.”

He rips a piece of duct tape off the roll looped to his EVA suit and uses it to secure the flashlight to his shoulder. He adds a few more pieces over top, ensuring it’ll stay, and then he drags himself to his feet again. He’s breathing too hard. He knows with sudden clarity that if he doesn’t get himself under control, he won’t have enough oxygen to get back, just like Benny said. And if he can’t get back, he can’t save John.

He takes one more deep breath and then forces himself to calm down.

Benny is still saying John’s name.

When Curt finally makes it to the rover, though, he knows there isn’t going to be an answer. All there is is a quiet beeping noise buzzing around Curt’s brain like a fly.

The rover is on its side but, somehow, miraculously, still on, headlights shining into the shadowed unknown. That stupid left wheel is laying flat on the ground right beside it. All of the materials they’d packed, including the LDA payload and the repair kit, are scattered across the slope, and Bucky…

Bucky is lying on the ground, face up and half under the rover. When Curt gets to him, he drops to his knees and puts one hand on Bucky’s shoulder. With the other hand, he rips the duct taped flashlight off his suit and shines it on his commander’s face. “Bucky?” he whispers, even though he knows it’s useless.

Bucky’s eyes are closed, and Curt can’t tell if he’s breathing or not. He realizes that the quiet, incessant beeping he’s hearing over coms is an alarm from Bucky’s EVA suit. In the glow of the flashlight, he sees something dark glistening inside Bucky’s helmet, above and behind his head. After a second, he realizes that it’s blood, seeping through his com cap. It's smeared across his forehead, too, trailing down his temple.

For all the oxygen he was using before, Curt can barely breathe, now. “Benny?”

“Is he awake, Curt?”

Curt freezes, trying to sort through that question. Is he awake means he’s not dead. Houston still has his vitals. He’s not dead.

Curt swallows and clenches his jaw. “Benny, we have a big, big problem.”

–

Alive. He’s alive. He’s alive.

For how much longer?

Benny is forced to remain calm, something he’s familiar with as a pilot. It’s just, usually, as a pilot, your crew members aren’t on another planetary body hundreds of thousands of miles away.

But he works through it anyway. Work the problem. Work the fucking problem.

He guides Curt through getting the rover righted, through pulling Bucky’s unconscious body away from the wreckage, through tracking down the repair kit, through reattaching the wheel. He’ll barely remember any of this by tomorrow. He barely remembers any of it now.

He looks at Red across the room as a horrible, urgent thought strikes him right in the chest. “We have to tell Gale before Red Shift comes in.”

Usually, when an astronaut gets hurt on the moon, they wait until the situation is under control to contact the family. It’s just, usually, when there’s an astronaut involved, the family members aren’t scheduled to come in for a Mission Control shift in two hours.

Red's eyes lock on him, and Benny sees them widen almost imperceptibly. He nods. They both know: it has to be Benny. There’s no other choice. Red turns to the nearest flight controller and grabs them by the arm. “Get Helen here. Now.”

–

It’s raining.

Fat, heavy drops pounding on the roof of the house in Nassau Bay. Pops of electricity flash through the sky, jumping from cloud to cloud, and the smell of damp Earth mixes with the salty air blowing in from the Gulf.

But none of these are what wake Gale Cleven.

It’s not even the dogs, with their wet noses and hopeful eyes and insistent whines. Instead, it’s a gentle hand shaking his shoulder. John?

No, not John. Can’t be John.

“Buck, wake up.” The voice is calm and low and yet… sad. There’s only two other people with a key to this house. One of them is Marge, and the other… shouldn’t be here either.

Gale opens his eyes and stares out the window into the eerie, rainy night. Slowly, he turns his head to squint at Benny in the dim light of his bedside lamp. “Benny? Why…? Am I-”

Why are you here? Am I late? Did I oversleep? That’s not like myself. It’s still dark outside.

These are all thoughts that don’t make it out of his mouth, stuck in the quicksand of his brain as he groggily turns his head and looks at the clock on the bedside table. It’s only 5am. He wasn’t even planning to get up until 5:30.

He stares blankly at the time for a few solid seconds, trying to understand, before his entire world comes to a screeching halt. If Benny’s here…

Benny would’ve told you if I wasn’t okay.

Gale’s heart starts pounding before he feels like it drops clear out of his chest, nausea rising to take its place. His lungs stop taking in air, and his hands scramble at the bedsheets as he tries to sit up straight.

No.

Benny’s hand slides off Gale’s shoulder in his panicked movement, and the disappearance of that warm, comforting touch is another shock to Gale’s system. He’s untethered. A feeling of loss swells through him as he looks up at his friend.

Benny is looking down at the floor, though, avoiding eye contact. He isn’t saying anything.

The room spins.

No.

When Benny looks up again, Gale is staring back at him with the widest, most horror-stricken eyes, sitting there, looking exhausted and confused and wrecked and frightened, gripping too hard at the fabric of the old Yankees sweatshirt that Benny knows doesn't smell like Bucky anymore. Benny’s own heart breaks into pieces. He wants to fall apart right there and then, but he can’t. It's his job not to. Instead, he sits there calmly on the edge of the bed, puts his hand back on Gale’s shoulder, and he realizes that there’s a faint trembling there.

He takes a deep breath as he looks Gale in the eye.

“No,” Gale whispers. He shakes his head. His breath starts coming back in slow and shallow spurts, like his body is trying to boycott oxygen until he knows that his other half is still breathing, too. “Is- Is he-”

Talk to you tomorrow, angel.

If we’re lucky the fag will die up there.

Praying the queer dies on the moon.

I love you.

If I had to die, the moon isn’t a bad place to do it.

Don’t count on it don’t count on it don’t count on it...

“He’s alive.”

Gale makes a terrible noise somewhere between a gasp and a sob, his heart and lungs going back to work in fast-forward as he bows his head, clutching it in his hands.

Benny swallows. “But it’s bad, Buck. It’s bad.”

…

Part 11

#clegan astronaut au #clegan #clegan fic #masters of the air #mota #john egan #gale cleven #buck x bucky #bucky egan #buck cleven #curt biddick

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